LAND AND WATER 29 



North Atlantic and the Sino-Siberian continents, linked the 

 Tethys with the Arctic Ocean, at least during the second part 

 of this period ; and it also communicated with the Antilles 1 

 in such a way as to encircle an Atlantis. The Afro-Brazilian 

 continent, from this epoch onwards, was divided into two by 

 the immersion of a vast area corresponding to the South 

 Atlantic. Madagascar and India still remained united. This 

 disposition of land and water persisted throughout the 

 Neocretacean period, when the sea advanced a little further 

 in some regions, as in the Baffin Sea where a bay appeared, 

 the north-east coast of Brazil and the neighbourhood of 

 Pondicherry, and possibly isolated Madagascar for a short 

 time (Map IV). 



With the Tertiary period and the upraising of the Alpine- 

 Himalayan chains we rapidly approach present geographical 

 conditions, so markedly different from those which we have 

 just described. During a part at least of the Eogene or 

 Nummulitic period, 2 Europe and North America were still 

 united in one vast continent, the rest of Europe 

 remaining an archipelago whose principal islands, as during the 

 Secondary era, were Scotland, Ireland and W'ales, Brittany, 

 the Central Plateau, and Spanish Meseta. These islands, 

 separated by shallow branches of the sea, were inter- 

 mittently reunited, and were even connected by a genuine 

 Atlantis to North America. In any case a gulf of the Arctic 

 ocean penetrated to the heart of Europe, covering what is 

 now the North Sea, the Paris basin, and the south of 

 England. The Afro-Brazilian continent still persisted. 

 Madagascar was still united with India, but Australia from this 

 time onwards was separated from it, and the Indo-Madagascan 

 continent itself was separated by a strait from the Afro- 

 Brazilian. It is probable that the Pacific continent had already 

 begun to collapse, but the sinuous marine ring surrounding it 

 was momentarily raised and later transformed into a land of 

 lagoons, or perhaps a shallow sea, communicating with the 

 Tethys by a channel separating North from South America. 



At the beginning of the Tertiary period the Southern sea still 

 covered the site of the Pyrenees and Alps, as well as a part of 

 Spain, all North Africa, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Asia Minor, 



1 X, 134. 2 Map IV. 



