The Biogeographical Aspect of the Debate Over Continental Drift

This paper examines the biogeographical component of the sixty-year controversy over the reality of continental drift. It begins with an examination of Wegener's solution to the problem of accounting for the distribution of life forms having a geographically disjunctive distribution and traces the development of the problem through the work of the major as well as many minor participants in the controversy. It closes with a discussion of the most important impact of the acceptance of plate tectonics upon the biogeographical community, namely, the rise of meta-biogeography.