It may be said that the Carboniferous formations demonstrate the existence of a vast extent of dry land in the present dry-land area, and that the supposed terrestrial Palaeozoic Vertebrate Fauna ought to have left its remains in the Coal-measures, especially as there is now reason to believe that much of the coal was formed by the accumulation of spores and sporangia on dry land.  But if we consider the matter more closely, I think that this apparent objection loses its force.  It is clear that, during the Carboniferous epoch, the vast area of land which is now covered by Coal-measures must have been undergoing a gradual depression.  The dry land thus depressed must, therefore, have existed, as such, before the Carboniferous epoch—­in other words, in Devonian times—­and its terrestrial population may never have been other than such as existed during the Devonian, or some previous epoch, although much higher forms may have been developed elsewhere.

Again, let me say that I am making no gratuitous assumption of inconceivable changes.  It is clear that the enormous area of Polynesia is, on the whole, an area over which depression has taken place to an immense extent; consequently a great continent, or assemblage of subcontinental masses of land must have existed at some former time, and that at a recent period, geologically speaking, in the area of the Pacific.  But if that continent had contained Mammals, some of them must have remained to tell the tale; and as it is well known that these islands have no indigenous Mammalia, it is safe to assume that none existed.  Thus, midway between Australia and South America, each of which possesses an abundant and diversified mammalian fauna, a mass of land, which may have been as large as both put together, must have existed without a mammalian inhabitant.  Suppose that the shores of this great land were fringed, as those of tropical Australia are now, with belts of mangroves, which would extend landwards on the one side, and be buried beneath littoral deposits on the other side, as depression went on; and great beds of mangrove lignite might accumulate over the sinking land.  Let upheaval of the whole now take place, in such a manner as to bring the emerging land into continuity with the South-American or Australian continent, and, in course of time, it would be peopled by an extension of the fauna of one of these two regions—­just as I imagine the European Permian dry land to have been peopled.

I see nothing whatever against the supposition that distributional provinces of terrestrial life existed in the Devonian epoch, inasmuch as M. Barrande has proved that they existed much earlier.  I am aware of no reason for doubting that, as regards the grades of terrestrial life contained in them, one of these may have been related to another as New Zealand is to Australia, or as Australia is to India, at the present day.  Analogy seems to me to be rather in favour of, than against, the supposition that while only