24 Examination of Prof. E. Forbes’s Views on the 
with the quaternary epoch. This important work*, which has 
greatly interested botanists by the originality of its views, 
likewise deserves our attention for a short time. In ana- 
lysing it, we shall follow the order of the author, carefully 
distinguishing between the results of direct observation, which 
we are quite disposed to admit, and certain explanations 
which appear to us to give rise to serious objections. 
Supposing that beings have been distributed from certain 
primitive centres, Mr Forbes is of opinion that the ordinary 
agents of transportation, such as land and marine currents, 
winds, animals, and, lastly, the influence of man, are not suf- 
ficient, in the majority of cases, to account for the resem- 
blance of certain local floras at present very remote from each 
other; he therefore endeavours to shew that there were for- 
merly communications between these different regions, occa- 
sioned by oscillations of the surface of the earth, which sub- 
sequently ceased. This notion, it may be remarked, is only 
the development of an idea advaneed by Mr Hewat Watson. 
The vegetables of the British Islands admit of being grouped 
into five distinct floras, four of which are concentrated in 
well-defined provinces, and the fifth, which alone occupies a 
large surface, is likewise further extended by mingling with 
the four others. 
The first of these floras is the most restricted, and is con- 
fined to the mountainous districts of the west and south-west 
of Ireland. It is characterized by species not very prolific, 
and the nearest point of Europe, from which it seems to be 
derived, is the north of Spain. There appears to be no fauna 
or assemblage of animals corresponding to this flora. 
The second flora, that of the south-east of Ireland and 
south-west of England, comprehends a certain number of 
species not found elsewhere in the British Islands; but it has 
a close connection with the Channel Islands and the neigh- 
bouring parts of France. Some land-shells appear to be dis- 
tributed in a similar way. 
In the south-east of England, where the chalk is particu- 
larly developed, the vegetables of the third flora exhibit a 
* Vide Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, vol. i., pp. 336 to 
432. 
