132 BOTANY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 



most during the greatest heats, it has been 

 surmised that Nature placed them there to 

 absorb the poison as it rose. Near Rome are 

 some plains over which, at certain seasons of the 

 year, it is death merely to cross, yet all this time 

 they are covered with the balmiest flowers which 

 scent the gales that pass over them, with the 

 most odorous perfumes. Wherever corruption 

 reigns, says a writer, Nature begins to put forth 

 a vigorous vegetation, and scatters flowers to con- 

 ceal or neutralize it ; and to create vast numbers 

 of noxious insects and animals, probably by ab- 

 sorbing the miasma, to restore the air to purity. 



L. Yet I often see Stramonium plants grow 

 ing in considerable quantities, especially on Man 

 hattan Island, in the upper part of the city, 

 where there are no marshes and it is quite 

 healthy. 



E. Instead of disproving what I have said, 

 the Stramonium will confirm it ; the greater 

 part of the ground on which you see it, is of a 

 marshy nature, but a few years since and the 

 greater part of that portion of the city was cover- 

 ed with water, and has since been filled in with 

 earth, and the Sound channel made narrower. 

 The Stramoniums, on the principle which I 



