110 



LUSITANIAN PKOVINCE. 



of Ireland. Now two years before Mr. Mac Andrew's 

 discovery I maintained the theory that during the 

 epoch preceding the present — during that epoch to 

 which the terms glacial and pleistocene have been 

 applied, and most probably at the early stage of 

 that epoch — there was an extension of the land of 

 Europe westward, as far as or beyond the Azores, 

 that the land so extended was continuous with or 

 more likely contiguous to, the land of Ireland, and 

 that over this extended land migrated an Asturian 

 flora, whose fragments remain on the mountains 

 of the west of Ireland, and are represented there 

 by the peculiar Saxifrages, Heaths, strawberry-tree, 

 and some other plants (the number has increased 

 since I wrote) not found elsewhere in the British 

 islands. I will quote from the memoirs referred 

 to.* "The remarkable point concerning these 

 (Irish) plants is that they are all species which at 

 present are forms either peculiar to, or abundant 

 in, the great peninsula of Spain and Portugal, and 

 especially in Asturias. No existing distribution of 

 marine currents will account for their presence, and 

 even if there were plausible grounds for attributing 

 it to the great current known as Rennel's, which 

 sweeps the northern coasts of Spain, and strikes in 

 its aftercourse against the western shores of Britain 

 and Ireland, the plants in question, instead of being 



* On the Geological relations of the existing Fauna and Flora 

 of the British Isles, in " Memoirs of the Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain," vol. i. 



