VEGETABLE COLONIZATION. 235 



which have replaced them still present to our view the hones and 

 horns of gigantic deer and the buried remains of those primeval 

 forests. Lost species of the ox, the hear, the wolf, the fox, were the 

 sole inhabitants of these solitudes. The task of nature was finished ; 

 that of man was to commence. On his appearance the forests fall 

 beneath the axe, the stagnant waters are drained with extended 

 culture, the animals disappear and the human population increases ; 

 the features of nature are transformed under the incessant progress of 

 civilization. This transformation, the triumph of human energies, is 

 as complete and profound as that wrought during the geologic cycle 

 when the present era succeeded to the glacier period. 



In summing up the ideas of Messrs. Watson and Forbes respecting 

 the origin of the flora and fauna of the British archipelago, we may 

 say with them, that these ishands have been colonized by several suc- 

 cessive acquisitions from continental Europe from the period of the 

 mean tertiary dej^osits to our own era. When a vast continent 

 stretched from the Mediterranean regions to the British isles, the 

 idants of the Asturias and of Armorica peopled the south of England 

 and Ireland. To that period succeeded the glacier epoch, during 

 which the land was immerged to the height of about fifteen hundred 

 feet. This was the epoch of the migration of those Arctic plants which 

 still inhabit the summits of the Scottish mountains. When the land 

 emerged anew England was united to France, and the temperature 

 was what we now find it. x\t this time the great Germanic incursion 

 took place, displacing, to a great extent, all the others, and leaving 

 hut scattered vestiges of their existence. Thus, while the Asturian 

 plants are reduced to a few species confined to the southwest of Ireland, 

 the robust progeny of the north finish their conquest, and possess 

 themselves of the soil which is destined at a still later date to become 

 the heritage of a race of human invaders issuing from the same 

 regions. The colonization completed, England is separated from the 

 continent, and this last geological incident, so insignificant in com- 

 parison with those that preceded it, has exercised an immense influ- 

 ence on the destinies of the world. Less isolated, England had been 

 less distinctively characterized; her stalwart races might, perhaps, 

 have been confounded with one of the great continental nations from 

 which they sprung. 



While Messrs. Watson and Forbes were pointing out the continental 

 origin of the plants and animals of England, I was engaged in study- 

 ing the vegetable colonization of Shetland, Faroe, and Iceland. These 

 islands form, so to speak, a continuous chain, stretching from the 

 northern extremity of Scotland to the eastern coast of Greenland. I 

 had visited Faroe in 1839, and was struck with the character of its 

 vegetation. Though lost, as it were, in the midst of the Northern 

 ocean, its flora appeared composed of very familiar plants, most of 

 them indigenous to the plains of middle Europe; others inhabitants 

 of the Swiss Alps ; some of Scotland and of Greenland. Extending 

 my researches to Shetland and Iceland, I found that these islands 

 also have no vegetation peculiar to themselves, but that all their 

 plants are natives of the continent. The same result had been reached 

 by Mr. Watson in his researches into the Britannic flora. Here a 



