at Drontheim in Norway; but in the eastern parts of Europe, the monarch of the woods is not found higher than 5740; and in the eastern parts of Asia, the oak is only able to maintain a precarious existence on the banks of the Argouan, in the same latitude as London. Elm and lime trees are found at 61° in Europe, the beech at 59°, in connection with most of the vegetable productions which are important to the sustenance of mankind. Rye is cultivable with advantage as far north as 66°; wheat is limited to 62°; and oats will rarely ripen in a higher latitude. In the northern half of the temperate zone, the fruit-trees of the garden and orchard, the gooseberry, apple, pear, cherry, and plum, attain their greatest perfection, losing their flavour, and degenerating entirely in warmer regions. In the midland portion of this district, the vine, apricot, peach, almond, and mulberry flourish; and farther to the south is the country of the olive, orange, lemon, cork, and fig. To the westward of Milan, we first meet with fields of rice, yielding a whispering sound when agitated by the wind, a plant which can only be raised where there is a plentiful supply of water, an advantage enjoyed by the whole plain of Lombardy, in consequence of an admirable system of artificial irrigation, which the physical condition of the country favours. The flora of the region thus summarily passed over exhibits exquisite specimens of form and colour, but, perhaps, in successful competition with its floral developments, or with those of equatorial districts, we may place the vivid green of its grasses, trees, and hedgerows, under the reviving touch of spring. Corresponding latitudes in the western hemisphere present vegetable productions of great splendour, together with the careful cultivation of the more useful orders, as in the rice, cotton, indigo, tobacco, and sugar-cane plantations.

It is in the glowing regions of the torrid zone that vegetation exhibits its greatest variety, and presents productions more splendid in their colours and stately in their form, more fragrant in their odours and pungent in their taste, than any other climate. Wheat, and most other kinds of European corn, will not form an ear upon the low levels of these hot districts, and are only to be cultivated with success within the tropics, at an altitude of from five to nine thousand feet above the level of the ocean, where the mode

rate warmth of the temperate latitudes is enjoyed. There are several exceptions to this rule, created by local peculiarities, for at 101° north of the equator, in Venezuela, fields of corn blend with plantations of sugar-cane, coffee, and plantains, at no greater elevation than 1900 feet above the sea-level, while in the interior of the island of Cuba fine harvests are raised at but a small height above the ocean. Various other kinds of grain, however, flourish abundantly upon the plains, as millet, maize or Indian wheat, and rice, the latter being the chief food of perhaps a third of the human race, while valuable substitutes for grain are found in the bread-fruit and plantain, the cassava and manioc roots of America, the taro-root and yam of Polynesia. In the central parts of the torrid region, we find the plants which yield the most powerful aromatics-the vanilla, the cinnamon, the nutmeg, the pepper, the clove, and the camphor; but it is especially remarkable for the abundance and grandeur of its flora and timber-trees, whether growing singly or in forests. In Hindustan and Cochin China, the banyan or pagod-tree, Ficus

Indica, exhibits that vast size and peculiar form, which rendered it the wonder of the ancients, the lateral branches sending down shoots which take root in the earth, and compose a grove, in process of time, out of the individual, sometimes covering an area of 1700 square yards. Southey, in the Curse of Kehama, has well described this object:

"'Twas a fair scene wherein they stood,

A green and sunny glade amid the wood,
And in the midst an aged banyan grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,

For o'er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propp'd its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot

Seeking to strike its root,

Straight, like a plummet, grew towards the ground,
Some on the lower boughs, which cross'd their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound;
Some to the passing wind, at times with sway

Of gentle motion swung;

Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern's fretted height.
Beneath was smooth and fair to sight,
Nor weeds nor briers deform'd the natural floor;
And through the leafy cope which bower'd it o'er
Came gleams of chequer'd light.

So like a temple did it seem, that there

A pious heart's first impulse would be prayer."

The same tribes which are the slender and humble plants of northern regions, become lofty trees within the tropics, as several of the grasses, the bamboo rising to the height of sixty feet, the hollow stalk of which is capable of being constructed into capacious household vessels. Some of the family of leguminose are hardy-flowering trees, and contribute greatly to the beauty of the gardens of northern climes, as the Robinia and the Labernum, but they give way before the splendour and elegance of their tropical brethren. The flowers of the Erethrina, or coral tree, are of the deepest and most brilliant crimson, and appear in profusion upon some of the loftiest trees of the forest, while the Bauhinias, with their snake-like stems, and twin leaves, hang in festoons from branch to branch of other trees, and are only rivalled by the less vigorous but more richly coloured blossoms of the Carpopogons. But from these the Mimosa bears away the palm, with its rugged trunk, airy foliage, and golden flowers, which cast a charm over even the sterile wastes of burning Africa.

All naturalists, who have visited equinoctial America, have found it impossible to convey any adequate idea of the impression produced upon the mind by its forests, consisting of noble trees, thickly planted by the hand of nature, the trunks of which are not covered with moss and lichen as in our climate, but with creeping plants ascending from the ground to the very summit of the trees, binding the whole together into a closely united mass of vegetation, and adorning it with brilliant flowers. "When a traveller," says Humboldt, "newly arrived from Europe, penetrates for the first time into the forests of South America, if he is strongly susceptible of the beauty of picturesque scenery, he can scarcely define the various emotions which crowd upon his mind; he can scarcely distinguish what most excites his admiration-the deep silence of these solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of forms, or that vigour and freshness of vegetable life which characterise the climate of the tropics. It might be said that the earth, overloaded with plants, does not allow them space to unfold themselves. So thick and uninterrupted are the forests which cover the plains of South America between the Orinoco and the Amazon, that, were it not for intervening rivers, the monkeys, almost the only inhabitants of these regions, might pass along the tops of the trees for several hundred miles together without touching the earth." Towards the junction of the Cassiquiaire with the Orinoco, "the luxuriousness of the vegetation increases in a manner of which it is difficult, even for those who are accustomed to the aspect of the forests between the tropics, to form an idea. There is no longer a beach; a palisade of tufted trees forms the bank of the river. You see a canal 200 toises (426 yards) broad, bordered by two enormous walls, clothed with lianas and foliage. We often tried to land, but without being able to step out of the boat. Towards sunset we sailed along the bank for an hour, to discover, not an opening, since none exists, but a spot less wooded, where our Indians, by means of the hatchet and manual labour, could gain space enough for a resting-place for twelve or thirteen persons." Mr. Darwin records similar facts and impressions:-"During the second day's journey, we found the road so shut up, that it was necessary that a man should go abroad with a sword to cut away the creepers. The woody creepers, themselves covered by others, were of great thickness;

some which I measured were two feet in circumference. Many of the older trees presented a very curious appearance from the tresses of a liana hanging from their boughs, and resembling bundles of hay. If the eye was turned from the world of foliage above, to the ground beneath, it was attracted by the extreme elegance of the leaves of the ferns and mimosæ. It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind. Among the scenes which are deeply impressed upon my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of nature;-no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body."

For utility and majestic port, the order Palma, the princes of the vegetable world, to use the appropriate phrase of Linnæus, constitute the chief vegetable glory of intertropical localities, though found in reduced dimensions in Spain, the neighbourhood of Genoa, around Naples, and in Sicily. The date-palm, with its cylindrical columnar stem, and crown of leaves, is a singularly graceful object in the deserts of the Old World :

"Those groups of lovely date trees bending
Languidly their leaf-crown'd heads,

Like youthful maids, when sleep descending
Warns them to their silken beds."

But in equinoctial South America the palm tribes appear in their greatest magnificence, fascinating and imposing to the eye of the traveller, as he beholds them on the granite rocks at the cataracts of Atures and Maypures, on the Orinoco, the light green of the leaves, waving in the breeze, strikingly contrasting with the darker surrounding vegetation. On the plains, which are subject to floods, the European is sometimes startled by seeing the tops of these trees lighted with fires. They are kindled by the Guanacas, a people who have remained for ages in these marshy districts, secured from the floods by

living in the palms, where, with mats coated with clay, they construct hearths for the fires which are essential to their comfort. In other districts the palm-groves, says Desfontaines, "being impervious to the sun's rays, afford a hospitable shade, both to man and other animals, in a region which would otherwise be intolerable from the heat. Under this natural shelter the orange, the lemon, the pomegranate, the olive, the almond, and the vine, grow in wild luxuriance, producing, notwithstanding they are so shaded, the most delicious fruit. And here, while the eyes are fed with the endless variety of flowers which deck these sylvan scenes, the ears are at the same time ravished with the melodious notes of numerous birds, which are attracted to these groves by the shade, and the cool springs, and the food which they there find." The date, the cocoa-nut, and the sago palm, are of vast importance to mankind, for the nourishing farinaceous food they supply, and their extraordinary fecundity, which led to the assertion of Linnæus, that the region of palms was the first country of the human race, and that man is essentially palmivorous. The cocoa palm produces annually, during the greater part of a century, 100 of its large nuts, but the Seje palm of the Orinoco yields 8000 fruits at a crop. A single spatha of the date palm, the broad sheathing leaf which incloses the flowers, contains 12,000, while each spatha of another species, the Alfonsia Amygdalina, has 207,000 flowers, and the individual plant 600,000. The produce of the banana, or plantain, another inhabitant of tropical climes, is still more enormous; a plant which requires but little cultivation, and is to immense numbers of the human race, what rice is to the Hindoos, and wheat to the Europeans. According to a calculation of Humboldt, upon the same space of ground, the weight of the yield in the case of bananas will be 44 times that of potatoes, and 133 times that of wheat!

In thus proceeding through the vegetable kingdom from the pole to the equator, we come to different productions as we descend from the frozen to the cold, the temperate, the warm, and the hot regions; but as a change of elevation has the same effect upon climate as a change of latitude, the plants that are characteristic of the high latitudes appear in succession upon the lofty mountains of those that are much lower. Tournefort found the plants that are peculiar to Armenia at the foot of Mount Ararat; above these he met with those that are common in France; at a still greater height he came to those that grow in Sweden; and towards the summit the vegetation of the polar regions appeared. The Alps, Pyrenees, and Andes exhibit the same feature; and hence it may be regarded as a botanical axiom, that the flora of a mountainous country will be richer than that of another of less diversified aspect in the same latitude. The table states some interesting facts respecting vegetation on some of the mountains of the torrid and temperate zones. The fathom is equal to 6·39453 English feet.