292 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



height ; but they grow, for the mofi part, on 

 rugged and fleep places, affording to Man the 

 means of clambering up with facility, for they 

 fhoot out of the very clefts of the rocks. But as 

 there are rocks which have no clefts, and which pre- 

 fent the perpendicularity of a wall, there are like- 

 wife creeping plants which take root at their bafes, 

 and which, fixing themfelves to their fides, rife 

 in clofe cohefion to a height furparhflg that of 

 many of the tailed trees : fuch are the ivy, the 

 virgin-vine, and a great number of the lianne 

 tribe, which mantle along the rocks of fouthern 

 regions. 



Were the Earth covered with vegetables of this 

 fort, it would be impofhble to walk over it. It is 

 very remarkable, that when uninhabited iflands 

 were difcovered, fome were found clothed with 

 forefts, as the Illand of Madeira ; others in which 

 there was nothing but herbage and ruihes, as the 

 Malouine Iflands, at the entrance of Magellan's 

 Strait; others carpeted with moffes limply, fuch 

 as feveral little iiles on the coaft of Spitzbergen ; 

 others, in great number, on which thefe feveral ve- 

 getables were blended ; but I do not know of a 

 fingle one which was found to contain only fhrub- 

 bery and liannes. Nature has placed this clafs 

 only on places not eafily to be fcaled, in order to 

 facilitate accefs to Man. It may be affirmed, that 



no 



