ed in the Northern Hemisphere, Wallace proceeds, "In
the Southern Hemisphere there appear to have been three considerable
and very ancient land masses, varying in extent from time to time, but
always keeping distinct from each other, and represented more or less
completely by Australia, South Africa and South America of our time.
Into these flowed successive waves of life as they each in turn became
temporarily united with some part of the Northern land."[7]

Although, apparently in vindication of some conclusions of his which
had been criticised by Dr. Hartlaub, Wallace subsequently denied the
necessity of postulating the existence of such a continent, his
general recognition of the facts of subsidences and upheavals of great
portions of the earth's surface, as well as the inferences which he
draws from the acknowledged relations of living and extinct faunas as
above stated, remain of course unaltered.

The following extracts from Mr. H. F. Blandford's most interesting
paper read before a meeting of the Geological Society deals with the
subject in still greater detail:--[8]

"The affinities between the fossils of both animals and plants of the
Beaufort group of Africa and those of the Indian Panchets and Kathmis
are such as to suggest the former existence of a land connexion
between the two areas. But the resemblance of the African and Indian
fossil faunas does not cease with Permian and Triassic times. The
plant beds of the Uitenhage group have furnished eleven forms of
plants, two of which Mr. Tate has identified with Indian Rajmahal
plants. The Indian Jurassic fossils have yet to be described (with a
few exceptions), but it has been stated that Dr. Stoliezka was much
struck with the affinities of certain of the Cutch fossils to African
forms; and Dr. Stoliezka and Mr. Griesbach have shown that of the
Cretaceous fossils of the Umtafuni river in Natal, the majority (22
out of 35 described forms) are identical with species from Southern
India. Now the plant-bearing series of India and the Karoo and part of
the Uitenhage formation of Africa are in all probability of
fresh-water origin, both indicating the existence of a large land area
around, from the waste of which these deposits are derived. Was this
land continuous between the two regions? And is there anything in the
present physical geography of the Indian Ocean which would suggest its
probable position? Further, what was the connexion between this land
and Aus