CONTINENTAL ANALOGIES 445 



analogies, not previously suspected, have been brought to light. Among 

 those which find support from the facts of geological history is the anal- 

 ogy between North and South America, where a significant number of 

 symmetrically placed subcontinental areas appear to be of rather similar 

 geological development. Indeed, it may be fairly pointed out that the 

 chief contrasts between these two typical continents do not result so much 

 from differences in their geological constitution as from differences in 

 their position with respect to the climatic belts whereby the South Amer- 

 ican analogue of the frozen northern parts of North America lie within 

 the torrid zone, and whereby the South American analogue of tropical 

 Central America projects far into the inhospitable belt of the south tem- 

 perate zone and has glaciers on its shores instead of coral reefs. Among 

 the new analogies that geology has brought to light is that most striking 

 one between Eurasia, taken as a whole, and North America ; but here the 

 repetition of similar features is symmetrical right and left, about an 

 Atlantic axis. It is from this analogy that one finds the best means of de- 

 termining that Europe and Asia should not be regarded as two separate 

 continents, although they certainly should be regarded as two ''grand 

 divisions" of the lands; for on matching the corresponding parts of the 

 questionable single or double continent of Europe and Asia with the cor- 

 responding parts of the unquestionably single continent of North Amer- 

 ica it is found that Europe matches only the eastern part of North 

 America, and that a large part of Asia is needed in supplement before the 

 western part of North America finds its analogue. In all such compari- 

 sons the unlikenesses are not to be overlooked. They are numerous and 

 striking in the analogy just mentioned between North America and 

 Eurasia ; but the likenesses, not merely in outline, but in geological his- 

 tory and structure, are still more striking and give strong support to the 

 possibility of their resulting from a similar series of terrestrial processes. 

 Among the analogies of outline which find no support in geological 

 structure and history is the one between South America and Africa. The 

 elements of likeness, long ago pointed out, are that both these continents 

 become narrower toward their southern extremity, to the east of which 

 lies a large island. The broad, blunt termination of Africa is thus likened 

 to the tapering southern end of South America, and the large subconti- 

 nental island of Madagascar is matched with the Falkland Island group. 

 There is nothing in South Africa to parallel the lofty and modern chain 

 of mountains that forms the border of South America on the west, nor 

 with the extensive plains of later geological formations that in South 

 America slope toward the eastern coast. There is nothing in southern 

 South America to compare to the long undisturbed highland of the Veld, 



