56 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [l866. 



feeling that he was twice as ingenious and clever as myself, 

 but when I feel that he is about a dozen times my superior, 

 even in the master art of wriggling, I feel aggrieved. If he 

 had trained himself to observe more, even if at the expense, 

 by the law of balancement, of some loss of thinking power, he 

 would have been a wonderful man. 



.... I am heartily glad you are taking up the Distribution 

 of Plants in New Zealand, and suppose it will make part of 

 your new book. Your view, as I understand it, that New 

 Zealand subsided and formed two or more small islands, and 



then rose again, seems to me extremely probable 



When I puzzled my brains about New Zealand, I remember 

 I came to the conclusion, as indeed I state in the ' Origin/ 

 that its flora, as well as that of other southern lands, had 

 been tinctured by an Antarctic flora, which must have existed 

 before the Glacial period. I concluded that New Zealand 

 never could have been closely connected with Australia, 

 though I supposed it had received some few Australian 

 forms by occasional means of transport. Is there any 

 reason to suppose that New Zealand could have been more 

 closely connected with South Australia during the Glacial 

 period, when the Eucalypti, &c, might have been driven further 

 North ? Apparently there remains only the line, which I 

 think you suggested, of sunken islands from New Caledonia. 

 Please remember that the Edwardsia was certainly drifted 

 there by the sea. 



I remember in old days speculating on the amount of life, 

 i.e. of organic chemical change, at different periods. There 

 seems to me one very difficult element in the problem, 

 namely, the state of development of the organic beings at 

 each period, for I presume that a Flora and Fauna of cellular 

 cryptogamic plants, of Protozoa and Radiata would lead to 

 much less chemical change than is now going on. But I have 

 scribbled enough. 



Yours affectionately, 



Ch. Darwin. 



