ASPECTS OF NATURE 



IN 



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DIFFERENT U M)S AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES. 



PHYSIOGNOMY OE PLANTS. 



WHEN the active curiosity of man is engaged in interrogating 

 Nature, or when his imagination dwells on the wide fields of 

 organic creation, among the multifarious impressions which 

 his mind receives, perhaps none is so strong and profound as 

 that of the universal profusion with which life is everywhere 

 distributed. Even on the polar ice the air resounds with 

 the cries or songs of birds, and with the hum of insects. 

 Nor is it only the lower dense and vaporous strata of the 

 atmosphere which are thus filled with life, but also the higher 

 and more ethereal regions. Whenever Mont Blanc or the 

 summits of the Cordilleras have been ascended, living 

 creatures have been found there. On the Chimborazo, ( l ) 

 eight thousand feet higher than Etna, we found butterflies 

 and other winged insects, borne by ascending currents of air 

 to those almost unapproachable solitudes, which man, led by 



