1836.) SEEDS TRANSPORTED BY THE SEA. 455 
on its stem; the soap-tree; the castor-oil plant; trunks of the 
sago palm; and various kinds of seeds unknown to the Malays 
settled on the islands. These are all supposed to have been 
driven by the N.W. monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and 
thence to these islands by the S.E. trade-wind. Large masses of 
Java teak and Yellow wood have also been found, besides im- 
mense trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gum-wood of 
New Holland, in a perfectly sound condition. All the hardy 
seeds, such as creepers, retain their germinating power, but the 
softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, are destroyed in the 
passage. JFishing-canoes, apparently from Java, have at times 
been washed on shore.” It is interesting thus to discover how 
numerous the seeds are, which, coming from several countries, 
are drifted over the wide ocean. Professor Henslow tells me, he 
believes that nearly all the plants which I brought from these 
islands, are common littoral species in the East Indian archipe- 
lago. From the direction, however, of the winds and currents, 
it seems scarcely possible that they could have come here ina 
direct line. If, as suggested with much probability by Mr. 
Keating, they were first carried towards the coast of New Hol- 
land, and thence drifted back together with the productions of 
that country, the seeds, before germinating, must have travelled 
between 1800 and 2400 miles. 
Chamisso,* when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated 
in the western part of the Pacific, states that ‘ the sea brings to 
these islands the seede and fruits of-many trees, most of which 
have yet not grown here. The greater part of these seeds appear 
to have not yet lost the capability of growing.” It is also said 
that palms and bamboos from somewhere in the torrid zone, and 
trunks of northern firs, are washed on shore: these firs must have 
come from an immense distance. These facts are highly inte- 
resting. It cannot be doubted that if there were Jand-birds to 
pick up the seeds when first cast on shore, and a soil better 
adapted for their growth than the loose blocks of coral, that the 
most isolated of the lagoon-islands would in time possess a far 
more abundant Flora than they now have. 
The list of land animals is even poorer than that of the plants. 
Some of the islets are inhabited by rats, which were brought iu 
“ Kotzebue’s First Voyage, vol. iii., p. 155. 
