: is it not quite an original plan? and is it not very
surprising that New Zealand, so much nearer to Australia than South
America, should have an intermediate flora? I had fancied that nearly
all the species there were peculiar to it. I cannot but think you make
one gratuitous difficulty in ascertaining whether New Zealand ought to
be classed by itself, or with Australia or South America--namely, when
you seem (bottom of page 7 of your letter) to say that genera in
common indicate only that the external circumstances for their life are
suitable and similar. (315/2. On December 30th, 1844, Sir J.D. Hooker
replied, "Nothing was further from my intention than to have written
anything which would lead one to suppose that genera common to two
places indicate a similarity in the external circumstances under which
they are developed, though I see I have given you excellent grounds for
supposing that such were my opinions.") Surely, cannot an overwhelming
mass of facts be brought against such a proposition? Distant parts of
Australia possess quite distinct species of marsupials, but surely this
fact of their having the same marsupial genera is the strongest tie
and plainest mark of an original (so-called) creative affinity over
the whole of Australia; no one, now, will (or ought) to say that the
different parts of Australia have something in their external conditions
in common, causing them to be pre-eminently suitable to marsupials; and
so on in a thousand instances. Though each species, and consequently
genus, must be adapted to its country, surely adaptation is manifestly
not the governing law in geographical distribution. Is this not so?
and if I understand you rightly, you lessen your own means of
comparison--attributing the presence of the same genera to similarity of
conditions.

You will groan over my very full compliance with your request to write
all I could on your tables, and I have done it with a vengeance: I can
hardly say how valuable I must think your results will be, when worked
out, as far as the present knowledge and collections serve.

Now for some miscellaneous remarks on your letter: thanks for the offer
to let me see specimens of boulders from Cockburn Island; but I care
only for boulders, as an indication of former climate: perhaps Ross will
give some information...

Watson's paper on the Azores (315/3. H.C. Watson, "London Journal of
Botany," 1843-44.) has surprised me much; do you not think it odd,