ABSTRACT
Zimmerman, E.C. We must recognize that it is abnormal conditions that account for much overseas dispersal. It is not the soft, gentle tradewind-it is the irresistible hurricane that is the key.
So many continents and land bridges have been built in and across the Pacific by biologists that, were they all plotted on a map, there would be little space left for water. Whenever a particularly puzzling problem arises, the simplest thing seems to be to build a continent or bridge, rather than to admit defeat at the hands of nature, or to consider the data at hand inadequate for solving the problem. Most of the land bridges suggested to account for the distribution of certain plants and animals in the Pacific create more problems than they solve. If the central and eastern Pacific ever included large land areas and land bridges, there should be some indication of the consequent peculiar development of the fauna and floras, but there is no such evidence.
