EUCALYPTUS TREES. 163 



researches or microscopic tests; and how, without 

 them, photographic art could not have depictured, 

 with unerring fidelity, millions of objects, whether of 

 landscapes or of the starry sky, whether of the beings 

 dear to us or the relics of antiquity, whether enlarging 

 the scope of lithography or recording the languages, 

 which the flashing of telegraphic electricity sends to 

 a dwelling or to an empire ? Even the vegetable 

 fossils, deep-buried in the earth or in the cleavage of 

 rocks, when viewed by the light of phytology, become 

 so many letters on the pages of nature's revelation, 

 from which we are to learn the age of strata, or may 

 trace the sources of metallic wealth, or by which we 

 may be guided to huge rfemnants of forests of bygone 

 ages, stored up for the utilization of this epoch, or 

 may comprehend, as far as mortal understanding 

 serves us, successive changes in tellurian creation. 



When Ray and, subsequently, Jussieu, framed the 

 first groundwork for the ordinal demarcation of 

 plants ; when Tournefort, by defining generic limits, 

 brought further clearness into the chaos of dawning 

 systematic knowledge, |and when Linnse gave so hap- 

 pily to each plant its second or specific name, but lit- 

 tle was it indeed foreseen what a vast influence these 

 principles of sound methodic arrangement would ex- 

 ercise, not only on the easy recognition of the varied 

 forms of vegetable life, but also on the philosophic 

 elucidation of their properties and uses, and this for 

 all times to come. Many, even at the present day, 

 and among them at times those on whom the desti- 

 nies of whole states and populations may depend, can 

 recognize in phytographic and other scientific labors 

 but little ejsg than a mere play-work ; yet, without 



