50 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
hemispheres, amongst the Carib races of America, 
and the Iberians in the North of Spain, points 
in the same direction as the Iberian flora of 
Ireland and the Myurium of Madeira’ and the 
Hebrides. The more thoroughly we collate the 
isolated testimonies of natural history, and the 
traditions of ancient nations and tribes in Europe 
and America, and the more clearly we understand 
the phenomena which took place on the melting 
of the ice at the close of the glacial period, and 
map out the limits of ancient glacial action all 
over the world, the more confirmed, I believe, we 
shall be in the reality of the fabled Atlantis. 
Here is a noble inquiry, an unexplored vista of 
grand research, opened up by the suggestions of a 
minute moss growing beside a Highland lake. 
Some species of moss are very widely dis- 
tributed. The beautiful proliferous Feather-moss 
(Hypnum proliferum) is an inhabitant of nearly 
every part of the world. It is almost as well 
known in Tropical lands as in our own pine 
forests ; and while among the commonest, it is at 
the same time one of the loveliest and most 
graceful of the whole tribe. Nothing can exceed 
the delicacy and intricacy of its filigree patterns, 
and the richness and variety of its shades of green 
colour. The cypress-leaved Feather-moss (7. 
cupressiforme), which is extremely common and 
