276 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COCOA PALM. 
groups to the southward before it was carried around the end of the 
Malay peninsula into the Indian Ocean. The cocoanut could probably 
not be carried inland into the humid Malay peninsula, and a people 
migrating thither from the islands would have been compelled to leave 
it behind on the coast. 
OCEAN CURRENTS INEFFECTIVE. 
Owing to its great weight and size, the cocoanut can be held to have 
reached Asia in only three ways by means of a formerly different 
distribution of land masses, by ocean currents, or by human agency. 
There is little reason to carry the question far back in geologic time, 
because the strict localization of the genera and higher groups of 
5S 
palms gives no evidence of contact between the Asiatic and American 
floras since the differentiation of the principal groups took place. 
The theory of transfer by ocean currents has received much attention 
and far greater credence than the facts seem to warrant. While it is 
difficult to set a limit to the possibilities of such a means of distribu- 
tion, the probabilities are certainly not extensive. To prove that the 
cocoanut is adapted especially for maritime distribution. it would be 
required to show that water is the normal, or at least a very frequent, 
medium of dissemination, and that on this account selection has 
favored the development of thicker husks. But it. is obvious that 
few cocoanuts ever reach the water, and that the thick husk is neces- 
sary to permit the heavy fruit to drop with safety from tall trees, and, 
as all nuts must make this journey, such a selection is real and univer- 
sal. Moreover, the protection is even yet not adequate, so that it is 
customary in the Kast Indies to pick by hand and let down by ropes 
the nuts intended for planting, those which are allowed to fall being 
injured, frequently to the extent of failing to germinate or of fur- 
nishing only weakly and debilitated seedlings which may never attain 
to normal development or produce full-grown, fertile fruits. Even 
when no mechanical injury to the nut proper is apparent, the power 
of germination may be destroyed by decay, which sets in where the 
husk has been bruised. To insure h vaulthy and vigorous seedlings the 
nuts must be fully ripe, after which planting ean not be safely delayed 
more than a month. If kept too moist the nuts rot, but if too dry 
they soon lose the power of germination. If allowed to lie in the 
sun and become overheated, they are also killed, while under too much 
shade the seedlings will make little or no erowth, 
There is, indeed, little in the way of observed fact to support the 
poetic theory of the cocoanut palm dropping its fruit into the sea to 
float away to barren islands and prepare them for human habitation, 
This time-honored fancy contains several other practical difticulties. 
Thus, in the first. place, the cocoanut palm seldom grows upon the 
immediate strand overhanging the water, or even in reach of ordinary 
