ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 61 
The presence of wrecks so far south near the equator, indicates that they 
had been swept northward from Japan by the Kuro Shiwo, and thence south- 
ward along the northwest coast of America until they fell into the equatorial 
westerly current, where, in company with redwood logs, and drift-wood from 
Oregon, they must have reached these islands in the equatorial belt. 
In illustration of this equatorial current, we have the report of residents of 
Christmas Island, which speaks of a westerly current setting past that island 
at the rate of one and a-half to two miles an hour. August 23d, 1861, there 
was picked up on the shore of the island of Niihau, in latitude 21° 50’ N., 
longitude 160° 15’ W.., a bottle containing a paper, thrown from the American 
ship White Swallow, thrown overboard July 21st, 1861, in latitude 21° 30’ N., 
longitude 151° 55’ W. It had made a nearly due west drift of 460 miles in 
about thirty-three days. This shows the existence of a very powerful westerly 
current around the Hawaiian Islands of about 14 miles per diem. 
In 1862, September 10th, an enormous Oregon tree about 150 feet in length 
and fully six feetin diameter above the butt, drifted past the island of Mauii, 
Hawaiian Islands. The roots, which rose ten feet out of water, would span 
about 25 feet. Two branches rose perpendicularly 20 to 25 feet. Several tons 
of clayish earth were embedded among its roots. Many saw-logs and pieces 
of drift-wood- came ashore in this vicinity about this time. These were 
evidently portions of the immense body of ship-timber launched upon the 
Pacific during the great flood of the previous winter along the American coast. 
Their almost simultaneous arrival at Mauii in September, seems to indicate 
quite accurately the force and direction of the currents in this ocean. 
Supposing them to have come from the Columbia River, leaving say February 
18th, 1862, and to have drifted 2,800 miles, they must have drifted at an 
average rate of 14 miles per day to have reached Mauii September 10th. 
We may argue from the above that there were other ways of explaining the 
similarity of flora upon many islands of the Pacific and the high terraces of 
our Sierra Nevada mountains, beside the hypothesis of an intervening conti- 
nent where the broad Pacific now rests. 
There is a strong presumption that the present bed of the Pacific Ocean may 
once have been an extended valley, submerged by some abrupt and spasmodic 
catastrophe, at a period when the fiery interior of the earth was in a state of 
inconceivable agitation, and its equilibrium temporarily disturbed. Abundant 
ruptures of the entire combined strata of its crust along our mountain ranges, 
bear indisputable evidence, in prominences tilted up and raised to immense 
heights: conditions which must have necessitated corresponding depressions, 
and consequently established new beds for water, forming new islands, 
re-dividing and re-shaping continents. The existing shore lines of enormous 
empty basins, the pebble and cobble stones rounded by erotion, at present in 
the centre of this continent west of the Rocky Mountains, all contribute 
testimony of some great change. 
The spores or seeds of plants may, however, have been more recently 
transferred by clinging to the earth around the roots of such mammoth trees 
as floated from the high latitudes of the northwest coast of America. Once 
cast upon any island and rooted, they would soon replant and extend them- 
selves. Driftwood from Columbia River and Puget Sound distributed itself 
