WEST INDIAN BEACH-DRIFT 



19 



fruits brought north from the estuaries of the Orinoco, the Guiana 

 rivers, and the Amazon is discussed (p. 7). 



11. Reasons are given for the belief that however uniformly 

 surface currents seem to act in distributing the seeds and fruits of 

 littoral plants in this region, Nature in the course of ages breaks 

 through her regime frequently enough to prevent any marked differ- 

 entiation in the distribution of littoral plants (p. 8). 



12. The author then deals with his selection of the Turks Islands 

 at the south-eastern extremity of the Bahamas for the methodical 

 investigation of the drift fruits and seeds best adapted for oceanic 

 transport, one of the principal reasons being that here it would be 

 easy to exclude the drift of local origin. The results proved the 

 correctness of this surmise, since almost all the larger fruits and seeds 

 in the beach-drift of these islands belong to plants that are strangers 

 to the Bahamas (p. 8). 



13. A detailed account of the drift stranded on the Turks Islands 

 is given, with a tabulated analysis showing the relative frequency of 

 the constituents of the foreign fruits and seeds, and the conclusion 

 is formed that almost all that are characteristic of West Indian drift 

 have been carried there by the currents (p. 10). In confirmation 

 of this conclusion a comparison is made with the beach-drift of 

 other West Indian localities, such as Jamaica (p. 11), Trinidad (p. 13), 

 etc. 



14. The beach-drift of the Turks Islands is thus considered as 

 representing oceanic drift in transit. After drifting about for weeks 

 or months the mass of vegetable debris, once very large, now very 

 small, reaches this group. Depositing on these small islands a 

 sample of its contents, it continues its passage in the Antillean 

 Stream towards the Florida Straits, where the Gulf Stream gathers 

 its energy before commencing its Atlantic traverse. How truly the 

 sample represents the materials likely to be drifted across the Atlantic 

 is shown in the fact that one-third of the fruits and seeds that figure 

 in the foreign drift of the beaches of the Turks Islands have been found 

 stranded on the coasts of Europe (p. 14). 



15. A more detailed description is given of the vegetation of the 

 Black River as a source of drift (pp. 15, 16); and the chapter is con- 

 cluded with a comparison of the beach-drift on the Pacific and Carib- 

 bean sides of tropical America, in which it is shown that although 

 there is a close resemblance in general composition there are important 

 differences in details (p. 17). 



