Origin of the Angiospermous Flora of Soutli Africa. 355 



only with Africa, Madagascar, and to a small extent with East India, 

 these forming a portion of an ancient continent (named by him 

 Archhellenis), w^hich successively broke up into pieces, and thus, 

 e.g., many genera were preserved in Madagascar and South America, 

 which elsewhere died out. Lastly, the fresh-water fauna of the 

 southern part of South America and of Chile are, according to him, 

 closely connected with that of New Zealand and partly with that of 

 Australia and Tasmania. These facts are parallel with some of the 

 phytogeographical facts previously mentioned to which others 

 derived from the Flora of Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands 

 will be. referred to later on. Even Socotra yields such points of 

 contact (Balfour, 1888, p. Ixxiv). 



It is satisfactory to find that such a high authority as Mr, 

 Boulenger (1905, p. 417) accepts the hypothesis of the former land- 

 connection between Tropical South America and a portion of 

 Tropical West Africa. He says : " As it is admitted by most geolo- 

 gists that a continuous land-communication probably existed across 

 the Atlantic between South America and Africa up to the end of 

 the Upper Cretaceous period (not, however, in the position designed 

 by Dr. Ortmann, as is proved by the recent discovery of Turonian 

 beds in the French Soudan, in Nigeria, and in Cameroon), it is 

 legitimate to explain the distribution of the GharacinidcE — Africa and 

 Central South America — by such a bridge. This explanation tallies 

 well with the fact, pointing to a severance from remote times, that, 

 although the Characinids of the Old and New Worlds show near 

 affinity, no single genus is common to both. The further fact that 

 the more generalised genera (Erythrinince) are now found in America, 

 points to the African forms having migrated from the West." 



Ameghino (1906, p. 280) deals also with the supposed ancient 

 land-connections between South America, Australia, North America, 

 and Africa, after having gone into it already thoroughly in a previous 

 paper which I have, however, not seen. According to him South 

 America and Africa were united by continuous land, a portion of 

 the Archhellenis of Mr. v. Ihering (1893) during the whole of the 

 Upper Cretaceous, and this junction, though restricted, existed still 

 during a portion of the Eocene, while in the form of a chain of 

 islands it existed to the Middle Miocene. 



This assumption is based largely on facts of distribution of 

 animals, but as far as I can judge such a junction between the two 

 continents must already, in Jurassic times, have been somewhat 

 removed from South Africa. The occurrence of Stereoptermim in 

 Southern Brazil and of Mesosaurus in South Africa, as also the dis- 

 covery of theromorphous reptiles in Southern Brazil apparently 



