More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2. Darwin Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ Chapter XXIII. is no doubt very speculative, and I cannot wonder at your hesitating at accepting my views. To me, however, your theory of hosts of existing species migrating over the tropical lowlands from the N. temperate to the S. temperate zone appears more speculative and more improbable. For where could the rich lowland equatorial flora have existed during a period of general refrigeration sufficient for this? and what became of the wonderfully rich Cape flora, which, if the temperature of tropical Africa had been so recently lowered, would certainly have spread northwards, and on the return of the heat could hardly have been driven back into the sharply defined and very restricted area in which it now exists.

      As to the migration of plants from mountain to mountain not being so probable as to remote islands, I think that is fully counterbalanced by two considerations: —

      a. The area and abundance of the mountain stations along such a range as the Andes are immensely greater than those of the islands in the N. Atlantic, for example.

      b. The temporary occupation of mountain stations by migrating plants (which I think I have shown to be probable) renders time a much more important element in increasing the number and variety of the plants so dispersed than in the case of islands, where the flora soon acquires a fixed and endemic character, and where the number of species is necessarily limited.

      No doubt direct evidence of seeds being carried great distances through the air is wanted, but I am afraid can hardly be obtained. Yet I feel the greatest confidence that they are so carried. Take, for instance, the two peculiar orchids of the Azores (Habenaria sp.) What other mode of transit is conceivable? The whole subject is one of great difficulty, but I hope my chapter may call attention to a hitherto neglected factor in the distribution of plants.

      Your references to the Mauritius literature are very interesting, and will be useful to me; and I again thank you for your valuable remarks.

      LETTER 397. TO J.D. HOOKER.

      (397/1. The following letters were written to Sir J.D. Hooker when he was preparing his Address as President of the Geographical Section of the British Association at its fiftieth meeting, at York. The second letter (August 12th) refers to an earlier letter of August 6th, published in "Life and Letters," III., page 246.)

      4, Bryanston Street, W., Saturday, 26th {February, 1881}.

      I should think that you might make a very interesting address on Geographical Distribution. Could you give a little history of the subject. I, for one, should like to read such history in petto; but I can see one very great difficulty — that you yourself ought to figure most prominently in it; and this you would not do, for you are just the man to treat yourself in a dishonourable manner. I should very much like to see you discuss some of Wallace's views, especially his ignoring the all-powerful effects of the Glacial period with respect to alpine plants. (397/2. "Having been kindly permitted by Mr. Francis Darwin to read this letter, I wish to explain that the above statement applies only to my rejection of Darwin's view that the presence of arctic and north temperate plants in the SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE was brought about by the lowering of the temperature of the tropical regions during the Glacial period, so that even 'the lowlands of these great continents were everywhere tenanted under the equator by a considerable number of temperate forms ("Origin of Species," Edition VI., page 338). My own views are fully explained in Chapter XXIII. of my "Island Life," published in 1880. I quite accept all that Darwin, Hooker, and Asa Gray have written about the effect of the Glacial epoch in bringing about the present distribution of alpine and arctic plants in the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE." — Note by Mr. Wallace.) I do not know what you think, but it appears to me that he exaggerates enormously the influence of debacles or slips and new surface of soil being exposed for the reception of wind-blown seeds. What kinds of seeds have the plants which are common to the distant mountain-summits in Africa? Wallace lately wrote to me about the mountain plants of Madagascar being the same with those on mountains in Africa, and seemed to think it proved dispersal by the wind, without apparently having inquired what sorts of seeds the plants bore. (397/3. The affinity with the flora of the Eastern African islands was long ago pointed out by Sir J.D. Hooker, "Linn. Soc. Journal," VI., 1861, page 3. Speaking of the plants of Clarence Peak in Fernando Po, he says, "The next affinity is with Mauritius, Bourbon, and Madagascar: of the whole 76 species, 16 inhabit these places and 8 more are closely allied to plants from there. Three temperate species are peculiar to Clarence Peak and the East African islands..." The facts to which Mr. Wallace called Darwin's attention are given by Mr. J.G. Baker in "Nature," December 9th, 1880, page 125. He mentions the Madagascar Viola, which occurs elsewhere only at 7,000 feet in the Cameroons, at 10,000 feet in Fernando Po and in the Abyssinian mountains; and the same thing is true of the Madagascar Geranium. In Mr. Wallace's letter to Darwin, dated January 1st, 1881, he evidently uses the expression "passing through the air" in contradistinction to the migration of a species by gradual extension of its area on land. "Through the air" would moreover include occasional modes of transport other than simple carriage by wind: e.g., the seeds might be carried by birds, either attached to the feathers or to the mud on their feet, or in their crops or intestines.)

      I suppose it would be travelling too far (though for the geographical section the discussion ought to be far-reaching), but I should like to see the European or northern element in the Cape of Good Hope flora discussed. I cannot swallow Wallace's view that European plants travelled down the Andes, tenanted the hypothetical Antarctic continent (in which I quite believe), and thence spread to South Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.

      Moseley told me not long ago that he proposed to search at Kerguelen Land the coal beds most carefully, and was absolutely forbidden to do so by Sir W. Thomson, who said that he would undertake the work, and he never once visited them. This puts me in a passion. I hope that you will keep to your intention and make an address on distribution. Though I differ so much from Wallace, his "Island Life" seems to me a wonderful book.

      Farewell. I do hope that you may have a most prosperous journey. Give my kindest remembrances to Asa Gray.

      LETTER 398. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, August 12th, 1881.

      ...I think that I must have expressed myself badly about Humboldt. I should have said that he was more remarkable for his astounding knowledge than for originality. I have always looked at him as, in fact, the founder of the geographical distribution of organisms. I thought that I had read that extinct fossil plants belonging to Australian forms had lately been found in Australia, and all such cases seem to me very interesting, as bearing on development.

      I have been so astonished at the apparently sudden coming in of the higher phanerogams, that I have sometimes fancied that development might have slowly gone on for an immense period in some isolated continent or large island, perhaps near the South Pole. I poured out my idle thoughts in writing, as if I had been talking with you.

      No fact has so interested me for a heap of years as your case of the plants on the equatorial mountains of Africa; and Wallace tells me that some one (Baker?) has described analogous cases on the mountains of Madagascar (398/1. See Letter 397, note.)...I think that you ought to allude to these cases.

      I most fully agree that no problem is more interesting than that of the temperate forms in the southern hemisphere, common to the north. I remember writing about this after Wallace's book appeared, and hoping that you would take it up. The frequency with which the drainage from the land passes through mountain-chains seems to indicate some general law — viz., the successive formation of cracks and lines of elevation between the nearest ocean and the already upraised land; but that is too big a subject for a note.

      I doubt whether any insects can be shown with any probability to have been flower feeders before the middle of the Secondary period. Several of the asserted cases have broken down.

      Your long letter has stirred many pleasant СКАЧАТЬ