The Derivation Of The Flora Of Hawaii

Author : Douglas Houghton Campbell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330481585
Total Pages : 42 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (815 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Derivation of the Flora of Hawaii (Classic Reprint) written by Douglas Houghton Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-29 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Derivation of the Flora of Hawaii Owing to their extreme isolation, the Hawaiian Islands are of special interest both to the geographer and the biologist. With a combined area of 6,454 square miles, they are further removed from any continental area than is any other region of equal size upon the globe. They are 2,000 miles from North America, the nearest continent, and the nearest islands of any importance, the Marquesas, are 1,860 miles distant. There are two very different views held as to the origin of the archipelago. The one most commonly accepted is that the islands, which are entirely volcanic, were thrown up by volcanic activity from the ocean depths, and that they have always been completely isolated. At present the archipelago is surrounded by very deep water. Within forty miles of the shores the ocean is upward of 10,000 feet in depth, and between the islands and the American coast is an enormous area of deep water, in places reaching more than 20,000 feet in depth. It is believed by some students of the subject, however, that the islands have not always been so isolated as at present. This view has recently been taken by Pilsbry. The advocates of this theory believe that there was formerly a much larger area of land in the Pacific, including Hawaii, which was connected more or less intimately with the great land masses of the Southern Pacific, now represented by Australasia and Indo-Malaysia. The multitude of islands constituting Polynesia is believed to be merely the remains of a once extensive land mass, - either a single continent, or several large continental islands, like Australia. This great continental area has been undergoing subsidence since early Tertiary times, and the islands now existing are the tips of mountain masses, - often volcanic, - superimposed upon this submerged continental area. Should this latter hypothesis prove correct, we must assume that the large volcanic masses, rising to nearly 14,000 feet in the case of Mauna Kea, have been formed upon a land area which has sunk in the course of ages as many feet below its former level, since on nearly all sides the archipelago is at present surrounded by very deep water. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.