40 Oranges and Lemons of India. 



CEgle Marmelos, and of the Feronia elephantum. But 

 the best floaters of all are the large pummelo s. They 

 float so well, that half of the fruit remains out of the 

 water. Moreover, Rumphius says (and this is well 

 known), that the pummelo lasts a long time without 

 spoiling, and is taken on long voyages on account of 

 its keeping quality. Now if only one pummelo seed had 

 found its way on high ground and got naturalised there 

 through the agency of birds or other animals, the fruit 

 of its tree, when ripe, would fall and roll into some 

 water channel, whence it might be easily carried by 

 floods into rivers. If the fruit stranded on any bank, 

 it would eventually rot there, and its seeds would easily 

 germinate, or they might be further disseminated by 

 birds and other animals along the bank. Finally the 

 whole river banks might in the same way become in- 

 seminated with pummelo trees. Moreover, this fruit 

 floats probably as well as the cocoa-nut, and although 

 it might not stand immersion so long as that nut,* it 

 is not at all improbable that when once the pummelo 

 tree had found its w r ay to river banks, and its fruit 

 dropping into the water, its dissemination to other 

 islands in the vicinity may have been easily effected by 

 ocean currents, tide and wind. If it floats so well in 

 fresh water, it will float much better in salt water. 

 This is supposing that birds and other animals had 

 nothing to do with its dissemination, and that the 

 savages of those islands, who continually paddled from 

 one island to the other, carrying with them seeds of 

 every fruit they found fit for food, had no hand in 

 covering the banks of the Fiji Islands with pummelo 

 trees. Putting aside, however, the fact that this tree 

 is one of the hardiest of the Citrus genus, it is asserted 



* For all I know, however, the oily surface might keep off the close 

 contact of the water, and preserve it for a long time. 



