June 21, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



613 



Although published last year I experienced 

 considerable diflSculty in getting a copy of this 

 book, nor have I noticed any reviews of it in 

 American botanical periodicals. Guppy has 

 long been a student of the sea drift, and strand 

 floras as influenced by ocean currents, and in 

 his well-known book " Observations of a Na- 

 turalist in the Pacific,'' published in 1906, he 

 gave an exhaustive study of insular floras and 

 plant dispersal in that region, as well as some 

 interesting but less profitable discussions of 

 the geological eras of the floral history as he 

 conceived them. 



The present volume presents the results of 

 similar studies carried out during the period 

 from 190G to 1914 in the Antillean region and 

 the Azores. It is just the sort of a book that 

 we have been waiting and wishing for, and in 

 addition to the wide general audience it makes 

 an especial appeal to those who are interested 

 in 'the geological history of the Antillean re- 

 gion and the relations of the floras and faunas 

 of its perimeters. It undoubtedly contributes 

 toward a solution of paleontologieal problems 

 and enables them to be viewed from the va- 

 rious angles necessary to their ultimate proof 

 or disproof. 



One conclusion of especial interest, in view 

 of the manner in which some paleontologists 

 subscribe to isostacy and think therefore that 

 the permanence of ocean basins is proven, 

 may be illustrated by the following quotation 

 from the preface : " The great lesson that I 

 have learned from the numerous diflScult dis- 

 tribution-problems presented in the West In- 

 dian region is that one can no longer fight shy 

 of accepting in principle the conclusions re- 

 lating to past changes in the arrangement of 

 land and water in the Caribbean area, which 

 have long been formulated by English and 

 American geologists and zoologists. The wit- 

 ness of the living plant is often quite as in- 

 sistent as the testimony of the rocks." He 

 might have added that this statement loses no 

 force from a consideration of tlie fossil plants. 



For the plant geographer every chapter is 

 packed with information, and the fact that the 

 geological history of both the land and its 

 floras is not ignored gives an outlook and a 



basis for deduction that are altogether ad- 

 mirable. Without attempting an elaborate ab- 

 stract or analysis of Guppy's results I wish 

 to mention several aspects of the work that are 

 of especial interest to students of earth his- 

 tory. 



Chapter IT. is a fine summary of i>ersonal 

 observations and the scattered and inaccessible 

 records in the older literature going back to 

 the days of Clusius (1605), of West Indian 

 drift on European shores. This is exceedingly 

 interesting, not only as an illustration of the 

 unsuspected variety of plants represented and 

 distances traversed, but also of the relative 

 frequency of such trans-Atlantic journeys. 

 These may be given point by the fact that in. 

 the Hebrides, Orkneys, Shetland and Faroe 

 islands as well as in Scandinavia, snuff, 

 tinder and match boxes made from Entada 

 seeds derived from the stranded drift from 

 tropical America have always been highly 

 prized by the natives. Mr. Guppy is appar- 

 ently unaware that similar Entada seeds have 

 reached a resting place in some of the Scandi- 

 navian peats after a similar voyage in the 

 late Pleistocene. I mention this, not because 

 it is of any especial importance in the present 

 connection, but as a fact of added interest. 

 Many of these stranded ocean waifs, such as 

 the seeds of Guilandina, Erythrina and 

 Ipomrta tuherosa, have a mystical or super- 

 stitious value and are often handed down from 

 generation to generation as charms among 

 these out-of-the-way peoples. 



Most seeds after such a long voyage have 

 lost their germinative capacity, even were not 

 the European climate prohibitive. Some, how- 

 ever, retain their vitality, and this has been 

 demonstrated experimentally in the case of 

 Entada, Guilandina and Mucuna, and is con- 

 ceivable in the case of Sapindus, Ipomcea, 

 Diodea and Erythrina, so that in the early 

 Tertiary, when the climate was much more 

 uniform and mild than it is at the present 

 time in the far north, it is conceivable that 

 certain tropical American forms may have 

 reached Europe in this way. 



A highly instructive chapter is that devoted 

 to the similarity between the strandflora of 



