painters, and thus lieighteaing their powers of artistic ciea 

 tion. 



I would here he permitted to refer to some remarks which 

 I puhhshed nearly half a century ago in a treatise which has 

 been but little read, entitled Iclcen zu einer Physiognomik 

 der Geicdclise* and which stands in the most intimate con- 

 nection with the subject under consideration. He who com- 

 prehends nature at a single glance, and knows how to abstract 

 his mind from local phenomena, will easily perceive how or- 

 ganic force and the abundance of vital development increase 

 with the increase of warmth from the poles to the equator. 

 This charminsf luxuriance of nature increases, in a lesser de- 

 gree, from the north of Europe to the lovely shores of the 

 Mediterranean than from the Iberian Peninsula, Southern 

 Italy, and Greece, toward the tropics. The naked earth is 

 covered with an unequally woven, flowery mantle, thicker 

 where the sun rises high in a sky of deep azure, or is only 

 vailed by light and feathery clouds, and thinner toward the 

 gloomy north, where the returning frost too soon blights the 

 opening hud or destroys the ripening fruit. While, in the ccld 

 zones, the bark of the trees is covered with dry moss or with 

 lichens, the region of palms and of feathery arborescent ferns 

 shows the trunks of Anacardia and of the gigantic species of 

 Ficus embellished by Cymbidia and the fragrant Vanilla. 

 The fresh green of the Dracontium, and the deeply-serrated 

 '.eaves of the Pothos, contrast with the variegated blossoms of 

 Ihe Orchidea?, while climbing Bauhinise, Passiflorse, and yel- 

 low-blossomed Banisterise, entwining the stems of forest trees, 

 r.pread far and high in air, and delicate flowers are unfolded 

 ^i'om the roots of the Theobronice, and from the thick and 

 rouffh bark of the Crescentise and the Gustaviae. In the 

 midst of this abundance of flowers and leaves, and this luxu- 

 riantly wild entanglement of climbing plants, it is often diffi- 

 cult for the naturalist to discover to which stem different 

 (lowers and leaves belong ; nay, one single tree adorned with 

 Paullinise, Bignoniss, and Dendrobia, presents a mass of vege- 

 table forms which, if disentangled, would cover a considerable 

 epacti of ground. 



Each portion of the earth has, however, its peculiar and 



* Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 2te Ausgabe, 182G, bd. i., s. 7, 16, 

 2i, 36, and 42. Compare, also, two very instractivc memoirs, Fried- 

 rich voii Martius, Pkysiognomie des PJianzenreizhes in Brasilien, 1824, 

 and M. von Oilers, allgemeine Uebersicht von Brasilien, in Fe]dr\(:"r'< 

 Utiscn. 1828. th. i.. s. lS-i>-.«. 



