PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



WHEN the active curiosity of man is engaged in interrogating 

 Nature, or when his imagination dwells on the wide fields of or- 

 ganic creation, among the multifarious impressions which his mind 

 receives, perhaps none is so strong and profound as that of the 

 universal profusion with which life is everywhere distributed. Even 

 on the polar ice the air resounds with the cries or songs of birds, 

 and with the hum of insects. Nor is it only the lower dense and 

 vaporous strata of the atmosphere which are thus filled with life, 

 but also the higher and more ethereal regions. Whenever Mont 

 Blanc or the summits of the Cordilleras have been ascended, living 

 creatures have been found there. On the Chimborazo, (*) eight 

 thousand feet higher than Etna, we found butterflies and other 

 winged insects, borne by ascending currents of air to those almost 

 unapproachable solitudes, which man, led by a restless curiosity or 

 unappeasable thirst of knowledge, treads with adventurous but 

 cautious steps : like him strangers in those elevated regions, their 

 presence shows us that the more flexible organization of animal 

 creation can subsist far beyond the limits at which vegetation ceases. 

 The condor, ( 2 ) the giant of the Vulture tribe, often soared over our 

 heads above all the summits of the Andes, at an altitude higher 

 than would be the Peak of Teneriffe if piled on the snow-covered 

 crests of the Pyrenees. The rapacity of this powerful bird attracts 

 him to these regions, whence his far-seeing eye may discern the 

 objects of his pursuit, the soft-wooled Vicunas, which, wandering 

 in herds, frequent, like the Chamois, the mountain pastures adjacent 

 to the regions of perpetual snow. 



But if the unassisted eye sees life distributed throughout the 

 atmosphere, when armed with the microscope we discover far other 

 marvels. Rotiferse, Brachionse, and a multitude of microscopic 



