THE FIRST FORESTS OF MODERN TYPE. 203 



of the Miocene circumpolar forest appear to have found there a 

 secure home ; and the Japanese islands, to which most of these 

 trees belong, must be remarkably adapted to them. The situa- 

 tion of these islands — analogous to that of Great Britain, but 

 with the advantage of lower latitude and greater sunshine — 

 their ample extent north and south, their diversified configura- 

 tion, their proximity to the great Pacific gulf-stream, by which 

 a vast body of warm water sweeps along their accentuated 

 shores, and the comparatively equable diffusion of rain through- 

 out the year, all probably conspire to the preservation and 

 development of an originally ample inheritance." 



The comparative paucity in species of the west coast of 

 America, though the Sequoias and some other forms which 

 have perished elsewhere are retained there, is admitted to be 

 exceptional, and not easily explained, except by the supposi- 

 tion of peculiar local conditions affecting the comparatively 

 narrow strip ot land between the Rocky Mountains and coast 

 ranges, and the Pacific. 



To such widely-distributed and varied and complex pheno- 

 mena as those which have been discussed in the present 

 chapter, it is impossible to do justice in the space at our 

 command. Details in relation to them will be found in the 

 publications of Heer, of Saporta, and of Lesquereux, and are 

 well worthy of study by botanists, to whom alone they can be 

 made fully intelligible. In general, with reference to now 

 prevalent theories of derivation, they present two very dissimilar 

 aspects. No difficulty can be greater to the evolutionist than 

 to account for the simultaneous appearance of so many 

 modern generic forms in the Cretaceous; and le fact of 

 many of the genera presenting more and more species the 

 farther we trace them back is a strange anomaly of evolution. 

 On the other hand, the number of species continuing un- 

 changed from the Eocene to the Modern, the others only 

 slightly modified, and the representative species occurring in 

 the floras of the old and new continents, appear to many to 



