| → OMIT 1866 1869 1872 |
| of the flora 1859 1860 1861 |
|
| → OMIT 1869 1872 |
| in any great degree; 1859 1860 1861 1866 |
|
| → are. 1869 1872 |
| see them to be. 1859 1860 1861 1866 |
|
|
H. C. Watson) from
somewhat northern character
→OMIT
in comparison with the latitude, I suspected that these islands had been partly stocked by ice-borne seeds, during the Glacial epoch. At my request Sir C. Lyell wrote to
Hartung to inquire whether he had observed erratic boulders on these islands, and he answered that he had found large fragments of granite and other rocks, which do not occur in the archipelago. Hence we may safely infer that icebergs formerly landed their rocky burthens on the shores of these mid-ocean islands, and it is at least possible that they may have brought thither
seeds of northern plants. |
|
| Considering that
several
means of transport, and that
other means, which without doubt remain to be discovered, have been in action year after
for
tens of thousands of years, it
I
be a marvellous fact if many plants had not thus become widely transported. These means of transport are
called accidental, but this is not strictly correct: the currents of the sea are not
nor is the direction of prevalent gales of wind. It should be observed that scarcely any means of transport would carry seeds for very great
for seeds do not retain their vitality when exposed for a great length of time to the action of sea-water; nor could they be long carried in the crops or intestines of birds. These means, however, would suffice for occasional transport across tracts of sea some hundred miles in breadth, or from island to island, or from a continent to a neighbouring island, but not from one distant continent to another. The floras of distant continents would not by such means become
→OMIT
but would remain as distinct as
now
→are. The currents, from their course, would never bring seeds from North America to Britain, though they might and do bring seeds from the West
|
