THE AMERICAN FAUNA AND ITS ORIGIN. 
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crossed by way of Atlantis between Africa and America to have 
maintained their identity until now. Professor Lobley rightly 
argues against the theory of a former Atlantis on the ground of the 
enormous depth of the ocean between western Africa and America : 
and to this I would add that in the late Dr. Daniel Wilson’s lecture 
quoted by me after Professor Hull’s paper on the “Fauna of Islands," 
a parallel was drawn between Plato’s statement and the idea that 
the early discoverers had of America ; one Elizabethan writer even 
speaking of it as an island, and the first French Colonists thinking 
that the River St. Lawrence was a channel leading to China and so 
calling its first rapids Chute de la Chine— a name that they have 
borne ever since. Doubtless, said Doctor Wilson, the Carthaginian 
mariners who left their coins upon the Azores, did at one time 
penetrate to America, and on their return described it, but were 
not able to reach it any more ; so that the story went abroad that 
a rich and beautiful country beyond the Pillars of Hercules had 
dropped out of sight into the depths of ocean. 
Professor H. Langhorne Orchard (in the Chair). — Professor 
Logan Lobley never addresses us without giving us something 
valuable, something for thoughtful consideration. It is a great 
advantage, in matters geological, to have the subjects introduced by 
so careful, so patient, so sound, an investigator. 
The interesting comparison of the fauna of the western 
hemisphere with the fauna of the eastern, shows that while some 
forms are common to both hemispheres, others are restricted to the 
one hemisphere or to the other. This leads to the conclusion that 
migration is not the only factor concerned in faunal arrangement, 
and that animal life has had origin in more than one locality. 
On the much debated question of the Permanence of Ocean 
Basins, the reasoning in the paper has much force. We shall 
probably conclude with the learned author that “ an elevation of 
12,000 feet,” (or thereabout), “at one time or another in different 
areas during the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods, . . . would 
be sufficient to allow of all the animal migrations necessary. . ." 
Whether or not the mystery of Atlantis is to be solved, as has 
been suggested, by the prior discovery of America, is a matter in 
regard to which we do well to be patient. 
The series of “ horse-like animals ” invites some comments. If 
the more recent forms were the progeny of the less recent, then, as. 
