1897] NOTES AND COMMENTS 221 
where all real knowledge is wanting, but which can never be scien- 
tifically verified. Attentive perusal of Sir John Evans’ address 
itself suffices to show that archaeology is in no sense a science, but 
rather a recondite and remote branch of historical speculation.” 
This extract is long, but it is worth reprinting, since it is a sad 
reminder of how slowly knowledge of the elementary facts of science 
really spreads. After this, it is perhaps unnecessary to consider 
any of The Times’ later criticisms of the President’s address or of 
his proposed Imperial Ethnographic Bureau. It was, however, 
unfortunate that Sir John Evans should have prejudiced his pro- 
posal by suggesting that the work might be undertaken by the 
Imperial Institute. 
THE MAMMALS OF THE LOST ANTARCTIC CONTINENT 
AS soon as space permits, we hope to publish some further interest- 
‘ing contributions to our knowledge of primaeval man and the ques- 
tion of his antiquity. This month we go a little further back in 
the history of the mammalia, and print a translation of an import- 
ant address to the New University of La Plata by Dr Florentino 
Ameghino, which is liable to be overlooked in its separate form in 
the original Spanish. We do not pretend to endorse his conclusions; 
we look upon some of them, indeed, as visionary speculations. But 
‘during the past ten years the brothers Ameghino have done more 
than anyone else—not even excepting the eminent Director of the 
Museum La Plata (Dr F. P. Moreno)—to elucidate the geology and 
the mammalian fossils; and Dr Florentino Ameghino, who is an 
accomplished zoologist and comparative anatomist, commands a re- 
spectful hearing, if only on account of the remarkable contributions 
he has made to our knowledge of the Tertiary mammals and birds. 
We have already referred to the progress of his researches on several 
occasions in Natural Science. 
It is well known that, according to our present information, the 
chief types of the higher mammals all suddenly appear both in, 
Europe and North America at the dawn of the Tertiary period. 
We are acquainted with old land surfaces of the late Secondary 
period in both countries, but hitherto we have not found a trace of 
the ancestors of the higher Tertiary mammals on any of them. Dr 
Ameghino now claims to have discovered these long-lost ancestors of 
the Cretaceous period in Patagonia. He believes in the theory of 
an Antarctic Continent, which split up at the beginning of the 
Tertiary period into South America, New Zealand, Australia, South 
Africa, and less important islands. Here he considers that the 
Mesozoic ancestors of the mammals were evolved. He believes that 
they first wandered into the Euro-Asiatic Continent at the end of 
