234 THE GEOGRAPHY 



even the storm seemed to be interrupted, for the sails flapped 

 against the masts, and threw off the ice with which they 

 had so long been covered. Then the sun broke suddenly 

 through the parting clouds, and, with the peculiar rosy tint 

 of the Red snow,* a broad shore spread out before us, which 

 promised a short rest to the wearied mariner." 



How contrasting are the pictures presented to us by 

 these narratives ; how it must make us reflect when we 

 note, that in each of these three sketches the conditions of 

 Nature, climate, plants and animals, are such as could not 

 occur in either of the others. Nay, the single agreement 

 which strikes even the uninitiated, the occurrence of an 

 insignificant little plant of our meadows in that most 

 peculiar and foreign country we have yet discovered, only 

 serves to increase our astonishment. Parti-coloured, 

 rich in form and hue, is the tapestry of Nature, but 

 certainly not pieced together, without plan, of separate 

 patches, but like an embroidery from artistic hands, 

 worked from a beautiful design. If we imagine a fly, 

 endowed with powers of sense and comprehension, crawl- 

 ing about a costly Gobelin, and from the coloured 

 points, which he could not see all at one time, conceiving 

 a picture of the whole, of which he could understand and 

 criticize the drawing and the colouring, we should own him 

 to be the greatest genius that ever lived. And in what far 

 less favourable circumstances is man placed upon the whole 

 earth. How many must here combine their observations, 

 even to teach a provisional review of, and insight into a 

 very small portion ; how many masters must yet devote their 



* On the freshly fallen snow of the Polar Regions and the higher 

 Alps, a little microscopic Alga, the Protococcus nivalis, is not un- 

 frequently met with, which, with some little infusorial animalcules, 

 often tinges the whole snow-field of a rosy red colour. 



