Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/390

 per century were carried to an oceanic island, that island might become rapidly overrun by the plant, if the conditions were favourable to its growth and reproduction. It is further objected that search has been made for such seeds, and they have not been found. Professor Kerner of Innsbruck examined the snow on the surface of glaciers, and assiduously collected all the seeds he could find, and these were all of plants which grew in the adjacent mountains or in the same district. In like manner, the plants growing on moraines were found to be those of the adjacent mountains, plateaux, or lowlands. Hence he concluded that the prevalent opinion that seeds may be carried through the air for very great distances "is not supported by fact." The opinion is certainly not supported by Kerner's facts, but neither is it opposed by them. It is obvious that the seeds that would be carried by the wind to moraines or to the surface of glaciers would be, first and in the greatest abundance, those of the immediately surrounding district; then, very much more rarely, those from more remote mountains; and lastly, in extreme rarity, those from distant countries or altogether distinct mountain ranges. Let us suppose the first to be so abundant that a single seed could be found by industrious search on each square yard of the surface of the glacier; the second so scarce that only one could possibly be found in a hundred yards square; while to find one of the third class it would be necessary exhaustively to examine a square mile of surface. Should we expect that one ever to be found, and should the fact that it could not be found be taken as a proof that it was not there? Besides, a glacier is altogether in a bad position to receive such remote wanderers, since it is generally surrounded by lofty mountains, often range behind range, which would intercept the few air-borne seeds that might have been carried from a distant land. The conditions in an oceanic island, on the other hand, are the most favourable, since the land, especially if high, will intercept objects carried by the wind, and will thus cause more of the solid matter to fall on it than on an equal area of ocean. We know that winds at sea often blow violently for days together, and the rate of motion is indicated by the fact that 72 miles an hour was the average velocity