MAJOR EARTH FEATURES 
189 
pearance of definite traces of a Permian Ice Age in the Katanga 
region (Belgian Congo) reported by Stutzer,^^ and in Togo, by 
Kort.^® If we place the south pole in the vicinity of Natal, then 
we get for Togo on the one side and the region of the east Aus¬ 
tralian glaciation on the other almost equal distances; both come 
to lie at 50 degrees S. Then the north pole apparently falls be¬ 
tween Florida and the Bermudas, if we follow Wegener’s belief 
that North America in Permian time was united with Europe 
and western Africa along the west shore of the North American 
continental mass. Marked traces of the Permian Ice Age are 
nevertheless found nowhere in the unbroken anthracolithic for¬ 
mations of North America.^® 
If we turn to the northern hemisphere, we find a no less insur¬ 
mountable difficulty to Wegener’s proposed origin of the North 
Atlantic Ocean through the separation of North America from 
Europe and eastern Africa. 
The acceptance of a land connection, repeatedly broken down 
and rebuilt, between North America and Europe, or, if we prefer 
the terms made familiar by the work of Suess for the old con¬ 
tinental nuclei, Laurentia and Fennoscandia, is impossible on 
zoo-geographic grounds. The exchange of land faunas between 
the Old World and the (New World begins in Carbonic times 
and lasts until at least Oligocene deposition. From Miocene on, 
it could have been carried on over eastern Asia just^as well as 
over Europe. The long-enduring, long-drawn-out interruptions 
of this faunal exchange are no counterargument against Wegener’s 
hypothesis, since they could also have been caused through trans¬ 
gressions of a shallow epicontinental sea. 
As a positive proof in favor of this assumption, Wegener brings 
forth the parallelism of the two coastal lines of the Atlantic and the 
further structural relations discovered by Bertrand between 
17 Uber Dwyka-Konglomerat im Lande Katanga, Belgisch-Kongo: Zeits. d. deut. 
geol. Gesell., LXIII Bd., p. 626, 1911. 
18 Das Eisenerziager von Banjeli in Togo: Mitt, aus d. deut. Schutzgebieten 1906, 
Nr. 19, p. 106; also, Uber Goldvorkommen in Togo: Ibid., p. 57, 1910; also, Ergeb- 
nisse der neueren geologischen Forschung in den deutsch-afrikanischen Schutzgebieten: 
Beit. z. geol. Erforschung d. deut. Schutzgebieten, Heft I, p. 17, 1913; also, Gagel, 
Die neueren Fcrtschritte in der geologischen Erforschung und die bergbauliche Er- 
schliessung der deutschen Kolonien: Geol. Rundschau, I Bd., p. 203, 1910. 
[19 The nearest tillites are those of Boston, Mass.; these are local ones and may be 
older than Permian. The next nearest tillites are those of Brazil.] 
20 Ea chaine des Alpes et la formation du continent Europ^en: Bull. Soc. Geol. de 
France, 3d ser., T. XV, p. 423, 1887. 
