VII. 



Antarctica : a Supposed Former Southern 

 Continent. 



IN the current number of the Geographical Journal there appears a 

 paper by Mr. H. O. Forbes, on " The Chatham Islands: their 

 relation to a former Southern Continent," read before the Royal 

 Geographical Society on the 13th March last. He describes his dis- 

 covery there in the previous year of remains of a large extinct 

 ocydromine Rail, which he has identified with Aphanapteryx, a genus 

 till then known only from Mauritius, and of a large Fulica closely 

 related to F. newtoni of the same region. Taking these fresh facts 

 into consideration, he marshals all the data which he considers prove 

 a strong case for the probability of the existence of a former southern 

 continent, and he sketches on a map of the Southern Hemisphere 

 what he believes was the configuration of Antarctica, as he has named 

 that vanished continent. He believes that it followed nearly what is 

 the 2,000-fathom line, and extended northward from a circumpolar 

 area, by broad extensions, one to join an old New Zealand continental 

 island (including the Antipodes, the Maquarries, New Zealand, the 

 Chatham, Lord Howe, Norfolk, the Kermadec, and the Fiji Islands) ; 

 another to East Australia with Tasmania ; another to the Mascarene 

 and surrounding islands (the Lemuria of Sclater); perhaps one to South 

 Africa, and, lastly, one to South America. The form of this conti- 

 nent would not interfere with the opinions expressed by many 

 authorities in the permanence of the great ocean basins. 



The chief evidence adduced by Mr. Forbes in support of the 

 former existence of this continent, shortly stated, rests on the distri- 

 bution of forms confined to or extending but little beyond the 

 Southern Hemisphere. 



I. — Among Aves. 



1. Of the Struthious birds: — Dinomis and Apteryx, in New 



Zealand ; Dromornis and Dvomceus in Australia ; Casuarius in 

 the Papuan sub-region; Aipyomis in Madagascar; Brontornis 

 in Patagonia. 



2. Of the Trogonidae in South America, Tropical and South 



Africa, and in the Indian region. 



