44« 



NA TURE 



[Sept. 4, 1884 



and so uniform is this throughout that no separate regions can 

 be established, so that there is but one oceanic to contrast with 

 fourteen terrestrial regions. 



It is impossible to enter further into this subject now, and I 

 can only allude to the evidence in favour of the existence of 

 land-regions in past times. It is scarcely necessary to remind 

 you of the proofs already accumulated of differences between 

 the fauna of distant countries in Tertiary times. The Eocene, 

 Miocene, and Pliocene Vertebrata of North America differ quite 

 as much from those of Europe in the same periods as do the 

 genera of the present day ; and there was as much distinction 

 between the Mammalia of the Himalayas and of Greece when 

 the Siwalik and Pikermi faunas were living as there is now. 

 In Mesozoic times we have similar evidence. The reptiles of 

 the American Jurassic deposits present wide differences from 

 those of the European beds of that age, and the South African 

 reptilian types of the Karoo beds are barely represented else- 

 where. But there is no reason for supposing that the limits or 

 relations of the zoological and botanical regions in past times 

 were the same as they now are. It is quite certain indeed that 

 the distribution of land-areas, whether the great oceanic tract 

 has remained unchanged in its general outlines or not, has under- 

 gone enormous variations, and the migration of the terrestrial 

 fauna and flora must have been dependent upon the presence 

 or absence of land communication between different continental 

 tracts ; in other words, the terrestrial regions of past epochs, 

 although just as clearly marked as those of the present day, were 

 very differently distributed. The remarkable resemblance of 

 the floras in the Karoo beds of South Africa, the Damuda of 

 India, and the Coal-Measures of Australia, and the wide difference 

 of all from any European fossil flora, is a good example of the 

 former distribution of life ; whilst it is scarcely necessary to 

 observe that the present Neotropical and Australian mammals 

 resemble those of the same countries in the later Tertiary times 

 much more than they do the living Mammalia of other regions, 

 and that the Australian mammal fauna is in all probability more 

 nearly allied to the forms of life inhabiting Europe in the Mesozoic 

 era than to any European types of later date. If the existing 

 mammals of Australia had all become extinct, a deposit con- 

 taining their bones would probably have been classed as 

 Mesozoic. 



The belief in the former universality of faunas and floras is 

 very much connected with the idea once generally prevalent, 

 and still far from obsolete, that the temperature of the earth's 

 surface was formerly uniform, and that at all events until early or 

 even Middle Tertiary times the Poles were as warm as the 

 Equator, and both enjoyed a constant tropical climate. The 

 want of glacial evidence from past times in Spitzbergen and 

 Greenland, where a temperature capable of supporting arboreal 

 vegetation has certainly prevailed during several geological 

 periods, is counterbalanced by the gradually accumulating proofs 

 of Lower Mesozoic or Upper Palaeozoic Glacial epochs in South 

 Africa, Australia, and, strangest of all, in India. Even during 

 those periods of the earth's history where there is reason to 

 believe that the temperature in high latitudes was higher than it 

 now is, evidence of distinct zones of climate has been observed, 

 and quite recently Dr. Neumayr, 1 of Vienna, has shown that 

 the distribution of Cretaceous and Jurassic Ctphalopoda throughout 

 the earth's surface proves that during those periods the warmer 

 and cooler zones of the world existed in the same manner as at 

 present, and that they affected the distribution of marine life as 

 they do now. 



The idea that marine and terrestrial faunas and floras were 

 similar throughout the world's surface in past times is so in- 

 grained in pd.vontological science that it will require many 

 years yet before the fallacy of the assumption is generally 

 admitted. No circumstance Ins contributed more widely to 

 the belief than the supposed universal diffusion of the Carboni- 

 ferous flora. The evidence that the plants which prevailed in 

 the Coal-Measures of Europe were replaced by totally different 

 forms in Australia, despite the closest similarity in the marine 

 inhabitants of the two areas at the period, will probably go fat- 

 to give the death-blow to an hypothesis that rests upon no solid 

 ground of observation. In a vast number of instances it has 

 been assumed that similarity between fossil terrestrial faunas and 

 floras proves identity of geological age, and, by arguing in a 

 vicious circle, the occurrence of similar types assumed without 

 sufficient proof to belong to the same geological period has been 



alleged as evidence of the existence of similar forms in distant 

 countries at the same time. 



In the preceding remarks it may perhaps have surprised some 

 of my auditory that I have scarcely alluded to any American 

 formations, and especially that I have not mentioned so well- 

 known and interesting a case of conflicting palaeontological 

 evidence as that of the Laramie group. My reason is simply 

 that there are probably many here who are personally acquainted 

 with the geology of the American Cretaceous and Tertiary beds, 

 and who are far better able to judge than I am of the evidence as 

 a whole. To all who are studying such questions in America I 

 think it will be more useful to give the details of similar geo- 

 logical puzzles from the Eastern Hemisphere than to attempt an 

 imperfect analysis of difficult problems in the great Western 

 continent. 



Perhaps it may be useful, considering the length to which this 

 address has extended, to recapitulate the principal facts I have 

 endeavoured to bring before you. These are — 



1. That the geological age assigned on homotaxial grounds to 

 the. Pikermi and Siwalik mammalian faunas is inconsistent with 

 the evidence afforded by the associated marine deposits. 



2. The age similarly assigned on the same data to the different 

 series of the Gondwana system of India is a mass of contra- 

 dictions : beds with a Triassic fauna overlying others with 

 Rhaetic or Jurassic floras. 



3. The geological position assigned on similar evidence to 

 certain Australian beds is equally contradictory, a Jurassic flora 

 being of the same age as a Carboniferous marine fauna. 



4. The same is probably the case with the terrestrial and 

 fresh-water faunas and floras of South Africa. 



5. In instances of conflicting evidence between terrestrial or 

 fresh-water faunas and floras on one side, and marine faunas on 

 the other, the geological age indicated by the latter is probably 

 correct, because the contradictions which prevail between the 

 evidence afforded by successive terrestrial and fresh-water beds 

 are unknown in marine deposits, because the succession of 

 terrestrial animals and plants in time has been different from the 

 succession of marine life, and because in all past times the 

 differences between the faunas and floras of distant lands have 

 probably been, as they now are, vastly greater than the differ- 

 ences between the animals and plants inhabiting the different 

 seas and oceans. 



6. The geological age attributed to fossil terrestrial faunas and 

 floras in distant countries on account of the relations of such 

 faunas and floras to those found in European beds has proved 

 erroneous in so large a number of cases that no similar deter- 

 minations should be accepted unless accompanied by evidence 

 from marine beds. It is probable in many cases — perhaps in 

 the majority — where the age of beds has been determined solely 

 by the comparison of land or fresh-water animals or plants with 

 those found in distant parts of the globe, that such deter- 

 minations are incorrect. 



SECTION 11 

 ANTHROPOLOGY 



Opening Address by Edward B. Tylor, D.C.L., F.R.S., 



['RESIDENT OF THE SECTION 



Our newly-constituted Section of Anthropology, now pro- 

 moted from the lower rank of a Department of Biology, holds 

 its first meeting under remarkable circumstances. Here in 

 America one of the great problems of race and civilisation 

 comes into closer view than in Europe. In England anthropo- 

 logists infer from stone arrow-heads and hatchet-blades, laid up 

 in burial-mounds or scattered over the sites of vanished villages, 

 that Stone Age tribes once dwelt in the land ; but what they 

 were like in feature and complexion, what languages they spoke, 

 what social laws and religion they lived under, are questions 

 \\h< re speculation has but little guidance from fact It is very 

 different when under our feet in Montreal are found relics of a 

 people who formerly dwelt here. Stone Age people, as their im- 

 plements show, though not unskilled in barbaric arts, as is seen 

 by the ornamentation of their earthen pots and tobacco-pipes, 

 made familiar by the publications of Principal Dawson. As we 

 all know, the record of Jacques Carrier, published in the six- 

 teenth century collection of Kamusio, proves by text and draw- 

 ing that here stood the famous palisaded town of Hochelaga. 

 Its inhabitant-, as hi. vocabulary -how-, bi longed to the group 

 of tribes whose word for 5 is wisk — that is to say, they were of 



