172 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



they are become, of all the places of the Earth, 

 the moft prolific in plants. In the mountains is de- 

 poiited the Botanift's treafure. 



It cannot be too frequently repeated, The re- 

 medies provided by Nature always furmount the 

 obftacles which (he has oppofed ; and her com- 

 penfations ever exceed her gifts. In truth, if you 

 except the inconveniencies of declivity, a moun- 

 tain prefents to plants the greater!: variety of expo- 

 fures. In a plain they have the fame Sun, the 

 fame degree of humidity, the fame foil, the fame 

 wind ; but if you afcend a mountain, fituated in 

 our Latitude, only twenty-five fathoms of perpen- 

 dicular height, you change your climate as much 

 as if you had travelled twenty-five leagues north- 

 ward ; fo that a mountain of twelve hundred fa- 

 thoms perpendicular height, would prefent us with 

 a fcale of vegetation as extenfive as that of twelve 

 hundred leagues along the Horizon, which is 

 nearly our diftance from the Pole : both the one 

 and the other would terminate in a region of per- 

 petual ice. Every ftep we take upon a moun- 

 tain, whether afcending or defcending, gives us a 

 change of Latitude ; and if we encompafs it round 

 and round, every ftep changes our Longitude. 

 We fhall fall in with points where the Sun rifes at 

 eight o'clock in the morning j others, at ten 

 o'clock ; others, at noon. We fhould find an in- 

 finite 



