i8 4 4 1858] CONTINENTAL EXTENSION 93 



To J. D. Hooker. Letter 48 



Down, July 5th [1856]. 



I write this morning in great tribulation about Tristan 

 d'Acunha. 1 The more I reflect on your Antarctic flora the 

 more I am astounded. You give all the facts so clearly and 

 fully, that it is impossible to help speculating on the subject ; 

 but it drives me to despair, for I cannot gulp down your 

 continent ; and not being able to do so gives, in my eyes, the 

 multiple creationists an awful triumph. It is a wondrous case, 

 and how strange that A. De Candolle should have ignored 

 it ; which he certainly has, as it seems to me. I wrote Lyell 

 a long geological letter 2 about continents, and I have had a 

 very long and interesting answer ; but I cannot in the least 

 gather his opinion about all your continental extensionists ; 

 and I have written again beseeching a verdict. 3 I asked him 

 to send to you my letter, for as it was well copied it would not 

 be troublesome to read ; but whether worth reading I really 

 do not know ; I have given in it the reasons which make me 

 strongly opposed to continental extensions. 



I was very glad to get your note some days ago : I wish 

 you would think it worth while, as you intend to have the 

 Laburnum case translated, to write to " Wien " 4 (that unknown 

 place), and find out how the Laburnum has been behaving: 

 it really ought to be known. 



The Entada* is a beast; I have never differed from you 

 about the growth of a plant in a new island being a far 

 harder trial than transportal, though certainly that seems 

 hard enough. Indeed I suspect I go even further than you 

 in this respect ; but it is too long a story. 



1 See Flora Antarctica, p. 216. Though Tristan d'Acunha is "only 

 1,000 miles distant from the Cape of Good Hope, and 3,000 from the 

 Strait of Magalhaens, the botany of this island is far more intimately 

 allied to that of Fuegia than Africa." 



2 Life and Letters, II., p. 74. 



3 In the tenth edition of the Principles, 1872, Lyell added a chapter 

 (Ch. XLL, p. 406) on insular floras and faunas in relation to the origin 

 of species ; he here (p. 410) gives his reasons against Forbes as an 

 extensionist. 



4 There is a tradition that Darwin once asked Hooker where " this 

 place Wien is, where they publish so many books." 



5 The large seeds of Entada scandens are occasionally floated across 

 the Atlantic and cast on the shores of Europe. 



