374 



STEPPES OF ASIA AND AMERICA. 



CHAPTER 

 XXVIII. 



Value of 

 romprclien- 

 •=ive obser- 

 vutiun. 



Steppes of 

 Asia and 

 America. 



.Sea-like 

 pluins. 



wliich exists among all the sciences, and the light they 

 aie calculated to throw on each other. They appear as 

 a connected series of links in the great chain of natural 

 truths, of which one seeker obtains a few detached links 

 here, and another there, but rarely only, and at very re- 

 mote interval, some man appears of giant mind, such as 

 our great scientific traveller, Alexander von Humboldt, 

 who takes in within his comprehensive grasp a connected 

 series of many links, and discovers somewhat of the per- 

 fect unity which ranges throughout the creation, as well 

 as the providential government of God. 



In contrasting the steppes of Asia with the vast grassy 

 plains of the New World, Humboldt gives the decided 

 preference, in many points, both of interest and beauty, 

 to the former. The Asiatic plains alike excel in beauty 

 of vegetation, and in their rich and varied aspect. In his 

 " Views of Nature," he remarks — " In a great portion of 

 the Kirghis and Calrauck steppes which I have traversed, 

 (extending over a space of 40 degrees of longitude,) from 

 the Don, the Caspian Sea, and the Orenburg-Ural river 

 Jaik, to the Obi and the Upper Irtysch, near the Lake 

 Dsaisang, the extreme range of view is never bounded by 

 a horizon in which the vault of heaven appears to rest 

 on an unbroken sea-like plain, as is so frequently the 

 case in the Llanos, Pampas, and Prairies of America. 

 I have, indeed, never observed anything approaching 

 to this phenomenon, excepting, ])eihaps, where I have 

 looked only towards one quarter of the heavens, for the 

 Asiatic plains are frequently intersected by chains of 

 hills, or clothed with coniferous woods. The Asiatic 

 vegetation, too, in the most fruitful pasture lands, is by 

 no means limited to the family of the Cyperacese, but is 

 enriched by a great variety of herbaceous plants and 

 shrubs. In the season of spring, small snowy white and 

 red flowering Rosacea; and Amygdalese {Jipirece, CratCB' 

 gus, Pruiius spinosa, Amygdalus nana,) present a pleas- 

 ing appearance. I have elsewhere spoken of the tall 

 and luxuriant Synanthereoe, {Saussurea amara, S. salsa, 



