STUDY XI. 



*5* 



Elementary Harmonies of Plants with the Water and 

 the Air, by Means of their Leaves and their Fruits. 



When the Author of Nature defigned to clothe 

 with vegetables even the higheft and deepen: pin- 

 nacles of the Earth, He flrft adapted the chains 

 of mountains to the bafons of the feas which were 

 to fupply them with vapours ; to the coui fe of 

 the winds which were to waft them thither,, and 

 to the different afpects of the Sun by which they 

 were to be heated. As foon as thefe harmonies 

 were edablilhed between the elements, the clouds 

 afcended oqt of the Ocean, and difpeifed thern- 

 felves over the mod remote parts of the Conti- 

 nents. There they didilled, under a thoufand dif- 

 ferent forms, in fogs, in mifts, in dews, in rains, 

 in fnows. They defcended from the heights of 

 the Atmofphere in every poffible variety of man- 

 ner ; fome in a tranquil air, ftich as our Spring 

 mowers, came down in perpendicular drops, as if 

 they had been drained through a fieve ; others, 

 driven by the furious winds, beat horizontally on 

 the fides of the mountains ; others fell in torrents, 

 like thofe which, for nine months of the year, 

 inundate the lfland of Gorgona, placed in the 

 heart of the Torrid Zone, in the burning Gulf of 

 Panama. There were fome which accumulated 



h 4 themieives. 



