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. Professor
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 possible
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, [3] when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated
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 somewhere
in the torrid zone, and trunks of northern firs, are
washed on shore:
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