XXIX BEACH AND RIVER-DRIFT 437 



Islands is very scanty. This is due to the scarcity of rivers, to the 

 absence of the mangrove- formation from which much of the drift 

 is derived in other tropical regions, and to the paucity of shore- 

 plants with buoyant seeds or fruits. As is observed in Note 30, 

 where the composition of the beach drift is described, the presence 

 of a large amount of timber and of other materials brought by the 

 currents from the north-west coast of America masks much of the 

 local drift. 



Remarks on the beach-drift of the Panama Isthmus, and of the 

 Ecuadorian, Peruvian, and Chilian coasts of South America will 

 be found in Chapter XXXII. I have examined beach drift in other 

 tropical regions, as in the Solomon group, on Keeling Atoll, and 

 on the south coast of West Java ; whilst there are at my disposal 

 the data supplied by Schimper and Penzig for the Malayan region 

 including Krakatoa, and by Hemsley for tropical regions generally. 

 It will, I think, be best, if instead of describing in detail the com- 

 position of the drift for each locality, I refer briefly to the features 

 that distinguish the tropical beach-drift of the Old World from 

 that of the New World. 



The beach-drift reflects the characters of the coast flora ; and 

 since tropical littoral floras belong to two great regions, the Asiatic 

 including Polynesia and the African East Coast, and the American 

 including the African West Coast, the seeds and fruits stranded on 

 the beaches may be similarly referred to the same two regions. 



All over tropical Asia, as well as in the tropical islands of the 

 Indian and Pacific Oceans, the drift stranded on the beach presents 

 the same general character, and as a rule possesses seeds and fruits 

 of the same species that range over the whole or the greater part 

 of this region. Almost everywhere we find seeds or fruits of the 

 same plants of the beach formation, such as Barringtonia speciosa, 

 Csesalpinia Bonducella, Calophyllum Inophyllum, Canavalia obtusi- 

 folia, Cerbera Odollam, Cordia subcordata, Entada scandens, 

 Guettarda speciosa, Hernandia peltata. Hibiscus tiliaceus, Ipomea 

 pes caprae, Mucuna, Scaevola Koenigii, Sophora tomentosa, 

 Terminalia Katappa, and Tournefortia argentea. In those local- 

 ities where mangrove-swamps occur we find generally diffused in 

 the stranded drift of this region the seedlings of Bruguiera and 

 Rhizophora, the seeds of Carapa moluccensis, the fruits of 

 Heritiera littoralis and Lumnitzera coccinea, and the pods of 

 Derris uliginosa. Amongst sundries found over much of this 

 region may be mentioned, the drupes of Pandanus, the seeds of 

 Erythrina, Vigna lutea, and Hibiscus tiliaceus, and the " nuts " of 



