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Marsupial migration.
The Papers say that the ancestors of kangaroos roamed Australia 45 million years ago, and that 35 million years ago there was a land bridge re-connecting Australia, Antartica, and South America.
Marsupial fossils are found in Upper Oligocene strata (35-40 million years ago) in Australia and as far back as the Cretaceous in South America (about 65 million years ago). Marsupial fossils have also been found on Seymour Island in the Antarctic. Fossil evidence indicates that marsupials did not reach Australia from either Asia or Africa.
Again, most modern readers would pass over this information without realizing that, when written, the concept of continental drift up until the 1960's, was still a major heresy. Now the linking of these three continents constitutes an accepted part of the theory.
So the statement on marsupial migration and drifting continents had to be just another lucky guess by our hypothetical committee expert--for there was no evidence to presume migration via the Antarctic could occur. As with continental drift and mountain building, to be wrong makes the book look silly, to be correct does little for it except for readers conversant with geology and paleontology.
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