8Q THE WORLD OF LIFE 



work on a uniform plan, and in a cheap form, the total ex- 

 pense for all the nations of Europe combined would be a 

 mere trifle. Here is a great opportunity for some of our 

 millionaires to carry out this important scientific exploration 

 before these glorious forests are recklessly diminished or 

 destroyed — a work which would be sure to lead to the dis- 

 covery of great numbers of plants of utility or beauty, and 

 would besides form a basis of knowledge from which it woukl 

 be possible to approach the various great governments urging 

 the establishment, as a permanent possession for humanity, of 

 an adequate number of such botanical, or rather biological, 

 ^' reserves '' as I have here suggested in every part of the 

 world. 



Before leaving the very interesting problems suggested by 

 the floras of '' small areas," I will point out that in the tropics, 

 in warm temperate and in cool temperate zones alike, the evi- 

 dence goes to show that mountain floras are not so rich in 

 species as those of the plains. I have already shown that it 

 is the case in our own islands, in Switzerland and in South 

 Euroj^e. The table of extra-European small areas (p. 40) 

 shows that the gTeat Japanese mountain, Fujiyama, with a 

 larger area and an altitude of over 12,000 feet, has a smaller 

 number of species than Mt. Kikko, with a smaller area and 

 an altitude of only 8000 feet, both mountains being cultivated 

 to the same height (800 feet), and both being equally well 

 explored. And now, coming to the tropics, we find in Java 

 two areas of the same extent and fullv explored bv the same 

 botanist, one on a grand mountain slope from 4500 to 0500 

 feet, and celebrated for its rich flora, the other at the sea- 

 level, and the latter is decidedly the richest. Yet we find 

 Gardiner, in his Travels in Brazil, taking the very opposite 

 of this for granted. He says, at the end of his Avork : '' Xo 

 good reason has yet been suggested to account for the greater 

 number of species which exist on a given space on a mountain 

 than on a plain." The answer seems to be that there is no 



