VON Jhebing. — On the Ancient Connections of N.Z. 439 



the fresh- water fishes, such as Pimelodus, have species in 

 South America and Africa, the common area of the Chromidcs 

 and CharacinidcB ; and, in the genus Pontederia of the water- 

 plants, actually one and the same species, Eichhornia nutans, 

 occurs in the interior of Africa and South America. 



No one studying carefully the fresh- water fauna can fail to 

 perceive the enormous difference between North and South 

 America, while Central America joins to Mexico. The marine 

 deposits of the Cretaceous and Tertiary sea in Central America 

 give us the key. I am of opinion that facts pointing in this 

 direction can hardly be disputed, in spite of their being obscured 

 by the Pleistocene intermixture of both faunas ; but since 

 Wallace's severe condemnation great prejudice exists against 

 the assumption of the " Atlantis " (the subsided land-com- 

 munication between Archiguyana and Africa) having existed 

 up to the Oligocene period. The reason given by Wallace is 

 the very considerable depth of the sea ; as if a subsidence of 

 5,000 metres was more miraculous in itself than an elevation 

 to the same amount ! Also, Wallace is not even consistent. 

 If he concedes " Lemuria," and even thinks of a land-commu- 

 nication in Miocene times between New Zealand and South 

 America, then he should not oppose the Atlantis. It will 

 hardly be possible to-day to say where this bridge was 

 situated. The scanty remains of it may have lost, to a great 

 extent, their old fauna, through alternating upheaval and sub- 

 sidence, like New Zealand. But the subfossil Bulimus of St. 

 Helena shows this island to be part of this old bridge across 

 the Atlantic Ocean, and it explains the occurrence of numerous 

 identical species of marine Mollusca in Brazil, the West Indies, 

 and the Atlantic coast of Africa. 



In consequence of what has been said hitherto, there can 

 be no doubt about x\rchiplata being an old continent, existing 

 since the Trias formation. I arrived at this conclusion through 

 the study of the fresh-water fauna," and it has quite unex- 

 pectedly, and almost at the same time, been confirmed from 

 another side. A scientist who deserves great merit for his 

 knowledge of the Tertiary mammals of Argentina — Florentino 

 Ameghinof — has published a treatise on the old mammalian 

 fauna of Patagonia, this fauna belonging partly to the Cre- 

 taceous partly to the Eocene formation, but I fancy that the 

 w4iole of it may be of Cretaceous age. Anieghino includes 

 under the name of Diprotodonta most of the Australian Eecent 

 marsupials, the Plagiaulacida, and the Mesozoic genera of 



* H. von Jhering, " Die geographische Vcrbreitung der Fluss- 

 muscheln," im Ausland, 1890, Nos. 48, 49. 



t Florentino Ameghino, " Los Plagiaulacideos Argentines," Buenos- 

 Ayres, 1890. 



