AUSTKALIA AND ETJEOPE FORMERLY ONE CONTINEST. 19 
interest in tlie good and evil periods through which our 
planet has passed does not abate ; but we go on inquiring 
into the nature and formation of the tertiary, secondary, 
and primary rocks, because the. history of the one. helps 
to explain that of the other, and imparts an irresistible 
force to the dicta of modern investigation. After we shall 
have made greater advance in these investigations, and accu- 
mulated more facts, we shall be in a fair position to reconstruct, 
with a tolerable degree of accuracy, the whole surface of our 
globe as it existed at the various geological periods, show the 
boundaries of the continents and islands, clothe them with 
extinct forms of vegetation, and recal to life races of animals 
and men long passed away. Unger's ideal landscapes of 
primitive nature* foreshadowed the results which the united 
labours of geologists, botanists, zoologists, and anthropologists, 
are busy to bring about. It cannot be said that at present 
they are pursuing their labours in concert ; on the contrary, 
every one is too busily engaged in his own workshop to 
trouble himself much about the doings of others; but there 
is no harm in that course when so much preliminary work has 
still to be got through. It is perhaps all the better that up 
to a certain point every one should work independently, merely 
contenting himself with letting the general public know the 
principal results at which he has arrived. 
The facts which botanists have accumulated for recon- 
structing these lost maps of the globe are rather comprehensive; 
and they have not been backward in demonstrating the former 
existence of several large tracts of solid land in parts now 
occupied by great oceans. The many striking points of con- 
tact between the present floras of the United States and 
Eastern Asia induced them to assume, that during the present 
order of things there existed a continental connection between 
South Eastern Asia and Western America. The singular 
correspondence of the present flora of the Southern United 
States with that of the lignite flora of Europe induces them 
to believe that, in the Miocene period, Europe and America 
were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, 
and the other Atlantic islands, are remnants ; that, in fact, 
the story of Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon, 
is not purely fictitious, but rests upon a solid historical basis. 
Again, the existence of certain Iberian plants in Ireland they 
explain by having once more recourse to a former continental 
connection between the Iberian peninsula and that island. An 
hypothesis even bolder than any of these has been advanced 
* Ideal Views of the Primitive World in its Geological and Palaeonto- 
logical Phases. London : Robert Hardwicke, 192, Picadilly. 
