APPENDIX 



477 



has the appearance of lying athwart the stream of the South Equa- 

 torial Current; but since the 32nd meridian in March represents 

 the westerly limit from which, according to Schott's tabulated 

 results (p. 17), bottle-drift reaches the African coast, we have here 

 evidently the result of the extended Guinea Current acting as a 

 true counter-current across the breadth of the Atlantic. At such a 

 time the counter-stream might readily capture some of the vegetable 

 drift washed off the coasts of North Brazil. 



There is thus a possibility that at certain seasons seeds may be 

 transported from this part of the South American sea-border to 

 the snores of Sierra Leone and Liberia. It is here that the South 

 American and African continents make the nearest approach, only 

 about 1550 miles separating Cape St. Roque from the nearest point 

 of Africa. It is only a possibility, and, although the event may be 

 of very rare occurrence, it cannot be ignored. 



Note 20 (p. 72). 



Bottle-drift from the South-east Bahama seas to the coast of Ireland 



and back. 



The following two bottles performed between them the circuit 

 of the North Atlantic, the track of the first being by the Straits of 

 Florida and the Gulf Stream route, that of the second by the North 

 African and North Equatorial Currents. 



(a) Thrown over in April 1906, in the channel between the Turks 

 Islands and the Haitian coast. Recovered 337 days afterwards 

 on the west coast of Ireland (lat. 53° 45' N.), having covered 4140 

 miles at the minimum rate of 12*3 miles a day (see Note 13). The 

 details are given under Bottle 59 in the U.S. chart of the North 

 Atlantic for May 1909. 



(h) Thrown over in January 1900, about 260 miles to the west 

 of the south-west coast of Ireland in lat. 51° 15' N. and long. 17 a 

 16' W. Recovered after 597 days on the Caicos Islands at the 

 south-eastern end of the Bahamas, having covered 5100 miles at 

 the minimum daily rate of 8*5 miles. The details are supplied in 

 the U.S. chart of the North Atlantic for December 1908. 



Note 21 (p. 85). 



On some small-seeded West Indian littoral plants. 



Brief reference may here first be made to the group of four small- 

 seeded littoral West Indian plants, Sesuvium portulacastrum, Portu- 

 laca oleracea, Herpestis monniera, and Heliotr opium curassavicum, 

 that are generally distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions 

 of the globe — the two first being characteristic of the sandy beach, 

 the third of marshy ground, and the last often of saline mud around 

 lagoons. In all cases the seeds possess little or no buoyancy, and 

 doubtless much of the cosmopolitan range of each of these plants 

 is due to the agency of the drifting log bearing the seeds in its crevices, 



