PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF ANTARCTICA HEDLEY. 453 



tunity to escape to the alpine stations of New Zealand or Australia, 

 or to occupy the subantarctic islands. 



The conclusion is therefore drawn that the land link was main- 

 tained duiing the period of refrigeration, and that from the Antarctic 

 focus first the subtropical, then the temperate, lastly the alpine 

 forms were expelled, each to gain a fresh footing in lower latitudes. 



Possibly associated with the formation of great ice masses, a 

 paroxysm of diastrophic energy ensued. This; which perhaps has 

 not yet subsided, effected the destruction of the antarctic bridge, 

 and to it may be due the recent disarticulation of the Dominion 

 of New Zealand and the severance of Tasmania from its parent 

 continent . 



In the long perspective of past time Antarctica appears to fade 

 and form like a summer cloud, now extending a limb, now shedding 

 it, now resolving into a continent, now dissolving into an archi- 

 pelago. At present it li(^s dead and cold under its white winding- 

 sheet of snow. By the light of the magician's lamp we watch the 

 summer of the cycles dawn. The glow of life returns, the ice mask 

 melts, green spreads a mantle. At last a vision comes of rippling 

 brooks, of singing birds, of blossoming flowers, and of forest glades 

 in the heart of Antarctica. 

 S5360°— SM 1912 30 



