THROUGH EUROPE AND TO THE ISLANDS OF THE ATLANTIC. 159 
beyond the limits of the European continent is contained in 
Dr. Scharffs book. The subject forms a fitting secpiel to that 
of Professor Lobley, who has ably dealt with the biological 
history of European animals in the paper read before the 
Institute last session.* Both authors recognise the former 
changes in the level of the European and adjacent sea-beds 
owing to which lands now separated by ocean waters were 
connected, and both recognise the spread of type forms from 
centres and their differentiation due to geographical changes. 
Discussion. 
Professor G. F. Wright, D.D., LL.D. — The interesting and most 
significant facts presented by Dr. Hull in explanation of the dis- 
persion of animals on the islands near the western coast of the 
Eastern Continent have their analogies on both sides of the Western 
Continent. North America is bordered on both sides by a 
continental shelf covered with shallow water, which would become a 
part of the continent on a moderate elevation. Across this shelf 
there are drowned canons leading out to the deep sea opposite all 
the great river systems, notably, the Hudson and. the St. Lawrence. 
An elevation of a few hundred feet would lay bare the whole of 
Bering Sea, and join Asia to America, and add greatly to the area 
over which animals might roam and secure abundant forage. 
That there was such a connection at the close of the Tertiary period, 
extending far into the Glacial Epoch, is clear from the dispersion of 
the Asiatic mammoth over North America. This huge animal, 
whose remains are so abundant in Northern Siberia, evidently was 
enticed eastward by the pasture lands now buried in Bering Sea, 
and covered by the shallow waters bordering Alaska, Vancouver, 
Washington and Oregon. In northern Alaska his bones are sg 
numerous and the decay of his flesh so recent that the stench evoked 
at Escholtz Bay by the warm summer’s sun is almost unbearable. 
Over the northern part of the United States the mammoth ranged 
as far east as New England, and south to Mexico. He was in 
* Lobley : “ The spread of the European Fauna,” Tram., vol. xxxix. 
