122 FORMER LAND CONNECTIONS. 



respect are not ill deserved. Taken item by item the resemblances 

 displayed can often be accounted for in some other manner or the 

 arguments dismissed as inconclusive, but in the case under dis- 

 cussion the resemblances are so numerous and their explanation so 

 difficult in any other way, as to force one to the conclusion that 

 the various land-masses in the southern hemisphere were inter- 

 linked in the past. This date was, of course, very far back in the 

 history of the earth, during the Carboniferous and Permian epochs 

 in fact. 



Opinions upon such former Land Connections. 



In 1870 G. W. Stow, to whom the science of geology in South 

 Africa owes so much, advanced views of this nature when com- 

 paring the fossiliferous Uitenhage beds with their seeming equiva- 

 lents in India. 



The same year Huxley admitted the strength of the arguments 

 in favour of a union of Ethiopia and India during the middle of 

 the Tertiary epoch. 



Observing the distribution of the living and extinct Lemurs, 

 P. L. Sclater, about 1875, not only suggested the linking of Mada- 

 gascar to Africa and to India during the Tertiary, but gave this 

 tract of land the name "Lemuria." 



In 1875 W. Blanford pointed out that Madagascar, the 

 Seychelles, Mauritius, etc., could be interpreted as a partially sub- 

 merged mountain chain; that the Indian fauna is close to that of 

 N. Africa, that there is also a fauna related to that of tropical and 

 S. Africa or to Madagascar, e.g., the scaly anteaters; that the 

 Indian badger is closely related to the Cape ratel; that the land 

 Mollusca include many kindred forms, and more particularly that 

 the fossil reptiles and plants of the two continents are closelv allied. 



It was the last-mentioned aspect that commended itself to the 

 eminent geologist Suess, who termed this hypothetical but much 

 more ancient continental connection "Gondwanaland," and ex- 

 tended it across the Atlantic to Brazil. Von Ihering called the 

 western bridge "Arch-Hellenis," and conjectured it as having 

 extended from Brazil to Central Africa. Engler, the great botanist, 

 concluded that the floral relationships observed could best be 

 explained by a tract of land or a chain of large islands between 

 Northern Brazil and the Bight of Biafra. Scharff, the zoologist 

 placed the connecting land to the south of the group of island- 

 north of the equator. Other scientists again studied the life of 

 Patagonia, Australia, and Antarctica, and thereby were able to 

 point out various interesting relationships. 



Faunae Survivals. 



There are quite a number of orders and families practically 

 confined to the southern hemisphere, for example the blind snakes 

 and the geckos, while the freshwater decapod Crustacea of the 

 southern half of the globe are distinct from those of the northern. 



It is curious to observe in illustration of a previous statement 

 obscure primitive types still surviving in these southern lands, for 

 instance the frerh-water fishes Ceratodus in Australia, Polypteriis 



