DERIVATION OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA 39I 



mountain ranges are found right along the coast, the inland ice, even during 

 maximum glaciation, cannot have covered everything. The flora may not have 

 been as rich in species as it is now but perhaps a little more varied than one 

 has been inclined to think. Many species are also found in the subantarctic 

 zone, and further research work will, perhaps, reduce the number of endemic 

 species. 



Florin spoke, as we have seen, of a "proximity to South Africa". This is 

 where most biogeographers hesitate, in spite of such eloquent facts as the distri- 

 bution of Restionaceae, Proteaceae and other families, and the occurrence of a 

 subgenus of Gunnera on African soil. HoOKER, it is true, had a vision of a larger 

 Kerguelen land, but this was still a long way off from Africa. Perhaps GULICK 

 {^iig) ought to be mentioned here; he opposed the continental nature of isolated 

 islands, but he was tempted to exempt what he called "continental outsiders", 

 "Kerguelen, Crozet, St. Paul and two or three more"; the sea lacked the deepness 

 of a typical ocean, and sediments occurred on Kerguelen; for these reasons he 

 admitted a possible former existence of a "northward lobe of the Antarctic con- 

 tinent". The lichenologist C. W. DODGE has taken up this question; the lichen 

 flora of "Kerguelia" presents features of great antiquity as well as of prolonged 

 isolation (5 endemic genera), and the angiosperms include such aberrant types as 

 Pringlea and Lyallia\ it should be remembered that Werth was opposed to over- 

 seas dispersal. Kerguelen is volcanic, but old, the oldest lavas dating from late 

 Mesozoic or early Tertiary times, and on them fluviatile sediments and, on top 

 of these, Oligocene strata rest. Erosion broke down the island during Miocene- 

 Pliocene, but renewed volcanic activity followed from the end of Pliocene into 

 Pleistocene. The Gaussberg-Kerguelen ridge connects Antarctica with Kerguelen + 

 Heard Island; an elevation of 400 fathoms would be sufficient to unite the two 

 islands, a rise of 100 fathoms would transform the Crozet group into a single 

 island, and DODGE supposes that there is a submarine connection between Ker- 

 guelen and the Crozet swell. Kerguelia in its prime would include all the islands, 

 also Marion and Prince Edward. The great difficulty, the extension to South 

 Africa, remains. So much seems to be certain that, if this bridge did exist, 

 separation took place early, long before the other Antarctic connections were 

 broken off. 



I think that the majority of phytogeographers agree with MERRILL who, in 

 his last work [306), wrote that 



there is no reason whatever to doubt the validity of this ancient Antarctic route of 

 migration of various families and genera of plants; certainly, no experienced phytogeo- 

 grapher would question the validity of this route, for it is as thoroughly established 

 as its more evident equivalent by what is now the Arctic region (p. 178). 



Most botanists have drawn their conclusions from the present distribution 

 of the plants and this is, as a rule, all they can do, because few have left any 

 traces of their distribution in earlier epochs. Nevertheless we have no good reason 

 to doubt the important part taken by Antarctica in the history of the south 

 hemisphere, but the proofs that such was the case. Berry emphasizes [28. 34), 



