102 FLORA INDICA. 



alluded to this subject in the third chapter of this Essay 

 (p. 40), as one intimately connected with geological change, 

 and as involving questions of the antiquity of species and of 

 continents, vrhich, as regards the Flora of India, we have no 

 materials for discussing. It would be very easy to assume a 

 few premises, and to suppose elevations and depressions of the 

 islands, oceans, plains, and mountains of India, that would 

 afford each area marked by a peculiar vegetation the means 

 of having derived its species, or its botanical features, from 

 another now isolated or distant region ; and to extirpate 

 species from areas where it would, for the theory's sake, be 

 convenient to do so. It would also be easy to suppose cli- 

 matic and other changes that would derange the whole exist- 

 ing order of vegetation, and to adapt the little we kno\y of 

 the Geology of India to support such movements ; but we con- 

 sider that all such speculations are unsafe and inexpedient in 

 our present incomplete knowledge of any one branch of In- 

 dian science; they should be based primarily on geological 

 data, and mainly on palseontological evidence that has been 

 thoroughly sifted, should be weU supported by zoological facts, 

 and only extended to botany after the species of plants inha- 

 biting the whole area shall have been approximately deter- 

 mined. It must not be supposed that, in declining to enter 

 upon this subject, we are actuated by a spirit hostile to 

 speculative reasoning; on the contrary, were we fully ac- 

 quainted with the species and distribution of Indian plants, 

 we would willingly throw out such suggestions as we think 

 an analysis of them would legitimately warrant our advan- 

 cing, and wait the result of zoological and palseontological 

 evidence, with the hope, on the one hand, of establishing the 

 truth of our deductions, and, on the other, in the belief, that 

 if proved in the wrong, we should at any rate have erred 

 within reasonable limits. But at this time in particular, 

 when the labour of comparing and determining plants, and 

 accumulating exact data, is shunned by the majority of bota- 

 nists ; when loose theories on geographical distribution, and on 



