To Sir J.D. Hooker.
4 Marlborough Place, December 29, 1887.
Where is the fullest information about distribution of Coniferae? Of course I have looked at "Genera Plantarum" and De Candolle.
I have been trying to make out whether structure or climate or paleontology throw any light on their distribution—and am drawing complete blank. Why the deuce are there no Conifers but Podocarpus and Widringtonias in all Africa south of the Sahara? And why the double deuce are about three-quarters of the genera huddled together in Japan and northern China?
I am puzzling over this group because the paleontological record is comparatively so good.
I am beginning to suspect that present distribution is an affair rather of denudation than migration.
Sequoia! Taxodium! Widringtonia! Araucaria! all in Europe, in Mesozoic and Tertiary.
[The following letters to Mr. Herbert Spencer were written as sets of proofs of his Autobiography arrived. That to Sir J. Skelton was to thank him for his book on "Maitland of Lethington," the Scotch statesman of the time of Queen Mary.]
January 18, 1887.
[The first part of this letter is given above.]