300 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



this effeâ: on the human beard and hair, for it re- 

 tards their growth ; that, befides, in the cafe of 

 animals on which Providence beftows a clothing 

 peculiarly warm, the hair is much longer and thicker 

 on thofe parts of their body that have the leaft 

 natural heat, fuch as the tail, which is very bufliy 

 in horfes, martens, foxes, and wolves ; that this 

 hair is fhortand thin on the parts which have mod 

 natural heat, as the belly. Their backs, their ears, 

 and frequently their very paws, are the parts moft 

 amply furniflied with hair. But I fatisfy myfelf 

 with merely propofmg this laft obje6tion ; the ex- 

 ternal and internal heat of an African lion ought, 

 furely, to be, at leaft, as ardent as that of a Sibe- 

 rian wolf; whence is it, then, that the firft is 

 fmooth, as if newly fliaven, whereas the other is 

 fhagged up to the eyes ? 



The cold_, which we have been taught to con- 

 fider as one of the greateft obftacles of vegetation, 

 is as neceffary to certain plants as heat is to others. 

 If thofe of the South could not thrive in the North, 

 ttiofe of the North would not fucceed better in the 

 South. The Dutch have made many a vain at- 

 tempt to make the fir grow at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, in order to find a fupply of fhips-mafts, 

 which fell at a very high price in India. Many 

 planters, in the Ille of France, have made at- 

 tempts, equally fruitlefs, to raife in that ifland the 



lavender. 



