CHAPTEE XXVI 



PUBLICATION OF THE ' ORIGIN ' AND THE ' INTRODUCTION 

 TO THE TASMANIAN FLORA ' 



DARWIN was well content that his ideas, given to the world 

 in November 1859, had already won the support of Lyell and 

 Hooker, the first geologist and the first botanist of the age. 

 The publication, nearly a month earlier, of the Introductory 

 Essay to the Flora of Tasmania, though of course unable to 

 refer to the store of material and argument in the printed 

 page of the * Origin,' was scientifically the strongest possible 

 buttress of Darwin. It took the crucial case of the Australian 

 Flora which presented so many exceptions to the rule of 

 Distribution elsewhere. In a country of relatively uniform 

 physical features, the botanist expects to find a large number 

 of individuals of comparatively few kinds. Here the case 

 was reversed. The number of genera and species was very 

 great. More than that, the crowded forms of the S.W. were 

 singularly different from those of the S.E. Though so near, 

 they had not intermingled, while in Tasmania, joined to the 

 S.E. region at no very remote geological date, appeared a 

 larger proportion of extra-Australian plants, notably those 

 of Antarctic and European types. 



Beginning with a reference to his large materials, and the 

 fact that in the five years of his work he had personally 

 examined 7000 out of the 8000 species discussed, he avowed 

 his revision of the views expressed in the New Zealand Flora, 

 set forth not as his own views, but as the current working 

 hypothesis, namely the immutability of species as created. 



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