Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/333

] Fuegian mountains. The main difference between the Flora of Tierra del Fuego and of the islands south of New Zealand consists in the abundance of Rubiacece which mark the latter, and which are replaced in the region we are now considering by an increased proportion of Compositæ.

"When treating of the Falkland Islands and Kerguelen Island respectively, it was stated how much they are dependent on Fuegia for a large proportion of their plants; and an examination of the botany of South Georgia, farther east than the Falklands from Fuegia, and of Tristan d'Acunha, which, like Kerguelen Island, lies much nearer to the coast of Africa, also exhibits the same affinity. Strange and inexplicable though it may appear, it is still true that plants, found in these isolated specks alone, must have traversed (granting migration to be the cause of specific identity in distant spots) thousands of miles of the stormiest ocean of our globe. A glance at the chart shows the infinitely small proportion borne by these islets to the endless waste of waters wherein they are placed; and the prodigious obstacles that such objects as seeds must have surmounted in performing, with unimpaired vitality, these remote voyages, if we suppose their dispersion to have taken place subsequently to the land and water holding the relative position they at present maintain.

"The common observer and the scientific inquirer will alike find much singularity in the vegetation of Fuegia. It exhibits a larger proportion