324 Carboniferous Glaciation , Etc .— White. 
lotheca, Ginkgophyllum, etc., have entirely disappeared at the 
beginning of the Tertiary. Considering the great terrestrial 
changes which must have occurred, even in Australia since 
the paleozoic era, and the contradictory evidence intervening, 
the fact that the present life of Australia contains many types 
that have “ lasted on ” cannot with any degree of rationality 
be adduced to prove a consequent “lasting on ” of the Palseo- 
zoic fauna. Hardly less rational would it be to suppose that 
the Carboniferous flora of Europe extended into mesozoic 
time, than to presume that the Carboniferous fauna of a con¬ 
tinent as large as Europe and Asia together prevailed in lower 
mesozoic time, because the recent life of Australia presents an 
archaic aspect. 
In what part of the Africo-Indo-Australian continent the 
Glossopteris flora originated, it is impossible to know; but, so 
far as the scattered remains of that continent have been ex¬ 
plored, the earliest appearance of mesozoic plants was in Aus¬ 
tralia, and perhaps in the lower Carboniferous of New South 
Wales. It is probable that during the latter half of the Car¬ 
boniferous epoch, this flora spread over the whole of the an¬ 
cient continent, replacing the more delicate palseozoic forms. 
Meanwhile there occurred changes of the land masses, caus¬ 
ing changes of the ocean currents, with consequent climatic 
effects, and changes in organic life, though to what extent the 
currents maybe regarded as a cause is still a subject for spec¬ 
ulation. Paleontology shows pretty clearly that that part 
now in Australia was separated from the rest of the continent 
at the close of the palaeozoic, and that arms of the sea cut 
off all connection with Africa in the Jurassic. In the Trias or 
possibly at the close of the Permian, a connection existed be¬ 
tween Europe, Asia and that part now represented in India, 
through southeastern China, and in Tonkin we have a flora of 
22 species, as identified by Zeiller, of which ten are in the Lias 
and Rhetic of Europe, five in the Damudas of India, one in 
the Newcastle beds, with two allied species in the same ter- 
rane, while five others are common to the Rajmabal terrane 
The Tonkin flora, considered by Feistmantel and Zeiller as 
Rhetic contains, then, a mingling of European mesozoic types 
with plants represented in several stages in the midst of the 
Gondwana system. Through this region the southern flora 
probably found its way northward to be distributed, during 
