116 MANTTAL OF THE MOLLUSCA. 



zoological eyidence that these islands were united to the main- 

 land of South America at no very distant geological period. 

 The flora consists of characteristic plants of Fuegia and Pata- 

 gonia, mingled, and overspreading the whole surface; few 

 epecies are peculiar. . (J. D. Hooker.)* 



* Dr. Hooker has suggested that not only the Falkland Islands, but the far distant 

 Tristan d'Acunha (p. 97) and Kerguelen's-land (p. 99), may be mountain-tops of a 

 45ontinent which has been submerged since the epoch of their existing flora. " There 

 are five detached groups of islands between Fuegia and Kerguelen's-land (a region 

 extending 5,000 miles), all partaking of the botanical peculiarities of the southern 

 extremity of the S. American continent. Some of these detached spots are much 

 closer to the African and Australian continents, whose vegetation they do not assume, 

 than to the American ; and they are situated in latitudes and under circumstances 

 eminently unfavourable to the migration of species." 



" The botany of Tristan d'Acunha (which is only 1,000 miles distant from the Cape of 

 €rood Hope, but 3,-000 from the Straits of Magellan) is far more intimately allied to that 

 of Fuegia than Africa. Of twenty-eight flowering plants, seven are natives of Fuegia, 

 or typical of S. American botany. 



" The flora of Kerguelen's-land is similar to, and many of the species identical with, 

 those of the American continent. (Its geological structure) would bespeak an antiquity 

 for the flora of this isolated speck on the surface of oiu- globe far beyond our power of 

 calculation. We may regard it as the remains of some far more extended body of 

 laiid." (Botany of Antarctic Voyage, i, pt. 2, 1847). 



