514 THE DISTRIBUTION, ETC., OF ALKALINE ROCKS, 



times. A. Russel Wallace has given strong biological evidence 

 in favour of the very theory which he in the main opposes. The 

 work of Hill and Spencer on oceanography and recent soundings 

 in the Atlantic are by no means adverse to it. Much ethnological 

 and mythological evidence has been advanced in favour of the 

 hypothesis by other writers, and this evidence is at least 

 interesting and suggestive if not strictly scientific (cf. ; Atlantis/ 

 by Ignatius Donnelly). 



The work of Wallace has likewise revealed that land-bridges 

 must have existed up to a very recent period between the Malay 

 islands; and Hedley has made it clear that there must have been 

 at least Mesozoic land-connection between the New Hebrides, the 

 Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Australia. Dr. Ortmann's great 

 paper on the distribution of freshwater decapods and past 

 land-conuections is also full of suggestions. T. Mellard 

 Reade in his " Evolution of Earth Structure " also shows himself 

 strongly antagonistic to the doctrine of the " Permanence of 

 Ocean Basins " in its literal sense. 



The necessity for assuming a past land-connection between 

 Australia and South America across the Antarctic continent 

 becomes yearly more imperative. 



Suess has given convincing proof of the existence of an Indo- 

 African continent up to the end of the Cretaceous period, and the 

 establishment by Professor David * of Darwin's theory as to the 

 origin of Atolls makes the possibility of a Pacific continent less 

 remote. 



It has therefore been demonstrated by men of the highest 

 scientific repute that Atlantis, Gondwana-lancl, Antarctica, the 

 Wallace-Hedley continent, Lemuria, etc., are not mere scientific 

 myths. It follows that many regions which were once dry land 

 are now deep sea. 



The converse seems also to be true to a certain extent for the 

 reasons here summarised. 



(1) The sediments overlying the present continents seem far 

 too extensive to have been derived from themselves alone. Tf 



* Funafuti Report. 



