310 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 61. 



the phylogeny and relationships of these 

 great birds, I personally do not feel at all 

 assured that we can safely reason from 

 their distribution to problems of former 

 land connections. On the other hand, it 

 should be noted that this distribution is in 

 harmony with the results reached by study 

 of the mammals. 



In conclusion, it may be observed that 

 the facts of paleontology may best be ex- 

 plained on the assumption that the Ant- 

 arctic land mass has at one time or another 

 been connected with Africa, Australia and 

 South America, which formerly radiated 

 from the South Pole as North America and 

 Eurasia now do from the North Pole. 

 While this seems a highly probable assump- 

 tion, much remains to be done before the 

 history of the southern continents is as well 

 known as that of the northern ones, and in 

 particular many questions must remain 

 open until the Tertiary mammals of Africa 

 and Australia shall have been recovered. 

 It is interesting to observe that we are 

 again approximating to the views expressed 

 by Eiitimeyer in 1867. 



Botany. Peof. N. L. Britton, Columbia 



College. 



Prof. Britton took up the subject from the 

 standpoint of Antarctic botauJ^ He re- 

 marked that as nothing worth consideration 

 was known of the flora of the Antarctic 

 Continent, the inquiry must be restricted to 

 a consideration of the vegetation of the ex- 

 treme southern parts of South America, 

 South Africa, New Zealand and the islands 

 of the South Pacific Ocean. Genera of wide 

 distribution cannot enter as factors in the 

 inquiry, except in cases where closely re- 

 lated or identical species occur in two or 

 more of these areas. Genera and species of 

 circumtropical distribution must be consid- 

 ered with caution, because this distribu- 

 tion may or may not have a bearing on 

 the problem. He noted that this circum- 



tropical distribution of plants is well 

 marked, large numbers of genera and spe- 

 cies being common to the warmer parts of 

 America, Australasia and Asia, and some 

 common to tropical America and Africa. 

 Types of cosmopolitan distribution must ob- 

 viously be ignored. Types of simple organ- 

 ization, typically of wide distribution, can- 

 not fairly be considered. 



He submitted the following cases of dis- 

 tribution, selected from widely different 

 families from the Bryophytes upward : 



Musci. AndrcBa pseudosubulata. Fuegia 

 and Australia. Campylopus xanthophylltts. 

 Chile and New Zealand. The genus Codon- 

 ohlepharwn contains about eleven species, six 

 in southern South America, three in New 

 Zealand, two Asiatic. The genus Hymeno- 

 don, of six species, has two in southern South 

 America, three in Australasia, one in trop- 

 ical America. Leptotheca Gaudichaudii oc- 

 ccurs in New Zealand, at the Falkland 

 Islands, and Cape Horn. The genus Lep- 

 tostemon consists of about eight species, two 

 of them in southern South America, five in 

 Australasia, one in Ceylon. 



FiLiCES. Grammitis australis and Lomaria 

 alpina occur in southern South America, 

 Tasmania, New Zealand, and the latter on 

 Kerguelau. The genus Gleichenia, mostly 

 confined to the tropics, contains related 

 species in Soiath Africa, southern South 

 America and New Zealand. 



CoNiFEEJS. The genus Araucaria contains 

 ten species, all South American and Aus- 

 tralasian. Fitzroya Patagonica occurs in 

 Chile and F. Archeri in Tasmania. The 

 genus Podocarpus has about forty species, 

 South American, South African, Austral- 

 asian and Asiatic. 



Aponogetonace^. Aponogeton contains 

 about fifteen species, African, Australian 

 and Asiatic. 



Alismace^. Caldisia with three species in 

 Africa, New Holland and the East Indies. 



Centeolepidace^. Gaimardia australis in 



