FLORA OF THE MOUNTAIN. 261 



placed here belonji: to the one kiiifrdom of nature or the 

 other. Whatever errors of observation may have occurred, 

 these ver}' errors, to say nothing of the true ones, show the 

 extreme ditliculty, not to say the impossibility, of pointing 

 out the exact frontier of either kingdom."* Whereupon 

 the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, startled "by these astounding 

 statements," remarks : — " The same species may assume a 

 Tast variety of forms according to varying circumstances, 

 and it is highly instructive to observe these changes ; but 

 that the same spore should, under different circumstances, 

 be capable of producing beings of almost entirely different 

 nature, each capable of producing its species, is a matter 

 which ought not to be admitted generally without the 

 strictest proof." In the Zoogeny of Oken it is written, 

 (paragraph 17*Z5,) " Every organic originates from a mucus- 

 point. If this mucus-point occur in the darkness, it thus 

 becomes a terrestrial organism, a plant ; if it enter into the 

 light, which is only possible in the water and in air, it thus 

 becomes a solar organism, independent of the planet, self- 

 moving around itself like the sun, an animal'^ "The ani- 

 mal is a whole solar-system, the plant only a planet. The 

 animal is, therefore, a whole universe, the plant only its 

 half; the former is microcosm, the latter micro-planet." 

 (Idem, paragraph IT 80.) So sparkle the philosophers on 

 the origin of things, particularly of plants and animals, and 

 all this from the contemplation of the wonderful life-mani- 

 festations of the Algals. The streams, pools, springs, and 

 moist spots of the mountain, abound in numerous fresh- 

 water genera and species of this widely-distributed order 

 of plants. 



Thus endeth the story of the plant. In stately and ma- 

 jestic repose the mountain folds about itself this many- 

 tissued, many-tinted garment of living fibres, each microscopic 

 alga, each imperial tree, quickened by that worker of per- 

 petual miracles, life. For what ends exist this immea- 



* See observations of Meneghini and Goadby, p. 2-30. 



