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Updated: June 16, 2025
But if we now cross the frontier between the Cainozoic and the Mesozoic faunae, as they are preserved within the Arctogaeal area, we meet with an astounding change, and what appears to be a complete and unmistakable break in the line of biological continuity.
And yet there is no better evidence for the contemporaneity assumed by all who adopt the hypothesis of universal faunae and florae, of a universally uniform climate, and of a sensible cooling of the globe during geological time.
Thus: Animals and plants began their existence together, not long after the commencement of the deposition of the sedimentary rocks; and then succeeded one another, in such a manner, that totally distinct faunae and florae occupied the whole surface of the earth, one after the other, and during distinct epochs of time.
The laws regulating the geographical distribution of animals and their combination into distinct or zoological provinces called faunae with definite limits are very imperfectly understood as yet; but so closely are all things linked together from the beginning till to-day that I am convinced we shall never find the clue to their meaning till we carry on our investigations in the past and the present simultaneously.
Homotaxis is not to be held identical with synchronism without independent evidence. It is possible that similar, or even identical, faunae and florae in two different localities may be of extremely different ages, if the term "age" is used in its proper chronological sense.
In very remote regions, however, whether the circumstances be similar or dissimilar, the general aspect of the organic world differs greatly, remoteness in space being thus in some measure an indication of the degree of affinity between different faunae.
The evolutionist, therefore, is bound to grapple with the following problem whenever it is clearly put before him: Here are the Faunae of the same area during successive epochs.
This would be the more important as, with the exception of Brazil, hardly anything is known of the shore faunae upon the greater part of the South American coast. For shore observations I should like a man of the calibre of Dr. Steindachner, who has spent a year on the coast of Senegal, and would thus bring a knowledge of the opposite side of the Atlantic as a starting basis of comparison. . .
Hence it becomes highly probable that the well-known similarities, and no less remarkable differences between the present Faunae of India and South Africa have arisen in some such fashion as the following.
On what amount of similarity of their faunae is the doctrine of the contemporaneity of the European and of the North American Silurians based?
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