166 THE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



for splitting. When the Emeu Bay forest was 

 surveyed, one acre was found to contain 2,384 

 trees, and another 1,976. Many of these trees 

 are forty, fifty, or fifty-five feet in circum- 

 ference. Of one of these, fifty -five and a half feet 

 round, Mr. Backhouse says : " My companions 

 spoke to each other when at the opposite side of 

 the tree to myself, and their voices sounded 

 so distant, that I concluded they had inad- 

 vertently left me to see some other object, and 

 immediately called to them. They, in reply, 

 remarked the distant sound of my voice, and 

 asked if I were behind the tree ! When the 

 road through this forest was forming, a man, 

 who had only about two hundred yards to go 

 from one company of the work-people to an- 

 other, lost himself ; he called, and was repeat- 

 edly answered, but getting further astray, his 

 voice became more indistinct till it ceased to be 

 heard, and he perished." Tree ferns grow here 

 in all their glory, most beautiful with their 

 princely crests of fronds, many of which are 

 thirteen feet in length. Acacias, epacris, bank- 

 sias, grass trees, and asters, are abundant, and 

 show its close affinity with the vegetation of 

 Australia. 



5. The Colder Temperate Zone includes that 

 portion of both hemispheres which lies between 

 45 and 58. This zone embraces the British 

 Isles, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, 

 Prussia, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and 

 southern Kussia ; in Asia northern Tartary, 

 Mongolia, southern Siberia, and Kamschatka ; 



