16 Atlantis and Lemuria * [January, 
make very large concessions. Thus Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 
in a lecture delivered not quite twelve months ago, con- 
sidered it possible that a land-connedtion may have existed 
between Europe and America, whilst New Zealand, Tas- 
mania, and South America may have been linked together 
by ridges of dry land, whilst Madagascar may have been 
similarly joined to Africa and even Asia. The evidence for 
“ Atlantis” as situate between Africa and Americadid not seem 
to him satisfactory. 
Here, then, we have an admission of the former existence 
not merely of Lemuria, but of a Pacific continent, though at 
a higher latitude than has been generally supposed. There 
could scarcely be a wider departure from the existing dis- 
tribution of continents than a belt of land severing the 
Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean. 
Mr. Wallace makes concessions somewhat similar, and 
if less extensive, much more judiciously defined. He thinks 
that during tertiary times Madagascar was “ often probably 
much larger than it is now,” and that to its north-east 
“ there was once a series of very large islands, separated 
from it by not very wide straits ; whilst eastward across the 
Indian Ocean we find the Chagos and Maidive coral atolls 
marking the position of other large islands, which together 
would form a line of communication by comparatively easy 
stages of 400 to 500 miles each between Madagascar and 
India.”* 
Thus, then, we have Lemuria recognised not indeed as a 
continent, but as an archipelago of large islands ! 
Turning to the regions of the Pacific we find that the same 
distinguished author considers New Zealand as having been 
anciently connected, whether by a continuous traCt of land 
or by a chain of islands, with tropical Australia and New 
Guinea, “ and perhaps at a still more recent epoch with the 
great southern continent. ”t Concerning Australia Mr. 
Wallace remarks also : — “ During some portion of the Ter- 
tiary epoch Australia probably comprised much of its existing 
area together with Papua and the Solomon Islands, and 
perhaps extended as far east as the Fiji Islands, while it 
might also have had a considerable extension to the south 
and west. ’’I Here, then, we have a goodly continent, largely 
encroaching upon what is now sea-bed, especially if, as is 
not improbable, the Moluccas and all land to the east of 
“ Wallace’s line ” were in connection with Papua. 
* Island Life, p. 386. 
f Ibidem , p. 444. 
+ Geographical Distribution of Animals, i., p. 465. 
