850 president's address. 



Pacific Islands, whicli runs thus:— "The Australasian genus 

 Metrosideros penetrates as far eastward as Pitcairn, where, as in 

 the Sandwich Islands, it forms large woods ; and the prominence 

 of such other Australasian or Asiatic genera in the Sandwich 

 Islands as Pittosporum, Alphitonia, Cyathodes, Sccevola and 

 Cyrtandra is noteworthy. On the other hand, the peculiar Sand- 

 wich Island ty^e^ seem to have had a former wider extension, as 

 is indicated by the Lobeliaceous arboreous genus Sderotheca and 

 a species of Pliyllostpgia in Tahiti." 



When treating of Tristan d'Acunha in the South Atlantic, Mr. 

 Botting Hemsley says (Appendix, p. 31.3): — " AVhether the 

 present distribution of Phylica nitida was brought about by the 

 agency of birds is highly problematical. The distribution of the 

 genus, like that of many others of the African region, points 

 rather to a former greater land connection." 



The scientific methods of the present age, starting with Darwin 

 and Wallace, have been chiefly directed towards discrediting the 

 miraculous and catastrophal, and towards accounting for all 

 phenomena by means of existing mechanical causes. The old 

 method of explaining facts is admittedly unscientific, but are we not 

 tempted under modern methods to press the argument just a little 

 too far the other way ; and having found, for instance, that some 

 plants, and even some animals, can be dispersed by winds, waves, 

 birds, &C., assume that all have arrived on the scene by the same 

 group of chances 1 Is it unscientific to assume the existence in the 

 past of larger land areas in the Pacific and elsewhere than now 

 exist 1 



Captain Hutton says : — " In the distribution of reptiles and of 

 some birds in Polynesia, we have evidence of the existence of a 

 former continent. The brush turkeys or megapodes ai-e birds 

 that are unable to fly, and yet they are found in Borneo, Celebes, 

 the Philippine Islands, Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, 

 the Marion Islands, the Samoan Islands and others in the Paciiic. 

 Reptiles are widely spread throughout the islands of Polynesia, 

 and we can onl}^ account for it by supposing a former land com- 

 munication. Mr, Wallace, in his ' Island Life,' attempts to 



