June 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



-10 



volcanic or coralline formation, and depend for tbeir life- 

 forms upon their relative position to the mainland, and also 

 to the winds and oceiin-currents that prevail. Exclusive of 

 animals introduced by man, tiiey are found destitute of frogs 

 and other batrachiaiis ; also of mammals, bats excepted ; the 

 explanation being that sea water kills frogs and toads and 

 their spawn, and that only flying animals can cross the 

 ocean. For this reason bats, at least the insect-eating 

 species, are found everywhere, except at the Poles ; and the 

 range of birds, although defined, is much wider than that of 

 all the larger and wingless land-animals. 



Isolated islands like St. Helena are peopled with waifs 

 and strays from all (juarters, while in continental islands 

 like our own the life-forms are, for the most part, identical 

 with those of the nearest mainland. But here, again, 

 exceptions exist. The islands of Bali and Lombok in the 

 Malay Archipelago, although only fifteen mUes apart, differ 

 far more from each other in their birds and quadrupeds 

 than do England and Japan, the birds being extremely 

 unlike* As shown by the deep soundings, Bali belongs to 

 the Indian region, and Lombok to that zone of " living 

 fossils," the Australian region. Australia contains only the 

 lowest mammals, as duckbills and kangaroos — for there is 

 little doubt that the dingo was introduced by man — wit- 

 nessing to its severance from Asia millions of years ago 

 during the Secondary epoch. It is an ancient and little 

 altered fragment, jireserving the types of plants and animals 

 which were then dominant on the great shifting land areas, 

 and fi-om which the higher forms have been developed. 



Oceanic islands, with their population of birds, flying in- 

 sects, and a few creeping things, are the refuge spots of casta- 

 ways. Strange are the ways and means of disper.sal. Winds 

 waft and currents di-ift to distant shores icebergs laden with 

 earth and seeds, or masses of floating vegetation, sometimes so 

 matted with soil as to form island-rafts with trees upstand- 

 ing, and carrying with them not only number.s of grubs, and 

 eggs of insects, but even large animals. Birds are impor- 

 tant agents in plant distribution, transporting seeds em- 

 bedded in dirt sticking to their feet or beaks, or the barbed 

 seeds of certain plants, like the curious Uncinia, which 

 cling to their feathers, or the undigested seeds and stones 

 of fruits which are passed through their bodies. A swift- 

 wdnged bird may drop cherry-stones a thousand miles from 

 the tree they grow on ; a hawk, in tearing a pigeon, may 

 scatter from its crop the still fresh rice it had swallowed at 

 a distance of ten degrees of latitude. Among the many siig- 

 gestive experiments which Darwin made in this matter, he 

 cites the case of the leg of a wounded partridge to which a 

 ball of bard earth weighing six and a half ounces adhered. 

 The earth had been kept for three years, but when broken, 

 w-atered, and placed under a bell-glass, no less than eighty- 

 two separate plants of about five distinct species spi-ang 

 from it. 



Very important, also, although more remote in its ultimate 

 results, is the agency of man, especi.-i.lly of civilised races, 

 in the distribution of life. Both with and without intent 

 he distributes and destroys, as his needs or caprices demand. 

 Clearing forest, di'aining lake and bog, reclaiming land from 

 sea, or uniting ocean with ocean, he disturbs, or mingles, or 

 kills their life-forms. He imports strange plants and 

 noxious insects in his merchandise ; he transports the heal- 

 ing cinchona plant from Peru to India, the salmon ova 

 from our native streams to the rivers of Australia, and 

 to him is due the re-introduction of the horse into America, 

 which had been extinct there long before the arrival of 

 Columbus. " The hortus siccus of a botanist may accidentally 

 sow seed from the foot of the Himalayas on the plains that 



* Wallace's " Island Life," p. 4. 



skirt the Alps ; and it is a fact of very familiar observation 

 that exotics, transplanted to foreign climates suited to their 

 growth, often escape from the flower-garden and naturalise 

 themselves among the spontaneous vegetation of the 

 pastures. When the cases containing the arti.stic treasures 

 of Thorwaldsen were opened in the court of the museum 

 at Copenhagen where they are deposited, the straw and 

 grass employed in packing them were scattered upon the 

 ground, and the next .season there sprang up from the seeds 

 no less than twenty-five species of plants belonging to the 

 Roman Campagna, some of which were preserved and 

 cultivated as a new tribute to the memory of the great 

 Scandin.avinn sculptor, and at least four are said to have 

 .sjiontaneously naturalised them.selves about Copenhagen."* 



While needless destruction has too often followed in the 

 wake of man, as he humours the cruel freaks of fashion, or 

 kills out of sheer wantonness, his enterprise has, on the 

 other hand, ridden the soil of harmful weeds and baneful 

 animals ; developed food from wild or useless plants ; 

 luscious fruits from sour and dwarfed species ; and domestic 

 animals, the dog proliably earliest of all, from the fierce 

 beasts of the forest and the plain. 



Enough has been said to show that no pre-ordained 

 scheme of fitness for their several habitats hfts placed plants 

 and animals where they are found. So far as most of the 

 liigher life-forms are concerned, our best authorities, with 

 Mr. Wallace at their head, incline to the theory of their first 

 appearance in the Euro-Asiatic continent, the wave of 

 migration rolling over the Old World far south by routes 

 long submei-ged, and by a northeily land route into the New 

 World. And, since few birds and insects are capable of 

 crossing the great oceans, it seems likely that they took the 

 same course, in confirmation of which we find that those 

 birds which migrate between Europe and Africa travel by 

 w.ay of Greece, Malta, and Gibraltar, the three points at 

 which those continents wore once united. 



THE OIL STORES OF AMERICA. 



•[MOlSrtr the most pleasant and interesting 

 features of lecture travelling must be set 

 the opportunities offered for studying 

 various characteristic regions of the earth. 

 During my own lecture travels in England, 

 Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, in nearly 

 ever}' State and Territory of America, in 

 ('anada, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, 

 and so forth, I have had many opportunities of this kind. 

 For in most regions where anything of special interest is to 

 be seen, I have found many I'eady, n.ay eager, to show and 

 explain what is chiefly to be noted. 



I propose now to make some remarks about the oil 

 regions and the oil industry of Western Pennsylvania and 

 South-western New York, a subject to which my attention 

 has naturally been turned during that part of a short lecture 

 tour £ am taking which brought me to Fredonia, N.Y., 

 Meadville, Pa., &c. Of course, I only propose to consider 

 the subject in its scientific aspect, though I may have to 

 remark on the singularly wasteful way in which nature's 

 earth stores have in this case been drained, till what took 

 many millions of years to accumulate has been probaljly 

 more than three-fourths consumed in fewer than thirty 

 years. 



The first question naturally asked in regard to these oil 

 supplies is, How came they there ? Of course, to answer 



* Marsh's " Man and Nature," p. 07. 



