WEST INDIAN DRIFT ON EUROPEAN SHORES 33 



the eighteenth century. Yet, as before remarked, even Sloane 

 must in this respect give way in point of priority by at least a 

 quarter of a century to Debes (1670) and his informant, the " very 

 knowing man," who regarded the strange seeds stranded on the 

 Faroe Islands as " brought hither by the Stream " from the West 

 Indies. 



But to return to the Wallaces, I examined the three editions of 

 this early description of the Orkney Islands that are in the British 

 Museum library. The first, " A Description of the Isles of Orkney 

 by Master James Wallace, late minister of Kirkwall, published after 

 his Death by his Son " was issued at Edinburgh in 1693. It was 

 written about 1688 at the instigation of Sir Robert Sibbald, Geogra- 

 pher to Charles II. Under the head of substances cast up by the 

 sea he alludes (p. 14) to the frequent occurrence of " these pretty 

 Nuts (named Molluca Beans in the margin) of which they use to 

 make Snuff-Boxes. There are four sorts of them (he adds) the 

 figures of which are set down." In the plate under the name of 

 " Molocca Beans " are figured the seeds of Entada scandens, a 

 species of Mucuna, probably M. urens, a species of Erythrina, and 

 Ipomoea tuberosa. 



Though written without any mention of his father's book, An 

 Account of the Islands of Orkney by James Wallace, M.D., F.R.S. 

 (London, 1700), is evidently an enlarged edition of the previous 

 work. With access to Sloane' s paper in the Philosophical Transactions 

 (1695-7), which his father could not have had, the author thus 

 writes (p. 36) : 44 After storms of Westerly Wind, amongst the 

 Sea- Weed they find commonly in places exposed to the Western 

 Ocean these Phaseoli that, I know not for what reason, go under 

 the name of Molucca Beans. The ingenious Doctor Sloan in the 

 Philosophical Transactions, Number 222, gives a very satisfactory 

 account, how from the West Indies, where they commonly grow, 

 they may be thrown in on Ireland, the Western parts of Scotland, 

 and Orkney. You have the figures of four different sorts of them." 

 However, in his plate there is a fifth figure of 44 another molucca bean " 

 which is certainly Guilandina bonducella. The drawing of the seed 

 of Entada scandens is here enlarged to natural size, and in the place 

 of his father's figure of a Mucuna seed there is a drawing of a Dioclea 

 seed. The other seed-figures, one of an Erythrina species and the 

 other of Ipomoea tuberosa, are unchanged. 



The third edition, which is entitled " A Description of the Isles of 

 Orkney by the Rev. James Wallace, reprinted from the edition of 

 1693 and with additions by the Author's son in the edition of 1700," 

 was edited by John Small and published at Edinburgh in 1883. 

 This work contains both the plates of the seed-drawings of the two 

 earlier editions. It may here be remarked that an additional reference 

 to the occurrence of the seeds of Ipomoea tuberosa on the Orkney 

 beaches at the close of the seventeenth century is made by Petiver, 

 of which further mention will be made. 



The next important reference to seeds of West Indian beach-drift 

 on the coasts of these islands is to be found in 44 An Account of four 

 sorts of strange beans, frequently cast on shoar on the Orkney Isles, 



