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» "eoloo-ical changes. Mr. Lessor has remarked , on the singular uniformily 

 »of the Indo-Poivnesian Flora, throughout the immense are.-» of the P.i- 

 »cific, the dispersion of forras havinp been directed against the course of 

 »the trade wind. If we believe that lagoon islands , those monumenls 

 sraised by infinite numbers of minute architects , record the forraer exis- 

 » tence of aa archipelago or continent in the central part of Polynesia , 

 »whence the gerras could be disseminated , the problem is rendered far 

 5) more intelligible. Again if the theory should be so far established , as 

 »to allow us to proaounce that certain districts , fall within areas of ele- 

 »vatiou or subsidencc, it will bear directly upon that most mysterious qnes- 

 »tion, whether the series of organized beiugs, peculiar to some isolaled 

 »points, are the last remnants of a forraer population , or the first crea- 

 5>tnres of a new one , springing into existence." 



These vie-ws, being as we have shewn, obtained, from 

 erroneous data, cannot at all illustrate any laws whatever. 

 Mr. Lyell's work brmgiiig forward laws of the geographical 

 distribution of plants and animals, as consequent on geological 

 chano-es , we have not seen , and therefore cannot here investigate, 

 but we have no doubt, that such laws have been established 

 and do exist. Mr. Lesson may have been, but Mr. Darwin 

 could scarcely be ignorant of the fact, that, the thermo-equa- 

 torial belt of westerly winds with easterly currents, is always 

 movins^ over a considerable space between the equatorial limits 

 of the trade winds, progressing flankwise, alternately from, 

 north to south, and vice versa, en suite of the solar declina- 

 tion, and extending nearly to, and at times in each season, 

 even beyond the tropic, over which the sun is, or has siiortly 

 been, in the Zenith. Consequently no problem exists to be 

 solved, with respect to the fact of the uniformity of the Indo- 

 nesian and Polynesian Ploras, even if the general climate of 

 both, were not as it is, one and the same, except in so far, 

 as mcre difference of latitude, between any two given localities, 

 may influenee thcir respective details. By these same thermo- 

 cquatorial winds and currents, doubtless the human population 

 of all Polynesia , has also been originally brought from the west- 

 ward. AVe now presume to think that we have in the course 

 of the foregoing remarks, cleared away the sandy foundations 

 on which Mr. Dakwin has erccted his thcorctical fabric, so lea- 



