INTRODUCTION. 



of the phenomena, we must descend into the 

 realm of determinate natural forms and active 

 forces, and there discriminate and distinguish. 

 The widest and most varied scope for investi- 

 gations of this kind is afforded by the land- 

 scapes of Southern Asia and of the New World ; 

 countries where stupendous mountain masses 

 form the bottom and boundary of the atmo- 

 spheric ocean, and where the same volcanic 

 powers which once forced up the mighty ram- 

 part of the Andes, through vast chasms in the 

 earth, sill continue to shake their work to the 

 terror of its inhabitants. 



But natural pictures, arranged in succession 

 and in harmony with some leading idea, are not 

 calculated merely to engage the attention agree- 

 ably ; in their sequence they may farther be 

 made to compose a kind of scale of natural im- 

 pressions, which, in their gradually increasing 

 intensity, may be followed from the waste with- 

 out a blade of grass, to the luxuriant vegetation 

 of the torrid zone ; from the monotonous level, 

 to the grandest mountain chains. Were we, 

 giving the rein to fancy, to suppose Mount Pi- 

 latus piled upon Shreekhorn,(") or Schnee- 

 koppe set upon Mont Blanc, we should still fall 

 short of one of the higher peaks of the Andes, 

 Chimborazo, which has twice the height of 

 Etna ; and were we to throne the Rigi, on 

 Mount Athos, on Chimborazo, we should only 

 have an image of the highest summit of the 

 Himalaya, Dhawalagiri. Although the Indian 

 mountains, therefore, far exceed the Andes in 

 colossal massiness, a fact now made certain by 

 repeated measurements, they still present no- 

 thing like the variety of feature which charac- 

 terises the Cordilleras of South America. It is 

 not elevation alone that gives Nature her pow- 

 er of impressing the mind. The Himalaya 

 range lies far beyond the limits of tropical cli- 

 mates ; scarcely do we find a palm-tree stray- 

 ing into the beautiful valleys of Nepaul and Ku- 

 maon.(^) Between the 28th and 34th parallels 

 of latitude, in the dependencies of the ancient 

 Paropamisus, the vegetable kingdom no longer 

 displays the same luxuriance of arborescent 

 ferns and grasses, or of large-flowered orchid- 

 eous plants and bananas, as she does within 

 the tropics, even to plateaus some thousands 

 of feet above the level of the sea. Under the 

 shadows of the cedar-like deodwara pines and 

 large-leaved oaks, the vegetable forms of Eu- 

 rope and the north of Asia are found covering 

 the granitic rocks that form the substrata to 

 the soil of the Indian mountains. They are 

 not the same species, indeed, but they are sim- 

 ilar forms : junipers, alpine birches, gentians, 

 parnassias, and prickly species of Ribes.(*) The 

 Himalaya, too, is without the varying phenom- 

 ena of active volcanos, which, among the 

 islands of the Indian Ocean, threateningly re- 

 mind us of the internal life of the globe. And 

 then, on its southern/ ridges at least, where the 

 moister air of Hindostan deposits its burthen, 

 the line of eternal snow is mostly met with at 

 an elevation of from eleven to twelve thousand 

 feet, and so sets an earlier limit to the evolu- 

 tion of organic life, than in the equinoctial coun- 

 tries of South America, where organization 

 extends almost two thousand six hundred feet 

 liigher.(') 

 Mountainous countries near the equator have 



another peculiarity, not sufficiently regarded : 

 they constitute the portion of the surface of our 

 planet, where, within the narrowest limits, the 

 multiplicity, or variety, of natural impressions 

 attains its maximum. In the deeply-cleft An- 

 des of New Granada and Quito, mankind have 

 the privilege of contemplating all the varieties 

 of vegetable form, and of seeing all the stars in 

 the firmament at once. The same glance rests 

 on heliconias, feathery palms of the loftiest 

 growth, and bambusas ; over these character- 

 istic forms of the tropical world, are seen oak 

 forests, mespilus kinds, and umbelliferous 

 tribes, as in our European latitudes ; and turn- 

 ing from earth to heaven, the eye takes in the 

 southern cross and Magellanic clouds, and the 

 northern polar star. There, the fruitful bosom, 

 of the earth, and both hemispheres of the heav- 

 ens, display at once the whole stores of their 

 phenomena, their endless variety of forms and 

 features ; there are all the climates of the globe, 

 and the vegetable zones they severally deter- 

 mine, superimposed ; there are the laws of de- 

 clining temperature, clearly understood of the 

 careful observer, written in everlasting charac- 

 ters on the precipitous slopes of the mountains. 

 I but lift a corner of the veil from my recollec- 

 tions of tropical landscapes here, that I may 

 not weary this assembly with the repetition of 

 ideas which I have endeavoured to represent in 

 an illustrated work on the " Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of Plants(«)." What to the feelings 

 melts into indefiniteness and indistinctness, 

 like misty mountain air, is only to be compre- 

 hended by searching reason, when viewed in 

 its casual connection with general phenomena, 

 resolved into its constituent elements, and as 

 the expression of an individual natural charac- 

 ter. But in the circle of science, as in the 

 brilliant circles of descriptive poetry and land- 

 scape painting, the representation still gains in 

 clearness and objective animation, as the Indi- 

 vidual is more clearly indicated and defined. 



If tropical countries be richer in means of 

 impressing the feelings, through the variety and 

 luxuriance of Nature, they are also (and the 

 point of view now taken is the most important 

 in the train of ideas which I am at present 

 pursuing) especially fitted, in the uniform reg- 

 ularity of their meteorological phenomena, in 

 their succession of organic developments, and 

 the sharp separation of forms effected by the 

 perpendicular rise of the surface, to present to 

 the mind the order and harmony of the heav- 

 ens, mirrored, as it were, in the life of the 

 globe. Let us pause for a moment, and con- 

 template this picture of harmonious regularity, 

 which is itself connected with numerical rela- 

 tions. 



In the burning plains raised but little above 

 the level of the southern ocean, we find, in 

 their greatest luxuriance. Bananas, Cycadeas, 

 and Palms ; after them, shaded by the lofty 

 sides of the valleys, arborescent Ferns ; next 

 in succession, in full plenitude of growth, and 

 ceaselessly bedewed by cool misty clouds, the 

 Cinchonas, which yield the far-famed and pre- 

 cious febrifuge barks. Where lofty trees no 

 longer grow, we meet with Aralias, Thibaudias, 

 and myrtle-leaved Andromedas, associated and 

 blooming in company. The Alpine rose of the 

 Cordilleras, the Befaria, rich in resinous gum, 



