hern hemisphere.

P.S.--I have been looking at my poor miserable attempt at
botanical-landscape-remarks, and I see that I state that the species of
beech which is least common in T. del Fuego is common in the forest of
Central Chiloe. But I will enclose for you this one page of my rough
journal.

LETTER 314. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 31st (1844).

I have been a shameful time in returning your documents, but I have been
very busy scientifically, and unscientifically in planting. I have been
exceedingly interested in the details about the Galapagos Islands.
I need not say that I collected blindly, and did not attempt to make
complete series, but just took everything in flower blindly. The flora
of the summits and bases of the islands appear wholly different; it may
aid you in observing whether the different islands have representative
species filling the same places in the economy of nature, to know that I
collected plants from the lower and dry region in all the islands, i.e.,
in the Chatham, Charles, James, and Albemarle (the least on the latter);
and that I was able to ascend into the high and damp region only in
James and Charles Islands; and in the former I think I got every plant
then in flower. Please bear this in mind in comparing the representative
species. (You know that Henslow has described a new Opuntia from the
Galapagos.) Your observations on the distribution of large mundane
genera have interested me much; but that was not the precise point which
I was curious to ascertain; it has no necessary relation to size of
genus (though perhaps your statements will show that it has). It was
merely this: suppose a genus with ten or more species, inhabiting the
ten main botanical regions, should you expect that all or most of these
ten species would have wide ranges (i.e. were found in most parts) in
their respective countries? (314/1. This point is discussed in a letter
in "Life and Letters," Volume II., page 25, but not, we think in the
"Origin"; for letters on large genera containing many varieties see
"Life and Letters," Volume II., pages 102-7, also in the "Origin,"
Edition I., page 53, Edition VI., page 44. In a letter of April 5th,
1844, Sir J.D. Hooker gave his opinion: "On the whole I believe that
many individual representative species of large genera have wide ranges,
but I do not consider the fact as one of great value, because the
proportion of such species having a wide range is not large compared