236 W. H. HOBBS ORIGIN OF OCEAN BASINS 



ignore the records of a later state of things. Before we read the old 

 palimpsest we must clear away all traces of the modern inscription." 



FOEMEE INTEKCONTINENTAL EeGIONS 



To cite an example in which a revision of the argument for perma- 

 nency would be necessary, a region may be selected which the writer has 

 found some opportunity to examine. At many localities in Malta, Sicily, 

 and upon the peninsula of Italy, even as far north as the Alps, there are 

 found the abundant remains of a typically African fauna, which includes 

 elephants, hippopotamuses, hyenas, etcetera, forms which lived and died 

 in intimate association with a fauna like that of southern Europe today. 

 A study of this region affords evidence in the structure of its shores that 

 the continental bridge which once joined southern Europe to Africa was 

 destroyed in late Tertiary time through the depression of its greater por- 

 tion to depths ranging from 3,000 to 12,000 feet below the present 

 surface of the Mediterranean, leaving only the present peninsulas and 

 islands as remnants. That this movement is not yet completed the fre- 

 quent and disastrous earthquakes of the region may indicate. 



A second striking illustration of the importance of zoogeographic 

 studies interpreted in the light of organic evolution is furnished by 

 Scott's* investigations of the specimens collected in Patagonia by the 

 late Professor Hatcher. The presence there in Tertiary time of a defi- 

 nite fauna of the Australian and Tasmanian types is thus proven, and 

 shows clearly that a land connection between South America and Aus- 

 tralia must have existed, though considerable ocean depths now separate 

 the two continents. 



Some of the other areas which zoogeographers have with more or less 

 persistence asserted were in geologically recent times connected are: 



1. North and South America through the "Antillean continent." 



2. New Zealand and Australia, separated by depths of 6,000 to 12,000 

 feet, for which connection in Cretaceous time is indicated. 



3. The Solomon islands and New Guinea, separated by depths of 3,400 

 to 3,000 feet, for which bridging in Tertiary times is indicated. 



4. Madagascar and Africa, separated by depths of 6,000 feet and more 

 almost throughout the 250 miles of breadth of the Mozambique channel, 

 which was certainly bridged in Middle Tertiary time. 



5. Madagascar and India, separated today by depths of 15,000 feet, 

 probably bridged in Tertiary time, when with much probability they had 

 also a continental connection with Australia as a part of the "Gondwana 

 land" of Suess. 



• W. B. Scott : Geological Magazine, vol. 7, December 4, 1900, pp. 470-471. 



