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transformations which have in some cases been consummated 

 even during the Hfetime of a single generation. 



Not only have the indigenous animals and plants of these 

 weaker countries been thus rapidly and completely exter- 

 minated, but the races of mankind are equally subject to these 

 natural laws, and have been or are in process of being destroyed, 

 and have disappeared or will shortly disappear from the face 

 of the earth ; and this destructive process will, with the continued 

 improvements in quick and easy transit, become increasingly 

 deadly, bringing the stronger and weaker races more rapidly 

 into close contact and competition, with fatal effects to the 

 indigenous races, whether men, animals, or plants : and this 

 natural process is in relatively more or less active operation 

 in every country. 



Conversely, as showing the insuperable difficulties besetting 

 the establishment of the indigenous inhabitants of the more 

 primitive regions within the frontiers of more advanced countries, 

 Mr. C. Bailey, the eminent botanist, in his communication to 

 the British Association at its meeting in Manchester, declared 

 that although for very many years an enormous number and 

 variety of seeds had been dispersed around Manchester, derived 

 from the immense quantities of raw cotton imported from North 

 America, Egypt, India, and other places, yet as far as known 

 only two plants have thus been introduced and apparently 

 succeeded in establishing themselves in the vicinity, and these 

 are aquatic plants living under artificial conditions, being con- 

 fined to the tepid waters of certain sections of the canals into 

 which the warm water from the condensing steam engines is 

 discharged. 



The place of origin or evolutionary area of the terrestrial 

 mollusca and other organisms has, however, been located by 

 most writers in the remote, comparativeh^ unknown and mys- 

 terious regions of Central Asia, a belief based chiefly upon 

 unrehable mathematical calculations fixing a central point 

 in the range of each species, and also the presence of a maximum 

 number of species of certain genera belonging to more generalised 

 forms of life than those of Europe, the discovery- of more 

 numerous fossil remains, or in earlier strata, than the beds of 

 Europe containing similar relics, and the absence of evidence 



