72 CARL SKOTTSBERG, A BOTANICAL SURVEY OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



200 m,, the Islands would form part of the continent.* I have tried to illustrate 

 this on a map, Fig. 9. Tt is, I think, not too audacious to presume that the Islands 

 were connected witli the mainland for some time dnring the Tertiary, a supposition 

 that would at once explain the striking conformity of the floras. 



It is of a certain interest to note what Th. Arldt ^ writes on the geographical 

 development of subantarctic America. On p. 113 he remarks, that as certain groups 

 of animals are wanting in the Falklands, these islands have remained isolated since 

 the middle of the Mesozoic, and that they never were connected with the continent 

 after that time. But in order to explain, how the two mammals, the fox and a 

 rat, came to the islands, he thinks that the distance between them and the main 

 diminished some time after the Miocene; however, no connection became established. 

 But we can indeed explain the absence of animals, without assuming such a long 

 isolation as Arldt does ; for why should not many creatures have disappeared during 

 the solifluction? The preglacial coniferous forest was probably the home of many ani- 

 mals that one does not find in the islands to-day. It is stränge that Arldt does not 

 take the glacial epoch into consideration, especially as he believes in an inland-ice 

 in the Falklands; I do not know wliere he got it from. 



If we start from the generally accepted opinion on the dispersal of plants it 

 is, of course, not necessary to admit a land connection. For the distance is not 

 very great from Fuegia to the Falklands, and must have been less at the time of 

 maximum upheaval. A number of species could migrate from Fuegia to the Falk- 

 lands (and perhaps sometimes in the opposite direction also), but there are many 

 that are not likely to have been carried from one place to another either by winds, 

 currents or sea-birds, the agents generally reckoned with. 



There are no deposits in the Falklands corresponding to the N oUiofagus-heds 

 mentioned above. We do not know, if they ever possessed the same kind of ter- 

 tiary forests as the Magellan countries, but, on the other hand, there is nothing 

 against such a theory. The only preglacial deposit known, the forest-bed on West- 

 point Island (Pl. V: 4), is of much younger date. The credit of its discovery is due 

 to Mr. Arthur Felton, who kindly assisted us in our survey. Dr. Halle made 

 several sections through the bed, and for particulars reference should be made to 

 his paper. He has proved to full satisfaction, that the fossil trees found in the 

 deposit had grown on the spöt immediately before the period of solifluction and 

 that they were buried by a detritus flow. Two different kinds of wood were found, 

 belonging to a Podocarpus and a Lihocedrus, most likelj^ P. salignus^ and L. chi- 

 lensis, two species still living in South America; the former grows in S. Chile, on 

 the west side of the mountains, extending southward to 41° S. ; the latter reaches 

 42° S. on the Pacific side in the valleys of tlie Cordillera, besides forming big 

 forests in the transandine valleys E. of the main range down to 45 Vs" S. Therefore 

 it seems that the climate of the Falkland Islands immediately before the Ice Age 



^ ToLLEMER, Carte batliynuHrique ffénérale des Oceans. Monaco 1905. 

 - Die Entwickelung der Koiitineiite iiiid ilirer Lebewelt. Leipzig 190'; 

 ^ also called I\ cJiUinns. 



