HORTICULTUEAL JOURNAL. ' 103 
chain of mountains, running from north to south, and from which a crowd 
of secondary chains detach themselves from west to the east, and which 
ramify in every direction. Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, New Grenada, 
Central America, in fact, nearly all the regions of orchids, are mountanous 
countries, where the land rises abruptly from the sea, so that the Jiot'. 
country,^ as it is there called, is but a band of country, more or less narrow 
and of a surface relatively very small. The remainder is composed of 
successive plateaux, sustained and divided by secondary chains, and elevated 
gradually to various heights, which attain in the neighborhood of the great 
Cordillera, even to the limit of perpetual snows. 
We can easily conceive that the climate of this immense country varies 
incessantly, not only by the latitude of places, but especially by theif 
altitude or absolute elevation. We know in fact that the temperature 
decreases one degree for every 352 feet of altitude, so that in leaving the 
coasts or the low plains, and passing the mountains and the plateaux, which 
succeed each other without interruption, we can pass in a single day from 
the torrid zone, where the air has the heat of a furnace, to warm and 
temperate zones, where the cereals of Europe flourish, then to the cold 
region which produces nothing but bushes, brush, and alpine plants, and at 
last attain the limit where all vegetation ceases under the influence of an 
icy cold, and where eternal frosts begin. 
However, if we consider that we meet orchids from the low lands to the 
extreme limits where even alpine vegetation ceases, it becomes easy to 
appreciate the importance of precise notions of their natural station and of 
the height of the places where they grow. 
The natives of America, and after them travellers, habitually characterize 
the different climates which result from the obsolute height of places, giving 
them the names of hot country, temperate, and cold country. The hot 
region commences at the sea shore and ends, even under the equator, at an 
altitude of about 2000 feet. Of course near the tropics this limit is lower. 
At 2000 feet commences the temperate country, which extends with de- 
creasing temperature to 6000 feet, above is the cold region. 
The climate of the hot country would be intolerably warm in all seasons, 
if the sea breezes and the atmospheric moisture did not remedy it a little. 
Vegetation- is rare there, the sides of the mountains exposed to the sun 
are often naked, and it is only in the narrow and well watered valleys 
that the trees display their strength. The Orchids are met with but rarely 
* Terra caliente. 
