16 ME. A. MURRAY ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS OP 



St. Helena, that great puzzle of naturalists, is a crucial test to 

 my hypothesis of a communication between the northern and 

 southern hemispheres by an Atlantic continent ; if that link 

 snaps, the whole chain will fall to the ground. It will, of course, 

 not touch the evidence for a communication between the northern 

 and southern hemispheres by the Pacific ; but a microtypal St.- 

 Helena fauna is vital to an Atlantic communication. I say that 

 its fauna is certainly microtypal, and if so, almost necessarily a 

 branch of the Atlantic type of that stirps ; there is nothing else 

 microtypal within reach for it to be attached to. Some three 

 years ago Dr. Hooker gave an admirable lecture on oceanic 

 islands *, in which he discussed the origin of the flora of St. He- 

 lena, and on the whole seemed inclined to refer it to Africa. 

 More in the spirit of " audi alteram partem " than from any 

 settled conviction of my own, I wrote a reply t, in which I gave 

 some reasons for thinking that it might more probably have 

 been originally connected with and peopled from Europe, although 

 also possibly connected at some period with Africa. More ma- 

 ture consideration and subsequent researches have confirmed 

 my opinion; and the following examination of the character 

 of its plants and animals will show the grounds on which I 

 rest it. 



In mammals, of course, nothing is to be expected. The only 

 allusions to them that I can find is the statement J that in cutting 

 away the lava at Ladder Hill, many feet below the surface, small 

 bones have been found, apparently about the size of those of 

 a rat, and more particularly a small rib-bone entirely covered 

 with an incrustation of stalactite. In what manner these have 

 originally come there must ever remain a mystery : there is but 

 one probable mode of accounting for it, on the supposition that 

 the animal might have crept into a crevice of the rock and there 

 died i for if a bed of lava in its liquid state had flowed over them, 

 they would probably have been consumed, and would not have 

 been found incrusted by stalactite. I find it also recorded in 

 'Baynes's Tour through St. Helena,' p. 119 (1817), that at the 

 beginning of this century the " Manati or Manatee, Sea-cow or 

 Sea-lion " existed in such numbers as to furnish employment for 

 a fishery on it ; and of course if the Manatee did exist there, it 



* Published in ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' January 1867. 

 t Published in ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' February 1867. 

 + See ' Proceed. Agri. and Hort. Soc. of St. Helena,' 1826, p. 30. 



