76 FORESTRY IN SPAIN. 



relation between the movements of this plant, and the 

 nervous system of man, and believed the influence to be 

 in its origin of the nature of magnetism. Ligersan experi-' 

 enced a painful impression, produced or communicated 

 apparently by this plant, it being observed that its contrac- 

 tions were more rapid and persistent through contact with 

 an organic body than through contact with a mineral. 



'To bring to a close these unconnected statemerits.im perfect 

 expressions of unconnected ideas, it is but right that we 

 should give place to the immortal Goethe, poet and 

 naturalist, and author of the theory of Morphology, which 

 is now almost universally accepted. He sings one of his 

 beautiful compositions in memory of Schiller, glorious son of 

 Germany, and says eloquently : " The coloured leaf feels the 

 divine hand, and contracts on being touched; its slender forms 

 enfold themselves,and find themselves destined to embrace ; 

 they appear in graceful pairs re-united around the sacred 

 altar. Hymen covers them with his wings ; and with the 

 diffused precious aromatic perfumes they are deliciously 

 inebriated ; and then they develope in seed the numerous 

 germs which the ovaries enclose. 



' " Thus uniting themselves as a new link to that which 

 went before, the mysterious chain is carried across our 

 times, and the type is preserved as well as the individual. 



' "Turn now, friend, never to be forgotten, thy gaze to the 

 whirlwind which is agitating all around thee, and to thy 

 spirit there will be nought of confusion : every plant will 

 speak to thee its eternal laws ; every flower will speak to 

 thee in language more explicit ; and if thou k no west how 

 to read in them the thoughts of the gods, thou shalt know 

 how to comprehend them in all their parts, and under 

 whatever form they present themselves the same in tne 

 hydra, which turns round embracing itself, as in the 

 butterfly which disports itself in the sunshine, and in man, 

 who artificially disfigures his true physiognomy."' 



A second paper, by Senor Alvarez, in. this department of 



