20 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



animals that are found in the rocks extending over a great area from 

 North America to the south of the Cape Colony, with a heel pro- 

 jecting southwards to the Falkland Islands. That this fauna is so 

 strikingly different from other contemporary faunas is an argument 

 in favour of a former continuity in the land masses which yielded 

 the materials of the sediments in which the animals are now 

 imbedded. 



Neumayr * inferred a land connection between Africa and South 

 America in Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods from the follow- 

 ing evidence : — (1) The absence of Jurassic marine beds on the 

 western coast of Africa and on the eastern coast of South America ; 

 (2) the evidence of ancient land in the Cape Verde Islands and 

 St. Paul's ; (3) the fact that the Neocomian (Wealden) Uitenhage 

 fauna of the Cape Colony differs entirely from the European, whilst 

 the Jurassic fauna of western South America does not. 



Dr. Blanford states f that the biological evidence of a former land 

 connection between South America and Africa is much stronger than 

 that in favour of a belt of land between Africa, Madagascar, and 

 India, although the latter is supported by geological data. He 

 gives among other evidence the presence of fresh-water fishes of the 

 important families, Chromididce and Characinidce, which are almost 

 entirely confined to these two continents, and the Dipnoans, 

 Lepidosiren and Protopterus, the one South American, the other 

 African, being the only representatives of the group. Very striking, 

 also, is the distribution of the Amphisbaenidge, the two genera 

 Amphishana and Anops being represented in both the southern 

 continents bordering the Atlantic, while the genera in Northern 

 Europe and North America are not nearly related. Dr. Blanford 

 argues from the distribution of living animals that the land 

 connection across the South Atlantic lasted to a later geological 

 epoch than that across the Indian Ocean. 



The evidence is very much in favour of this connection of Africa 

 with South America, and is sufficiently strong to base further 

 argument upon. It does not matter whether this connection really 

 followed the great arc through the Trinidad group and just to the 

 north of Tristan d'Acunha, and perhaps embracing the whole width 



1868, p. 397 ; Ulrich, " Neues Jahrbuch," Beil. Bel., VIII., 1893, p. 60; von Amnion, 

 Zeitschr. Gesell. f . Erdkunde, Berlin, 1893, p. 363 ; Clarke, Archiv. Mus. Nac. Bio 

 de Janeiro, X. 1899, p. 99 ; E. M. Kindle, 28th Ann. Bept. Geology of Indiana, 

 1904, pi. ii., fig. 6; Katzer, " Grundzuge der Geologie der unteren Amazons 

 gebietes," Leipzig, 1903; Beed, Ann. S.A. Museum, IV., 1904, p. 192. 



* Denkschr. K.K. Ak. Wiss. Wien, Math. -Nat. CL, Bd. L., 1885, p. 132. 



f Anniversary Address, Geol. Soc, London, 1890, p. 73. 



