86 FOOTNOTES FROM , 



mosses. These, in their turn, add their contribution of 

 withered leaves, and increase the film of soil; others 

 of a larger growth supplying their places, and running 

 themselves the same round of growth and decay. Plants 

 of a higher and yet higher order gradually succeed each 

 other, each series binding together, and preparing for the 

 growth of its own species or of others, the loose and in- 

 coherent mass of decaying tissues, sand, and disintegrated 

 soil which the previous occupants had left behind them. 

 At length the rock, once as bleak and desolate as though 

 it had been vomited from the depths of some vast vol- 

 cano, and on whose surface the smallest wild-flower could 

 not find a resting-place for its tiny root, becomes a ver- 

 dant meadow fit to support a host of animals; a rich 

 garden of beautiful flowers smiling in the sunshine ; or 

 a wide expanse of noble forest waving its billowy foliage 

 in the passing breeze. 



" Seeds to our eye invisible can find 

 On the rude rock the bed that fits their kind ; 

 There in the rugged soil they safely dwell, 

 Till showers and snows the subtle atoms swell, 

 And spread th' enduring foliage ; then we trace 

 The freckled flower upon the flinty base ; 

 These all increase, till in unnoticed years 

 The sterile rock as grey with age appears, 

 With coats of vegetation thinly spread, 

 Coat above coat, the living on the dead ; 

 These then dissolve to dust, and make a way 

 For bolder foliage nursed by their decay." 



Precisely the same effects are produced on the newly- 

 formed coral islands of the Pacific. The winds or the 

 waves waft thither the invisible spore of some lichen 

 that may have had its birthplace on the rocks of the 

 far-off Andes ; it finds a resting-place, and the few simple 



