90 ERNEST H. L. SCHWARZ 



by it, and such we find to be actually the case. The late Dr. Blan- 

 ford, in his anniversary address to the Geological Society of London 

 in 1890, went thoroughly into the question in regard to the fresh- 

 water fishes and batrachians. In a subsequent letter I received 

 from him he wrote: 



I have long been aware of the extraordinary connection between the faunas 

 of Africa and South America, only a very few examples of which were known 

 when I wrote about ancient continental connections in 1890. For instance, 

 the fresh -water crustaceans have been examined by Dr. Ortman,' spiders by 

 Pocock,^^ and several other groups by Dr. Scharff.^ I have heard of an am- 

 phisbaena (belonging to the family of lizards, chiefly confined to Africa and 

 South America) turning up at one of the South Atlantic islands (Trinidad, ofif 

 the Brazilian coast I think), but I cannot now find the reference. 



Boulenger, in his presidential address to the zoological section 

 of the British Association at the South African meeting, stated 

 that, although it was possible to get the present distribution of 

 fresh-water fishes without a land-bridge between Africa and South 

 America, yet a connection would immensely simplify the explana- 

 tion of their dispersal. 



There are many naturalists who do not think that the evidence 

 from living forms of life is sufficient to bring into existence in past 

 ages such a tremendous rearrangement of the land- surfaces, but 

 if the geologists from their side can adduce satisfactory reasons 

 for such a submerged land connection, most of their opposition 

 would vanish, for the connection does help to explain matters very 

 considerably. If geologists rely on elaborate arguments to prove 

 their contention, zoologists are not likely to take the trouble to 

 examine them; and this brings me back to my former statement, 

 that even a little evidence from oceanic islands is of very great 

 weight. A block of slate containing Leptoccelia flabellites, found 

 in Tristan d'Acunha or similar Atlantic islands, would prove more 

 by itself than any attempt to reconstruct the direction of sedimen- 

 tation in past ages, no matter how sound the arguments were. I 

 have shown that such a find is by no means impossible, and I have 

 endeavored to make clear what important issues hang on the proper 

 investigation of oceanic islands. 



1 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. XLI (1902), pp. 267-400. 



2 Proceedings of the Geological Society, 1903, Part I, p. 340. 



3 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. XXIV. 



