es of Africa, there have been
found, out of thirty native species of the phaenogamous class, only _one
or two_ which are to be found in any other part of the globe. On the
other hand, of sixty cryptogamic plants, collected by Dr. J. Hooker in
the same island, twelve only were peculiar.

The natural history of the Galapagos archipelago, described by Mr.
Darwin, affords another very instructive illustration of the laws
governing the geographical distribution of plants and animals in
islands. This group consists of ten principal islands, situated in the
Pacific Ocean, under the equator, about 600 miles westward of the coast
of South America. As they are all formed of volcanic rocks, many of the
craters, of which there are about 2000 in number, having a very fresh
aspect, we may regard the whole as much more modern in origin than the
mass of the adjoining continent; yet neither has the Flora nor Fauna
been derived from South America, but consist of species for the most
part indigenous, yet stamped with a character decidedly South American.

What is still more singular, there is a difference between the species
inhabiting the different islands. Of flowering plants, for example,
there are 185 species at present known, and forty cryptogamic, making
together 225. One hundred of the former class are new species, probably
confined to this archipelago; and of the rest, ten at least have been
introduced by man. Of twenty-one species of _Compositae_, all but one are
peculiar, and they belong to twelve genera, no less than ten of which
genera are confined to the Galapagos. Dr. Hooker observes, that the type
of this Flora has an undoubted relation to that of the western side of
South America, and he detects in it no affinity with that of the
numerous islands scattered over other parts of the Pacific. So in regard
to the birds, reptiles, land-shells, and insects, this archipelago,
standing as it does in the Pacific Ocean, is zoologically part of
America. Although each small island is not more than fifty or sixty
miles apart, and most of them are in sight of each other, formed of
precisely the same rocks, rising nearly to an equal height, and placed
under a similar climate, they are tenanted each by a different set of
beings, the tortoises, mocking-thrushes, finches, beetles, scarcely any
of them ever ranging over the whole, and often not even common to any
two of the islands.

"The archipelago," says Mr. Darwin, "is a little world wi