DISTRIBUTION OT PLANTS AN~ ANIMALS. 
31 !) 
would have become important objects of trade, if Europe, at 
wie period of the discovery of the .New World, had not 
already been accustomed to the spices and aromatics of 
India. The cinnamon of the Orinoco, and that of the 
dtidaquies missions, are, however, less aromatic than the 
cinnamon of Ceylon, and would still be so even if dried and 
Prepared by similar processes. 
Every hemisphere produces plants of a different species ; 
^nd it is not by the diversity ol climates that we can attempt 
explain why equinoctial Africa has no laurels, and the 
New World no heaths ; why calceolaria: are found wild only 
111 the southern hemisphere ; why the birds of the East 
J ndies glow with colours less splendid than those of the hot 
Parts of America ; finally, why the tiger is peculiar to Asia, 
a nd the omithorynehus to Australia. In the vegetable as 
We U as in the animal kingdom, the causes of the distribution 
ot the species are among the mysteries which natural philo- 
sophy cannot solve. The attempts made to explain the dis- 
tribution of various species on the globe by the sole influence 
'' climate, take their date from a period when physical geo- 
-hUplty was still in its infancy ; when, recurring incessantly 
? pretended contrasts between the two worlds, it was ima- 
ged that the whole of Africa and of America resembled the 
tySerts of Egypt and the marshes of Cayenne. At present, 
' ben men judge of the state of things not from one type 
'"'bitrarily chosen, but from positive knowledge, it is ascer- 
r tiled that the two continents, in their immense extent, con- 
ail j countries that are altogether analogous. There are 
e gi°ns of America as barren and burning as the interior of 
, tU'-a. Those islands which produce the spices of India are 
scarcely remarkable for their dryness; and it is not on 
. “count of the humidity of the climate, as has been affirmed 
j, r ecent works, that the New Continent is deprived of those 
io 6 “Ttyies of laurinias and myristicse, which are found united 
n °Qe little corner of the earth in the archipelago of India, 
su' S01 ? e years past cinnamon has been cultivated with 
tp 0 ! 688 m severa l parts of the New Continent; aud a zone 
. at produces the coumarouna, the vanilla, the pucheri, the 
I, '"'apple, the pimento, the balsam of tolu, the Myroxylon 
'nanum, the croton, the citroma, the pejoa, the incienso 
