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CHARLES DARWIN 



pepper-vine, the latter intwining round its trunk, and sup- 

 porting itself by the prickles on its stem ; the soap-tree ; the 

 castor-oil plant ; trunks of the sago palm ; and various kinds 

 of seeds unknown to the Malays settled on the islands. 

 These are all supposed to have been driven by the N. W. 

 monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and thence to these 

 islands by the S. E. trade-wind. Large masses of Java teak 

 and Yellow wood have also been found, besides immense 

 trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gumwood of New 

 Holland, in a perfectly sound condition. All the hardy seeds, 

 such as creepers, retain their germinating power, but the 

 softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, are destroyed 

 in the passage. Fishing-canoes, apparently from Java, have 

 at times been washed on shore." It is interesting thus to 

 discover how numerous the seeds are, which, coming from 

 several countries, are drifted over the wide ocean. Pro- 

 fessor Henslow tells me, he believes that nearly all the plants 

 which I brought from these islands, are common littoral 

 species in the East Indian archipelago. From the direction, 

 however, of the winds and currents, it seems scarcely pos- 

 sible that they could have come here in a direct line. If, 

 as suggested with much probability by Mr. Keating, they 

 were first carried towards the coast of New Holland, and 

 thence drifted back together with the productions of that 

 country, the seeds, before germinating, must have travelled 

 between 1800 and 2400 miles. 



Chamisso,* when describing the Radack Archipelago, situ- 

 ated in the western part of the Pacific, states that " the sea 

 brings to these islands the seeds and fruits of many trees> 

 most of which have yet not grown here. The greater part 

 of these seeds appear to have not yet lost the capability of 

 growing." 



It is also said that palms and bamboos from some- 

 where in the torrid zone, and trunks of northern firs, are 

 washed on shore: these firs must have come from an im- 

 mense distance. These facts are highly interesting. It can- 

 not be doubted that if there were land-birds to pick up the 

 seeds when first cast on shore, and a soil better adapted for 

 their growth than the loose blocks of coral, that the most 

 •Kotzebue's First Voyage, toI. iii. p. 155- 



