282 TOWARDS THE HUMAN FORM 



still persisted : Tree-coneys, and Orycteropus which is 

 to-day localized in the south of Africa, also lived in 

 that part of Patagonia where the Carolozittelidse and 

 Pythrotherium are perhaps somewhat analogous to the 

 precursors of Elephants discovered in the Fayum deposits 

 in Egypt. This continent included Madagascar, whose 

 fauna presents curious affinities with that of South America, 

 and its northern edge was then prolonged as far as the Antilles, 

 as is indicated by the resemblances between the fauna of 

 this island and the Mediterranean fauna of that epoch. 



The Australo-Indo-Madagascan continent was then splitting 

 up. But while Australia became definitely isolated so that 

 its fauna is still one of Marsupials, India and Madagascar 

 remained united, which explains the existence of Lemurs 

 in both these regions. The Tethys Sea still extended between 

 the North Atlantic and Sino-Siberian continents on the one 

 hand, and the Afro-Brazilian, Indo-Madagascan, and Australian 

 on the other. It cut the American continent in two at the 

 Isthmus of Panama. From the region now occupied by that 

 part of the Atlantic Ocean extending from the Caribbean 

 Sea to the Franco-Spanish coasts, it thrust a narrow, fluctuating 

 channel into the sea which lay between Europe and the North- 

 Atlantic continent, and so outlined the North Atlantic coast. 



The physical relation then existing between Europe and 

 North America and between South America and the African 

 continent suffices to explain the simultaneous invasion of the 

 two Americas by the placental Mammals, and makes it 

 unnecessary to assume a problematic Pacific continent. 



A shallow expanse of water covered the Paris basin, the 

 basin of Mayence, and its southern prolongation, the valley 

 of the Rhine, and the region of eastern Europe between the 

 North Sea and the Caspian, and skirting the eastern foot 

 of the Urals it separated Europe from Asia. It abandoned 

 these countries after the beginning of the Neogene Epoch, 

 but continued to submerge Aquitania and the coasts of 

 Portugal. The region once occupied by the Tethys, for the 

 most part, was now above water. There were still, however, 

 some low-lying areas which the sea alternately invaded and 

 abandoned and which corresponded to the south of Spain 

 and to that portion of the Mediterranean which washes its 

 coasts as far as Provence. The water extended over the 



