HASEMAN, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION IN SOUTH AMERICA 101 



changes in the environments, including the climate, have occurred in 

 North America than South America, it appears probable that paleotelic 

 characters evolve faster. This belief may seem absurd, yet if it is only 

 in part true, it has a profound significance in correlation, and especially 

 in determining the exact age of the fossil beds in South America. 



If it is true, then older-appearing South American beds are in reality 

 much more recent. At any rate, this impression demands careful study, 

 and especially in the case of the invertebrates. 



I believe that the North Polar theory of the origin of land animals 

 expounded by Haacke and in a general way supported by Wortman, 

 Sharff and more recently by Matthew, is the view which agrees best 

 with all of the known facts of geology, paleontology and zoology. Kiiti- 

 meyer, Huxley, von Ihering, Forbes, Ortmann, Hedley, Sinclair, Ame- 

 ginho, Osborn and others have maintained connections between Australia 

 and Patagonia, but their evidence has been derived almost entirely from 

 the static viewpoint of zoogeography, which, as Tower has well said, is a 

 dead and profitless pursuit. Besides, there never has been a general 

 agreement between any of these authors either in regard to exact position 

 or time of existence of the connection. They have also utterly failed to 

 show how and why just certain animals were able to get across the con- 

 nection. Why, for example, did not edentates and other early Tertiary 

 mammals of Patagonia also get into Australia? Would not such a con- 

 nection have had a barrier ? ■ Besides, the distance across this south polar 

 continent is not small. They also do not attach much importance to the 

 strong geological evidence against such connections. 



The ideal northern marsupial from which we could easily derive both 

 Thylacynus and the sparassodonts is not definitely known to exist, but it 

 is also not known in either Patagonia or Tasmania. In fact, I should 

 expect to find it in Asia and northern South America, both of which 

 places are entirely unknown from the standpoint of primitive mam- 

 malian paleontology; but even if the necessary ancestor is never found, 

 it will not be the only gap left open in paleontology. 



The indecisive evidence used in support of the Antarctica theory does 

 not appear to me to outweigh the fact that neither the deep-sea sound- 

 ings, the trend lines, the lack of islands, location of Archean rock nor 

 the location of known marine formations even vaguely suggest a Pata- 

 gonia-Australian connection. Besides, such indecisive biological data are 

 not as weighty as the vast array of data in favor of the persistence of the 

 continents and the great ocean beds, so ably defended by Sir John Mur- 

 ray and others. The deposits in the great ocean depths like those be- 

 tween South America plus the Antarctic islands, Africa and the Aus- 



