Land Connections of the African Continent 35 



on further southwards the climate of Africa, Australia and South 

 America became milder, other species entered and began to com- 

 pete with the existing fauna and flora which could not accompany 

 its congenial climate further southwards or adapt itself to a new 

 one and consequently died out. 



It is not only the Glossopteris flora which dispersed south- 

 wards from the north. There are some Carboniferous types for 

 example Sigillaria Brardi, Lepidodendron, Annularia and 

 Sphenophyllum, which adapted themselves to the new climate 

 and migrated with it southwards. 



There is one difficulty in connection with the above explanation, 

 which may not be passed without comment. The known Glossop- 

 teris flora of Northern Russia is of Middle Permian age, while 

 the Dwyka lil!ite> in which members of this flora occur, is re- 

 garded to be of Lower Permian age. In the first place it ap- 

 pears to me perfectly legal to appeal to the imperfection of the 

 palaeontological record in the north, and secondly the doubt which 

 is attached to the correlation of the Dwyka may here be em- 

 phasised. The formation of the Dwyka may have commenced 

 at the begmning of the Rotliegende, but it need not have ended 

 at the beginning of the Zechstein. Of the flora of high northern 

 regions in Permian times only one locality has been discovered. 

 Nothing is known of the Lower Permian flora of the high northern 

 world. 



The presence of Anomodonts in India and South Africa 

 cannot prove the existence of a Gondwanaland, for these animals 

 can have crossed over the mediterranean region. 



West Africa and tropical South America are the home of the 

 seacow, Manatus. This animal lives in rivers and shallow warm 

 seawater. The conclusion has been drawn, that this animal can 

 only have dispersed along the north coast of a South Atlantic 

 Continent. The statement that this animal can only live in shallow 

 waters is probably based on the fact, that it is never found any- 

 where else. However, the conclusion is not permissible, for the 

 animal will naturally be found most often there, where its food, 

 alga?, is most abundant. There is nothing to show, that it cannot 

 live out at sea, when it has sufficient food to live on. Beddard 

 states, that its former occurrence on the shores of St. Helena is 



