358 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



etc., even small reptiles and mammals, are hidden within 

 the hollow trunk or cling to the branches. In the earth 

 adhering to the fibres of the roots, in the dust lying in the 

 cracks of the bark, there are innumerable germs of smaller 

 animals and plants. Now, if the trunk thus washed away 

 lands safely on a foreign shore or on a distant island, the 

 guests who had to take part in the involuntary voyage can 

 leave their boat and settle in the new country. A very 

 remarkable kind of water-transport is formed by the floating 

 icebergs which annually become loosened from the eternal 

 ice of the Polar Sea. Although these cold regions are thinly 

 peopled, yet many of their inhabitants, who were accidentally 

 upon an iceberg while it was becoming loosened, are carried 

 away with it by the currents, and landed on warmer shores. 

 In this manner, by means of loosened blocks of ice from 

 the northern Polar Sea, often whole populations of small 

 animals and plants have been carried to the northern 

 shores of Europe and America. Nay, even polar foxes and 

 polar bears have been carried in this way to Iceland and to 

 the British Isles. 



Transport by air is no less important than transport by 

 water in this matter of passive migration. The dust cover- 

 ing our streets and roofs, the earth lying on dry fields and 

 dried-up pools, the light moist soil of forests, in short, the 

 whole surface of the globe contains millions of small organ- 

 isms and their germs. Many of these small animals and 

 plants can without injury become completely dried up, and 

 awake again to life as soon as they are moistened. Every 

 o-ust of wind raises up with the dust innumerable little 

 creatures of this kind, and often carries them away to other 

 ]ilaces miles off*. But even larger organisms, and especially 



