414 
ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 
It took place, in fact, in very remote times, probably during 
the dawn of the Tertiary Era; and only such forms as were 
capable of preserving their specific and generic characters 
till the present day clearly reveal their northern origin. 
The flora of the New World, as I remarked in the paper 
just referred to, retains even more pronounced traces of that 
curious relationship between the south-western areas of its 
two continents.* As among the fossil mammals so do we 
find also among the fossil plants, a remarkable affinity in late 
Mesozoic deposits between species from Argentina and from 
western North America. Professor Berry tells us that in 
mid-Cretaceous times seventy-five per cent, of the known 
plants of Argentina were characteristic types of the Dakota- 
group flora of North America. During a period of geological 
history when a large section of the existing western part of 
South America was under water, there was this extraordinary 
similarity between two regions lying at such a great distance 
from one another. Professor Berry justly argues that the 
surprising affinity of these floras to one another points to a 
community of origin. In these ancient plant deposits of 
Argentina ,all the familiar northern genera such as Lirio 
dendron, Liquidambar, Cinnamomum and Sassafras are met 
with. Even Platanus, Populus, Quercus and other modern 
genera are represented. No wonder that Professor Berry f 
came to the conclusion that a geographical connection must 
have existed between North and South America during mid- 
CretaceoUs times. During Cretaceous and early Tertiary 
times the genus Sequoia, to which the Californian red-wood 
and big-trees belong, likewise ranged from North America to 
Chile. And it is now held by many botanists that the fossil 
Sequoia langsdorfi is identical with the still living big-tree 
(Sequoia gigantea) of California. We possess no fossil testi¬ 
mony of the occurrence of the smaller deciduous plants in 
those remote times, but to judge from the fact that many of 
the Mesozoic genera of trees still survive to the present day, 
certain persistent deciduous species presumably did so too. 
Mr. Engelhardt j: records a number of plant remains from the 
* Scharff, E. F., “Early Tertiary Land-connection,” pp. 523—526. 
f Berry, E. W., “ Mid-Cretaceous Geography,” p. 510. 
J Engelhardt, H., “ Tertiarpflanzen von Chile,” p. 635. 
