DISCREPANCIES. 



ice, where large poplars were growing, with only 

 their tops above the icy mass ; the branches were 

 in full leaf, although the trunks were imbedded in 

 the snow and ice to a depth of twenty-five feet. 

 I dismounted, examined several, and found that 

 there was a space around the stem, nine inches 

 wide, filled with water, the only parts that ap- 

 peared to be thawing. I have often seen flowers 

 penetrating a thin bed of snow, but this was the 

 first time I had found trees growing under such 

 circumstances. ' '* 



The burning, sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa 

 seem at first sight to be utterly without organic 

 life, and doubtless they are the most barren of all 

 regions. But even there both animals and vegeta- 

 bles do exist. Several sorts of hard, thorny 

 shrubs are scattered over the dreary waste, the 

 chief of which is the Hedysarnm of the Sahara, a 

 plant about eighteen inches high, which is green 

 throughout the year; it grows absolutely out of 

 the arid sand, and is eagerly cropped by the 

 camels of the caravans. There are also beetles, 

 which burrow in the sand; and nimble lizards 

 which shine, as they bask in the burning sun, like 

 burnished brass, and bury themselves on being 

 alarmed. The lizards probably live upon the bee- 

 tles ; but what the beetles live upon is not so clear. 



The enormous plains of South Africa, called 

 karroos, though not so absolutely barren wastes 

 as the Sahara, are still great wildernesses of 

 sand, exposed to periodical droughts of long du- 

 ration. These regions are occupied by a most 

 singular type of vegetation; fleshy, distorted, 

 shapeless, and often leafless, tribes of euphorbias, 

 stapelias, mesembryanthemums, crassulas, aloes, 

 and similar succulent plants, maintain their hold 

 * Atkinson's "Siberia," p. 595. 

 71 



