GENERAL VIEW. 



with which the earth is adorned is the principal element in 

 the impression. Animal forms are inferior in mass, an 1 

 their individual power of motion often withdraws them from 

 our sight; vegetable forms,, on the contrary, produce a 

 greater effect by reason of their amplitude and of their con- 

 stant presence. The age of trees is announced by their 

 magnitude, and the union of age with the manifestation ot 

 constantly renewed vigour, the ancient trunk with the fresh 

 verdure of spring, is a charm peculiar to the vegetable 

 creation. ( 422 ) In the animal kingdom (and this knowledge 

 is also a result of Ehrenberg's discoveries) it is precisely 

 the minutest forms which, owing to their prodigious fe- 

 cundity, ( 423 ) occupy the greatest space. The minutest in- 

 fusoria (the Monadines) only attain a diameter of -s-oWth of 

 a French line, and yet these siliceous-shelled animalcula 

 form in humid districts subterranean strata of many fathoms 

 in thickness. 



Those whose minds and feelings are awakened to the in- 

 fluences of the contemplation of nature, are impressed, under 

 every zone, by the diffusion of life over the surface of the 

 globe ; but this impression is most powerful in the regions 

 where the palms, the bamboos, and the tree-ferns flourish, 

 and where the ground rises from the margin of a sea filled 

 with mollusca and corals to the limit of perpetual snow. 

 The distribution of animal and vegetable life is scarcely 

 arrested by height or depth : organic forms descend even 

 into the interior of the earth, not only where the labours of 

 the miner have opened extensive excavations, but also in 

 closed natural caverns into which rain or snow-water can 

 only penetrate tlirough minute fissures. In such a cavern, 



