. 74.] TO JOHN H. REDFIELD. 775 



" Mr. Wright was a person of low stature and well- 

 knit frame, hardy rather than strong, scrupulously 

 temperate, a man of simple ways, always modest and 

 unpretending, but direct and downright in expression, 

 most amiable, trusty, and religious. He accomplished 

 a great amount of useful and excellent work for 

 botany in the pure and simple love of it ; and his 

 memory is held in honorable and grateful remem- 

 brance by his surviving associates." 1 



TO JOHN H. REDFIELD. 



CAMBRIDGE, November 3, 1885. 



MY DEAR REDFIELD, - - 1 was interested in your 

 Corema Con. 



I have a remark to make on the last sentence of it ; 

 I would ask, How could the plant have an introduction 

 following the glacial period ? And where could it 

 have come from ? 



Of course my idea is that it existed at the higher 

 north before the glacial period - - that is my fad. 



But one sees that this is one of a few plants that 

 may be appealed to in behalf of an Atlantis theory, 

 as coming across the Atlantic, making this Corema a 

 derivation from C. alba, of Portugal, or of its ancestor. 

 But the Atlantic is thought to be too deep for an At- 

 lantis ; and we do not need it much. 



What induces me to refer to your paragraph is to 

 ask whether your " following the glacial period," 

 that is, recent introduction, means in your thought 

 that our species is a direct descendant of Corema 

 alba, which by some chance got wafted across the 

 Atlantic. 



1 American Journal of Science, 3 ser. xxxi, 12.-- 1886. Reprinted 

 in Scientific Papers, selected by C. S. Sargent, vol. ii. p. 468. 



