THE DRIFTING OF THE CONTINENTS— TEBMIEB 225 



accumulation of vegetable remains in the lakes, ponds, bogs, and 

 lagoons, geological observation reveals to us that there were wide 

 differences between two vast regions of the earth's surface — bio- 

 logical differences and climatic differences. The first region em- 

 braced central and southern Europe, central Asia, extending to the 

 south as far as the northern border of Hindustan, and then North 

 America between the Great Lakes and Texas. In this region the 

 immense coal basins had just been filled and the others were still on 

 the point of filling up ; the vegetation was incredibly luxuriant ; 

 never at any other point of geological history had the vegetable 

 kingdom known such exuberance. This vegetation was everywhere 

 as varied as possible, considering the state of development which the 

 world of plants had then attained, the plants of the American coal 

 measures, for example, being the same as the Franco-Belgian or the 

 Chinese. From the exuberance of the flora and also from the char- 

 acter of the fauna one is led to believe that everywhere the region in 

 question enjoyed a very warm climate ; nowhere so far has there been 

 found the least manifestation of glaciation. A second region pre- 

 sented itself, entirely different, separated from the first by a trans- 

 verse sea which extended from the actual position of Central Amer- 

 ica and that of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, passing by the 

 north of Africa and the north of Hindustan, thus forming a belt 

 halfway around the earth. The separation brought about by this 

 sea was an effectual one, for in the region of which I now speak, 

 and which extends south of this sea, grew a flora plainly and almost 

 totally different from that of the first region. The second flora was 

 much less luxuriant, much less varied; it offered to a very high 

 degree the characteristics of monotony and poverty which belong to 

 a country relatively cold. A plant group dominated there, the 

 species Glossopte'ris, which is a fossil species of Fougere (fern), and 

 one often speaks of the Glossopteris flora, Glossopteris region, 

 Glossopteris period, to designate by a word those biological condi- 

 tions, the region where they dominated, and the very long epoch 

 during which they lasted. The Glossopteris flora was the same, or 

 nearly the same, in the whole continental domain, which extended 

 to the south of the transverse sea. It was very vast, since it 

 included Hindustan, Australia, Tasmania, Transvaal, the whole 

 great African area north of Transvaal, Brazil, and in the south 

 extended as far as the distant Falkland Archipelago. And, a very 

 important fact, over the enormous spaces of this continental domain 

 there had been during the time of the Glossopteris flora manifesta- 

 tions of glaciation. Almost everywhere tlie first coal measures rest 

 on a very extensive moraine; at certain points one ascertains the 

 superposition of many moraines separated by coal measures. Thus the' 

 glaciers have advanced on the Glossopteris region as much in Hindu- 



