COOK THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 341 



at least regularly visited, by the maritime natives of the adjacent 

 mainland. 



The fact that the coconut is largely restricted to islands and tropical 

 countries of low elevation explains its importance among the pre- 

 eminently maritime people of the Old World tropics and its relatively 

 slight importance among the nonmaritime natives of the lowland 

 tropics of America. 



The evidence of the prehistoric dissemination of the coconut and 

 other American cultivated plants across the Pacific Ocean is such as 

 to warrant a careful consideration of other indications that agricul- 

 tural civilization developed originally in America and was distributed 

 to the shores of the Pacific and Indian oceans by a primitive people 

 with agricultural and maritime habits, like those of the Polynesians 

 and Malays. 



The existence of a distinct tribe of frizzle-haired people near the 

 Isthmus of Panama at the time of the discovery does not rest alone 

 on Peter Martyr's casual mention of the finding of negroes, but is 

 supported by Oviedo's contemporary history written directly from 

 the testimony of Balboa and other members of his expedition, just 

 after their return to Darien. The facts are not to be explained rea- 

 sonably by assuming a chance arrival of African negroes, but indi- 

 cate that prehistoric communication across the Pacific continued 

 after the frizzle-haired Melanesian race had spread eastward in the 

 Pacific. 



Such communication would account for the existence of the banana 

 plant in America previous to the arrival of the Spaniards, as well as 

 for the Old World distribution of the coconut palm and other culti- 

 vated plants of American origin. The banana plant is as evidently 

 a native of the eastern continent as the coconut palm of the western. 

 Evidence of these facts appears very definite and concrete from the 

 biological standpoint, and is worthy of careful consideration by 

 ethnologists. 



AGRICULTURAL CONCLUSIONS. 



The coconut is confined to seacoasts only in the humid lowlands 

 of the Tropics; in dry regions it is not restricted to coasts, but thrives 

 in many districts remote from the sea. The fact that it received 

 scientific study only as a maritime plant should not longer obscure 

 the fact that it is also adapted to interior localities with saline soils. 

 The cultural problems of the coconut palm should be investigated 

 quite apart from the idea of maritime habits and distribution. 



The possibility of raising coconuts in frost-free localities outside 

 the Tropics is not to be tested along the seacoast, but in interior 

 districts where larger amounts of sunlight and heat are available, as 

 in the valleys of southern California and Arizona. The coconut, like 



