without fresh Supplies of Water and Air. 49 1 



of our own temperate clime. Now the varying effects of climate 

 are well known so far to modify the characters and habits of 

 plants, as to bestow on each region its peculiar and appropriate 

 vegetation. Even in the same latitudes, climate is so changed 

 by elevation above the sea, as to blend the vegetation of the 

 tropical with that of the arctic regions ; the same mountain 

 which enjoys a tropical climate at its base being found clothed, 

 at different elevations above the sea, with the vegetation of every 

 other clime ; the plants finding, in the different altitudes at which 

 they grow, a climate that compensates, more or less completely, 

 for the difference of latitude. It is a great merit in the plan of 

 Mr. Ward, that it breaks down, in a great measure, these dis- 

 tinctions of climate, and the peculiarities to which they give rise ; 

 and enables us not only to grow together, in the same soil and 

 climate, plants which naturally inhabited countries the most 

 distant from each other, and flourished only in the most oppo- 

 site climes, but to pass them from one extreme of climate to 

 another, through all the intermediate gradations, with very little 

 trouble, and without exposing them to any great risk. Thus, 

 in the month of June, 1833, Mr. Ward filled two cases with 

 ferns, mosses, and grasses, and sent them out to Sydney, where 

 they arrived in January, 1834. They were there taken out in 

 good condition, and the cases refilled with plants of that country 

 in the following month, the thermometer, at the time, ranging 

 between 90° and 100° Fahr. In the passage to England, the 

 temperature varied greatly, falling to 20° in rounding Cape 

 Horn, and rising to 120° in crossing the Line. On arriving 

 in the British Channel in November, the temperature was again 

 down to 40°. During the whole voyage, of eight months, the 

 plants in these cases received no protection either by day or 

 by night; neither were they once watered through the whole 

 period, and yet were taken out at London in the most healthy 

 and vigorous condition. Other cases, filled with plants of a 

 higher order, have been sent to Alexandria, and thence for- 

 warded to Cairo, where, after a two months' voyage, thev have 

 been taken out of the cases in a perfectly fresh and vigorous 

 state. Exchanges of plants have been made, by means of 

 these cases, between the professor of botany in this university, 

 and botanists in the Island of Cuba ; and the great establish- 

 ment of the Messrs. Loddiges, at Hackney, is said to have sent 

 out or received not fewer than 200 cases filled with plants, and 

 generally with complete success. 



In the opinion of Mr. Ward, it is owing to the " quiet state 

 of the atmosphere surrounding the plants enclosed in these 

 cases, that they are enabled to bear the extremes of heat and 

 cold to which they are exposed in these long voyages." In 

 proof of the former position, he refers to the well-known ex- 



