^6 Picture of Vegetatiwi on the Surface of the Globe. 



their heaps natural dikes of twenty-five or thirty feet in height ; 

 in other cases they have fallen across the beds of torrents, or the 

 depths of valleys, forming in this manner so many natural bridges 

 which cannot be made use of but with fear. 



To this picture of disorder and ruin, to these scenes of death 

 and destruction, nature, so to speak, opposes with benevolence 

 all that her creative power can present of the beautiful and im- 

 posing. On all hands we see pressed to the surface of the soil 

 those lovely mimos^e, those superb metrosideroses, those correo', 

 but of late unknown in Europe, and which already gladden our 

 groves. From the shores of the ocean to the summits of the 

 loftiest mountains of the interior, are to be seen the mighty en- 

 ccdyptuses^ those gigantic raonarchs of the southern forests, 

 many of which are not less than from a hundred and sixty to a 

 hundred and eighty feet in height, and from twenty-five to thirty 

 or thiry-six feet in circumference. The Banksiae of different ?^^e- 

 cies, the prote6e,iheemboth?^ia, the leptospermata, are developed as 

 a charming border around the edge of the woods. Elsewhere 

 the casuarina are seen, so remarkable for their beauty, so valu- 

 able for their solidity, distinguished by the rich colouring of 

 their berries. The elegant exocarpus projects in a hundred dif- 

 ferent places its luxuriant branches, sprouting forth in neglected 

 beauty like those of the cypress. Farther on appear the xan- 

 thorretSy whose solitary stem rises to a height of twelve or fifteen, 

 above a scaly and stunted stock, from which an odorous 

 resin oozes abundantly. In some places are to be seen the 

 cycases, whose nuts, enveloped in a scarlet epidej^mis, are so per- 

 fidiously poisonous ; every where are produced charming tufts of 

 melaleuca, thesiuvi, concilium, and erodia, all equally interesting 

 from the gracefulness of their port, or the beautiful verdure of 

 their foliage, or the singularity of their corolla and fruit. In 

 the midst of so many unknow^n objects, the mind is astonished, 

 and cannot but admire that inconceivable fecundity of nature, 

 which furnishes to so many different climates productions so pe- 

 culiar, and always so rich and so beautiful." 



The happy climate of India is, perhaps, of all others, that on 

 which nature has bestowed, with the greatest profusion, all the 

 luxury of vegetation. Inhabited by people who have long at- 

 tained a high degree of civilization, its vegetable productions 



