316 



THE EEASOX WHY. 



1 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the 

 earth." PSALM LXXII. 



cryptogamia, which are light as the finest powder. When ordinary breezes 

 convey the sand -dust of the Sahara a thousand miles or more from the desert, 

 it may be conceived that seeds, which are comparatively heavy, are borne far 

 from home by the hurricane. Two Jamaica lichens, which had never been seen 

 in France before, were found by De Candolle growing on the coast of Brittany, 

 the offspring of sporules which had been swept over the Atlantic. 



2. The mountain torrent washes down into the valley the seeds that have 

 accidentally fallen into it, or have been swept away by its overflows ; and hence 

 the plants of the High Alps occur on the plains of Switzerland, which are 

 entirely wanting in France and Germany. Rivers answer the same purpose 

 more extensively, and also the oceanic currents. The nicker-tree, one of the 

 leguminous tribe, has been raised from seed borne across the Atlantic by the 

 Gulf stream. 



3. Animals of the sheep and goat kinds, with the horse, deer, buffalo, and 

 others, widely disperse several species of plants, the seeds of which, furnished 

 with an apparatus of barbs and hooks, adhere to their coating. Seeds also of 

 various kinds pass through the digestive organs of birds, uninjured as to their 

 vitality. The little squirrel buries the acorn in the ground for winter 

 provender, and sows an oak, if prevented from returning to the spot. 



1251. Plants capable of extended naturalisation, and serviceable as articles of 

 food or luxury, have been widely disseminated by the human race in their 

 migrations. The^cerealia afford a striking example. These important grasses 

 known to the ancients, wheat, barley, oats, and rye, were the gifts of the Old 

 World to the New. They are also importations into Europe; but the loose 

 reports of the ancients, and the diligent researches of the moderns, alike leave us 

 in ignorance of their native seat. Probability points to the conclusion that they 

 have spread from the neighbourhood of the great rivers of Western Asia, the 

 primitive location of the human family ; and it is not impossible that in that 

 imperfectly explored district, or further east on the Tartarian table-land, some 

 of the cereals may yet be found growing spontaneously. The first wheat sown 

 in North America, consisted of a few grains accidentally found by a negro slave 

 of Cortes, among the rice taken for the support of his army. In South America 

 the first wheat was brought to Lima by one of -the early colonists, a Spanish lady, 

 Maria d'Escobar. An ecclesiastic, Jose Rixi, was the first to sow it in the 

 neighbourhood of Quito. 



1252. Maize, or Indian corn (Zeamays), has been dispersed in the Old World 

 from the New; and also a more important product, the potato (Solanum 

 tuberosum), the use of which now extends from the extremity of Africa to 

 Lapland. In Chili, the native country of the plant, it occurs at present in a 

 wild state. The Spaniards imported it into Spain, and from thence it was 

 communicated to Italy. It was first made known in England at a subsequent 

 period from Virginia, having been received there from the Spanish colonists in 

 South America, as it is not a native of intervening Mexico. 



1253. The grape-vine, so extensively spread over Europe, is probably net 

 indigenous in any part of it. It chiefly owes its diffusion there to the Romans, 

 who received it from the Greeks, to whom it most likely immediately came 

 from the country between the Black and Caspian Seas. The Romans intro- 

 duced most of the finer European fruit-trees, some from Africa, as tho 



