520 



THE AMEBIC AS S A TV BALI ST 



Vol. XLIII 



ern complex of land was isolated from the southern part 

 of South America by a wide sea channel stretching right 

 across the continent. 



His conception of an extensive laud having once flour- 

 ished to the west of Central America, while the latter was 

 largely submerged, is not altogether new. In alluding to 

 the east-westward trend of the Antillean Cordillera and 

 its abrupt termination on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, 

 Professor Suess 24 makes a suggestion as to its former 

 westward prolongation. Precisely at the point, he says, 

 where the arcuate continuation of this chain might be 

 expected to meet the principal chains of South America, 

 lie the volcanic Galapagos Islands. 



Panama moreover left the impression on Dr. Hill's 23 

 mind that large areas now covered by the Pacific, to the 

 west of the isthmus, were once replaced by an extensive 

 land surface. 



Nothing more, however, can be deduced from geological 

 testimony as to the presence of any land connecting North 

 and South America at a time when Central America may 

 have been still whollv or partially submerged. Nor can 

 we even surmise from these suggestions at what geological 

 period such hypothetical land may have existed. Other 

 methods will have to be employed in order to discover the 



America. 



If we examine the whole eastern Pacific coast line from 

 Alaska to Cape Horn, we notice that there are two areas 

 that have apparently remained entirely i 



geds 



Jurassic times to the present dav. One of these <>ccupn'> 

 part of western Mexico and Lower California, the other a 

 strip of the southern coast line of Chile. It is the latter 

 coast cordillera which Dr. Burckhardt 26 believed to be the 



remaining remnant < 

 porphyritic conglom 



fitment, Decani 

 i aire are heaped 



