Vernon Lee - "A Phantom Lover"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Life of John of Barneveld, 1617"

Mungo Park - "Travels in the Interior of Africa Volume 2"

Edgar Rice Burroughs - "People Out Of Time"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: On the Origin of Species

C >> Charles Darwin >> On the Origin of Species




A second great fact which strikes us in our general review is, that
barriers of any kind, or obstacles to free migration, are related in a
close and important manner to the differences between the productions
of various regions. We see this in the great difference of nearly all
the terrestrial productions of the New and Old Worlds, excepting in
the northern parts, where the land almost joins, and where, under a
slightly different climate, there might have been free migration for
the northern temperate forms, as there now is for the strictly arctic
productions. We see the same fact in the great difference between the
inhabitants of Australia, Africa, and South America under the same
latitude: for these countries are almost as much isolated from each
other as is possible. On each continent, also, we see the same fact;
for on the opposite sides of lofty and continuous mountain-ranges, and
of great deserts, and sometimes even of large rivers, we find
different productions; though as mountain chains, deserts, etc., are
not as impassable, or likely to have endured so long as the oceans
separating continents, the differences are very inferior in degree to
those characteristic of distinct continents.

Turning to the sea, we find the same law. No two marine faunas are
more distinct, with hardly a fish, shell, or crab in common, than
those of the eastern and western shores of South and Central America;
yet these great faunas are separated only by the narrow, but
impassable, isthmus of Panama. Westward of the shores of America, a
wide space of open ocean extends, with not an island as a
halting-place for emigrants; here we have a barrier of another kind,
and as soon as this is passed we meet in the eastern islands of the
Pacific, with another and totally distinct fauna. So that here three
marine faunas range far northward and southward, in parallel lines not
far from each other, under corresponding climates; but from being
separated from each other by impassable barriers, either of land or
open sea, they are wholly distinct. On the other hand, proceeding
still further westward from the eastern islands of the tropical parts
of the Pacific, we encounter no impassable barriers, and we have
innumerable islands as halting-places, until after travelling over a
hemisphere we come to the shores of Africa; and over this vast space
we meet with no well-defined and distinct marine faunas. Although
hardly one shell, crab or fish is common to the above-named three
approximate faunas of Eastern and Western America and the eastern
Pacific islands, yet many fish range from the Pacific into the Indian
Ocean, and many shells are common to the eastern islands of the
Pacific and the eastern shores of Africa, on almost exactly opposite
meridians of longitude.

A third great fact, partly included in the foregoing statements, is
the affinity of the productions of the same continent or sea, though
the species themselves are distinct at different points and stations.
It is a law of the widest generality, and every continent offers
innumerable instances. Nevertheless the naturalist in travelling, for
instance, from north to south never fails to be struck by the manner
in which successive groups of beings, specifically distinct, yet
clearly related, replace each other. He hears from closely allied, yet
distinct kinds of birds, notes nearly similar, and sees their nests
similarly constructed, but not quite alike, with eggs coloured in
nearly the same manner. The plains near the Straits of Magellan are
inhabited by one species of Rhea (American ostrich), and northward the
plains of La Plata by another species of the same genus; and not by a
true ostrich or emeu, like those found in Africa and Australia under
the same latitude. On these same plains of La Plata, we see the agouti
and bizcacha, animals having nearly the same habits as our hares and
rabbits and belonging to the same order of Rodents, but they plainly
display an American type of structure. We ascend the lofty peaks of
the Cordillera and we find an alpine species of bizcacha; we look to
the waters, and we do not find the beaver or musk-rat, but the coypu
and capybara, rodents of the American type. Innumerable other
instances could be given. If we look to the islands off the American
shore, however much they may differ in geological structure, the
inhabitants, though they may be all peculiar species, are essentially
American. We may look back to past ages, as shown in the last chapter,
and we find American types then prevalent on the American continent
and in the American seas. We see in these facts some deep organic
bond, prevailing throughout space and time, over the same areas of
land and water, and independent of their physical conditions. The
naturalist must feel little curiosity, who is not led to inquire what
this bond is.

This bond, on my theory, is simply inheritance, that cause which
alone, as far as we positively know, produces organisms quite like,
or, as we see in the case of varieties nearly like each other. The
dissimilarity of the inhabitants of different regions may be
attributed to modification through natural selection, and in a quite
subordinate degree to the direct influence of different physical
conditions. The degree of dissimilarity will depend on the migration
of the more dominant forms of life from one region into another having
been effected with more or less ease, at periods more or less
remote;--on the nature and number of the former immigrants;--and on
their action and reaction, in their mutual struggles for life;--the
relation of organism to organism being, as I have already often
remarked, the most important of all relations. Thus the high
importance of barriers comes into play by checking migration; as does
time for the slow process of modification through natural selection.
Widely-ranging species, abounding in individuals, which have already
triumphed over many competitors in their own widely-extended homes
will have the best chance of seizing on new places, when they spread
into new countries. In their new homes they will be exposed to new
conditions, and will frequently undergo further modification and
improvement; and thus they will become still further victorious, and
will produce groups of modified descendants. On this principle of
inheritance with modification, we can understand how it is that
sections of genera, whole genera, and even families are confined to
the same areas, as is so commonly and notoriously the case.

I believe, as was remarked in the last chapter, in no law of necessary
development. As the variability of each species is an independent
property, and will be taken advantage of by natural selection, only so
far as it profits the individual in its complex struggle for life, so
the degree of modification in different species will be no uniform
quantity. If, for instance, a number of species, which stand in direct
competition with each other, migrate in a body into a new and
afterwards isolated country, they will be little liable to
modification; for neither migration nor isolation in themselves can do
anything. These principles come into play only by bringing organisms
into new relations with each other, and in a lesser degree with the
surrounding physical conditions. As we have seen in the last chapter
that some forms have retained nearly the same character from an
enormously remote geological period, so certain species have migrated
over vast spaces, and have not become greatly modified.

On these views, it is obvious, that the several species of the same
genus, though inhabiting the most distant quarters of the world, must
originally have proceeded from the same source, as they have descended
from the same progenitor. In the case of those species, which have
undergone during whole geological periods but little modification,
there is not much difficulty in believing that they may have migrated
from the same region; for during the vast geographical and climatal
changes which will have supervened since ancient times, almost any
amount of migration is possible. But in many other cases, in which we
have reason to believe that the species of a genus have been produced
within comparatively recent times, there is great difficulty on this
head. It is also obvious that the individuals of the same species,
though now inhabiting distant and isolated regions, must have
proceeded from one spot, where their parents were first produced: for,
as explained in the last chapter, it is incredible that individuals
identically the same should ever have been produced through natural
selection from parents specifically distinct.

We are thus brought to the question which has been largely discussed
by naturalists, namely, whether species have been created at one or
more points of the earth's surface. Undoubtedly there are very many
cases of extreme difficulty, in understanding how the same species
could possibly have migrated from some one point to the several
distant and isolated points, where now found. Nevertheless the
simplicity of the view that each species was first produced within a
single region captivates the mind. He who rejects it, rejects the vera
causa of ordinary generation with subsequent migration, and calls in
the agency of a miracle. It is universally admitted, that in most
cases the area inhabited by a species is continuous; and when a plant
or animal inhabits two points so distant from each other, or with an
interval of such a nature, that the space could not be easily passed
over by migration, the fact is given as something remarkable and
exceptional. The capacity of migrating across the sea is more
distinctly limited in terrestrial mammals, than perhaps in any other
organic beings; and, accordingly, we find no inexplicable cases of the
same mammal inhabiting distant points of the world. No geologist will
feel any difficulty in such cases as Great Britain having been
formerly united to Europe, and consequently possessing the same
quadrupeds. But if the same species can be produced at two separate
points, why do we not find a single mammal common to Europe and
Australia or South America? The conditions of life are nearly the
same, so that a multitude of European animals and plants have become
naturalised in America and Australia; and some of the aboriginal
plants are identically the same at these distant points of the
northern and southern hemispheres? The answer, as I believe, is, that
mammals have not been able to migrate, whereas some plants, from their
varied means of dispersal, have migrated across the vast and broken
interspace. The great and striking influence which barriers of every
kind have had on distribution, is intelligible only on the view that
the great majority of species have been produced on one side alone,
and have not been able to migrate to the other side. Some few
families, many sub-families, very many genera, and a still greater
number of sections of genera are confined to a single region; and it
has been observed by several naturalists, that the most natural
genera, or those genera in which the species are most closely related
to each other, are generally local, or confined to one area. What a
strange anomaly it would be, if, when coming one step lower in the
series, to the individuals of the same species, a directly opposite
rule prevailed; and species were not local, but had been produced in
two or more distinct areas!

Hence it seems to me, as it has to many other naturalists, that the
view of each species having been produced in one area alone, and
having subsequently migrated from that area as far as its powers of
migration and subsistence under past and present conditions permitted,
is the most probable. Undoubtedly many cases occur, in which we cannot
explain how the same species could have passed from one point to the
other. But the geographical and climatal changes, which have certainly
occurred within recent geological times, must have interrupted or
rendered discontinuous the formerly continuous range of many species.
So that we are reduced to consider whether the exceptions to
continuity of range are so numerous and of so grave a nature, that we
ought to give up the belief, rendered probable by general
considerations, that each species has been produced within one area,
and has migrated thence as far as it could. It would be hopelessly
tedious to discuss all the exceptional cases of the same species, now
living at distant and separated points; nor do I for a moment pretend
that any explanation could be offered of many such cases. But after
some preliminary remarks, I will discuss a few of the most striking
classes of facts; namely, the existence of the same species on the
summits of distant mountain-ranges, and at distant points in the
arctic and antarctic regions; and secondly (in the following chapter),
the wide distribution of freshwater productions; and thirdly, the
occurrence of the same terrestrial species on islands and on the
mainland, though separated by hundreds of miles of open sea. If the
existence of the same species at distant and isolated points of the
earth's surface, can in many instances be explained on the view of
each species having migrated from a single birthplace; then,
considering our ignorance with respect to former climatal and
geographical changes and various occasional means of transport, the
belief that this has been the universal law, seems to me incomparably
the safest.

In discussing this subject, we shall be enabled at the same time to
consider a point equally important for us, namely, whether the several
distinct species of a genus, which on my theory have all descended
from a common progenitor, can have migrated (undergoing modification
during some part of their migration) from the area inhabited by their
progenitor. If it can be shown to be almost invariably the case, that
a region, of which most of its inhabitants are closely related to, or
belong to the same genera with the species of a second region, has
probably received at some former period immigrants from this other
region, my theory will be strengthened; for we can clearly understand,
on the principle of modification, why the inhabitants of a region
should be related to those of another region, whence it has been
stocked. A volcanic island, for instance, upheaved and formed at the
distance of a few hundreds of miles from a continent, would probably
receive from it in the course of time a few colonists, and their
descendants, though modified, would still be plainly related by
inheritance to the inhabitants of the continent. Cases of this nature
are common, and are, as we shall hereafter more fully see,
inexplicable on the theory of independent creation. This view of the
relation of species in one region to those in another, does not differ
much (by substituting the word variety for species) from that lately
advanced in an ingenious paper by Mr. Wallace, in which he concludes,
that "every species has come into existence coincident both in space
and time with a pre-existing closely allied species." And I now know
from correspondence, that this coincidence he attributes to generation
with modification.

The previous remarks on "single and multiple centres of creation" do
not directly bear on another allied question,--namely whether all the
individuals of the same species have descended from a single pair, or
single hermaphrodite, or whether, as some authors suppose, from many
individuals simultaneously created. With those organic beings which
never intercross (if such exist), the species, on my theory, must have
descended from a succession of improved varieties, which will never
have blended with other individuals or varieties, but will have
supplanted each other; so that, at each successive stage of
modification and improvement, all the individuals of each variety will
have descended from a single parent. But in the majority of cases,
namely, with all organisms which habitually unite for each birth, or
which often intercross, I believe that during the slow process of
modification the individuals of the species will have been kept nearly
uniform by intercrossing; so that many individuals will have gone on
simultaneously changing, and the whole amount of modification will not
have been due, at each stage, to descent from a single parent. To
illustrate what I mean: our English racehorses differ slightly from
the horses of every other breed; but they do not owe their difference
and superiority to descent from any single pair, but to continued care
in selecting and training many individuals during many generations.

Before discussing the three classes of facts, which I have selected as
presenting the greatest amount of difficulty on the theory of "single
centres of creation," I must say a few words on the means of
dispersal.

MEANS OF DISPERSAL.

Sir C. Lyell and other authors have ably treated this subject. I can
give here only the briefest abstract of the more important facts.
Change of climate must have had a powerful influence on migration: a
region when its climate was different may have been a high road for
migration, but now be impassable; I shall, however, presently have to
discuss this branch of the subject in some detail. Changes of level in
the land must also have been highly influential: a narrow isthmus now
separates two marine faunas; submerge it, or let it formerly have been
submerged, and the two faunas will now blend or may formerly have
blended: where the sea now extends, land may at a former period have
connected islands or possibly even continents together, and thus have
allowed terrestrial productions to pass from one to the other. No
geologist will dispute that great mutations of level have occurred
within the period of existing organisms. Edward Forbes insisted that
all the islands in the Atlantic must recently have been connected with
Europe or Africa, and Europe likewise with America. Other authors have
thus hypothetically bridged over every ocean, and have united almost
every island to some mainland. If indeed the arguments used by Forbes
are to be trusted, it must be admitted that scarcely a single island
exists which has not recently been united to some continent. This view
cuts the Gordian knot of the dispersal of the same species to the most
distant points, and removes many a difficulty: but to the best of my
judgment we are not authorized in admitting such enormous geographical
changes within the period of existing species. It seems to me that we
have abundant evidence of great oscillations of level in our
continents; but not of such vast changes in their position and
extension, as to have united them within the recent period to each
other and to the several intervening oceanic islands. I freely admit
the former existence of many islands, now buried beneath the sea,
which may have served as halting places for plants and for many
animals during their migration. In the coral-producing oceans such
sunken islands are now marked, as I believe, by rings of coral or
atolls standing over them. Whenever it is fully admitted, as I believe
it will some day be, that each species has proceeded from a single
birthplace, and when in the course of time we know something definite
about the means of distribution, we shall be enabled to speculate with
security on the former extension of the land. But I do not believe
that it will ever be proved that within the recent period continents
which are now quite separate, have been continuously, or almost
continuously, united with each other, and with the many existing
oceanic islands. Several facts in distribution,--such as the great
difference in the marine faunas on the opposite sides of almost every
continent,--the close relation of the tertiary inhabitants of several
lands and even seas to their present inhabitants,--a certain degree of
relation (as we shall hereafter see) between the distribution of
mammals and the depth of the sea,--these and other such facts seem to
me opposed to the admission of such prodigious geographical
revolutions within the recent period, as are necessitated on the view
advanced by Forbes and admitted by his many followers. The nature and
relative proportions of the inhabitants of oceanic islands likewise
seem to me opposed to the belief of their former continuity with
continents. Nor does their almost universally volcanic composition
favour the admission that they are the wrecks of sunken
continents;--if they had originally existed as mountain-ranges on the
land, some at least of the islands would have been formed, like other
mountain-summits, of granite, metamorphic schists, old fossiliferous
or other such rocks, instead of consisting of mere piles of volcanic
matter.

I must now say a few words on what are called accidental means, but
which more properly might be called occasional means of distribution.
I shall here confine myself to plants. In botanical works, this or
that plant is stated to be ill adapted for wide dissemination; but for
transport across the sea, the greater or less facilities may be said
to be almost wholly unknown. Until I tried, with Mr. Berkeley's aid, a
few experiments, it was not even known how far seeds could resist the
injurious action of sea-water. To my surprise I found that out of 87
kinds, 64 germinated after an immersion of 28 days, and a few survived
an immersion of 137 days. For convenience sake I chiefly tried small
seeds, without the capsule or fruit; and as all of these sank in a few
days, they could not be floated across wide spaces of the sea, whether
or not they were injured by the salt-water. Afterwards I tried some
larger fruits, capsules, etc., and some of these floated for a long
time. It is well known what a difference there is in the buoyancy of
green and seasoned timber; and it occurred to me that floods might
wash down plants or branches, and that these might be dried on the
banks, and then by a fresh rise in the stream be washed into the sea.
Hence I was led to dry stems and branches of 94 plants with ripe
fruit, and to place them on sea water. The majority sank quickly, but
some which whilst green floated for a very short time, when dried
floated much longer; for instance, ripe hazel-nuts sank immediately,
but when dried, they floated for 90 days and afterwards when planted
they germinated; an asparagus plant with ripe berries floated for 23
days, when dried it floated for 85 days, and the seeds afterwards
germinated: the ripe seeds of Helosciadium sank in two days, when
dried they floated for above 90 days, and afterwards germinated.
Altogether out of the 94 dried plants, 18 floated for above 28 days,
and some of the 18 floated for a very much longer period. So that as
64/87 seeds germinated after an immersion of 28 days; and as 18/94
plants with ripe fruit (but not all the same species as in the
foregoing experiment) floated, after being dried, for above 28 days,
as far as we may infer anything from these scanty facts, we may
conclude that the seeds of 14/100 plants of any country might be
floated by sea-currents during 28 days, and would retain their power
of germination. In Johnston's Physical Atlas, the average rate of the
several Atlantic currents is 33 miles per diem (some currents running
at the rate of 60 miles per diem); on this average, the seeds of
14/100 plants belonging to one country might be floated across 924
miles of sea to another country; and when stranded, if blown to a
favourable spot by an inland gale, they would germinate.

Subsequently to my experiments, M. Martens tried similar ones, but in
a much better manner, for he placed the seeds in a box in the actual
sea, so that they were alternately wet and exposed to the air like
really floating plants. He tried 98 seeds, mostly different from mine;
but he chose many large fruits and likewise seeds from plants which
live near the sea; and this would have favoured the average length of
their flotation and of their resistance to the injurious action of the
salt-water. On the other hand he did not previously dry the plants or
branches with the fruit; and this, as we have seen, would have caused
some of them to have floated much longer. The result was that 18/98 of
his seeds floated for 42 days, and were then capable of germination.
But I do not doubt that plants exposed to the waves would float for a
less time than those protected from violent movement as in our
experiments. Therefore it would perhaps be safer to assume that the
seeds of about 10/100 plants of a flora, after having been dried,
could be floated across a space of sea 900 miles in width, and would
then germinate. The fact of the larger fruits often floating longer
than the small, is interesting; as plants with large seeds or fruit
could hardly be transported by any other means; and Alph. de Candolle
has shown that such plants generally have restricted ranges.

But seeds may be occasionally transported in another manner. Drift
timber is thrown up on most islands, even on those in the midst of the
widest oceans; and the natives of the coral-islands in the Pacific,
procure stones for their tools, solely from the roots of drifted
trees, these stones being a valuable royal tax. I find on examination,
that when irregularly shaped stones are embedded in the roots of
trees, small parcels of earth are very frequently enclosed in their
interstices and behind them,--so perfectly that not a particle could
be washed away in the longest transport: out of one small portion of
earth thus COMPLETELY enclosed by wood in an oak about 50 years old,
three dicotyledonous plants germinated: I am certain of the accuracy
of this observation. Again, I can show that the carcasses of birds,
when floating on the sea, sometimes escape being immediately devoured;
and seeds of many kinds in the crops of floating birds long retain
their vitality: peas and vetches, for instance, are killed by even a
few days' immersion in sea-water; but some taken out of the crop of a
pigeon, which had floated on artificial salt-water for 30 days, to my
surprise nearly all germinated.