HISTORY OF PALEOGEOGRAPHY 433 



The Irish geologist Hull 5 published three paleogeographic maps of 

 Archean, Siluric, and Carbonic time, showing a great continent in the 

 North Atlantic that furnished the sediments for the Paleozoic formations 

 of western Europe and eastern North America. This he inappropriately 

 called Atlantis. It is a striking fact that all paleogeographers dealing 

 with the North Atlantic region have indicated this great transverse land 

 variously known as Laurentia, Arctic, Greenland, Atlantis, North Atlan- 

 tis, Great Northern continent, Nearctis, and Old Eed continent. It is the 

 Paleozoic and Mesozoic equivalent of Gondwana, the continent equally 

 extensive in the southern hemisphere. 



In the three editions of his "Geological studies," published between 

 1886 and 1889, Alexander Winchell presented six paleogeographic maps 

 that show far more emerged land, usually as islands, than the maps of 

 Dana ; but in these also are indicated the widespread, freely intermingling 

 waters of a vast continental sea which, if really existent, would have pro- 

 duced universal faunas. 



The first geologist to put forward a series of maps showing the pro- 

 gressive geologic geography of a given area was Jukes-Brown, who in his 

 volume entitled "The building of the British Isles : A study in geograph- 

 ical evolution" (London, 1888) included fifteen such maps. This repre- 

 sents the earliest extended work on ancient geography consistently wrought 

 out on the basis of the distribution and the petrologic character of the 

 geologic formations and their deformations. His principles are not 

 widely different from those of Willis, 6 but his point of view is that of an 

 areal geologist who does not attempt to understand the significance of the 

 entombed fossils nor the detailed stratigraphy, but selects out of each 

 system of rocks the widely distributed formations illustrating the growth 

 of the British Isles. His maps show repeated irregular inundations of 

 Great Britain from the east and the gradual disappearance of the western 

 land into the Atlantic. 



The most important book of reference dealing with paleogeographic 

 maps is undoubtedly Lapparent's Traite, which has now become the 

 standard work for maps of this kind. In the fourth edition (1900) of 

 this well known treatise are included twenty-two maps of the world on 

 Mercator's projection, thirty of Europe, twenty-one of France, together 

 with ten taken from the works of other authors. The fifth edition (1906) 

 presents twenty-three maps of the world on a stereographic projection, 

 thirty-four of Europe, twenty-five of France, and ten from other authors. 



Hull : Royal Dublin Society, 1885. 



Willis : Journal of Geology, Chicago, vol. 17, 1909. 



