74 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



and from the shores and estuaries of Brazil south of Cape St. Roque. 

 The burden carried westward by the Main Equatorial Current must, 

 indeed, be a motley one. The seed-drift of the rivers of two conti- 

 nents, including some of the largest rivers of the world, contribute 

 to its freight. It bears westward towards Brazil drift of the Plate, 

 the Congo, and the Niger; and as it sweeps northward to the West 

 Indian region it gathers materials from the Amazon, the rivers of 

 the Guianas, and the Orinoco. 



But the possible sources of seed-drift do not end here, since the 

 Main Equatorial Current may receive accessions from the Indian 

 and Pacific Oceans. The Atlantic is not a closed ocean to the south. 

 It has already been shown that bottle-drift from the east coast of 

 Africa can double the Cape and reach the shores of Brazil, and 

 that materials from the Pacific side of Fuegia can double the Horn 

 and reach the Falkland Islands. In the first case the Indian Ocean 

 is tapped as a source of seed-drift. In the second case we have 

 the possibility that the drift from New Zealand and the islands of 

 the Southern Ocean, after it strikes the coasts of South Chile and the 

 western shores of Fuegia, may at times double Cape Horn and get 

 within the influence of the currents of the South Atlantic. (The 

 bottle-drift of high southern latitudes is dealt with in Chapter XIII.) 



The Island of Trinidad as a Centre of Drift Dispersal. — 

 Next to the Florida Sea, the gathering-place of much of the floating 

 seed-drift of the West Indian region before beginning its transatlantic 

 passage in the Gulf Stream, there is no locality so interesting as a 

 drift-centre as the island of Trinidad. From the standpoint of the 

 dispersal of plants by currents, it is the connecting centre or junction 

 of the lines of dispersal that converge from the Atlantic side and 

 diverge on the West Indian side. As shown by the floating bottles, 

 it is the Main Equatorial Current that principally piles up drift on 

 its beaches, drift from tropical West Africa and from the north-east 

 seaboard of South America, though at times, as indicated below, 

 drift also reaches it from the North Atlantic through the North 

 Equatorial Current. Whilst materials from the South American 

 mainland north of Cape St. Roque doubtless greatly predominate, 

 including, as they do, the drift of the Amazon, of the rivers of the 

 Guianas, and of the Orinoco, yet materials from the West African 

 rivers, the Niger and the Congo, as well as from the shores of the 

 Gulf of Guinea, must be represented. 



The bottle-drift data relating to this locality are worthy of further 

 remark. It has already been shown that about thirty of every 

 hundred bottles recovered after being thrown into the Main Equatorial 

 Current between the coast of North Brazil and St. Paul's Rocks 

 reached Trinidad. Much of the Amazon drift, as observed below, 

 is cast up on the shores of this island. Five out of sixteen bottles, 

 that were recovered after being dropped overboard off the Amazon 

 estuary, were stranded on Trinidad. Dr. Schott (pp. 12, 14) dwells 

 on the very large number of records of drift bottles that were returned 

 to the " Deutsche Seewarte " in Hamburg from the east coast of 

 this island, almost all of them arriving there from the south-east 

 and east-south-east, less than 10 per cent, coming from the east or 



