Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851 Excerpt: ... of Australia; Earl of Derby. Port Essington. The shells vary a little in the inequality of the hinge-ridges, hut the binder is always the longest. I may remark that Chemnitz gives the best character for the species, and has observed the character furnished by the hinge, which has been overlooked by Lamarck, and, as far as I am aware, by all recent authors. Rr.mabks On Thk Origin Of Plants, And The Physical And Geographical Distribution Of Species. By The Rev. Dr. Fleming. Botanical Society of Edinburgh, June 14, 1849. The author stated that it had been assumed as a first principle, connected with an extensive series of speculations in botany and geology, that species had sprung from single centres, and that the individuals had " radiated from one point to greater or lesser distances around it," according to Dr. J. Hooker; or that all the individuals of a species could be traced " from a single progenitor, or from two, according as the sexes might be united or distinct;" and hence the origin of the phrase," specific centres." In opposition to this view, it was 6tated that the history of the human race, traced to their origin in a single pair, did not furnish an analogical argument of any value; while the dependence of the carnivorous animals on the herbivorous kinds, and the latter, along with man himself, on plants, gave good grounds to conclude that many individuals, of grasses for example, were requisite in the first instance, and were brought forth abundantly. These considerations rendered the assumption of " specific centres" extremely improbable; but the occurrence of similar species, in localities remote from one another, and even in opposite hemispheres, over which, by no conceivable process, could dispersion ...