427 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



think I have now shown, on the other hand, that it was 

 essentially a provisional hypothesis, very useful in calling 

 attention to a remarkable series of problems in geographical 

 distribution, but not affording the true solution of those 

 problems, any more than the hypothesis of an Atlantis 

 solved the problems presented by the Atlantic Islands and 

 the relations of the European and North American flora 

 and fauna. The Atlantis is now rarely introduced seriously 

 except by the absolutely unscientific, having received its 

 death-blow by the chapter on Oceanic Islands in the Origin 

 of Species, and the researches of Professor Asa Gray on the 

 affinities of the North American and Asiatic floras. But 

 " Lemuria " still keeps its place — a good example of the 

 survival of a provisional hypothesis which offers what seems 

 an easy solution of a difficult problem, and has received an 

 appropriate and easily remembered name, long after it has 

 been proved to be untenable. 



It is now more than twenty-five years since I first showed, 

 by a careful examination of all the facts to be accounted 

 for, that the hypothesis of a Lemurian continent was alike 

 unnecessary to explain one portion of the facts, and 

 inadequate to explain the remaining portion.^ Since that 

 time I have seen no attempt even to discuss the question 

 on general grounds in opposition to my views, nor on the 

 other hand have those who have hitherto supported the 

 hypothesis taken any opportunity of acknowledging its 

 weakness and inutility. I have therefore here explained 

 my reasons for rejecting it somewhat more fully and in a 

 more popular form, in the hope that a check may thus be 

 placed on the continued re-statement of this unsound 

 theory as if it were one of the accepted conclusions of 

 modern science. 



that a similarity in the productions of widely separated continents at any 

 past epoch is only to be explained by the existence of a direct land-con- 

 nection, is entirely opposed to all that we know of the wide and varying 

 distribution of all types at different periods, as well as to the great powers 

 of dispersal over moderate widths of ocean possessed by all animals except 

 mammalia. It is no less opposed to what is now known of the general 

 permanency of the great continental and oceanic areas ; while in this par- 

 ticular case it is totally inconsistent (as has been shown above) with the 

 actual facts of the distribution of animals. 



^ OcograpMcal Distribution of Animals, Vol. I,, pp. 272 — 292, 



