The map on page 51 shows the position of these elevations. They must
have been originally islands;--stepping-stones, as it were, between
Atlantis and the coast of Europe.

Sir C. Wyville Thomson found that the specimens of the fauna of the
coast of Brazil, brought up in his dredging-machine, are similar to
those of the western coast of Southern Europe. This is accounted for by
the connecting ridges reaching from Europe to South America.

A member of the Challenger staff, in a lecture delivered in London, soon
after the termination of the expedition, gave it as his opinion that the
great submarine plateau is the remains of "the lost Atlantis."

CHAPTER VI.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA.

Proofs are abundant that there must have been at one time uninterrupted
land communication between Europe and America. In the words of a writer
upon this subject,

"When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared, one
cannot but be struck with their identity; all or nearly all belong to
the same genera, while many, even of the species, are common to both
continents. This is most important in its bearing on our theory, as
indicating that they radiated from a common centre after the Glacial
Period. . . . The hairy mammoth, woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish
elk, the musk-ox, the reindeer, the glutton, the lemming, etc., more or
less accompanied this flora, and their remains are always found in the
post-glacial deposits of Europe as low down as the South of France. In