( 255 ) 



Picture of Vegetation on the Surface of the Globe. — Continued 

 from page 124. 



j!\_FTER having viewed with M. de Humboldt, the rich ve- 

 getation of the most beautiful countries of America, if we now 

 transport ourselves to the wild and desert shores of New Holland, 

 with Billardiere, Brown and Peron, we shall find, in the little 

 that is known of this vast continent, vegetables entirely different, 

 although in the same degree of latitude. Those which have 

 been collected, approach more to the plants of the Old Continent ; 

 those destined for the nourishment of man are here as rare as 

 they are common in America. These countries are scarcely in- 

 habited, and the men who live in them have but barely en- 

 tered upon the confines of civilization, so powerful is the influ- 

 ence of useful vegetables over the multiplication and develop- 

 ment of the human race. In calling the attention of the reader 

 to the works published upon the plants of New Holland, by 

 Messrs de la Billardiere and Brown, I shall here confine myself 

 to the more interesting parts of M. Peron's description of the 

 vegetation of Van Dieman's Land. 



" It is a very singular spectacle,'' says this naturalist, " which 

 those profound forests present, the ancient offspring of nature 

 and time, where the stroke of the axe is never heard to resound, 

 where vegetation, becoming every day richer in its proper pro- 

 ductions, can exercise itself without restraint, and every where 

 extend its developments without obstruction ; and when, at the 

 extremity of the globe, such forests exclusively present them- 

 selves formed of trees unknown to Europe, of vegetables singu- 

 lar in their organization, and in their varied products, the in- 

 terest becomes more lively and interesting. Here, there con- 

 tinually reign a mysterious shade, a great coolness, a penetrating 

 humidity ; here crumble with age those powerful trees from 

 which have sprung forth so many vigorous shoots ; their old^ 

 trunks now decomposed by the united action of time and mois- 

 ture, are covered over with parasitic mosses and lichens. 

 Their interior swarms with cold reptiles, with numerous legions 

 of insects; they obstruct all the avenues of the forests; they 

 cross each other in a thousand different directions ; every where 

 they form an obstacle to progression, and multiply difficulties 

 and dangers around the traveller; sometimes they form by 



