Darwin Correspondence Project

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Ap. 9.

My dear Wallace

You allude in yr note to several points which I shd much enjoy discussing with you did time & strength permit. I know Dr Seeman is a good botanist, but I most strongly advise you to shew the list to Hooker before you make use of the materials in print. Hooker seems much over worked & is now gone a tour, but I suppose you will be in town before very long, & cd see him.

The list is quite unintelligible to me; it is not pretended that the same species exist in the Sandwich I's & Arctic Regions; & as far as the genera are concerned, I know that in almost every one of them species inhabit such countries as Florida, N. Africa, New Holland &c. Therefore these genera seem to me almost mundane, & their presence in the Sandwich I.s will not, as I suspect in my ignorance, shew any relation to the Arctic regions. The Sandwich I.s, tho' I have never considered them much, have long been a sore perplexity to me; they are eminently oceanic in position & productions; they have long been separated from each other; & there are only slight signs of subsidence in the islets to the westward.

I remember however speculating that there must have been some immigration during the glacial period from N. America or Japan; but I cannot remember what my grounds were. Some of the plants, I think, shew an affinity with Australia.

I am very glad that you like Lyell's chapter on oceanic islands, for I thought it one of the best in the part which I have read. If you do not receive the big photo. of me in due time, let me hear.

yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin