BOTANY. 



THE objects which we now proceed to contemplate have exceeding interest, not only 

 in themselves, but in their relation to the other parts of this fair creation, and more 

 especially to man. They were the first vital existences which appeared when the fiery 

 mass which constitutes the earth had become covered with a stony crust of a cooler 

 temperature, and they are the last to linger when the rigours of a Polar clime chase 

 away all vitality. They are still the sole inhabitants of isolated spots on the burning 

 plains of central Africa, and are the harbingers of animal life on the remotely issued 

 lava, and the more recently emerged coral island of the southern seas. 



They are found universally within limits bounded, on the one hand, by the per- 

 petual snows of the Arctic regions, or the summits of our own Snow don; and, on the 

 other, by the parched sands of tropical deserts ; and cover, as with a carpet, the magni- 

 ficent prairies of India and America, the wild haunt of the buffalo, or jealously hide the 

 long-lost cities of Assyria, which once teemed with wealth and myriads of human 

 beings as busy as ourselves. Not only do they exist upon the surface of the soil, 

 but their remains constitute a large part of the soil itself; so that seeds, which subse- 

 quently germinated, have been thrown up from considerable depths, after having lain 

 buried more than two thousand years. The solid crust of the earth is also, in part, 

 of vegetable origin, as in the instance of the widely-spread coal-beds, with their remains 

 of primeval forests. Moreover, the very air which covers the earth is not free from 

 these objects ; and the waters of the rivers and the seas abound in vegetable life. 



They offer the most wonderful diversities of features and proportions. There are 

 the varied flowers which, as the daisy and buttercup, form the nosegay of infancy and 

 the garland of youth ; as the sweet violet which, on its mossy bank, slieds perfumes 



ORGANIC NATURE.- No. XIII. B 



