STEEILITY. 263 



ergy of the hills. With him, "mountain gloom and 

 glory," aside from climatic considerations, are forma- 

 tive forces in determining national character. There is 

 certainly enough gloom and glory there ; and while we 

 would not ignore their influence, still to those elevated 

 table-lands, carrying a temperate climate under the tropics, 

 must be largely referred all these remarkable instances of 

 aboriginal development. 



From Tablon we climbed up a steep paramo, until, at 

 the height of over two miles, we entered a dense group 

 of polylepis, which, thinks Dr. Jameson, flourishes at the 

 greatest elevation of any tree upon the globe : it is found 

 upon Chimborazo, thirteen thousand feet above the sea. 

 Upon these lofty slopes also grow representatives of the 

 genera valerian and potentilla, and some shrubby com- 

 positse. "We made a short halt for refection, in an open 

 spot of the forest, at an altitude twice as great as the 

 summit of Mount Washington. Resuming our journey, 

 we soon issued from this polylepis forest upon an open 

 paramo, which aftbrded pasturage to large herds of wild- 

 cattle.* As we mounted higher, vegetation, with the ex- 

 ception of a few tufts of wiry grass, almost entirely dis- 



* As we have already remarked, the wild cattle and horses found in 

 South America are not the offspring of those that roamed its plains 

 during the geologic period immediately preceding the present. As is 

 well known, fossil remains of a species of horse, elephant, and mastodon, 

 have been found upon both continents. The last two are found in the 

 valley of Quito upon the Andes. Fossils belonging to these same genera 

 have also been taken from the deposits of northern Siberia. This wide 

 geographical distribution of these genera, ranging over three continents, 

 has led to the supposition that Asia and North and South America were 

 connected at no remote geologic period. Darwin conjectures that, over 

 land now submerged near Behring's Strait and in the West Indies, these 

 animals found their way from the northern plains of Asia into North 

 America, and then into the southern continent. All these species have 

 become extinct. The existing cattle and horses of the Americas are in- 

 troduced European species. 



