646 
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 
isolated by a wide sea, probably an ocean, from the land that 
occupied in Carboniferous and Permian days so wide an area in 
the northern hemisphere. The importance of the new discovery 
is the immense extension that is given to Gondwana land and the 
proof it affords that the region with its flora extended to the 
western hemisphere and included a part at all events of South 
America. This appears to indicate that a considerable area now 
occupied by ocean in the southern hemisphere was land in the 
Carboniferous period. Further research is needed to show whether 
the various tracts of Gondwana land were connected by a South 
Polar land area." 
A region like the above if of long continuance would form a 
favourable centre of development for the higher forms of vegeta- 
tion. We have already indications that Dicotyledons existed in 
the southern hemisphere at an earlier age than in the northern. 
Is it not therefore possible that the Proteacece, at least, which, as 
Bentham has shown, represent — especially the Tribe Nucamen- 
tacece — a very ancient type 3 may have here originated ? While 
the connection of this land with South Africa and Australia 
continued, opportunity would be afforded for the colonisation by 
Proteacece- of both countries, and the subsequent subsidence of the 
connecting links would result in the present separation into two 
divisions of one group of plants. The close alliance of other 
groups of phanerogams in South Africa and Australia has been 
already referred to, and there are not wanting botanists who 
consider that it was in the southern hemisphere that the evolu- 
tion of the higher orders of plants commenced. 
The Conifer o& are a very ancient group, and they do not appear 
to furnish reliable data from which the distribution of land and 
water in past ages can be deduced. Coniferce make their 
appearance in Carboniferous times both in the northern and 
southern hemispheres. Araucaria comes into view in the Jurassic 
Period in the northern hemisphere. The genus is a remarkable 
instance of persistence of type, a character which also applies to 
the species. In China remains closely allied to our Araucaria 
Cunninghamii have been found, and in the Bagshot Sands at 
