MARINE FAUNA OF PATAGONIA 
429 
persal of marine mollusks between Patagonia and New Zea¬ 
land. It is interesting to note that, whereas this faunistic 
interchange took place between Patagonia and New Zealand, 
the early Tertiary Chilean fauna exhibits scarcely any traces 
of relationship with that of New Zealand. 
If the ancient land connection between southern South 
America and New Zealand had been a westward extension of 
the coast of Chile, we should expect a greater resemblance 
between the old Tertiary fauna of the latter country and New 
Zealand than between Patagonia and New Zealand. The evi¬ 
dence derived from the Eocene mollusks of Patagonia and 
New Zealand is, therefore, in favour of a southern land con¬ 
nection by way of the antarctic regions. I cannot believe that 
an Antarctic Continent, in the sense of Forbes or Osborn, 
could have existed at that time. If the affinity of the marine 
faunas of Patagonia and New Zealand was due to a con¬ 
tinuous shore-line between the two countries, Chile must 
have extended southward beyond Tierra del Fuego and then 
have curved across to New Zealand in a great loop. The Pata¬ 
gonian fauna spread to New Zealand on the south side of the 
latter. Hence the South Polar region must have been largely 
covered by sea at that time. At any rate, I believe in the 
former existence of two land connections between Chile and 
New Zealand, one by way of North America and eastern Asia, 
the other directly across the South Polar area. 
This leads us 'to the third problem connected with that 
extraordinarily interesting region of southern South America, 
namely, its direct affinities with the anntarctic regions, and in¬ 
cidentally with South Africa and Madagascar. The southern 
tip of Tierra del Fuego bends eastward. At its eastern ex¬ 
tremity lies Staten island, and beyond it the great Burdwood 
Bank. North of the latter, at no great distance, are situated 
the Falkland islands. Nowhere is there a greater depth of 
water than a hundred fathoms between the latter and the 
mainland. Consequently all this presumably was once part of 
South America. 
The Falkland islands cover an area of about half the size 
of Ireland, lying three hundred and fifty miles east of Pata¬ 
gonia. The country consists of undulating moorland, with an 
abundance of peaty soil yielding an ample supply of wiry 
