274 ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 



not 'be surprising that I am a strong adherent of the theory 

 just stated, that a land bridge existed right across the Atlantic 

 between the Mediterranean and the Antillean regions, and 

 that the European element of the fauna made use of it in 

 passing to America (Fig. 14). This land connection, of 

 course, was quite independent of the one I described (p. 13) 

 as having once joined Labrador and Scotland by way of 

 Greenland. The latter may possibly have come into existence 

 when the other had already crumbled away. At any rate, the 

 two are quite distinct as to age and position. 



Before I had an opportunity of making this more thorough 

 study of the North American fauna, I was under the impres- 

 sion that the " Southern Atlantis," as we may call this land 

 connection, joined Africa with South America, and that there 

 was no other land bridge across the mid- Atlantic.* I am still 

 an advocate, as I shall explain more fully later on, of what 

 Dr. von Ihering calls " Archhelenis," the hypothetical con- 

 tinent of the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. But I 

 maintain that a more northerly land bridge likewise existed, 

 and that the two were completely separated by a wide ocean. 



The disciples of Dr. Wallace will exclaim, " What about the 

 permanence of ocean basins, a theory which receives such 

 weighty support from some of the most eminent geologists 

 of the day ? " This question of the permanence of ocean 

 basins, and we may say of continental areas too, really lies at 

 the root of most of our inquiries into the past changes of the 

 earth and its animal inhabitants. The internal characters 

 of the rocks we see around us, remarks Sir Archibald Geikie,f 

 point unmistakably to deposition in comparatively shallow 

 water. "Their abundant . intercalations of fine and coarse 

 material, their constant variety of mineral composition, their 

 sun-cracks, ripple-marks, rain-pittings and worm-tracks, 

 their numerous unconformabilities and traces of terrestrial 

 surfaces, together with the prevalent facies of their organic 

 contents, combine to demonstrate that the main mass of the 

 sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust was accumulated close 

 to land, and that no trace of really abysmal deposits is to be 

 found among them." From these considerations, says Sir 



* Scharff, E. F., " Atlantis Problem," p. 279. 

 t Geikie, A., "Text Book of Geology," p. 911. 



