324 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
Soconusco district of southern Mexico. Instead of being oval or 
spherical, these nuts are strongly flattened on the very broad apex, 
so that the shape would be described in botanical terms as broadly 
obconic or turbinate. All of the nuts observed in the markets of 
Tapachula at the time of our visit in the spring of 1902 seemed to be 
of this type. They are also of distinctly larger size than those, 
for example, of Costa Rica. This fact may have caused them to be 
preferred for planting, but there is no probability that the peculiar 
shape has been secured by selection. The variety doubtless originated 
as a mutation or “‘sport,”’ like those of the Malay region. 
It is also reasonable to believe that the coconut was established 
on the Pacific coast of Mexico by human agency, as well as on the 
islands of the Pacific. There were Indian tribes of the Aztec family 
scattered along the coast at least as far south as the Nicoya Penin- 
sula of Costa Rica, where many objects believed by archeologists 
to have been made in Mexico have been dug from prehistoric graves. 
The claim of some writers that the Indians of the Pacific coast of 
America are not navigators finds little support in fact, for all along 
between Alaska and Terra del Fuego there have been, even in the 
post-Columbian epoch, tribes with maritime skill and seafaring 
instincts. The Pacific coast of America from Mexico to Peru® is 
dotted at frequent intervals with human remains which mark former 
centers of ancient cultural activity, many of them already decayed 
and forgotten before the Spaniards came, as the early explorers 
themselves had occasion to reflect.? 
ADAPTATIONS OF THE COCONUT FOR GERMINATION. 
For nearly two centuries the coconut has been described in books 
of travel and natural history, and even in formal scientific works, as 
an example of a plant widely distributed in nature through the agency 
of ocean currents. Thus in a recent, text-book: 
The Cocoanut seems especially designed for floating, inasmuch as its outer fibrous 
husk forms a veritable life-preserver; it has been known to float hundreds of miles on 
the surface of the ocean. On reaching a strand, it readily germinates; in this way 
coral and voleanic islands in the South Seas are populated with Cocoanut palms.¢ 
@ The Indians of the islands off the coast of California, now extinct, are supposed to 
have been allied to the maritime tribes of British Columbia. The eminent American 
ethnologist Cushing maintained that a direct connection existed between the Peru- 
vians and the ancient people who built the extensive irrigation canals of Arizona. 
6 Inancient times these Indians were not natives of Quinbaya, but they invaded the 
country many times, killing the inhabitants, who could not have been few, judging 
from the remains of their works, for all the dense canebrakes seem once to have been 
peopled and tilled, as well as the mountainous parts, where there are trees as big 
around as two bullocks. From these facts I conjecture that a very long period of 
time has elapsed since these Indians first peopled the Indies.—Cieza de Leon, p. 89. 
(See footnote above, p. 287.) 
¢ Osterhout, W. J. V., Experiments with Plants, p. 325. (New York, 1905.) 
