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In air, in water, and on earth 



A thousand germs come struggling forth. 



In drought and damp, and heat and cold. 



Nor is animal life less numerous, for this grand storehouse of food exists for no 

 idle purpose ; reduntant Nature teems with life, birds and butterfiiea swarm 

 among the trees, harmonizing in colour and varied plumage with the numerous 

 tints and forms of the foliage. Forth among the Acacia groves treads the 

 ponderous elephant, crushing his path through the tangled mass ; on the plain 

 with timid step herd the towering giraffes and the painted zebra, the malevolent 

 and stately buffalo, with fiery eyes and angry roar, and feet that stamp and horns 

 that gore, and various deer in countless thousands spread their branching antlers or 

 curve their ringed horns in graceful arch along their backs ; these point to the 

 crouching panther, the disgusting hyaena, the terrible lion, and the howling 

 jackal. All these derive their sustenance from the glowing savannas of Africa, 

 but were I to do more than touch upon these matters as instances of how the 

 distribution of life is influenced by climate it would lead me too far ; everywhere, 

 wherever we turn, Nature is pregnant with life, but within the tropics it is most 

 abundant : for on the sun depend not only vitality and motion, but also the 

 primary arrangement of life, and its shining rays serve to paint with consummate 

 taste and delicate hand the light and shade of the earth's carpet ; here, the cool 

 green of the moist meadows, there the glowing tints of the arid sands ; here, the 

 leaden gray of the triste north, there the rich Kaleidoscopic colouring of the 

 luxurious south, and thus by its means are plants and animals limited to certain 

 zones of heat and cold, and even man, adaptative though he be, is in a measure 

 rivetted to the zone to which his parents have been used, for he will not bear any 

 great change without his life being curtailed thereby. Thus have I briefly shown 

 the powerful influence which heat and moisture have in the production and 

 distribution of animal and vegetable life, thereby fulfilling in a sketchy manner 

 the title of my paper — Climate in its relation to life. 



