XXXI. ("Palaeobotany; Mesozoic"), page 422.)
Darwin would probably have demurred on physical grounds to the extent
of the continent, and preferred to account for the transoceanic
distribution of its flora by the same means which must have accomplished
it on land.

It must in fairness be added that Guppy's later views give some support
to the conjectural existence of the "lost continent." "The distribution
of the genus Dammara" (Agathis) led him to modify his earlier
conclusions. He tells us:--"In my volume on the geology of Vanua Levu
it was shown that the Tertiary period was an age of submergence in the
Western Pacific, and a disbelief in any previous continental condition
was expressed. My later view is more in accordance with that of
Wichmann, who, on geological grounds, contended that the islands of the
Western Pacific were in a continental condition during the Palaeozoic
and Mesozoic periods, and that their submergence and subsequent
emergence took place in Tertiary times." (Guppy, op. cit. II. page 304.)

The weight of the geological evidence I am unable to scrutinise. But
though I must admit the possibility of some unconscious bias in my
own mind on the subject, I am impressed with the fact that the known
distribution of the Glossopteris flora in the southern hemisphere is
precisely paralleled by that of Proteaceae and Restiaceae in it at the
present time. It is not unreasonable to suppose that both phenomena,
so similar, may admit of the same explanation. I confess it would not
surprise me if fresh discoveries in the distribution of the Glossopteris
flora were to point to the possibility of its also having migrated
southwards from a centre of origin in the northern hemisphere.

Darwin, however, remained sceptical "about the travelling of plants
from the north EXCEPT DURING THE TERTIARY PERIOD." But he added, "such
speculations seem to me hardly scientific, seeing how little we know
of the old floras." ("Life and Letters", III. page 247.) That in later
geological times the south has been the grave of the weakened offspring
of the aggressive north can hardly be doubted. But if we look to the
Glossopteris flora for the ancestry of Angiosperms during the Secondary
period, Darwin's prevision might be justified, though he has given us no
clue as to how he arrived at it.

It may be true that technically Darwin was not a botanist. But in two
pages of the "Origin" he has given us a masterly explanation of "the
relati