13 
AUSTRALIA AND EUROPE FORMERLY ONE 
CONTINENT. 
BY BERTHOLD SEEM ANN, Pli.D., F.L.S., Y.P.A.S. 
T O our forefathers it must have had a wonderful fascination 
when some astrologer of note proclaimed the great 
events that were to happen in the world, or uttered solemn 
words of warning that sent a thrill of horror through the 
believing multitude. Our practical age, by its unbelief, has 
deprived itself of all the pleasure resulting from that pas- 
time. True, there have been some modern attempts in that 
direction, but they have invariably resulted in failure. We 
no sooner hear of some popular preacher having predicted 
the end of the world to occur within three years' time, than 
we read in the newspapers that the prophet has rudely 
destroyed our nascent belief by taking a new lease of his 
house for a series of years. Modern science, which dis- 
pelled so many delusions, has laid it down as one of its 
dogmas, that it is absolutely useless to attempt lifting the veil 
which separates the living present from the unborn future; 
and mankind has no sooner mastered this dogma than it makes 
right-about-face, and throws itself, with all the ardour of a 
youthful lover, into the arms of the past. Not content with 
such history as is written in books, it compels the hiero- 
glyphics of Egypt and the picture-writings of America to 
give evidence. Rude implements are put in the witness- 
box, and every stone or bone touched by the hand of extinct 
human races becomes an object of interest. The fainter the 
stream of history runs, the greater the interest it inspires. 
But at last a point is reached where all human history, as far 
as present investigation goes, apparently comes to an end. 
Even if we assume the correctness of M. Desnoyer's observa- 
tion, man's existence upon earth has, as yet, not been traced 
farther back than to the Pleiocene formation. But it would 
be premature to say, because no evidence has as yet been 
adduced, that man may not have existed in the Eocene, espe- 
cially as it can be shown that a race of men, the lowest we 
know of, co-exists with that remnant of the Eocene Flora 
which still survives on the continent and islands of Australia. 
With the entire cessation of data for human history, our 
