70 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



The celebrated banyan grove of India, which 

 gave shelter to the troops of Alexander, still 

 exists ; it affords covert to wild beasts below, 

 while tree-snakes and hordes of monkeys find 

 security amidst its umbrageous ramifications. 

 It may be called a forest composed of a single 

 tree, under the canopy of which oriental and 

 European troops have in modern days en- 

 camped. Many travellers have described it, 

 but never without expressions of delight and 

 wonder.* 



Decline succeeds maturity, and death is the 

 ultimatum of life. Inorganic matter, however, 

 neither declines nor dies. A crystal may be 

 dissolved, or become converted into a different 

 kind of crystal by accidental or designed 

 chemical agents ; but whatever change it under- 

 goes, no vital principle is lost, because no such 

 principle was ever possessed. Hence a crystal, 

 isolated from external agency, will preserve its 

 integrity for ever. A crystal may be increased 

 in mere size by layers upon layers of external 

 addition ; but an animal or vegetable adds to 

 its own growth by a digestive process, wherein 

 the nutrient particles are changed from their 

 original condition, and become part and parcel 

 of the organic body. No inorganic body is 

 endowed even with irritability, yet many ex- 

 hibit peculiar electric or galvanic properties. 

 Here, however, animal substances present a 

 counterbalance. Many vegetable and animal 



* See Oriental Annual for 1834; and Asiatic Researches, 

 iv. 310. Forbes in Oriental Memoirs. 



