CHAPTER YII 



CONCLUSION 



Though the foregoing account only deals with the 

 broad features of the natural regions of the world in 

 a bird's-eye view, it will be at once apparent that the 

 plant-covering does not consist of a mosaic of entirely 

 dissimilar parts, but, on the contrary, that it offers 

 obvious similarities and relations, a number of which 

 have been mentioned in the course of the descriptions. 

 Thus the vegetation of the mediterranean scenery all 

 over the world is singularly alike, whether the Mediter- 

 ranean of the old world, California, the central valley of 

 Chile, the south-west corner of Africa, or the south-west 

 corner of Australia, be considered. When their indi- 

 genous vegetable products are placed side by side in 

 a conservatory, it is difficult to trace them back to 

 different regions. 



Similarly the equatorial forests all over the tropical 

 belt, though composed of entirely different species, can 

 hardly be told one from the other, and the landscapes 

 of the lower Amazon, of the lower Orinoco, of many parts 

 of the Upper Guinea coast, Borneo, or New Guinea, or 

 again of the big Indo-Chinese deltas, are strikingly 

 alike. The list of these obvious correspondences or 

 4 analogies ' will easily be made from the foregoing 

 short sketches, and should now be attempted as a 

 necessary exercise. 



Nature, however, attains her ends by various means, 

 and shows herself infinitely diverse. To apparently 

 identical conditions of climate and soil, plants may be 



