Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/108

82 that the land connection from Newfoundland to Ireland remained in existence up to the beginning of the Quaternary. A second bridge, further to the north, which could hardly have been broken before the middle of the Quaternary, seems also to have been in existence.

The observations of Warming and Nathorst on the flora of Greenland are also instructive in this connection. They show that on the south-east coast of Greenland, and thus exactly on the stretch of coast which, according to the displacement theory, still lay during Quaternary times just in front of Scandinavia and North Scotland, the European elements predominate, whilst on the whole of the remaining coast of Greenland, including North-east Greenland, the American influence prevails. According to Semper, the Tertiary flora of Grinnell Land was more closely related (up to 63 per cent.) with that of Spitsbergen than to that of Greenland (30 per cent.), whilst to-day it is naturally the converse (64 and 96 per cent. respectively). Our reconstruction for the Eocene gives the solution of this puzzle, since the distance given from Grinnell Land to Spitsbergen is smaller than that between the former and the fossil localities in Greenland.

The facts regarding the South Atlantic bridge are made still clearer and simpler in Fig. 15. As Stromer, among others, emphasizes, the distribution of the Glossopteris flora, the reptilian family of the Mesosauridæ, and many other elements, forces us to the