Facts, such as these, admit of no sort of
explanation on the ordinary view of independent creation; whereas, on the
view here maintained, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would be
likely to receive colonists from America, whether by occasional means of
transport or (though I do not believe in this doctrine) by formerly
continuous land, and the Cape Verde Islands from Africa; such colonists
would be liable to modification--the principle of inheritance still
betraying their original birthplace.
Many analogous facts could be given: indeed it is an almost universal rule
that the endemic productions of islands are related to those of the nearest
continent, or of the nearest large island. The exceptions are few, and
most of them can be explained. Thus, although Kerguelen Land stands nearer
to Africa than to America, the plants are related, and that very closely,
as we know from Dr. Hooker's account, to those of America: but on the view
that this island has been mainly stocked by seeds brought with earth and
stones on icebergs, drifted by the prevailing currents, this anomaly
disappears. New Zealand in its endemic plants is much more closely related
to Australia, the nearest mainland, than to any other region: and this is
what might have been expected; but it is also plainly related to South
America, which, although the next nearest continent, is so enormously
remote, that the fact becomes an anomaly.
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