190 
MAJOR EARTH FEATURES 
the Armorican chains of Europe and the Appalachians. But the 
similar structure of Laurentia and Fennoscandia, and the Car¬ 
bonic folding of the south shore, in no way prove the former 
direct union. Along with Suess,^^ we must always conceive of 
northern Europe and northern North America as fragments of a 
higher tectonic unity, and need not conclude from such a con¬ 
ception that there exists a direct union of both parts on a broad 
front. The connection could as well have been accomplished over 
a comparatively small bridge far to the north of the supposed 
connection between the Appalachians and the Armoric arc. It is 
not necessary to postulate a Carbonic folding over the whole ex¬ 
tent from the banks of Newfoundland to the breaking up of the 
continental mass in the west of Ireland, in order that thereby 
the uniformity of the foldings in Newfoundland and in Armorica 
should seem not to be interrupted. Interruptions of folded zones 
over a wide stretch are much more the rule than the exception. 
Does there perhaps exist a true direct union between the European 
and the Asiatic Altaides in the sense of Suess? Even so, what 
right have we to predicate, just such a union between the European 
and the Transatlantic Altaides? 
To this by no means absolutely positive proof of Wegener’s, 
several strong exceptions may be taken. 
Every conception of an original union of North America with 
Europe before the origin of an Atlantic gap demands a marked 
separation of the North American continental mass from eastern 
Asia by a deep-sea realm reaching even into the region of Sima. 
Such a sea-basin, extending over at least 35 degrees of longitude, 
must have been an impassible barrier to all the benthonic faunas 
of the neritic and even the bathyal regions. Now, however, in¬ 
dividual marine faunas of eastern Asia stand in the very closest 
relations to those of western part of America. This holds true 
even for the Cambric faunas of China and western North Amer¬ 
ica. The Early Triassic Meekoceras faunas of the region of 
Vladivostok and California contain a series of identical, or very 
nearly related types, and are very different from the contempor¬ 
aneous faunas of the Arctic and Mediterranean regions. The 
peopling of the California sea could only have come from eastern 
Asia. The eventual acceptance of a migration of this fauna from 
21 Das Antlitz der Erde, III Bd., pp. 59, 89, 1909. 
