10 Merriam Geographic Distribution of Life. 



Date Author Name given to region Study based on ]t<ink 



1854 Agassiz Canadian Fauna Animals 2 



1856 Woodward . . . Canadian Province Mollusks 1 



1856 Gray Middle and Northern Plants (?) 



Wooded District. 



1859 Le Conte Northern Province Insects 2 



1859 Cooper Lacustriaii Province Forests 1 



1863 Verrill Canadian Fauna Birds 1 



1863 Binney Northern Region Mollusks 2 



1870 Brown Lacustrian Province Forests 1 



1871 Allen Hudsoiiian and Cana- Animals 3 



dian Faunas. 



1882 Engler Region of Conifers Plants 2 



1883* Packard Boreal Province Animals 1 



1884 Sargent Northern Forest Forests 2 



1884 Drude Canadian District Plants 2 



1890 Merriam Boreal Region Animals and plants. 2 



Atlantic, Central, and Pacific Divisions of Temperate North America. 



It has been the custom of recent writers to divide the broad 

 middle zone of North America (most of which lies within the 

 United States) into three main divisions Atlantic or Eastern, 

 stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern border of the 

 plains ; Central, from the plains to the Sierra Nevada ; and Pacific, 

 from the Sierra to the Pacific Ocean.* These regions were pro- 

 posed as early as 1854 by the elder Agassiz, who however 

 divided the Eastern or Atlantic district into two regions of equal 

 rank Alleghanian and Louisianian, or faunas of the Middle and 

 the Southern States. In this respect he has been followed by 

 Cope. Other authors, including Le Conte, Baird, and Allen, 

 regard the southern district as only a subdivision of the Eastern 

 region. Agassiz named the Central region the ' Table-land or 

 Rocky Mountain Fauna'' and the Pacific the 'California/in frunm.* 



This arrangement of the United States into three provinces 

 has been followed in the main by Le Conte (1859), W. G. Binney 

 (1863), Baird (1866), Cope (1873), Grisebach (1875), Wallace 



* These divisions must not be confounded with those of Amos Binney 

 (published in 1851) bearing the same names, for Binney's Atlantic region 

 lay between the Atlantic and Alleghanics, his Central region between the 

 Alleghanies and the Rocky mountains, and his Pacific region between the 

 Rocky mountains and the Pacific. Woodward's divisions (1S."><;) are 

 essentially those of Amos Binney. 



