].20 ME. J. BALL OX THE DISTRIBUTION OF 



conspicuous success by Mr. H. C. Watson for the Horaof Great Britain in his well-known 

 ' Cybele Britannica.' 



I learn that during the last few years of Mr. Ball's life, partly from failing eyesight, 

 partly from other causes, lie had worked but little at the Table, though he always 

 regarded it as of great importance. I do not know that this materially diminishes its 

 value. It is obvious that no work of the kind can ever be absolutely final. 



I am indebted to Mr. C. H. Wright, Assistant in the Kew Herbarium, for the patient 

 labour with which he has prepared the Table for the press in a form convenient to 

 consult. Beyond this, which is a mere matter of typographical arrangement, no attempt 

 has been made to edit it in any way. 



Mr. Ball appears to have compiled it partly, as he states, from recorded, but no doubt 

 in great measure from personal observations *. As he possessed an almost unique 

 knowledge of Alpine plants, I can hardly doubt that the details were in every case 

 critically sifted, and are, as recorded, thoroughly trustworthy. 



There is, however, one obvious difficulty in work of this kind when data derived from 

 different sources are made use of; this is the reduction of the observations to a uniform 

 standard. Mr. Ball was fully a-ware of this. Scattered between the pages of the Table 

 was a profusion of loose scraps of paper on wdiich were written critical remarks relating 

 to the various entries. These have been carefully pasted down in their proper places in 

 the original manuscript, so as to be available for future reference. I thought at first that 

 a selection of these notes might have been made into a brief commentary. But the task 

 of attributing to them the particular weight which the author intended seemed all but 

 impossible, and it may be presumed that no entry had been made in the Table itself 

 without due deliberation. 



It was also proposed to accompany the Table with a map showing the districts. This 

 idea was abandoned, and for similar reasons. Those who are acquainted with an intricate 

 mountainous country will readily understand that, though practically there may not be 

 the smallest difficulty in recognizing a particular district on the spot, questions of great 

 intricacy may and probably will present themselves in attempting to delimit it on 

 a map. 



In the passage which I have quoted from Mr. Ball, he himself raises the question 

 " what conclusions should be drawn from " his work. And to this it must be confessed 

 that he himself has returned no satisfactory answer, so far as the problem of the local 

 distribution of the plants on the southern slopes of the Alps is concerned. Had his 

 life been spared to us we might have hoped that he would have seen his way to 

 summarize his results. At any rate, the material will now be available for anyone who 

 has the time and inclination for an interesting task. If I may venture to express my 

 own opinion, the best guide to the results wiU be found in a remarkable paper by the 

 late M. Alphonse de CandoUe, which was communicated to the International Botanical 



* I take from a small note-book the following as some of the principal sources of information, besides his own 

 observations, of which he made use : — Eertoloni, Bentham, Ambrosi, Parlatore, Ilev. S. W. King, Boissier, Reuter, 

 G. C. Churchill, Nyman, Thomas of Bex, Moutiui of Bossoruo, Rev. Tietro Porta, Allioni, Pirona, Saussure, Cesati, 

 Lisa, Alberto Frauzoni, and Dr. Rostan. 



