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3 
SURVIVING REFUGEES OF ANCIENT ANTARCTIC LIFE, 283 
marsupials recorded from Australia, that the marsupialia dawn 
upon the Australian horizon as a highly differentiated group, and 
that Prof. Spencer has demonstrated! “ that the diprotodonts had 
their origin in the Euronotian region,” meaning that their centre 
of dispersal lay to the south east of Australia. Von Ihering has 
suggested? that a large area of South America was separated in 
Mesozoic times from the remainder and maintained a distinct 
fauna and flora. If from this tract, which he terms Archiplata, 
were excluded, as he holds, placental mammals, it may have 
peopled Australia with marsupials and yet not have transferred 
thence Edentates or Hystricomorph Rodents. 
The relation of Antarctica to African lands is a subject on 
which an Australian student has little chance to form an opinion. 
Perhaps the faint though real affinity (as shown in the distribution 
of the molluscs Endodontide, Rhytidide, and Acavinz), would be 
explicable on the supposition that before either America or 
Australia had united with Antarctica, Africa had already been 
joined to and broken from it, receiving a colony thence or leaving 
one there to mix with American and Australian forms when the 
Vicissitudes of continental growth permitted. 
Inan inquiry’ into the distribution of the pond snail Gundlachia 
[lately proposed as the simplest solution of the problem. That 
DURING THE Mesozoic on OLDER TERTIARY, A STRIP OF LAND 
WITH A MILD CLIMATE EXTENDED ACROSS THE SoUTH PoLE FROM 
Tasmanta to TERRA DEL FUEGO, AND THAT TERTIARY NEW 
ZEALAND THEN REACHED SUFFICIENTLY NEAR TO THIS ANTARCTIC 
LAND, WITHOUT JOINING IT, TO RECEIVE BY FLIGHT OR DRIFT 
MANY PLANTS aND ANIMALS, as the Galapagos received their 
Population from America, or the Azores theirs from Europe. 
This conclusion was built upon the following evidence. A mini- 
mum of land extension, compared with that asked for by Hutton 
or Forbes, was demanded. A milder climate is admitted by 
z 
aia Austr. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1892, p. 118. 
1 a, New Zealand Institute, 1891, xxrv., p. 434. 
- Linn. Soc. N.S.W., (2) vii., p. 508. 
