272 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



Wegener discusses at some length the structural relations of north- 

 western Europe and northeastern North America and makes out 

 to his own satisfaction a clear case that the two sides were once 

 closely adjacent, that they broke apart during Pleistocene time, and 

 since have drifted apart some thousands of miles. How well the 

 edges of the two continents fit together is already shown for New- 

 foundland and Ireland. Then we get this characteristic Wegenerian 

 conclusion (pp. 55-56) : 



The cori'espoiideuces of the Atlantic coasts, namely, the folding of the 

 Cape Mountains and of the Sierras of Buenos Aires as well as the correspond- 

 ence between the eruptive rocks, sediment.s, and strike-lines in the great gneissic 

 plateaus of Brazil and Africa, the Armorican, Caledonian, and Algonkian sys- 

 tems of folding, and the Pleistocene terminal moraines, in their sum total, . . . 

 yield a proof, which is difficult to shake, of the validity of our supposition that 

 the Atlantic must be considered as an expanded rift. ... It is just as if 

 we put together the pieces of a torn uewspai)er by their ragged edges and then 

 ascertained if the lines of print ran evenly across. If they do, obviously there is 

 no course but to conclude that the pieces were once actually attached in this 

 way. If but a single line rendered a control possible, we should have already 

 shown the great possibility of the correctness of our combination. But if we 

 have n rows, then this probability is raised to the nth power. It is not a waste 

 of time to make clear what this implies. We can assume, merely on the basis of 

 our first " line," the folding of the Cai>e Mountains and the Sierras of Buenos 

 Aires, that tlie chancts are 10 to 1 that the displacement theory is correct. 

 Since there are at least six such independent controls, 10", or a million to one, 

 could be laid that our assumptions are correct. 



Figures used in this way, however, can prove nothing, and his con- 

 clusion from them that he is correct 10*^ is, of course, absurd. 



FAUNAL AND FLORAL CONNECTIONS 



We have already stated that Wegener began to think about his 

 continental displacement theory because of the present geographic 

 similarities of the eastern coast of Brazil when compared with the 

 western coast of Africa. This led to conviction on his part, once he 

 became aware of the " paleontological evidence," that these lands 

 had formerly been united. This evidence — which I may claim to 

 know fairly well — lies in the close similarities between the Glos- 

 soptei^is flora of middle Permian time on both sides of the southern 

 Atlantic, together with the presence of the marine reptiles Meso- 

 saurus and Noteosaurus in both South America and Africa. To this 

 can be added the further facts that the Lower Devonian (Boldceveld) 

 marine fauna of South Africa extended into Argentina and southern 

 Brazil, and that the Trigonia-2i\\\moi\\iQ faunas of late Jurassic and 

 early Cretaceous times of northwestern Argentina and eastern Africa 

 were of one marine province. One might add to this favorable 

 evidence even more, but, after all, the identities and similarities are 

 not plentiful; on the contrary, they are very meager and yet they 



