Plants. 19? 



rhubarb and opium, alleviate the tortures 

 of pain ; and some, as the quinquina, or 

 Peruvian bark, can subdue the rage ot the 

 burning fever. Wheat, the delicious and 

 prolific grain which gives to the inhabi- 

 tants of the northern world their whole- 

 some nutriment, grows in almost every 

 climate, Where excessive heat or other 

 causes prevent it from cojning to perfec- 

 tion, its place is amply supplied by the 

 bread-fruit, the cassavi-root and maize, 

 and more particularly by rice, which is the 

 common aliment of that great portion of 

 mankind who inhabit the warm regions 

 of the earth. Every meadow in the ver- 

 nal season brings forth various kinds oi 

 grass ; and this spontaneous and most 

 abundant of all vegetable productions re- 

 quires only the labour of the husbandman 

 to collect its harvest. The iron-wood^ 

 solid as marble, furnishes the Otaheitean 

 with his long spear and massy club. The 

 wild pine of Campeachy retains the rain- 

 water in its deep and capacious leaves not 

 less for the refreshment of the tree itself, 

 than of the thirsty native of a burning 

 soil. The cocoa of the East and West 

 Indies anwers many of the most usetul 

 R 



