164 
BOTANY OF THE MALDIVE ISLANDS« 
The bearing of the facts on general questions of the 
distribution of plants and the flora of oceanic islands is 
briefly touched upon, and evidence given to show the 
probability that there were formerly land masses where the 
coral archipelagos of the Indian Ocean now lie, though 
the present composition of the floras of these archipelagos 
will flt in equally well with any theory of the origin of 
these reefs, which allows for the complete submergence 
of the former land. 
Peradeniya, October 19, 1901. 
Explanation of Plate II, 
Fig. 1. — Map of Western Indian Ocean, showing archipelagos, currents, 
&c. Arrows indicate the direction of currents : when two occur together 
facing in opposite directions, the longer indicates the current in the south- 
west, the shorter that in the north-east, monsoon. The 2,000-fathom line 
is marked, and indicates what may once have been the configuration of the 
land masses in the Indian Ocean. 
Fig. 2. — Map of the Maidive Islands. Scale, 1 inch to 60 miles. 
