240 TROPICAL NATURE 



forest-belts in the northern and southern parts of the tem- 

 perate zones; but owing to the paucity of land in the 

 southern hemisphere these are best seen in North America 

 and Northern Euro-Asia, where they form the great northern 

 forests of deciduous trees and of Coniferse. These being com- 

 paratively well known to us, will form the standard by a 

 reference to which we shall endeavour to point out and render 

 intelligible the distinctive characteristics of the equatorial 

 forest vegetation. 



General Features of the Equatorial Forests 

 It is not easy to fix upon the most distinctive features of 

 these virgin forests, which nevertheless impress themselves 

 upon the beholder as something quite unlike those of temper- 

 ate lands, and as possessing a grandeur and sublimity altogether 

 their own. Amid the countless modifications in detail which 

 these forests present, we shall endeavour to point out the 

 chief peculiarities as well as the more interesting phenomena 

 which generally characterise them. 



The observer new to the scene would perhaps be first 

 struck by the varied yet symmetrical trunks, which rise up 

 with perfect straightness to a great height without a branch, 

 and which, being placed at a considerable average distance apart, 

 give an impression similar to that produced by the columns 

 of some enormous building. Overhead, at a height, perhaps, 

 of a hundred and fifty feet, is an almost unbroken canopy of 

 foliage formed by the meeting together of these great trees 

 and their interlacing branches ; and this canopy is usually so 

 dense that but an indistinct glimmer of the sky is to be seen, 

 and even the intense tropical sunlight only penetrates to the 

 ground subdued and broken up into scattered fragments. 

 There is a weird gloom and a solemn silence, which combine 

 to produce a sense of the vast the primeval almost of the 

 infinite. It is a world in which man seems an intruder, and 

 where he feels overwhelmed by the contemplation of . the 

 ever-acting forces which, from the simple elements of the 

 atmosphere, build up the great mass of vegetation which 

 overshadows and almost seems to oppress the earth. 



