178 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
same origin and a similar history? We know nothing of the origin 
of the placental Mammals which took possession of the earth’s 
surface in Eocene times, nor whence Acanthopterygian fishes and 
Angiospermous plants, now the dominant forms throughout the world, 
suddenly appeared in great numbers in the middle of the Cretaceous 
epoch. It is well now and then to remember how many great geo- 
logical problems are as yet unsolved, and that no clue should be 
neglected which may lead to their solution. 
The (lossopteris flora is by no means the only indication of con- 
nection between the Southern continents through the Antarctic area, 
One remarkable fact is the discovery in South America of one living 
genus Cenolestes, and of several extinct forms (Epanorthide, &c.) 
belonging to the Diprotodont marsupials, peculiar with this exception 
to Australia. No representative of this group, living or fossil, has 
been met with in the Northern Hemisphere, all fossil marsupials 
there occuring are Polyprotodont. The curious horned tortoise 
Miolania has been found fossil in both Australia and Patagonia, and 
several other cases of relationship in the Tertiary faunas of the two 
areas are reported. Another interesting fact is the occurrence in 
Madagascar, where a remnant of the old African fauna appears to 
have taken refuge, of land-tortoises and frogs belonging to South 
American types. There is a somewhat similar connection, though 
by means of different families from those occurring in Madagascar, 
between the Batrachia and tortoises of Australia and South America, 
It is quite true that no single instance of those cited affords con- 
clusive evidence of land-connection with the Antarctic region, but the 
cumulative evidence, especially in the case of Mammals and Batra- 
chia, distinctly proves land-connection of some kind and appears to 
indicate a possibility that in upper Mesozoic and Tertiary times, as 
in upper Paleozoic, communication by land existed between the 
continental masses of the Southern Hemisphere and the Antarctic 
continent. In view of the probability that the greater portion of 
the Antarctic land, whether continent or archipelago, is shielded 
from observation by a sheet of ice, it is to be feared that but few 
observations on its geology will be practicable, but it is essential to 
point out that, provided only portions of the surface are accessible, 
the collection of a few fossils trom any sedimentary rocks exposed 
may furnish the solution to one of the questions involved, and that 
these questions are sufficiently numerous to affect a great variety 
of forms of life. 
The following instructions are taken for the most part from those 
drawn up by Charles Darwin for the Admiralty ‘Manual of Scientific 
