434 Evolution and Distribution of Fishes 



apart areas of Australia, of nearly 40 species of fish belong- 

 ing to four genera of two related families? 



Even though it may seem a recapitulation in part of 

 oft-rehearsed views, the writer proposes to bring together 

 threads of evidence, alike from the botanical and the zoo- 

 logical fields. And his aim will be to answer as perfectly 

 as possible the question; Did an extensive and in time 

 fairly continuous continent extend across the lower or south- 

 ern part of the Atlantic and Indian oceans from Patagonia 

 to S. Africa, thence to Tasmania, N. Zealand and the S. 

 E. Australian coast, with a temporary extension even to 

 New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and the Fiji Islands. 

 Existing terrestrial configurations and bathmetric oceanic 

 conditions seem entirely to negative such a possibility. But 

 the accumulating observations of the past half century have 

 caused a striking and fundamental change in the minds of 

 geologists and biologists alike. Such change was gradually 

 induced and prepared for by the studies of Lyell, J. D. 

 Hooker, Suess, and Koken during the mid and latter part 

 of last century, and has since been carried forward by 

 numerous successors. 



The most careful and suggestive array and recapitula- 

 tion of arguments in favor of such an extensive connection, 

 is contained in the paper of H. O. Forbes on "The Chatham 

 Islands," {26^: 607) to which the writer has been in con- 

 siderable part indebted for his results. But in the chart 

 which accompanies the paper Forbes has plotted some land 

 configurations that seem superfluous, according to present 

 knowledge. But such configurations make appropriate the 

 name "Antarctica," that he has conferred on this southern 

 circumpolar landmass. It should be candidly said also 

 that the striking discoveries of the various antarctic ex- 

 peditions of the past twenty years seem all to fortify his 

 main conclusions, and those of his predecessors. 



The earliest investigator who placed the issue in an 

 important light was J. D. Hooker. Writing of Kerguelen 

 Island plants {266: 14) in 1879 he said. "Various pheno- 

 mena, of very different relative value ajid nature, but 

 common to the three archipelagos, Kerguelen, the Crozets, 

 and Marion, favor the supposition of these all having been 



