PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



shelled microscopic animals. Perhaps many of them float 

 for years in the upper strata of the atmosphere, until they are 

 brought down by vertical currents or in accompaniment with 

 the superior current of the trade- winds, still susceptible of 

 revivification, and multiplying their species by spontaneous 

 division in conformity with the particular laws of their 

 organisation. 



But, besides creatures fully formed, the atmosphere con- 

 tains innumerable germs of future life, such as the eggs of 

 insects and the seeds of plants, the latter provided with light 

 hairy or feathery appendages, by means of which they are 

 wafted through the air during long autumnal wanderings. 

 Even the fertilizing dust or pollen from the anthers of the 

 male flowers, in species in which the sexes are separated, is 

 carried over land and sea, by winds and by the agency of 

 winged insects, ( 4 ) to the solitary female plant on other shores. 

 Thus wherever the glance of the inquirer into Nature pene- 

 trate he sees the continual dissemination of life, either 

 fully formed or in the germ. 



If the aereal ocean in which we are submerged, and above 

 the surface of which we cannot rise, be indispensable to the 

 existence of organised beings, they also require a more sub- 

 stantial aliment, which they can find only at the bottom of 

 this gaseous ocean. This bottom is of two kinds; the 

 smaller portion consisting of dry land in immediate contact 

 with the external atmosphere, and the larger portion con- 

 sisting of water, which may perhaps have been formed 

 thousands of years ago by electric agencies from gaseous 

 substances, and which is now incessantly undergoing decom- 



