3 l 8 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : PALAEONTOLOGY. 
should have coexisted with that between Antarctica and South America; 
indeed, it is quite possible that the one was interrupted when the other 
was established. The same refers to the connection of Antarctica with 
South Africa. 
As regards the latter point, there is no doubt that some evidence in 
favor of this connection has been found. 1 But this evidence is much less 
distinct than in the case of the other two continents. Possibly the junc- 
tion of South Africa with Antarctica is to be sought for far back in Meso- 
zoic time, or it was, in the Tertiary, only of short duration. As to the 
reconstruction of this bridge, we must pay due attention to the fact that 
great depths of the sea have been discovered by the “Valdivia” to the 
south of the Cape of Good Hope (see Chun, 1900, p. 180 and map by 
G. Schott, ibid. Lieferung 4). Although great depth of the present sea 
is by no means a decisive argument against the former existence of land 
(as for instance Chun believes), it is better, if no other evidence is forth- 
coming, to be as conservative as possible, and not to interfere with these 
great depths. In our map we have given two indications for this land 
bridge : the one going from Enderby, or possibly Wilke’s Land, by way 
of the Kerguelen, Crozet and Prince Edward Islands, the other following 
the submarine ridge in the South Atlantic indicated by Schott in his map, 
and connecting southwest Africa with the Falkland Islands by way of 
Tristan da Cunha. Which one of these bridges, or whether either of them, 
is correct, we have at present no means of deciding. 2 
Although there is still much room for speculation, we wish to emphasize 
the fact that the fossil marine animals of Patagonia distinctly point to this 
old connection of South America with Antarctica at the end of Cretaceous 
and the beginning of Tertiary times, and that Antarctica in turn was at 
some time connected with Australia and possibly with New Zealand. As 
Hedley maintains, there was no continental connection with the latter ; 
we cannot decide this question, since we treat only of marine litoral ani- 
mals, and for them a close vicinity of the respective litoral waters is suffi- 
cient. The Patagonian fauna demands a theory that assumes a compara- 
I should like particularly to call attention to the presence of the freshwater fish Galaxias 
capensis at the southwestern corner of Africa (see Weber, 1897, p. 197). 
"The extremely uneven and rugged bottom of the sea between Enderby Land and the Ker- 
guelen Islands, as described by Chun, is in favor of the first assumption ; as regards the second, 
I refer the reader to what Weber (1897, p. 198) says about a direct communication of south- 
west Africa with v. Ihering’s “ Archiplata.” 
