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Show 226 n.AR WINI.AN A. The hypothesis supposed a gradual ~odi:ficat~o.n of spem' es I·n di'fferent directions under alterm. g. condibti ons, a t 1e a st to the extent of producing vanebebs , su .- spe-cies, and representative species, as they may ~ ~art~us-ly regarded; likewise the single and. local onginatiOn of each type, which is now almost unwersally taken for granted. The remarkable facts in regard to the Eastern American and Asiatic floras which these speculations were to explain have since increased in number, especially th~ough the admirable ·collections of Dr. Maximowicz in Japan and adjacent countries, and the critical comparisons he has made and is still engaged upon. I am bound to state that, in a recel!t general work 1 by a distinguished European botanist, Prof. Grise bach, -0f Gottingen, these facts have been emptied of all special significance, and the relations between the Japanese and the Atlantic United States flora declared to be no more intimate than might be expected from the situation, climate, and present opportunity of interchange. This extraordinary conclusion is reached by regarding as distinct speci~s all the ~lants common to ·both countries between whiCh any differences have been discerned, although such differences would probably- count for little if the two inhabit~d the .same. cou~try, thus transferring many of my list of Identl.cal to that of representative species; and then by s1mply eliminating from consideration the whole array of representative species, i. e., all cases in which the ~ apanese and the American plant are not exactly ahke. 1 "Die Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer klimatischen Anordnung," 1871. SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 227 As if,. by pronouncing the. cabalistic word sneoies the :~.~ ' questwn were settled, or rather the greater part of it remanded out of the domain of science; as if, while complete identity of forms implied community of origin, anything short of it carried no presumption of the kind; so leaving aU these singular duplicates to be wondered at, indeed, but wholly beyond the reach of inquiry. Now, the only known cause of such likeness is inheritance; and as all transmission of likeness is with some difference in individuals, and as changed conditions have resulted, as is well known, in very considerable differences, it seems to me that, if the high antiquity of our actual vegetation could he rendered probable, not to say certain, and the former habitation of .any of our species or of very near relatives of them in high p.orthern regions could be ascertained, my whole.case would be made out. The needful facts, of which I was ignorant when. my essay was published, have now been for some years made knownthanks, mainly, to the researches of I-Ieer upon ample collections of arctic fossil plants. These are confumed and extended by new invesdgations, by Heer and Lesquereux, the results of which have been indicated to me by the latter.1 The Taxodium, which everywhere abounds in the 1 Reference should also be made to the extensive researches of Newberry upon the tertiary and cretaceous floras of the Western United States. See especially Prof. Newberry's paper in the Boston Jour? lal of Natu1·al History, vol. vii., No. 4, describing fossil plants of Vancouver's Island, etc. ; his "Notes on the Later Extinct Floras of North America," etc., in "Annals of the Lyceum of Natural His~ory," vol. ix., April, 1868; "Report on the Cretaceous and Tertiary Plants |