X.W 1 
TNTJiODUCriON. 
ii nuinlx'r ()1‘ aulliors, including, among otliers, Amcghiiio * * * § , Blanford f , Boulenger 
l.ydc'kker 1 ^, Ncumayr||, Ortmann Scott** * * §§ , Sucssff, and von IheriiigJJ. These 
Avriters, basing their argnincnts on many diverse kinds of evidence, all seem 
to arrive at the general conclusion that a land-connection did exist between 
Africa and South America throughout at least most of the Secondary period and 
may have persisted into the Lower Tertiary. Concerning the precise position 
of this land-connection, and whether it may have existed at more than one point, 
there is some diversity of oj)inion, but these differences do not seem to be of 
any great importance compared with the general agreement that there must have 
been such a connection. Speaking generally, it appears that (1) probably in 
Jurassic times Africa and South America formed a continuous land-mass ; (2) in 
the C’rctaccous period the sea encroached southwards over this land, forming 
what is now the South Atlantic. How far this depression had advanced southwards 
at the end of the Secondary period is not clear, but it appears certain that the 
final separation of the two continents did not take place till Eocene times, and 
that there may have been a chain of islands between the northern part of Africa 
and Brazil u hich persisted even till the Miocene 
On the assumption that this series of events did happen, there is little difficulty in 
accounting for most of the peculiarities in the distribution of the various groups. 
Thus, to mention only a few instances, the presence in both continents of the Hystrico- 
morphine Bodents, of Chelonians of the family Belomedusidic, and of the Fishes of the 
family Cichlidm is at once accounted for. So also is the presence in the Santa Cruz 
* La Argentina al travtts cle las Ldtiinas Epocas Geologicas (Buenos Aires, 1897). Also “Liuea 
InlogencHica cle los Proboscicleos,” Anales Mus. Nac. Buenos Aires, vol. viii. (1902) p. 19 ; and “ Les 
Edentes fossiles de France et d’Allemngne,” he. cit. col. xiii. (190o) p. 175. 
t Presidential Address to the Geological Society, 1890. 
t Presidential Address to the Zoological Section, Brit. Assoc. (South Africa, 1905). 
§ A Geographical History of Maiiiuials (189G), p. 127. 
jj Erdgeschichle (1890), p. 370. 
“Geographical Lislribiition of Freshwater Decapods and its Bearing on Ancient Geography,” Proc. 
Ainer. Phil. Soc. vol. xli. (1902) p. 267. 
** Deports of the Princeton University Expeditious to Patagonia (1890-1899) — Palaeontology, vol. v. 
pt. ii. (1905). 
ft Das Antlitz der Erde, vol. ii. (1888). 
Jl; “ On the Ancient Delations between New Zealand and South America,” Trans. New Zealand Instit. 
vol. XXV. (1891) p. 431. 
§§ For evidence of tlie probable existence of shallow water across this rc^gion, perhaps as late as the 
Miocene, see Gregoiy, Qeait. Journ. Gtol. Soc. vol. li. (1895) p. 300. 
