OFNATURE. 79 



fcarce any herb can find a fixed habitation 

 upon them ; as we may obierve every where 

 near the fea. But the very minute cruflace- 

 cus liverworts begin foon to cover thefe dry 

 rocks, although they have no other nouriih- 

 ment, but that fmall quantity of mould, and 

 imperceptible particles, which the rain and air 

 bring thither. Thele liverworts dying at laft 

 nirn into a very fine earth •, on this earth the 

 * imbricated liverworts find a bed to ftrike 

 ^^ir roots in. Thefe alfo dye after a time, and 

 turn to mould ; and then the various kinds of 

 moffes, e. g. the hypna^ the hrya^ politricha find 

 a proper place, and nourifhment. Lallly thefe 

 dying in their turn, and rotting afford fuch a 

 plenty of new formed mould, that herbs and 

 flirubs eafily root, and live upon it. 



That trees when they are dry or are cut 

 down may not remain ufelefs to the world, and 

 iye, as it were, melancholy fpedlacles, nature 

 haftens on their deflrudion in a fingular way: 

 firfl the liverworts begin to flrike root in them; 

 afterwards the moifture is drawn out of them; 



* I have ufed this word becaufe we have no Englifh 

 one of the fame meaning unlefs it be the word yr^/y-, that 

 L know of. However imbricated means parts lying over 

 parts like tiles, as in the cup of the thijllejlo'wer. 



I whence 



