90 ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



excluding the sun without, at that time, impeding 

 the circulation of the air. Thus the shade, at 

 all times impervious to the hlaze, afforded not 

 only a refuge from occasional inconvenience, 

 but a most delightful retreat and habitation. 

 Such were these orchards of the sun and woods 

 of perennial verdure, of a growth unknown to 

 the frigid clime and less vigorous soil of Europe!" 

 And speaking of their present state, he says, 

 " for what is the oak compared to the cedar or 

 mahogany, of each of which the trunk measures 

 from eighty to ninety feet from the base to the 

 limbs? What European forest has ever given 

 birth to the stem equal to that of the ceiba or wild 

 cotton tree; which alone, simply rendered con- 

 cave, has been known to produce a boat capable 

 of containing one hundred persons? Or the 

 still greater Indian fig, the sovereign of the vege- 

 table creation itself a forest ?"* 



* The ficus indica, or banian tree, may be considered one 

 of nature's most splendid productions. It consists of a woody 

 stem, with branches of vast height, terminating at their sum- 

 mits with a noble mass of foliage, each branch sending out at 

 certain distances and at a considerable elevation , smaller ones, 

 which descending gradually, reach the ground, where they 

 take root, and in time become trees as large as the parent 

 stock; and as the foliage is confined to the summits of the 

 trees, which, uniting, form an umbrageous canopy, imper- 

 Tious to the hottest beams of a tropical sun; we may easily 

 comprehend, why these facinating groves are made the resort 

 of the religious recluse, as the Brahmins of India, or of such 



