142 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



of the duck-weed on our ponds. Every river has its own 

 reed; some, covered with snow for a part of the year, 

 hardly rise above the sluggish, silent waters of the Irtis 

 in cold Siberia ; others form ever-murmuring forests of 

 graceful bamboo on the banks of the Ganges. For the 

 earth opposes every where to the encroaching tides of the 

 ocean, another sea of restless vegetation, yielding con- 

 stantly, and yet never giving way, with its green waves, 

 so delicate, fragile, and airy, and yet as strong in their 

 very weakness as the deep-blue waves of the ocean. Fur- 

 ther out at sea, enormous sponges fill vast spaces of the 

 watery realm, and, when mature, break loose from their 

 safe anchorage, to float in countless myriads through the 

 surrounding sea. For here, also, nature pours out, with 

 a lavish hand, living food, storing even the waves with 

 nutriment for their gigantic denizens, and literally casting 

 bread upon the waters for the animate world of the ocean. 

 In other zones, immense and permanent banks of verdure 

 are met with, by far exceeding the largest prairies on land, 

 true oceanic meadows. For twenty-three long days did 

 Columbus sail through one of these marvels of western 

 waters, covering an area like that of all France ; and yet 

 there it is, even now, as large and as luxuriant as it was 

 more than three centuries ago. 



Truly, man is not alone a cosmopolite. Plants precede 

 him as they follow his footsteps, wherever restless ambi- 

 tion may lead him. Their domain is the whole earth. 

 They are not driven away by the cold of the Arctic ; they 

 endure the fiery heat of the volcano. 



Trees and shrubs gather around the desolate North Gape 



