CONTINENTAL DISPLACEMENT— SCHUCHERT 275 



Even if we admit movement of the pole [and Wegener moves the south pole 

 2,500 miles from its present position], on tlie most favorable supposition the ice 

 must have spread much farther toward the equator than the ice sheets of the 

 Pleistocene Glacial period ever did. 



There are Permian tillites in the Salt Kange of India, in Afghanis- 

 tan (on Wegener's map, p. 100, this wouki be within 30 degrees of 

 liis assumed equator), in northwestern Africa, at Boston (on the same 

 map this would be on the equator), and arctic Alaska. 



Coleman is to-day our best informed authority on the distribution 

 of glacial climates, and has seen the " Permo-Carboniferous " tillites 

 in many lands. He says that on the basis of "Wegener's Pangaea, and 

 placing the South Pole in southeastern Africa — 



the glaciated areas would be far inland and out of reach of the moisture-laden 

 winds necessary to deposit snow. They would bo arid regions without perma- 

 nent snow fields, like the interior of Asia, which was not glaciated in the Pleis- 

 tocene though one of the coldest regions of the world. It is evident, then, that 

 the drift of the continents and the shift of the poles do not h- Ip ns to account 

 for the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation.^ 



And finally this : 



It may be confidently stated that a careful study of the two greatest periods 

 of glaciation known to geology gives no support to the theory of the drift of 

 continents and the wandering of the poles. 



Wegener relies much on the present distribution of the earth- 

 ATorms as proving his theory for Avestern Pangaea. He says (pp. 

 78-79): 



The present distribution of earthworms offers particularly unobjectionable 

 evidence of the former Atlantic land connections, because usually the sea is an 

 insurmountable obstacle to these animals. A singularly large number of threads 

 of affinity are spun by them across the Atlantic Ocean in the various latitudes. 



We may add here that there are several other equally remarkable 

 " threads of affinity " that he might have used, namely, the present 

 distribution of the Unionidae, land snails, macrouran crustaceans, 

 spiders, lung fishes, caecilians, etc. All of these distributions are. 

 however, at least as easily explained by the presence of a bridge from 

 Brazil to Africa — the commonly accepted explanation — of which 

 Wegener will have none.-* On the other hand, it must not be for- 

 gotten that all of these stocks are ancient, some going back at least to 

 the Lower Cretaceous or Jui'assic and the rest to different periods in 

 the Paleozoic; the lung fishes date from the Devonian and the earth- 

 worms may be even more ancient. We are here dealing with the 

 organic radiation of a vast amount of geologic time, going back 

 several hundred million years. What a vista is thus opened up of the 

 possibilities in biogcographic distribution, and how variously it may 



^ A. P. Coloman. Pormo-Carlioniforous Glaciation and (ho W^rsenor Hypothesis, Nature. 

 Apr. 25, 1925,, p. 602. 



"These faiinal connections nro fully discnsspd by Hermann von Ihering in his Gesch'chte 

 (les AtlanUschon Ozcans, Gustav Fischer. 1027. 



