The Antarctic 



coast of South America and form a continuous <^ solid " 

 continent extending beyond Cape Horn.'^ 



It might have been, as Mr. Hedley suggests, a variable 

 sort of connection sometimes dissolving into an archi- 

 pelago of islands but providing at possibly different 

 periods of time island stepping-stones between Cape 

 Horn, the Antarctic Continent, and New Zealand. 



Some authors seem to have no hesitation in summon- 

 ing a continent from the vasty deep simply in order to 

 convey a beetle or a snail from one island to another, 

 but it seems allowable in this case. 



If such a connection once existed, that is, between 

 Cape Horn and the Antarctic Continent, the whole cir- 

 culation of the ocean currents in the far south would 

 be altered. One would expect a current of warm 

 water to travel south along the west coast of South 

 America ; such a warm-water stream would, and as 

 happens in the corresponding latitudes of Norway and 

 British Columbia, enormously improve the climate of 

 King Edward VII. and Alexandra lands. They might 

 then have been as genial places as Ushiuaia in Fuegia 

 or Bergen and Hammerfest, and so could have supported 

 such hardy plants and animals as now exist in Western 

 Fuegia. From the Antarctic they might be carried 

 northward to New Zealand. 



As we have seen, there is some geological possibility 

 for this connection. Certain animals, a peculiar horned 

 turtle, and some peculiar marsupials are only known in 

 South America and Australia, and such a connection 

 has been suggested for their convenience. 



It is not, however, essential for the plants that there 

 should have been more than a chain of island stepping- 

 stones. 



It may be interesting to give a list of the most im- 

 portant of them, so that the reader may appreciate the 

 evidences involved. 



104 



