144 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



Alps as high as ten, and even eleven thousand feet above the level of the 

 sea. Again, eastern and western countries within the same continent, 

 or compared from one continent to the other, show such differences 

 under similar climatic circumstances, that we at once feel that some- 

 thing is wanting in our illustrations, when we refer the distribution of 

 animals and plants solely to the agency of climate. But the most 

 striking evidence that climate neither accounts for the resemblance 

 nor the difference of animals and plants in different countries, may 

 be derived from the fact that the development of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms differs widely under the same latitudes in the 

 northern and in the southern hemispheres, and that there are entire 

 families of plants and animals exclusively circumscribed within certain 

 parts of the world ; such are, for instance, the magnolia and cactus 

 in America, the kangaroos in New Holland, the elephants and rhi- 

 noceros in Asia and Africa, &c. &c. 



From these facts we may indeed conclude that there are other 

 influences acting in the distribution of animals and plants besides cli- 

 mate ; or perhaps we may better put the proposition in this form : 

 that however intimately connected with climate, however apparent-* 

 ly dependent upon it, vegetation is, in truth, independent of those 

 influences, at least so far as the causal connection is concerned, and 

 merely adapted to them. This position would at once imply the 

 existence of a power regulating these general phenomena in such a 

 manner as to make them agree in their mutual connection ; that is 

 to say, we are thus led to consider nature as the work of an intelligent 

 Creator, providing for its preservation under the combined influences 

 of various agents equally his work, which contribute to their more 

 diversified combinations. 



The geographical distribution of organized beings displays more 

 fully the direct intervention of a Supreme Intelligence in the plan 

 of the Creation, than any other adaptation in the physical world. 

 Generally the evidence of such an intervention is derived from the 

 benefits, material, intellectual, and moral, which man derives from 

 nature around him, and from the mental conviction which conscious- 

 ness imparts to him, that there could be no such wonderful order in the 

 Creation, without an omnipotent Ordainer of the whole. This evidence, 

 However plain to the Christian, will never be satisfactory to the man 



