184 REVIEWS. [August, 



by no means general among people of any considerable botanical 

 knowledge^ or observation and reflection, is well met by the 

 author. Another view, still more extensively spread, is that or- 

 ganic remains of certain plants are a positive indication of the 

 changes which climate has undergone in the lapse of ages. For 

 example : because some tropical or extratropical forms of vegeta- 

 tion have been discovered in England, therefore England must, 

 at some time or other, have had a tropical or extratropical cli- 

 mate. We have met with many who maintained this latter view, 

 but few who maintain the restriction of living forms of plants in 

 general to limited areas. The facts that are constantly appearing 

 of the progressive spreading of species in certain places and the 

 disappearance of other forms in the same and similar places, 

 are evidence that the views above noticed need no very elaborate 

 refutation. This great work, on the distribution of plants 

 (which is not before us, only a review of it, which it would be 

 uncourteous to review), is divided into two parts or sections, 

 which the author distinguishes by the names of Geographic Bo- 

 tany and Botanical Geography. Very like " a distinction with- 

 out a difference." It is very possible, however, that distinctions 

 may exist where there are no differences; and therefore the 

 learned author no doubt properly distinguishes Geographic Bo- 

 tany and Botanical Geography, although they may appear to 

 some like " six of the one and half-a-dozen of the other.^"" " By 

 the first of these expressions he understands the consideration of 

 species, genera, and families of plants in a geographic point of 

 view j and by the latter the consideration of different regions of 

 the earth with respect to the vegetation which clothes them." 

 We wish rather than expect that this will throw any considerable 

 amount of light on the subject. It is however to be borne in 

 mind that we are only giving these statements at second-hand ; 

 we have only a review of the work before us. We give the fol- 

 lowing statement of facts in extenso, N. H. R., p. 48 (1857). 



" The next chapter discusses what the author calls the form of 

 the habitat of species, namely the differences in the diameters of 

 the area occupied by different species when the line is drawn east 

 and west, or north and south, or in some intermediate directions. 

 Some curious facts are noted on this subject, and obviously this 

 chapter deserves to be more extensively worked out. The author 

 has limited his observations to the species contained in the 



