APPENDIX 



473 



Bay (about 240 miles north of Cape Hatteras) in rather over ten 

 months (315 days). Dr. Schott, who gives the data in his memoir 

 (p. 10, map 1), obtained them from the supplementary pilot chart 

 of the North Atlantic for February 1889 (U.S. Hydr. Office). From 

 the several positions determined during its passage it is apparent 

 that about five months were occupied in drifting about within an 

 area a few hundred miles across to the eastward of Newfoundland. 

 Had it not been for this interruption the traverse of the ocean would 

 have been accomplished within six months. After the first two 

 months the vessel was water-logged and was entirely under the 

 influence of the current. In the first half of the traverse, before 

 the decks were awash, the average daily rate was sixteen miles; 

 but the last 550 miles were covered at ten miles a day. The general 

 track of the derelict may be placed at about 3200 miles, which gives 

 an average daily rate of ten miles on her course from Baltimore 

 Bay (March 13, 1888) to the Hebrides (Jan. 23, 1889). 



Note 17 (p. 447) 

 Mr. Lloyd Praegefs experiment on seed-buoyancy. 



In a paper entitled " The Buoyancy of the Seeds of some Britannic 

 Plants," which was published in the Scientific Proceedings of the 

 Royal Dublin Society for 1913, Mr. Lloyd Praeger gives the results 

 of by far the most extensive series of experiments hitherto made 

 in this inquiry. He gives his own results for 786 species of flowering 

 plants, and supplementing them with those obtained by others 

 for plants not experimented on by himself he supplies the data for 

 just 900 British plants. I may be pardoned for adding that the 

 results, to use the author's own words, fully bear out the conclusion 

 formed by me as the outcome of an earlier series of experiments that 

 " the buoyant-seeded plants in our flora are in the main inhabitants 

 of either riverside or seashore " (p. 49). 



This investigator also improved on the methods of his predecessors 

 as far as direct experiment is concerned. The discrepancies between 

 his own results and mine may be due, as he remarks, partly to the 

 variable behaviour of the plants themselves and partly to different 

 conditions of experiment. Of the first kind he gives some striking 

 examples. His results also support the conclusion first formed by 

 Darwin, and confirmed by those who followed him, that the great 

 majority of seeds possess little or no floating power, probably not 

 less than 90 per cent. 



Unfortunately space does not allow me to do more here than to 

 refer to these very important investigations; but I may remark 

 that my results were also based on prolonged observations on the 

 floating seed-drift of ponds and rivers. A combination of the two 

 methods may remove some of the difficulties. Any young naturalist 

 eager to take the subject up would find opened up for him a very 

 interesting field of inquiry, and a very good guide in the paper of 

 Mr. Lloyd Praeger. 



