Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (1802–1885) was a French

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and scientist who theorized about the possibility of

continental drift Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of pl ...

, anticipating Wegener's theories concerning

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million y ...

by several decades. In 1858, Snider-Pellegrini published his book, ''La Création et ses mystères dévoilés'' ("The Creation and its Mysteries Unveiled"). He proposed that all of the

continents A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

were once connected together during the

Pennsylvanian Period The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the younger of two subperiods (or upper of two subsystems) of the Carboniferous Period. It lasted from roughly . As with most o ...

. He based this theory on the fact that he had found plant fossils in both Europe and the United States that were identical. He found matching fossils on all of the continents. Also Pellegrini proposed a large change in the Earth's size during the time of the Biblical Genesis account. Pellegrini was preceded by

Abraham Ortelius Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the '' Theatrum Orbis Terra ...

and followed by

Eduard Suess Eduard Suess (; 20 August 1831 - 26 April 1914) was an Austrian geologist and an expert on the geography of the Alps. He is responsible for hypothesising two major former geographical features, the supercontinent Gondwana (proposed in 1861) and t ...

Roberto Mantovani Roberto Mantovani (25 March 1854 – 10 January 1933), was an Italian geologist and violinist. He proposed an early model of continental drift in which a single continent broke up and the continents were displaced by thermal expansion and volca ...

Frank Bursley Taylor Frank Bursley Taylor (1860 – 1938) was an American geologist, the son of a lawyer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. although Taylor himself disapproved of the hyphenated name. But even with Wegener's extensive extra research the idea did not achieve ac ...

, and

Alfred Wegener Alfred Lothar Wegener (; ; 1 November 1880 – November 1930) was a German climatologist, geologist, geophysicist, meteorologist, and polar researcher. During his lifetime he was primarily known for his achievements in meteorology and ...

as early advocates of continental drift.

References

French geologists French geographers 1802 births 1885 deaths {{france-scientist-stub