CHARACTERISTIC ASPECT OF DIFFERENT ZONES. 89 



presents a mass of vegetation and a variety of plants which, 

 if detached from each other, would cover a considerable space 

 of ground. 



But to each zone of the earth are allotted peculiar beauties ; 

 to the tropics, variety and grandeur in the forms of vegeta- 

 tion ; to the north, the aspect of its meadows and green 

 pastures, and the periodic long-desired reawakening of nature 

 at the first breath of the mild air of spring. As in the 

 Musacese we have the greatest expansion, so in the Casuarinse 

 and needle trees we have the greatest contraction of the 

 leafy vessels. Pirs, Thuias, and Cypresses, constitute a 

 northern form which is extremely rare in the low grounds of 

 the tropics. Their ever-fresh verdure cheers the winter 

 landscape ; and tells to the inhabitants of the north, that 

 when snow arid ice cover the earth, the inward life of plants, 

 like the Promethean fire, is never extinct upon our planet. 



Each zone of vegetation, besides its peculiar beauties, has 

 also a distinct character, calling forth in us a different order 

 of impressions. To recal here only forms of our native 

 climates, who does not feel himself differently affected in the 

 dark shade of the beech or on hills crowned with scattered 

 firs, and on the open pasture where the wind rustles in the 

 trembling foliage of the birch? As in different organic 

 beings we recognise a distinct physiognomy, and as de- 

 scriptive botany and zoology, in the more restricted sense of 

 the terms, imply an analysis of peculiarities in the forms of 

 plants and animals, so is there also a certain natural phy- 

 siognomy belonging exclusively to each region of the earth. 

 The idea which the artist indicates by the expressions " Swiss 

 nature/* " Italian sky," &c. rests on a partial perception of 

 Local character. The azure of the sky, the form of <-h 



