22 M. Ramgnd on the Vegetation [Appendix. 



influence more powerfully resists ev.ery other. Nevertheless, the 

 lapse of ages, and especially the presence of man, has here intro- 

 duced mauy modifications ; for, in traversing the immense de- 

 serts of these high mountains, among the rare plants which form 

 their herbage, some few of the commonest here and there occur. 

 If the verdure takes a deeper tint than usual, contrasted with 

 the gayer colour of the Alpine turf, the ruins of a hut, or a rock 

 blackened by smoke, explain the mystery. Around these asy- 

 lums of man, we find naturalized the common Mallow, Nettle, 

 Chickweed, and common Dock. A shepherd had possibly sojourned 

 here some weeks, and in driving his flocks here, had also attract- 

 ed without knowing it, the birds, the insects, the seeds of the 

 plants of his lowland cot. He may possibly never return, but 

 these wild spots have received in an instant the indelible im- 

 pression of his footsteps ; so much weight has a being of his 

 importance in the scale of nature. In other places, by destruc- 

 tion he has signalised his presence, Before he approached the 

 mountains, the immense forests which covered their bases have 

 fallen under his axe, for woods are not the abodes of man; he 

 avoids the circuitous paths of so vast a labyrinth, suspecting 

 danger under their, shades ; he there mourns the absent sun, an 

 object which every day renovates his delight; and therefore it 

 is seldom that he penetrates a forest, without fire and sword in 

 hand. 



Accordingly the seeds of woodland plants become dormant in 

 a soil now dried by the sun and wind, and no longer suitable to 

 their germinating, Other vegetables take their places, the cli- 

 mate itself changing ; for the temperature rises, the rains are less 

 frequent, but more copious, the winds more inconstant and im- 

 petuous, deep gullies are formed in the sides of the acclivities by 

 torrents, aud rocks are deprived of the earth which covered them, 

 and, at the same time, of the plants which ornamented them, by 

 falls of immense loads of melting snow : thus the face of the 



