No. 410.] THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 103 
There is at once a fatal objection to this theory, vis., that 
there can have been no such land connection during Pliocene 
or Pleistocene times between Greenland and Spitsbergen. It 
was formerly generally believed that the Arctic Sea was a fairly 
uniformly shallow basin, but as one of the most important 
results of Nansen's Fram expedition we know now that the 
sea north of Spitsbergen and Francis Joseph Land is very 
deep, certainly more than 1600 fathoms, while to the west of 
Spitsbergen, between it and Greenland, we have soundings as 
deep as 2650 fathoms. A wide channel between these coun- 
tries, certainly not less than 1500 fathoms in depth, connects 
the North Atlantic deep with the polar basin. It can be said 
with the utmost certainty that an elevation sufficient to bridge 
this and thus connect Greenland with Spitsbergen has not 
existed during the geological periods mentioned.! It is highly 
probable that the extreme elevation in that part of the world 
at that time did not exceed the present 300-meter line. At all 
events, there must have been a gap between land and land of 
at least 150 miles, a distance quite sufficient to bar all migra- 
tion of the mammalia which Dr. Scharff includes in his Arctic 
fauna. 
But apart from this insuperable barrier, there is a good 
reason why Spitsbergen cannot have been in the route of these 
animals, v/z, that with one exception they do not occur in 
Spitsbergen, nor were they ever known to occur there. The 
Arctic hare is certainly absent, and the records of a lemming 
and the ermine are highly dubious. Even if it should be true 
that a lemming occurs there, it is pretty safe to say that it 1s 
Tt will scarcely do to regard the dead shells of shoal water forms, such as 
Yoldia arctica, which the Danish “ Ingolf ” expedition in 1896 dredged between 
Iceland and Jan Mayen Island in depths between 500 and 1300 fathoms, as p m 
ofa Corresponding depression since glacial times. It is incredible that these dead 
Shells which are scattered all over the surface of the bottom of the North Atlantic 
Ocean should: have been lying there loose all these thousands or ten — 
years without being covered up or destroyed. I certainly agree with those w 5 
hold that these shells have been dropped there by shore ice floated out to sea. 
will be noted, moreover, that even the supposition of an extreme rise of I j 
fathoms does not affect our argument as to the continuity of Greenland nae 
Spitsbergen, since they would still be separated by a deep channel at least 15 
miles wide, 
