154 REMARKS ON GROWING PLANTS IN GLASS CASES. 



modify the characters and habits of plants, as to bestow on each 

 region its peculiar and appropriate vegetation. Even in the same 

 latitudes climate is so changed by elevation above the sea, as to blend 

 the vegetation of the tropical with that of the arctic regions ; the 

 same mountain which enjoys a tropical climate at its base being 

 found clothed, at different elevations above the sea, with the vegeta- 

 tion of every other clime ; the plants finding, in the different altitudes 

 at which they grow, a climate that compensates, more or less com- 

 pletelv, for the difference of latitude. It is a great merit in the plan 

 of Mr. Ward, that it breaks down, in a great measure, these distinc- 

 tions of climate, and the peculiarities to which they give rise ; and 

 enables us not only to grow together, in the same soil and climate, 

 plants which naturally inhabited countries the most distant from each 

 other, and flourished only in the most opposite climes, but to pass 

 them from one extreme of climate to another, through all the inter- 

 mediate gradations, with very little trouble, and without exposing 

 them to any great risk. Thus, in the month of June, 1833, Mr. 

 Ward filled two cases with ferns, mosses, and grasses, and sent them 

 out to Sydney, where they arrived in January, 1834. They were 

 there taken out in good condition, and the cases refilled with plants 

 of that country in the following month, the thermometer, at the time, 

 ranging between 90° and 100° Fahr. In the passage to England the 

 temperature varied greatly, falling to 20° in rounding Cape Horn, 

 and rising to 120° in crossing the Line. On arriving in the British 

 Channel in November the temperature was again down to 40°. 

 During the whole voyage of eight months the plants in these cases 

 received no protection either by day or by night ; neither were they 

 once watered through the whole period, and yet were taken out at 

 London in the most healthy and vigorous condition. Other cases, 

 filled with plants of a higher order, have been sent to Alexandria, 

 and thence forwarded to Cairo, where, after a two months' voyage, 

 they have been taken out of the cases in a perfectly fresh and 

 vigorous state. Exchanges of plants have been made, by means of 

 these cases, between the professor of botany in this university and 

 botanists in the island of Cuba; and the great establishment of the 

 Messrs. Loddiges, at Hackney, is said to have sent out or received 

 not fewer than 200 cases filled with plants, and generally with com- 

 plete success. 



