V 



38o A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



out this subject in the second volume. They make the problem 

 of the relative antiquity of these islands more mysterious than it 

 even appeared before. 



With regard to the vexed question of the light thrown on the 

 past condition of these islands by the present state of their floras 

 and faunas, it may be at once observed that my belief in the 

 general principle that islands have always been islands has not 

 been shaken by the results of the examination of the geological 

 structure of Vanua Levu. In a correspondence in Nature about 

 fifteen years ago it was suggested by me that this is the position 

 we ought to take with regard to the stocking with plants of the 

 islands of the Southern Ocean, such as Kerguekn ; and I take the 

 same standpoint for the islands of the Pacific. LJf the distribution 

 of a particular group of plants or animals does not seem to accord 

 with the present arrangement of the land, it is by far the safest 

 plan, even after exhausting all likely modes of explanation, not 

 to invoke the intervention of geographical changes. New possi- 

 bilities of inter-communication, new ways of looking at old facts, 

 and new discoveries of an unexpected nature come monthly before 

 us in the progress of scientific research ; and I scarcely think that 

 our knowledge of any one group of organisms is ever sufficiently 

 precise to justify a recourse to hypothetical alterations in the 

 present relations of land and sea. 



The hypothesis of a Pacific continent,^ whether it takes a 

 trans-oceanic form, as advocated by Von Ihering, Hutton, Baur 

 and others, or whether it is represented by an island-continent 

 isolated in mesozoic times, as suggested by Pilsbry, receives no 

 support from the geological characters of Vanua Levu. Nor can 

 I accept as regards Fiji Mr. Hedley's theory of the Melanesian 

 Plateau. There is no evidence that the various islands of the 

 Fiji Group were ever amalgamated and no indication of a geological 

 nature that they were ever joined to the Solomon Group. The 

 Fijis, as we see them, have had an independent history, and the 

 process at work is not one of disruption but of amalgamation, 

 lesser islands being united to larger islands during the prolonged 

 period of emergence. Mr. Hedley, however, has some weighty 

 data on his side more especially zoological ; but even here it would 

 be wise to suspend one's judgment. Though the great mass of 

 botanical evidence is as respects Fiji opposed to such connections, 



1 See Hutton Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1896, Baur, Amer. Nat. 1897, 

 Pilsbry, Proc. Nat. Set. Philad. 1900, Hedley, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1892, 

 1899, &c. 



