: 



1S36.J SEEDS TRANSPORTED BY THE SEA. 455 



on its stem ; the soap-tree ; the castor-oil plant ; trunks of the 

 sago palm ; and various kinds of seeds unknown to the Malays 

 settled on the islands. These are all supposed to have been 

 driven by the N.W. monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and 

 thence to these islands by the S.E. trade-wind. Large masses of 

 Java teak and Yellow wood have also been found, besides im- 

 mense trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gum-wood of 

 New Holland, in a perfectly sound condition. All the hardy 

 seeds, such as creepers, retain their germinating power, but the 

 softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, are destroyed in the 

 passage. Fishing-canoes, apparently from Java, have at times 

 been washed on shore." It is interesting thus to discover how 

 numerous the seeds are, which, coming from several countries, 

 are drifted over the wide ocean. Professor Henslow tells me, he 

 believes that nearly all the plants which I brought from these 

 islands, are common littoral species in the East Indian archipe- 

 lago. From the direction, however, of the winds and currents, 

 it seems scarcely possible that they could have come here in a 

 direct line. If, as suggested with much probability by Mr. 

 Keating, they were first carried towards the coast of New Hol- 

 land, and thence drifted back together with the productions of 

 that country, the seeds, before germinating, must have travelled 

 between 1800 and 2400 miles. 



Chamisso,* when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated 

 in the western part of the Pacific, states that " the sea brings to 

 these islands the seeds and fruits of many trees, most of which 

 have yet not grown here. The greater part of these seeds appear 

 to have not yet lost the capability of growing." It is also said 

 that palms and bamboos from somewhere in the torrid zone, and 

 trunks of northern firs, are washed on shore : these firs must have 

 come from an immense distance. These facts are highly inte 

 resting. It cannot be doubted that if there were land-birds to 

 pick up the seeds when first cast on shore, and a soil better 

 adapted for their growth than the loose blocks of coral, that the 

 most isolated of the lagoon- islands would in time possess a far 

 more abundant Flora than they now have. 



The list of land animals is even poorer than that of the plants. 

 Some of the islets are inhabited by rats, which were brought iu 

 * Kotzebne's First Voyage, vol. iii., p. 155. 



