240 TROPICAL NATURE Il 
forest-belts in the northern and southern parts of the tem- 
perate zones; but owing to the paucity of land in the 
southern hemisphere these are best seen in North America 
and Northern Euro-Asia, where they form the great northern 
forests of deciduous trees and of Conifere. These being com- 
paratively well known to us, will form the standard by a 
reference to which we shall endeavour to point out and render 
intelligible the distinctive characteristics of the equatorial 
forest vegetation. 
General Features of the Equatorial Forests 
It is not easy to fix upon the most distinctive features of 
these virgin forests, which nevertheless impress themselves 
upon the beholder as something quite unlike those of temper- 
ate lands, and as possessing a grandeur and sublimity altogether 
their own. Amid the countless modifications in detail which 
these forests present, we shall endeavour to point out the 
chief peculiarities as well as the more interesting phenomena 
which generally characterise them. 
The observer new to the scene would perhaps be first 
struck by the varied yet symmetrical trunks, which rise up 
with perfect straightness to a great height without a branch, 
and which, being placed at a considerable average distance apart, 
give an impression similar to that produced by the columns 
of some enormous building. Overhead, at a height, perhaps, 
of a hundred and fifty feet, is an almost unbroken canopy of 
foliage formed by the meeting together of these great trees 
and their interlacing branches; and this canopy is usually so 
dense that but an indistinct glimmer of the sky is to be seen, 
and even the intense tropical sunlight only penetrates to the 
ground subdued and broken up into scattered fragments. 
There is a weird gloom and a solemn silence, which combine 
to produce a sense of the vast—the primeval—almost of the 
infinite. It is a world in which man seems an intruder, and 
where he feels overwhelmed by the contemplation of the 
ever-acting forces which, from the simple elements of the 
atmosphere, build up the great mass of vegetation which 
overshadows and almost seems to oppress the earth. 
