1844-1858] GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 117 



Abstract ; but I should hope it would sell enough to pay Letter 70 

 expenses. 



I am reading your letter and scribbling as I go on. 



Your oak and chestnut case seems very curious ; is it not 

 the more so as beeches have gone to, or come from the 

 south ? But I vehemently protest against you or any one 

 making such cases especial marvels, without you are prepared 

 to say why each species in any flora is twice or thrice, etc., 

 rarer than each other species which grows in the same soil. 

 The more I think, the more evident is it to me how utterly 

 ignorant we are of the thousand contingencies on which 



o o 



range, frequency, and extinction of each species depend. 



I have sometimes thought, from Edentata l and Marsupialia, 

 that Australia retains a remnant of the former and ancient 

 state of the fauna of the world, and I suppose that you are 

 coming to some such conclusion for plants ; but is not the 

 relation between the Cape and Australia too special for such 

 views ? I infer from your writings that the relation is too 

 special between Fuegia and Australia to allow us to look at 

 the resemblances in certain plants as the relics of mundane 

 resemblances. On the other hand, [have] not the Sandwich 

 Islands in the Northern Hemisphere some odd relations to 

 Australia ? When we are dead and gone what a noble 

 subject will be Geographical Distribution ! 



You may say what you like, but you will never convince 

 me that I do not owe you ten times as much as you can owe 

 me. Farewell, my dear Hooker. I am sorry to hear that 

 you are both unwell with influenza. Do not bother yourself 

 in answering anything in this, except your general impression 

 on the battle between N. and S. 



No doubt a slip of the pen for Monotre ni i . 



