524 THE UNIVERSE. 



a miraculous manner the gigantic torch-cactus {Cereus 

 [liganteiis, Engehii). One is quite astonished at finding 

 it upon the most sterile rocks, where the eye with dilficulty 

 detects a few particles of earth. How can a plant so 

 bulky, fleshy, and watery, grow Avithout taking up any- 

 thing from the soil, and draw the elements of nutrition 

 from the burning air around it? When this cactus is fully 

 developed, it presents the appearance of an immense 

 chandelier, attaining a height of as much as sixty feet, 

 and it is surprising to see that the tempest spares it. 



When we pass from animals to the vegetable kingdom, 

 Ave find, that notAvithstanding the calm and silence AAdiich 

 here preside over all the acts of life, there is yet an energy, 

 a tenacity, Avliich one would never have suspected. To 

 the extremes of size are opposed incalculable differences 

 in duration. No animal groAVs Avith the prodigious ra- 

 pidity AAdiich AA^e see in certain plants, nor does any attain 

 the fabulous longevity Avhich is the attribute of many trees. 



One plant passes aAvay like an ephemeron: a ray of 

 sunlight sees its birth and fall. Another defies the power 

 of ages : the offspring of creation, it seems as if it ought 

 only to sink Avith the Avreck of the globe. 



Some of our more common moulds pass in one day 

 through all the phases of life: this lapse of time is sufficient 

 for them to appear in, fructify, and die. But by a singular 

 contradiction, some plants of the same class only groAV 

 AA'ith inexplicable sloAvness. One of those lichens which 

 shoAv like plates of golden yelloAV on the roofs of our 

 houses, Avas watched for forty years by Vaucher, without his 

 seeing that it increased to a perceptible extent. Accord- 

 ingly De Candolle said that the lichens AA'hich cover our 

 rocks possibly go back to the times of the cataclysms 

 Avhich laid them bare ! 



