HIMALAYAS AND ANDES. 



which rise to such vast altitudes from the plateaux of the 

 torrid zone are characterised. Beautiful as are the valleys of 

 Kumaoon and Nepaul, they are not signalised by the presence of a 

 single palm-tree. On the southern slope of the Paropamisan 

 range, which extends over 350 miles of Persia and Afghanistan, 

 and separates the deserts of Yezd and Turkestan, Nature nowhere 

 displays that profusion of arborescent grasses, tree-ferns, heli- 

 conias, and orehidese which are witnessed on the higher plateaux 

 of the tropical mountains. On the slopes of the Himalayas, under 

 the shade of the deodar and the large-leaved oak peculiar to 

 these Indian alps, the rocks of granite and mica-schist are clothed 

 with forms closely resembling those which characterise Europe 

 and northern Asia. The species indeed are not identical, but 

 they are similar in their aspect and physiognomy, including 

 junipers, Alpine birches, gentians, parnassias, and prickly species 

 of ribes. The chain of the Himalayas is also wanting in those 

 imposing volcanic phenomena, which in the Andes and the 

 Indian Archipelago often recall to the inhabitants, in characters 

 of terror, the existence of forces developed within the globe. 

 Moreover, on the southern declivity of the Himalayas, where the 

 vapour-loaded atmosphere of Hindostan deposits its moisture, the 

 region of perpetual snow descends to a zone the elevation of 

 which does not exceed 13000 feet. Thus the region of organic 

 life ceases at a limit 3000 feet lower, than that to which it extends 

 in the equinoctial portion of the Cordilleras. 



178. Vegetation of the Andes. The mountainous regions of 

 the Tropics present a further advantage in being that part of the 

 globe, as already mentioned, where the greatest possible variety 

 of impressions are produced by the contemplation of nature. In 

 the Andes of Cundinamarca, Quito, and Peru, furrowed by deep 

 barrancas, it is given to man to behold at once all the plants of 

 the earth, and all the stars of the firmament. There, at a single 

 glance, the beholder sees lofty feathered palms, humid forests of 

 bamboos, and all the beautiful family of musaceee, and, above 

 these tropic forms, oaks, meddlars, wild roses, and umbelliferous 

 plants, as in. our European homes. There, too, both the celestial 

 hemispheres are open to his view, and when night arrives, he 

 sees displayed together the constellation of the Southern Cross, the 

 Magellanic clouds, and the guiding stars of the Bear, which 

 circle round the Arctic Pole. There the different climates of the 

 earth, and the vegetable forms of which, they determine the 

 succession, are placed one over the other, stage above stage, and 

 the laws of the decrement of heat! are indelibly written, on the 

 rocky walls and rapid slopes of the Cordilleras, in characters easily 

 legible to the intelligent observer. 



N 2 179 



