2lS STUDIES OF NATURE. 



example, there would not be an unihabited ifland 

 and fhore of the Seas of India, which you would 

 not find planted with cocoa-trees, and fown with 

 cocoa-nuts, which the Ocean wafts thither every, 

 year, and which it fcatters alternately on their 

 ftrands, by means of the variety of it's monfoons 

 and of it's currents. Now, it is unqueftionably 

 certain, that the radiations of that tree and it's 

 fruit, the principal focufes of which are in the 

 Maldivia Iflands, are not hitherto diffufed over 

 all the iflands of the Indian Ocean. 



The Philofopher Francis Leguat, and his unfor- 

 tunate companions, who were, in the year 1690, 

 the firfh inhabitants of the fmall Ifland of Rodri- 

 guez, which lies a hundred leagues to the eafl- 

 ward of the Ifle of France, found no cocoa-treees 

 in it. But, precifely at the period of their fhort 

 refidence there, the Sea threw upon the coaft feve- 

 ral cocoa-nuts in a flate of germination; as if it 

 had been the intention of Providence to induce 

 them, by this ufeful and feafonable prefent, to re- 

 main on that ifland, and to cultivate ih > 



Francis Leguat, who was unacquainted with the 

 relations which feeds have to the element in which 

 they are defigned to grow, was very much afto- 

 nifhed to find that thofe fruits, which weighed 

 from five to fix pounds, muft have performed a 



voyage 



