46 
THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION 
of the 
FLORA OF THE GREAT PLATEAU. 
An Address before the Utah Academy of Sciences.* 
In determining the origin of a flora, a person immediately 
assumes that its geological antecedents will govern its character, 
which is literally true, but is not true in the broad sense generally 
assume 
It is a well known fact that there has been a constant expand- 
ing and progression in the flora of the world from simplicity to 
complexity, and from scarcity to abundance and the reverse: but 
the old dea of infinitessimal gradation due to Spencerian evolution 
isa myth. It is true that the term evolution still persists, like the 
vermiform appendix in man, but it is a misnomer and 1s improp- 
erly used for the involution of today. The word “Spencerian” is 
used advisedly as he defines evolution clearly. 
ere is no one fact in geology better established than the sud- 
den appearance of great numbers of new genera and species with- 
out infinitessimal gradation, all along through the ages wherever 
there has been a marked change of climate. The assumption that 
this is due to incompleteness of the record or to migration is a 
kind of guesswork that can hardly be called scientific. ; 
Climatic changes are due to celestial or terrestrial agencies, 
particularly the latter, and the latter are either general or local. 
and twenty thousand years ago as the precession theory demands, 
*The body of this paper was written in 1895. but has been withheld 
pending a complete examination of the species of the Great Plateau. 
a 
