DI8TKIBUTIOK OF PLANTS AX- ANIMALS. 319 



would have become important objects of trade, if Europe, at 

 the period of the discovery of the New World, had not 

 already been accustomed to the spices and aromatics of 

 India. The cinnamon of the Orinoco, and that of the 

 Aiidaquies missions, are, however, less aromatic than the 

 cinnamon of Ceylon, and would stiil be so even if dried and 

 prepared by similar processes. 



Every hemisphere produces plants of a different species ; 

 and it is not by the diversity of climates that we can attempt 

 to explain why equinoctial Africa has no laurels, and the 

 New World no heaths ; why calceolaria are found wild only 

 in the southern hemisphere ; why the birds of the East 

 Indies glow with colours less splendid than those of the hot 

 parts of America; finally, why the tiger is peculiar to Asia, 

 and the ornithorynchus to Australia. In the vegetable as 

 well as in the animal kingdom, the causes of the distribution 

 of the species are among the mysteries which natural philo- 

 sophy cannot solve. The attempts made to explain the dis- 

 tribution of various species on the globe by the sole influence 

 of climate, take their date from a period when physical geo- 

 graphy was still in its infancy ; when, recurring incessantly 

 to pretended contrasts between the two worlds, it was ima- 

 gined that the whole of Africa and of America resembled the 

 deserts of Egypt and the marshes of Cayenne. At present, 

 when men judge of the state of things not from one type 

 arbitrarily chosen, but from positive knowledge, it is ascer- 

 tained that the two continents, in their immense extent, con- 

 tain countries that are altogether analagous. There are 

 i visions of America as barren and burning as the interior of 

 Africa. Those islands which produce the spices of India are 

 scarcely remarkable for their dryness; and it is not on 

 account of the humidity of the climate, as has been affirmed 

 in recent works, that the New Continent is deprived of those 

 fine species of Iaurinia3 and myristicsB, which are found united 

 in one little corner of the earth in the archipelago of India. 

 For some years past cinnamon has been cultivated with 

 success in several parts of the New Continent ; and a zone 

 that produces the coumarouna, the vanilla, the pucheri, the 

 pine-apple, the pimento, the balsam of tolu, the Myroxylon 

 peruvianum, the croton, the citroma, the pejoa, the 



