THE DRIFTING OF THE CONTINENTS TEEMIEE 223 



the Aleutian Islands, the peninsula of Kamchatka, Kurile, Sakhalin, 

 Japan, Liu-Kiii, Formosa, Philippines, and Borneo; are not these 

 fragments of the Asiatic coast detached nearly simultaneously and 

 showing, by their arrangement in garlands parallel to the outlines 

 of the shores, that they formerly belonged to them? And the chain 

 Sumatra, Java, Sumbawa, Flores, Timor, what is it, except a 

 truncated extension of this tail of Asia, the Malay Peninsula? The 

 sections of the Asiatic tail follow the general movement of Asia but 

 with a slight retardation. What are the Antilles if not fragments 

 large and small of Central America left behind, the little ones more 

 retarded than the large ones and forming a flotilla whose center 

 advances less rapidly than its wings and which incurves thus in form 

 of a semicircle open to the west? And what do we see at the 

 southern extremity of South America? The point of the continent 

 twisted toward the east, twisted at right angles, then at Cape Horn, 

 and in Staten Island abruptly broken; but a little further to the 

 east there are the remains of this point — South Georgia, South Shet- 

 land, South Orlmej', Sandwich Group, all one series of wreckage, 

 outlining another incurved flotilla whose left wing almost touches 

 the point of the Antarctic, which point twists toward the east, as 

 does the American point which faces it across Drake Strait. Does 

 not this disposition in semicircles of the two points and of the 

 archipelagoes cause one to vision the rupture of an old bridge which 

 should have joined the Antarctic to South America and which, 

 being without doubt too thin to resist the thrust of the marine 

 depths opposed to its drifting toward the west, would have twisted 

 its two abutments, and not being able to rest entirely coherent after 

 twisting, would have broken in disjointed groups of scattered masses? 

 Finally, let us consider Australia. Above is New Guinea, which 

 seems to be only a detached portion; above and to the right of 

 New Guinea a whole chain of islands, which curve toward the south 

 parallel to the Australian coast including New Caledonia and far- 

 ther New Zealand. Does it not seem to you that this chain of islands 

 joins from the north of New Guinea to that of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago which I called, a minute ago, the truncated tail of Asia? 

 The joining takes place in the region of the Molluca and the Celebes, 

 where the archipelagoes twist around confusedly! But would not 

 this twisting be due to the advance from south to north of the 

 enormous mass of New Guinea-Australia? Would not these sec- 

 tions of the Asiatic tail formerly extending toward the southeast, 

 as Sumatra, have been deviated toward the north by the drifting 

 of Australia? Their flotilla, formerly regular as a well-conducted 

 squadron, would it not have been dislocated and dispersed by the 

 prow of New Guinea advancing and does not this flotilla, extending 

 further the direction of its route and simply bent by the moving 



