CEJSrOZOIC TIME — QUATERNARY. 1019 



THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT IN THE QUATERNARY. 



The Antarctic Continent appears to have been enlarged during the Pleis- 

 tocene to the wide limits it had in Permian time, and to have thus renewed 

 its connection with southern Africa, Madagascar, the Mauritius group or 

 Mascarene Islands, and Australia, and probably also with South America. 

 At the same time, Australia was enlarged eastward to New Zealand and 

 beyond to the Chatham Islands, as well as northward along the islands in 

 the New Zealand line ; or else it derived a connection with these islands 

 through extension of the Antarctic Continent. As shown on the Bathymet- 

 ric chart, following page 20, the joining of Chatham Island to New Zealand 

 would require an elevation of only 800 feet ; and one of 1200 would unite 

 northeastern Australia to New Caledonia; and one of 500, Australia to 

 New Guinea. 



The evidence of these connections is based chiefly on the near identity in 

 some species of Birds and other animals of these widely distant lands. The 

 genus Aplianapteryx (related to that of the Rails), known for some years 

 from Mauritius (east of Madagascar), has been found by H. 0. Porbes to 

 have had a species on one of the Chatham Islands, — distant from Mauritius 

 over 120° in latitude ; and the two species, A. Broecki of Mauritius, and 

 A. Haivkinsii of the Chatham Islands, are scarcely distinguishable. Several 

 species of New Zealand Birds were found by Porbes on Chatham Island ; 

 among them the Kea, a Parrot " that changed its diet in recent years, for- 

 saking fruits, and now kills sheep by eating through their backs to their vital 

 organs " ; the flightless Woodhen, Ocydromus Australis, the Owl, Glaucidium 

 Novi-Zealandiae, and also a Hawk and Swan. 



Further, Australia had, in Quaternary time, a Dromornis, closely related 

 to the gigantic Dinornis of New Zealand and the ^pyornis of Madagascar. 

 Moreover, Africa has the related Ostrich ; and southern South America has 

 afforded remains of a great flightless bird of Ostrich affinities. The Penguins, 

 also flightless birds, range from South America to South Africa, Australia, 

 New Zealand, and the Antarctic Islands. Similar facts occur among Eden- 

 tates, Amphibians, and Plants. 



Porbes, in view of the facts, concludes that the land of the Antarctic 

 circle had, in late geological time, a large .extension, admitting of migration 

 between the continents and with the adjoining or adjoined islands. He 

 remarks, also, on the glaciated condition of such a continent in a Glacial 

 period, and its effects in producing cold or glacial conditions in the southern 

 hemisphere. 



Porbes's paper is contained in the Proceedings of the Geographical Society 

 of London, October, 1892, and in the Geological. Magazine for May, 1893 ; 

 and he has another paper on the subject of zoological character in the Maga- 

 zine of Natural History, July, 1893. 



