ANTIQUITY OF INSULAli LANDS. 193 



peculiarly to itself, and even possessing entire families, especially of 

 serpents and lemurs, which have no other representatives in our 

 planet. Strange to say, even the island of Ceylon, half united to 

 Hindostan by the rocks, islets, and sand-banks of the Pont-de-Hama, 

 differs much from the neighbouring peninsula by the general facies 

 of its animals and plants, and we may question if, instead of being 

 simply a dependence of Asia, it is not, on the contrary, the last 

 remains of an ancient continent which extended over the area of 

 the Indian Ocean, and comprised Madagascar, the Seychelles, and 

 other islands now almost imperceptible on the map. 



Among the fragments of vanished worlds, we ought also probably 

 to class the greater part of the Antilles and New Zealand. The larger 

 Antilles present a much more striking contrast with the countries of 

 North America than that between Ceylon and the peninsula of the 

 Ganges. By elevation and geological character, Hayti and Jamaica 

 do not in any wise resemble the low lands of the American coast, 

 situated on the other side of the gulf; their vegetable and animal 

 species differ notably from those of the neighbouring continent, 

 though winds, currents, birds of passage, and even man, have worked 

 together for an unknown number of centuries to carry animals and 

 plants from one shore to the other. As to New Zealand, it is quite a 

 distinct world, whose flora and fauna have an essentially original 

 character. Neither the fossil nor the living species resemble those of 

 Australia or South America.* And the greater number of savants 

 agree with the opinion of Hochstetter, who sees in New Zealand and 

 in Norfolk Island the fragments of a continent isolated ever since the 

 commencement of the Mesozoic period. While Great Britain may be 

 considered as a type of the islands scarcely separated from the neigh- 

 bouring continent, her fine colony at the Antipodes represents, on the 

 contrary, an ancient world, gradually reduced by subsidence and the 

 erosions of the sea, to the dimensions of a mere insular group. 



The present shape of islands often allows us to recognize what was 

 their earlier form when they extended over a much more consider- 

 able space. By their outline, and ramifications, the mountain- 

 ridges indicate in a general manner the first configuration : they are 

 as the fragments of a skeleton around which we reconstruct, in 

 thought, the contours of the ancient continental body. Besides, 

 many of these, of which only the primitive skeleton remains, and 

 whose plains have disappeared, are indented in the most curious 

 manner, and their shores often present the most fantastic outlines. 

 * See below the sections entitled, The Earth and Us Fiora^ and, The Earth and its Fauna. 



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