368 JOHN EALL. F.R.S, 



the distribution of each species within the range of the Alps, and on 

 the mountains of Europe. As the southern side of the main chain 

 has the richest and most varied flora, and was at that time less 

 fully known, I divided it into fifty districts, and set myself to 

 collect materials from published works, from public and private 

 herbaria, and mainly from my own repeated visits — this part of the 

 work involving, in fact, the preparation of fifty local floras." One 

 cannot but regret that Ball never saw his way to a work on the 

 Alpine flora ; but some of his conclusions are indicated in the 

 lecture. They were by no means in agreement with those which 

 had been arrived at by Sir Joseph Hooker in his celebrated essay 

 as to the relations of the Arctic and Alpine floras. This is not the 

 place for a detailed criticism of Ball's views ; some of them will 

 probably never meet with general acceptance. "What strikes me as 

 important in them is his insistance on the persistence, and therefore 

 great antiquity, of such floras as the Alpine. He points out " that 

 a very large proportion of the Alpine flora is not easily diffused by 

 existing modes of transport." This is a conclusion fundamentally 

 opposed to that recently promulgated by Mr. Alfred Wallace. Ball, 

 in Geographical Botany, has extended the geological doctrine of 

 uniformitarianism, and therefore represents in some degree a 

 reaction against the perhaps too facile tendency to regard floras as 

 susceptible of wholesale transport. The same ideas are to be found 

 applied to other problems in his various papers on South American 

 Botany. 



Ball joined the Alpine Club within a few weeks of its first 

 foundation. He was at once appointed its first President (1858-60). 

 Its first publication, ' Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers,' soon brought 

 the Club into distinction ; Ball was the originator, editor, and chief 

 contributor to at any Tate the first series, which soon ran through 

 four editions. 



In 1871 Ball accompanied Sir Joseph Hooker and Mr. G. Maw 

 in an expedition to Marocco. The object was to investigate the 

 flora of the Great Atlas, and determine its relations with those of 

 mountainous Europe. If the results were in some degree negative, 

 they were no less conclusive. The subsequent explorations of Mr. 

 Joseph Thomson have shown that, though our knowledge of the 

 species of the Atlas flora may be extended, its general facies has 

 been ascertained. 



The narrative of the journey did not appear till 1878, and is 

 mainly from the pen of Mr. Ball. The story is charmingly told : 

 not one of the least curious incidents is the account (p. 229) of the 

 sacrifice of a sheep to Sir Joseph Hooker while busily engaged in 

 arranging his collections. To Ball was also due the admirable 

 working up of the collections made on the expedition in his 

 ' Spicilegium Floras Maroccause,' published in the 16th volume of 

 the * Journal of the Lnmean Society ' (1877). This was his opus 

 macjnum in Systematic Botany. 



In 1882 Ball made a tour round S. America, of which he pub- 

 lished an account in 1887 in his * Notes of a Naturalist in South 



