ASPECTS OF NATURE.

ASPECTS OF NATURE,

DIFFEEENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES;

Scientific €lucibation0.

BY

-X:'

ALEXANDER YON HUMBOLDT.

TRANSLATED BY MRS. SABINE.

PHILADELPHIA:

LEA AND BLANCHARD

1849.

PHILADELPHIA :
T. K. AND P. &. COLLINS, PBINTEKS.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

FIRST EDITION.

IT is not without diffidence that I present to the public a series
of papers which took their origin in the presence of natural scenes
of grandeur or of beauty — on the Ocean, in the forests of the
Orinoco, in the Steppes of Venezuela, and in the mountain wilder-
nesses of Peru and Mexico. Detached fragments were written
down on the spot and at the moment, and were afterwards moulded
into a whole. The view of Nature on an enlarged scale, the dis-
play of the concurrent action of various forces or powers, and the
renewal of the enjoyment which the immediate prospect of tropical
scenery affords to sensitive minds, are the objects which I have
proposed to myself. According to the design of my work, whilst
each of the treatises of which it consists should form a whole com-
plete in itself, one common tendency should pervade them all.
Such an artistic and literary treatment of subjects of natural history
is liable to difficulties of composition, notwithstanding the aid which
it derives from the power and flexibility of our noble language.
The unbounded riches of Nature occasion an accumulation of sepa-
rate images; and accumulation disturbs «the repose and the unity of
impression which should belong to the picture. Moreover, when
addressing the feelings and imagination, a firm hand is needed to
guard the style from degenerating into an undesirable species of
poetic prose. But I need not here describe more fully dangers
which I fear the following pages will show I have not always suc-
ceeded in avoiding.

1*

101162

VI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding faults which I can more easily
perceive than amend, I venture to hope that these descriptions of
the varied Aspects which Nature assumes in distant lands may
impart to the reader a portion of that enjoyment which is derived
from their immediate contemplation by a mind susceptible of such
impressions. As this enjoyment is enhanced by insight into the
more hidden connection of the different powers and forces of nature,
I have subjoined to each treatise scientific elucidations and additions.

Throughout the entire work I have sought to indicate the unfail-
ing influence of external nature on the feelings, the moral disposi-
tions, and the destinies of man. To minds oppressed with the cares
or the sorrows of life, the soothing influence of the contemplation
of Nature is peculiarly precious; and to such these pages are more
especially dedicated. May they, " escaping from the stormy waves
of life," follow me in spirit with willing steps to the recesses of the
primeval forests, over the boundless surface of the Steppe, and to
the higher ridges of the Andes. To them is addressed the poet's
voice, in the sentence of the chorus —

" Auf den Bergen ist Freiheit! Der Hauch der Grufte
>Vteigt nicht hinauf in die reinen Liifle;
Die Welt ist vollkommen uberall,
Wo der Mensch nicht hinkommt mit seiner Qual."

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.

THE twofold aim of the present work (a carefully prepared and
executed attempt to enhance the enjoyment of Nature by animated
description, and at the same time to increase in proportion to the
state of knowledge at the time the reader's insight into the harmo-
nious and concurrent action of different powers and forces of Nature)
was pointed out by me nearly half a century ago in the Preface to
the First Edition. In so doing, I alluded to the various obstacles
which oppose a successful treatment of the subject in the manner
designed. The combination of a literary and of a purely scientific
object — the endeavor at once to interest and occupy the imagination,
and to enrich the mind with new ideas by the augmentation of
knowledge — renders the due arrangement of the separate parts, and
the desired unity of composition, difficult of attainment. Yet, not-
withstanding these disadvantages, the public have long regarded my
imperfectly executed undertaking with friendly partiality.

The second edition of the " Ansichten der Natur" was prepared
by me in Paris in 1826; and at the same time two fresh treatises
were added — one an Essay on the Structure and Mode of Action of
Volcanos in different regions of the earth; and the other on the
" Vital Power,/' bearing the title "Lebenskraft; oder der rhodische
Genius." During my long stay at Jena, Schiller, in the recollec-
tion of his youthful medical studies, loved to converse with me on
physiological subjects; and the considerations in which I was then
engaged on the muscular and nervous fibres when excited by con-

VU1 PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.

tact with chemically different substances, often gave a more specific
and graver turn to our discourse. The "Rhodian Genius" was
written at this time: it appeared first in Schiller's "Horen," a
periodical journal; and it was his partiality for this little work
which encouraged me to allow it to be reprinted. My brother, in
a letter forming part of a collection which has recently been given
to the public (Wilhelm von Humboldt's Briefe an eine Freundin,
th. ii. s. 39), touches tenderly on the subject of the memoir in
question, but adds at the same time a very just remark: "The de-
velopment of a physiological idea is the object of the entire treatise;
men were fonder at that time than they would now be of such semi-
poetic clothing of severe scientific truths."

In my eightieth year, I am still enabled to enjoy the satisfaction
of completing a third edition of my work, remoulding it entirely
afresh to meet the requirements of the present time. Almost all
the scientific Elucidations or Annotations have been either enlarged
or replaced by new and more comprehensive ones. I have hoped
that these volumes might tend to inspire and cherish a love for the
study of Nature, by bringing together in a small space the results
of careful observation on the most varied subjects; by showing the
importance of exact numerical data, and the use to be made of them
by well-considered arrangement and comparison; and by opposing
the dogmatic half-knowledge and arrogant skepticism which have
long too much prevailed in what are called the higher circles of
society.

The expedition made by Ehrenberg, Gustav Rose, and myself,
by the command of the Emperor of Russia, in 1829, to Northern
Asia (in the Ural and Altai Mountains, and on the shores of the
Caspian Sea), falls between the period of publication of the second
and third editions. This expedition has contributed materially to
the enlargement of iny views in all that regards the form of the
surface of the earth, the direction of mountain-chains, the connection
of Steppes and Deserts with each other, and the geographical distri-
bution of plants in relation to ascertained conditions of temperature.
The long subsisting want of any accurate knowledge on the subject
of the great snow-covered mountain-chains which are situated be-
tween the Altai and the Himalaya (i. e. the Thian-schan and the

PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS. IX

Kuen-liin), and the ill-judged neglect of Chinese authorities, have
thrown great obscurity around the geography of Central Asia, and
have allowed imagination to be substituted for the results of obser-
vation in works which have obtained extensive circulation. In the
course of the last few months, the hypsometrical comparison of the
culminating summits of the two Continents has almost unexpectedly
received important corrections and additions, of which I hasten to
avail myself. (See pages 63-64, and 88-89.) The determinations
of the heights of two mountains in the eastern chain of the Andes
of Bolivia, the Sorata and the Illimani, have been freed from the
errors which had placed those mountains above the Chiinborazo,
but without as yet altogether restoring to the latter with certainty
its ancient pre-eminence among the snowy summits of the New
World. In the Himalaya, the recently executed trigonometrical
measurement of the Kinchinjinga (28,178 English feet) places it
next in altitude to the Dhawalagiri, a new and more exact trigono-
metrical measurement of which has also been recently made.

For the sake of uniformity with the two previous editions of the
" "Ansichten der Natur," I have given the degrees of temperature in
the present work (unless where expressly stated otherwise) in de-
grees of Reaumur's scale. The linear measures are the old French,
in which the toise equals six Parisian feet. The miles are geo-
graphical, fifteen to a degree of the Equator. The longitudes are
reckoned from the Observatory at Paris as a first meridian.

BERLIN, 1849.

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR

IN the translation, the temperatures are given in degrees of Fahr-
enheit, retaining at the same time the original figures in Reaumur's
scale. In the same manner, the measures are given in English feet,
generally retaining at the same time the original statements in Pa-
risian or French feet or toises, a desirable precaution where accuracy
is important. The miles are given in geographical miles, sixty to a
degree ; but in this case the original figures have usually been omit-
ted, the conversion being so simple as to render the introduction of
error very improbable. In a very few instances, '" English miles"
appear without any farther epithet or explanation; these have been
taken by the author from English sources, and may probably signify
statute miles. The longitudes from Greenwich are substituted for
those from Paris, retaining in addition the original statement in
particular cases.

CONTENTS.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION . . ^." v

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS . vii

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR , , xi

STEPPES AND DESERTS . . • . V . 25

Annotations and Additions . >. ,: , . 43

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO . . . . „-.. 169

Annotations and Additions . . . . , 187

NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST . ' . 205
Annotations and Additions . . ' . . ' .215

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA . . . . . . 217

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS . . . . . »( 227

Annotations and Additions . . » . . '. 247

Postscript on the Physiognomic Classification of Plants . 367

ON THR STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION OF VOLCANOS, IN DIF-
FERENT PARTS OF THE GLOBE . . .- . 375
Annotations and Additions . . »' . . 395

THE VITAL FORCE ; OR, THE EHODIAN GENIUS . . . 403

Note . . . . . . . .408

THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA
ATAHUALLPA, and the First View of the Pacific Ocean,
from the Crest of the Andes . . . .413

Annotations and Additions . . 438

General Summary of the CONTENTS . . . . 453 /

INDEX » | . . , . . •, . . ^. 471

2

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

ASPECTS OF NATURE

IN

DIFFERENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES,

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

A WIDELY extended and apparently interminable plain stretches
from the southern base of the lofty granitic crest, which, in the
youth of our planet, when the Caribbean gulf was formed, brayed
the invasion of the waters. On quitting the mountain valleys of
Caraccas, and the island-studded Lake of Tacarigua, (1) whose surface
reflects the stems of plantains and bananas, and on leaving behind
him meads adorned with the bright and tender green of the Tahitian
sugar-cane or the darker verdure of the Cacao groves, the traveller,
looking southward, sees unroll before him Steppes receding until
they vanish in the far horizon.

Fresh from the richest luxuriance of organic life, he treads at
once the desolate margin of a treeless desert. Neither hill nor cliff
rises, like an island in the ocean, to break the uniformity of the
boundless plain ; only here and there broken strata of limestone,
several hundred square miles in extent, appear sensibly higher than
the adjoining parts. " Banks" (2) is the name given 'to them by the
natives ; as if language instinctively recalled the more ancient con-
dition of the globe, when those elevations were shoals, and the
Steppes themselves were the bottom of a great Mediterranean sea.

Even at the present time, nocturnal illusion still recalls these
images of the past. When the rapidly rising and descending con-
stellations illumine the margin of the plain, or when their trembling
3

26 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

image is repeated in the lower stratum of undulating vapor, we
seem to see before us a shoreless ocean. (3) Like the ocean, the
Steppe fills the mind with the feeling of infinity; and thought,
escaping from the visible impressions of space, rises to contemplations
of a higher order. Yet the aspect of the clear, transparent mirror
of the ocean, with its light, curling, gently foaming, sportive waves,
cheers the heart like that of a friend ; but the Steppe lies stretched
before us dead and rigid, like the stony crust (4) of a desolated
planet.

In every zone nature presents the phenomena of these great
plains:, in each they l>a^e a peculiar physiognomy, determined by
diversity of seil/by climate, and by elevation above the level of the

r ' IB 'Hbrinera Europe, the Heaths, which, covered with a single
race of plants repelling all others, extend from the point of Jutland
to the mouth of the Scheldt, may be regarded as true Steppes — but
Steppes of small extent and hilly surface, if compared with the
Llanos and Pampas of South America, or even with the Prairies of
the Missouri (5) and the Barrens of the Coppermine river; where
range countless herds of the shaggy buffalo and musk ox.

A grander and severer aspect characterizes the plains of the in-
terior of Africa. Like the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean, it is
only in recent times that attempts have been made to explore them
thoroughly. They are parts of a sea of sand, which, stretching
eastward, separates fruitful regions from each other, or encloses them
like islands; as where the Desert, near the basaltic mountains of
Harudsh, (6) surrounds the Oasis of Siwah rich in date trees, and in
which the ruins of the temple of Ammon mark the venerable site
of an ancient civilization. Neither dew nor rain bathes these desolate
plains, or develops on their glowing surface the germs of vegetable
life; for heated columns of air, everywhere ascending, dissolve the
vapors, and disperse each swiftly vanishing cloud.

Where the Desert approaches the Atlantic Ocean, as between the
Wadi Nun and Cape Blanco, the moist sea air pours in to supply
the void left by these upward currents. The mariner, steering to-
wards the mouth of the Gambia through a sea covered with weed,
when suddenly deserted by the east trade wind of the tropics, (7) infers

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 27

tlie vicinity of the widely extended heat-radiating desert. Herds of
antelopes and swift-footed ostriches roam through these vast regions ;
but, with the exception of the watered Oases or islands in the sea of
sand, sonic groups of which have recently been discovered, and whose
verdant shores are frequented by nomade Tibbos and Tuaricks, (8)
the African Desert must be regarded as uninhabitable by man.
The more civilized nations who dwell on its borders only venture to
enter it periodically. By trading routes, which have remained un-
altered for thousands of years, caravans traverse the long distance
from Tafilet to Timbuctoo, and from Moorzouk to Bornou; ad-
venturous undertakings, the possibility of which depends upon the
existence of the camel, the "ship of the desert/' (9) as it is called in
the traditionary language of the eastern world.

These African plains occupy an extent nearly three times as great
as that of the neighboring Mediterranean sea. They are situated
partly within, and partly in the vicinity of the tropics; and on this
situation their peculiar character depends. In the eastern part of
the Old Continent, the same geognostic phenomenon occurs in the
temperate zone. On the plateaux of Central Asia, between the gold
mountains or the Altai and the Kuen-lun, (10) from the Chinese wall
to beyond the Celestial mountains, and towards the sea of Aral, there
extend, through a length of many thousand miles, the most vast, if
not the most elevated, Steppes on the surface of the globe. I have
myself had the opportunity, fully thirty years after my South
American journey, of visiting a portion of them; namely, the Cal-
muck Kirghis Steppes between the Don, the Volga, the Caspian, and
the Chinese lake Dsaisang, being an extent of almost 2800 geogra-
phical miles.

These Asiatic Steppes, which are sometimes hilly and sometimes
interrupted by pine forests, possess (dispersed over them in groups)
a far more varied vegetation than that of the Llanos and Pampas of
Caraccas and Buenos Ayres. The finest part of these plains, which
is inhabited by Asiatic pastoral tribes, is adorned with low bushes of
luxuriant, white-blossomed Rosacese, and with Fritillarias, Tulips, and
Cypripedias.

As the torrid zone is characterized on the whole by a disposition
in all vegetation to become arborescent, so some of the Asiatic

28 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Steppes in the temperate zone are characterized by the great height
attained by flowering herbaceous plants, Saussureas and other Synan-
therse, and Papilionaceae, especially a host of species of Astragalus.
In traversing pathless portions of these Steppes, the traveller, seated
in the low Tartar carriages, sees the thickly crowded plants bend
beneath the wheels, but without rising up cannot look around him
to see the direction in which he is moving. Some of the Asiatic
Steppes are grassy plains; others are covered with succulent, ever-
green, articulated soda plants : many glisten from a distance with
flakes of exuded salt, which cover the clayey soil, not unlike in ap-
pearance to fresh fallen snow.

These Mongolian and Tartarian Steppes, interrupted frequently
by mountainous features, divide the very ancient civilization of
Thibet and Hindostan from the rude nations of Northern Asia.
They have in various ways exercised an important influence on the
changeful destinies of man. They have compressed the population
towards the south, and have tended, more than the Himalaya, or
than the snowy mountains of Srinagur and Ghorka, to impede the
intercourse of nations, and to place permanent limits to the extension
of milder manners, and of artistic and intellectual cultivation in
Northern Asia.

But, in the history of the past, it is not alone as an opposing bar-
rier that we must regard the plains of Central Asia : more than once
they have proved the source from whence devastation has spread
over distant lands. The pastoral nations of these Steppes — Moguls,
G-etse, Alani, and Usuni — have shaken the world. As, in the course
of past ages, early intellectual culture has come like the cheering
light of the sun from the East, so, at a later period, from the same
direction barbaric rudeness has threatened to overspread and involve
Europe in darkness. A brown pastoral race, (") of Tukiuish or
Turkish descent, the Hiongnu, dwelling in tents of skins, inhabited
the elevated Steppe of Gobi. Long terrible to the Chinese power, a
part of this tribe was driven back into Central Asia. The shock or
impulse thus given passeiUxom natio»4^fia4ien, until it reached the
ancient land of the Finns, near the Ural mountains. From thence,
Huns, Avari, Ghazares, and various admixtures of Asiatic races,
broke forth. Armies of Huns appeared successively on the Volga,

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 29

in Pannonia, on the Marne, and on the Po, desolating those fair and
fertile fields which, since the time of Antenor, civilized man had
adorned with monument after monument. Thus went forth from
the Mongolian deserts a deadly blast, which withered on Cisalpine
ground the tender, long-cherished flower of art.

From the salt Steppes of Asia, from the European Heaths smiling
in summer with their purple blossoms rich in honey, and from the
arid Deserts of Africa, devoid of all vegetation, let us now return to
those South American plains of which I have already began to trace
the picture, albeit in rude outlines.

The interest which this picture can offer to the beholder is, how-
ever, exclusively that of pure nature. Here no Oasis recalls the
memory of earlier inhabitants; no carved stone, (ls) no ruined
building, no fruit tree once the care of the cultivator, but now wild,
speaks of the art or industry of former generations. As if estranged
from the destinies of mankind, and rivetting attention solely to the
present moment, this corner of the earth appears as a wild theatre
for the free development of animal and vegetable life.

The Steppe extends from the Caraccas coast chain to the forests
of Ghiiana, and from the snowy mountains of Merida (on the slope
of which the Natron Lake Urao is an object of superstitious venera-
tion to the natives), to the great delta formed by the Orinoco at its
mouth. To the south-west a branch is prolonged, like an arm of
the sea, (13) beyond the banks of the Meta and Vichada to the un-
visited sources of the Gluaviare, and to the lonely mountain to which
the excited fancy of the Spanish soldiery gave the name of Paramo
de la Suma Paz — the seat of perfect peace.

This Steppe occupies a space of 16,000 (256,000 English) square
miles. It has often been erroneously described as running uninter-
ruptedly, and with an equal breadth, to the Straits of Magellan,
forgetting the forest-covered plain of the Amazons, which intervenes
between the grassy Steppes of the Apure and those of the river
Plate. The Andes of Cochabamba, and the Brazilian group of
mountains, send forth, between the province of Chiquitos and the
isthmus of Villabella, some detached spurs, which advance, as it
were, to meet each other. (14) A narrow plain connects the forest
lands of the Amazons with the- Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The

3*

30 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

latter far surpass the Llanos of Venezuela in area; and their extent
is so great that, while their northern margin is bordered by palni
trees, their southern extremity is almost continually covered with ice.
The Tuyu, which resembles the Cassowary (the Struthio rhea),
is peculiar to these Pampas, which are also the haunt of troops of
dogs (15) descended from those introduced by the colonists, but
which have become completely wild, dwelling together in subterra-
nean hollows, and often attacking with blood-thirsty rage the human
race whom their progenitors served and defended.

Like the greater portion of the desert of Sahara, (16) the north-
ernmost of the South American plains, the Llanos, are in the torrid
zone : during one-half of the year, they are desolate, like the Lybian
sandy waste; during the other, they appear as a grassy plain, re-
sembling many of the Steppes of Central Asia. (ir)

It is a highly interesting though difficult task of general geography

to compare the natural conditions of distant regions, and to represent

by a few traits the results of this comparison. The causes which

lessen both heat and dryness in the New World (18) are manifold,

and in some respects as yet only partially understood. Amongst these

i may be classed the narrowness and deep indentation of the American

1 land in the northern part of the torrid zone, where consequently the

\ atmosphere, resting on a liquid base, does not present so heated an

ascending current; — -the extension of the continent towards the

jpoles; — the expanse of ocean over which the trade-winds sweep

[freely, acquiring thereby a cooler temperature; — the flatness of the

; eastern coasts; — currents of cold sea-water from the antarctic regions,

which, coming from the south-west to the north-east, first strike the

coast of Chili in the parallel of 35° south latitude, and advance

along the coast of Peru as far north as Cape Parina, and then turn

f suddenly to the west; — the numerous lofty mountain chains rich in

• springs, and whose snow-clad summits, rising high above all the

strata of clouds, cause descending currents of cold air to roll down

their declivities; — the abundance of rivers of enormous breadth,

which, after many windings, seek the most distant coast; — Steppes

which from not being sandy are less susceptible of acquiring a high

degree of heat ; — impenetrable forests occupying the alluvial plains

situated immediately beneath the equator, protecting with their

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 31

shade the soil beneath from the direct influence of the sunbeams,
and exhaling, in the interior of the country, at a great distance from
the mountains and from the ocean, vast quantities of moisture,
partly imbibed and partly elaborated: — all these circumstances
afford to the flat part of America a climate which by its humidity
and coolness contrasts wonderfully with that of Africa. It is to the
same causes that we are to attribute the luxuriant vegetation, the
magnificent forests, and that abundant leanness by which the New
Continent is peculiarly characterized.

If, therefore, one side t>f our planet has a moister atmosphere than
the other, the consideration of the present condition of things is
amply sufficient to explain the problem presented by this inequality.
The physical inquirer needs not to clothe the explanation of these
phenomena in a mantle of geological myths. He needs not to as-
sume that on our planet the harmonious reconciliation of the de-
structive conflict of the elements took place at different epochs in
the eastern and the western hemispheres ; or that America emerged
later than the other parts of the globe from the chaotic watery
covering, (19) as an island of swamps and marshes tenanted by alli-
gators and serpents.

There is, indeed, a striking similarity between South America
and the southern peninsula of the Old Continent in the form of the |
outline and in the direction of the coasts ; but the nature of the
soil, and the relative position of the neighboring masses of land,
produce in Africa that extraordinary aridity which over an immense
area checks the development of organic life. Four-fifths of South
America are situated on the southern side of the equator ; or in a
hemisphere which from the greater proportion of sea and from other
causes is cooler and moister than our northern half of the globe, (*)
to which the larger part of Africa belongs. The breadth of the

South American Steppe, measured from east to west, is only a tKimy
of that of the African Desert. The Llanos receive the influence of* ^f
the tropical sea wind, while the African Deserts, being situated in
the same zone of latitude as Arabia and the south of Persia, are in
contact with strata of air which have blown over warm heat-radiat- :
ing continents. The venerable and only lately appreciated father' Fl
of history, Herodotus, in the true spirit of an enlarged view of na-

32 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

ture, described the Deserts of Northern Africa, of Yemen, of Ker-
i man, and Mekran (the Gedrosia of the Greeks), and even as far as
| Moultan, as forming a single connected sea of sand. (21)
P^In addition to the action of these hot winds, there is (so far as
we know) an absence or comparative paucity in Africa of large
rivers, of widely extended forests producing coolness and exhaling
moisture, and of lofty mountains. Of mountains covered with per-
petual snow, we know only the western part of the Atlas, (22) whose
narrow range, seen in profile from the Atlantic, appeared to the an-
cient navigators when sailing along the coast as a single, detached,
lofty, sky-supporting mount. The eastern prolongation of the chain
extends nearly to Dakul, where Carthage, once mistress of the seas,
now lies in mouldering ruins. As forming a long extended coast-
chain, or Gaetulian rampart, the effect of the Atlas range is to inter-
cept the cool north breezes, and the vapors which ascend from the
Mediterranean.

The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel-al-Komr, (ffl) (fabulously re-
presented as forming part of a mountainous parallel extending from
the high plateaux of Ilabesh, an African Quito, to the sources of the
Senegal,) were supposed to rise above the limit of perpetual snow.
The Cordillera of Lupata, which extends along the eastern coast of
Mozambique and Monoinotapa, as the Andes along the western
coast of Peru, is believed to be covered with perpetual snow in the
gold districts of Machinga and Mocanga. But all these mountains,
with the abundant waters to which they give rise, are far remote
from the immense Desert which stretches from the southern decli-
vity of the Atlas to the Niger.

Possibly, however, all the causes of heat and dryness which have
' been enumerated may have been insufficient to transform such con-
siderable parts of the African plains into a dreadful desert, without
the concurrence of some revolution of nature, — such, for instance,
as an irruption of the ocean, whereby these flat regions may have
been despoiled of their coating of vegetable soil, as well as of the
plants which it nourished. Profound obscurity veils the period of
such an event, and the force which determined the irruption. Per-
haps it may have been caused by the great " rotatory current" (M)
which sends the warmer water of the Mexican gulf over the banks

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 33

of Newfoundland and to the shores of the Old Continent, and causes
West India cocoa-nuts and other tropical fruits to reach the coast of
Ireland and Norway. There is still at least at the present time, an
arm of this current directed from the Azores to the south-east, which
sometimes produces disasters by carrying ships upon the west coast
of Africa, which it strikes at a part lined by sand-hills. Other sea
coasts (I particularly recall that of Peru between Amotape and Co-
quimbo) show that, in these hot regions of the earth, where rain
never falls and where neither Lecideas nor other Lichens (25) ger-
minate, centuries and perhaps thousands of years may elapse before
the movable sand can afford to the roots of plants a secure holding
place.

These considerations are sufficient to explain why, with an ex- .
ternal similarity of form, Africa and South America present so /
marked a difference of character both in respect to climate and to<
vegetation. But although the South American Steppe is covered :
with a thin coating of mould or fertile earth, and although it is
periodically bathed by rains, and becomes covered at such seasons
with luxuriantly sprouting herbage, yet it never could attract the
surrounding nations or tribes to forsake the beautiful mountain
valleys of Caraccas, the margin of the sea, or the wooded banks of
the Orinoco, for the treeless and springless wilderness ; and thus,
previous to the arrival of .European and African settlers, the Steppe
was almost entirely devoid of human inhabitants.

The Llanos are, indeed, well suited to the rearing of cattle, but
the care of animals yielding milk (3S) was almost unknown to the
original inhabitants of the New Continent. Hardly any of the
American tribes have ever availed themselves of the advantages
which nature offered them in this respect. The American race
(which, with the exception of the Esquimaux, is one and the same
from 65° north to 55° south latitude), has not passed from the
state of hunters to that of cultivators of the soil through th$ inter-
mediate stage of a pastoral life. Two kinds of native cattle (the
Buffalo and the Musk Ox) feed in the northern prairies of western
Canada and the plains of arctic America, in Quivira, and around
the colossal ruins of the Aztec fortress which rises in the wilderness,
like an American Palmyra, on the solitary banks of the Gila, The

34" STEPPES AND DESERTS.

long-horned Rocky Mountain Sheep abounds on the arid limestone
rocks of California. The Vicunas, Huanacos, Alpacas, and Lamas
belong to South America ; but the two first named of all these use-
ful animals, i. e.7 the Buffalo and the Musk Ox, have retained their
natural freedom for two thousand years, and the use of milk and
cheese, like the possession and cultivation of farinaceous grasses, (27)
.- has remained a distinguishing characteristic of the nations of the
! Old World.

If some of the latter have crossed from Northern Asia to the west
coast of America, and if, keeping by preference to the cooler mount-
ain regions, (*) they have followed the lofty ridge of the Andes
towards the south, their migration must have taken place by ways
\ in which they could not be accompanied by their flocks and herds,
"or bring with them the cultivation of corn. "When the long-shaken
empire of the Hiongnu fell, may we conjecture that the movement
of this powerful tribe may also have occasioned in the north-east of
China and in Corea a shock and an impulse which may have caused
civilized Asiatics to pass over into the New Continent ? If such a
migration had consisted of inhabitants of the Steppes in which
agriculture was not pursued, this hazardous hypothesis (which has
hitherto been but little favored by the comparison of languages)
would at least explain the striking absence of the Cereals in Ame-
rica. Possibly one of those Asiatic priestly colonies whom mystic
dreams sometimes impelled to embark in long voyages, (of which
the history of the peopling of Japan (29) in the time of Thsinchi-
huang-ti offers a memorable example,) may have been driven by
Wtorms to the coasts of New California.

| If, then, pastoral life, that beneficent middle stage which attaches

nomadic hunting hordes to desirable pastures, and prepares them, as

it were, for agriculture, has remained unknown to the aboriginal

nations of America, this circumstance sufficiently explains the ab-

L sence of -human inhabitants in the South American Steppes. This

V absence has allowed the freest scope for the abundant development

\ of the most varied forms of animal life ; a development limited only

'"by their mutual pressure, and similar to that of vegetable life in the

\ y forests of the Orinoco, where the Hymenaea and the gigantic laurel are

*' never exposed to the destructive hand of man, but only to the prcs-

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 35

sure of the luxuriant climbers which twine around their massive
trunks. Agoutis, small spotted antelopes, cuirassed armadilloes,
which, like rats, startle the hare in its subterranean holes, herds of
lazy chiguires, beautifully striped viverrse which poison the air with
their odor, the large maneless lion, spotted jaguars, (often called
tigers,) strong enough to drag away a young bull after killing him —
these, and many other forms of animal life, (30) wander through the
treeless plain.

Thus, almost exclusively inhabited by these wild animals, the
Steppe would offer little attraction or means of subsistence to those
nomadic native hordes, who, like the Asiatics of Hindostan, prefer
vegetable nutriment, if it were not for the occasional presence of ^)
single individuals of the fan palm, the Mauritia. The benefits of this
life-supporting tree are widely celebrated ; it alone, from the mouth
of the Orinoco to north of the Sierra de Imataca, feeds the unsubdued
nation of the Guaranis. (31) When this people were more nume-
rous, and lived in closer contiguity, not only did they support their
huts on the cut trunks of palm trees as pillars on which rested a
scaffolding forming the floor, but they also, it is said, twined from
the leaf-stalks of the Mauritia cords and mats, which, skilfully in-
terwoven and suspended from stem to stem, enabled them in the
rainy season, when the Delta is overflowed, to live in the trees like
the apes. The floor of these raised cottages is partly covered with
a coating of damp clay, on which the women make fires for house-
hold purposes — the flames appearing at night from the river to be
suspended high in air. The Gruaranis still owe the preservation of
their physical, and perhaps also their moral, independence, to the
half-submerged, marshy soil over which they move with a light and
rapid step, and to their elevated dwellings in the trees — a habita-
tion never likely to be chosen from motives of religious enthusiasm
by an American Stylites. (32) But the Mauritia affords to the Gna-
ranis not merely a secure dwelling-place, but also various kinds of
food. Before the flower of the male palm tree breaks through its
tender sheath, and only at that period of vegetable metamorphosis,
the pith of the stem of the tree contains a meal resembling sago,
which, like the farina of the jatropha root, is dried in thin bread-
like slices. The fermented juice of the tree forms the sweet, intoxi-

36 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

eating palm wine of the Gruaranis. The -scaly fruits, which resem-
ble in their appearance reddish fir cones, afford, like the plantain
and almost all tropical fruits, a different kind of nutriment, accord-
ing as they are eaten after their saccharine substance is fully de-
veloped, or in their earlier or more farinaceous state. Thus, in the
lowest state of man's intellectual development, we find the existence
of an entire people bound up with that of a single tree ; like the insect
which lives exclusively on a single part of a particular flower.

Since the discovery of the New Continent, the Llanos have be-
| come habitable to men. In order to facilitate communication between
the .Orinoco country and the coasts, towns have been built here and
there on the banks of the streams which flow through the Steppes. (33)
The rearing of cattle has began over all parts of these vast regions.
Huts, formed of reeds tied together with thongs, and covered with
skins, are placed at distances of a day's journey from each other;
numberless herds of oxen, horses, and mules, estimated, at the
peaceful epoch of my journey, at a million and a half, roam over the
Steppe. The immense multiplication of these animals, originally
brought by man from the Old Continent, is the more remarkable
from the number of dangers with which they have to contend.

When, under- the vertical rays of the never-clouded sun, the car-
bonized turfy covering falls into dust, the indurated soil cracks
asunder as if from the shock of an earthquake. If at such times
two opposing currents of air, whose conflict produces a rotary motion,
come in contact with the soil, the plain assumes a strange and sin-
gular aspect. Like conical shaped clouds, (M) the points of which
descend to the earth, the sand rises through the rarefied air in the
electrically charged centre of -the whirling current; resembling the
loud waterspout dreaded by the experienced mariner. The lowering
sky sheds a dim, almost straw-colored light on the desolate plain.
The horizon draws suddenly nearer ; the §teppe seems to contract,
- and with it the heart of the wanderer. The hot dusty particles
which fill the air increase its suffocating heat, (^) and the east wind
blowing over the long-heated soil, brings with it no refreshment, but
rather a still more burning glow. The pools which the yellow, fad-
ing branches of the fan palm had protected from evaporation, now
gradually disappear. As in the icy north the animals become torpid

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 37

with cold, so here, under the influence of the parching drought, the
crocodile and the boa become motionless and fall asleep, deeply
buried in the dry mud. Everywhere the death-threatening drought
prevails, and yet, by the play of the refracted rays of light producing
the phenomenon of the mirage, the thirsty traveller is everywhere
pursued by the illusive image of a cool, rippling, watery mirror. (36)
The distant palm bush, apparently raised by the influence of the
contact of unequally heated, and therefore unequally dense, strata of
air, hovers above the ground, from which it is separated by a narrow,
intervening margin. Half concealed by the dark clouds of dust,
restless with the pain of thirst and hunger, the , horses and cattle
roam around, the cattle lowing dismally, and the horses stretching
out their long necks and snuffing the wind, if haply a moister current
may betray the neighborhood of a not wholly dried up pool. More
sagacious and cunning, the mule seeks a different mode of alleviating
his thirst. The ribbed and spherical melon-cactus (s7) conceals under
its prickly envelope a watery pith. The mule first strikes the
prickles aside with his fore feet, and then ventures warily to approach
his lips to the plant and drink the cool juice. But resort to this
vegetable fountain is not always without danger, and one sees many
animals that have been lamed by the prickles of the cactus.

When the burning heat of the day is followed by the coolness of
the night, which in these latitudes is always of the same length, even
then the horses and cattle cannot enjoy repose. Enormous bats suck
their blood like vampires during their sleep, or attach themselves to
their backs, causing festering wounds, in which musquitoes, hippo-
bosces, and a host of stinging insects, niche themselves. Thus the
animals lead a painful life during the season when, under the fierce \
glow of the sun, the soil is deprived of its moisture. At length,
after the long drought, the welcome season of the rain arrives; and J
then how suddenly is the scene changed ! (38) The deep blue^of the (
hitherto perpetually cloudless sky becomes lighter; at night the
dark space in the constellation of the Southern Cross is hardly dis-
tinguishable; the soft, phosphorescent light of the Magellanic clouds
fades away; even the stars in Aquila and Ophiucus in the zenith
shine with a trembling and less planetary light. A single cloud
appears in the south, like a distant mountain, rising perpendicularly
4

/

38 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

from the horizon. Gradually the increasing vapors spread like mist
over the sky, and now the distant thunder ushers in the life-restoring
rain. Hardly has the surface • of the earth received the refreshing
moisture, before the previously barren Steppe begins to exhale sweet
odors, and to clothe itself with Kyllingias, the many panicules of the
Paspalum, and a variety of grasses. The herbaceous mimosas, with
renewed sensibility to the influence of light, unfold their drooping,
slumbering leaves to greet the rising «un ; and the early song of
birds, and the opening blossoms of the water plants, join to salute
the morning. The horses and cattle now graze in full enjoyment
of life. The tall springing grass hides the beautifully spotted jaguar,
who, lurking in safe concealment, and measuring carefully the dis-
tance of a single bound, springs, cat-like, as the Asiatic tiger, on his
passing prey.

Sometimes, (so the Aborigines relate,) on the margin of the swamps
the moistened clay is seen to blister and rise slowly in a kind of
mound; then with a violent noise, like the outbreak of a small mud
volcano, the heaped-up earth is cast high into the air. The beholder,
acquainted with the meaning of this spectacle, flies, for he knows
there will issue forth a gigantic water-snake or a scaly crocodile,
awakened from a torpid state (39) by the first fall of rain.

The rivers which bound the plain to the south, the. Arauca,
Apure, and Payara, become gradually swollen; and now nature con-
strains the same animals, who in the first half of the year panted
with thirst on the dry and dusty soil, to adopt an amphibious life.
A portion of the Steppe now presents the aspect of a vast inland
sea. (^ The brood mares retire with their foals, to the higher
banks, which stand like islands above the surface of the lake.
Every day the space remaining dry becomes smaller. The animals,
crowded together, swim about for hours in search of other pasture,
and feed sparingly on the tops of the flowering grasses rising above
the seething surface of the dark-colored water. Many foals are
drowned, and many are surprised by the croco'diles, killed by a stroke
of their powerful notched tails, and devoured. It is not a rare thing
to see the marks of the pointed teeth of these monsters on the legs
of the horses and cattle who have narrowly escaped from their
blood-thirsty jaws. Such a sight reminds the thoughtful observer

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 39

involuntarily of the capability of conforming to the most varied cir-
cumstances, with which the all-providing Author of Nature has
endowed certain animals and plants.

The ox and the horse, like the farinaceous cerealia, have followed
man over the whole surface of the globe, from India to Northern
Siberia, from the Ganges to the River Plate, from the African sea
shore to the mountain plateau of Antisana, (41) which is higher than
the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe. The ox wearied from the
plough reposes, sheltered from the noontide sun in one country by
the quivering shadow of the northern birch, and in another by the
date palm. The same species which, in the east of Europe, has to
encounter the attacks of bears and wolves, is exposed in other regions
to the assaults of tigers and crocodiles.

But the crocodile and jaguar are not the only assailants of the
South American horses ; they have also a dangerous enemy among
fishes. The marshy waters of Bera and E-astro (**) are filled with
numberless electric eels, which can at pleasure send a powerful dis-
charge from any part of their slimy, yellow-spotted bodies. These
gymnoti are from five to six feet in length, and are powerful enough
to kill the largest animals when they discharge their nervous organs
at once in a favorable direction.

The route from Uritucu through the Steppe was formerly obliged
to be changed, because the gymnoti had increased to such numbers
in a small stream that, in crossing it, many horses were drowned every
year, either from the effects of the shocks they received, or from
fright. All other fishes fly the vicinity of these formidable eels.
Even the fisherman angling from the high bank fears lest the damp
line should convey the shock to him from a distance-. Thus, in
these regions, electric fire breaks forth from the bosom of the waters.

The capture of the gymnoti affords a picturesque spectacle.
Mules and horses are driven into a marsh which is closely surround-
ed by Indians, until the unwonted noise and disturbance induce the-
pugnacious fish to begin an attack. One sees them swimming about
like serpents, and trying cunningly to glide under the bellies of the
horses. Many of these are stunned by the force of the invisible
blows ; others, with manes standing on end, foaming, and with wild
terror sparkling in their eyes, try to fly from the raging tempest.

40 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

But the Indians, armed with long poles of bamboo, drive them back
into the middle of the pool. Gradually the fury of the unequal
strife begins to slacken. Like clouds which have discharged their
electricity, the wearied fish begin to disperse; long repose and
abundant food are required to replace the galvanic force which they
have expended. Their shocks become gradually weaker and weaker.
Terrified by the noise of the trampling horses, they timidly approach
the bank, where they are wounded by harpoons, and cautiously drawn
,on shore by non-conducting pieces of dry wood.

Such is the extraordinary battle between horses and fish. That
which forms the invisible but living weapon of this electric eel; —
that which, awakened by the contact of moist, dissimilar particles, (43)
circulates through all the organs of plants and animals; — that
which, flashing from the thunder .cloud, illumines the wide skyey
canopy; — that which draws iron to iron, and directs the silent recur-
ring march of the guiding needle ; — all, like the several hues of the
divided ray of light, flow from one source; and all blend again to-
gether in one perpetually, everywhere diffused, force or power.

I might here close the hazardous attempt to trace a picture of
nature such as she shows herself in the Steppes. But as on the
ocean fancy not unwillingly dwells awhile on the image of its distant
shores, so, before the wide plain disappears from our view, let us cast
a rapid glance at the regions by which the Steppes are bounded.
I/ The Northern Desert of Africa divides two races of men who
/belong originally to the same part of the globe, and whose unrecon-
v> ciled discord appears as ancient as the mythus of Osiris and Ty-
V phon. (**) North of the Atlas there dwell nations with long and
straight hair, of sallow complexion, and Caucasian features. On the
south of the Senegal, towards Soudan, live hordes of negroes in many
different stages of civilization. In Central Asia, the Mongolian Steppe
divides Siberian barbarism from the ancient civilization of the penin-
sula of India.

The South American Steppes form the boundary of a partial Eu-
ropean cultivation. (45) To the north, between the mountains of
Venezuela and the Caribbean sea, we find commercial cities, neat
7 villages, and carefully cultivated fields. Even the love of art and
;jj3cjentific culture, together with the noble desire of civil freedom,

. STEPPES AND DESERTS. 41

have long been awakened there. Towards the south, the Steppe \
terminates in a savage wilderness. Forests, the growth of thousands
of years, fill with their impenetrable fastnesses the humid regions
between the Orinoco and the Amazons. Massive, leaden-colored
granite rocks (4°) narrow the bed of the foaming rivers. Mountains
and forests resound with the thunder of the falling waters, with the
roar of the tiger-like jaguar, and with the melancholy, rain-announc-
ing bowlings of the bearded apes. (47)

Where a sand-bank is left dry by the shallow current, the un-
wieldy crocodiles lie, with open jaws, as motionless as pieces of rock,
and often covered with birds. (48) The boa serpent, his body marked
like a chess-board, coiled up, his tail wound round the branch of
a tree, lies lurking on the bank, secure of his prey; he marks the
young bull, or some feebler inhabitant of the forest, as it fords the
stream, and swiftly uncoiling seizes the victim, and covering it with
mucus forces it laboriously down his swelling throat. (49)

In the midst of this grand and savage nature, live many tribes of
men, isolated from each other by the extraordinary diversity of their \
languages : some are nomadic, wholly unacquainted with agriculture, J
and using ants, gums, and earth as food; p) these, as the Otomacs
and Jarures, seem a kind of outcasts from humanity : others, like j
the Maquiritares and Macos, are settled, more intelligent, and of >
milder manners, and live on fruits which they have themselves
reared.

Large spaces between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo are only
inhabited by the tapir and the social apes, and are wholly destitute
of human beings. Figures graven on the rocks (51) show that even I
these deserts were once the seat of some degree of intellectual culti-
vation. They bear witness to the changeful destinies of man, as do
the unequally developed flexible languages ; which latter belong to
the oldest and most imperishable class of historic memorials.

But as in the Steppe tigers and crocodiles fight with horses and IJ
cattle, so in the forests on its borders, in the wildernesses of Gruiana, j N
man is ever armed against man. Some tribes drink with unnatural
thirst the blood of their enemies; others apparently weaponless, and ;
yet prepared for murder, (52) kill with a poisoned thumb-nail. The
weaker hordes, when they have to pass along the sandy margin of

4*

42 STEPPES AND DESEETS.

the rivers, carefully efface with their hands the traces of their timid
footsteps. Thus man, in the lowest stage of almost animal rudeness,
as well as amidst the apparent brilliancy of our higher cultivation,
prepares for himself and his fellow men, increased toil and danger.
The traveller, wandering over the wide globe by sea and land, as
well as the historic inquirer searching the records of past ages, finds
everywhere the uniform and saddening spectacle of man at variance
with man.

He, therefore, who, amidst the unreconciled discord of nations,
seeks for intellectual calm, gladly turns to contemplate the silent life
of vegetation, and the hidden activities of forces and powers ope-
rating in the sanctuaries of nature; or, obedient to the inborn im-
pulse which for thousands of years has glowed in the human breast,
gazes upwards in meditative contemplation on those celestial orbs,
which are ever pursuing in undisturbed harmony their ancient and
unchanging course.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 43

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(0 p. 25.—" The LaJce of Tacarigua."

IN proceeding through the interior of South America from the
Caraccas or Venezuela shore towards the boundary of Brazil, from
the 10th degree of north latitude to the Equator, the traveller
crosses first an elevated mountain-chain running in an east and west
direction, next vast treeless Steppes or Plains (los Llanos), which
stretch from the foot of the above-named mountains (the coast chain
of Caraccas) to the left bank of the Orinoco, and lastly the range
which occasions the Cataracts of Atures and Maypure. This latter
range of mountains, to which I have given the name of the Sierra
Parime, runs in an easterly direction from the Cataracts to Dutch
and French Guiana. It is a mass of mountains divided into many
parallel ridges, and is the site of the fabled Dorado. It is bordered
on the south by the forest plain, through which the river of the
Amazons and the Rio Negro have formed the channels in which
their waters flow. Those who desire a fuller acquaintance with the
geography of these regions, will do well to consult and compare the
great map of La Cruz-Olmedilla, bearing date 1775, (from which
almost all the more recent maps of South America have been form-
• ed,) and the map of Columbia constructed by me from my own
astronomical determinations of geographical positions, and published
in 1825.

The coast chain of Venezuela, geographically considered, is a part
of the chain of the Andes of Peru. The chain of the Andes divides
itself, at the great mountain junction at the sources of the Magda-
lena, south of Popayan, (between 1° 55' and 2° 20' latitude,) into
three chains, the easternmost of which terminates in the snow-covered
mountains of Merida. These mountains sink down towards the
Paramo de las Rosas into the hilly land of Quibor and Tocuyo,
which connects the coast chain of Venezuela with the Cordilleras of

44 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Cundinamarea. The coast chain forms an unbroken rampart from
Porto Cabello to the promontory of Paria. Its mean height hardly
equals 750 toises or 4795 English feet ; yet single summits, like the
Silla de Caracas (also called Cerro de Avila), decked with the purple-
flowering Befaria, the American Rose of the Alps, rise 1350 toises,
or 8630 English feet, above the level of the sea. The coast of
Terra Firma bears traces of devastation. We recognize everywhere
the action of the great current which, sweeping from east to west,
formed by disruption the West Indian Islands, and hollowed out the
Caribbean gulf. The projecting tongues of land of Araja and Chu-
paripari, and especially the coast of Cumana and New Barcelona,
offer a remarkable spectacle to the geologist. The precipitous
Islands of Boracha, Caracas, and Chimanas rise like towers from
the sea, and bear witness to the terrible pressure of the waters
against the mountain chain when it was broken by their irruption.
Perhaps, like the Mediterranean, the Antillean gulf was once an
inland sea, which became suddenly connected with the ocean. The
islands of Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica still contain the remnants of
the lofty mountains of mica slate which bounded this sea to the
north. It is remarkable that where these three islands approach
each other most nearly, the highest summits are found ; and we may
conjecture that the highest part of this Antillean chain was situated
between Cape Tiburon and Point Morant. The Copper Mountains
(Montanas de Cobre) near Santiago de Cuba, have not yet been
measured, but their elevation is probably greater than that of the
Blue Mountains of Jamaica, (1138 toises, 7277 English feet,)
which somewhat exceeds the height of the St. Grothard Pass. My
conjectures on the valley-form of the Atlantic Ocean, and on the
ancient connection of the continents,, were given more in detail in a
memoir written in Cumana, entitled Fragment d'un Tableau Geolo-
gique de FAmerique Me"ridionale (Journal de Physique, Messidor^
An. IX.). It is worthy of remark that Columbus himself, in his
Official Reports, called attention to the connection between the di-
rection of the equatorial current and the form of the coast line of
the larger Antilles. (Examen critique de Thist. de la Geographic,
pp. 104-108.)

The northern and most cultivated part of the province of Carac-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. * 45

cas is a country of mountains. The coast chain is divided, like the
Swiss Alps, into several subordinate chains enclosing longitudinal
valleys. The most celebrated of these is the pleasant valley of
Aragua, which produces a great quantity of indigo, sugar, cotton,
and, what is most remarkable, European wheat. The southern mar-
gin of this valley adjoins the beautiful Lake of Valencia, whose old
Indian name is Tacarigua. The contrast between its opposite shores
gives it a striking resemblance to the Lake of Geneva. It is true
that the bare mountains of G-uigue and G-uiripa have less grandeur
of character than the Savoy Alps; but, on the other hand, the
opposite bank of the Tacarigua lake, which is thickly clothed with
plantains, mimosas, and triplaris, far surpasses in picturesque beauty
the vineyards of the Pays de Vaud. The lake is about thirty
geographical miles in length, and is full of small islands, which, as
the loss of water by evaporation exceeds the influx, are increasing
in size. Within some years, sand banks have even become real
islands, and have received the significant name of the " Newly Ap-
peared/' Las Aparecidas. On the island of Cura, the remarkable
species of Solanum is cultivated which has edible fruit, and which
Wildenow has described in the Hortus Berolinensis (1816, Tab.
xxvii.). The height of the Lake of Tacarigua above the sea is
almost 1400 French feet, (according to my measurement exactly
230 toiseSj or 1470 English feet,) less than the mean height of the
valley of Caraccas, The lake has several kinds of fish (see my Ob-
servations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic comparee, T. ii. pp. 179-181),
and is one of the most pleasing natural scenes which I know in any
part of the globe. In bathing, Bonpland and myself were often
alarmed by the appearance of the Bava, an undescribed crocodile-
like lizard, three or four feet in length, of repulsive aspect, but
harmless to men. We found in the lake a Typha (Cats-tail), iden-
tical with the European Typha angustifolia; a singular fact, and
important in reference to the geography of plants.

Two varieties of sugar-cane- are cultivated near the lake, in the
valleys of Aragua: the common sugar-cane of the West Indies,
Caiia criolla : and the cane recently introduced from the Pacific,
Cana de Otaheiti. The verdure of the Tahitian cane is of a much
lighter and more agreeable tint, and a field of it can readily be dis-

46 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

tinguished at a great distance from a field of the common cane.
The sugar-cane of Tahiti was first described by Cook and Greorge
Forster, who appear, however, from the excellent memoir of the
latter upon the edible plants of the islands of the Pacific, to have
been but little acquainted with its valuable qualities. Bougainville
brought it to the Isle of France, from whence it was conveyed to
Cayenne, and since 1792 it has been taken to Martinique, Hayti,
and several of the smaller West Indian Islands. It was carried
with the bread-fruit tree to Jamaica by the brave but unfortunate
Captain Bligh, and was introduced from the Island of Trinidad to
the neighboring coast of Caraccas, where it became a more import-
ant acquisition than the bread-fruit, which is never likely to super-
sede a plant so valuable, and affording so large an amount of susten-
ance, as the plantain. The Tahitian sugar-cane is much richer in
juice than the common cane, said to be originally a native of the
east of Asia. On an equal surface of ground, it yields a third more
sugar than the Cana criolla, which has a thinner stalk and smaller
joints. As, moreover, the West Indian islands begin to suffer great
want of fuel, (in Cuba the wood of the orange tree is used for sugar
boiling,) the thicker and more woody stalk of the Tahitian cane is
an important advantage. If the introduction of this plant had not
taken place almost at the same time as the commencement of the
bloody negro war in St. Domingo> the prices of sugar in Europe
would have risen still higher than they did, in consequence of the
ruinous effects of those troubles on agriculture and trade. It was
an important question, whether the cane of the Pacific, when re-
moved from its native soil, would gradually degenerate and become
the same as the common cane. Experience hitherto has decided
against any such degeneration. In Cuba, a caballeria (nearly 33
English acres) planted with Tahitian sugar-cane produces 870 hun-
dred weight of sugar. It is singular that this important production
of the islands oT the Pacific is only cultivated in those parts of the
Spanish colonies which are farthest from the Pacific. The Peruvian
coast is only twenty-five days' sail from Tahiti, and yet, at the period
of my travels in Peru and Chili, the Tahitian cane was unknown
there. The inhabitants of Easter Island, who suffer much from
deficiency of fresh water, drink the juice of the sugar-cane, and (a

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 47

very remarkable physiological fact), also sea water. In tlie Society,
Friendly, and Sandwich Islands, the light green, thick-stalked
sugar-cane is always the one cultivated.

Besides the Cana de Otaheiti and the Cana criolla, a reddish
African variety, called Cana de Guinea, is cultivated in the West
Indies: its juice is less in quantity than that of the common Asiatic
cane, but is said to be better suited for making rum.

In the province of Caraccas, the dark shade, of the cacao planta-
tions contrasts beautifully with the light green of the Tahitian sugar
cane. Few tropical trees have such thick foliage as the Theobronia
cacao. It loves Jhot and humid valleys : great fertility of soil and
insalubrity of atmosphere are inseparable from each other in South
America as well as in Asia j and it has even been remarked that, as
increasing cultivation lessens the extent of the forests, and renders
the soil and climate less humid, the cacao plantations become less
flourishing. For these reasons, these plantations are diminishing
in number and extent in the province of Caraccas, and increasing
rapidly in the more eastern provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana,
and particularly in the moist woody district between Cariaco and the
Golfo Triste.

(3) p. 25.— " 'JBanks' is the name given ty tlie natives to this

phenomenon."

The Llanos of Caraccas are occupied by a great and widely ex-
tended formation of conglomerate of an early period. In descend-
ing from the valleys of Aragua, and crossing over the most southern
ridge of the coast chain of Gruigue and Villa de Cura towards Para-
para, one finds successively, gneiss and mica slate.; — a probably
Silurian formation of clay slate and black limestone ;— serpentine
and greenstone in detached spheroidal masses; — and, lastly, close to
the margin of the great plain, small h4Hs-of augitic, amygdaloid, and
porphyritic slate. These hills between Parapara and Ortiz appear
to me like volcanic eruptions on the ancient sea-shore of the Llanos.
Farther to the north are the celebrated grotesque-shaped cavernous
rocks of Morros de San Juan ; they form a kind of rampart, have a
crystalline grain like upheaved dolomite, and are rather to be re-
garded as parts of the shore of the ancient gulf than as islands. I

48 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

term the Llanos a gulf; for, when we consider their small elevation
above the present sea level, their form open as it were to the equa-
torial current sweeping from east to west, and the lowness of the
eastern coast between the mouth of the Orinoco and the Essequibo,
we can scarcely doubt that the sea once overflowed the whole basin
between the coast chain of Caraccas and the Sierra de la Parime,
and beat against the mountains of Merida and Pamplona; (as it is
supposed to have overflowed the plains of Lombardy, and beat
against the Cottian and Pennine Alps.) The strike or inclination
of the American Llanos is also directed from west to east. Their
height at Calabozo, 400 geographical miles from the sea, is barely
30 toises (192 English feet); being 15 toises (96 English feet) less
than that of Pavia, and 45 toises (288 English feet) less than that
of Milan, in the plains of Lombardy between the Alps and Apen-
nines. The form of the surface of this part of the globe reminds
one of Claudian's expression, "curvata tumore parvo planities."
The horizontality of the Llanos is eo perfect that in many portions
of them no part of an area of more than 480 square miles appears
to be a foot higher than the rest. If, in addition ta this, we imagine
to ourselves the absence of all bushes, and even in the Mesa de Pa-
vones the absence of any isolated palm trees, it will afford some idea
of the singular aspect of this sea-like desert plain. As far as the
eye can reach, it can hardly rest on a single object a few inches high.
If it were not that the state of the lowest strata of the atmosphere,
and the consequent changes of refraction, render the horizon con-
tinually indeterminate and undulating, altitudes of the sun might
be taken with the sextant from the margin of the plain as well as
from the horizon at sea. This great horizontality of the former sea
bottom makes the " banks" more striking. They are broken strata
which rise abruptly from two to three feet above the surrounding
rock, and extend uniformly over a length of from 40 to 48 English
geographical miles. The small streams of the Steppes take their
rise on these banks.

In passing through the Llanos of Barcelona, on our return from
the Rio Negro, we found frequent traces of earthquakes. Instead
of the banks standing higher than the surrounding rock, we found
here solitary strata of gypsum from 3 to 4 toises (19 to 25 English

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 49

feet) lower. Farther to the west, near the junction of the Caura
with the Orinoco, and to the east of the mission of S. Pedro de
Alcantara, an extensive tract of dense forest sank down in an earth -
quake in 1.790, and a lake was formed of more than 300 toises
(1918 English feet) diameter. The tall trees (Desmanthus, Hy-
menaeas, and Malpighias) long retained their foliage and verdure
under the water.

(3) p. 26. — " We seem to see before us a shoreless ocean."
The prospect of the distant Steppe is still more striking, when
the spectator has been long accustomed in the dense forests both to
a very restricted field of view, and to the aspect of a rich and highly
luxuriant vegetation. Ineffaceable is the impression which I received
on our return from the Upper Orinoco, when, from the Hato del
Capuchino, on a mountain opposite to the mouth of the Rio Apure,
we first saw again the distant Steppe. The sun had just set; the
Steppe appeared to rise like a hemisphere; and the light of the
rising stars was refracted in the lowest stratum of air. The exces-
sive heating of the plain by the vertical rays of the sun causes the
variations of refraction — occasioned by the effects of radiation, of
the ascending current, and of the contact of strata of air of unequal
density — to continue through the entire night.

(4) p, 26.—" The stony crust."

Immense tracts of flat, bare rock form peculiar and characteristic
features in the Deserts both of Africa and Asia. In the Schamo,
which separates Mongolia and the mountain chains of Ulangom and
Malakha-Oola from the north-west part of China, these banks of
rock are called Tsy. They are also found in the forest-covered
plains of the Orinoco, surrounded by the most luxuriant vegetation
(Relation Hist. t. ii. p. 279). In the middle of these flat, tabular
masses of granite and syenite of some thousand feet diameter, de-
nuded of all vegetation save a few scantily distributed lichens, we
find small islands of soil, covered with low and always flowering
plants which give them the appearance of little gardens. The
monks of the Upper Orinoco regard these bare and perfectly level
surfaces of rock, when they are of considerable extent, as peculiarly
5

50 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

apt to cause fevers and other illnesses. Several missionary villages
have been deserted or removed elsewhere in consequence of this
opinion, which is very widely diffused. Supposing the opinion cor-
rect, is such an influence of these flat rocks or laxas to be attributed
to a chemical action on the atmosphere, or merely to the effect of
increased radiation ?

n

(5) p. 26. — " The Llanos and Pampas of South America, and the

Prairies of the Missouri"
The physical and geognostical views entertained respecting the
western part of North America have been rectified in many respects
by the adventurous journey of Major Long, the excellent writings
of his companion Edwin James, and more especially by the com-
prehensive observations of Captain Fremont. These, and all other
recent accounts, now place in a clear ligljt what, in my work on
New Spain, I could only put forward as conjecture, on the subject
of the mountain ridges and plains to the north. In the description
of nature as well as in historical inquiries, facts long remain isolated,

• until by laborious investigation they are brought into connection

^ with each other.

The east coast of the United States of North America runs from
south-west to north-east, in the same, direction as that followed in
the southern hemisphere by the Brazilian coast from the river Plate
to Olinda. In the two hemispheres two ranges of mountains exist
at a short distance from the eastern coast ; they are more nearly
parallel to each other than they are to the more westerly chain,
called in South America the Cordilleras of Peru and Chili, and in
North America the Rocky Mountains. The Brazilian system of
mountains forms an isolated group, of which the highest summits
(the Itacolumi and Itambe) do not rise above the height of 900
toises (5755 English feet). The most easterly ridges, which are
nearest to the Atlantic, follow a uniform direction from SSW. to
NNE. ; more to the west the group becomes broader, but diminishes
considerably in height. The Parecis hills approach the rivers Itenes
and Gruapore", and the mountains of Aguapehi (to the south of Vik
labella) approach the lofty Andes of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz
cle la Sierra.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 51

There is no immediate connection between the eastern and western
chains — the Brazilian mountains, and the Cordilleras of Peru — for
the low province of Chiquitos, which is a longitudinal valley run-
ning from north to south, and opening into the plains both of the
Amazons and of the river Plate, separates Brazil on the east from
the Alto Peru on the west. Here, as in Poland and Russia, an
often almost imperceptible rise of ground (called, in Sclavonian,
Uwaly) forms the separating water-line between the Pilcomayo and
the Madeira, between the Aguapehi and the G-uapore, and between
the Paraguay and the Rio Topayos. The swell of the ground runs
to the south-east from Chayanta and Pomabamba (lat. 19°-20°)>
traverses the province of Chiquitos, which, since the expulsion of
the Jesuits^ has again become almost a terra incognita, and forms,
to the north-east, where there are only detached mountains, the
" divortia aquarum" at the sources of the Baures and near Villa-
bella, lat. 15°-17°.

This line of separation of the waters is- important in relation to
facilities of intercourse, and to the increase of cultivation and
civilization: more to the north (2°— 3° N. lat.), a similar line
divides the basin of the Orinoco from that of the Amazons and the
Rio Negro. These risings or swellings in the plains (called, by
Frontin, terrae tumores) might be regarded as undeveloped systems
of mountains, which would have connected two apparently isolated
groups (the Sierra Parime and the Brazilian mountains) with the
Andes of Timana and Cochabamba. These relations, which have
been hitherto but little attended to, are the ground of the division
which I have made of South America into three basins : viz., those
of the Lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the Rio de la Plata.
The first and last of these are Steppes or prairies ; the middle basin,
that of the Amazons, between the Sierra Parime and the Brazilian
group of mountains, is a forest-covered plain or Hyldea.

If we wish to trace, in equally few lines, a sketch of the natural
features of North America, let us cast our eyes first on the mount-
ain chain which, running from south-east to north-west, at first low
and narrow, and increasing both hv breadth and height from Panama
to Veragua, Guatimala, and Mexico (where it was the seat of a civil-
ization which preceded the arrival of Europeans), arrests the gene-

52 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

ral equatorial current of the waters of the ocean, and opposes a
barrier to the more rapid commercial intercourse of Europe and
Western Africa with the eastern parts of Asia. North of the 17th
degree of latitude and. the celebrated isthmus of Tehuantepec, the
mountains, quitting the coast of the Pacific, and following a more
direct northerly course, become an inland Cordillera. In North
Mexico, the " Crane Mountains" (Sierra de las Grullas) form part
of the Rocky Mountain chain. Here rise, to the west, the Colum-
bia and the Rio Colorado of California ; and, to the east, the Rio
Roxo de Natchitoches, the Candian, the Arkansas, and the Platte
or shallow river, a name which has latterly been ignorantly trans-
formed into that of a silver-promising river Plate. Between the
sources of these rivers (from N. lat. 37° 20' to 40° 13') rise three
lofty summits (formed of a granite containing much hornblende and
little mica), called Spanish Peak, James's or Pike's Peak, and Big
Horn or Long's Peak. (See my Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle
Espagne, 2me 6dit. t. i. pp. 82 and 109.) The elevation of these
peaks exceeds that of any of the summits of the Andes of North
Mexico, which, indeed, from the 18th and 19th parallels of latitude,
or from the group of Orizaba and Popocatepetl (respectively 2717
toises or 17,374 English feet, and 2771 toises or 17,720 English
feet), to Santa Fe" and Taos, never, reach the limits of perpetual
snow. James's Peak, in lat. 38° 40', is supposed to be 1798 toises,
or 11,497 English feet; but of this elevation only 1335 toises (8537
English feet) has been measured trigonometrically, the remaining
463 toises, or 2960 English feet, being dependent, tin the absence
of barometrical observations, on uncertain estimations of the decli-
vity of streams. As a trigonometrical measurement can hardly ever
be undertaken from the level of the sea, measurements of inaccess-
ible heights must generally be partly trigonometrical, and partly
barometrical. Estimations of the fall of rivers, of their rapidity,
and of the length of their course, are so deceptive, that the plain
at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, nearest to the summits above
spoken of, was estimated, previous to the important expedition of
Capt. Fremont, sometimes at 8000, and sometimes at 3000 feet.
(Long's Expedition, vol. ii. pp. 36, 362, 382, App. p. xxxvii.) It
was from a similar deficiency of barometrical measurements that the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 53

true elevation of the Himalaya continued so long uncertain : but
now the resources which belong to the cultivation of science have
increased in India to such a degree, that Captain Gerard, when on
the Tarhigang, near the Sutlej, north of Shipke, at an elevation of
19,411 English feet, after breaking three barometers, had still four
equally correct ones remaining. (Critical Researches on Philology
and Geography, 1824, p. 144.)

Fre*mont, in the expedition which he made in the years 1842-1844
by order of the Government of the United States, found the highest
summit of the whole chain of the Rocky Mountains to the north
north-west of Spanish, James's, Long's, and Laramie Peaks. This
snowy summit, of which he measured the elevation barometrically,
belongs to the group of the Wind River mountains. It bears on
the large map, edited by Colonel Abert, Chief of the Topographical
Office at Washington, the name of Fremont's Peak, and is situated
in 43° 10' lat. and 110° 13' W. long, from Greenwich, almost 5 £°
north of Spanish Peak. Its height, by direct measurement, is
12,730 French, or 13,568 English feet. This would make Fremont's
Peak 324 toises (or 2072 English feet) higher than the elevation
assigned by Long to James's Peak, which, according to its position,
appears to be identical with Pike's Peak in the map above referred
to. The Wind River Mountains form the "divortia aquarum/' or
division between the waters flowing towards either ocean. Captain
Fremont (in his Official Report of the Exploring Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains in the year 1842, and to Oregon and North Cali-
fornia in the years 1843-44, p. 70), says, "We saw, on one side,
countless mountain lakes, and the sources of the Rio Colorado which
carries its waters through the Gulf of California to the Pacific; and,
on the other side, the deep valley of the Wind River, where are
situated the sources of the Yellowstone River, one of the principal
branches of the Missouri, which unites with the Mississippi at St.
Louis. To the north-west, rise, covered with perpetual snow, the
summits called the Trois Tetons, where the true source of the Mis-
souri itself is situated, not far from that of the head water of the
Oregon or Columbia, or the source of that branch of it called Snake
River or Lewis Fork." To the astonishment of the adventurous
travellers, they found the top of Fremont's Peak visited by bees :

5*

54 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

perhaps, like the butterflies seen by me, also among perpetual snow,
but in much more elevated regions in the Andes of Peru, they had
been carried thither involuntarily by ascending currents of air. I
have seen in the Pacific, at a great distance from the coast, large
winged lepidopterous insects fall on the deck of the ship, having, no
doubt, been carried far out to sea by land winds.

Fremont's map and geographical investigations comprehend the
extensive region from the junction of the Kanzas River with the
Missouri, to the falls of the Columbia and to the missions of Santa
Barbara and Pueblo de los Angeles in New California ; or a space
of 28 degrees of longitude, and from the 34th to the 45th parallel of
latitude. Four hundred points have been determined hypsometri-
cally by barometric observations, and, for the most part, geographi-
cally by astronomical observations; so that a district which, with
the windings of the route, amounts to 3600 geographical miles,
from the mouth of the Kanzas to Fort Vancouver and the shores of
the Pacific (almost 720 miles more than the distance from Madrid
to Tobolsk), has been represented in profile, showing the relative
heights above the level of the sea. As I was, I believe, the first
person who undertook to represent, in geognostic profile, the form
of entire countries — such as the Iberian peninsula, the highlands
of Mexico, and the Cordilleras of South America, (the semi-per-
spective projections of a Siberian traveller, the Abbe Chappe, were
founded on mere and generally ill-judged estimations of the fall of
rivers) — it has given me peculiar pleasure to see the graphical
method of representing the form of the earth in a vertical direction,
or the elevations of the solid portions of our planet above its watery
covering, applied on so grand a scale as has .been done in Fremont's
map. In the middle latitudes of 37° to 43°, the Rocky Mountains
present, besides the higher snowy summits comparable with the Peak
of Tenerifie in elevation, lofty plains -of an extent hardly met with
elsewhere on the surface of the earth, and almost twice as extensive,
in an east and west direction, as that of the Mexican plateaux,
From the group of mountains, which commences a little to the
west of Fort Laramie, to beyond the Wahsatch mountains, there
is an uninterrupted swelling of the ground from 5300 to 7400
English feet above the level of the sea. A similar elevation may

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 55

even be said to occupy the whole space from 34° to 45° between the
Rocky Mountains proper and the Californian snowy coast chain.
This space, a kind of broad longitudinal valley like that of the Lake
of Titicaca, has been called, by Joseph Walker, a traveller well
acquainted with these western regions, and by Captain Fremont,
"The Great Basin." It is a terra incognita of at least 128,000
square miles in extent, arid, almost entirely without human inhabit-
ants, and full of salt lakes, the largest of which is 4200 English
feet above the level of the sea, and is connected with the narrow lake
of Utah. (Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition, pp. 154
and 273-276.) The last mentioned lake receives the abundant
waters of the "Rock River;" Timpan Ogo, in the Utah language.
Father Escalante, in journeying, in 1776, from Santa Fe del Nuevo
Mexico to Monterey in New California, discovered Fremont's "Great
Salt Lake," and, confounding lake and river, gave it the name
of Laguna de Timpanogo. As such I inserted it in my map of
Mexico; and this has given rise to much uncritical discussion on
the assumed non-existence of a great inland salt lake in North Ame-
rica— a question previously raised by the well-informed American
geographer Tanner. (Humboldt, Atlas Mexicain, planche 2 ; Essai
Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t. i. p. 231, t. ii. pp. 243, 313,
and 420; Fremont, Upper California, 1848, p. 9; and, also, Duflot de
Mofras, Exploration de 1'Oregon, 1844, t. ii. p. 40.) Gallatin says
expressly, in the Memoir on the Aboriginal Races in the Archseologia
Americana, vol. ii. p. 140, " General Ashley and Mr. J. S. Smith
have found the Lake Timpanogo in the same latitude and longitude
nearly as had been assigned to it in Humboldt's Atlas of Mexico."
t have dwelt on the remarkable swelling of the ground in the
region of the Rocky Mountains, because, doubtless, by its elevation
and extent, it exercises an influence hitherto but little considered, on
the climate of the whole continent of North America, to the south
and east. In the extensive, continuous plateau, Fremont saw the
waters covered with ice every night in the month of August. Nor
is the elevation of this region less important as respects the social
state and progress of the great United States of North America.
Although the elevation of the line of the separation of the waters
nearly equals that of the Passes of the Simplon (6170 French, or

56 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

6576 English feet), of the St. Gothard (6440 French, or 6865 En-
glish feet), and of the Si. Bernard (7476 French, or 7969 English
feet), yet the ascent is so gradual, as to offer no obstacle to the use
of wheel carriages of all kinds in the communication between the
basins of the Missouri and the Oregon ; in other words, between the
states on the Atlantic sea board opposite Europe, and the new set--
tlements on the Oregon and Columbia opposite China. The itinerary
distance from Boston to Astoria on the Pacific at the mouth of the
Columbia, is, according to the difference of longitude, 2200 geo-
graphical miles, or about one-sixth less than the distance of Lisbon
from the Ural near Katharinenburg. From the gentleness of the
ascent of the high plateau which leads from the Missouri to Cali-
fornia and to the basin of the Oregon — (from the River and Fort
Laramie, on the northern branch of the Platte River, to Fort
Hall on the Lewis Fork of the Columbia, all the camping places of
which the height was measured were from upwards of five to seven
thousand, and at Old Park even 9760 French, or 10,403 English
feet) — it has not been easy to determine the situation of the culmi-
nating point, or " divortia aquarum." It is south of the Wind River
mountains, nearly midway between the Mississippi and the coast of
the Pacific, at an elevation of 7027 French, or 7490 English feet;
therefore only 450 French, or 480 English feet lower than the Pass
of the Great St. Bernard. The immigrants call this point " the
South Pass." (Fremont's Report, pp. 3, 60, 70, 100, 129.) It is
situated in a pleasant district, in which the mica slate and gneiss
rock are found covered with many species of Artemisia, particularly
Artemisia tridentata (Nuttall), asters, and cactuses. Astronomical
determinations give the latitude 42° 24', and the longitude 109° 24'
W. from Greenwich. Adolph Erman has already called attention
to the circumstance that the direction of the great chain of the
Aldan mountains in the east of Asia, which divides the streams
flowing into the Lena from those which flow towards the Pacific, if
prolonged on the surface of the globe in the direction of a great cir-
cle, passes through several summits of the Rocky Mountains, be-
tween the parallels of 40° and 55°. "Thus an American and an
Asiatic chain of mountains appear to belong to one great fissure,
following the direction of a great circle, or the shortest course from

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 57

point to point." (Compare Erman's Reise um die Erde, Abth. i.
bd. iii. s. 8, Abth. ii. bd. i. s. 386, with his Archiv fiir wissen-
schaftliche Kunde von Russland, bd. vi. s. 671.)

The Rocky Mountains which sink down towards the Mackenzie
River, which is covered a large portion of the year with ice, and the
highlands from which single snow-clad summits rise, are altogether
distinct from the more westerly and higher mountains of the coast,
or the chain of the Californian Maritime Alps, the Sierra Nevada de
California. However ill selected the now generally used name of
the Rocky Mountains, to designate the most northerly continuation
of the Mexican Central Chain, it does not appear to me desirable to
change it, as has been often proposed, for that of the Oregon Chain.
Although these mountains do indeed contain the sources of Lewis's,
Clark's, and North Fork, the three chief branches which form the
mighty Oregon, or Columbia River, yet this river also breaks
through the Californian chain of snow-clad Maritime Alps. The
name of Oregon District is also employed politically and officially
for the smaller territory west of the Coast Chain, where Fort Van-
couver and the Walahmutti settlements are situated, and therefore
it is the more desirable not to give the name of Oregon either to the
Central or the Coast Chain. This name is connected with a most
singular mistake of an eminent geographer, M. Malte Brun : Reading
on an old Spanish map, "And it is not yet known (y aun se ignora)
where the source of this river" (the river now called the Columbia)
ais situated," he thought he recognized in the word ignora the name
of Oregon. (See my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t.
ii. p. 314.)

The ro.cks- which, 'where the Columbia breaks through the Chain,
form the Cataracts, mark the continuation of the Sierra Nevada de
California from the 44th to the 47th degree of latitude. (Fremont,
Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, 1848, p. 6.) This
northern continuation comprises the three colossal summits of Mount
Jefferson, Mount Hood, and Mount St. Helen's, which rise more
than 14,540 French or 15,500 English feet above the level of the
sea. The height of this Coast Chain, or Range, far exceeds, there-
fore, that of the Rocky Mountains. "During a journey of eight
months' duration which was made along the Maritime Alps/' says

58 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Captain Fremont, in his Report, p. 274, "we had snowy peaks
always in view ; we had surmounted the Rocky Mountains by the
South Pass at an elevation of 7027 (7490 E.) feet, but we found
the passes of the Maritime Alps, which are divided into several
parallel ranges, more than 2000 feet higher;" therefore, only about
1170 feet (1247 E.) below the summit of Etna. It is extremely
remarkable, and reminds us of the difference between the eastern
and western Cordilleras of Chili, that it is only the chain of mount-
ains nearest to the sea (the Californian range), which has still
active volcanoes. The conical mountains of Reguier and St. Helen's
are seen to emit smoke almost constantly, and on the 23d of No-
vember, 1843, Mount St. Helen's sent forth a quantity of ashes
which covered the banks of the Columbia for forty miles like snow.
To the volcanic Coast Range also belong, (in Russian America in
the high north,) Mount St. Elias (1980 toises high, according to
La Perouse, and 2792 toises, according to Malaspina (12,660 and
17,850 E. feet), and Mount Fair Weather (Cerro de Buen Tempo)
2304 toises, or 14,732 E. feet high. Both these mountains are
supposed to be still active volcanoes. Fremont's Expedition (which
was important alike for its botanical and geological results), collected
volcanic products, such as scoriaceous basalt, trachyte, and even obsi-
dian, in the Rocky Mountains, and found an extinct volcanic crater a
little to the east of Fort Hall (lat. 43° 2', long. 112° 28' W.); but
there are no signs of volcanoes still active, that is to say, emitting at
times lava or ashes. We are not to confound with such activity the
still imperfectly explained phenomenon of " smoking hills;" "cdtes
brulees," or " terrains ardens," as they are called by the English set-
tlers, and by natives speaking French. An accurate observer, M.
Nicollet, says, "Ranges of low conical hills are covered with a thick
black smoke almost periodically, and often for two or three years toge-
ther. No flames are seen." This phenomenon shows itself principally
in the district of the Upper Missouri, and still nearer to the eastern de-
clivity of the Rocky Mountains, where a river bears the native name
of Mankizitah-Watpa, or the "river of the smoking earth." Sco-
riaceous pseudo-volcanic products, such as a kind of porcelain jasper,
are found in the vicinity of the " smoking hills." Since the expe-
dition of Lewis and Clark, an opinion has become prevalent that the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 59

Missouri deposits real pumice on its banks. Fine, cellular, whitish
masses have been confounded with pumice. Professor Ducatel was
disposed to ascribe this appearance, which was principally observed
in the chalk formation, to a " decomposition of water by sulphuric
pyrites, and to a reaction on beds of lignite." (Compare Fremont's
Report, pp. 164, 184, 187, 193, and 299, with Nicollet's Illustration
of the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi River, 1843,
pp. 39-41.)

If, in concluding these few general considerations on the physical
geography of North America, we once more- turn our attention to
the spaces which separate the two diverging Coast Chains from the
Central Chain, we find, in striking contrast, on the one hand, the arid
uninhabited plateau of above five or six thousand feet elevation,
which in the west intervenes between the Central Chain and the Cali-
fojrnian Maritime Alps which skirt the Pacific ; and on the eastern
side of the Rocky Mountains, between them and the Alleghanies,
(the highest summits of which, Mount Washington and Mount
Marcy, are, according to Lyell, 6240. and 5066 French, or 6652
and 5400 English feet above the level of the sea,) the vast, well-
watered, and fertile low plain or basin of the Mississippi, the greater
part of which is from 400 to 600 French feet above the level of the
sea,) or about twice the elevation of the plains of Lombardy. The
hypsometric conformation of this eastern region, i. e. the altitude of
its several parts above the sea, has been elucidated by the valuable
labors of the highly-talented French astronomer, Mcollet, of whom
science has been deprived by a too early death. His large and
excellent map of the Upper Mississippi, constructed in the years
1836-1840, is based, on 240 astronomically determined, latitudes,
and 170 barometric measurements of elevation. The plain which
contains the basin of the Mississippi is one with the Northern
Canadian plain, so that one low region extends from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Arctic Sea. (Compare my Relation Historique, t.
iii. p. 234, and Nicollet's Report to the Senate ~ of the United
States, 1843, pp. 7 and 57.) Where the plain is undulating, and
where, between 47° and 48° of latitude, low hills (coteau des prai-
ries, and coteau des bois, in the still un-English nomenclature of
the natives) occur in connected ranges, these ranges and gentle
swellings of the ground divide the waters which flow towards Hud-

60 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

son's Bay from those which seek the Gulf of Mexico. Such a
dividing line is formed north of Lake Superior by the Missabay
Heights, and more to the west by the " Hauteurs des Terres," in
which were first discovered, in 1832, the true sources of the Missis-
sippi, one of the largest rivers in the world. The highest of these
ranges of hills hardly attains an elevation of 1400 to 1500 (1492 to
1599 English) feet. From St. Louis, a little to the south of the
junction of the Missouri and the Mississippi, to the mouth of the
latter river at Old French Balize, it has only a fall of 357 (380
English) feet in an itinerary distance of more than 1280 geographi-
cal miles. The surface of Lake Superior is 580 (618 English) feet
above the level of the sea, and its depth near Magdalen Island is 742
(791 English) feet ; its bottom, therefore, is 162 (173 English) feet
below the surface of the ocean. (Nicollet, pp. 99, 125 and 128.)

Beltrami, who separated himself from Major Long's Expedition in
1825, boasted of having discovered the source of the Mississippi
in Lake Cass. The river in the upper part of its course passes
through four lakes, of which Lake Cass is the second. The upper-
most is the Istaca Lake (in lat. 47° 13', and long. 95° 0'), and was
first recognized as the true source of the Mississippi in the expedition
of Schoolcraft and Allen in 1832. This afterwards mighty river is
only 17 feet wide and 15 inches deep when it issues from the singu-
lar horseshoe-shaped Lake of Istaca. It was not until the scientific
expedition of Nicollet) in 1836, that a clear knowledge of the locali-
ties was obtained and rendered definite by astronomically determined
positions. The height of the sources of the Mississippi, viz. of the
remotest affluent received by the Lake of Istaca from the dividing
ridge, or "Hauteur de Terre," is 1575 (1680 English) feet above
the level of the sea. In the immediate vicinity, and indeed on the
southern slope of the same dividing ridge, is Elbow Lake, in which
the smaller Red River of the north, which after many windings
flows into Hudson's Bay, has its origin. The Carpathian Mountains
present similar circumstances in the proximity and relative positions
of the sources of rivers which send .their waters respectively to the
Black Sea and to the Baltic. Twenty small lakes, forming narrow
groups to the south and west of Lake Istaca, have received from M.
Nicollet the names of distinguished European astronomers, adversa-
ries as well as friends. The map thus becomes a kind of geographi*

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 61

eal album, reminding one of the botanical album of Ruiz and Pavon's
Flora Peruviana, in which the names of new genera of plants were
adapted to the Court Calendar, and to the various changes taking
place in the Oficiales de la Secretaria.

To the east of the Mississippi dense forests still partially prevail;
but to the west of the river there are only Prairies-, in which the
buffalo (Bos americanus), and the musk ox (Bos moschatus), feed in
large herds. Both these animals (the largest of the New World)
serve the wandering Indians, the Apaches Llaneros and the Apaches
Lipanos, for food. The Assiniboins sometimes kill in a few days
from seven to eight hundred bisons in what are called " bison parks,"
artificial enclosures into which the wild herds are driven. (Maxi-
milian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-America, bd. i.
1839, s. 443.) The American bison, or buffalo, called by the
Mexicans cibolo, which is frequently killed merely for the sake of
the tongue, a much-prized . dainty, is by no means a mere variety of
the Aurochs of the Old Continent; although some other kinds of
animals, as the elk (Cervus alces) and the reindeer (Cervus taran-
dus), and even, in the human race, the short-statured polar-man, are
common to the northern parts of both continents, evidencing their
former long-continued connection. The Mexicans call the European
ox in the Aztec dialect "quaquahue," a horned animal, from qua-
quahuitl, a horn. Some very large horns of cattle' found in the
ancient Mexican buildings, not far from Cuernavaca, to the south-
west of the city of Mexico, appear to me to have belonged to the J
musk ox. The Canadian bison can be tamed to agricultural labor?||
It breeds with the European cattle, but it was long uncertain whether •;
the hybrid was fruitful. Albert Gallatin, who, before he appeared
in Europe as a distinguished diplomatist, had obtained by personal *
inspection great knowledge of the uncultivated parts of the United f
States, assures us that " the mixed breed was quite common fifty
years ago in some of the north-western counties of Virginia; andj
the cows, the issue of that mixture, propagated like all others." "If
do not remember," he adds, "the grown bison being tamed, but?
sometimes young bison calves were caught by dogs, and were broughtl
up and driven out with the European cows." At Monongahela all 1
the cattle were for a long time of this mixed breed : but complaitlte
6

62 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

were made that they gave very little milk. The favorite food of
the bison or buffalo is Tripsacum dactyloides (called buffalo grass in
North Carolina), and an undescribed species of clover nearly allied
to Trifolium repens, and designated by Barton as Trifolium bisoni-
cum.

I have already called attention elsewhere (Cosmos, vol. ii. note
455, English ed.) to the circumstance that, according to a statement
of the trustworthy Gromara (Historia General de las Indias, cap. 214),
there was still living in the sixteenth century, in the north-west of
Mexico, in 40° latitude, an Indian tribe, whose principal riches
consisted in herds of tame bisons (bueyes con una giba). But not-
withstanding the possibility of taming the bison, notwithstanding
the quantity of milk it yields, and notwithstanding the herds of
lamas in the Cordilleras of Peru, no pastoral life or pastoral people
were found when America was discovered, and there is no historical
evidence of this intermediate stage in the life of nations ever having
existed there* It is worthy of remark that the American buffalo or
bison has exerted an influence on the progress of geography in track-
less mountainous regions. These animals wander, in the winter, in
search of a milder climate, in herds of several thousands to the south
of the Arkansas River. In these migrations their size and unwieldi-
ness make it difficult for them to pass over high mountains. When,
therefore, a well-trodden buffalo path is met with, it is advisable to
follow it, as being sure to conduct to the most convenient pass across
the mountains. The best routes through the Cumberland Mount-
ains, in the south-west parts of Virginia and Kentucky, in the
Rocky Mountains between the sources of the Yellow Stone and the
Platte, and between the southern branch of the Columbia and the
Rio Colorado of California, were thus marked out beforehand by
buffalo paths. The advance of settlement and cultivation has gra-
dually driven the buffalo from all the Eastern States : they formerly
roamed on the banks of the Mississippi and of the Ohio far beyond
Pittsburg. (Archaeologia Americana, vol. ii. 1836, p. 139.)

From the granitic cliffs of Diego Ramirez — in the deeply indented
and intersected Tierra del Fuego, which: contains on the east silurian
schists, and on the west the same schists altered by the rnetamorphic
action of subterranean fire, (Darwin's Journal of Researches into the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 63

Geology and Natural History of the Countries visited in 1832-1836
by the Ships Adventure and Beagle, p. 266) — to the North Polar
Sea, the Cordilleras extend in length more than 8000 geographical
miles. They are the longest though not the loftiest chain on our
planet ; being raised from a cleft running in the direction of a meri-
dian from pole to pole, and exceeding in linear distance the interval
which in the Old Continent separates the Pillars of Hercules from
the Icy Cape of the Tchuktches in the north-east of Asia. Where
the Andes divide into several parallel chains, it is remarked that the
ranges nearest the sea are usually those which exhibit most volcanic
activity; but it has also been observed repeatedly, that, when the
phenomena of still active subterranean fire disappear in one chain,
they break out in another chain running parallel to it. G-enerally
speaking, the volcanic cones are found in a direction corresponding
with that of the axis of direction of the entire chain ; but in the
elevated highlands of Mexico the active volcanoes are placed along
a transverse cleft running from sea to sea in the east and west direc-
tion, (Humboldt, Essai Politique, t. ii. p. 173.) Where, by the
elevation of mountain masses in the ancient corrugation or folding
of the crust of the earth, access has been opened to the molten inte-
rior, that interior continues to act, through the medium of the cleft,
upon the upheaved wall-like mass. That which we now call a
mountain chain has not arrived at once at its present state : rocks,
very different in the order of succession in reference to age, are found
superimposed upon each other, and have penetrated to the surface
by early formed channels. The various nature of the formations is
due to the outpouring and elevation of eruptive rocks, as well as to
the slow and complicated process of metamorphic action taking place
in clefts filled with vapors and favorable to the conduction of heat.

For a long time past, from 1830 to 1848, the following have been
regarded as the culminating or highest points of the Cordilleras of
the New Continent.

The Nevado de Sorata, also called Ancohuma or Tusubaya
(S. lat. 15° 52'), a little to the south of the village of Sorata
or Esquibel, in the eastern Bolivia Range: elevation 3949
toises, or 23,692 Parisian, or 25,250 English feet.

The Nevado de Illimani, west of the Mission of Yrupana

64 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(S. lat. 16° 38') in the same mountain range at Sorata : eleva-
tion 3753 toises, or 22,518 Parisian, or 24,000 English feet.

The Chimborazo (S. lat. 1° 27') in the province of Quito :
elevation 3350 toises, or 20,100 Parisian, or 21,423 English
feet.

The Sorata and Illimani were first measured by a distinguished
geologist, Mr. Pentland, in 1827, and also in 1838. Since the
publication, in June, 1848, of his great map of the basin of the
Lake of Titicaca, we know that the above-mentioned elevations of
these two mountains are respectively 3960 and 2851 English feet
too great. The map gives to the Sorata 21,286, and to the Illimani
21,149 English feet. A more exact calculation of the trigonome-
trical operations of 1838 has led Mr. Pentland to these new results.
There are, according to him, in the western Cordillera, four peaks of
from 21,700 to 22,350 English feet. The highest of these, the Peak
of Sahama, would thus be 926 English feet higher than the Chim-
borazo, and but 850 English feet lower than the Volcano of Acon-
gagua, measured by the Expedition of the Beagle (Fitz Roy's Nar-
rative, vol. ii. p. 481).

(6) p. 26. — " The Desert near the basaltic mountains of ffarudsh."
Near the Egyptian Natron JLakes, (which in the time of Strabo
had not yet been divided into six reservoirs,) there is a range of hills
which rises steeply on the northern side, and runs from east to west
past Fezzan, where it finally appears to join the chain of the Atlas.
It divides in north-eastern Africa, as the Atlas does in north-western
Africa, the inhabited maritime Lybia of Herodotus from the land of
the Berbers, or Biledulgerid, abounding in wild animals. From the
limits of Middle Egypt the whole region south of the 30th degree of
north latitude is a sea of sand, in which are dispersed islands, or
Oases, containing springs of water and a flourishing vegetation. The
number of these Oases, of which the ancients only reckoned three,
and which Strabo compared to the spots on a panther's skin, has
been considerably augmented by the discoveries of modern travellers*
The third Oasis of the ancients, now called Siwah, was the Nomos
of Ammonia residence of priests, a resting place for caravans, and
the site of the temple of the horned Ammon and the supposed pe-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 65

riodically cool fountain of the Sun. The ruins of Ummibida (Omm-
Beydah) belong incontestably to the fortified caravanserai at the
temple of Ammon, and therefore to the most ancient monuments
which have come down to us from the early dawn of civilization.
(Caillaud, Voyage a Syouah, p. 14; Ideler in den Fundgruben des
Orients, bd. iv. s. 399-411.)

The word Oasis is Egyptian, and synonymous with ,Auasis and
Hyasis (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 130, lib. xvii. p. 813, Cas.; Herod, lib.
iii. cap. 26, p. 207, Wessel). Abulfeda calls the Oases, el-Wah.
In the later times of the Caesars, malefactors were sent to the Oases;
being banished to these islands in the sea of sand, as the Spaniards
and the English have sent criminals to the Falklands or to New
Holland. Escape by the ocean is almost easier than through the
desert. The fertility of the Oases is subject to diminution by the
invasion of sand.

The small mountain-range of Harudsh is said to consist of basaltic
hills of grotesque form (Bitter's Afrika, 1822, s. 886, 988, 993,
and 1003). It is the Mons Ater of Pliny; and its western extremi-
ty or continuation, called the Soudah mountains, has been explored
by my unfortunate friend, the adventurous traveller Ritchie. This
eruption of basalt in tertiary limestone, rows of hills rising abruptly
from dike-like fissures, appears to be analogous to the outbreak of
basalt in the Vicentine territory. Nature often repeats the same
phenomena in the most distant parts of the earth. In the limestone
formations of the " white Harudsh" (Harudje el-Abiad), which
perhaps belong to the old chalk, Hornemann found an immense
number of fossil heads of fish. Ritchie and Lyon remarked that
the basalt of the Soudah mountains, like that of the Monte Berico,
was in many places intimately mixed with carbonate of lime — a
phenomenon probably connected with eruption through limestone
strata. Lyon's map even mentions dolomite in the neighbourhood.
Modern mineralogists have found syenite and greenstone in Egypt,
but not basalt. Possibly the material of some of the ancient Egyp-
tian vases, which are occasionally found of true basalt, may have
been taken from these western mountains. May " Obsidius lapis"
also have been found there? or are basalt and obsidian to be sought
for near the Red Sea ? The strip of volcanic or eruptive formations

6*

66 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of the Haradsh, on the margin of the African Desert, reminds the
geologist of the augitie vesicular amygdaloid, phonolite, and green-
stone porphyry, which are only found at the northern and western
boundaries of the Steppes of Venezuela and of the plains of the Ar-
kansas, as it were on the hills of the ancient coast line. (Humboldt,
Relation Historique, torn. ii. p. 142; Long's Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains, vol. ii. pp. 91 and 405.)

(7) p. 26. — •" When suddenly deserted by tJie east wind of the tropics
in a sea covered with weed."

It is a remarkable phenomenon, well known among sailors, that,
in the vicinity of the African coast (between the Canaries and the
Cape de Verde Islands, and particularly between Cape Bojador and
the mouth of the Senegal), a west wind often takes the place of the
general east or trade-wind of the tropics. It is the wide expanse of
the Desert of Sahara which causes this westerly wind. The air over
the heated sandy plain becomes rarefied, and ascends, the air from
the sea rushes in to supply the void so formed, and thus there some-
times arises a west wind, adverse to ships bound to the American
coast, which are made in this manner to feel the vicinity of the heatr
radiating desert without even seeing the continent to which it belongs.
The changes of land and sea breezes, which blow alternately at cer-
tain hours of the day or night on all coasts, are due to the same
causes.

The accumulation of sea-weed in the neighbourhood of the Afri-
can coast has been often spoken of by ancient writers. The locality
of this accumulation is a problem which is intimately connected with
our conjectures respecting the extent of Phoanician navigation.
The Periplus, which has been ascribed to Scylax of Caryanda, and
which, according to the researches of Niebuhr and Letronne, was
very probably compiled in the time of Philip of Macedon, describes
beyond Cerne a quantity of fucus forming a weed-covered sea-r-a
kind of " Mar de Sargasso;" but the locality indicated appears to
me to differ very much from that assigned in the work entitled "De
Mirabilibus Auscultationibus," which long bore> unduly, the great
name of Aristotle. (Compare Scyl. Caryand. Peripl. in Hudson,
vol. ii. p. 53, with Aristot. de Mirab. Auscult. in opp. omnia ex.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 67

rec. Bekkeri, p. 844, § 136.) The pseudo Aristotle says, "Phoeni-
cian mariners, driven by the east wind, came in four days' sail from
Grades to a part where they found the sea covered with reeds and
sea-weed ($pvov xaifvxoi). The sea-seed is uncovered at ebb and
covered at flood tide." Is he not here speaking of a shallow place
between the 34° and 36° of latitude? Has a shoal disappeared in
consequence of volcanic eruption ? Vobonne speaks of rocks north
of Madeira. (Compare also Edrisi, Greog. Nub., 1619, p. 157.) In
Scylax; it is said, " The sea beyond Cerne is unnavigable on account
of its great shallowness, its muddiness, and the great quantity of
sea grasses. The sea grass lies a span thick, and is full of points at
the top, so that it pricks." The sea- weed found between Cerne —
(the Phoanician station for laden vessels, Graulea, or, according to
Grosselin, the small island of Fedallah, on the north-western coast of
Mauritania) — and Cape de Verde, does not now by any means form
a great sea meadow, or connected tract of fucus, a " mare herbidum,"
such as exists beyond the Azores. In the poetic description of the
coast by Festus Avienus, (Ora Maritima, v. 109, 122, 388, and
408,) in the composition of which, as Avienus himself says (v. 412),
he availed himself of the journals of Phrenician ships, the obstacle
presented by the sea-weed is referred to in a very circumstantial
manner; but its site is placed much farther north, towards lerne,
the « Sacred. Island."

Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem,'
Sic segnis humor sequoris pigri stupet.
1 Acljicit et iltud, plurimum inter gurgites
Exstare fucum, et saepe virgulti vice
Retinere puppim ....
Hsec inter undas multa caespitem jacet,
Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit.

In remarking that the fucus and the mud or mire, (7(77716?,) the
shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual calms, are always spoken
of by the ancients as characteristics' of the western ocean beyond
the Pillars of Hercules, one is disposed, more particularly on account
of the mention of the co/ms, to ascribe something to Punic artifice —
to the desire of a great trading people to deter others, by the appre-
hension of dangers and difficulties, from entering into competition

68 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

with them in western navigation and commerce. But even in the
genuine writings of Aristotle (Meteorol. ii. pp. 1, 14), he maintains
this same opinion of the absence of wind in those regions, and seeks
the explanation of what he erroneously supposes to be a fact of
observation, but which is more properly a fabulous mariner's tale,
in an hypothesis concerning the depth of the sea. In reality, the
stormy sea between Grades and the islands of the Blest or Fortunate
Islands, (between Cadiz and the Canaries,) is very unlike the sea
farther to the south between the tropics, where the gentle trade winds
blow, and which is called very characteristically by the Spaniards, el
Golfo de las Damas, the Ladies' Gulf. (Acosta, Historia natural y
mojal de las Indias, lib. iii. cap. 4.)

From very careful researches by myself, and from the comparison
of the logs or journals of many English and French vessels, I infer
that the old and indefinite expression, Mar de Sargasso, includes two
banks of fucus, of which the greater and easternmost one, of a length-
ened shape, is situated between the parallels of 19° and 34° N. lat.,
in a meridian of 7 degrees to the west of the Island of Corvo, one
of the Azores; while the lesser and westernmost bank, of a roundish
form, is situated between the Bermudas and the Bahamas, (lat.
25°-31°, long. 66°-74°.) The longer axis of the small bank which
is crossed by ships going from Bajo de Plata (Caye d' Argent, Silver
Cay) en the north of St. Domingo, to the Bermudas, appears to have
a N. 60° E. direction. A transverse band of Fucus natans, running
in an east and west direction between the parallels of 25° and 30°,
connects the greater and lesser banks. I have had the gratification
of seeing these inferences approved by my honored friend Major
Kennell, and adopted by him in his great work on Currents, where
he has further supported and confirmed them by many new and ad-
ditional observations. (Compare Humboldt, Relation Historique,
t. i. p. 202, and Examen Critique, t. iii. pp. 68-99, with Rennell's
Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic Ocean, 1832, p. 184.)
The two groups of sea-weed, included together with the transverse
connecting band under the old general name of the Sargasso Sea,
occupy altogether a space exceeding six or seven times the area of
Germany."

Thus it is the vegetation of the ocean which offers the most re-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 69

markable example of an assemblage of " social plants" of a single
species. On terra firma, the savannahs or prairies, or grassy plains
of America, the heaths (ericeta), and the forests of the north of
Europe and Asia, consisting of coniferous trees, birches, and willows,
offer a less degree of uniformity than do those thalassophytes. Our
heaths show, in the north, in addition to the prevailing Calluna vul-
garis, Erica tetralix, E. ciliaris, and E. cinerea ; and in the south,
Erica arborea, E. scoparia, and E. meditterranea. The uniformity
of the aspect offered by the Fucus natans is greater than that of any
other assemblage or association of plants. Oviedo calls the fucus
banks " meadows," praderias de yerba. Considering that the island
of Flores was discovered in 1452, by Pedro Yelasco, a native of the
Spanish port of Palos, by following the flight of certain birds from
the island of Fayal, it seems almost impossible, seeing the proximity
of the great fucus bank of Corvo and Flores, that a part of these
oceanic meadows should not have been seen before Columbus, by
Portuguese ships driven by storms to the westward. Yet the asto-
nishment of the companions of Columbus in 1492, when surrounded
by sea-weed uninterruptedly from the 16th of September to the 8th
of October, shows that the magnitude of the phenomenon at least
was previously unknown to the sailors. The anxieties excited by the
accumulation of sea-weed, and the murmurs of his companions in
reference thereto, are not indeed mentioned by Columbus in the ex-
tracts from the ship's journal given by Las Casas. He merely speaks
of the complaints and murmurs respecting the danger to be feared
from the weak but constant east winds. It is only the son, Fernando
Colon, who, in writing his father's life,, endeavored to depict the fears
of the sailors in a dramatic manner.

According to my researches, Columbus crossed the great fucus
bank in 1492, iirlat. 28i°, and in 1493, in lat. 37°, both times in
the long, of from 38° to 41° W. This is deducible with tolerable
certainty from Columbus's recorded estimation jof the ship's rate, and
" the distance daily sailed over;" derived indeed, not from casting the
log, but from data afforded by the running out of half-hour sand-
glasses (ampolletas). The first certain and definite mention of a log
(catena della poppa) which I have been able to discover, is in the
year 1521, in Pigafetta's journal of Magellan's Yoyage round the

70 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

World. (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 259, and note 405, English ed.) The
determination of the ship's place, while Columbus was engaged in
traversing the great meadows of sea-weed, is the more important,
because we learn from it that for three centuries and a half the situ-
ation of this great accumulation of thalassophytes, whether resulting
from the local character of the bottom of the sea, or from the direc-
tion of the Grulf Stream, has remained the same. Such evidences
of the permanency of great natural phenomena arrest the attention
of the physical inquirer with double force, when they present them-
selves in the ever-moving oceanic element. Although the limits of
the fucus banks oscillate considerably, in correspondence with the
variations of the strength and direction of the prevailing winds, yet
we may still in the middle of the 19th century take the meridian of
41° W. from Paris (38° 38' W. from Greenwich) as the principal
axis of the "great bank." In the vivid imagination of Columbus,
the idea of the position of this bank was intimately connected with
the great physical line of demarcation, which, according to him, di-
vided the globe into two parts, with the changes of magnetic varia-
tion, and with climatic relations. Columbus, when uncertain re-
specting his longitude, (February 1493,) directed himself by the
appearance of the first floating streamers of weed (de la primera
yerba) on the eastern margin of the great Corvo bank. The phy-
sical line of demarcation was, by the powerful influence of the Ad-
miral, converted on the 4th of May, 1493, into a political line, being
made the celebrated "line of demarcation' ' between the Spanish and
Portuguese rights of possession. (Compare my Examen Critique,
torn. iii. pp. 64-99, and Cosmos, English ed. vol. ii. pp. 279-280.)

(s) p. 27. — " The Nomadic Tibbos and Tuaricks."
These two nations inhabit the Deserts between Bornou, Fezzan, and
Lower Egypt. They were first made known to us with some exact-
ness by Hornemann's and Lyon's travels. The Tibbos or Tibbous
roam through the eastern, and the Tuaticks (Tueregs) through the
western, parts of the Great Desert. The first are called by the other
tribes, from being in continual movement, " birds." The Tuaricks
are distinguished into those of Aghadez and those of Tagazi. , They
are often engaged as conductors of caravans, and in trade. Their

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 71

language is the same as that of the Berbers ; and they belong un-
questionably to the number of the primitive Lybian nations. The
Tuaricks present a remarkable physiological phenomenon. Different
tribes among them are, according to the climate, white, yellowish,
and even almost black ; but all are without woolly hair or negro
features. (Exploration scientifique de PAlgerie, t. ii. p. 343.)

(a) p. 27.—" The Ship of the Desert."

In oriental poems, the camel is called the land-ship, or the ship
of the Desert (Sefynet-el-badyet). (Chardin, Voyages, nouv. ed. par
Langles, 1811, t. iii. p. 376.)'

But the camel is not merely the carrier of the Desert, and the link
which, rendering communication between different countries possible,
connects them with each other : he is also, as Carl Bitter has shown
in his excellent memoir on the sphere of diffusion of these animals,
the principal and essential condition of the nomadic life of nations
in the patriarchal stage of national development, in the hot parts of
our planet where rain is either altogether wanting, or very infrequent.
No animal's life is so closely associated by natural bonds with a par-
ticular stage of the development of the life of man — a connection
historically established for several thousand years — as the life of the
camel among the Bedouin tribes (Asien, bd. viii. Abth. i. 1847,
s. 610 und 758). " The camel was entirely unknown to the
cultivated Carthaginian nation through all the centuries of their
flourishing existence, until the destruction of their city. The Maru-
sians first brought it into military use, in the train of armies, in
Western Lybia, in the times of the Caesars ; perhaps in "consequence
of its employment in commercial operations in the valley of the
Nile by the Ptolemies. The Gruanches, inhabitants of the Canary
Islands, and probably related to the Berber race, were not acquainted
with the camel before the 15th century, when it was introduced by
Norman conquerors and settlers. In the probably very limited com-
munication of the Gruanches with the coast of Africa, the small
size of the boats would prevent the transport of large animals. The
true Berber race, diffused throughout the interior of Northern
Africa, and to which the Tibbos and Tuaricks, as already mentioned,

72 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

belong, owes doubtless to the use of the camel throughout the Ly~
bian Desert and its Oases, not only the advantages of intercommu-
nication, but also the preservation of its national existence to the
present day. On the other hand, the negro races never, of their
own accord, made any use of the camel ; it was only in company
with the conquering expeditions and proselyting missions of the
Bedouins, carrying their prophet's doctrines over the whole of
Northern Africa, that the useful animal of the Nedjid, of the Naba-
theans, and of all the countries inhabited by Aramean races, spread
to the westward, and was introduced among the black population.
The Goths took camels as early as the fourth century to the Lower
Istros (the Danube), and the Ghaznevides conveyed them in much
larger numbers as far as India and the banks of the Ganges." We
must distinguish two epochs in the diffusion of the camel through-
out the northern part of the African continent; one under the Ptole-
mies, operating through Cyrene on the whole of the north-west of
Africa ; and the Mohammedan epoch of the conquering Arabs.

It has long been a question, whether those domestic animals which
have been the earliest companions of mankind- — oxen, sheep, dogs,
and camels — are still to be met with in a state of original wildness.
The Hiongnu, in Eastern Asia, belong to the nations who earliest
tamed and trained wild camels as domestic animals. The compiler
of the great Chinese work, Si-yu-wen-kien-lo, (Historia Regionum
occidentalium, quse Si-yu vocantur, visu et auditu cognitarum,) affirms
that, in the middle of the 18th century, wild camels, as well as wild
horses and wild asses, still wandered in East Turkestan. Hadji
Chalfa, in his Turkish Geography, written in the 17th century,
speaks of the frequent chase of the wild camel in the high plains
of Kashgar, Turfan, and Khotan. Schott translates, from a Chinese
author, Ma-dschi, that wild camels are to be found in the countries
to the north of China and west of the Hoang-ho, in Ho-si or Tan-
gut. Cuvier alone (Regne Animal, t. i. p. 257) doubts the pre-
sent existence of wild camels in the interior of Asia. He believes
they have merely "become wild;" because Calmucks, and others
having Buddhistic religious affinities with them, set camels and other
animals at liberty, in order " to acquire to themselves merit for the
other world." According to Greek witnesses of the times of Ar-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 73

temidorus and Agatharchides of Cnidus, the Ailanitic Gulf of the
Nabatheans was the home of the wild Arabian camel. (Bitter's
Asien, bd. viii. s. 670, 672, and 746.) The discovery of fossil
camel bones of the ancient world by Captain Cautley and Doctor
Falconer, in 1834, in the sub-Himalaya range of the Sewalik hills, is
peculiarly deserving of notice. These bones were found with other
ancient bones of mastodons, of true elephants, of giraffes, and of a
gigantic land tortoise (Colossochelys), twelve feet in length and six
feet in height. (Humboldt, Cosmos, Engl. ed. vol. i. p. 268.) This
camel of the Ancient World has received the name of Camelus
sivalensis, but does not show any considerable difference from
the still living Egyptian and Bactrian camels with one and two
humps. Forty camels have very recently been introduced into Java,
having been brought there from Teneriffe. (Singapore Journal of
the Indian Archipelago, 1847, p. 206.) The first experiment has
keen made in Samarang. In like manner, reindeer have only been
introduced into Iceland from Norway in the course of the last cen-
tury. They were not found there when the island was settled, not-
withstanding the proximity to East Greenland, and the existence of
floating masses of ice. (Sartorius von Waltershausen physisch-
geographische Skizze von Island, 1847, s. 41.) >. ;

(10) p. 27. — "Between, the Altai and the Kuen-liin."
The great highland, or as it is commonly called, the mountain
plateau of Asia, which includes the lesser Bucharia, Songarei, Thi-
bet, Tangut, and the Mogul country of the Chalcas and Olotes, is
situated between the 36th and 48th degrees of latitude, and the
meridians of 81° and 118° E. long. It is an erroneous view to
represent this part of the interior of Asia as a single undivided
mountainous gibbosity, continuous like the elevated plains of Quito
and Mexico, and elevated from seven to nine thousand feet above
the level of the sea. That there is not in this sense any undivided
mountain plateau in the interior of Asia, has already been shown by
me, in my " Researches respecting the Mountains of Northern India/'
(Humboldt, Premier M&noire sur les Montagues de 1'Inde, in the
Annales de Chimie et de Physique, t. iii. 1816, p. 303 ; Second
Me"moire, t. xiv. 1820, pp. 5-55.)
7

74 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

My views concerning the geographical range of plants, and the
mean degree of temperature requisite for certain kinds of cultiva-
tion, had early led me to entertain considerable doubts as to the
continuity of a great Tartarian plateau between the Himalaya and
the Altai. Writers continued to characterize this plateau as it had
been described by Hippocrates (De ^Ere et Aquis, § xcvi. p. 74),
as "the high and naked plains of Scythia, which, without being
crowned with mountains, rise and extend to beneath the constella-
tion of the Bear." Klaproth has the undeniable merit of having
been the first to make us acquainted with the true position, extent,
and direction of two great and entirely distinct chains of mountains
— the Kuen-lun and the Thian-schan, in a part of Asia which is
better entitled to the name of " central" than Kashmeer, Baltistan,
and the Sacred Lakes of Thibet (the Manasa and the Ravanahrada).
The importance of the Celestial Mountains, the Thian-schan, had
indeed been already surmised by Pallas, without his being aware of
their volcanic nature ; but this highly-gifted investigator of nature,
hampered by the then prevailing hypothesis of a dogmatic and fan-
tastic geology, firmly believing in "chains of mountains radiating
from a centre," saw in the Bogdo Oola (the Mons Augustus, or
culminating point of the Thian-schan) such a "central node, from
whence all the Asiatic mountain chains diverge in rays, and which
dominates over all the rest of the continent !"

The erroneous idea of a single vast elevated plain occupying the
whole of Central Asia, the (f Plateau de la Tartarie," took its rise in
France, in the latter half of the 18th century. It was the result of
historical combinations, and of a not sufficiently attentive study of
the writings of the celebrated Venetian traveller, as well as of the
naive relations of those diplomatic monks who, in the 13th and 14th
centuries, (thanks to the unity and extent of the Mogul empire at
that time,) were able to traverse almost the whole of the interior of
the continent, from the ports of Syria and of the Caspian Sea to the
shores of the Pacific on the east coast of China. If a more exact
acquaintance with the language and ancient literature of India had
dated farther back among us than half a century, the hypothesis of
this central plateau, occupying the wide space between the Hima-
laya and the south of Siberia, would no doubt have had adduced in its
support an ancient and venerable authority from that source. The

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 75

poem of the Mahabharata appears, in the geographical fragment
Bhischmakanda, to describe " Meru" not so much as a mountain as
an enormous elevation of the land, which supplies with water at
once the sources of the Ganges, those of the Bhadrasoma (Irtysh),
and those of the forked Oxus. These physico-geographical views were
intermingled in Europe with ideas of other kinds, and with mythical
reveries relating to the origin of mankind. It was said that the
elevated regions from which the waters first retreated, (geologists in
general were long averse to the theory of elevation,) must also have
received the first germs of civilization. Hebraizing systems of
geology, and views connected with the Deluge and supported by
local traditions, favored these assumptions. The intimate connec-
tion between time and space, between the beginnings of social order
and the plastic character of the surface of the earth, lent to the sup-
posed " uninterrupted Plateau of Tartary" a peculiar importance,
and an almost moral interest. Acquisitions of positive knowledge,
the late matured fruit of scientific travels and direct measurements,
as well as of a fundamental study of Asiatic languages and literature,
especially those of China, have gradually demonstrated the inac-
curacies and exaggerations of those wild hypotheses. The mountain
plains (oportfi'Sta) of Central Asia are no longer regarded as the
cradle of civilization and the primitive seat of all arts and sciences.
The ancient nation of Bailly's Atlantis, happily described by
d' Alembert as " having taught us everything but their own name
and existence," has vanished. The supposed inhabitants of the
Oceanic Atlantis had already been treated, in the time of Posidonius,
in a no less derisive manner. (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 102 ; and lib. xiii.
p. 598, Casaub.)

A plateau of considerable but very unequal elevation, having the
names of Gobi, Scha-mo (sand desert), Scha-ho (sand river), and
Hanhai, runs in a SSW.-NNE. direction, with little interruption,
from Eastern Thibet towards the .mountain knot of Kemtei south of
Lake Baikal. This swelling of the ground is probably anterior to
the elevation of the mountain chains by which it is intersected; it
is situated, as already remarked, between 79° and 116° long, from
Paris, (81° and 118° E. from Greenwich.) Measured at right
angles to its longitudinal axis, its breadth is, in the south between

76 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Ladak, Gertop, and H'lassa, (the seat of the Great Lama,) 720 geo-
graphical miles; between Hami in the Celestial Mountains, and
the great bend of the Hoang-ho near the In-schan chain, hardly
480; and in the north, between the Khanggai, where the great city
of Karakhorum once stood, and the chain of Khin-gan-Petscha,
which runs north and south (in the part of the Gobi traversed
in travelling from Kiachta by Urga to Pekin) 760 geogra-
phical miles. The whole extent of this swelling ground, which
must be carefully distinguished from the far more elevated mountain
range to the east, may be approximately estimated, taking its in-
flections into account, at about three times the area of France. The
map of the mountain ranges and volcanoes of Central Asia (Carte
der Bergketten und Vulkane von Central- Asien), constructed by
me in 1839, but not published until 1843, shows in the clearest
manner the hypsometric relations between the mountain ranges and
the Gobi plateau. It was founded on the critical employment of all
the astronomical determinations accessible to me, and on a vast
amount of orographic description, in which Chinese literature is
beyond measure rich, examined at my request by Klaproth and
Stanislas Julien. My map marks the mean direction and the
height of the mountain chains, and represents the leading features
of the interior of the continent of Asia, from 30° to 60° of north
latitude, and between the meridians of Kherson and Pekin. It
differs materially from any previously published map.

The Chinese have enjoyed a threefold advantage towards the
collection of so great an amount of orographic data in the highlands
of Asia, and more especially in the regions (hitherto so little known
in the west) north and south of the Celestial mountains, between
the In-schan, the mountain lake Khuku-noor, and the banks of the
Hi and the Tarim. The three advantages I allude to are, — the
military expeditions towards the west, (under the dynasties of Han
and Thang, 122 years before our era, and again in the ninth century
when conquerors advanced as far as Ferghana and to the borders of
the Caspian,) together with the more peaceful conquests of Budd-
histic pilgrims; — the religious interest attaching to certain lofty
mountain summits on account of sacrifices to be periodically offered
there; — and the early and general use of the compass in giving the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 77

directions of mountains and of rivers. The knowledge and use of
the " South pointing" of the magnetic needle twelve centuries before
our era, has given to the orographic and hydrographic descriptions
of countries by the Chinese, a great superiority over the descriptions
of the same kind which Greek or Roman writers have bequeathed
to us, and which are besides extremely few. The acute and saga-
cious Strabo was alike imperfectly acquainted with the direction of
the Pyrenees, and with those of the Alps and of the Apennines.
(Compare Strabo, lib. ii. pp. 71 and 128; lib. iii. p. 137; lib. iv. p.
199 and 202; lib. v. p. 211, Casaub.)

To the lowlands belong almost the whole of Northern Asia to the
north-west of the volcanic chain of the Thian-schan; — the Steppes to
the north of the Altai and of the Sayan chain ; — the countries which
extend from the mountains of Bolor, or Bulyt-Tagh, (" cloud moun-
tains" in the Uigurian dialect,) which follow a north and south
direction, and from the upper Oxus, (whose sources were found by
the Buddhistic pilgrims Hiuen-thsang and Song-yun in 518 and
629, by Marco Polo in 1277, and by Lieutenant Wood in 1838, in
the Pamer Lake, Sir-i-kol, Lake Victoria,) towards the Caspian;
and from Tenghir or the Balkhash Lake through the Kirghis
Steppe, towards the sea of Aral and the southern extremity of the
Ural mountains. As compared with high plains of 6000 to 10,000
feet above the level of the sea, it may be well permitted to use the
expressions of "lowlands" for flats of little more than 200 to 1200
feet of elevation. The lowest of the last two numbers corresponds
nearly to the altitude of the town of Mannheim, and the highest
to that of Geneva and Tubingen. If the word plateau, so often
misemployed in modern works on geography, is to have its use ex-
tended to elevations which hardly present any sensible difference in
climate and vegetation, the indefiniteness of the expressions " high-
lands and lowlands," which are only relative terms, will deprive
physical geography of the means of expressing the idea of the con-
nection between elevation and climate, between the profile or relief
of the ground and the decrease of temperature. When I found
myself in Chinese Bzungarei, between the boundary of Siberia and
Lake Dsaisang, at an equal distance from the Icy Sea and from the
mouth of the Ganges, I might well, consider myself in Central Asia.

78 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

The barometer, however, soon taught me that the plains through
which the Upper Irtysh flows, between Ustkamenogorsk and the
Chinese Dzungarian Post, Chonimailachu, (sheep-bleating,) are
scarcely raised 850, or at the most 1170, feet above the level of the
sea. Pansner's older barometric measurements (which, however,
were not published until after my expedition) are confirmed by
mine. Both refute the hypothesis of Chappe, relative to the supposed
high elevation of the banks of the Irtysh, in Southern Siberia; an
hypothesis based on estimations of river declivities. Even further
to the East, Lake Baikal is only 222 toises, or 1420 English feet,
above the level of the sea.

In order to connect the idea of the relation of the terms lowlands
and highlands, and of the various gradations in the height of ele-
vated plains or undulating grounds, with actual examples ascertained
by measurement, I have subjoined a table, forming an ascending
scale of such districts in different parts of the globe. What I
have said above respecting the mean height of those Asiatic plains,
which I have termed lowlands, may be compared with the following
numbers : —

Toises. English feet.

Plateau of Auvergne . .'•^£££3V . . 7 170 1087

« of Bavaria . y^rVi^- . . . ". 260 " 1663

« ofCastUle-. •.;*&!## / .. . . 350 2239

" of Mysore \,;. .p* .»-..».'. . . . 460 2942

« of Caraccas 480 3070

" of Popayan 900 5756

" round Lake Tzana (in Abyssinia) . 950 6076

« of the Orange River (in South Africa) 1000 6395

« of Axum (in Abyssinia) . . . .1100 7034

M of Mexico .-- 1170 7483

" of Quito 1490 9528

« of the Province de los Pastos . . . 1600 10231

*'* ' round Lake Titiaca . . . . . .2010 12853

No portion of the so-called Desert of Gobi (parts of which con-
tain fine pastures) has been so thoroughly explored in respect to the
differences of elevation as the zone, of nearly 600 geographical
miles in breadth, between the sources of the Selenga and the great
Wall of China. A very exact series of barometric levellings was

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 79

executed under the auspices of the Academy of St. Petersburg!! by two
distinguished savans, the astronomer George Fuss, and the botanist
Bunge. In the year 1832 they accompanied the mission of Greek
monks to Pekin, to establish there one of the magnetic stations re-
commended by me. The mean height of this part of Gobi does
not amount, as had been too hastily inferred from the measurement
of neighbouring summits by the Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest, to
from 7500 to 8000 French (8000 to 8500 English) feet, but only
to little more than half that height, or barely 4000 French or 4264
English feet. Between Erghi, Durma, and Scharaburguna, the
ground is only 2400 French, or 2558 English feet above the level
of the sea, or hardly 300 French (320 English) feet higher than
the plateau of Madrid. Erghi is situated midway, in lat. 45° 31',
long. 111° 26' E. from Greenwich. There is here a depression of
more than 240 miles in breadth, in a SW. and NE. direction. An
ancient Mogul tradition marks it as the bottom of a former inland
sea. There are found in it reeds and saline plants, mostly of the
same kinds as those on the low shores of the Caspian. In this
central part of the desert there are small salt lakes, from which salt
is carried to China. According to a singular opinion very prevalent
among the Moguls, the ocean will one day return and establish its
empire anew in Gobi. One is reminded of the Chinese tradition of
the litter laJce, in the anterior of Siberia, mentioned by me in an-
other work. (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, torn. ii. p. 141 ; Klaproth,
Asia Polyglotta, p. 232.) The valley or basin of Kashmeer, so
enthusiastically extolled by Bernier, and but too moderately praised
by Victor Jacquemont, has also given occasion to great hypsometric
exaggerations. By a careful barometrical measurement, Jacque-
mont found the height of the Wulur Lake in the valley of Kashmeer,
not far from the chief city Sirinagur, 836 toises, or 5346 English feet.
Uncertain determinations by the boiling point of water gave Baron
Carl von Hiigel a result of 910, and Lieutenant Cunningham only
790 toises. (Compare my Asie Centrale, torn. iii. p. 310, with the
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. x. 1841, p. 114.)
Kashmeer,-— respecting which, in Germany particularly, so much
interest has been felt, but the delightfulness of whose climate is
considerably impaired by four months of winter snow in the streets

80 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of Sirinagur (Carl von Hiigel, Kaschmir, bd. ii. s. 196), — is not
situated, as is often supposed, upon the ridge of the Himalaya, but
is a true cauldron-shaped valley (Kesselthal, Caldera) on the
southern declivity of those mountains. On the south-west, where
the rampart-like elevation of the Pir Panjal separates it from the Pun-
jaub, the snow- covered summits are crowned, according to Vigne,
with formations of basalt and amygdaloid. The latter formation
has received from the natives the characteristic name of " schischak
deyu," marked by the devil's small-pox. (Vigne, Travels in Kash-
meer, 1842, vol. i. pp. 237-293.) The beauty of its vegetation has
from the earliest times been very differently described, according as
the visitor came from the rich and luxuriant vegetation of India, or
from the northern regions of Turkestan, Samarcand, and Ferghana.
It is also only very recently that clearer views have been obtained
respecting the elevation of Thibet; the level of the plateau having
long been most uncritically confounded with the summits which rise
from it. Thibet occupies the interval between the two great chains
of the Himalaya and the Kuen-liin, forming the raised ground of
the valley between them. It is divided from east to west, both by
the natives and by Chinese geographers, into three portions. Upper
Thibet, with its capital city H'lassa, probably 1500 toises (9590
English feet) above the level of the sea; — Middle Thibet, with the
town of Leh or Ladak (1563 toises, or 9995 English feet); — and
Little Thibet, or Baltistan, called the Thibet of Apricots, (Sari
Boutan,) in which are situated Iskardo (985 toises, or 6300 English
feet), Grilgit, and south of Iskardo but on the left bank of the Indus,
the plateau of Deotsuh, measured by Vigne, and found to be 1873
toises, or 11,977 English feet. On examining all the notices that
we possess respecting the three Thibets, (and which will have re-
ceived in the present year a rich augmentation by the boundary
expedition under the auspices of the governor-general, Lord Dal-
housie,) we soon become convinced that the region between the
Himalaya and the Kuen-liin is no unbroken plain or table land, but
that it is intersected by mountain groups, undoubtedly belonging to
wholly distinct systems of elevation. There are, properly speaking,
very few plains; the most considerable are those between Gertop,
Daba; Schang-thung (Shepherd's Plain), the native country of the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 81

Shawl-goat, and Schipke (1634 toises, 10,450 English feet);—
those round Ladak, which have an elevation of 2100 toises, or
13,480 English feet, and must not be confounded with the depression
in which the town is situated; — and lastly, the plateau of the Sacred
Lakes Manasa and Ravanahrada (probably 2345 toises), which was
visited so early as 1625, by Pater Antonio de Andrada. Other
parts are entirely filled with crowded, mountainous elevations,
"rising," as a recent traveller expresses it, "like the waves of a
vast ocean." Along the rivers, the Indus, the Sutlej, and the
Yaru-dzangbo-tschu, which was formerly regarded as identical with
the Brahma-putra, points have been measured which are only be-
tween 1050 and 1400 toises (6714 and 8952 English feet) above
the level of the sea; so also with respect to the Thibetian villages
of Pangi, Kunawur, Kelu, and Murung. (Humboldt, Asie Centrale,
t. iii. pp. 281-325.) From many carefully collected measurements
of elevation I think I may conclude that the plateau of Thibet,
between 73° and 85° E. long., does not reach a mean height of
1800 toises (11,510 English feet); this is hardly equal to the
height of the fertile plain of Caxamarca in Peru, and is 211 and
337 toises (1350 and 2154 English feet) less than the height of
the plateau of Titicaca, and the street pavement of the Upper Town
of Potosi (2137 toises, 13,665 English feet).

That, outside of the Thibetian highlands and of the Gobi, the
boundaries of which have been defined above, there are in Asia,
between the parallels of 37° and 48°, considerable depressions and
even true lowlands, where one boundless uninterrupted plateau was
formerly imagined to exist, is shown by the cultivation of plants
which cannot thrive without a certain degree of heat. An attentive
study of the travels of Marco Polo, in which the cultivation of the
vine and the production of cotton in northern latitudes are spoken
of, had long called the attention of the acute Klaproth to this point.
In a Chinese work, entitled "Information respecting the recently-
subdued Barbarians (Sin-kiang-wai-tan-ki-lio)," it is said, " the
country of Aksu, somewhat to the south of the Celestial Mountains
(the Thian-schan), near the rivers which form the great Tarim-gol,
produces grapes, pomegranates, and numberless other excellent
fruits; also cotton (Gossypium religiosum), which covers the fields

82 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

like yellow clouds. In the summer the heat is exceedingly great,
and in winter there is here, as at Turfan, neither severe cold nor
heavy snow." The district round Khotan, Kashgar, and Yarkand,
still pays its tribute in home-grown cotton as it did in the time of
Marco Polo. (II Milione di Marco Polo, pubbl. dal Conte Baldelli,
t. i. pp. 32 and 87.) In the Oasis of Hami (Khamil), above 200
miles east of Aksu, orange trees, pomegranates, and vines, whose
fruit is of a superior quality, grow and nourish.

The products of cultivation which are thus noticed imply the
existence of only a small degree of elevation, and that over extensive
districts. At so great a distance from any coast, and in those
easterly meridians where the cold of winter is known to exceed that
of corresponding latitudes nearer our own part of the world, a
plateau which should be as high as Madrid or Munich might indeed
have very hot summers, but would hardly have, in 43° and 44°
latitude, extremely mild winters with scarcely any snow. Near the
Caspian, 83 English feet below the level of the Black Sea, at
Astrachan, in 46° 21' lat., I saw the cultivation of the vine greatly
favored by a high degree of summer heat; but the winter cold is
there from —20° to —25° Cent. ( — 4° to —13° Fahr.) It is
therefore necessary to protect the vines after November, by sinking
them deep in the earth. Plants which live, as we may say, only in
the summer, as the vine, the cotton bush, rice, and melons, may
indeed be cultivated with success between the latitudes of 40° and
44° on plains of more than 500 toises (3197 English feet) eleva-
tion, being favored by the powerful radiant heat ; but how could the
pomegranate trees of Aksu, and the orange trees of Hami, whose
fruit Pere Grosier extolled as distinguished for its goodness, bear the
cold of the long and jsevere winter which would be the necessary
consequence of a considerable elevation of the land ? (Asie Centrale,
t. ii. pp. 48-52, and 429.) Carl Zimmerman (in the learned Ana-
lysis of his " Karte von Inner Asien," 1841, s. 99) has made it
appear extremely probable that the Tarim depression, i. e., the
desert between the mountain chains of the Thian-schan and the
Kuen-liin, where the Steppe river Tarim-gol empties itself into the
Lake of Lop, which used to be described as an alpine lake, is hardly
1200 (1279 English) feet above the level of the sea, or only twice

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 83

the height of Prague. Sir Alexander Burnes also assigns to that
of Bokhara only an elevation of 1190 English feet. It is earnestly
to" be desired, that all doubt respecting the elevation of the plateaux
of middle Asia, south of 45° of latitude, should finally be set at
rest by direct barometric measurements, or by determinations of the
boiling point of water made with more care than is usually given to
them. All our calculations respecting the difference between the
limits of perpetual snow, and the maximum elevation of vine culti-
vation in different climates, rest at present on too complex and
uncertain elements.

In order to rectify in the smallest space that which was said in
the last edition of the present work, relatively to the great mountain
systems which intersect the interior of Asia, I subjoin the following
general review. We begin with the four parallel chains, which
follow with tolerable regularity an east and west direction, and are
connected with each other at a few detached points by transverse
elevations. Differences of direction indicate, as in the Alps of
Western Europe, a difference in the epoch of elevation. After the
four parallel chains (the Altai, the Thian-schan, the Kuen-liin, and
the Himalaya), we have to notice chains following the direction of
meridians, viz. the Ural, the Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese
chains, which, with the great bend of the Thibetian and Assamo-
Bermese Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The Ural divides a
part of Europe but little elevated above the level of the sea from a
part of Asia similarly circumstanced. The latter was called by
Herodotus (ed. Schweighatiser, t. v. p. 204), and even as early as
Pherecydes of Syros, a Scythian or Siberian Europe, including all
the countries to the north of the Caspian and of the Jaxartes; in
this view it would be a continuation of Europe " prolonged to the
north of Asia."

1. The great mountain system of the Altai (the "gold mount-
ains" of Menander of Byzantium, an historical wrjter who lived as
early as the 7th century, the Altai-alin of the Moguls, and the
Kin-schan of the Chinese), forms the southern boundary of the
great Siberian lowlands; and running between 50° and 52 J° of
north latitude, extends from the rich. silver mines of the Snake
Mountains, and the confluence of the Uba and the Irtysh, to the

84 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

meridian of Lake Baikal. The divisions and names of the " Great"
and the " Little Altai," taken from an obscure passage of Abul-
ghasi, are to be altogether avoided. (Asie Centrale, t. i. p. 247.)
The mountain system of the Altai comprehends .(a) the Altai pro-
per, or Kolywanski Altai, the whole of which is under the Russian
sceptre; it is west of the transverse opening of the Telezki Lake,
which follows the direction of the meridian; and in ante-historic
times probably formed the eastern shore of the great arm of the
sea, by which, in the direction of the still existing groups of lakes,
Aksakal-Barbi and Sary-Kupa (Asie Centrale, t. ii. p. 138), the
Aralo-Caspian basin was connected with the Icy Sea : — (6) East of
the Telezki chain which follows the direction of the meridian, the
Sayani, Tangnu, and Ulangom or Malakha chains, all running tole-
rably parallel with each other, and in an east and west direction.
The Tangnu, which sinks down and terminates in the basin of the
Selenga, has from very ancient times formed a boundary between
the Turkish race to the south, and the Kirghis (Hakas, identical
with Saxat) in the north. (Jacob Grimm, Gesch. der deutschen
Sprache, 1848, th. i. s. 227.) It is the .original seat of the
Samoieds or Soyotes, who wandered as far as the Icy Sea, and who
were long regarded in Europe as a nation belonging exclusively to
the coasts of the Polar Sea. The highest snow-clad summits of
the Altai of Kolywan are the Bielucha and the Katunia-Pillars.
The height of the latter is about that of Etna. The Daurian high-
land, to which the mountain knot of Kemtei belongs, and on the
eastern side of which is the Jablonoi Chrebet, divides the depressions
of the Baikal and the Amur.

2. The mountain system of the Thian-schan, or Celestial Mount-
ains, the Tengri-tagh of the Turks (Tukiu) and of the kindred race
of the Hiongnu, is eight times as long, in an east and west direction,
as the Pyrenees. Beyond — i. e. west of its intersection with the
transverse or north and south chain of /the Bolor and Kosuyrt, the
Thian-schan bears the names of Asferah and Aktagh, is rich in
metals, and has open fissures, which emit hot vapors, luminous at
night, and which are used for obtaining sal-ammoniac. (Asie Cen-
trale, t. ii. pp. 18-20.) East of the transverse Bolor and Kosyurt
chain, there follow successively in the Thian-schan — the Kashgar

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 85

Pass (Kaschgar-dawan) ; the Glacier Pass of Djeparle, which leads
to Kutch and Aksu in the Tarim Basin; the volcano of Pe-schan,
which sent forth fire and streams of lava at least as late as the
middle of the seventh century; the great, snow-covered, massive
elevation, Bogdo-Oola; the Solfatara of Urumsti, which furnishes
sulphur and sal-ammoniac (nao-scha), and is situated in a coal dis-
trict; the still active volcano of Turfan (or volcano of Ho-tscheu
or Bischbalik), almost midway between the meridians of Turfan
(Kune-Turpan), and of Pidjan. The volcanic eruptions of the
Thian-schan chain, recorded by Chinese historians, reach as far back
as the year 39 A. D., when the Hiongnu of the sources of the Irtysh
were pursued by the Chinese army as far as Kutch and Kharaschar
(Klaproth, Tableau hist, de TAsie, p. 108). The Chinese General,
Teu-hian, surmounted the Thian-schan, and saw "the Fire Mount-
ains which send out masses of molten rock that flow for many Li."
The great distance from the sea of the volcanoes of the interior
of Asia, is a remarkable and solitary phenomenon. Abel Eemusat,
in a letter to Cordier (Annales des Mines, t. v. 1820, p. 137), first
directed the attention of geologists to this fact. The distance, for
example, in the case of the volcano of Pe-schan, to the north, or to
the Icy Sea at the mouth- of the Obi, is 1528 geographical miles;
to the south, or to the mouths of the Indus and the Ganges, 1512
geographical miles; to the west, 1360 geographical miles to the
Caspian in the Gulf of Karaboghaz; and to the east, 1020 geogra-
phical miles to the shores of the Sea of Aral. The active volcanoes
of the New World were previously supposed to offer the most re-
markable instances of such phenomena at a great distance from the
sea; their distance, however, is only 132 geographical miles, in the
case of the volcano of Popocatepetl in. Mexico, and- only 92, 104,
and 156 geographical miles in those of the South American vol-
canoes Sangai, Tolima, and de la Pragua, respectively. I exclude
from these statements all extinct volcanoes, and all trachytic mount-
ains which have no permanent, connection with the interior of the
earth. (Asie Centrale, t. ii. pp. 16-55, 69-77, and 341-356.) East
of the volcano of Turfan, and of the fertile Oasis of Hami, rich in
fine fruit, the chain of the Thian-schan gives place to the great
elevated .tract of Gobi, which follows a SW. and NE. direction.

86 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

This interruption of the mountain chain, caused by the transverse
intersection of the Gobi, continues for more than 9£ degrees of
longitude ; but beyond it the mountains recommence in the somewhat
more southerly chain of the In*schan, or the Silver Mountains,
running (north of the Pe-tscheli) from west to east, almost to the
shores of the Pacific near Pekin, and forming a continuation of the
Thian-schan. As I have viewed the In-schan as an easterly pro-
longation (beyond the interruption of the Gobi) of the cleft above
which the Thian-schan stands, so one might possibly view the
Caucasus as a westerly prolongation of the same, beyond the great
basin of the Aral and Caspian Seas, or the depression of Turan.
The mean parallel of latitude or axis of elevation of the Thian-
schan oscillates between 40f° and 43° N. lat.; that of the Cau-
casus, according to the map of the Russian Etat-Major (running
rather BSE. and WNW,), is between 41° and 44° north lat.
(Baron von Meyendorff, in the Bulletin de la Soci^te" G£ologique
de France, t. ix. 1837-1838, p. 230.) Of the four parallel chains
which traverse Asia from east to west, the Thian-schan is the only
one in which no summits have yet had their elevation above the sea
determined by measurement.

3. The mountain system of the Kuen-liin (Kurkun or Kulkun),
if we include it in the Hindu-Coosh and its Western prolongation in
the Persian Elbourz and Demavend, is, next to the American Cor-
dillera of the Andes, the longest line of elevation on the surface of
our planet. Where the north-and-south chain of Bolor intersects
the Kuen-liin at right angles, the latter takes the name of the
Thsung-ling (Onion Mountains), which is also given to a part of the
Bolor at the eastern angle of intersection. The Kuen-liin, forming
the northern boundary of Thibet, runs very regularly in an east and
west direction, in the latitude of 36°. In the meridian of H'lassa,
an interruption takes place from the great mountain knot which sur-
rounds the alpine lake of Khuku-noor, the Sing-so-hai, or Starry Sea,
so celebrated in the mythical geography of the Chinese. The some-
what more northerly chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan may
almost be regarded as an easterly prolongation of the Thian-schan.
They extend to the Chinese wall near Liang-tscheu. West of the
intersection of the Bolor and Kufen-liin (the Thsung-ling), I think

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS, 87

I have been the first to show (Asie Centrale, t. i. p. 23, and 118-
159; t. ii. pp. 43 1-434 and 465) that the corresponding direction of
the axes of the Kuen-liin and the Hindu-Coosh (both being east
and west, whereas the Himalaya is south-east and north-west) makes
it reasonable to regard the Hindu-Coosh as. a continuation, not of the
Himalaya, but of the Kuen-lun. From the Taurus in Lycia to
Kafiristan, through an extent of 45 degrees of longitude, this chain
follows the parallel of Rhodes, or the diaphragm of Dicearchus.
The grand geognostical view of Eratosthenes (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 68;
lib. xi. pp. 490 and 511; and lib. xv. p. 689), which is farther de-
veloped by Marinus of Tyre, and Ptolemy, and according to which
" the continuation of the Taurus in Lycia extends across the whole
of Asia to India, in one and the same direction," appears to- have
been partly founded on statements which reached the Persians and
Indians from the Punjaub. " The Brahmins affirm," says Cosmas
Indicopleustes, in his Christian Topography (Montfaugon, Collectio
nova Patrum, t. ii. p. 137), " that, a line drawn from Tzinitza (Thinaej)
across Persia and Romania, exactly cuts the middle of the inhabited
earth." It is deserving of notice that Eratosthenes had so early
remarked that this longest axis of elevation in the Old Continent,
in the parallels of 35 J° and 36°, points directly through the basin
(or depression) of the Mediterranean to the Pillars of Hercules.
(Compare Asie Centrale, t. i. pp. 23 . and 122-138; t. ii..p. 430-
434, with Kosmos, bd. ii. s. 222 and 438, p. 188, and note 292,
Engl. ed.) The easternmost part of the Hindu-Coosh is the Paro-
panisus of the ancients, the Indian Caucasus of the companions of
Alexander. The now generally used term of Hindu-Coosh belongs,
as may be seen from the Travels of the Arab Ibn Batuta (English
version, p. 97), to a single mountain pass on which many Indian
slaves often perished from cold. The Kuen-liin, like the Thian-schan,
shows igneous outbreaks or eruptions at many hundred miles from
the sea. -Flames, visible at a great distance, issue from a cavity in
the Schin-khieu Mountain. (Asie Centrale, t. ii. pp. 427 and 483,
where I have followed the text of Yuen-thong-ki, translated by my
friend Stanislas Julien.) The highest summit measured in the Hindu-
Coosh, north-west of Jellalabad, is 3164 toises above the sea (20,132
English feet); to the west, towards Herat, the chain sinks to 400

88 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

toises (2558 English feet), until, north of Teheran, it rises again to
a height of 2295 toises (14,675 English feet) in the volcano of
Dem a vend.

4. The mountain system of the Himalaya. The normal direction
of this system is east and west when followed from 81° to 97° E.
long, from Greenwich, or through more than fifteen degrees of longi-
tude from the colossal Dhawalagiri (4390 toises, 28,071 English
feet) to the breaking through of the long-problematical Dzangbo-
tschu river (the Irawaddy^ according to Dalrymple and Klaproth),
and to the chains running north and south, which cover the whole
of Western China, and in the provinces of Sse-tschuan, Hu-kuang,
and Kuang-si form the great mountain group of the sources of the
Kiang. The next highest culminating point to the Dhawalagiri, of
this east and west part of the Himalaya, is not, as has been hitherto
supposed, the eastern peak of the Schamalari, but the Kinchinjinga.
This mountain is situated in the meridian of Sikhim, between Bootan
and Nepaul, and between the Schamalari (3750? toises, 23,980 En-
glish feet) and the Dhawalagiri : its height is 4406 toises, or 26,438
Parisian, or 28,174 English feet. It was first measured accurately
. by trigonometrical operations in the present year, and as the account
of this measurement received by me from India says decidedly,
"that a new determination of the Dhawalagiri leaves to the latter
the first rank among all the snow-capped mountains of the Hima-
laya," the height of the Dhawalagiri must necessarily be greater
than that of 4390 toises, or 26,340 Parisian, 28,071 English feet,
hitherto ascribed to it. (Letter- of the accomplished botanist of Sir
James Ross's Antarctic Expedition, Dr. Joseph Hooker, written from
Dorjiling, July 25, 1848.) The turning point in the direction of
the axis of the Himalaya range is not far. from the Dhawalagiri, in
79° E/long. from Paris (81° 22' Greenwich). From thence to the
westward, the Himalaya no longer runs east and west, but from SE.
to NW., connecting itself, as a great cross vein, between Mozuffer-
abad and Gilgit south of Kafiristan, with a part of the Hindu-Coosh.
Such a bend or change in the direction or strike of the axis of ele-
vation of the Himalaya (from E.-W. to SB.— NW.), doubtless points,
as in the western part of our European Alps, to a difference in the
age or epoch of elevation. The course of the Upper Indus, from

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 89

the sacred Lakes Manasa and Ravanahrada (at an elevation of 2345
toises, 14,995 English feet), in the vicinity of which the great river
rises, to Iskardo and to the plateau of Deo-tsuh (at an elevation of
2032 toises, 12,993 English feet), measured , by Vigne, follows in
the Thibetian highlands the same north-westerly direction as the
Himalaya. Here is the summit of the Djawahir, long since well
measured and known to be 4027 toises (25,750 English feet) in
elevation, and the valley of Kashmeer, where,, at an elevation of only
836 toises (5346 English feet), the Wulur Lake freezes every winter,
and, from the perpetual calm, no wave ever curls its surface.

Having thus described the four great mountain systems of Asia,
which in their normal geognostic character are chains coinciding with
parallels of latitude, I have next to speak of the series of elevations
coinciding nearly with meridians (or, more precisely, having a SSE.-
NNW. direction), which, from Cape Comorin opposite to the Island
of Ceylon to the Icy Sea, alternate between the meridians of 66°
and 77° E. long, from Greenwich. To this system, of which the
alternations remind us si faults in veins, belong the Ghauts, the Soli-
man chain, the Paralasa, the Bolor, and the Ural. The interrup-
tions of the series of elevations are so arranged that, beside their
alternate position in respect to longitude, each new chain begins in
a degree of latitude to which the preceding chain had not quite
reached. The importance which the Greeks (although probably not
before the second century) attached to these chains induced Agatho-
demon and Ptolemy (tab. vii. and viii.) to represent to themselves
the Bolor, under the name of Imaus, as an axis of elevation extend-
ing as far as 62° N. lat. into the low basin of the Lower Irtisch and
the Obi. (Asie Centrale, t. i. pp.138, 154, and 198 ; t. ii. p. 367.)
-As the perpendicular elevation of mountain summits above the
level of the sea (unimportant as in the eyes of the geologist the
circumstance of the greater or less corrugation of the crust of the
earth may be), is still, like all that is difficult of attainment, an object
of popular curiosity, the following historical natice of the gradual
progress of hypsometric knowledge may here find a suitable place.
When I returned to Europe in 1804, after a four years' absence,
not a single Asiatic snowy summit either m the Himalaya, the
Hindu-Coosh, or the Caucasus, had been measured with any exact-

8*

90 STEPPES AND DESEKTS.

ness; and I could not therefore compare my determinations of the
height of perpetual snow in the Cordilleras of Quito, or the mount-
ains of Mexico, with any corresponding determinations in the East.
The important journey of Turner/ Davis, and Saunders to the
highlands of Thibet does indeed belong to the year 1783, but Cole-
brooke justly remarks, that the elevation given by Turner to the
Schamalari (lat, 28° 5', long. 89° 30', a -little, to the north of Tassi-
sudan) rests on foundations as slight as those of the so-called mea-
surements of the heights seen from Patna and the Kafiristan by
Colonel Crawford and Lieutenant Macartney. (Compare Turner, in
the Asiatic Researches, vol. xii. p. 234, with Elphinstone's Account
of the Kingdom of Caubul, 1815, p. 95, and Francis Hamilton,
Account of Nepal, 1819, p. 92.) The excellent observations and
writings of Webb, Hodgson, Herbert, and the brothers Gerard, have
thrown great and certain light on the elevation of the colossal sum-
mits of the Himalaya; yet, in 1808, the hypsometric knowledge of
this great Indian chain was still so uncertain that Webb wrote to
Colebrooke : " The height of the Himalaya still remains a problem.
I find, indeed, that the summits visible from the high plain of Rohil-
cund are 21,000 English feet above that plain, but we do not know
the absolute height above the sea/'

It was not until the beginning of the year 1820 that it began to
be reported in Europe, that not only were there, in the Himalaya,
summits much higher than those of the Cordilleras, but also that
Webb had seen in the Pass of Niti, and Moorcroft in the Thibetian
plateau of Daba and the Sacred Lakes, fine pastures and nourishing
fields of corn, at altitudes far exceeding the height of Mont Blanc.
These accounts were received in England with much incredulity, and
were met by doubts respecting the influence of refraction. I have
shown the groundlessness of these doubts in two memoirs (Sur les
Montagnes de 1'Inde), printed in the Annales de China ie et de
Physique. The Tyrolese Jesuit, P. Tiefenthaler, who in 1766 pene-
trated into the provinces of Kemaun and Nepal, had already divined
the importance of the Dhawalagiri. We read on his map, " Montes
Albi, qui Indis Dolaghir, nive obsiti." Captain Webb always uses
the same name. Until the measurements of the Djawahir (lat. 30°
22', long. 79° 58', altitude 4027 toises, or 25,750 English feet)

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 91

and of the Dhawalagiri (lat. 28° 4.0', long. 83° 21', altitude 4390?
toises, 28,072 English feet), were made known in Europe, the Chim-
borazo (3350 toises, or 21,421 English feet), according to my trigo-
nometric measurement, (Recueil d; Observations astronomiques, t. i.
p. 73,) was still everywhere regarded as the highest summit on the
surface of the earth. The Himalaya now appeared, according as
the comparison was made with the Djawahir or the Dhawalagiri, 676
toises (4323 English .feet), or 1040 toises (6650 English feet)
higher than the Chimborazo. Pentland's South American travels,
in the years 1827 and 1838, fixed attention (Annuaire du Bureau
des Longitudes, 1830, pp. 320 and 323) on two snowy summits
of Upper Peru, east of the Lake of Titicaca, which were supposed
to surpass the height of the Chimborazo respectively by 598 and 403
toises (3824 and 2577 English feet). I have remarked above, p.
64, that the latest calculation of the measurements of the Sorata
and Illimani shows this view to be incorrect. The Dhawalagiri (on
the declivity of which, in the valley of the G-handaki, the Salagrana
Ammonites, so celebrated among the Brahmins as symbols of one
of the incarnations of Vishnu, are collected) therefore still shows a
difference between the culminating points of the Old and the New
Continents of more than 6200 Parisian, or 6608 English feet.

The question has been raised, whether there may not exist behind
the southernmost more or less 'perfectly measured, chain, other still
greater elevations. Colonel G-eorge Lloyd, who in 1840 edited the
important observations of Captain Alexander Gerard and his brother,
entertains an opinion, that, in the part of the Himalaya which he
calls somewhat vaguely " the ' Tartaric chain" (meaning therefore
in north Thibet towards the Kuen-liin, and perhaps in Kailasa of
the sacred lakes, or beyond Leh), there are summits o£ from 29,000
to 30,000 English feet — one or two thousand feet higher therefore
than the Dhawalagiri. (Lloyd and Gerard, Tour in the Himalaya,
1840, vol. i. pp. 143 and 312; Asie Centrale, t. iii. p. 324.) So
long as actual measurements are wanting, one cannot decide respect-
ing such possibilities; as the indication, from which the natives of
Quito, long before the arrival of Bouguer and La Condamine, recog-
nized the superior altitude of the Chimborazo (namely, from the
portion of its height above the region of perpetual snow being greater

92 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

than in any of the other mountains), might prove very deceptive in
the temperate zone of Thibet, where radiation is so active in the
table-land; and where the lower limit of perpetual snow does not
form a regular line at an equal elevation, as it does in the tropics.
The greatest elevation above the level of the sea ever attained by
human beings on the declivity of the Himalaya, is 3035 toises, or
18,210 Parisian, or 19,409 English feet, reached by Captain Gerard,
with seven barometers, on the mountain of Tarhigang, a little to the
northwest of Schipke. (Colebrooke) in the Transactions of the Geo-
logical Society, vol. vi. p. 411.) This happens to be exactly the
same height as that reached by myself on the 23d of June, 1802,
and thirty years later by my friend Boussingault, on the 16th of
December, 1831, on the declivity of the Chimborazo. The unat-
tained summit of the Tarhigang is, however, 197 toises, or 1260
English feet higher than that of the Chimborazo.
- The passes, across the Himalaya, leading from Hindostan into
Chinese Tartary, or rather into Western Thibet, more particularly
between the rivers of Buspa and Schipke or Langzing Kharnpa,
are from 2400 to 2900 toises, or 15,346 to 18,544 English feet.
In the chain of the Andes I found the pass of Assuay, between
Quito ^md Cuenca, on the Ladera de Cadlud, having a similar ele-
vation, being 2428 toises, or 15,526 English feet, high. A great
part of the mountain plains of the interior of Asia would be buried
throughout the year in perpetual snow and ice, if it were not that,
by the great radiation of heat from the Thibetian plateau, by the
constant serenity of the sky, by the rarity of the formation of snow
in the dry atmosphere, and by the powerful solar heat peculiar to
the eastern continental climate, the' limit of perpetual snow is won-
derfully raised on the northern slope of the Himalaya — perhaps to
2600 toises, or 16,625 English feet above the level of the sea.
Fields of barley (Hordeum hexastichon) are seen in Kunawur up
to 2300 toises, or 14,707 English feet; and another variety of bar-
ley called Ooa, and allied to Hordeum creleste, even much higher.
Wheat succeeds extremely weir in the Thibetian highlands up to
1880 toises, or 12,022 English feet. On the northern declivity of
the Himalaya, Captain Gerard found the upper limit of the higher
birch woods ascend to 2200 toises, 14,068 English feet; and small

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 93

bushes which serve the inhabitants for fuel to warm their huts,
attain, in the latitude of 30f ° and 31° of north latitude, a height
of 2650 toises (16,945 English feet), or almost 200 toises (1279
English feet) higher than the limit of perpetual snow under the
equator. From the data hitherto collected it would follow, that we
may take the lower limit of perpetual snow on the northern side of
the Himalaya, on the average, and in round numbers, at 2600 toises,
or about 16,600 English feet; whilst on the southern declivity of
the Himalaya the snow-line sinks to 2030 toises, or about 13,000
English feet.

But for this remarkable distribution of temperature in the upper
strata of the atmosphere, the mountain plain of Western Thibet
would be uninhabitable to the millions who dwell there. (Compare
my Examination of the Limit of Perpetual Snow on the two declivi-
ties of the Himalaya, in the Asie Centrale, t. ii. pp. 435—437; t.
iii. pp. 281-326, and in Cosmos, Engl. ed., vol. i., note 403; s.
483 of the original.)

A letter which I have just received from India from Dr. Joseph
Hooker, who is engaged in meteorological and geological researches,
as well as those connected with the geography of plants, says : " Mr.
Hodgson, whom we regard here as the geographer best acquainted
with the hypsometric relations of the snow ranges, completely re-
cognizes the correctness of your statement in the third part of the
Asie Centrale, respecting the reason of the inequality in the height
of the limit of perpetual snow on the northern and southern declivi-
ties of the Himalaya. In the < trans Sutlej region' in 36° lat. we
often saw the snow limit only commence at an altitude of 20,000
English feet, while in the passes south of the Brahmaputra, between
Assam and Burman, in 27° lat., where the most southern Asiatic
snowy mountains are situated, the limit of perpetual snow sinks to
15,000 English feet." I believe we ought to distinguish between
the extreme and the mean heights, but in both we see manifested
in the clearest manner the formerly contested differences between
the Thibetian and the Indian declivities.

94 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

My statements respecting the mean height
of the Snow-line in the Himalaya. (Asie
Centrale, torn. iii. p. 326.)

Paris feet. Eng. feet.
Northern declivity 15,600 . . . 16,626
Southern « 12,180 . . . 12,981

Difference 3,420 3,645

Extremes according to Dr. Joseph
Hooker's letter.

Paris feet. Eng. feet.
Northern declivity 18,764 . . . 20,000
Southern " 14,073 . . . 15,000

Difference 4,691 5,000

The local 'differences vary still more, as may be seen from the list
of extremes given in my Asie Centrale, t. iii. p. 295. Alexander
Grerard saw the snow limit ascend, on the Thibetian declivity of the
Himalaya, to 19,200 Parisian feet (20,465 English); and on the
southern Indian declivity, Jacquemont once saw it, north of Cursali
on the Jumnotri, even as low as 10,800 Parisian (11,510 English)
feet.

(") p. 28. — "A brown Pastoral Race, the Hiongnu."
The Hiongnu (Hiong-nou), who Deguignes, and with him many
historians, long considered to be the Huns, inhabited that vast region
of Tartary which is bounded on the east by Uo-leang-ho (the present
Mantschu dominion), on the south by the Chinese wall, on the west
by the U-siiin territory, and on the north by the country of the
Eleuthes. But the Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and the Huns
to the Finnish or Uralian race. The nortfiern Huns, a rude pastoral
people, unacquainted with agriculture, were dark brown (sunburnt) ;
the southern Huns or Hajatelah (called by the Byzantines Eutha-
lites or Nepthalites, and dwelling along the, eastern shore of the
Caspian), had a fairer complexion. The latter cultivated the ground,
and possessed towns. They are often called the white, or fair Huns,
and d'Herbelot even declares them to be Indo-Scythians. On
Punu, the Leader or Tanju of the Huns, and on the great drought
and famine which about 46 A. D. caused a part of the nation to
migrate northwards (see Deguignes, Histoire ge*n. des Huns, des
Turcs, &c., 1756, t. i. pt. i. p. 217 ;. pt. ii. pp. Ill, 125, 223, 447).
All the accounts of the Huns taken from the above-mentioned
celebrated work, have been subjected to a learned and strict exami-
nation by Klaproth. According to the result of this research, the
Hiongnu belong to the widely diffused Turkish races of the Altai
and Tangnu Mountains. The name Hiongnu, even in the third

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS, 95

century before the Christian era, was a general name for the Ti,
Thu-kiu or Turks, in the north and north-west of China. The
southern Hiongnu overcame the Chinese, and in conjunction with
them destroyed the empire of the northern Hiongnu. These latter
fled to the west, and this flight seems to have given the first im-
pulse to the migration of nations in Middle Asia. The Huns, who
were long confounded with the Hiongnu (as the Uigures with the
Ugures and the Hungarians), belonged, according to Klaproth, to
the Finnish race of the Ural mountains between Europe and Asia,
a race which was variously mingled with Germans, Turks, and
Samoieds. (Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta,, pp. 183 and 211 ; Tableaux
Historiques de 1'Asie, pp. 102 and 109.) The Huns (OvwoC) are
first named by Dionysius Perigetes, a writer who was able to obtain
more accurate information respecting the interior of Asia, because,
as a learned man born at Charax on the Arabian Gulf, Augustus
had sent him back to the East to accompany thither his adopted son
Caius Agrippa. Ptolemy, a century later, writes the word (Xowot)
with a strong aspiration, which, as St. Martin observes, is found
again in the geographical name of Chunigard.

(**) p. 29.—" No carved Stone."

On the banks of the Orinoco near Caicara, where the forest region
joins the plain, we have indeed found representations of the sun,
and figures of animals, cut on the rocks : but in the Llanos them-
selves no traces of these rude memorials of earlier inhabitants have
been discovered. It is to be regretted that we have not received
any more complete and certain information respecting a monument
which was sent to France to Count Maurepas, and which, according
to Kalm, had been found by M. de Yerandrier . in the Prairies of
Canada 900 miles west of Montreal, in the course of an expedition
intended to reach the Pacific. (Kalrn's Keise, th. iii. s. 416.)
This traveller found in the middle of the plain enormous masses of
stone, placed in an upright position by the hand of man, and on
one of them was something which was taken to be a Tartar inscrip-
tion. (Archseologia : or Miscellaneous Tracts, published by the
Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. viii. 1787, p. 304.) How
is it that so important a monument has remained unexamined ?

96 STEPPES AND DESEKTS.

Can it really have contained alphabetical writing ? or is it not far
more probably a pictorial history, like the supposed Phoenician
inscription on the bank of the Taunton River ? I consider it, how-
ever, very probable that these plains were once traversed by civilized
nations : pyramidal sepulchral mounds, and entrenchments of extra-
ordinary length, found in various places between the Rocky Mount-
ains and the Alleghanies, and on which Squier and Davis (in the
" Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley") are now throwing
a new light, appear to confirm this supposition. (Relation Hist.,
t. iii. p. 155.) Verandrier had been sent on his expedition by the
Chevalier de Beauharnois, the French Governor-general of Canada,
in 1746. Several Jesuits in the city of Quebec assured Kalm that
they had themselves had the supposed inscription in their hands : it
was engraved upon a small tablet which had been let into a pillar
of cut stone, in which position it was found. I have asked several
of my friends in France to search out this monument, in case it
should really be in existence in the cpllection of Count Maurepas,
but without success. I find older, but equally doubtful, statements
as to the existence of alphabetical inscriptions belonging to the
primitive nations of America, in Pedro de Cie§a de Leon, Chronica
del Peru, p. i. cap. 87 (losa con letras en los edificios.de Vinaque) ;
in G-arcia, Origen de los Indios, 1607, lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 258 ; and in
Columbus' s Journal of his first voyage, in Navarrete, Viages de
los Espanoles, t. i. p. 67. M. de Verandrier moreover affirmed
(and earlier travellers had also thought^they had observed the same
thing), that in the prairies of Western Canada, throughout entire
days' journeys, traces of the ploughshare were discoverable ; but the
total ignorance of the primitive ^nations of America with regard to
this agricultural implement, the want of draft cattle, and the great
extent of ground over which the supposed furrows are found — all
lead me to conjecture that this singular appearance of a ploughed
field has been produced by some efiect of water on the surface of
the earth.

(13) p. 29.—" Like, an arm of the Sea."

The great Steppe, which extends from east to west from the
mouth of the Orinoco to the snowy mountains of Merida, turns to

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 97

the south in the 8th degree of latitude, filling the space between the
eastern declivity of the high mountains of New Granada, and the
Orinoco, the course of which is, in this part, from south to north.
This latter portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the
Vichada, the Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley of the
Amazons with the valley of the Lower Orinoco. The word Paramo,
which I often employ in these pages, signifies in Spanish America
all those mountainous regions which are elevated from 1800 to 2200
toises above the level of the sea (11,500 to 14,000 English feet in
round numbers), and in which an ungenial, rough, and misty climate
prevails. Hail and snow fall daily for several hours in the upper
Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply of moisture to the alpine
plants ; a supply not arising from a large absolute quantity of aque-
ous vapor in these high regions, but from the frequency of showers
(hail and snow being so termed as well as rain), produced by the
rapidly changing currents of air, and the variations of the electric
tension. The arborescent vegetation of these regions is low and
spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and myrtle-
leaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are adorned with fresh
and evergreen foliage. Escallonia tubar, Escallonia inyrtilloides,
Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Weinmannias, Frezieras, Gaultherias,
and Andromeda reticulata, may be regarded as representatives of
the physiognomy of this vegetation. To the south of the town
of Santa Fe de Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz; a lonely
mountain group, in which, according to Indian tradition, vast trea-
sures are buried. The torrent which flows under the remarkable
natural bridge of the rocky ravine of Icononzo rises in this Paramo.
In my Latin memoir, entitled "De distributione geographica Planta-
rum secundem coali temperiem et altitudinem montium, 1817," I
have sought to characterize those mountain regions : " Altitudine
1700-1900 hexapod. Asperrimse solitudines, quse a colonis hispa-
nis uno nomine Paramos appellantur, tempestatum vicissitudinibus
mire obnoxise, ad quas solutse et emollitae defluunt nivesj ventorum
flatibus ac nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa regio, quse seque
per diem et per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi luce fere nunquam
calefacta. Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat magnse civitates, ut
Micuiparnpa Peruvianorum, ubi thermometrum centes. meridie inter
9

98 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

5° et 8°, noctu — 0°.4 consistere vidi ; Huancavelica, propter cinna-
baris venas celebrata, ubi altitudine 1835 hexap. fere totum per an-
num temperies mensis Martii Parisiis." (Humboldt de distrib.
geogr. Plant., p. 104.)

(14) p. 29. — " The Andes and the eastern mountains send forth
detached spurs, which advance towards each other."

The vast region situated between the eastern coast of South Ame-
rica and the eastern declivity of the Andes, is narrowed by two
mountain passes, which partially divide from each other the three
valleys or plains of the Lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the
River Plate. The most northern mountains, called the group of the
Parime, are opposite to the Andes of Cundinamarca, which project
far to the east, and assume, in the 66th and 68th degrees of longi-
tude, the form of high mountains, connected by the narrow ridge of
Pacaraima with the granite hills of French Guiana. On the map of
Columbia constructed by me from my own astronomical observations,
this connection is .clearly marked. The Caribs, who penetrated from
the missions of the Caroni to the plains of the Rio Branco, and as far
as the Brazilian boundary, crossed in the journey the ridges of Paca-
raima and Quimiropaca. The second mountain mass, which divides
the valley of the Amazons from the River Plate, is the Brazilian
group. In the province of Chiquitos (west of the Parecis range of
hills), it approaches the promontory of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. As
neither the group of the Parime, which causes the great cataracts of
the Orinoco, nor the Brazilian group of mountains, are absolutely
connected with the Andes, the plains of Venezuela have a direct
connection with those of Patagonia. (See my geognostical view of
South America, in Relat. Hist. t. iii. pp. 188-244.)

(15) p. 30.—" Troops of dogs."

European dogs have become wild in the grassy plains or Pampas
of Buenos Ayres. They live in society, and in hollows in which
they hide their young. If the society becomes too numerous, some
families detach themselves and form new colonies. The European
dog, which has become wild, barks as loud as the original American
hairy race. Garcilasso relates that, before the arrival of the Spaniards,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 99

the Peruvians had dogs, "perros gozques." He calls the native
dog, Allco : it is called at present in the Quiclma language, to dis-
tinguish him from the European dog, " Runa-allco," " Indian dog"
(dog of the inhabitants of the country). The hairy Runa-allco
seems to be a mere variety of the shepherd's dog. He is small,
with long hair (usually of an ochry yellow, with white and brown
spots), and with upright, sharp-pointed ears. He barks a great deal,
but seldom bites the natives, however disposed to be mischievous to
the whites. When the Inca Pachacutec, in his religious wars with
the Indians of Xauxa and Huanca (the present valley of Huaucaya
and Jauja), conquered them, and converted them forcibly to the
worship of the sun, he found them paying divine honors to dogs.
Priests blew on the skulls of dogs, and the worshippers ate their
flesh. (Grarcilasso de la Vega, Comentarfos Reales, p. i. p. 184.)
This veneration of dogs in the valley of Huancaya is probably th e
reason why skulls, and even entire mummies of dogs, have been
found in the Huacas, or Peruvian graves belonging to the earliest
epoch. Von Tschudi, the author of an excellent Fauna Peruviana,
has examined these skulls, and believes them to belong to a peculiar
species of dog, which he calls Canis ingse, and which is different
from the European dog. The Huancas are still called derisively by
the inhabitants of other provinces, "dog-eaters." Among the na-
tives of the Rocky Mountains, cooked dog's flesh is set before stran-
gers as a feast of honor. Near Fort Laramie (one of the stations
of the Hudson's Bay Company for the fur trade with the Sioux In-
dians), Captain Fremont attended a feast of this description. (Fre*-
mont's Exploring Expedition, 1845, p. 42.)

The Peruvian dogs had a singular part to play in eclipses of the
moon : they were beaten until the eclipse was over. The Mexican
Techichi, a variety of the common dog, which latter was called in
Anahuac Chichi, was completely dumb. Techichi signifies literally
stone-dog, from the Aztec, Tetl, a stone. The Techichi was eaten
according to the old Chinese fashion. The Spaniards found this
food, before the introduction of European cattle, so indispensable,
that almost the whole race was gradually extirpated. (Clavigero,
Storia antica del Messico, 1780, t. i. p. 73.) Buffon confounds the
Techichi with the Koupara of Gruiana. (T. xv. p. 155.) The latter

100 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

is identical with the Procyon, or Ursus cancrivorus, the Raton crab-
ier, or crab-eating Aquaraguaza of the Patagonian coast. (Azara
sur les quadrupedes du Paraguay, t. i. p. 315.) Linnaeus, on the
other hand, confounds the dumb variety of dogs with the Mexican
Itzcuintepotzotli, a kind of dog still only imperfectly described, said
to be distinguished by a short tail, a very small head, and a large
hump on the back. The name signifies humped-dog, and is formed
from the Aztec, itzcuintli (another word for dog), and tepotzotli,
humped, a humpback. I was particularly struck in America, and
especially in Quito, and generally in Peru, with the great number
of black dogs without hair, called by Buffon " chiens turcs" (Canis
segyptius, Linn.). Even among the Indians this variety is common,
but it is generally despised and ill-treated. All European breeds of
dogs perpetuate themselves very well in South America, and if the
dogs there are not so handsome as those in Europe, the reason is partly
want of care, and partly that the handsomest varieties (such as fine
greyhounds and the Danish spotted breed), have never been intro-
duced there.

Herr von Tschudi makes the singular remark that, in the Cor-
dilleras, at elevations of 13,000 feet, tender races of dogs, and the
European domestic cat, are exposed to a particular kind of mortal
disease. " Innumerable attempts have been made to keep cats as
domestic animals in the town of the Cerro de Pasco, 13,228 French
(or 14,100 English) feet above the level of the sea, but such attempts
have failed, both cats and dogs dying at the end of a few days, in fits,
in which the cats were taken at first with convulsive movements,
then tried to climb the walls, fell back exhausted and motionless,
and died. In Yauli I had several opportunities of observing this
chorea-like disease } it seems to be a cohsequence of the absence of
sufficient atmospheric pressure." In the Spanish colonies, the hair-
less dog was looked upon as of Chinese origin, and called Perro Chi-
nesco, or Chino. The race was supposed to have come from Canton
or from Manila : according to Klaproth, it has certainly been ex-
tremely common in China since very early times. Among the ani-
mals indigenous to Mexico, there was an entirely hairless, dog-like,
but very large wolf, called Xoloitzcuintli (from the Mexican xolo or

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 101

xolotl, servant or slave). On American dogs, see Smith Barton's
Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, p. i. p. 34.

The result of Tschudi's researches on the American indigenous
races of "dogs is the following. There are two kinds almost spe-
cifically different : 1. The Canis caraibicus of Lesson, quite without
hair, except a small bunch of white hair on the forehead and at the
point of the tail, of a slate gray color, and silent ; it was found by
Columbus in the Antilles, by Cortes in Sejpjfi^j 4nrt by Pizaj-rJ/ in
Peru, where it suffers from the cold of the Cordilleras, but js still
abundant in the warmer parts of the* .courtr^ uiister' the Taartje ;cf
perros chinos. 2. The Canis ingse, with pointed nose and pointed
ears ; this kind barks : it is now employed in the care of cattle, and
shows many varieties of colors, from being crossed with European
breeds. The Canis ingae follows man to the high regions of the
Cordilleras. In ancient Peruvian graves his skeleton is sometimes
found resting at the feet of the human mummy. We know how
often the carvers of monuments in our own middle ages employed
the figure of a dog in this position, as an emblem of fidelity. ( J. J.
v. Tschudi, Untersuchungen iiber die Fauna Peruana, s. 247-251.)
At the very beginning of the Spanish conquests, European dogs
became wild in the islands of San Domingo and Cuba. (Grarcilasso,
p. i. 1723, p. 326.) In the prairies between the Meta, the Arauca,
and the Apure, voiceless dogs (perros mudos) were eaten in the 16th
century. Alonso de Herrara, who, in 1535, undertook an expe-
dition to the Orinoco, says the natives called them " Majos" or
"Auries." A well-informed traveller, Giesecke, found the same
non-barking variety of dog in Greenland. The Esquimaux dogs
pass their lives entirely in the open air ; at night they scrape holes
for themselves in the snow ; they howl like wolves, in accompani-
ment with a dog that sits in the middle of the circle and sets them
off. In Mexico the dogs were subjected to an operation to make
them fatter and better eating. On the borders of the province of
Durango, and farther to the north on tl^e slave lake, the natives,
formerly at least, conveyed their tents of "buffalo skins on the backs
of large dogs when changing their -place of residence with the
change of season. All these traits resemble the customs of the

9*

102 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

inhabitants of Eastern Asia. (Humboldt, Essai polit. t. ii. p. 448 ;
Relation hist. t. ii. p. 625.)

(l6) p. 30. — -"Like the greater part of the Desert of Sahara, the

Llanos are in the torrid zone"

Significant denominations — particularly such as refer to the form
in relief of the earth's surface, and which have arisen at a period
when . there was only very uncertain information respecting the
countries in question and their hypsometric relations — have led to
vai ious" aii«lt ioiig-contjniied geographical errors. The ancient deno-
'inmafion' of the <- Greater 'and Lesser Atlas" (Ptol. Geogr. lib. iii.
cap. 1) has exercised the prejudicial influence here alluded to. No
doubt the snow-covered western summits of the Atlas in the terri-
tory of Morocco may be regarded as the Oreat Atlas of Ptolemy ;
but where is the limit of the Little Atlas ? Is the division into two
Atlas chains, which the conservative tendencies of geographers have
preserved for 1700 years, to be still maintained in the territory of
Algiers, and even between Tunis and Tlemse ? Are we to seek
between the coast and the interior for parallel chains constituting a
greater and a lesser Atlas ? All travellers familiar with geognostical
views, who have visited Algeria since it has been taken possession
of by the French, contest the meaning conveyed by the generally
received nomenclature. Among the parallel chains, that of Jurjura
is generally supposed to be the highest of those which have been
measured; but the well-informed Fournel (long Ingenieur en chef
des Mines de TAlgerie), affirms that the mountains of Aures, near
Batnah, which were still found covered with snow at the end of
March, are higher. Fournel denies the existence of a Little and a
Great Atlas, as I do that of a Little and a Great Altai (Asie Cen-
trale, t. i. pp. 247-252). There is only one Atlas, formerly called
Dyris by the Mauritanians, and this name is to be applied to the
" foldings" (" rides") or succession of crests which form the divi-
sion between the waters flowing to the Mediterranean, and those
which flow towards the Sahara lowland. The strike or direction of
the Eastern Mauritanian portion of the Atlas is from east to west ;
that of the elevated Atlas of Morocco from north-east to south-west,
The latter rises into summits, which, according to Renou, (Explora-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 103

tion Scientifique de TAlgerie de 1840 & 1842, publiee par ordre du
Gouvernement, Sciences Hist, et Geogr. t. viii. 1846, pp. 364 and
373,) attain an elevation of 10,700 Fr. (11,400 Eng.) feet; exceed-
ing, therefore, the height of Etna. A singularly formed highland
of an almost square shape (Sahab el Marga), bounded on the south by
higher elevations, is situated in 33° lat. From thence towards the sea
to the west, about a degree south of Mogador, the Atlas declines in
height : this south-westernmost part bears the name of Idrar-N-Deren.
The northern Mauritanian boundaries of the widely extended low
region of the Sahara, as well as its southern limits towards the fertile
Soudan, are still but little known. If we take on a mean, estima-
tion the parallels of 16 £° and 32 £° as the outside limits, we obtain
for the Desert, including its Oases, an area of more than 118,500
square German geographical miles ; or between nine and ten times
the area of Germany, and almost three times that of the Mediter-
ranean, exclusive of the Black Sea. From the best and most recent
intelligence, for which we are indebted to the French Colonel
Daumas and MM. Fournel, Renou, and Carette, we learn that the
Desert of Sahara is composed of several detached basins, and that
the number and the population of the fertile Oases are very much
greater than had been imagined from the awfully desert character
of the route between Insalah and Timbuctoo, and that from Mour-
zouk in Fezzan, to Bilma, Tirtuma, and Lake Tschad. It is now
generally affirmed that the sand covers only the smaller portion of
the great lowland. A similar opinion had been previously pro-
pounded by the acutely observant Ehrenberg, my Siberian travelling
companion, from what he had himself seen (Exploration Scientifique
de TAlgerie, Hist, et Geogr. t. ii. p. 332). Of larger wild animals,
only gazelles, wild asses, and ostriches are to be met with. " Le
lion du desert," says M. Carette, (Explor. de TAlg. t, ii. pp.
126-129; t. vii. pp. 94 and 97,) "est un mythe popularise par les
artistes et les poetes. II n'existe que dans leur imagination. Cet
animal ne sort pas de sa montagne ou il trouve de quoi se loger,
s'abreuver et se nourrir. Quand on parle aux habitans du desert
de ces b6tes feroces que les Europe'ens leur donnent pour compag-
nons, ils repondent avec un imperturbable sang froid, il y a done chez
vous des lions qui boivent de Fair et broutent des feuilles ? Chez nous

104 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

il faut aux lions de 1'eau corn-ante ^t de la chair vive. Aussi des lions
ne paraissent dans le Zahara que la ou il y a des collines boisees et
de 1'eau. Nous ne craignons que la vipere (lefa) et d'innombrables
essaims de moustiques, ces derniers la ou il y a quelque huniidite."

Whereas Dr. Oudney, in the. course of the long journey from
Tripoli to Lake Tschad, estimated the elevation of the southern
Sahara at 1637 English feet, to which German geographers have
even ventured to add an additional thousand feet, the Ingenieur
Fournel has, by careful barometric measurements based on cor-
responding observations, made it tolerably probable that a part of
the northern desert is below the level of the sea. "That portion
of the desert which is now called " le Zahara d' Algerie" advances
to the chains of hills of Metlili and el-G-aous, where the northern-
most of all the Oases — that of el-Kantara; fruitful in dates — is
situated. This low basin, which touches the parallel of 34° lat.,
receives the radiant heat of a stratum of chalk (full of the shells
of Inoceramus), inclined at an angle of 65° towards the south
(Fournel sur les Grisemens de Muriate de Soude en Algerie, p. 6 in
the Annales des Mines, 4me serie, t. ix. 1846, p. 546). " Arrives
& 'Biscara" (Biskra), says Fournel, "un horizon indefini comme
celui de la mer se deroulait devant nous." Between Biscara and
Sidi Ocba the ground is only 228 (243 Eng.) feet above the level of
the sea. The inclination increases considerably towards the south.
In another work (Asia Centrale, t. ii. p. 320), where I have brought
together everything relating to the depression of some portions of
continents below the level of the sea, I have already noticed that,
according to Le Pere, the " bitter lakes" on the Isthmus of Suez,
when they have a little water — and, according to General Andreossy,
the Natron Lakes of Fayqum — are also lower than the level of the
Mediterranean.

Among other manuscript notices of M. Fournel, I possess a ver-
tical geological profile, which gives all the inflexions and inclinations
of the strata, representing a section of the surface the whole way from
Philippeville on the coast to the Desert of Sahara, at a spot not far
from the Oasis of Biscara. The direction of the line on which the
barometric measurements were taken is south 20° west ; but the ele-
vations determined are projected, as in my Mexican profiles, on a dif-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 105

ferent plane — a north-south one. Ascending uninterruptedly from
Constantine, at an elevation of 332 toises (2122 Eng. feet), the
culminating point is found between Batnah and Tizur, at an eleva-
tion of only 560 toises (3580 Eng. feet). In the part of the Desert
situated between Biscara and Tuggurt, Fournel has had a series of
Artesian wells dug with success (Comptes Rendus de TAcad. des
Sciences, t. xx. 1845, pp. 170, 882, and 1305). We learn from the
old accounts of Shaw, that the inhabitants of the country knew of
a subterranean supply of water, and relate fabulous tales of a " sea
under the earth (bahr toht el-erd)." Fresh waters flowing between
clay and marl strata of the old cretaceous and other sedimentary
deposits, under the action of hydrostatic pressure form gushing
fountains when the strata are pierced (Shaw, Voyages dans plusieurs
parties de la Berbe>ie, t. i. p. 169 j Rennell, Africa, Append, p.
Ixxxv). That fresh water in this part of the world should often be
found near beds of rock salt, need not surprise geologists acquainted
with mines, since Europe offers many analogous phenomena.

The riches of the Desert in rock salt, and the fact of rock salt
having been used in building, have been known since the time of
Herodotus. The salt zone of the Sahara (zone salifere du desert)
is the southernmost of three zones, stretching across Northern Africa
from south-west to north-east, and believed to be connected with the
beds or deposits of rock salt of Sicily and Palestine, described by
Friedrich Hoffman and by Robinson. (Fournel, sur les Gisemens
de Muriate de Soude en Algerie, pp. 28-41; Karsten iiber das
Yorkommen des Kochsalzes auf der Oberflache der Erde, 1846, s.
497, 648, and 741.) The trade in salt with Soudan, and the possi-
bility of cultivating dates in the Oases, formed by depressions caused
probably by falls or subsidences of the earth in the gypsum beds of
the tertiary cretaceous or keuper promotions, have alike contributed
to enliven the Desert, at least to some extent, by human intercourse.
The high temperature of the air, which makes the day's march so
oppressive, renders the coldness of the nights (of which Denham
complained so often in the African Desert, and Sir Alexander
Burnes in the Asiatic), so much the more striking. Melloni
(Memoria sulF abassamento di temperatura durante le notti placide
e serene, 1847, p. 55) ascribes this cold> produced doubtless by the.

106 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

radiation from the ground, less to the great purity and serenity of
the sky (irrigiamento calorifico per la grande serenita di cielo nell'
immensa e deserta pianura dell' Africa centrale), than to the pro-
found calm, the nightly absence of all movement in the atmosphere.
(Consult also, respecting African meteorology, Aime in the Explora-
tion de PAlgerie, Physique generale, t. ii. 1846, p. 147.)

The southern declivity of the Atlas of Morocco sends to the
Sahara, in lat. 32°, a river, the Quad-Dra (Wady-Dra), which for
the greater part of the year is nearly dry, and which Renou (Explor.
de FAlg. Hist, et G-eogr., t. viii. pp. 65-78) considers to be a sixth
longer than the Rhine. It flows at first from north to south, until,
in lat. 29° N. and long. 5° W.,it turns almost at right angles to its
former course, runs to the west, and, after passing through the great
fresh water Lake of Debaid, enters the sea at Cape Nun, in lat. 28°
46' N. and long. 11° 8' W. This region, which was so celebrated
formerly in the history of the Portuguese discoveries of the 15th
century, and was afterwards wrapped in profound geographical ob-
scurity, is now called on the coast " the country of the Sheikh Bei-
rouk" (a chief independent of the Emperor of Morocco). It was
explored in the months of July and August 1840, by Captain Count
Bouet-Villaumez of the French Navy, by order of his government.
From the official Reports and Surveys which have been communi-
cated to me in manuscript, it appears evident that the mouth of the
Quad-Dra is at present very much stopped up with sand, having an
open channel of only about 190 English feet wide. A somewhat
more easterly channel in the same mouth is that of the still very
little known Saguiel el-Hamra, which comes from the south, and is
supposed to have a course of at least 600 geographical miles. One
is astonished at the length of these deep, but commonly dry river
beds. They are ancient furrows, such as I have seen in the Peruvian
Desert at the foot of the Cordilleras, between those mountains and
the coast of the Pacific. In Bouet's manuscript ^J&lation de TEx-
pe*dition de la Malouine," the mountains which rise Jto the north of
Cape Nun are estimated at the great elevation of 2800 metres (9185
English feet).

Cape Nun is usually supposed to have been discovered in 1433,
by the Knight Gilianez, acting under the command of the cele-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 107

brated Infante Henry Duke of Viseo, and founder of the Academy
of Sagres, which was presided over by the pilot and cosmographer
Mestre Jacome of Majorca; but the Portulano Mediceo, the work
of a Genoese navigator in 1351, already contains the name of
Cavo di Non. The passage round this cape was then as much
dreaded as that of Cape Horn has since been, although it is 23'
north of the parallel of Teneriife, and could be reached in a few
days' voyage from Cadiz. The Portuguese proverb, " quern passa

0 Cabo di Num, ou tornara ou nao," could not deter the Infante,
whose heraldic French motto, " talent de Men faire," expressed his
noble, enterprising, and vigorous character. The name of the
cape, in which a play of words on the negative particle has long
been supposed, does not appear to me to have had a Portuguese

1 origin. Ptolemy placed on the north-west coast of Africa a river
iNuius, in the Latin version Nunii Ostia. Edrisi speaks of a town,
'Nul, or Wadi Nun, somewhat more to the south, and three days'
j journey in the interior : Leo Africanus calls it Belad de Non.
Long before the Portuguese squadron of Gilianez, other European

avigators had advanced much beyond, or to the -southward of, this
pe. The Catalan, Don Jayme Ferrer, in 13,46, as we learn
rom the Atlas Catalan published by Buchon at Paris, had ad-
anced as far as the Gold River (Rio do Ouro), in lat. 23° 56';
nd Normans, -at the end of the 14th century, as far as Sierra
Leone in lat. 8° 30'. The merit of having been the first to cross
he Equator on the western coast of Africa belongs, however, like
lat of so many other memorable achievements, to the Portuguese.

(1?) p. 30. — "As a grassy plain, resembling many of the Steppes
of Central Asia"

The Llanos of Caraccas and of the Rio Apure and the Meta,
ver which roam large herds of cattle, are, in the strictest sense of
;he term, " grassy plains." Their prevalent vegetation, belonging
o the two families of Cyperaceae and Gramineae, consists of various
pecies of Paspalum, P. leptostachyum and P. lenticulare ; of Kyi-
ingia, K! monocephala (Rottb.), K. odorata; of Panicum, P.
ranuliferum, P. micranthum; of Antephora; Aristida; Vilfa;
ind Anthistiria, A. reflexa, and A. foliosa. Only here and there

1 08 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

are found, interspersed among the G-ramineae, a few herbaceous,
dicotyledonous plants, consisting of two very low -growing species
of Mimosa (Sensitive Plant), Mimosa intermedia, and Mimosa
dormiens, which are great favorites with the wild horses and
cattle. The natives give to this group of plants, which close their
delicate feathery leaves on being touched, the expressive name of
Dormideras — sleepy plants. For many square miles not a tree is
seen ; but where solitary trees are found, they are, in moist places,
the Mauritia Palm; in arid districts, a Proteacea, described by
Bonpland and myself, the Rhopala complicata (Chaparro bobo),
which Wildenow regarded as an Embothrium; also the highly
useful Palma de Covija, or de Sombrero; and our Corypha inermis,
an umbrella palm allied to Chamaerops, which is used to cover the
roofs of huts. How far more varied is the aspect of the Asiatic
plains ! Throughout a large portion of the Kirghis and Calmuck
Steppes, which I have traversed from the Don, the Caspian, and
the Orenburg Ural river to the Jaik, to the Obi and the Upper Irtysh
near Lake Dsaisang, through a space of 40 degrees of longitude, I
have never seen, as in the Llanos, the Pampas, and the Prairies,
an horizon like that of the ocean, where the vault of heaven
appears to rest on the unbroken plain. At the utmost this appear-
ance presented itself in one direction, or towards one quarter of the
heavens. The Asiatic Steppes are often crossed by ranges of hills,
or clothed with coniferous woods or forests. Even in the most
fruitful pastures the vegetation is by no means limited to grasses ;
there is a great variety of herbaceous plants and shrubs. In
spring-time small snow-white and Ted flowering rosaceae and amyg-
daleae (Spiraea, Crataegus, Prunus spinosa, and Amygdalus nana)
present a smiling aspect. I have already mentioned the tall and
luxuriant SynantheraB (Saussurea amara, S. salsa, Artemisias, and
Centaureas), and of leguminous plants, species of Astragalus, Cy-
tisusf, and Caragana. Grown Imperials (Fritillaria ruthenica, and
F. meleagroides), Cypripedias, and tulips, rejoice the eye by the
bright variety of their colors.

A contrast to the pleasing vegetation of these Asiatic plains is
presented by the desolate salt Steppes, particularly by the part of
the Barabinski Steppe which is at the foot of the Altai mountains,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 109

and by the Steppes between Barnaul and the Serpent Mountain and
the country on the east of the Caspian. Here Chenopodias, some
species of Salsola and Atriplex, Salicornias and Halimocnemis cras-
sifolia, (each species growing " socially/') form patches of vegetation
on the muddy ground. See Gbbel's Journey in the Steppes of the
South of Russia (Reise in die Steppe des siidlichen Russlands,
.1838, th. ii. s. 244 and 301). Of the 500 phanerogamous species
which Claus and Gbbel collected in. the Steppes, the Syrantheraa, the
Chenopodese, and the CruciferaD, were more numerous than the
grasses ; the latter being only -^yth of the whole, and the former |th
and ^th. In Germany, from the mixture of hill and plain districts,
the Glumaceae (i. e. the Graminese, CyperaeeaB, and Juncaceae col-
lectively) form |th ; the Synantherae or Compositae |th ; and the
Cruciferae T\th of all our German phanerogamia. In the most
northern parts of the flat Siberian lowlands, the fine map of Admi-
ral Wrangell shows that the extreme northern limit of tree and
shrub vegetation (Coniferae and Amentaceae) is, in the portion to-
wards the Behring's Straits side, in G7±° lat. ; and more to the west,
towards the banks of the Lena, in 71°, which is the parallel of the
north cape of Lapland. The plains which border the Icy Sea are the
domain of cryptogamous plants. They are called Tundras (Tuntur, in
Finnish) : they are swampy districts extending farther than the eye
can reach, partly covered with a thick carpet of Sphagnum palustre
and other mosses, and partly with a dry snow-white covering of Ceno-
myce rangiferina (Reindeer moss), Stereocaulon paschale, and other
lichens. Admiral Wrangell, in describing his perilous expedition to
the new Siberian islands so rich in fossil wood, says : " These Tun-
dras accompanied me to the extreme arctic coast. Their soil has
been frozen for thousands of years. In the dreary uniformity of
landscape, the eye of the traveller, surrounded by reindeer moss,
dwells with pleasure on the smallest patch of green turf showing
itself now and then on a moist spot."

(18) p. 30. — t( The causes which lessen both heat and dry ness in the
New World."

I have tried, to bring together in a brief and compendious manner
the various causes which produce greater moisture and a less degree
10

110 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of heat in America ; it will of course be understood that the ques-
tion respects the general hygrometric state of the atmosphere, and
the temperature of the New Continent as a whole. Single districts,
such as the island of Margarita, the Coasts of Cumana and Coro, are
as hot and as dry as any part of Africa. It must also be remarked
that the maximum of heat at certain hours of a summer's day has
been found, on a series of years, to be almost equal at very different
parts of the earth's surface, on the Neva, the Senegal, the Ganges,
and the Orinoco; being approximately between 27° and 32° Reau-
mur (93° and 104° Fahrenheit), and generally not higher, — provid-
ing the observation be made in the shade, at a distance from all solid
bodies which could radiate heat to the thermometer, not in an air
filled with hot particles of dust or sand, and not with spirit thermo-
meters, which absorb the light. It is probably to fine grains of sand
floating in the air, and forming centres of radiant heat, that we must
ascribe the dreadful temperature of 40° to 44°. 8 Reaumur (122° to
133° Fah.) in the shade, to which my unhappy friend Ritchie, who
perished there, and Captain Lyon, were exposed for weeks in the
Oasis of Mourzouk. The most remarkable instance of very high
temperature, in an air probably free from dust, has been recorded by
an observer who knew well how to place and to correct all his in-
struments with the greatest degree of accuracy. Riippell found
37°.6 Reaumur (110°. 6. Fahrenheit), at Ambukol in Abyssinia,
with a clouded sky, strong south-west wind, and an approaching
thunderstorm. The mean annual temperature of the tropics, or of
the proper climate of palms, is, on land, between 20°. 5 and 23°. 8
Reaumur (or 78°.2 and 85°. 5 Fahrenheit), without any considerable
difference between the observations collected in Senegal, Pondicherry,
and Surinam. (Humboldt, Me"moire surles lignes isothermes, 1817,
p. 54. Asie Centrale, t. iii. Mahlmann, Table iv.)

.The great coolness, I might almost say cold, which prevails for a
considerable part of the year within the tropics on the coast of Peru,
causing the thermometer to sink to 12° Reaumur (59° Fahrenheit),
is, as I have noticed elsewhere, by no means to be ascribed to the
vicinity of the snow-covered Andes, but rather to the fogs (garua)
which veil the solar disk, and to a cold sea current which, commenc-
ing in the antarctic regions and coming from the south-west, strikes

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. Ill

the coast of Chili near Valdivia and Congeption, and thence streams
rapidly along the coast to the northward, as far as Cape Parina. On
the coast, near Lima, the temperature of the Pacific is 12°. 5 Reau-
mur (60°. 2 Fahr.), whilst in the same latitude out of the current it
is 21° R. (79°.2 Fahr.) It is singular that so striking a fact should
have remained unnoticed until my visit to the shores of the Pacific,
in October 1802.

The variations of temperature of different regions depend in a great
degree on the character of the bottom of the " aerial ocean," or on
the nature of the floor or base, whether land or sea, continental or
oceanic, on which the atmosphere rests. Seas, often traversed by
currents of warmer or colder water (oceanic rivers), have an effect
very different from that of continental masses, whether unbroken or
articulated, or of islands, which latter may be regarded as shallows
in the aerial ocean, and which, notwithstanding their small dimen-
sions, exert, often to a great distance, a notable influence on the
climate of the sea. In continental masses we must distinguish be-
tween sandy deserts devoid of vegetation, savannahs or grassy plains,
and forest-covered districts. In Upper Egypt and in South America,
Nouet in the former, and myself in the latter, found respectively at
noon the temperature of the ground composed of granitic sand 54°. 2
and 48°. 4 Reaumur (154° and 141° Fahr.). Many careful observa-
tions in Paris have given, according to Arago, 40° and 42° Reaumur,
122° and 126°.5 Fahrenheit. (Asie Centrale, t. iii. p. 176.) The
Savannahs, which between the Missouri and the Mississippi are called
Prairies, and which appear in South America as the Llanos of Vene-
zuela and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, are covered with small
monocotyledonous plants of the family of Cyperaceae, and with grasses
of which the thin pointed stalks or ears, and the delicate lanceolate
leaves or blades, radiate towards the unclouded sky, and possess an
extraordinary power of "emission." Wells and Daniell (Meteor.
Essays, 1827, p. 230 and 278) have even seen in our latitude, where
the atmosphere has so much less transparency, the thermometer sink
6°. 5 or 8° of Reaumur (14°. 5 or 18° Fahrenheit), on being placed
on the grass. Melloni, in a memoir, " Sull abassamento di tempera-
tura durante le notti placide e serene," 1847, pp. 47 and 53, has
shown how in a calm state of the atmosphere, which is a necessary

112 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

condition of strong radiation and of the formation of dew, the cooling
of the grassy surface is also promoted by the particles of air which
are already cooled sinking to the ground as being the heaviest. In
the vicinity of the Equator, under the clouded sky of the Upper
Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and the Amazons River, the plains are
clothed with dense primeval forests ; but to the north and south of
this wooded region there extend from the zone of palms and lofty
dicotyledonous trees, in the northern hemisphere, the Llanos of the
Lower Orinoco, the Meta and the Guaviare, and in the southern
hemisphere the Pampas of the Rio de la Plata and of Patagonia.
The space thus occupied by Savannahs or grassy plains in South
America is at least nine times as great as the area of France.

The wooded region acts in a threefold manner in diminishing the
temperature ; by cooling shade, by evaporation, and by radiation.
Forests,— -which in our temperate zone consist of trees living together
in "society," i. e., many individuals' of one, or of a few kinds, of the
families of Coniferse or Amentacese, oaks, beeches, and birches, but
in the tropics, of an immense variety of trees living separately or
"unsocially," — protect the ground from the direct rays of the sun,
evaporate fluids elaborated by the trees themselves, and cool the
strata of air in immediate contact with them by the radiation of heat
from their appendicular organs or leaves. The latter are far from
being all parallel with each other; they are, on the contrary, variously
inclined to the horizon, and, according to the law developed by Leslie
and Fourier, the influence of this inclination upon the quantity of
heat emitted by radiation is such, that the power of radiation (pou-
voir rayonnant) of a measured surface a, having a given oblique
direction, is equal to the " pouvoir rayonnant" which would belong
to a surface of the size of a, projected on a horizontal plane. Now
in the initial condition of radiation, of all the leaves which form the
summit of a tree and partly cover each other, those are first cooled
which are directed without any intervening screen towards the un-
clouded sky. The cooling result (or the exhaustion of heat by
emission) will be the more considerable the greater the thinness of
the leaves. A second stratum of leaves has its upper surface turned
to the under surface of the first stratum, and will give out more heat
by radiation towards that stratum than it can receive by radiation

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 113

from it. The result of this unequal exchange will thus be a loss of
temperature for the second stratum of leaves also. A similar opera-
tion will continue from stratum to stratum until all the leaves of the
tree, by greater or less radiation, as modified by their diversity of
position, have passed into a state of stable equilibrium, of which the
law can be deduced by mathematical analysis. In this manner, in
the long and clear nights of the equinoctial zone, the forest air con-
tained in the intervals between the strata of leaves becomes cooled
by the process of radiation; and by reason of the great quantity of
its thin appendicular organs or leaves, a tree, the horizontal section
of whose summit would measure for example 2000 square feet, would
act in diminishing the temperature of the air equivalently to a space
of bare or turf-covered ground several thousand times greater than
2000 square feet (Asie Centrale, t. iii. pp. 195-205). I have sought
thus to develope in detail the complicated effects which make up the
total action of extensive forests upon the atmosphere, because they
have been BO often touched upon in reference to the important ques-
tion concerning the climates of ancient Germany and Gaul.

As in the Old Continent European civilization has had its princi-
pal seats on a western coast, it could not but be early remarked that,
under equal degrees of latitude, the opposite eastern coast of the
United States was several degrees colder in mean annual tempera-
ture than Europe, which is, as it were, a projecting western penin-
sula to Asia, as Brittany is to the rest of France. But in this re-
mark it was forgotten that these differences decrease from the higher
to the lower latitudes, in such manner that they almost entirely
disappear from 30° downwards. For the west coast of the New
Continent, exact thermometric observations are still almost entirely
wanting ; but the mildness of the winters in New California shows
that the west coasts of America and Europe, under the same paral-
lels of latitude, probably differ little from each other in mean annual
temperature. The subjoined table shows what are the correspond-
ing mean annual temperatures, in the same geographical latitudes,
of the west coast of Europe and the east coast of the New Conti-
nent.

10*

114

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Reaumu

r. .

Fahrenhei

t.

<~ • „ «

to'0 01

, _

O £? ctf

3 = 0.

0 W "38

£• 2

S.S !&

*!?

£.1 Ss

* £

r* t

5-cW

3 & 3t-
Sv." ^C

SrJ

._ —

s-"8! I

||-

• g.°l °i

£ 2

Similar

West coast

S u" 5 D

« cs 35 o

3 **- O

S ^- § <S =

< e§

degrees
of

East coast of
America.

of
Europe.

»- 5«3 c

2 o S

a^o g |

|S

latitude.

111 1-

rSji

j,o^

55 «•« ^ £

§^« 5*

1*

—14°. 4"

1

— 0°.5"^

57° 10'

— 2°.8 -

25°.8

6c.l

45°.8

57° 41'-

Gottenburg

— 0°.2
6°.4

>9°.2

— 31°.5
46°.4
620.4^

^20°.7

V

-

— 4°.0~

23°. 0'

47° 34'

St. John's

2°. 7

38°. 0

9° .8

54°.0

— 0°.4

3P.O

47° 30'

Ofen . .

8° .2

>5°.8

50°.5

>13°.0

(or Buda)

16°.8

69°.8

- -•-

2°.6

37°.8

48° 50'

,

Paris . .

8° .7

51°.6

14°. 5^

64°. 6_^

J

44o 39'

Halifax '

—3°. 5'
50.1

i

24° .2"
430^5

f/"5

13° .8

I,,

65°.0 H

H3°.7

44o 50'

Bordeaux .

4°. 8
1P.2
17° .4,

1.

'42° .8
57°.2

40° 43'

New York

o°.r

32°. 2"1
52°. 5

.

18°.2

73°.0

0° 1

32°. 2

39° 57'

Philadelphia

9°.p

.

18°. 1

72°.8,

1°.8

36°,0

38° 53'

Washington

10° 2

k-QO 4

550^0

.QO A

17°.4

>O «TC

71°.2

>O «V

7°.8

49°.5

40° 51'

Naples .

12° .9

19°. 1

75°. 0

9°.0

52° .2

38° 52'

Lisbon

13°. 1

61°.5

17°. 4^

71°.2J

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

115

Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

*|

isi|

°|

lǤs.

£ S

I*i

i^||

si*

^11

r§

0 £ 1'2

tO S <j »

».0, s

°«ll

Similar

ill

0) -i ^ CS

o g<« o

|SS

o c5^- o

decrees

East coast .

West coast

of

of

of-

C! ^** °

h &, to w

s *** °

£ D.'JJ w

latitude.

America.

Europe.

|ll

|ll^

III

S *" or*

12°. 2^1

59°. 5"^

29° 48'

St Auffustin

17°.9 1

J. I tc/

72° 2 1

I & •&

22° .0

81°.5

>0°.2

>0°.4

n°.8 f

58°.5 1

30° 2'

Cairo .

17°.7

71°.8 — — '

23°. 4J

84°. 7 J

In the column of temperatures in the preceding table the first num-
ber represents the temperature of the year ; that which stands in
place of a numerator the mean winter temperature ; and that which
stands in the place of a denominator the mean summer temperature.
Besides the great difference of .mean annual temperature, there is
also a striking difference between the two coasts in respect to the
distribution of that temperature into the different seasons of the
year, and it is this distribution which is most influential both on our
feelings and on T;he processes of vegetation. Dove remarks gene-
rally, that the summer temperature of America is lower under equal
degrees of latitude than that of Europe (Temperatur tafeln- nebst
Bemerkungen iiber die Verbreitung der War-me auf der Oberflache
der Erde, 1848? s. 95). The climate of St. Petersburgh (or to
speak more correctly, the mean annual temperature of that city
which is in lat. 59° 56'), is found on the East coast of America, in
lat. 47 J°, or 12^° more to the south; in like manner we find the
climate ofKonigsberg (lat. 54° 43'), at Halifax (lat. 44° 39'). The
temperature of Toulouse (lat. 43° 36') corresponds to that of Wash-
ington (lat. 38° 53')-

It would be very hazardous to lay down any- general statements
respecting the temperature in the territory of the United States of
America, as we must distinguish in that territory three regions :

116 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

1, the Atlantic States east of the Alleghanies ; 2, the Western States
in the wide basin between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mount-
ains, through which flow the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Arkansas,
and the Missouri ; 3, the high plains between the Rocky Mountains,
and the Maritime Alps of New California through which the Oregon
or Columbia River finds a passage. Since the highly honorable
establishment, by John C. Calhoun, of uninterrupted observations of
temperature, made on a uniform plan at 35 military posts, and re-
duced to daily, monthly, and annual means, we have arrived at more
just climatic views than those which were so generally received in
the time of Jefferson, Barton, and Yolney. These meteorological
stations or observatories extend from the point of Florida and Thomp-
son's Island (Key West), lat. 24° 33', to the Council Bluffs on the
Missouri ; and if we reckon amongst them Fort Vancouver, lat. 45°
37', they include differences of longitude of 40°.

It cannot be affirmed that, on the whole, the mean annual tem-
perature^ of the second or middle region is higher than that of the
first or Atlantic region. The further advance (of certain plants to-
wards the north, on the west of the Alleghany mountains, depends
partly on the nature of those plants, and partly on the different dis-
tribution of the same annual quantity of heat. The wide valley of
the Mississippi enjoys at its northern and southern extremities the
warming influence of the Canadian Lakes, and of the Mexican Gulf
Stream. The five lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and
Ontario) occupy a space of 92,000 English square miles. The
climate is much milder and more equable in the neighborhood of
the lakes; for example, at Niagara (lat. 43° 15'); the mean winter
temperature is only half a degree of Reaumur (1°.2 Fahrenheit)
below the freezing point, while at a distance from the lakes, in lat.
44° 53', at the confluence of the river St. Peter's with the Missis-
sippi, the mean winter temperature of Fort Snelling is — 7°. 2 Reau-
mur, or 15°. 9 Fahrenheit (see Samuel Forry's excellent Memoir on
" the Climate of the United States," 1842, pp. 37, 39, and 102). .
At this distance from the Canadian \Lakes (whose surface is from
500 to 600—530 to 640 English— feet above the level of the sea,
whilst the bottom of the Lakes Michigan and Huron is about five
hundred feet below it), recent observations have shown the climate

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 117

of the country to possess a proper continental character, i. e. hotter
summers and colder winters. " It is proved/' says Ferry, " by our
thermometrical data, that the climate west .of the Alleghany Chain
is more excessive than that of the Atlantic side/' At Fort Gibson,
on the Arkansas River, which falls into the Mississippi in lat. 35°
47', with a mean annual temperature hardly equal to that of Gib-
raltar, the thermometer in the shade, and without any reflected heat
from the ground, has been seen, in August 1834, to rise to 3 7°. 7
Reaumur, or 117° Fahrenheit.

The statement so often repeated, although unsupported by any
thermometric measurements, that, since the first European settle-
ments in New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the eradication
of many forests on both sides of the Alleghanies had rendered the
climate more equable (i. e. milder in winter and cooler in summer),
is now generally doubted or disbelieved. Series of trustworthy ther-
mometric observations in the United States hardly extend so far
back as seventy-eight years. We see in the Philadelphia observa-
tions, that, from 1771 to 1824, the mean annual temperature has
hardly increased 1°.2 Reaumur (or 2°. 8 Fahrenheit) — a difference
which is attributed to the increased size of the town, to its greater
population, and to the numerous steam-engines. The difference may
possibly be merely accidental, for I find in the same period an in-
crease of mean winter cold, amounting to 0°.9 Reaumur, or 2° Fahr-
enheit; the three other seasons had become somewhat warmer.
Three-and-thirty years' observations at Salem, in Massachusetts,
show no alteration at all : the annual means oscillate, within a de-
gree of Fahrenheit, about the mean of the whole number of years ;
and the winters of Salem, instead of having become milder, as sup-
posed from the destruction of the forests in the course of the thirty-
three years, have become colder by 1°.8 Reaumur, or 4° Fahrenheit.
(Forry, pp. 97, 1Q1, and 107.)

As the east coast of the United States is comparable in respect to
mean annual temperature, in equal latitudes, to the Siberian and
Chinese coasts of the Old Continent, so also the west coasts of Europe
and America have been very properly compared together. I will
only take a few examples from the western region on the shores of
the Pacific, for two of which (Sitka in Russian America, and Fort

118

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

G-eorge, in the same latitudes respectively as G-ottenburg and Geneva)
I .am indebted to Admiral Liitke's voyage of circumnavigation.
Iluluk and Danzig are nearly on the same parallel, and although the
mean temperature of Iluluk, owing to its insular climate and to a
cold sea-current, is somewhat lower than that of Danzig, yet the
winter temperature of the American station is milder than that of
the port on the Baltic.

Latitude.

Longitude.

Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

00.6

33°.4

Sitka . . i." \ ;

57° 3'

135° 16' W.

50.6

440.5

10°.2

550.0

-r-00.2

310.5

Gottenburg. .^ ;

57° 41'

11°59'E.

6°. 4

46°.4

'>- '••;.'

13°.5

62o.4

2°.6

370.9

Fort George j»\~r. '

46° 18'

122° 58' W.

80.1 _
12° .4

500.3
60o.O

D°.7

33o.6

Geneva .

46° 12'

(Alt. 1298 E. ft.)

70.9

49o.8

14o.O

63°.5

—30.1

25o.O

Kherson , . .

46° 38'

32° 39' JE.

90.4

53o.2

17o.3

71°.0

Snow is hardly ever seen on the banks of the Oregon or Columbia
River, and ice on the river lasts only a very few days. The lowest
temperature which Mr. Ball once observed there in the winter of
1833 was 6£° of Reaumur below the freezing point, or 17.4° Fahren-
heit (Message from the President of the United States to Congress,
1844, p. 160 ; and Forry, dim. of the U. States, pp. 49, 67, and 73).
A cursory glance at the summer and winter temperatures above
given, shows that on and near the west coast, a true insular climate
prevails. The winter cold is less than in the western parts of the
Old Continent, and the summers are much cooler. The most striking
contrast is presented by comparing the mouth of the Oregon with
Forts Snelling and Howard, and the Council Bluffs in the interior
of the Mississippi and Missouri basin (lat. 44° — 46°) — where, to
speak in the language of Buffon, we find an excessive, or true conti-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 119

nental climate — a winter cold, on single days, of — 28°. 4 and — 30°. 6
Reaumur ( — 32° and — 37° Fahr.), followed by mean summer tem-
peratures of 16°.8 and 17°.5 Reaumur (69° and 71°.4 Fahr.).

(19) p. 31. — "As if America had emerged later from the chaotic

watery covering"

An acute inquirer into nature, Benjamin Smith Barton, said long
since with great truth (Fragments of the Natural History of Penn-
sylvania, p. i. p. 4), " I cannot but deem it a puerile supposition,
unsupported by the evidence of nature, that a great part of America
has probably later emerged from the bosom of the ocean than the
other continents/7 The same subject was touched on by myself in
a memoir on the primitive nations of America (Neue Berlinische
Monatschrift, bd. xv. 1806, s. 190). "Writers generally and
justly praised have repeated but too often that America is in every
sense of the word a New Continent. Her luxuriance of vegetation,
the abundant waters of her enormous rivers, the unrepose of her
powerful volcanoes, all (say they) proclaim that the still trembling
earth, from the face of which the waters have not yet dried off, is
here nearer to the chaotic primordial state than in the Old Continent.
Such ideas appeared to me, long before I commenced my travels,
alike unphilosophical and contrary to generally acknowledged phy-
sical laws. Fantastic images of terrestrial youth, and unrepose
associated on the one hand- — and on the other, those of increasing
dryness, and inertia in maturer age — could only have presented
themselves to minds more inclined to draw ingenious or striking
contrasts between the two hemispheres, than to strive to comprehend,
in one general view, the construction of the entire globe. Are we
to regard the south of Italy as more modern than its northern por-
tions, because the former is almost incessantly disquieted by earth-
quakes and volcanic eruptions? Besides, what small phenomena
are the volcanoes and earthquakes of the present day, in comparison
with those revolutions of nature which the geologist must suppose to
have accompanied, in the chaotic state of the earth, the elevation,
solidification, disruptions, and cleavings of the mountain masses?
Diversity of causes must produce diversity in the operations of natural
forces, in countries remote as well as near. Perhaps the volcanoes

120 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of the New Continent (of which I still reckon above 28 in a state of
activity) have only continued to burn longer than others, because
the lofty mountain ridges, on which they have broken forth in rows
or series above long subterranean fissures, are nearer to the sea, and
because this proximity seems, with a few exceptions, to affect the
energy of the subterranean fires in some way not yet sufficiently
explained. Besides, both earthquakes and fire-emitting mountains
have periods of activity alternating with periods of repose. At
the present moment,0 (I wrote thus 42 years ago !) " physical dis-
quiet and political calm reign in the New Continent, while in the
Old the desolating strife of. nations disturbs the enjoyment of the
repose of nature. Perhaps a time is coming when, in this singular
contrast between physical and moral forces, the two sides of the
Atlantic will change parts. Volcanoes are quiescent for centuries
before they burst forth anew ; and the idea that in the so-called
older countries, a certain peace must prevail in nature, is founded
on a mere play of the imagination. There exists no reason for
assuming one entire side of our planet to be older or newer than the
other. Islands are indeed raised from the bed of the ocean by vol-
canic action, and gradually heightened by coral animals, as the
Azores and many low flat islands of the Pacific ; and these may
indeed be said to be newer than many Plutonic formations of the
European central chain. A small district of the earth, surrounded,
like Bohemia and Kashmeer (and like many of the valleys in the
Moon), by annular mountains, may, by partial inundations, be long
covered with water; and after the flowing off of this lake or inland
sea, the ground on which vegetation begins gradually to establish
itself might be said, figuratively, to be of recent origin. Islands
have become connected with each other by .the elevation of fresh
masses of land ; and parts of the previously dry land have been sub-
merged by the subsidence of the oscillating ground ; but submersions
so general as to embrace a hemisphere can, from hydrostatic laws,
only be imagined as extending at the same time over all parts of the
earth. The sea cannot permanently overflow the boundless plains
of the Orinoco and the Amazons, without also overwhelming the
plains adjoining the Baltic. The sequence and identity of the sedi-
mentary strata, and of the organic remains of plants and animals

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 121

belonging to the Ancient World enclosed in those strata, show that
several great depositions have taken place almost simultaneously
over the entire globe." (For the fossil vegetable remains in the coal
formation in North America and in Europe, compare Adolph Brog-
niart, Prodrome d'une His. des Ve'getaux Fossiles, p. 179; and
Charles Lyell's Travels in North America, vol. ii. p. 20.)

(*) p. 31. — "The /Southern Hemisphere is cooler and moister than
our Northern half of the globe"

Chili, Buenos Ayres, and the southern parts of Brazil and Peru,
have all, as a result of the narrowness of the Continent of South
America as it tapers towards the south, a true "insular climate;" or
a climate of cool summers and mild winters. As far as the 48th'0r
50th parallel of latitude this character of the Southern Hemisphere
may be regarded as an advantage,' but farther on towards the Ant-
arctic Pole, South America gradually becomes an inhospitable wilder-
ness. The difference of latitude of the southern terminating points
of Australia (including Van Diemen Island), of Africa, and of Ame-
rica gives to each of these continents a peculiar character. The
Straits of Magellan are between the 53d and 54th degrees of lati-
tude, and yet in December and January, when the sun is 18 hours
above the horizon, the temperature sinks to 4° Reaumur, or 41°
Fahrenheit. Snow falls almost daily, and the highest atmospheric
temperature observed by Churruca (1788) in December (the sunt-
mer of those regions), was not above 9° R., or 52° 2' Fahr. The
Cabo Pilar, whose towering rock, though only 218 toises, or 1394
English feet high, may be regarded as the southern termination of the
chain of. the Andes, is almost in the same latitude as Berlin. (Re-
lacion del Yiage al Estrecho de Magallanes, apendice, 1793, p. 76.)

"While in the Northern Hemisphere all the continents attain a sort
of mean limit towards the Pole, coinciding pretty regularly with the
parallel of 70°, the terminating points in the Southern Hemisphere—-
of America, in the deeply indented and intersected Tierra del
Fuego — of Australia — and of Africa — are respectively 34°, 46^°,
and 56° distant from the South Pole. The temperature of the
very unequal extents of ocean, which divide these southern points
from the icy pole, contributes very materially to modify their climates.
11

122 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

The areas of dry land in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are
to each other in the ^proportion of 3 to 1. > But this inferiority in
extent of continental masses in the Southern Hemisphere,^ as com-
pared with the Northern, belongs much more to the temperate than
to the torrid zone. In the temperate zones of the Northern and
Southern Hemispheres, the ratio is as 13 to 1 ; m the torrid zones
as 5 to 4. The great inequality in the distribution of the dry land
exercises a very sensible influence on the strength of the ascending
aerial current which turns towards the Southern Pole, and on the
temperature of the Southern Hemisphere. Some of the noblest
forms of tropical vegetation, for example the tree-ferns, advance
south of the Equator as far as the parallels of 46°, and of even 53°;
whereas north of the Equator they are not found beyond the tropic
of Cancer (Robert Brown, Appendix to Flinders' Voyage, pp. 575
and 584; Humboldt, de distributione geographica Plantarum, pp.
81—85.) Tree-ferns thrive extremely well at Hobart Town in Van
Diemen Island (lat. 42° 53'), where the mean annual temperature
is 9° Reaumur, or 52° 2' Fahrenheit, and is therefore 1° 6' Reau-
mur, or 3°. 6 Fahrenheit, less than that of Toulon. Rome is almost
a degree of latitude farther from the Equator than Hobart Town, and
has an annual temperature of 12°. 3 R., or 59°. 8 Fahr.; — a winter
temperature of 6°. 5 R., or 46°.4 Fahr., — and a summer temperature
of 24° R., or 86° Fahr.; these three values being in Hobart Town
8°.9, 4°.5, and 13°. 8 R., or 52°.0, 42°.2, and 63° Fahr. In Dusky
Bay, New Zealand, tree-ferns grow in S. lat. 46° 8', and in the Auck-
land and Campbell Islands, even in 53° S. lat. (Jos. Hooker, Flora
Antarctica, 1844, p. 107.)

In the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego — where, in the same lati-
tude as Dublin, the mean winter temperature is 0°.4 Reaumur (33°
Fahr.), and the mean summer temperature only 8° R., or 50° Fahr. —
Captain King found the "vegetation thriving most luxuriantly in
large woody-stemmed trees of Fuchsia and Veronica;" while this
vigor of vegetation, which, especially on the western coast of Ame-
rica in 38° and 40° of south latitude, is so picturesquely described
by Charles Darwin, suddenly disappears south of Cape Horn, on the
rocks of the Southern Orkney and Shetland Islands, and of the
Sandwich Archipelago. These islands, but scantily covered with
grass, moss, and lichens, "Terres de Desolation," as the French na-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

123

vigators call them, are still far north of the Antarctic Circle ; whereas
in the Northern Hemisphere in 70° of latitude, at the extremity of
Scandinavia, fir-trees attain a height of between 60 and 70 English
feet. (Compare Darwin in the "Journal of Researches," 1845,
p. 244, with King in vol. i. of the Narrative of the Voyages of the
Adventure and Beagle, p. 577.) If we compare Tierra del Fuego,
and particularly Port Famine in the Straits of Magellan in lat. 53°
38', with Berlin, which is one degree nearer the Equator, we find for

-0° 5 30°. 8

Berlin 6°.8, ~I^TQ R-, 47°.2, -^-^ Fahr,; and for

1P.2 34°.8

Port Famine 4°.7, -J^-Q K, 42°.6, ^~Q Fahr.

I subjoin in one view the few well-assured temperature data which we
at present possess, for the lands of the temperate zone in the Southern
Hemisphere, and which may be compared with the temperatures of
the Northern Hemisphere, in most parts of which the distribution
into summer heat and winter cold is so different and so much less
equable. I employ the convenient method of notation before used
and explained in pages 113—114.

Place,

South
Latitude.

Mean, Annual, Winter, and
Summer Temperature. -

Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

Sidney and Paramatta (New Hoi-
land) . .

Cape Town (Africa) ....
Buenos Ayres . .

33°.50'
33°.55'
34°. 17'
340.54'
420.45'
53o.38'

10°. 0
14°.5

20°. 2

11°.8
18°. 3

9°.l
13° .5

18°.2

1F.3
15°.5 (|)

20°.2

4° .5
9°.l
13°.8

1°.2
4° .7
8°.0

54° .5
64° .5
77° .5

58°. 5
65° .7
73°.3

52° .5
62°. 4
73°.0

57°. 3
66° .8
77°.5

42°. 2
' 63°. 0

34°.8
42°. 6
50°.0

Hobart Town (Van Diemen
Island) .

Port Famine (Straits of Magellan)

124 6TEPPES AND DESERTS.

(21) p. 32. — " A connected sea of sand."

As the Heaths formed of socially growing Ericeae, which stretch
from the mouth of the Scheldt to that of the Elbe, and from the
point of Jutland to the Harz, may be regarded as one connected
tract of vegetation — so the seas of sand may be traced through
Africa and Asia, from Cape Blanco to beyond the Indus, or through
an extent of 5600 geographical miles. Herodotus's Sandy Re-
gion interrupted by Oases, called by the Arabs the Desert of Sahara,
traverses almost the whole of Africa, which it intersects like a dried-
up arm of the sea. The valley of the Nile is the eastern limit of
the Lybian Desert. Beyond the Isthmus of Suez, beyond the por-
phyritio, syenitic, and basaltic rocks of Sinai, begins the Desert
mountain plateau of Nedjid, which occupies the whole of the inte-
rior of the Arabian Peninsula, and is bounded to the west and south
by the fertile and happier coast lands of Hedjaz and Hadhramaut.
The Euphrates bounds the Arabian and Syrian Deserts towards the
east. Immense seas of sand (bejaban) cross Persia from the Cas-
pian to the Indian Sea. Among them are the salt and soda Deserts
of Kerman, Seistan, Beloochistan, and Mekran. The latter is sepa-
rated from the Desert of Moultan by the Indus.

(a*) p. 32.—" The western part of the Atlas."
The question respecting the position of the ancient Atlas has
been much discussed in modern times, but the oldest Pho3nician
legends have been confounded in this discussion with the later fables
of the Greeks and the Romans. A man who combined deep philo-
logical with thorough mathematical and astronomical knowledge,
Professor Ideler, (the father,) was the first person who explained and
dispelled the confusion of ideas which had previously existed on this
subject. I permit myself to introduce here the remarks that clear-
sighted and highly-informed writer has communicated to me on this
important subject.

" At a very early period of the world, the Phoenicians ventured
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. They built Gades and Tartessus
on the Spanish, and Lixus and several other towns on the Mauri ta-
nian coasts of the Atlantic. They sailed along those coasts north-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 125

wards to the Cassiterides where they obtained tin, and to the Prussian
coast from whence they brought amber; and southwards, past Ma-
deira, to the Cape de Verde Islands. They visited, among other
places, the Canaries, and were struck by the appearance of the lofty
Peak of Teneriffe, enhanced by its rising immediately from the sea.
Through the colonies which they sent to Greece, and especially
through that which came under Cadmus to Boaotia, the notice of
this mountain rising high above the region of clouds, and of the
( Fortunate Islands/ adorned with fruits of every kind, and espe-
cially with the golden orange, spread into Greece. Here the tradi-
tion was propagated by the songs of the bards, and thus reached
Homer. He speaks in the Odyssey (i. 52) of an e Atlas who knows
all the depths of the sea, and who supports the great pillafs which
divide heaven and earth from each other.' He speaks, too, in the
Iliad, of the Elysian fields, which he describes as a lovely land in
the west. (II. iv. 561.) Hesiod expresses himself in a similar
manner respecting Atlas, whom he makes a neighbor of the nymphs,
the daughters of Hesperus. (Theog. v. 517.) He calls the Ely-
sian fields, which he places at the western limit of the earth, the
Islands of the Blest. (Op. et dies, v. 167.) Later poets have
added further embellishments to these myths of Atlas, of the Hes-
perides, their golden apples, and the Islands of the Blest, assigned
as the dwelling-place of the virtuous after death ; and have combined
with them the expeditions of the Tyrian god of trade, Melicertes
(the Grecian Hercules).

"The Greeks only began at a very late date to rival the Phoeni-
cians and Carthaginians in navigation. They visited the coasts of the
Atlantic, it is true, but never appear to have penetrated far into the
ocean. I doubt whether they ever saw the Canaries and the Peak of
Tenerifib. They believed that Atlas, which their poets and legends
described as a very high mountain placed at the western limit of the
earth, must be sought on the west coast of Africa. It was placed
there also by their later geographers, Strabo, Ptolemy, and others.
As there is not any single mountain distinguished by its elevation
in north-western Africa, the true situation of Mount Atlas has been
a subject of perplexity; and it has been sought, sometimes on the
coast, sometimes in the interior, sometimes near the Mediterranean,

11*

126 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

and sometimes further towards the south. It became the custom
(in the first century of our era, when the Roman arms penetrated
into the interior of Mauritania and Numidia), to give the name of
Atlas to the African chain of mountains which runs from west to
east almost parallel with the coast of the Mediterranean. Pliny
and Solinus were, however, very sensible that the descriptions of
Mount Atlas given by the Greek and Roman poets were not appli-
cable to this long mountain chain; and they therefore thought it
necessary to transfer the Atlas, of which they gave a picturesque
description in accordance with the poetic legends, to the terra inr
cognita of Central Africa. According to what has been said, the
Atlas of Homer and Hesiod can only be the Peak of Teneriffe ; and
the Atfls of the Greek and Roman geographers must be in Northern
Africa."

I will only add the following remarks to this instructive discussion
by Professor Ideler. According to Pliny and Solinus, Atlas rises
from a sandy plain (e rnedio arenarum) ; and elephants (which cer-
tainly were never known in Teneriffe) feed on its declivity. What
we now term Atlas is a long ridge. How came the Romans to re-
cognize in this long ridge the isolated conical mountain of Herodotus ?
May not the reason be found in the optical delusion by which every
mountain chain seen in profile, in the prolongation of its direction,
has the appearance of a narrow cone ? I iiave often seen in this
manner, from the sea, the ends of long chains or ridges, which might
be taken for isolated mountains. According to Host, the Atlas is
covered near Morocco with perpetual snow, which implies an eleva-
tion of above 1800 toises, or 11,510 English feet. It is also re-
markable that, according to Pliny, the "Barbarians/' i. e. the
ancient Mauritanians, called the Atlas " Dyris." The chain of the
Atlas is still called by the Arabs Daran, a word which has almost the
same consonants as Dyris. Hornius, on the other hand (de Origi-
nibus Americanorum, p. 195), thinks that he recognizes the word
Dyris in the Guanohe name of the Peak of Teneriffe, Aya-Dyrnia.
On the connection between purely mythical ideas and geographical
traditions, and on the way in which the Titan Atlas gave occasion to
the image of a mountain supporting the heavens, beyond the Pil-
lars of Hercules, see Letronne's " Essai sur les Idees cosmograph-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 127

iques qui se rattachent au nom d' Atlas," in Fe*russac's Bulletin
universel des Sciences, Mars 1831, p. 10.

Considering that our present (it is true, very limited) geological
knowledge of the mountainous parts of North Africa does not make
us acquainted with any trace of volcanic eruptions within historic
times, it is very remarkable to find among the ancients so many
indications of a belief in the existence of this class of phenomena,
in the Western Atlas, and in the neighboring west coast of the con-
tinent. The streams of fire, so often mentioned in Hanno's ship-
journal, may indeed have only been strips of burning grass, or signal
fires kindled by the wild inhabitants of the coasts to give to each
other notice of the danger threatened by the appearance of the hos-
tile vessels. The lofty flame-enlightened summit of the "chariot of
the gods" (fowl/ ojtypa), may recall obscurely the Peak of Teneriffe;
but farther on Hanno describes a singular conformation of ground. He
finds in the Grulf near the Western Horn, a large island, and in it a salt
lake which again contains a smaller island. South of the bay of the
Grorilla Apes, the same conformation is repeated. Is this a descrip-
tion of coral productions, of " lagoon islands (Atolls)," or volcanic
" crater lakes" in the middle of which a cone has been upheaved ?
The Triton lake was not in the neighborhood of the lesser Syrtis,
but near the Atlantic coast. (Asie Cent. t. i. p. 179.) The lake
disappeared in consequence of earthquakes which were accompanied
by great outbursts of fire. Diodorus (lib. iii. 53, 55) says expressly,
jtvpbs sxtyvtqpa.'ea, fit-yaKa. But the most wonderful conformation is
ascribed to the " hollow Atlas" in a passage hitherto little noticed,
occurring in one of the philosophic Dialexes of Maximus Tyrius.
This Platonic philosopher lived in Rome, under Comniodus. The
situation of his Atlas is " on the continent, where the Western
.Lybians inhabit a projecting peninsula. The mountain has in it
towards the sea a semicircular deep abyss." The precipices are so
steep that they cannot be descended; the abyss below is filled with
trees, and " one looks down upon their summits, and on the fruits
which they bear, as if one was looking into a well." (Maximus
Tyrius, viii. 7, ed. Markland.) The description is so graphic and
so individually marked, that it doubtless conveys the recollections
impressed by a real prospect.

128 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(*) p. 32, — " The Mountains of ike Moon, Djcbel-al-Komr"
The Mountains of the Moon of Ptolemy (lib. iv. cap. 9),
(teXTjvjys 6poj) form on our older maps an immense, uninterrupted
mountain zone, traversing Africa from east to west. The existence
of these mountains appears certain; but their extent, their distance
from the Equator, and their general direction, are all unsolved
problems. I have already alluded in another work (Cosmos, vol.
ii. p. 191, and note 297, Engl. ed.), to the manner in which a closer
acquaintance with Indian languages, and with the ancient Persian
idiom, the Zend, teaches us that part of the geographical nomen-
clature of Ptolemy forms an historic monument of the commercial,
connection of the west with the most distant regions of Southern
Asia and Eastern Africa. The same direction of ideas shows itself
in a question very recently brought forward. It is asked, whether
the great geographer and astronomer of Pelusium meant, in the
name of " Mountains of the Moon," as in that of, the " Island of
Barley" (Jabadiu, Java), merely to give the Greek translation of a
native name; — whether (as is most probable) El Istachri, Edrisi,
Ibn-al-Vardi, and other early Arabian geographers, only transferred
the nomenclature of Ptolemy into their own language; — or whether
they were misled by similarity in the sound of the words and the
manner of writing. In the notes to the translation of Abd-Allatif ['s
celebrated description of Egypt, my great instructor, Silvestre de
Sacy, (e<i.de 1810, pp. 7 and 35£,) says expressly: "On traduit
ordinairement le nom de ces montagnes que Le"on Africain regarde
comme les sources du Nil, par montagnes de la lune, et j'ai suivi
cet usage. Je ne sais si les Arabes ont pris originairement cette
denomination de Ptole*mee. On peut croire qu'ils cntendent effec-
tivement aujourd'hui le motr *-A-J dans le sens de la lune en le
pronon§ant 'Kamar'; je ne crois pas cependant que c'ait ete*
1' opinion des anciens e"crivains arabes qui prononcent, comme le
prouve Makrizi, Komr. Aboulfeda rejette positivement Fopinion de
ceux qui prononcent karaar, et qui d4rivent ce nom de celui de la
lune. Comme le mot komr, conside>e" comme pluriel de • *K "SI,
signifie un objet d'une couleur verdatre ou d'un blanc sale, suivant

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 129

Fauteur du Kamous, il paroit que quelques e*crivains ont era que
cette montagne tiroit son nom de sa couleur."

The learned Reinaud, in his recent excellent translation of Abul-
feda (t. ii. pp. 8 1—82), considers it probable that the Ptolemaic inter-
pretation of the name, by " Mountains of the Moon" (6p»7 tr^^vata),
was that originally adopted by the Arabian writers. He remarks
that in the Moschtarek of Yakut, and in Ibn-Said, the mountains
are written al-Komr, and that Yakut writes in the same way the
name of the Islands of Zendj (Zanguebar). The Abyssinian traveller
Beke, in his learned critical memoir on the Nile and its tributaries
(Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. xvii.
1847, pp. 74—76), seeks to prove that Ptolemy had merely formed
his aeKyvys 6poj from a native name, for which he was indebted to
intelligence received through the medium of the extensive commer-
cial intercourse which prevailed. He says, "Ptolemy knew that
the Nile rises in the mountainous country of Moezi ; and in the lan-
guages which extend over a great portion of South Africa (for
example,, in the languages of Congo, Monjou, and Mozambique), the
word Moezi signifies the moon. A great south-western country was
called Mono-Muezi, or Mani-Moezi, i. e. the land of the king of Moezi
(of the king of the Moon-country), for in the same family of languages
in which Moezi or Muezi signifies the Moon, Mono or Mani signifies
a king. Alvarez, in the Viaggio nella Ethiopia (Ramusio, vol. i.
p. 249), speaks of the * regno de Manicongo/ the kingdom of the
king of Congo." Beke's opponent, Ayrton, seeks the origin of the
White Nile (Bahr el Abiad), not as do Arnaud, Werne, and Beke,
near the Equator, or even south of it (and in 29° E. long, from
Paris, or 31° 22' from Greenwich), but with Antoine d'Abbadie
far to the north-east, in the Godjeb and Gibbe of Eneara (Iniara);
therefore in the high mountains of Habesch, in 7° 20' N. latitude,
and 33° E. long, from Paris, or 35° 22' from Greenwich. He
conjectures that the Arabs, from a similarity Of sound, may have
interpreted the native name Gamaro belonging to the Abyssinian
Mountains, in the south-west of Gaka in which the Godjeb (or White
Nile?) has its source, to mean Moon Mountains (Djebel al-Kamar);
so that Ptolemy himself, familiar with the intercourse between
Abyssinia and the Indian Ocean, may have taken the Semitic
version, given by early Arab emigrants. (Compare Ayrton in the

130 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Journal of the Royal Greogr. Soc. vol. xviii. 1848, pp. 53, 55, and
59-63, with Fred. Werne's instructive expedition for the discovery
of the sources of the Nile, Exped. zur Entd. der Nil-Quellen, 1848,
s. 534-536.)

The lively interest which has again been excited in England for
the discovery of the most southern sources of the Nile, induced the
above-named Abyssinian traveller, Charles Beke, at the recent
meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
held at Swansea, August, 1848; to develop more in detail his ideas
respecting the connection between the Mountains of the Moon and
the Mountains of Habesch. He says : — " The Abyssinian elevated
plain, generally above 8000 feet high, extends towards the south to
nearly 9° or 10° N. latitude. The eastern declivity of the high-
lands has to the inhabitants of the coast the appearance of a mount-
ain chain. The plateau at its southern extremity passes into the
Mountains of the Moon, which run, not east and west, but parallel
to the coast, or from NNE. to SSW.; extending from 10° N. to 5°
S. latitude. The sources of the White Nile are situated in the
Mono-Moezi country, probably in 2£° S., not far from where the
river Sabaki, on the eastern side of the Mountains of the Moon, falls
into the Indian Ocean near Melindeh, north of Mombaza. Last
autumn (1847) the two Abyssinian missionaries Rebmann and Krapf
were still on the coast of Mombaza. They have established in the
vicinity, among the Wakamba tribe, a missionary station called
Rabbay Empie, which promises to be very useful also for geographi-
cal discovery. Families belonging to the Wakamba tribe have
advanced to the west five or six hundred miles into the interior of
the country, as far as the upper course of the river Lusidji, the
great Lake Nyassi or Zambeze (5° S. lat. ?), and the sources of the
Nile, which are not far distant. An expedition to these sources,
which Herr Friedrich Bialloblotzky, of Hanover, is preparing to
undertake (by the advice of Beke), is to set out from Mombaza.
The Nile coming from the west referred to by the ancients is pro-
bably the Bahr-el-Ghazal, or Keilah, which falls into the Nile in 9°
N. lat., above the mouth of the Godjeb or Sobat."

Russegger's scientific expedition — which by Mehemet Ali's desire
was sent to the gold-washings of Fazokl on the Blue (Green) Nile,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 131

Bahr-el-Azrek, in 1837 and 1838 — had made the existence of the
" Mountains of the Moon" appear very doubtful. The Blue Nile,
the Astapus of Ptolemy, issuing from the Lake of Coloe (now called
Lake Tzana) winds from amongst the colossal Abyssinian Mountains;
but towards the south-west an extensive low tract of. country appears.
The three exploring expeditions sent by the Egyptian government
(one in November 1839 from Chartum to the confluence of the
Blue and the White Nile, under the command of Selim Bimbashi;
another in the autumn of 1840, which was accompanied by the
French engineers Arnaud, Sabatier, and Thibaud; and a third in
August 1841), first unveiled the high mountains which, between
the parallels of 6°- 4°, and probably still farther to the south, run
at first from west to east, and afterwards from north-west to south-
east, and approach the left bank of the Bahr-el-Abiad. The second
of Mehemet Ali's expeditions first saw. the mountain chain, accord-
ing to Werne's account, in lat. ll£°, where (rebel Abul and Grebel
Kutak rise to 3400 (3623 Eng.) feet. .The high land continued
and approached nearer to the river more to the south, between 4f °
lat., to the parallel of the island of Tschenker in 4° 4/, where the
expedition of Commander Selim and Feizulla EfFendi terminated.
The shallow river makes its way between rocks, and detached mount-
ains rise again in the country of Bari to 3000 (3197 Eng.) feet.
These probably belong to the Mountains of the. Moon as represented
in our most recent maps, although they are not indeed mountains
covered with perpetual snow such as Ptolemy had described (lib. iv.
cap. 9). The limit of perpetual snow in these latitudes would not
certainly be found below an elevation of 14,500 (15,450 Eng.)
feet. Perhaps Ptolemy transferred to the country of the sources of
the White Nile the knowledge which he may have had of the high
mountains of Habesch, which are nearer to Upper Egypt and to
the Red Sea. In Godiam, Kaffa, Miecha, and Sami, the Abyssinian
Mountains rise to 10,000 and 14,000 (10,657 and 14,920 Eng.)
feet, according to exact measurements; not according to Bruce, who
gives the elevation of Chartum exceedingly wide of the truth, i. e.
4730 (5041 Eng.) feet, instead of 1430 (1524 Eng.) feet! Riip-
pell, one of the most accurate observers of the present day, found
Abba Jaret, in 13° 1.0' of latitude, only 66 (70 Eng.) feet lower

132 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

than Mont Blanc. (Compare Riippell, Reise in Abyssinien, bd.
i. s. 414, and bd. ii. s. 443.) Ruppell found, adjoining the Bua-
hat, aa elevated plain 13,080 (13,939 Eng.) feet above the Red
Sea, barely covered with a small quantity of fresh fallen snow (Hum-
bold t, Asie Centrale, t. iii. p. 272). The celebrated inscription of
Adulis, which Niebuhr considers to be somewhat later than Juba
and Augustus, also speaks of Abyssinian snow "that reaches to
the knees." This is, I believe, the earliest mention in antiquity
of snow within the tropics (Asie Centrale, t. iii. p. 235); as the
Paropanisus is 12° of latitude north of the northern limit of the
torrid zone.

Zimmermann's map of the countries about the Upper Nile shows
the dividing line which determines the basin of the Great River,
and separates it on the south-east from the domain of the rivers
which flow into the Indian Ocean; — that is to say, from the Doara,
which enters the sea north of Magadoxo; from the Teb, which has
its embouchure on the Amber coast, near Ogda; and from the
Groschop, whose abundant stream is formed by the confluence . of
the G-ibu and the Zebi, and which he distinguishes from the Godjeb,
rendered celebrated since 1839 by Antoine d'Abbadie, the missionary
Krapf, and Beke. These results of the travels of Beke, Krapf,
Isenberg, Russeger, Riippell, Abbadie, and Werne, brought together,
and shown in the most comprehensive and convenient manner by
Zimmermann, were hailed by me on their appearance in 1843 with
the most lively joy, as expressed in a letter to Carl Ritter. "If,"
I wrote to him, "a life prolonged to an advanced period brings with
it several inconveniences to the individual, and perhaps some even
to those who live with him, there is a compensation in the delight
of being able to compare older states of knowledge with that which
now exists, and to see great advances in knowledge grow and de-
velop themselves under our eyes in departments where all had long
slumbered in inactivity, with the exception, perhaps, of attempts
by hypercriticism to render previous acquisitions doubtful. This
enjoyment has from time to time fallen to our share, yQurs and
mine, in our geographical studies, and this particularly in reference
to those very parts of the world which formerly could only be treated
of with timid, hesitating uncertainty. The conformation of a con-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 133

tinent depends in its leading traits on several plastic relations, which
are usually among the latest to be discovered and unravelled. A
new and excellent work of our friend, Carl Zimmermann, on the
upper country of the Nile, and the eastern parts of Central Africa,
has again brought these considerations very vividly before me. His
new map shows in the clearest manner to the eye, by means of a
particular method of shading, what is still unknown, and what, by
the courage and perseverance of travellers of all nations — among
whom our own countrymen happily hold an important place — has
been already disclosed to us. It is a valuable service, and one which
opens the way for farther advances and more comprehensive infer-
ences, when persons, thoroughly acquainted with the existing, often
widely scattered, materials — men who do not merely draw and com-
pile, but compare, select, and, wherever it is possible, check and
control the routes of travellers by astronomical determinations of
position — undertake to represent graphically the results of the ele-
ments of knowledge possessed at the time. Those who have them-
selves given to the world so much as you have done, have an especial
right to expect much; since their combinations have largely aug-
mented the number of connecting points ; yet I believe that when
you executed your great work on Africa, in 1822, you could hardly
have expected so many accessions as we have now received. " The
knowledge acquired is, indeed, often only that of rivers, their direc-
tion, their branches, and the various synonyms by which they are
called in dialects belonging to different families of languages; but
rivers reveal to us by their course the form of the surface of the
earth, and are at once the nourishers of vegetation, the channels of
intercourse between men, and pregnant with unknown influences on
the future.

The northerly course of the White Nile, and the south-easterly
course of the great Goschop, would indicate that a swelling of the
ground separates the domains or basins of these rivers. We know,
indeed, but imperfectly, how such a swelling or elevation may be con-
nected with the mountains of Habesch, and in what manner it may be
continued southward beyond the Equator. Probably, and this is also
the opinion of my friend Carl Hitter, the Lupata mountains, which,
according to the excellent Wilhelm Peters, extend to 26° S. latitude,
12

134 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

are connected with, the elevated parts of the Earth's surface on the
north side of the Equator (or with the Abyssinian mountains), by
the mountains of the Moon. The word " Lupata," we learn from
the last-named African traveller, is used in the language of Tette,
as an adjective, meaning "closed." The chain of mountains would
thus be called the "closed" or " barred." "The Lupata, chain of
Portuguese writers," says Peters, "is about 90 legoas or leagues
from the mouth of the Zambeze, and is only about two thousand feet
high. The direction of this mountain rampart is north and south,
but with occasional bends alternately to the east and to the west.
It is sometimes interrupted by plains. Along the whole of the
Zanzibar coast, the traders into the interior speak of this long but
not very elevated ridge, which extends from 6° to 26° S. latitude,
as far as the Factory of Lourenzo-Marques, on the Rio de Espiritu
Santo (in the Bay da Lagoa, or Delagoa Bay of the English). The
farther the Lupata chain advances towards the south, the nearer it
approaches the coast, from which it is only fifteen legoas distant at
Lourenzo-Marques."

f3*) p. 32. — " Caused ~by the great revolving current."
In the northern part of the Atlantic, between Europe, North
Africa, and the New Continent, the waters of the ocean are driven
round in a true revolving current, or circle. This general current — -
which, from its cause, might be called a "Rotation Current" — moves
between the tropics, as is well known, with the trade wind, from east
to west. It accelerates the passage of ships sailing from the Canaries
to South America, and makes it almost impossible to sail "up stream/'
or in a direct line from Cartagena de Indias to Cumana. Jhis set
to the west, attributed to the trade winds, receives, however, in the
Caribbean Sea, the accession of a much stronger movement, origi-
nating in a very remote cause, which was discovered as early as
1560 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 14),
and developed with greater certainty by Rennell in 1832. The
Mosambique current, flowing from north to south between Mada-
gascar and the east coast of Africa, sets on the Lagullas Bank, turns
on the north side of it round the south point of Africa, and advances
with much force up the western coast of the Continent to a little

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 135

beyond the Equator near the Island of St. Thomas. It gives at the
same time a northwesterly direction to a part of the water of the
South Atlantic, causing it to strike Cape St. Augustin, and to follow
the coast of Guiana to beyond the mouth of the Orinoco, the Boca
del Drago, and the coast of Paria. (Rennell, Investigation of the
Currents of the Atlantic Ocean, 1832, pp. 96 and 136.) The New
Continent, from the Isthmus of Panama to the northern part of
Mexico, opposes a barrier to the farther continuance of this move-
ment of the waters, and thus the current is constrained to assume a
northerly course off Veragua, and thence to follow the windings of
the coast of Costa Rica, Mosquito, Cainpeachy, and Tobasco. The
waters which enter the Mexican Gulf between Cape Catoche of
Yucatan and Cape San Antonio of Cuba, after completing a great
rotatory movement or circuit, by Vera Cruz, Tamiagua, the mouth
of the Rio Bravo del Norte, and that of the Mississippi, force their
way northwards through the Bahama Channel, and .re-issue into the
open ocean. Here they form the well-known " Gulf Stream," a
current or river of warm and rapidly moving water, flowing in an
oblique or diagonal direction, carrying it farther and farther from
the North American coast. Ships from Europe bound for this
coast, when uncertain in respect to their longitude, are enabled by
this oblique direction of the current to direct their course, as soon
as they reach the Gulf Stream, by observations of latitude only.
The position of this great current was first indicated with accuracy
by Franklin, Williams, and Pownall.

From the 41st degree of latitude, the river of warm water, which
has been gradually diminishing in rapidity and increasing in breadth,
turns suddenly to the east. It almost touches the southern edge of
the great Newfoundland bank, where I found the greatest amount
of difference between the temperature of the warm water of the Gulf
Stream, and that of the waters resting on the banks and subjected
thereby to a cooling process. Before the stream reaches the western-
most of the Azores it divides into two branches, one of which, at
least at certain seasons, advances towards Ireland and Norway, and
the other towards the Canaries and the West Coast of Africa. This
Atlantic rotatory movement (described by me more in detail in the
first volume of my Voyage to the Equinoctial Regions), explains the

136 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

possibility of trunks of South American and "West Indian trees being
carried, in spite of the trade winds, to the coasts of the Canary
Islands, and stranded there. I have made many experiments on
the temperature of the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of the Banks of
Newfoundland. The stream brings the warmer water of lower lati-
tudes into more northern regions with much rapidity, and I have
thus found its temperature two or three degrees of Reaumur (5° to
7° Fah.) higher than that of the adjacent unmoved masses of water,
which form as it were the banks of the warm oceanic river.

The flying fish of the tropics (Exocetus volitans) accompanies the
warm water of the Gulf Stream far into the temperate zone. Float-
ing sea-weed (Fucus natans), chiefly taken up by the stream in the
Gulf of Mexico, shows when a ship is entering the current, and the
arrangement of the branches of the sea-weed shows the direction of
the movement of the water. The mainmast of the English ship of
war, the Tilbury, destroyed by fire on the coast of San Domingo,
was carried by the Gulf Stream to the north coast of Scotland. Even
casks filled with palm oil, the remains of the cargo of a ship wrecked
off Cape Lopez on the coast of Africa, were carried in the same
manner to Scotland,* after having twice traversed the whole breadth
of the Atlantic; once from east to west with the equatorial current
between 2° and 12° N. lat., and once from west to east by the aid
of the Gulf Stream, between 45° and 55° N. lat. Rennell, in p. 347
of the " Investigation of Currents," relates the voyage of a bottle
with papers enclosed, thrown overboard by the English ship New-
castle on the 20th of January, 1819, in lat. 38° 52', and long.
63° 58', which was picked up, on the 2d of J.une, 1820, at the
Rosses (near the island of Arran), on the west coast of Ireland. A
short time before my arrival at Teneriffe, a stem t>f South American
cedar (Cedrela odorata), well covered with lichens, had been cast
ashore in the harbor of Santa Cruz.

Effects of the Gulf Stream in stranding on the Islands of Fayal,
Flores, and Corvo in the Azores, bamboos, artificially cut pieces of

* [The circumstance referred to was even more remarkable. Casks of
palm oil, part of the cargo of the ship wrecked near Cape Lopez, were con-
veyed by the current to Finmarken, and stranded near the North Cape. Vide
Editor's note in the English translation of "Cosmos," vol. i. p. xcvii.] — Tr.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 137

wood, trunks of an unknown species of Pine from Mexico and the
West Indian Islands, and corpses of men of unknown race with un-
usually broad faces, contributed to the discovery of America, by
confirming Columbus in his belief of the existence to the westward
of Asiatic countries and islands at no impassable distance. The
great discoverer even heard from the lips of settlers near the Cape
de la Verga in the Azores, of some, "who, in sailing westward, had
met decked or covered boats, manned by persons of strange and
foreign appearance, and built apparently in such a manner that they
could not founder, — almadias con casa movediza que nunca se hun-
den." There is highly credible and well-confirmed testimony to the
fact, much as it has long been doubted, of natives of America (pro-
bably Esquimaux from Greenland or Labrador), carried by currents
or driven by storms from the northwest, having actually crossed the
Atlantic in their canoes and reached our shores. James Wallace,
in his "Account of the Islands of Orkney (1700, p. 60)," relates
that, in 1682, a Greenlander was seen in his boat off the south point
of the Island of Eda by several persons, who did not succeed in
bringing him to shore. In 1684, a Greenland fisherman appeared
in his boat off the Island of Westram. In the church at Barra there
was suspended an Esquimaux boat, driven thither by currents and
tempests. The inhabitants of the Orkneys call G-reenlanders so
appearing among them Finns or "Finnmen."

In Cardinal Bembo's History of Venice, I find a narrative to the
effect that in 1508 a French ship captured near the English coast- a
small boat, with seven persons of a strange and foreign appearance.
The description suits extremely well with Esquimaux (homines
erant septem mediocri statura, colore subobscuro, lato et patente vultu,
cicatriceque una violacea signato). No one understood their lan-
guage. Their clothing was composed of fish-skins sewn together.
On their heads they wore " coronam e culmo pictam, septem quasi
auriculis intextam." They ate raw flesh, and drank blood as we
would wine. Six of the men died during the passage of the vessel,
on board which they had been taken ; but the seventh, a youth,
was presented to the king of France, who was then at Orleans.
(Bembo, Historia Venetse, ed. 1718, lib. vii. p. 257.)

The appearance of men called Indians on the western coast of

138 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Germany, under the Othos, and under Frederic Barbarossa, in the
10th and 12th centuries, and even, as is related by Cornelius Nepos
(ed. Van Staveren, cur. Bardili, t.ii. 1820, p. 356), Pomponius Mela
(lib. iii. cap. 5, § 8), and Pliny (Hist. Nat., t. ii. p. 67), when
Quintus Metellus Celer was Pro-consul in Gaul, may be explained
by similar effects of currents and north-west winds of long continu-
ance. A king of the Boii, others say of the Suevi, gave the ship-
wrecked dark-colored men to Metellus Celer. Gomara, in his His-
toria Gen. de las Indias (Saragossa, 1553, fol. vii.), refers to this
account, and considers the Indians spoken of in it to have been na-
tives of Labrador. " Si ya no fuesen de Tierra del Labrador, y los
tuviesen, los Romanes por Indianos enganados en el color." The
appearance of Esquimaux on the northern «oasts of Europe may be
believed to have occurred more often in earlier times, because we
know, from the researches of Rask and Finn Magnusen, that in the
llth and 12th centuries this race extended in considerable numbers,
under the name of the Skralinges of Labrador, even as far south as
the "good Vinland;" i. e. the coast of Massachusetts and Connecti-
cut. (Cosmos, bd. ii. s. 270; English ed. p. 234; Examen Critique
de 1'HisL de la Geographic, t. ii. pp. 224-278.)

As the winter cold of the most northern parts of Scandinavia is
softened by the influence of the Gulf Stream, by which American
tropical fruits (cocoa nuts, and seeds of the Mimosa scandens and
the Anacardium occidentale) are cast upon the shore beyond the
62d degree of latitude, so does Iceland also occasionally enjoy the
beneficial influence of the extension of the warm waters of the Gulf
Stream far to the northward. The coasts of Iceland as well as those
of the Faroe Islands, receive a great deal of driftwood, which,
coming formerly in greater abundance, was cut into beams and
planks and used for building timber. Fruits of tropical plants, col-
lected on the coast of Iceland, between Raufarhavn and Yapnafiord,
testify the movement of the waters from the southward. (Sartorius
von Waltershausen, physisch-geographische Skizze von Island, 1847,
s. 22-35.)

C25) P' 33. — " Neither Lecideas nor other LicJiens."
In northern countries, the earth, if left bare, soon becomes

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 139

covered with Bseomyces roseus, Cenomyce rangiferinus, Lecidea
muscorum, L. icmadophila, and similar Cryptogamese, which prepare
the way for the growth of grasses and herbaceous plants. In the
tropics, where mosses and lichens only abound in shady places,
some species of succulent plants take their place.

(*) p. 33 — " The care of animals yielding milky. The ruins

of the Aztec fortress.

The two kinds of cattle alluded to, and subsequently spoken of, —
the Bos americanus and Bos moschatus, — are peculiar to the Ame-
rican Continent. But the natives —

Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nee jungere tauros.

Virgil, JEn. i. 316.

— drink the fresh blood, not the milk of these animals. Single
exceptions have indeed been found, but only among tribes who at
the same time cultivated maize. I have before remarked (p. 62),
that Gromara speaks of a people in the north-west of Mexico who
possessed herds of tame bisons, and derived from these animals
clothing, meat, and drink. The drink may have been the blood
(Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 416) ; for, as I have more
than once remarked, the dislike to milk, or at least the absence of
its use, appears, before the arrival of Europeans, to have been, gen-
erally speaking, a feature common to all the natives of the New
Continent, — and one which they possess in common with the inha-
bitants of China and Cochin China, who yet were near neighbors to
true pastoral nations. The herds of tame lamas, found in the high-
lands of Quito, Peru, and Chili, belonged to a settled population,
who cultivated the ground and did not follow a nomadic life. Pedro
de Ciega de Leon (Chronica del Peru, Sevilla, 1553, cap. 110, p.
264) seems to imply, though certainly as a rare and exceptional
case, that in the Peruvian mountain plateau of Collao, lamas were
used for drawing the plough. (Compare Gay, Zoologia de Chile,
Mamiferos, 1847, p. 154.) The usual custom in Peru was to plough
with men only. (See the Inca G-arcilasso's Commentaries reales, p.
i. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 133; and Prescott, Hist, of the Conquest of
Peru, 1847, vol. i. p. 136.) Mr. Barton has made it appear pro-

140 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

bable that, among some of the tribes of Western Canada, the buffalo
was from early times made an object of care for the sake of its flesh
and skin. (Fragments of the Nat. Hist, of Pennsylvania, p. i. p. 4.)
In Peru and Quito, the lama is now nowhere found in a state of
original wildness. I was told by the natives that the lamas on the
western declivity of the Chimborazo had become wild when the
ancient residence of the rulers of Quito " Lican" was laid in ashes.
In the same manner the oxen in the Ceja de la Montana, in Middle
Peru, have become perfectly wild : they are a small and daring race,
and often attack the Indians. The natives call them Vacas del
Monte, or Yacas cimarronas. (Tschudi, Fauna Peruana, s. 256.)
Cuvier's opinion, that the lama had descended from the still wild
Guanaco, has been unfortunately still further disseminated by the
meritorious traveller Meyen (Reise um die Erde, th. iii. s. 64),
but has been completely refuted by von Tschudi.

The Lama, the Paeo or Alpaca, and the Guanaco, are three
originally distinct species of animals. (Tschudi, s. 228 and 237.)
The Guanaco (Huanacu in the Quichua language) is the largest of
the three; and the Alpaca, measured from the ground to the
crown of the head, the smallest. The lama is next to the guanaco
in stature. Herds 'of lamas, when they are as numerous as I have
seen them in the high plateau between Quito and Eiobamba, are a
great ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of Chili appears
to be a mere variety of the lama. Vicunas, Guanacoes, and Al-
pacas, still live wild at elevations of from 13,000 to 16,000 feet
above the level of the sea. The two latter species are sometimes
met with tamed, but the guanaco only rarely. The alpaca does not
bear the warmer climate of the lower elevations so well as the
lama. Since the introduction of the more useful horses, mules,
and asses (the latter acquire great spirit and beauty within the
tropics), the custom of rearing and using the lama and the alpaca
as beasts of burden, in the mountains and among the mines, has
much decreased. But the wool, of such different qualities in
respect to fineness, is still an important article in the industry of the
inhabitants. of the mountains. In Chili, the wild and the tamed
guanaco are distinguished by separate names ; the wild being called
Luan; and the tame Chilihueque. The wide dissemination of the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 141

wild guanaco, from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego,
sometimes in herds of 500, has been favored by the circumstance
that these animals can swim with great ease from island to island,
so that the Patagonian fiords offer no obstacle to their wanderings.
(See the pleasing descriptions by Darwin, in his Journal, 1845,
p. 66.)

South of the Gila River, which, together with the Rio Colorado,
enters the Calif ornian Gulf or Mar de Cortes, stand, in the solitude
of the Steppe, the enigmatical ruins of the Aztec Palace, called by
the Spaniards las Casas grandes. When the Aztecs, about the
year 1160, came from the unknown land of Aztlan to Anahuac,
they settled themselves for a time on the banks of the G-ila. The
Franciscan monks, Garces and Font, are the latest travellers who
have visited the Casas grandes, and they did so in 1773. They
stated the ruins to extend over above a square German mile (16
English square miles). The whole plain is strewed with fragments
of painted pottery. The principal palace (if a house built of un-
burnt clay can be so designated) is 447 English feet long and 277
English feet broad. (See a rare work printed in Mexico, and
entitled Cronica serafica y apostdlica del Colegio de Propaganda
Fide de la Santa Cruz de Quere"taro por Fr. Juan Domingo Arri-
civita.)

The Taye" of California, as drawn by Father Venegas, appears to
differ little from the Ovis musimon of the Old Continent. The same
animal is also seen on the " Stony Mountains," near the sources of
the Peace River. Very different from it, on the other hand, is the
small white and black spotted goat-like creature which feeds near
the Missouri and Arkansas rivers. The synonymy of Antilope fur-
cifer, A. tememazama of Smith, and Ovis montana, is still very un-
determined.

;".-,i »»--"* ';v-S'j» .;-. '-. t -..«» .--i*. -V-; t tiv . *•-'«.• i-'.'^i

(37) p. 34. — -" The cultivation of farinaceous grasses. "
The original habitat of the farinaceous grasses is wrapped in the
same obscurity as that of the domestic animals which have accom-
panied man since his earliest migrations. The German word for
corn, " Getraide," has been ingeniously derived by Jacob Grimm
from the old German gitragidi, getregede. " It is as it were the

142 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

tame fruit (fruges, frumentum), which has come into the hands of
man; as we speak of tame animals in opposition to wild ones."
(Jacob Grimm, Gesch. der deutschen Sprache, 1848, th. i. s. 62.)
It is certainly a very striking phenomenon, to find on one side of
our planet nations to whom flour or meal from small-eared grasses
(Hordeacese and Avenacese), and the use of milk, were completely
unknown, while the nations of almost all parts of the other hemi-
sphere cultivate the Cerealia, and rear milk-yielding animals. The
cultivation of different kinds of grasses may be said to afford a cha-
racteristic distinction between the two parts of the world. In the
New Continent, from 52° north to 46° south latitude, we see only
one species cultivated, viz. maize. In the Old Continent, on the
other hand, we find everywhere, from the earliest times of history,
the fruits of Ceres, wheat, barley, spelt or red wheat, and oats.
That wheat grew wild in the Leontine fields, as well as in several
other places in Sicily, was a belief entertained by ancient nations,
and is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus. (Lib. v. p. 199 and 232,
Wessel.) Ceres was found in the alpine meadow of Enna; and
Diodorus fables that " the inhabitants of the Atlantis were unac-
quainted with the fruits of Ceres, because they had separated from
the rest of mankind before those fruits had been shown to mortals."
Sprengel has collected several interesting passages which lead him
to think it probable that the greater part of our European kinds of
grain were originally wild in the northern parts of Persia and India,
namely, summer wheat in the country of the Musicanes, a province
in Northern India (Strabo, xv. 1017); barley (" antiquissimum fru-
mentum," as Pliny calls it, and which is also the only cereal with
which the Guanches of the Canaries were acquainted), according to
Moses of Chorene (Geogr. Armen. ed.. Whiston, 1736, p. 360), on
the Araxes or Kur in Georgia, and according to Marco Polo in Ba-
lascham in Northern India (Ramusio, vol. ii. p. 10); and spelt or
red wheat, near Hamadan. But these passages, as has been shown
by my keen-sighted friend and teacher Link, in an instructive criti-
cal memoir (Abhandl. de Berl. Akad. 1816, s. 123), stiU leave
much uncertainty. I also early regarded the existence of originally
wild kinds of grain in Asia as extremely doubtful, and viewed such
as might have been seen there as having become wild. (Essai sur la

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 143

Geographic des Plantes, 1805, p. 28.) Reinhold Forster, who before
his voyage with Captain Cook, made by order of the Empress Ca-
therine an expedition into Southern Russia for purposes of natural
history, reported that the two-stalked summer barley (Hordeum
distichon), grew wild near the junction of the Samara and the Volga.
At the end of the month of September, 1829, Ehrenberg and my-
self, on our journey from Orenburg and Uralsk to Saratow and the
Caspian, also herborized on the banks of the Samara. We were,
indeed, struck with the quantity of wheat and rye plants growing in
what might be called a wild state in the uncultivated ground, but
the plants did not appear to us to differ from the ordinary cultivated
ones. Ehrenberg received from M. Carelin a kind of rye, Secale
fragile, gathered on the Kirgis Steppe, and which Marschall von
Bieberstein regarded for a time as the original or mother plant of
our cultivated rye, Secale cereale. Although Olivier and Michaux
speak of spelt (Triticum spelta) as growing wild at Hamadan in
Persia, A chill Richard does not consider that Michaux' s herbarium
bears out this statement. Greater confidence is due to the most
recent accounts obtained by the unwearied zeal of a highly-informed
traveller, Professor Carl Koch. He found much rye (Secale cereale,
var. j3, pectinata) in the Pontic Mountains, at elevations of upwards
of five or six thousand feet, in places where within the memory of
the inhabitants no grain of the kind had ever been cultivated. Koch
remarks, that the circumstance is " the more important, because with
us this grain never propagates itself spontaneously." In the Schir-
wan parts of the Caucasus, Koch collected a kind of barley which
he calls " Hordeum spontaneum," and considers to be the originally
wild " Hordeum zeoeriton" of Linnaeus. (Carl Koch Beitrage zur
Flora des Orients, heft i. s. 139 and 142.)

A negro slave of the great Cortes was the first who cultivated
wheat in New Spain. He had found three grains of it amongst the
rice which had been brought from Spain for provision for the army.
In the Franciscan convent at Quito, I saw preserved as a relic the
earthen vessel which had contained the first wheat sowed there by
the Franciscan monk Fray Jodoco Rixi, a native of Ghent in Flan-
ders. The first sowing had been made in front of the convent, on
what is now the Plazuela de San Francisco, after cutting down the

144 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

forest which then extended from the foot of the volcano of Pichincha
to the spot in question. The monks, whom I often visited during my
stay at Quito, begged me to explain to them the inscription on the
earthen vessel, which they thought must contain some mystic refer-
ence to the wheat. I read the motto, which was in the old German
dialect, and was — " Whoso drinks from me let him not forget his
God." I too felt with the monks that this old German drinking
vessel was a truly venerable relic. Would that there had been pre-
served everywhere in the New Continent the names, not of those
who made the earth desolate by bloody conquests, but of those who
first intrusted to it these its fruits, so early associated with the
civilization of mankind in the Old Continent ! In respect generally
to the names of the kinds of grain, as bearing on the original affini-
ties of different languages, a high authority has remarked, that "such
indications are much more rare in the case of different kinds of grain,
and on subjects of agriculture, than on those connected with the care
of cattle : herdsmen, when dispersed, had still much in common,
whereas the subsequent cultivators of the soil had to create new
words. But the fact that, in comparison with the Sanscrit, Romans
and Greeks appear nearly on a par with the Germans and Sclavonians,
argues in favor of the very early contemporaneous emigration of the
two latter. .Yet the Indian 'Java' (Frumentum hordeum), com-
pared with the Lithuanian 'jawai/ and the Finnish 'jywa/ offers, a
singular exception." (Jae. Grimm, Gesch. der deutschen Sprache,
th. i. s,. 69.)

(*) p. 34. — "Keeping by preference to the cooler mountain regions."
Throughout Mexico and Peru the traces of a great degree of civil-
ization are confined to the elevated plateaux. We have seen on the
Andes the ruins of palaces and baths at heights between 1600 and
1800 toises (10,230 and 11,510 English feet). It can only have
-been men of a northern race, who, migrating from the north towards
the south, could find delight in such a climate.

(») p. 34. — "The history of the peopling of Japan "
The probability of the western nations of the New Continent having
had communication with the east of Asia long before the arrival of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 145

the Spaniards, was I think shown by me in a work on the monu-
ments of the native inhabitants of America (Vues des Cordilleres et
Monumens des peuples indigenes de FAme'rique). I inferred this
probability from a comparison of the Mexican and Thibeto-Japanese
calendars — from the correct orientation of the steps of the pyramidal
elevations towards the different quarters of the heavens — and from
the ancient myths and traditions of the four ages or four epochs of
destruction of the world, and the dispersion of mankind after a great
flood of waters. The accounts published since my work, in England,
France and the United States, describing the wonderful bas reliefs,
almost in the Indian style, in the ruins of Gruatimala and Yucatan,
have given to these analogies a still higher value. (Compare Anto-
nio del Rio, Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City discovered
Rear Palenque, 1822, translated from the original manuscript report
by Cabrera (del Rio's exploration took place in 1787), p. 9, tab.
12-14 ; with Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, 1843, vol. i.
pp. 391 and 429-434; vol. ii. pp. 21, 54, 56, 317, 323; with the
magnificent volume of Catherwood, " Views of Ancient Monuments
hi Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan," 1844; and lastly, with
Prescott's " Conquest of Mexico// vol. iii. App. p. 360.)

The architectural remains in the peninsula of Yucatan show, still
more than those of Palenque, a degree of civilization and art which
excites our astonishment. They are situated between Valladolid,
Merida, and Campeachy, chiefly in the western part of the country.
But the monuments in the island of Cozurnel (more properly Cuza-
mil), east of Yucatan, were the first which were seen by the Span-
iards in the expedition of Juan de Grrijalva, 1518, and that of Cortes
in 1519, and the report of them did much to spread over Europe a
high idea of ancient Mexican civilization. The most important
ruins 'of the peninsula of Yucatan, which unfortunately have not
yet been thoroughly measured and drawn by architects, are the Casa
del Grobernador of Uxmal, the Teocallis and vaulted constructions at
Kabah, the ruins of Labnah with domed columns, those of Zayi
with columns very nearly of the Doric order, and those of Chiche
with large ornamented pilasters. An old manuscript written in the
Maya language by a Christian Indian, and which is still in the hands
of the G-efe politico of Peto, Don Juan Pio Perez; gives the different
13

146 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

epochs ("Katunes" of 52 years) in which the Toltecs settled in
different parts of the peninsula. From these data Perez infers that
the monuments or buildings of Chiche go back to the close of the
fourth century of our era, while those of Uxmal belong to the middle
of the tenth century. But the accuracy of these conclusions is sub-
ject to much uncertainty. (Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yuca-
tan, vol. i. p. 439; and vol. ii. p. 278.)

I regard the existence of ancient connections between the inhabit-
ants of Western America and Eastern Asia as more than probable,
but by what routes, or with what Asiatic nations, the communica-
tions took place, cannot at present be decided. A small number of
individuals of the educated priestly caste might perhaps be sufficient
to bring about great alterations in the civil and social state of Western
America. The stories formerly narrated of Chinese expeditions to
the New Continent really apply only to voyages to Fusang or Japan.
On the other hand, Japanese and Sian-Pi from the Corea may have
been driven by storms to the American coast, and landed there.
We know as matter of history that Bonzes and other adventurers
sailed over the eastern Chinese seas in search of some medicine which
should entirely prevent death. Under Tschin-schi-kuang-ti, 209
years before our era, 300 young couples, young men and young
women, were sent to Japan, and instead of returning to China they
settled at Nipon (Klaproth, Tableaux historiques de TAsie, 1824, p.
79; Nouveau Journal Asiatique, t. x. 1832, p. 335; Huinboldt,
Examen Critique, t. ii. pp. 62-67). May not similar expeditions
have been driven, by storms or other accidents to the Aleutian
islands, to Alashka, or to New California ? As the western coasts
of the American Continent trend from NW. to SE., and the eastern
coasts of Asia in the opposite direction, or from NE. to SW., the
distance between the two continents in 45° of latitude, or in the
temperate zone which is most favorable to mental development, is
too considerable to admit of the probability of such an accidental
settlement taking place in that latitude. We must, then, assume
the first landing to have been made in the inhospitable climate of
from 55° to 65°, and that the civilization thus introduced, like the
generarmovement of population in America, has proceeded by suc-
cessive stations from north to south (Huinboldt, Relat. historique, t.
iii. pp. 155-160). The remains of ships from Cathay, i. e. from

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 147

Japan or China, were supposed to have been found on the coasts of
the northern Dorado (called Quivira and Cibora), at the beginning
of the 16th century (G-omara, Hist, general de las Indias, p. 117).
Our knowledge of the languages of America is still too limited,
considering their great variety, for us as yet entirely to relinquish
the hope of some day discovering an idiom which may have been
spoken, with certain modifications, at once in the interior of South
America and in that of Asia; or which may at least indicate an
ancient affinity. Such a discovery would certainly be one of the
most brilliant which can be expected in reference to the history of
mankind. But analogies of language only deserve confidence when
the inquirer, not resting in or dwelling on resemblances of sound in
the roots, traces the analogies into the organic structure, the gram-
matical forms, and into all which in languages shows itself as the
product of the human intellect and character.

(30) p. 35. — u Many other forms of animals."
Whole herds of the Cervus niexicanus wander over the Caraccas
Steppes : the young stag is spotted, and resembles in appearance the
roe-deer of Europe. We saw among them many entirely white —
a singular circumstance in the torrid zone. The Cervus mexicanus
is not found at greater elevations on the mountain-slopes of the
Andes under the Equator than from 700 to 800 toises (4476 to 5115
Eng. feet) ; but a larger, and also often white, stag — which I could
hardly distinguish from the European by any specific characters — is
met with up to 2000 toises (12,789 Eng. feet). The Cavia capybara,
called in the province of Caraccas "chiguire," is an unfortunate
animal; being pursued in the water by the crocodile, and on the
plain by the tiger or jaguar. It runs so badly that we could often
catch it with our hands. Its extremities are smoked for hams, but
their taste is very disagreeable from the smell of musk; and on the
Orinoco we willingly ate monkey hams in preference. The beauti-
fully marked animals which have so disagreeable an odor are the
Viverra mapurito, Viverra zorilla, and Viverra vittata.

(31) p. 35. — « The Guaranis, and the fan-palm, Mauritia"
The small coast tribe or nation of the Guaranis (called in British

148 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Guiana the Warraws or Guaranos, and by the Caribs U-ara-u), inhabit
not only the marshy delta and river network of the Orinoco, and
particularly the banks of the Manamo Grande and the Cano Macareo,
but also extend, with little variation in their modes of life, along the
sea coast between the mouths of the Essequibo and the Boca de
Navios of the Orinoco. (Compare my Relation historique, t. i. p.
492, t. ii. pp. 653 and 703, with Richard Schornburgk's "Reisen in
Britisch Guiana," th. i. 1847, s. 62, 120, 173, and 194.) According
to the testimony of the last-named excellent explorer and observer,
there are still 1700 "Warraws or Guaranis living in the district of
Cumaca, and along the banks of the Barima river, which empties
itself into the gulf of the Boca d§ Navios. The manners and cus-
toms of the tribes living in the delta of the Orinoco were already
known to the great historical writer Cardinal Bembo, the cotem-
porary of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Alonzo de Hojeda. He
says, "quibusdani in locis propter paludes incolse domus in arboribus
sedificant" (Historise Venetae, 1551, p. 88). It is more probable
that Bembo is alluding to the Guaranis at the mouth of the Orinoco,
than to the natives near the mouth of the Gulf of Maracaibo, where
Alonzo de Hojeda, in August, 1499, when lie was accompanied by
Yespucci and Juan de la Cosa, also found a population having their
residence "fondata sopra F acqua come Venezia" (Riccardi's Text in
my Examen Crit. t. iv. p. 496). In Vespucci's account of his voyage
(in which we find the first indication of the etymology of the term
Province of Venezuela;, Little Venice, for Province of Caraccas), he
only speaks of houses raised upon foundation pillars, not of habita-
tions in the trees.

Sir Walter Raleigh offers a later evidence of high authority ; he
says expressly, in his description of Guiana, that, on his second
voyage in 1595, when in the mouth of the Orinoco, he saw the
"fires" of the Tivitives and the Oua-raa-etes (so he calls the Guara-
nis) "high up in the trees" (Raleigh, Discov. of Guiana, 1596, p.
90). The fire is represented in a drawing in the Latin edition:
" brevis et adiniranda descriptio regni Guianae" (Norib. 1599), tab.
4. Raleigh was also the first who brought to England the fruit of
the Mauritia-palm, which he very justlycompared, on account of its
scales, to a fir cone. The Padre Jose Gumilla, who twice visited

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 149

the Guaranis as a missionary, says, indeed, that this people had
their habitation in the palmares (palm groves) of the morasses; but
he only mentions dwellings raised upon high pillars, and not scaffold-
ings attached to trees still in a growing state (Gumilla, Historia
natural, civil, y geografica de las Naciones situadas en las riveras del
Rio Orinoco, nueva imp. 1791, pp. 143, 145, and 163). Hillhouse
and Sir Robert Schomburgk (Journal of the Royal Geographical
Society, vol. xii. 1842, p. 175 ; and Description of the Murichi or
Ita Palm, read at the Meeting of the British Association held at
Cambridge, June 1845 ; printed in Simond's Colonial Magazine),
are of opinion that both Bembo and Raleigh (the former speaking
from the reports of others, the latter as an eye-witness), were deceived
by the high tops of the palm-trees being lit up at night by the flames
of fires beneath, so that those who sailed by thought the habitations
themselves were attached to the trees. " We do not deny that in
order to escape the attacks of the musquitos, the Indian sometimes
suspends his hammock from the tops of trees; on such occasions,
however, no fires are made under the hammock." (Compare also
Sir Robert Schomburgk's New Edition of Raleigh's Discovery of
Guiana, 1848, p. 50.).

According to Martins, the fine" Palm Moriche, Mauritia flexuosa,
Quiteve, or Ita palm (Bernau, Missionary Labors in British Guiana,
1847, pp. 34 and 44), belongs, as well as Calamus, to the group of
Lepidocaryeae, or Coryphinese. Linnaeus has described it very im-
perfectly, as he erroneously considers it to be leafless. The trunk
grows as high as 26 feet, but it probably requires from 120 to 150
years to reach this height. The Mauritia extends high up on the
declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, where I
have found it in great beauty. It forms in moist places fine groups
of a fresh, shining verdure, which reminds us of that of our Alder
groves. The trees preserve the moisture of the ground by their /
shade, and hence the Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water
round its roots by a mysterious attraction. By a somewhat similar -
theory they advise that serpents should not be killed ; because the
destruction of the serpents and the drying up of the pools or lagu-
nas accompany each other : thus the untutored child of nature con-
founds cause and effect. Gumilla terms the Mauritia flexuosaof the

13*

150 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Guaranis the tree of life, arbol de la vida. It grows in the mount-
ains of Ronaima, east of the sources of the Orinoco, as high as
4000 (4263 Eng.) feet. On the unvisited banks of the Rio Ata-
bapo, in the interior of Guiana, we discovered a new species of Mau-
ritia with prickly stems, our Mauritia aculeata (Humboldt, Bonpland,
and Kunth, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum, t. i. p. 310).

(33) p. 35. — "An American Stylites"

The founder of the sect of the Stylites, the fanatical pillar-saint
Simeon Sisanites, the son of a Syrian herdsman, is said to have
passed thirty-seven years in religious contemplation on the summits
' of five successive pillars, each higher than the preceding. The last
pillar was 40 ells high. He died in the year 461. Po rseven hun-
dred years there continued to be men who imitated this manner of
life, and were called " sancti coluninares" (pillar saints). Even in
Germany, in the diocese of Treves, it was proposed to erect such
aerial cloisters, but the bishops opposed the undertaking (Mosheim,
Institut, Hist. Eccles. 1755, p. 215).

(33) p. 36. — "Towns on the banks of the streams which flow

through the Steppe"

Families who live not by agriculture, but by the care of cattle,
have congregated in the middle of the Steppe in small towns, which,
in the cultivated parts of Europe, would hardly be, regarded as vil-
lages. Such are Calabozo, in 8° 56' 14;/ N. lat. and 67° 42' long,
according to my observations, Villa del Pao, lat. 8° 38' 1", long.
66° 57', S. Sebastian, and others.

(**) p. 36.—" Conical-shaped clouds:'

The singular phenomenon of these " sand spouts" — something
analogous to which may occasionally be seen on a small scale in
Europe where four roads meet — is particularly characteristic of the
Peruvian Sand Desert between Amotape and Coquimbo. Such a
dense cloud of sand or dust may prove dangerous to the traveller
who does not- cautiously avoid its approach. It is also worthy of
notice that these partial conflicting currents of air only arise when
the air generally is perfectly calm. The aerial ocean resembles the
sea in this respect, for in the latter also the small currents which

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 151

are often heard to ripple audibly (filets de courant), are only per-
ceptible in a dead calm (caline plat).

f35) p. 36. — " Increases the suffocating heat."

I have observed in the Llanos de Apure, at the Guadalupe cattle
farm, the thermometer rise from 27° to 29° Reaumur (92°. 7 to
9 7°. 2 Fahr.) whenever the hot wind began to blow from the Desert,
which at such times was covered either with sand or with short
withered turf. In the middle of the sand-cloud the temperature was
for some minutes 35° R. (111° F.). The dry sand in the village of
San Fernando de Apure had a temperature of 42° R. (126° Fahr.).

(M). p. 37. — :" The illusive image of a. coolj rippling, watery
mirror."

The well-known phenomenon of the mirage is called in Sanscrit
the " thirst of the gazelle." (See my Relation historique, t. i. pp.
296 and 625; t. ii. p. 161.) All objects appear to hover in the
air, and are at the same time seen reflected in the lower stratum of
air. At such times the entire Desert assumes the aspect of the wave-
covered surface of a wide-spread lake. Palm trees, cattle, and
camels sometimes appear inverted on the horizon. In the French
expedition to Egypt, the soldiers, parched with thirst; were often
brought by this optical Illusion into a state of desperation. This
phenomenon has been remarked in all quarters of the globe. The
ancients were acquainted with the remarkable refraction of the rays
of light in the Lybian Desert. I find mention made in Diod. Sic.
lib. iii. p. 184, Rhod. (p. 219, Wessel),. of extraordinary illusive
images, an African Fata Morgana, with most extravagant explana-
tions of the supposed conglomeration of the particles of air.

(37) p> 37. — (t The Melon-Cactus."

The Cactus melo cactus is often 10 to 12 inches in diameter, and
has usually 14 ribs. The natural grop of Cactacese, the whole
family of NopaleaD of Jussieu, belong exclusively to the New Conti-
nent. The cactuses assume a great variety of shapes : ribbed and
melon-like (Melo cacti) \ articulated or jointed (Opuntise) ; forming
upright columns or pillars (Cerei); serpentine and creeping (Rhipsa-

152 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

lides); or provided with leaves (Pereskise). Many extend high up
the sides of the mountains. Near the foot of the Chimborazo, in
the elevated sandy plain around Riobamba, I have found a new kind
of Pitahaya, the Cactus sepiuin, even at a height of 10,000 (10,660
Eng.) feet. (Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, Synopsis Planta-
rum fequinoct. Orbis novi, t. iii. p. 370.)

(M) p. 37. — " The scene in the Steppe is suddenly changed."
I have- endeavored to depict the coming in of the rainy season,
and the signs by which it is announced. The usual deep dark
azure of the sky in the tropics arises from the more complete solu-
tion of the vapor contained in the atmosphere. The cyanometer
indicates a paler blue as soon as' the vapors begin to be precipitated.
The dark spot or patch in the constellation of the Southern Cross
gradually becomes indistinct as the transparency of the atmosphere
diminishes, and this alteration announces the near approach of rain.
The brightness of -the Magellanic clouds (Nubecula major and
minor), gradually vanishes in -a similar manner. The fixed stars,
which before shone like planets with a steady, tranquil, and not
trembling light, now scintillate even in the zenith, where the vapors
are least. (See Arago, in my Relation hist. t. i. p. 623.) All
these appearances are the results of the increased quantity of vapor
diffused in the atmosphere.

(39) p. 38. — " Awakened from a torpid state ty the first fall of rain "
Extreme dryness produces in plants and animals the same phe-
nomena as does the withdrawal of the stimulus of heat. Many
tropical trees and plants shed their leaves during the dry season.
The crocodiles and other amphibious animals hide themselves in the
mud, where they lie apparently dead, like animals in a state of
hybernation or plunged into winter sleep by cold. (See my Rela-
tion historique, t. ii. pp. 192 and 626.)

f40) p. 38. — ." The aspect of a vast inland sea."
Nowhere are "these inundations more extensive than in the net-
work of rivers formed by the Apure, the Arachuna, Pajara, Arauca,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 153

and Cabuliare. Large vessels sail across the country over the
Steppe for 40 or 50 miles.

(•") p. 39. — "To the mountain plateau of Antisana"
The great mountain plain or plateau surrounding the volcano of
Antisana is 2107 toises (13,473 English feet), above the level of
the sea. The atmospheric pressure at this elevation is so small that
the wild cattle, when hunted with dogs, bleed from the nose and
mouth.

(43) p. 39.— "Bera andKastro."

I have described the capture of the Gymnoti in detail in another
place. (Observations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic compare'e, vol. i.
pp. 83-87; and Relation historique, t. ii. pp. 173-190.) M. Gay
Lussac and I found the experiment without a circuit succeed per-
fectly with a living Gymnotus, which was still very vigorous when
brought to Paris. The discharge is solely dependent on the will of
the animal. We did not see any spark,- but other physicists have
done so on several occasions.

(43) p. 40. — "Awakened by the contact of moist, dissimilar particles."
In all parts of organic bodies, dissimilar substances are in contact
with each other: in all, solids are associated with fluids. Thus,
wherever there are organization and life, there is also electric tension
or the play of the Voltaic pile, as the experiments of Nobili and Mat-
teueci, and especially the latest admirable labors of Emil du Bois,
teach us. The last named physicist has succeeded in " manifesting
the presence of the electric muscular current in living and wholly
uninjured animal bodies;" he shows that " the human body, through
the medium of a copper wire, can cause a magnetic needle at a dis-
tance to be deflected at pleasure, first in one and then in the opposite
direction." (Untersuchungen iiber thierische Electricetat, von Emil
du Bois-Reymond, 1848, bd. i. s. xv.) I have witnessed these
movements produced at pleasure, and have had the gratification of
seeing thereby great and unexpected light thrown on phenomena to
which I had laboriously and hopefully devoted several years of my
youth.

154 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(**) p. 40. — " Osiris and Typkon"

On the conflict between two races of men, the Arabian pastoral
people in Lower Egypt, and the agricultural race in Upper Egypt
who were in a more advanced state of civilization ; on the fair-haired
Prince Baby or Typhon, who founded Pelusium ; and on the dark-
complexioned Dionysos or Osiris, see Zoega's ancient, and now for
the most part abandoned views, in his great work " De Origine et
Usu Obeliscorum," p. 577.

V

f45) p. 40. — " The boundary of a partial European, cultivation"
In the Capitania General de Caracas, as generally everywhere on
the eastern shores of America, the cultivation introduced by Eu-
ropeans, and their presence and influence, are limited to a narrow
strip of country along the coast. In Mexico, New Granada, and
Quito, on the other hand, European civilization has penetrated deep
into the interior of the country, and advanced up the ridges of the
Cordilleras. There existed in these last named regions a considerable
degree of settled and civilized life previous to the arrival of the Span-
iards ; and they have followed this civilization wherever they found
it, regardless whether its seat was near or at a distance from the sea
coast. They retained and enlarged the ancient cities, of which they
either mutilated the old significant Indian names, or gave them new
names, as, for example, of Christian saints.

(M) p. 41. — " Massive ,' leaden-colored granite rocks."
In the Orinoco, and more especially at the Cataracts of Maypures
and Atures, all blocks of granite, and even white pieces of quartz,
whenever they are touched by the water of the river, acquire a
grayish-black coating which scarcely penetrates a hundredth of
a line below the surface of the rock. The appearance produced
is that of basalt, or fossils colored with graphite. The crust ap-
pears to contain manganese and carbon j I say appears, for the
phenomenon has not yet been thoroughly examined. Something
similar was remarked by Rozier on the syenite rocks of the Nile,
near Syene and Philae; by the unfortunate Captain Tuckey on the
rocky banks of the Congo; and by Sir Robert Schomburgk on the
Berbice. (Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko, s. 212.) On the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 155

Orinoco these leaden-colored rocks are considered to give out per-
nicious exhalations when wet ; and their proximity is believed to
produce fevers. (Rel. hist. t. ii. pp. 299-304.) In the Rio Negro,
and. generally in the South American rivers which have " black
waters/' " aguas negras," or waters of a eoflfee-brown or yellow tint,
no such effects take place. No black color is imparted to the granite
rocks by the waters ; that is to say, they do not act upon the stone
so as to form from its constituent particles a black or leaden-colored
crust.

(47) p. 41. — "The rain-announcing howlings of the bearded apes"
The melancholy howlings of the small apes, Simia seniculus, Simia
beelzebub, &c., are heard some hours before the rain commences : it
is as if the tempest were heard raging at a distance. The intensity
of the noise produced by such small animals can only be explained
by their number; seventy or eighty being often lodged in a single
tree. On the organs of voice of these animals, see my anatomical
treatise in the first chapter of my Recueil d' Observations de Zoologie,
vol. i. p. 18.

(*) p. 41.— "Often covered with birds."

The crocodiles lie so motionless that I have seen flamingos (Phee-
nicoptefus) resting on their heads ; the body at the same time being
covered with aquatic birds, like the trunk of a tree.

(49) p. 41.— "Down his swelling throat"

The saliva with which the boa covers his prey hastens the process
of decomposition;, the muscular flesh thus becomes softened into
such a gelatinous state, that he can force jentire limbs of larger, and
bodies of smaller, animals down his throat without division. The
Creoles call this gigantic serpent, from these circumstances, " Traga-
venado," which means "Stag swallower;" they tell fabulous stories
of snakes being seen with the antlers of a stag (which it was impos-
sible to swallow) sticking in their throats. I have several times
seen the boa swimming in the Orinoco, and in the smaller forest
streams, the Tuamini, the Temi, and the Atabapo. It holds its head
above the water like a dog. Its skin is finely spotted. It is said to

156 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

attain a length of 48 feet; but the largest skins which have as yet
been brought to Europe, and carefully measured, do not exceed 21 to
23 feet. The South American boa (which is a Python) differs from
the East Indian. On the Ethiopian boa, see Diodor. lib. iii. p, 204,
ed. Wesseling,

(s0) p. 41. — "Using ants, gums, and earth as food"
- It^was a very prevalent report on the coasts of Cumana, New Bar-
celona, and Caraccas, visited by the Franciscan monks of Guiana on
their return from the missions, that there were men on the banks of
the Orinoco who ate earth. When, in returning from the Rio Negro,
we descended the Orinoco in thirty-six days, we passed the day of
the 6th of June, 1800, in the Mission inhabited by the earth-eating
Otomacs. This little village is called La Concepcion de Uruana, and
is very picturesquely situated at the foot of a granite rock. I Tound
its geographical position to be 7° 8' 3" N. lat., and 67° 18' W. long,
from Greenwich. The earth which the Otomacs eat is a soft, unc-
tuous clay; a true potter's clay, of a yellowish-gray color, due to a
little oxide of iron. They seek for it in particular spots on the banks
of the Orinoco and the Meta, and select it with care. They distin-
guish the taste of one kind of earth from that of another, and do not
consider all clays as equally agreeable to eat. They knead the earth
into balls of about five or six inches diameter, which they burn or
roast by a weak fire until the outside assumes a reddish tint. The
balls are re-moistened when about to be eaten. These Indians are
generally wild, uncultivated beings, and altogether averse to any
kind of tillage. It is a proverb _even among the most distant of the
nations living on the Orinoco, when speaking of anything very un-
clean, to say that it is "so dirty, that the Otomacs eat it."

As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are low, these
Indians live on fish and river tortoises. They kill the fish with
arrows when at the surface of the water, a pursuit in which we have
often admired their great dexterity. During the periodical swelling
of the rivers, the taking of fish ceases, for it is as difficult to fish in
deep river water as in the deep sea. It is in this interval, which is
of two or three months' duration, that the Otomacs swallow great
quantities of earth. We have found considerable stores of it in their

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 157

huts, the clay balls being piled together in pyramidal heaps. The
very intelligent monk, Fray Ramon Bueno, a native of Madrid (who
lived twelve years among these Indians), assured us that one of them
would eat &om three quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter
in a day. According to the accounts which the Otomacs themselves
give, this earth forms their principal subsistence during the rainy
season, though they eat at the same time occasionally, when they
can obtain it, a lizard, a small fish, or a fern root. They have such
a predilection for the clay, that even in the dry season, when they
can obtain plenty of fish, they eat a little earth after their meals
every day as a kind of dainty. These men have a dark copper-brown
complexion, and unpleasing Tartar features. They are fat, but not
large-bellied. The Franciscan monk who lived among them as a
missionary, assured us that he could perceive no alteration in their
health during the earth-eating season.

The simple facts are therefore as follows : The Indians eat large
quantities of earth without injury to their health ; and they them-
selves regard the earth so eaten as an alimentary substance, i. c. they
feel themselves satisfied by eating it, and that for a considerable
time ; and they attribute this to the earth - or clay, and not to the
other scanty articles of subsistence which they now and then obtain
in addition. If you inquire of an Otomac about his winter pro-
vision (in tropical South America the rainy season is usually called
winter), he points to the heap of clay balls stored in his hut. But
these simple facts by no means determine the questions, whether the
clay be really an alimentary substance ? whether earths be capa-
ble of assimilation ? or whether they merely serve to appease hunger
by distending the stomach? I cannot pretend ta decide these
questions. (Rel. hist, t. ii. pp. 618-620.) It is curious that the
usually credulous and uncritical Father Gruinilla positively denies
the earth-eating as such. (Historia del Rio Orinoco, nueva impr.
1791, t. i. p. 179.) He affirms that the balls of clay had maize-
meal and crocodile-fat mixed with them. But the missionary, Fray
Ramon Bueno, and our friend and travelling companion, the lay
brother Fray Juan Gonzalez, who was lost at sea off the Coast of
Africa with part of our collections, both assured us that the Otomacs
never mix crocodile-fat with the clay; and of the meal said to
14

•-'

158 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

be mixed with it, we heard absolutely nothing during our stay in
Uruana. The earth which we brought back with us, and which
Vauquelin analyzed, is thoroughly pure and unmixed. May Gumilla;
by a confusion of things wholly distinct, have been alluding to the
preparation of bread from the long pod of a kind of Inga, which is
previously buried in the earth in order to hasten the commencement
of the first stage of decay ? That the health of the Otomacs should
not suffer from eating so much earth appears to me' particularly
remarkable. Have they become accustomed to it in the course of
several generations ?

In all tropical countries, human beings show an extraordinary and
almost irresistible desire to swallow earth ; and not alkaline earths,
which they might be supposed to crave to neutralize acid, but unc-
tuous and strong-smelling clays. It is often necessary to confine
children to prevent them from running out to eat earth immediately
after a fall of rain. I have observed with astonishment the Indian
women in the village of Banco on the Magdalena River, whilst en-
gaged in shaping earthen vessels on the potter's wheel, put great
lumps of clay into their mouths. The same thing was remarked at
an earlier period by Grili. (Saggio di Storia Americana, t. ii. p. 311.)
Wolves also eat earth, and especially clay, in winter. It would be
important to examine carefully the excrements" of animals and men
that eat earth. With the exception of the Otomacs, individuals of
all other races who indulge for any length of time the strange desire
of earth-eating have their health injured by it. At the mission of
San Borja, we saw the child of an Indian woman, who, his mother
said, would hardly eat anything but earth. He* was, however, wasted
nearly to a skeleton.

Why is it that in the temperate and cold zones this morbid craving
for eating earth is so much more rare, and is almost entirely confined,
when it is met with, to children and pregnant women; while in the
tropics it would appear to be indigenous iiv all quarters of the globe ?
In G-uinea, the negroes eat a yellowish earth, which they call Caouac.
When brought as slaves to the* West Indies, they try to obtain a si-
milar earth, and affirm that in their own country the habit never did
them any harm. In the American Islands they were made ill by it,
and it was forbidden in consequence ; but a kind of earth (un tuf rouge

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 159

jaunatre) was, in 1751, sold secretly in the market in Martinique.
"Les negres de Gruine'e disent que dans leur pays ils mangent habi-
tuellement une certaine terre, dont le gout leur plait, sans en £tre
incommodes. Ceux qui sont dans Tabus de manger du Caouac en
sont si friands qu'il n'y a pas de chatiment qui puisse les empScher
de devorer de la terre." (Thibault de Chanvalon, Voyage a la Mar-
tinique, p. 85.) In the Island of Java, between Sarabaya and Sa-
marang, Labillardiere saw small square reddish-colored cakes exposed
for sale in the villages. The natives called them tana ampo (tanah,
in Malay and Javanese, signifies earth). On examination and in-
quiry, he found that the cakes consisted of reddish clay, and that
they were eaten. (Voyage a la Recherche de la P6rouse, t. ii. p. 322.)
The edible clay of Samarang has recently been sent to Berlin by
Mohnike, in 1847, in the shape of rolled tubes, like cinnamon, and
has been examined by Ehrenberg. It is a fresh-water formation de-
posited on limestone, and consisting of microscopic Polygastrica,
Graillonella, Naviculas, and Phytolitharia. (Bericht liber die Ver-
handl. der Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, aus dem J. 1848, s. 222-225.)
The inhabitants of New Caledonia, to appease their hunger, eat pieces
as big as the fist of friable steatite, which Vauquelin found to con-
tain in addition no inconsiderable quantity of copper. (Voyage a la
Recherche de la Perouse, t. ii. p. 205.) In Popayan, and several
parts of Peru, calcareous earth is sold in the streets as an eatable for
the Indians; it is used with Coca (the leaves of the Erythroxylon
peruvianum). Thus we find the practice of eating earth diffused
throughout the torrid zone, among indolent races inhabiting the
finest and most fertile parts of the globe. But accounts have also
come from the North, through Berzelius and Retzius, according to
which, hundreds of cartloads of earth containing Infusoria ate said
to be annually consumed by the country people, in the most remote
parts of Sweden, as breadmeal, and even more from fancy (like the
smoking of tobacco) than from necessity ! In Finland, this kind of
earth is occasionally mixed with the bread. It consists of empty
shells of animalculse, so small and soft that they do not crunch per-
ceptibly between the teeth ; it fills the stomach, but gives no real
nourishment. In periods of war, chronicles and documents preserved
in archives often give intimation of earths containing Infusoria having

160 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

been eaten ; speaking of them under the vague and general name of
" mountain meal." It was thus during the Thirty Years' War in
Pomerania (at Gamin); in the Lausitz (at Muskau); and in the ter-
ritory of Dessau (at Klieken) ; and subsequently, in 1719 and 1733,
at the fortress of Wittenberg. (See Ehrenberg iiber das unsichtbar
wirkende organisehe Lelben, 1842, s. 41.)

(51) p. 41. — " Figures graven on the rock."
In the interior of South America, between the 2d and 4th degrees
of North latitude, a forest-covered plain is enclosed by four rivers, the
Orinoco, the Atabapo, the' Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare. In this
district are found rocks of granite and of syenite, covered, like those
of Caicara and Uruana, with colossal symbolical figures of crocodiles
and tigers, and drawings of household utensils, and of the sun and
moon. At the present time this remote corner of the earth is en-
tirely without human inhabitants, throughout an extent of more than
8000 square geographical miles. The tribes nearest to its boundaries
are wandering naked savages, in the lowest stage of human existence,
and far removed from any thoughts of carving hieroglyphics' on rocks.
One may trace in South America an entire zone, extending through
more than eight degrees of longitude, of rocks so ornamented ; viz.,
from the Rupuniri, Essequibo, and the mountains of Pacaraima, to
the banks of the Orinoco and of the Yupura. These carvings may
belong to very different epochs, for Sir Robert Schomburgk even
found on the Rio Negro representations of a Spanish galiot (Reisen
in Guiana und am Orinoko, iibersetzt von Otto Schomburgk, 1841,
s. 500), which must have been x>f a later date , than the beginning
of the 16th century; and this in a wilderness where the natives were
probably as rude then as at the present time. But it must not be
forgotten that, as I have elsewhere noticed, nations of very different
descent, when in a similar uncivilized state, having the same disposi-
tion to simplify and generalize outlines, and being impelled by in-
herent mental dispositions to form rhythmical repetitions and series,
may be led to produce similar signs and symbols. (Compare Rela-
tion hist. t. ii. p. 589, and Martius iiber die Physionomie des Pflan-
zenreichs in Brasilien, 1824, s. 14.)
5 At the Meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, on the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 161

17th of November, 1836, there was read a memoir by Sir Robert
Schomburgk " On the Religious Traditions of the Macusi Indians,
who inhabit the Upper Malm and a part of the Pacaraima Moun-
tains;" a nation, consequently, who for a century (since the journey
of the adventurous Hortsmann) have not changed their residence.
Sir Robert Schomburgk says : " The Macusis. believe that the sole
survivor of a general deluge repeopled the earth by changing stones
into human beings." This myth (the fruit of the lively imagina-
tion of these nations, and which reminds us of Deucalion and
Pyrrha) shows itself in a somewhat altered form among the Tama-
naks of the Orinoco. When asked how mankind survived the great
flood, the "age of waters" of the Mexicans, they reply, without any
hesitation, that " one man and one woman took refuge on the high
mountain of Tamanacu, on the banks of the Asiveru, and that they
then threw over their heads and behind their backs the fruits of the
Mauritia-palm, from the kernels of which sprang men and women
who repeopled the earth." Some miles from Encaramada, there
rises, in the middle of the savannah, the rock Tepu-Mereme, or the
painted rock. It shows several figures of animals and symbolical
outlines which resemble much those observed-by us at some distance
above Encaramada, near Caycara, in 7° 5' to 7° 40' lat. and 66°
28' to 67° 23' W. long, from Greenwich. Rocks thus marked are
found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (in 2° 5' to 3° 20'
lat.), and what is particularly remarkable 560 geographical miles
farther to the East in the solitudes of the Parime. This last fact is
placed beyond a doubt by the journal of Nicholas Hortsmann, of
which I have seen a copy in the handwriting of the celebrated
D'Anville. That simple and modest traveller wrote down every
day, on the spot, what had appeared to him most worthy of notice ;
and he deserves perhaps the more credence because, being full of
dissatisfaction at having failed to discover the objects of his re-
searches, the Lake of Dorado, with lumps of gold and a diamond
mine, he looked with a certain degree of contempt on whatever fell
in his way. He found on the 16th of April, 1749, on the banks of
the Rupunuri, at the spot where the river winding between the Ma-
carana mountains forms several small cascades, and before arriving
at the district immediately round Lake Amucu, " rocks covered with

14*

162 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

figures/' — or, as he says in Portuguese, " de varias letras." We
were shown at the rock of Culimacari, on the banks of the Cassi-
quiare, signs which were called characters, arranged in lines, — but
they were only ill-shaped figures of heavenly bodies, boa-serpents,
and the utensils employed in preparing manioc-meal. I have never
found among these painted rocks (piedras pintadas) any symmetri-
cal arrangement or any regular even-spaced characters. I am, there-
fore, disposed to think that the word " letras," in Hortsmann's jour-
nal, must not be taken in the strictest sense.

Schomburgk was not so fortunate as to rediscover the rock seen
by Hortsmann, but he has seen and described others on the banks
of the Essequibo, near the cascade of Warraputa. " This cascade,"
he says, " is celebrated not only for its height but also for the
quantity of figures cut on the rock, which have great resemblance
to. those which I have seen in the Island of St. John, one of the
Virgin Islands, and which I consider to be, without doubt, the
work of the Caribs, by whom that part of the Antilles was formerly
inhabited. I made the utmost efforts to detach portions of the
rock which contained the inscription, and which I desired to take
with me ; but the stone was too hard, and fever had taken away my
strength. Neither promises nor threats could prevail on the In-
dians to give a single blow with a hammer to these rocks, — the
venerable monuments of the superior mental cultivation of their
predecessors. They regard them as the~ work of the Great Spirit ;
and the different tribes whom we met with, though living at a great
distance, were nevertheless acquainted with them. Terror was
painted on the faces of my Indian companions, who appeared to
expect every moment that the fire of heaven would fall on my
head. I saw clearly that my endeavours would be fruitless, and I
contented myself with bringing away a complete drawing of these
memorials." The last determination was certainly the best, and
the editor of the English Journal, to my great satisfaction, adds a
note to the effect that it is to be wished that no one else may be
more successful than Mr. Schomburgk, and that no future traveller
from civilized countries may do anything towards the destruction
of these monuments of the unprotected Indians.

The symbolical signs seen by Robert Schomburgk in the Valley

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 163

of the Essequibo, near .the rapids of Warraputa (Richard Schom-
burgk, Reisen in Britisch-Gruiana, th. i. s. 320), were remarked by
him to bear a great resemblance to genuine Carib ones in one of
the small Virgin Islands (St. John's) ; but notwithstanding the
wide extent of the invasions of the Caribs, and the ancient power
of this fine race, I cannot believe that all the rock engravings —
which, as I have said, form an immense belt traversing a great part
of South America from west to east — *are to be regarded as their
work. I am inclined rather to view these remains as traces of an
ancient civilization,— belonging, perhaps, to an epoch when the
tribes whom we now distinguish by various appellations were still
unknown. Even the veneration everywhere testified by the Indians
of the present day for these rude sculptures of their predecessors,
shows .that they have no idea of the execution of similar works.
There is another circumstance which should be mentioned : be-
tween Encaramada and Caycara, on the banks of the Orinoco, a num-
ber of these hieroglyphical figures are sculptured on the face of
precipices at a height which could now be reached only by means of
extraordinarily high scaffolding. If one asks the natives how these
figures can have been cut, they answer, laughing, as if it were a
fact of which none but a white man could be ignorant, that " in the
days of the great waters their fathers went in canoes at that
height." Thus a geological fancy is made to afford an answer to
the problem presented by a civilization which has long passed away.
Let me be permitted to introduce here a remark which I borrow
from a letter addressed to me by the distinguished traveller, Sir
Robert Schomburgk. "The hieroglyphical figures are more widely
extended than you had, perhaps, supposed. During my expedition,
which had for its object the examination of the Corentyn River, I
not only observed some colossal figures on the rock of Tkneri (4|°
N. lat. and 57 \° "W. long.), but I also discovered similar ones near
the great cataracts of the Corentyn, in 4° 21' 30" N. lat. and 57°
55' 30" W. long. These figures are executed with much greater
care than any which I discovered in Gruiana. Their size is about
ten feet, and they appear to represent human figures. The head-
dress is extremely remarkable ; it encompasses the head, spreading
out considerably in breadth, and is not unlike the halos represented

164 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

in paintings as surrounding the heads of Saints and Sacred Persons.
I have left my drawings of these figures in the colony, but I hope
some day to be able to lay them all before the public. I saw ruder
figures on the Cuyuwini, a river which empties itself into the Esse-
quibo in latitude 2° 16' N., entering it from the north-west; and I
have since seen similar figures on the Essequibo itself, in 1° 40' N.
lat. These figures extend, therefore, as ascertained by actual ob-
servation, from 7° 10' to 1° 40' N. lat., and from 57° SO' to 66°
30' W. long. Thus the zone of pictured rocks extends, so far as it
has been at present examined, over a space of 192,000 square geo-
graphical miles, comprising the basins of the Corentyn, the Essequibo,
and the Orinoco; a circumstance from which we may form some
inferences respecting the former amount of population in this part
of the continent."

Other remarkable remains of a degree of civilization which no
longer exists, are the granite vases with graceful labyrinthine orna-
ments, and the earthen masks resembling Roman ones, which have
been discovered on the Mosquito coast, among wild Indians. (Ar-
chseologia Britan. vol. v. 1779, pp. 318-324; and vol. vi. 1782, p.
107.) I have had them engraved in the " Picturesque Atlas" which
accompanies the historical portion of my Travels to the Equinoctial
Regions. Antiquaries are astonished at the similarity of these
ornaments (resembling a well-known Grecian form) to those of the
Palace of Mitla, near Oaxaca, in Mexico. In looking at Peruvian
carvings, I have never remarked any figures of the large-nosed race
of men, so frequently represented in the bas-reliefs of Palenque in
Gruatimala, and in the Aztec paintings. Klaproth remembered
having seen individuals with similar large noses among the Chalcas,
a northern Mogul tribe. It is well known that many tribes of the
North American red or copper-colored Indians have fine aquiline
noses; and that this is an essential physiognomic distinction between
them and the present inhabitants of Mexico, New Granada, Quito,
and Peru. Are the large-eyed, comparatively fair-complexioned
people, spoken of by Marchand as having been seen in 54° and 58°
lat. on the north-west coast of America, descended from an Alano-
G-othic race, the Usiini of the interior of Asia?

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 165

(5S) p. 41. — " Apparently weaponless, and yet prepared for murder"
The Otomacs often poison the thumb-nail with Curare. A mere
scratch of the nail is deadly if the curare mixes with the blood. We
obtained specimens of the climbing plant, from the juice of which
the curare is prepared, at Esmeralda on the Upper Orinoco, but un-
fortunately we did not find it in blossom. Judging by its physiog-
nomy it appears to be related to Strychnos (Rel. hist. t. ii. pp.
547-556). Since the notice in the work referred to, of the curare
or ourari (previously mentioned by Raleigh, both as a plant and as
a poison), the brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk have done
much towards making us accurately acquainted with the nature and
preparation of this substance, of which I was the first to bring a con-
siderable quantity to Europe. Richard Schomburgk found the
plant in blossom in Guiana, on the banks of the Pomeroon and the
Sururu, in the territory of the Caribs, who are not, however, ac-
quainted with the manner of preparing the poison. His instructive
work (Reisen in Britisch-Gruiana, th. i. s. 441-461), contains the
chemical analysis of the juice of the Strychnos toxifera, which,
notwithstanding its name and its organic structure, does not contain,
according to Boussingault, any trace of strychnine. Virchou and
Miinter's interesting physiological experiments make it probable
that the curare or ourari poison does not kill by mere external ab-
sorption, but only when absorbed by living animal substance of
which the continuity has been severed (i. e. which has been wounded
slightly); that it does not belong to the class of tetanic poisons; and
that its particular effect is to take away the power of voluntary mus-
cular movement, whilst the involuntary functions of the heart and
intestines still continue. Compare, also, the older chemical analysis
of Boussingault, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, t. xxxix.
1828, pp. 24-37.

' THE

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO

THE CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

IN the preceding section, which was made the subject of an aca-
demical lecture, I sought to depict those boundless plains which,
according to the varying modification of their natural characters
induced by climatic relations, appear to us sometimes as Deserts
devoid of vegetation, and sometimes as Steppes, or widely-extended
grassy plains or Prairies. In so doing, I contrasted the Llanos of
the southern part of the New Continent with the dreadful seas of
sand which form the African Deserts; and these again with the
Steppes of Central Asia, the habitation of world-assailing pastoral
nations, who, at a former period, when pressed hitherward from the
East, spread barbarism and devastation over the earth.

If on that occasion (in 1806), I ventured to combine widely dis-
tributed portions of the earth's surface in a single picture of nature,
and to entertain a public assembly with images whose coloring was
in unison with the mournful disposition of our minds at that epoch,
I will now, limiting myself to a narrower circle of phenomena, sketch
the more cheerful picture of river scenery, composed of foaming
rapids and rich, luxuriant vegetation. I propose to describe in par-
ticular two scenes of nature in the wilderness of Guiana — the cele-
brated Cataracts of the Orinoco, Atures and Maypures — which,
previous to my visit, few Europeans had ever seen.

The impression left on our minds by the aspect of nature is fre-
quently determined, less even by the peculiar character of the strictly
terrestrial portion of the scene, than by the light thrown on mount-
ain or plain, either by a sky of azure purity, or by one veiled by
lowering clouds; and in the same manner descriptions of nature act
upon us more powerfully or more feebly, according as they are more
15

170 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

or less in harmony with the requirements of our feelings. For it is
the inward mirror of the sensitive mind which reflects the true and
living image of the natural world. All that determines the cha-
racter of a landscape — the outline of the mountains, which, in the
far-vanishing distance, bound the horizon — the dark shade of the
pine forests — the sylvan torrent rushing between overhanging cliifs
to its fall — all are in antecedent, mysterious communion with the
inner feelings and life of man.

On this communion rests the nobler portion of the enjoyment
which nature affords. Nowhere does she penetrate us more deeply
with the feeling of her grandeur, nowhere does she speak to us with
a more powerful voice, than in the tropical world, under the "Indian
sky/' as, in the early middle ages, the climate of the torrid zone was
called. If, therefore, I venture again to occupy this assembly with
a description of those regions, I do so in the hope that the peculiar
charm which belongs to them will not be unfelt. The remembrance
of a distant, richly endowed land — the aspect of a free and vigorous
vegetation — refreshes and strengthens the mind ; in the same man-
ner as our spirits, when oppressed with the actual present, love to
escape awhile, and to delight themselves with the earlier youthful
age of mankind, and with the manifestations of its simple grandeur.

Favoring winds and currents bear the voyager westward across
the peaceful Ocean arm (*) which fills the wide valley between the
New Continent and Western Africa. Before the American shore
rises from the liquid plain, he hears the tumult of contending,
mutually opposing, and inter- crossing waves. The mariner unac-
quainted with the region would surmise the vicinity of shoals, or a
wonderful outbreak of fresh springs in the middle of the ocean, (3)
like those in the neighborhood of Cuba. On approaching nearer
to the granitic coast of Guiana, he becomes sensible that he has
entered the wide embouchure of a mighty river, which issues forth
like a shoreless lake, and covers the ocean around with fresh water.
The green, and, on the shallows, the milk-white, tint of the fresh
water contrasts with the indigo-blue color of the sea, and marks
with sharp outlines the limits of the river waves.

The name Orinoco, given to the river by its first discoverers, and
which probably originated in some confusion of language, is un-

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 171

known in the interior of the country. Nations in a rude state
designate by proper geographical names only such objects as can be
confounded with each other. The Orinoco, the Amazons, and the
Magdalena rivers, are called simply "The River," or "The Great
Kiver," or "The Great Water;" whilst those who dwell on their
banks distinguish even the smallest streams by particular names.

The current produced by the Orinoco, between the mainland and
the Island of Trinidad, with its asphaltic lake, is so strong, that
ships with all sail set, and with a favorable breeze, can with difficulty
make way against it. This deserted and dreaded part of the sea is
called the Bay of Sadness (Golfo Triste) ; the entrance forms the
Dragon's Mouth (Boca del Drago). Here detached cliffs rise like
towers above the foaming floods, and seem still to indicate the an-
cient site of a rocky bulwark, (3) which, before it was broken by
the force of the current, united the Island of Trinidad with the
coast of Paria.

The aspect of this region first convinced the great discoverer of
the New World of the existence of an American continent. Fami-
liar with nature, he inferred that so immense a body of fresh water
could only be collected in a long course, and " that the land winch
supplied it must be a continent, not an island." As, according to
Arrian, the companions of Alexander, after crossing the snow-covered
Paropanisus, (4) on reaching the Indus, imagined, from the presence
of crocodiles, that they recognized in that river a branch of the
Nile; so Colunrbus, unaware of the similarity of physiognomy
which characterizes the various productions of the climate of Palms,
readily supposed this new continent to be the eastern coast of the
far-projecting Continent of Asia. The mild coolness of the evening
air, the ethereal purity of the starry firmament, the balsamic fra-
grance of the flowers wafted to him by the land breeze — all led him
(as Herrara tells us in the Decades), (*) to deem that he had ap-
proached the Garden of Eden, the sacred dwelling-place of the first
parents of the human race. The Orinoco appeared to him to be
one of the four rivers descending from Paradise, to divide and water
the earth newly decked with vegetation. This poetic passage, from
the journal of Columbus' s voyage, or rather from a letter written
from Hayti, in October, 1498, to Ferdinand and Isabella, has a

172 CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO.

peculiar psychological interest. It teaches us anew that the creative
imagination of the poet exists in the Discoverer as in every form of
human greatness.

In considering the quantity of water which the Orinoco bears to
the Atlantic, the question arises — Which of the great South Ame-
rican Rivers — the Orinoco, the Amazons, or the River Plate — is
the largest ? The question, however, thus put is not a determinate
one, the idea of size, in this case, not being altogether definite.
The River Plate has the widest embouchure, being 92 geographical
miles across; but, like the British rivers, its length is comparatively
small. Even at Buenos Ayres its depth is already so inconsiderable
as to impede navigation. The Amazons is the longest of all rivers :
its course, from its origin in the Lake of Lauricocha to its mouth,
is 2880 geographical miles. But its breadth, in the province of
Jaen de Bracamoros, near the Cataract of Rentama, as measured
by me at the foot of the picturesque mountain of Patachuma, hardly
equals that of the Rhine at Mayence.

The Orinoco is narrower at its mouth than either the River Plate
or the Amazons ; and its length, according to positions astronomically
determined by me, only amounts to 1120 geographical miles. But,
on the other hand, far in the interior of Guiana, 560 miles from its
mouth, I still found its breadth, when full, 16,200 Parisian (17,265
Eng.) feet. The periodical swelling of the river annually raises its
level, at this part of its course, from 30 to 36 feet above its lowest
level. Sufficient materials for an accurate comparison of the enor-
mous rivers which intersect the Continent of South America are still
wanting. For such a comparison it would be needful to know in
each case the profile of the river-bed, and the velocity of the water,
which differs very greatly in different parts of the same stream.

If, in the Delta enclosed by its variously divided and still unex-
plored arms — in the regularity of its periodical rise and fall — and
in the number and size of its crocodiles — the Orinoco shows points
of resemblance to the Nile, there is this further analogy between
the two rivers, that after long rushing rapidly through many wind-
ings between wood-fringed shores formed by granitic and syenitic
rocks and mountains, during the remainder of their course they
slowly roll their waters to the sea, between treeless banks, over an

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 173

almost horizontal bed. An arm of the Nile (the Green Nile, Bahr-
el-Azrek) flows from the celebrated mountain-lake near Gondar, in
the Abyssinian Gojam Alps, to Syene and Elephantis, through the
mountains of Shangalla and Sennaar. In a similar manner, the
Orinoco rises on the southern declivity of the mountain chain which,
in the 4th and 5th parallel of north latitude, extends westward
from French G-uiana towards the Andes of New Granada. The
sources of the Orinoco (6) have never been visited by any European,
or even by any natives who have been in communication with
Europeans.

In ascending the Upper Orinoco in the summer of 1800, we
passed the Mission of Esmeralda, and reached the mouths of the
Sodomoni and the Guapo. Here rises high above the clouds the
massive summit of the Yeonnamari or Duida, a grand and pic-
turesque mountain which presents to the spectator one of the finest
scenes of nature which the tropical world has to offer. Its altitude,
according to my trigonometrical measurement, is 8278 (8823 Eng.)
feet above the level of the sea. The southern slope of the mount-
ain presents a treeless, grassy surface, and the humid evening air is
filled far and wide with the fragrance of the ripe ananas. The stalks
of the pineapples, swelling with rich juice, rise between the lowly
herbs of the meadow, and the golden fruit is seen shining at a dis-
tance from under its leafy crown of bluish-green. Where mountain
springs or rivulets break forth from the turfy covering, the scene is
further adorned by groups of tall fan-palms, whose foliage never
feels the influence of a cool breeze.

On the east of the Duida mountain a dense thicket of wild Cacao
groves begins, and amidst these are found trees of the celebrated
Bertholletia excelsa, the most vigorous of the productions of the
tropical world. (7) Here the Indians collect the materials for their
blow-pipes, colossal grass-stalks having joints above 18 feet long
from knot to knot. (8) Some Franciscan monks have penetrated
as far as the mouth of the Chiguire, where the river is already so
narrow that the natives have thrown across it, near the waterfall of
the Guaharibes, a suspension bridge formed of the twining stems of
climbing plants. The Guaicas, a race of comparatively light com»

15*

174 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

plexion, but of small stature, armed with poisoned arrows, forbid
any farther advance towards the east.

All, therefore, that has been put forward respecting the lake
origin of the Orinoco is fabulous. (9) We seek in vain in nature for
the Laguna of El Dorado, which is still marked in Arrowsmith's
maps as an inland sea 80 geographical miles in length. Has the
little reedy Lake of Amucu, from which the Pirara (a branch of the
Mahu) flows, given rise to this fable ? But the swamp in which
the Lake of Amucu is situated is four degrees of longitude to the
east of the district in which the sources of the Orinoco must be
sought.

It was an ancient custom of dogmatizing geographers to make all
the larger rivers of the world originate in considerable lakes. To
the lake forming the supposed origin of the Orinoco was transferred
the site of the Island of Pumacena, a rock of micaceous slate, the
glitter of which, in the 16th century, played, in the fable of El
Dorado, a memorable, and to deceived humanity often a fatal part.
It is the belief of the natives, that the Magellanic clouds of the
Southern Hemisphere, and even the fine nebulae in the constellation
of the ship Argo, are a reflection of the metallic brilliancy of the
silver mountains of the Parime.

The Orinoco is one of those rivers which, after many windings,
seem to return back towards the region in which they took their
rise. After following a westerly and then a northerly course, it
runs again to the east, so that its mouth is almost in the same
meridian as its source. From the Chiguire and the Gehette as far
as the Guaviare, the Orinoco flows to the west, as if it would carry
its waters to the Pacific. It is in this part of its course that it
sends out towards the south a remarkable arm, the Cassiquiare, but
little known in Europe, which unites with the Rio Negro (called
by the natives the Guainia), and offers perhaps the only example of
a bifurcation forming in the very interior of a continent a natural
connection between two great rivers and their basins.

The nature of the ground, and the junction of the Guaviare and
Atabapo with the Orinoco, cause the latter to turn suddenly towards
the north. In the absence of correct geographical knowledge, the
Guaviare flowing in from the west was long regarded as the true

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 175

origin of the Orinoco. The doubts raised by an eminent geographer,
M. Buache, since 1797, as to the probability of a connection with
the Amazons, have, I hope, been entirely refuted by my expedition.
In an uninterrupted navigation of 920 geographical miles, I passed
through the singular network of rivers, from the Rio Negro, by the
Cassiquiare, into the Orinoco ; traversing in this manner the interior
of the Continent, from the Brazilian boundary to the coast of Ca-
raccas.

In the upper portion of the basin of the Orinoco and its tributaries,
between the 3d and 4th degrees of north latitude, nature has several
times repeated the enigmatical phenomenon of the so-called " black
waters." The Atabapo, whose banks are adorned with Carolinias
and arborescent Melastomas, and the Temi, Tuamini, and Guainia,
are all rivers of a coffee-brown color. In the shade of the palm
groves this color seems almost to pass into ink-black. When placed
in transparent vessels, the water appears of a. golden yellow. The
image of the Southern Constellations is reflected with wonderful
clearness in these black streams. Where the waters flow gently,
they afford to the observer, when taking astronomical observations
with reflecting instruments, a most excellent artificial horizon. A
cooler atmosphere, less torment from stinging mosquitoes, greater
salubrity, and the absence of crocodiles (fish, however, are also want-
ing), mark the region of these black rivers. They probably owe
their peculiar color to a solution of carburetted hydrogen, to the
luxuriance of the tropical vegetation, and to the quantity of plants
and herbs on the ground over which they flow. On the western de-
clivity of the Chimborazo, towards the coast of the Pacific, I re-
marked that the flooded waters of the Rio de Guayaquil gradually
assumed a golden yellow or almost coffee-brown color, when covering
the meadows for some weeks.

In the vicinity of the mouths of the Gruaviare and Atabapo grows
the Piriguao (10), one of the noblest of palm trees, whose smooth
and polished trunk, between 60 and 70 feet high, is adorned with a
delicate flag-like foliage curled at the margins. I know no palm
which bears such large and beautifully colored fruits. They resemble
peaches, and are tinged with yellow mingled with a roseate crimson.
Seventy or eighty of them form enormous pendulous bunches, of

176 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

which each tree annually ripens three. This fine tree might be
called the peach palm. The fleshy fruits are from the luxuriance
of vegetation most often devoid of seeds, and offer to the natives a
nutritious, farinaceous food which, like plantains and potatoes, can
be prepared in a variety of ways.

Hitherto, or as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, the Orinoco
flows along the southern declivity of the Sierra de Parime ; and from
its southern bank the vast forest-covered plain of the Amazons River
stretches far beyond the Equator, even to the 15th degree of south
latitude. When the Orinoco turns suddenly to the north, near San
Fernando de Atabapo, it breaks through a part of the mountain
chain, along the base of which it had previously flowed; and this is
the site of the great waterfalls of Atures and Maypures. The river
bed is here everywhere hemmed in by colossal masses of rock, and
divided, as it were, into separate reservoirs by natural dikes.

In front of the entrance of the M'eta, there stands, in the middle
of a mighty whirlpool, an isolated cliff, to which the natives have
given the very appropriate name of the "Rock of Patience;" because,
when the waters are low, it sometimes costs those who are ascending
the river two days to pass it. Here the Orinoco, eating deep into
the land, forms picturesque rocky bays. Opposite to the Indian
mission of Carichana the traveller is surprised by the singular pros-
pect which presents itself to his view. His eye is involuntarily
riveted on an abrupt granitic rock, el Mogote de Cocuyza, a cube
with vertically precipitous sides, above 200 feet high and bearing on
its upper surface a forest of trees of rich and varied foliage. Re-
sembling a Cyclopean monument in its simple grandeur, this mass
of rock rises high above the tops of the surrounding palms, its
sharp outlines appearing in strong relief against the deep azure of
the sky, and its summit uplifting high in air a forest above the
forest.

In descending the Orinoco from this point, still within the range
of the Carichana mission, we arrive at the part of the river where
the stream has forced for itself a way through the narrow pass of
Baraguan. Here we recognize everywhere traces of chaotic devasta-
tion. To the north (towards Uruana and Encaramada), masses of
granite of extraordinarily notched and serrated outline and grotesque

CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO. 177

aspect shine with dazzling whiteness high above the thickets -from
amidst which they rise.

It is in this region, after receiving the Apure, that the Orinoco
leaves the granitic chain of mountains, and flows eastward to the
Atlantic, dividing the impenetrable forests of Guiana from the
grassy plains on which the vault of heaven seems everywhere to
rest as on the horizon of the ocean. Thus, the elevated cluster of
the Parime mountains, which occupies the entire space between the
sources of the Jao and the Caura, is surrounded on three sides, to
the south, to the west, and to the north, by the Orinoco. Below
Carichana the course of the river is uninterrupted by rocks or rapids
to its mouth, excepting at the whirlpool of the Boca del Infierno
(Hell's mouth) near Muitaco, where, however, the rocks which occa-
sion the rapid do not extend across the entire bed of the river as at
Atures and Maypures. In these lower parts of the river, in the
vicinity of the sea, the only danger feared by the boatmen is that
of encountering the great natural rafts, consisting of trees torn from
the banks by the swelling of the river, against which canoes are
often wrecked during the night. These rafts, covered like meadows
with flowering water plants, remind the spectator of the floating
gardens of the Mexican lakes.

After this rapid review of the course of the Orinoco, and of its
general relations to the surrounding country, I pass to the descrip-
tion of the Falls of Maypures and Atures.

Between the sources of the rivers Sipapo and Yentuari a granite
ridge projects from the elevated mountain group of Cunavami, and
advances far to the west towards the mountains of Uniama. Four
streams, which may be said to mark the limits of the Cataracts of
Maypures, descend from this ridge ; two, the Sipapo and the Sana-
riapo, on the eastern side of the Orinoco; and two, the Cameji and
the Toparo, on its western side. Near the missionary village of May-
pures the mountains retire and form a wide bay open to the south-west.

The foaming stream flows at the present time at the foot of the
eastern mountain declivity, and far to the west we recognize the
ancient bank now forsaken by the water. A grass-covered plain,
only about thirty feet above the present highest level of the river,

178 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

extends between the two chains of hills. The Jesuits have built
upon it a small church formed of the trunks of palm trees.

The geological aspect of the district, the shapes of the rocks of
Keri and Oco, which have so much the character of islands, the
water-worn hollows in the first named of these rocks, situated at
exactly the same height as the cavities in the opposite island of
Uivitari, all testify that the Orinoco once filled the whole of this
now dry gulf or bay. Probably the waters formed a wide lake as
long as the northern dike was able to withstand their pressure.
When it gate way, the prairie now inhabited by the Guareke In-
dians must have been the first part which appeared above the
waters; which may subsequently, perhaps, have long continued to
surround the rocks of Keri and Oco, which, rising like mountain
fortresses from the ancient bed of the river, present a picturesque
aspect. As the waters gradually diminished, they withdrew alto-
gether to the foot of the eastern hills, where the river now flows.

This conjecture is confirmed by several circumstances. The
Orinoco, like the Nile near Philse and Syene, has the property of
imparting a black color to the reddish-white masses of granite which
it has bathed for thousands of years. As far as the waters reach,
one may remark on the rocky shore the leaden-colored coating
described at page 155 : its presence, and the hollows before men-
tioned, mark the ancient height of the waters of the Orinoco.

In the rock of Keri, in the islands of the Cataracts, in the gneiss
hills of Cumadaminari above the Island of Tomo, and lastly at the
mouth of the Jao, we trace these black-colored hollows at elevations
of 150 to 180 (160 to 192 English) feet above the present height
of the river. Their existence teaches us a fact of which we may
also observe indications in the river beds of Europe : viz., that the
streams whose magnitude now excites our astonishment are only
the feeble remains of the immense masses of water belonging to an
earlier age of the world.

These simple remarks and inferences have not escaped even the
rude natives of Guiana. The Indians everywhere called our atten-
tion to the traces of the former height of the waters. There is, in a
grassy plain near Uruana, an isolated granite rock, on which, accord-
ing to the report of trustworthy witnesses, there are at a height of

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 179

more than eighty feet drawings of the sun and moon, and of many
animals, particularly crocodiles and boas, engraven or arranged
almost in rows or- lines. Without artificial aid, it would now be
impossible to ascend this perpendicular precipice, which deserves to
be carefully examined by future travellers. The hieroglyphical
rock engravings on the mountains of Uruana and Encaramada are
equally remarkable in respect to situation.

If one asks the natives how these figures can have been cut in
the rocks, they answer that it was done when the waters were so
high that their fathers' boats were only a little lower than the
drawings. Those rude memorials of human art would in such case
have belonged to the same age as a state of the waters implying a
distribution of land and water very different from that which now
prevails, and belonging to an earlier condition of the earth's surface;
which .must not, however, be- confounded with that in which the
earlier vegetation which adorned our planet, the gigantic bodies of
extinct land animals, and the oceanic creatures of a more chaotic
state, became entombed in the indurating crust of globe.

At the northernmost extremity of the Cataracts, attention is ex-
cited by what are called the natural drawings or pictures of the sun
and moon. The rock Keri, to which I have several times referred,
has received its name from a white spot which is conspicuous from
a great distance, and in which the Indians have thought they recog-
nized a remarkable similarity to the disk of the full moon. I was not
myself able to climb the steep precipice,- but , the white mark in
question is probably a large knot of quartz formed by a cluster of
veins in the grayish-black granite.

Opposite to the Keri rock, on the twin mountain of the Island of
Uivitari, which has a basaltic appearance, the Indians show with
mysterious admiration a similar disk, which they venerate as the
image of the sun, Camosi. Perhaps the geographical position of
the two rocks may have contributed to these denominations, as the
Keri (or Moon Rock) is turned to the west, and the Camosi to the
east. Some etymologists have thought they recognized in the
American word Camosi a similarity to Camosh, the name of the
sun in one of the Phoenician dialects, and to Apollo Chomeus, or
Beelphegor and Aminon,

180 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

Unlike the grander falls of Niagara (which are 140 French or
150 English feet high) the " Cataracts of Maypures" are not formed
by the single precipitous descent of a vast mass of waters, nor are
they a narrows" or passes through which the river rushes with
accelerated velocity, as in the Pongo of Manseriche in the River of
the Amazons. The Cataracts of Maypures consist of a countless
number of little cascades succeeding each other like steps. The
"Raudal" (the name given by the Spaniards to this species of
cataract) is formed by numerous islands and rocks which so restrict
the bed of the river, that out of a breadth of 8000 (8526 E.) feet
there often only remains an open channel of twenty feet in width.
The eastern side is now much more inaccessible and dangerous than
the western.

At the confluence of the Cameji with the Orinoco, goods are un-
laden, in order that the empty canoe, or, as it is here called, the
Piragua, may be conveyed by Indians well acquainted with the
Raudal to the mouth of the Toparo, where the danger is considered
to be past. Where the separate rocks or steps (each of which is
designated by a particular name) are not much above two or three
feet high, the natives, if descending the stream, venture, remaining
themselves in the canoe, to let it go down the falls : if they are as-
cending the stream, they leave the boat, swim forward, and when,
after many unsuccessful attempts, they have succeeded in casting a
rope round the points of rock which rise above the broken water,
they draw up their vessel, which is often either overset or entirely
filled with water in the course of these laborious proceedings.

Sometimes, and it is the only casej which gives the natives any
uneasiness, the canoe is dashed in pieces against the rocks; the men
have then to disengage themselves with bleeding bodies from the
wreck and from the whirling force of the torrent, and to gain the
shore by swimming. Where the rocky steps are very high and ex-
tend across the entire bed of the river, the light boat is brought to
land and drawn along the bank by means of branches of trees placed
under it as rollers.

The most celebrated and difficult steps, those of Purimarimi and
Manimi, are between nine and ten feet high. I found with astonish-
ment, by barometric measurements (geodesical levelling being out of

CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO. 181

the question from the inaccessibility of the locality, its highly insa-
lubrious atmosphere, and the swarms of mosquitoes which fill the
air), that the whole fall of the Raudal, from the mouth of the Cameji
to that of the Toparo, hardly amounts to 28 or 30 feet (30 or 32
English). I say, u I found with astonishment ;" for this shows that
the dreadful noise and wild dashing and foaming of the river are the
results of the narrowing of its bed by countless rocks and islands,
and of the counter currents produced by the form and situation of
the masses of rock. The best ocular demonstration of the small
height of the whole fall is obtained by descending from the village
of Maypures to the bed of the river by the rock of Manimi.

From this point a wonderful prospect is enjoyed. A foaming sur-
face of four miles in length presents itself at once to the eye : iron-
black masses of rock resembling ruins and battlemented towers rise
frowning from the waters. Rocks and islands are adorned with the
luxuriant vegetation of the tropical forest ; a perpetual mist hovers
over the waters, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce through
the cloud of spray and vapour. When the rays of the glowing even-
ing sun are refracted in these humid exhalations, a magic optical
effect begins. Colored bows shine, vanish, and reappear; and the
ethereal image is swayed to and fro by the breath of the sportive
breeze. During the long rainy season, the streaming waters bring
down islands of vegetable mould, and thus the naked rocks are
studded with bright flower-beds adorned with Melastomas and Dro-
seras, and with small silver- leaved mimosas and ferns. These spots
recall to the recollection of the European those blocks of granite
decked with flowers which rise solitary amidst the glaciers of Savoy,
and are called by the dwellers in the Alps "Jardins," or "Courtils."

In the blue distance the eye rests on the mountain chain of Cuna-
vami, a long extended ridge which terminates abruptly in a trun-
cated cone. We saw the latter (Calitamini is , its Indian name)
glowing at sunset as if in roseate flames. This appearance returns
daily : no one has ever been near the mountain to detect the precise
cause of this brightness, which may perhaps proceed from a reflect-
ing surface produced by the decomposition of talc or mica slate.

During the five days which we passed in the neighborhood of the
16

182 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

Cataracts, it was striking to hear the thunder of the rushing tor-
rents sound three times louder by night than by day. In all Euro-
pean waterfalls the same phenomenon is remarked. What can be
its cause in a wilderness where' there is nothing to interrupt the re-
pose of nature? - Perhaps the currents of heated ascending air by
causing irregular density in the elastic medium impede the propa-
gation of sound during the day, by the disturbance they may occa-
sion in the waves of sound; whereas during the nocturnal cooling
of the earth's surface the upward currents cease.

The Indians called our attention to ancient tracks of wheels.
They speak with admiration of the horned animals (oxen), which in
the times of the Jesuit missions used to draw the canoes on wheeled
supports, along the left bank of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the
Cameji to that of the Toparo. The lading was not then removed
from the boats, nor were the latter worn and injured as they now are
by being constantly stranded upon the rocks and dragged over their
rough surface.

The topographical plan of the district sketched by me shows the
facilities which the nature of the ground offers for the opening of a
canal from the Cameji to the Toparo, which would form a navigable
side-arm to the river, the dangerous portion of which would be thus
avoided. I proposed its execution to the Governor-General of Vene-
zuela.

The Raudal of Atures closely resembles that of Maypures; like
it, it is a cluster of islands between which the river forces its way
for ten or twelve thousand yards; a forest of palms rising from the
midst of the foaming waters. The most celebrated Steppes of this
Raudal are situated between the Islands of Avaguri and Javariveni,
between Suripamana and Uirapuri.

When M. Bonpland and I returned from the banks of the Rio
Negro, we ventured to pass the latter or lower half of the Raudal
of Atures with the loaded canoe, often leaving it for the rocky dikes
which connect one island with another. Sometimes the waters rush
over these dikes, and sometimes they fall with a hollow thundering
sound into cavities^ and flowing for a time through subterranean
channels, leave large pieces of the bed of the river dry. Here the
golden Pipra rupicola makes its nest; it is one of the most beautiful

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 183

of tropical birds, with a double movable crest of feathers, and is as

pugnacious as the East Indian domestic cock.

. In the Raudal of Canucari, the rocky dike or weir consists of

piled-up granite spheres. We crept into the interior of a grotto the

damp walls of which were covered with confervae and shining Byssus,

and where the river rushed high above our heads with deafening

noise.

We had accidentally more time than we desired for the enjoyment
of this grand scene of nature. The Indians had left us in the mid-
dle of the cataract, proposing to take the <?anoe round a long narrow
island below which we were to re-embark. We waited an hour and
a half under a heavy tempestuous rain ; night was coming on, and
we sought in vain for shelter between the masses of granite. The
little monkeys, which we had carried with us for months in wicker
cages, by their mournful cries attracted crocodiles whose size and
leaden-gray color showed their great age. I should not here notice
an occurrence so usual in the Orinoco, if the Indians had not assured
us that no crocodiles were ever seen in the Cataracts; and in de-
pendence on this assurance we had even ventured repeatedly to
bathe in this part' of the river. Meanwhile our anxiety lest w$
might be forced to pass the long tropical night in the middle of the
Kaudal, wet through and deafened by the thundering noise of the
falling waters, increased every moment; until at last the Indians
reappeared with our canoe. From the low state of the waters they
had found the steps by which they had intended to let themselves
down inaccessible, and had been forced to seek among the labyrinth
of channels for a more practicable passage.

Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right
bank of the river, is the cave of Ataruipe, which is widely celebrated
among the Indians. The grand and melancholy character of the
scenery around fits it for the burying-place of a deceased nation.
We climbed with difficulty, and not without danger of falling to a
great depth below, a steep and perfectly bare granite precipice. It
would be hardly possible to keep one's footing on the smooth surface,
if it were not for large crystals of feldspar, which, resisting "weath-
ering," project as much as an inch from the face of the rock.

On reaching the summit, the traveller beholds a wide, diversified,

184 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

and striking prospect. From the foaming river-bed rise wood-
crowned hills, while beyond the western shore of the Orinoco the
eye rests on the boundless grassy plain of the Meta, uninterrupted
save where at one part of the horizon the mountain of Uniama rises
like a threatening cloud. Such is the distance ; the nearer prospect
is desolate, and closely hemmed in by high and barren rocks. All
is motionless, save where the vulture or the hoarse goat-sucker hover
solitary in mid-air, or, as they wing their flight through the deep-
sunk ravine, their silent shadows are seen gliding along the face of
the bare rocky precipice until they vanish from the eye.

This precipitous valley is bounded by mountains on whose
rounded summits are enormous detached granite spheres of more
than 40 to 50 feet diameter : they appear to touch the base on
which they rest only in a single point, as if the slightest movement,
such as that of a faint earthquake shock, must cause them to roll
down.

The farther part of the valley is densely wooded, and it is in this
shady portion that the cave of Ataruipe is situated. It is not pro-
perly speaking a cave, but rather a vaulted roof formed by a far
over-hanging cliff, the cavity having apparently been formed by the
waters when at their ancient level. This place is the vault or
cemetery of an, extinct nation (").. .We counted about 600 well-
preserved skeletons placed in as many baskets woven from the stalks
of palm leaves. These baskets, which the Indians call " mapires,"
are shaped like square sacks, differing in size according to the age of
the deceased. Even new-born children had each its own mapire.
The skeletons are so perfect that not a bone or a joint is wanting.

The bones had been prepared in three different ways; some
bleached, some colored red^ with onoto, the pigment of the Bixa
Orellana; and some like mummies closely enveloped in sweet-
smelling resin and plantain leaves.

The Indians assured us that the custom had been to bury the
fresh corpses for some months in damp earth, which gradually con-
sumed the flesh ; they were then dug up, and any remaining flesh
scraped away with sharp stones. This the Indians said was still the
practice of several tribes in Guiana. Besides the mapires or baskets
we found urns of half burnt clay which appeared to contain the

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 185

bones of entire families. The larger of these urns were about three
feet high and nearly six feet long, of a pleasing oval form and
greenish color, having handles shaped like snakes and crocodiles,
and meandering or labyrinthine ornaments round the upper margin.
These ornaments are quite similar to those which cover the walls of
the Mexican Palace at Mitla. They are found in all countries and
climates, and in the most different stages of human cultivation —
among the Greeks and Romans, as well as on the shields of the
natives of Tahiti and other islands of the South Sea — wherever, the
eye is gratified by the rhythmical recurrence of regular forms.
These similarities, as I have elsewhere remarked more in detail, are
rather to be ascribed to psychological causes, or to such as belong
inherently to our mental constitution, than to be viewed as evidences
of kindred descent or ancient intercourse between different nations.

Our interpreters could give us no certain information as to the
age of these vessels ; that of the skeletons appeared for the most
part not to exceed a century. It is reported among the G-uareca In-
dians, that the brave Atures, being pressed upon by cannibal Caribs,
withdrew to the rocks of the Cataracts ; a melancholy refuge and
dwelling-place, in which the distressed tribe finally perished, and
with them their language. In the most inaccessible parts of the
Raudal, there are cavities and recesses which have served like the
cave of Ataruipe as burying-places. It is even probable that the
last family of the Atures may not have been long deceased, for (a
singular fact) there is still in Maypures an old parrot, of whom the
natives affirm that he is not understood because he speaks the Ature
language.

We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to the great
displeasure of our Indian guides, several skulls and the entire
skeleton of a man. One of these skulls has been figured by Blu-
menbach in his excellent craniological work, but the skeleton
(together with a large part of our natural, history collections, espe-
cially the entomological) was lost in a shipwreck on the coast of
Africa, in which our friend and former travelling companion, the
young Franciscan monk Juan G-onzalez, perished.

As if with a presentiment of this painful loss, we turned our steps
in a thoughtful and melancholy mood from this bury ing-place of a

16*

186 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

race deceased. It was one of those clear and cool nights so frequent
in the tropics. The moon, encircled with colored rings, stood high
in the zenith, illuminating the margin of the mist, which lay with
well-defined, cloud-like outlines on the surface of the foaming river.
Countless insects poured their red phosphoric light on the herb-
covered ground, which glowed with living fire, as if the starry canopy
of heaven had sunk down upon the turf. Climbing Bignonias, fra-
grant Vanillas, and yellow-flowering Banisterias, adorned the entrance
of the cave; and the summits of the palms rustled above the graves.
Thus perish the generations of men ! Thus do the name and the
traces of nations fade .and disappear! Yet when each blossom of
man's intellect withers — when in the storms of time the memorials
of his art moulder and decay — an ever new life springs forth from
the bosom of the earth ; maternal Nature unfolds unceasingly her
germs, her flowers, and her fruits ; regardless though man with his
passions and his crimes treads under foot her ripening harvest.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 187

: ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(*) p. 170. — "Across tJie peaceful ocean arm, which fills the wide
valley between the American shore and Western Africa."

The Atlantic Ocean, from the 23d degree of south, -to the 70th
degree of north latitude, has the form of an excavated longitudinal
valley, in which the salient and re-entering angles are opposite to
each other. I first developed this idea in my " Essai d'un Tableau
geologique de TAmerique meridionale/'. printed in the Journal de
Physique, t. liii. p. 61. (Geognostische Skizze von Siidamerika, in
Gilbert's Annalen der Physik, bd. xvi. 1804, s. 394-449.) From
the Canaries, and especially from the 21st degree of north latitude
and the 23d degree of west longitude, to the north-east coast of
South America, the surface of the sea is usually so calm, and the
waves so gentle, that an open boat might navigate in safety.

*^P?« . '.^-"'-^'r,

(2) p. 170. — "A wonderful outbreak of fresh springs m the midafa qf

the ocean."

On the southern coast of the Island of Cuba, south-west of the
Port of Batabano, in the Gulf of Xagua, a few miles from the coast,
springs. of fresh water gush from the bed of the ocean, probably un-
der the influence of hydrostatic pressure, and rise through the midst
of the salt water. They issue forth with such force that boats are
cautious in approaching this locality, which has an ill repute on ac-
count of the high cross sea thus caused. Trading vessels sailing
along the coast, and not disposed to land, sometimes visit these
springs to take in a supply of fresh water, which is thus obtained in
the open sea. The greater the depth from which the water is taken,
the fresher it is found to be. The "river cow/7 Trichecus manati,
which does not remain habitually in salt water, is often killed here.
This remarkable phenomenon of fresh springs issuing from the sea,
has been most carefully examined by a friend of mine, Don Fran-

188 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

cisco Lemaur, who made a trigonometrical survey of the Bay of
Xagua. I have been farther to the South in the group of islands
called the Jardines del Rey (the King's Gardens), making astrono-
mical observations for latitude and longitude ; but I have never been
at Xagua itself.

(3) p. 171. — "The ancient site of a rocky bulwark"
Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation exerted itself in

every direction, propounds in his letters to the Spanish monarchs a
geognostical hypothesis respecting the forms of the larger Antilles.
Having his mind deeply impressed with the strength of the east and
west equinoctial current, he ascribes to it the breaking up of the
group of the smaller West Indian islands, and the singularly length-
ened configuration of the sputhern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti, Cuba,
and Jamaica, which all follow almost exactly the direction of parallels
of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May 1498 to the
end of November 1500), in which, from the Boca del Drago to the
Island of Margarita, and afterwards from that island to Haiti, he
felt the whole force of the equinoctial current, " that movement of
the waters which is in accordance or conformity with the movement
of the heavens — movimiento de los cielos," he says expressly that
the island of Trinidad had been torn from the main land by the
violence of the current. He alludes to a chart which he sends to
the monarchs — a " pintura de la tierra" by himself, which is often
referred to in the celebrated lawsuit against Don Diego Colon respect-
ing the rights of the Admiral. " Es la carta de marear y figura que
hizo el Almirante senalando los rumbos y vientos por los quales vino
& Paria, que dicen parte del Asia" (Navarrete Viages y Descubri-
mientos que hicie"ron por mar los Espanoles, t. i. pp. 253 and 260 ;
t. iii. pp. 539 and 587.)

(4) p. 171. — " Over the snow-covered Paropanwis"
Diodorus's descriptions of the Paropanisus (Diodor. Sicul. lib.

xvii. p. 553, Rhodom.) might almost pass for a description of the
Andes of Peru. The army passed through inhabited places where
snow fell daily !

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 189

(5) p. 171. — " Herrara in the Decades."

Historia general de las Indias occidentals, dec. i. lib. iii. cap. 12
[ed. 1601, p. 106]; Juan Bautista Munoz, Historia del Nuevo
Mundo, lib. vi. c. 31, p. 301 ; Humboldt, Examen Crit. t. iii.
p. 111.

(6) p. 173. — " The sources of the Orinoco have never been visited

ty any European"

Thus I wrote respecting these sources in the year 1807, in the
first edition of the " Ansichten der Natur," and I have to repeat the
same statement after an interval of 41 years'. The travels of the
brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk, so important for all de-
partments of natural knowledge and geography, have afforded us
thorough investigations of other and more interesting facts ; but the
problem of the situation of the sources of the Orinoco has been only
approximately solved by Sir Robert Schomburgk. It was from the
West that M. Bonpland and myself advanced as far as Esmeralda,
or the confluence of the Orinoco and the G-uapo; and I was able to
describe with certainty, by the aid of well-assured information, the
upper course of the Orinoco to above the mouth of the Gehette, and
to the small Waterfall (Raudal) de los G-uaharibos. It was from
the East that Robert Schomburgk, advancing from the mountains
of the Majonkong Indians (the altitude of the inhabited portions of
which he estimated by the boiling point of water at 3300 F., or
3517 E. feet), came to the Orinoco by the Padamo River, which
the Majonkongs and Guinaus (Guaynas?) call Paramu (Reisen in
Guiana, 1841, s. 448). In my Atlas, I had estimated the position
of the confluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco at N. lat. 3° 12',
and W. long. 65° 46' : Robert Schomburgk found it by direct obser-
vation, lat. 2° 53', long. 65° 48'. The leading object of this travel-
ler's arduous journey was not the pursuit of natural history, but the
solution of the prize question proposed by the Royal Geographical
Society of London in November 1834, — viz. the connection of the
coast of British Guiana with the easternmost point which I had
reached on the Upper Orinoco. After many difficulties and much
suffering, the desired object was completely attained. Robert

190 CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO.

Schomburgk arrived with his instruments on the 22d of February,
1839, at Esmeralda. His determinations of the latitude and longi-
tude of the place agreed more closely with mine than I had expected
would be the case (s. xviii. and 471). Here let us allow the ob-
server to speak for himself; " I want words to describe the feelings
which overpowered me as I sprang to shore. My aim was attained ;
my observations, began on the coast of Guiana, were brought into
connection with those of Humboldt at Esmeralda : I frankly own,
that in the course of this enterprise, at a time when almost all my
physical powers had well-nigh deserted me, and when I was sur-
rounded by dangers and difficulties of no common nature, it was
only by the recognition which I hoped for from him, that I had
been encouraged to press onward with unalterable determination
towards the goal which I had now reached. The emaciated figures
of my Indians and faithful guides told more plainly than any words
could do, what difficulties we had had to surmount, and had sur-
mounted." After expressions so kind towards myself, I must be
permitted to subjoin the following passage, extracted from my Pre-
face to the German Edition of Robert Schomburgk' s Account of his
Travels, published in 1841.

" Immediately after my return from Mexico, I notified the direc-
tion and the routes which should be followed to explore the unknown
portion of the South American Continent between the sources of the
Orinoco, the mountain chain of Pacaraima, and the sea-shore near
Essequibo. These wishes, which I expressed so strongly in my
Relation Historique, have at last, after the lapse of almost half a
century, been for the greater part fulfilled. Besides the joy of hav-
ing lived to see so important an extension of our geographical know-
ledge, I have had that of seeing it attained by means of a courageous
and well-conducted" enterprise, requiring the most devoted persever-
ance, executed by a young man with whom I feel united by the
double bond of similarity of pursuits and efforts, and of our com-
mon country. Motives such as these have alone^ been sufficient to
overcome the distaste which I entertain, perhaps without reason, to
introductory prefaces by another hand than that of the author of the
work. But in this case I could not consent to forego the opportunity
of expressing, thus publicly, my heartfelt esteem for the accom-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 191

plished traveller who, in pursuit of an object deriving all its interest
from the mind — namely, in the self-imposed task of penetrating from
east to west, from the Valley of the Essequibo to Esmeralda — suc-
ceeded, after five years of efforts and of sufferings (which I can in
part appreciate from my own experience), in reaching the goal which
he had proposed to himself. Courage for the momentary execution
of a hazardous action is more easily met with, and implies less of
inward strength, than does the resolution to endure patiently long-
continued physical sufferings, incurred in the pursuit of some deeply-
felt mental interest, and still to determine to go forward, undismayed
by the certainty of having to retrace the same painful route, and to
support the same privations in returning with enfeebled powers.
Serenity of mind, almost the first requisite for an undertaking in in-
hospitable regions, passionate love for some class of scientific labor
(be it in natural history, astronomy, hypsometrics, magnetism, or
aught else), and a pure feeling for the enjoyment which nature in
her freedom is ready to impart, are elements which, when they meet
together in an individual, ensure the attainment of valuable results
from a great and important journey."

In discussing the question respecting the sources of the Orinoco,
I will begin with the conjectures which I had myself formed on the
subject. The dangerous route travelled in 1739 by the surgeon
Nicolas Hortsmann, of Hildesheim; in 1775 by the Spaniard Don
Antonio Santos,, and his friend Nicolas Rodriguez ; in 1793 by the
Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st regiment of the Line of Para, Don
Francisco Jose Rodriguez Barata; and (according to manuscript
papers, for which I am indebted to the former Portuguese Ambas-
sador in Paris, Chevalier de Brito) by several English and Dutch
settlers, who in 1811 went from Surinam to Para by the Portage of
the Rupunuri and by the Rio Branco j — divides the terra incognita
of the Parime into two unequal portions, and serves to limit the situa-
tion of a very important point in the geography of those, regions —
viz. the sources of the Orinoco, which it is no longer possible to
remove to an uncertain distance to the East, without interfering
thereby with what we know of the course of the Rio Branco, which
flows from north to south through the basin of the Upper Orinoco :
while that river itself, in this part of its course, pursues for the most

192 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

part an east and west direction. From political reasons, the Bra-
zilians, since the beginning of the present century, have testified a
lively interest in the extensive plains east of the Eio Branco. See
the memoir which I drew up at the request of the Portuguese court
in 1817, " sur la fixation des limites des Guyanes Franyaise et Portu-
guaise" (Schoell, Archives historiques et politiques, ou Recueil de
Pieces omcielles, Memoires, &c. t. i. 1818, pp. 48-58). Viewing the
position of Santa Rosa on the Uraricapara, the course of which ap-
pears to have been determined with tolerable accuracy by Portu-
guese engineers, the sources of the Orinoco cannot be looked for
east of the meridian of 65^° from Paris (63°. 8' W. long, from
Greenwich). This being the eastern limit beyond which they can-
not be placed, and considering the state of the river at the Raudal
de los Guaharibos (above Cano Chiguire, in the country of the sur-
prisingly fair-skinned Guaycas Indians, and 52' east of the great
Cerro NDuida), it appears to me probable that the upper part of the
Orinoco does not really extend, at the utmost, beyond the meridian
of 66 J° from Paris (64°. 8' W. from Greenwich). This point is
according to my combinations 4°. 12' west of the little Lake of
Amucu, which was reached by Sir Robert Schomburgk.

I next subjoin the conjectures of that gentleman, having given
the earlier ones formed by myself. According to his view, the
course of the upper Orinoco to the east of Esmeralda is directed
from southeast to northwest; my estimations of latitude for the
mouths of the Padamo and the Gehette appearing to be respectively
19 and 36' too small. Robert Schomburgk supposes the sources of
tthe Orinoco to be in lat. 2°.30' (s. 460); and the fine "Map of
Guayana, to illustrate the route of R. H. Schomburgk," which ac-
companies the splendid English work entitled " Views in the Inte-
rior of Guiana," places the sources of the Orinoco in 67°. 18' (W.
from Paris), i. e. 1° 6' west of Esmeralda, and only 48' of longitude
nearer, to the Atlantic than I had thought admissible. From astrono-
mical combinations, Schomburgk has placed the mountain of Mara-
yaca, which is upwards of nine thousand feet high, in lat. 3°. 41'
and long. 65°. 38'. Near the mouth of the Padamo or Paramu, the
Orinoco was scarcely three hundred yards wide ; and more to the
west, where it spreads to a breadth of from four to six hundred

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 193

yards, it was so shallow and so full of sand-banks that the Expedi-
tion were obliged to dig channels, the river bed being only fifteen
inches deep. Fresh water Dolphins were still to be seen everywhere
in large numbers; a phenomenon which the zoologists of the 18th
century would not have been prepared to expect in the Orinoco and
the Ganges.

(7) p. 173.—" The most vigorous of the productions of the

tropical world."

The Bertholletia excelsa ( Juvia), of the family of Myrtacese (an d
placed in Richard Schomburgk's proposed division of Lecythidese) ,
was first described by Bonpland and myself in the "Plantes equi-
noxiales," t. i. 1808, p. 122, tab. 36. This gigantic and magnifi-
cent tree offers, in the perfect formation of its cocoa-like, round,
thick, woody fruit enclosing the three-cornered and also woody
seed-vessels, the most remarkable example of high organic develop-
ment. The Bertholletia grows in the forests of the Upper Orinoco
between the Padamo and the Ocamu, near the mountain of Mapaya,
and also between the rivers Amaguaca and G-ehette. (Relation
historique, t ii. pp. 474, 496, 558-562.)

(s) p. 173. — •" Grass stalks having joints above eighteen feet long

from knot to knot"

Robert Schomburgk, when visiting the small mountainous country
of the Majonkongs, on his way to Esmeralda, was so fortunate as to
determine the species of Arundinaria which furnishes the material
for the blowpipes or tubes through which the Indians discharge
their arrows. He says of this plant : " It grows in large tufts like
the Bambusa ; the first joint rises without a knot to a height of from
16 to 17 feet before it begins to put forth leaves. The entire height
of the Arundinaria, as it grows at the foot of the great mountain of
Maravaca, is from 30 to 40 feet, with a thickness of scarcely half an
inch diameter. The top is always inclined. This kind of grass
is peculiar to the sandstone mountains between the Yentuari, the
Pararnu (Padamo), and the Mavaca. The Indian name is Curata,
and hence, from the excellence of these far-famed blow tubes of
great length, the Majonkongs and Guinaus of these districts have
17

194 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

been given the names of the Curata nation." (Reisen in Guiana und
am Orinoco, s. 451.)

(9) p. 174.— "Fabulous lake — origin of the Orinoco"
The lakes of these regions (some of which have had their real ske
much exaggerated by theoretical geographers, while the existence of
others is purely imaginary,) may be divided into two groups. The
first of these groups comprises the lakes, whether real or imaginary,
placed between Esmeralda (the easternmost mission on the Upper
Orinoco) and the Rio Branco; and the second, those assumed to
exist in the district between the Rio Branco and French, Dutch, and
British Guiana. This general view, of which travellers should never
lose sight, shows that the question of whether there is yet a Lake
Parime east of the Rio Branco, other than the Lake Amucu, seen
by Hortsmann, Santos, Colonel Barata, and Schomburgk, has no-
thing whatever to do with the problem of the sources of the Orinoco.
As the name of my friend, the former director of the hydrographic
office at Madrid, Don Felipe Bauza, is deservedly of great weight in
geography, the impartiality which ought to preside over every scien-
tific investigation makes me feel it a duty to recall that this learned
man was inclined to the view, that there must be lakes west of the
Rio Branco and not far from the sources of the Orinoco. He wrote
to me from London, a short time before his death : " I wish you
were here, that I might converse with you on the subject of the
geography of the Upper Orinoco, which has occupied you so much.
I have been so fortunate as to rescue from entire destruction the
papers of the general of marine, Don Jose' Solano, father of the
Solano who perished in go melancholy a manner at Cadiz. These
documents relate to the boundary division between the Spaniards
and the Portuguese, with which the elder Solano, had been charged,
in conjunction with Chef d'Escadron Yturriaga and Don Yicente
Doz, since 1754. In all these plans and sketches I see a Laguna
Parime, represented sometimes as the source of the Orinoco, and
sometimes quite detached from that river. Are we, then, to admit
the existence of another lake north-east of Esmeralda ?"

Loffling, the celebrated pupil of Linnaeus, came to Cumana as the
botanist of the boundary expedition above alluded to. After tra-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 195

versing the missions on the Piritu and the Carom, he died on the
22d of February, 1756, at the mission of Santa Eulalia de Muru-
curi, a little to the south of the confluence of the Orinoco and the
Caroni. The documents of which Bauza speaks are the same as
those on which the great map of De la Cruz Olmedilla is based.
They constitute the type of all the maps which appeared in England,
France, and Germany, up to the close of the last century; and they
also served for the two maps drawn in 1756 by Peter Caulin, the
historian of Solano's expedition, and by an unskilful compiler, M.
de Surville, Keeper of the Archives of the Secretary of State's office
at Madrid. The discordance between these maps shows the little
dependence which can be placed on the surveys of the expedition;
besides which, Caulin's acute remarks lead us to perceive the cir-
cumstances which gave occasion to the fiction of the Lake Parime;
and Surville' s map, which accompanies his work, not only restores
this lake under the name of the White Sea and of the Mar Dorado,
but also adds another lake, from which, partly through lateral out-
lets, the Orinoco, the Siapa, and the Ocamo issue. I was able to
satisfy myself on the spot of the fact, well known in the missions,
that Don Jose' Solano went indeed beyond the cataracts of Atures
and Maypures, but not beyond the confluence of the Gruaviare and
the Orinoco, in lat. 4° 3' and long. 68° 9'; that the instruments
of the Boundary Expedition were not carried either to the Isthmus
of the Pimichin and the Rio Negro, or to the Cassiquiare; and that
even on the Upper Orinoco they were not taken above the mouth of
the Atabapo. This extensive country, in which previous to my
journey no exact observations had been attempted, had been tra-
versed since the time of Solano only by a few soldiers sent in search
of discoveries; and Don Apolinario de la Fuente (whose journals I
obtained from the archives of the province of Quiros) had collected,
without critical discrimination, from the lying tales told by Indians,
whatever could flatter the credulity of the governor Centurion. No
member of the expedition had seen any lake, and Don Apolinario had
not advanced farther than the Cerro Yumariquin and the Grehette.

Having now established throughout the extensive district^ to
which it is desired to direct the inquiring zeal of travellers, a divid-
ing line bounding the basin of the Bio Branco, it still remains to

196 CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO,

remark, that for a century past no advance has taken place in our
geographical knowledge of the country west of this valley between
61 1 ° and 65 J° W. longitude. The attempts repeatedly made by
the government of Spanish Guiana, since the expeditions of Iturria
and Solano, to reach and to pass the Pacaraima mountains, have
only produced very inconsiderable results. When the Spaniards,
in travelling to the missions of the Catalonian Capuchin monks of
Barceloneta at the confluence of the Caroni and the Rio Paragua,
ascended the latter river, in going southward, to its junction with
the Paraguamusi, they founded at the site of the latter junction the
mission of Guirion, which at first received the pompous name of
Ciudad de Guirion. I place it in about 4£° of north latitude. From
thence the governor Centurion, stimulated by the exaggerated ac-
counts given by two Indian chiefs, Paranacare and Arimuicapi,
of the powerful nation of the Ipurucotos, to search for El Dorado,
prosecuted what were then called spiritual conquests still farther,
and founded, beyond the Pacaraima mountains the two villages of
Santa Rosa and San Bautista de Caudacacla; the former on the
higher eastern bank of the Uraricapara, a tributary of the' Uraricuera
which, in the narrative of Rodriguez, I find called Rio Curaricara;
and the latter six or seven German (24 or 28 English) geographical
miles farther to the east south-east. The astronomer of the Portu-
guese Boundary Commission, Don Antonio Pires de Sylva Pontes
Lenie, captain of a frigate, and the captain of engineers, Don Ricardo
Franco d' Almeida de Serra, who, between 1787 and 1804, surveyed
with the greatest care the whole course of the Rio Branco and its
upper branches, called the westernmost part of the Uraricapara, the
ei Valley of Inundation." They place the Spanish mission of Santa
Rosa in 3° 46' N; lat., and point out the route which leads from
thence northward across the chain of mountains to the Cano Ano-
capra, an affluent of the Paraguamusi, by means of which one passes
from the basin of the Rio Branco to that of the Caroni. Two maps
of these Portuguese officers, which contain the whole details of the
trigonometrical survey of the windings of the Rio Branco, the Ura-
ricuera, the Tacutu, and the Mahu, have been kindly communicated
to Colonel Lapie and myself by the Count of Linhares. These valu-
able unpublished documents of which I have made use, are in the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 197

hands of the learned geographer, who began a considerable time ago
to have them engraved at his own expense. The Portuguese some-
times give the name of Rio Parime to the whole of the Rio Branco,
and sometimes confine that denomination to one branch or tributary,
the Uraricuera, below the Cano Mayari and above the old mission
of San Antonio. As the words Paragua and Parime signify water,
great water, lake, or sea, it is not surprising to find them so often
repeated among nations at a distance from each other, the Qmaguas
on the Upper Maranon, the Western Guaranis, and the Caribs. In
all parts of the world, as I have already remarked, the largest rivers
are called by those who dwell on their banks "The River,'" without
any distinct and peculiar appellation. Paragua, the name of a branch
of the Caroni, is also the name given by the natives to the Upper
Orinoco. The name Orinucu is Tamanaki; and Diego de Ordaz first
heard it pronounced in 1531, when he ascended the river to the
mouth of the Meta. Besides the {( Valley of Inundation," above
spoken of, we find other large lakes or expanses of water between
the Rio Xumuru and the Parime. One of these belongs to the
Tacutu River, and the other to the Uraricuera. Even at the foot
of the Pacaraima mountains the rivers are subject to great periodical
overflows; and the Lake of Amucu, which will be spoken of more
in the sequel, imparts a similar character to the country at the com-
mencement of the plains. The Spanish missions of Santa Rosa and
San Bautista de Caudacacla or Cayacaya, founded in the years 1770
and 1773 by the Governor Don Manuel Centurion, were destroyed
before the close of the century, and since that period no fresh at-
tempt has been made to penetrate from the basin of the Caroni to
the southern declivity of the Pacaraima mountains:^

The territory east of the valley of the Rio Branco has of late
years been the subject of some successful examination. Mr. Hill-
house navigated the Massaruni as far as the Bay of Caranang, from
whence, he says, a path would have conducted the traveller in two
days to the sources of the Massaruni, and in three days to streams
flowing into the Rio Branco. In regard to the windings of the
great river Massaruni, described by Mr. Hillhouse, that gentleman
remarks, in a letter written to me from Demerara (January 1; 1831),
that " the Massaruni beginning from its source flows first to the

17*

198 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

west, then to the north for one degree of latitude, afterwards almost
200 English miles to the east, and finally north and NNE. to its
junction with the Essequibo." As Mr. Hillhouse was unable to
reach the southern declivity of the Pacaraima chain, he was not
acquainted with the Amucu Lake : he says himself, in his printed
account, that " from the information he had gained from the Ac-
caouais, who constantly traverse all the country between the shore
and the Amazons River, he had become satisfied that there is no
lake at all in these districts/' This statement occasioned me some
surprise, as it was in direct contradiction i to the views which I had
formed respecting the Lake of Amucu, from which the Caiio Pirara
flows according to the narratives of Hortsmann, Santos, and Rodri-
guez, whose accounts inspired me with the more confidence because
they agree entirely with the recent Portuguese manuscript maps.
Finally, after five years of expectation, Sir Robert Schomburgk's
journey has dispelled all doubts.

" It is difficult to believe/' says Mr. Hillhouse, in his interesting
memoir on the Massaruni, " that the report of a great inland water
is entirely without foundation. It seems to me possible that the
following circumstances may have given occasion to the belief in the
existence of the fabulous Lake of the Parime. At some distance
from the fallen rocks of Teboco, the waters of the Massaruni appear
to the eye as motionless as the tranquil surface of a lake. If at a
more or less remote epoch the horizontal stratum of granite at Te-
boco had been perfectly compact and unbroken, the waters must have
stood at least fifty feet above their present level, and there would
thus have been formed an immense lake, ten or twelve English miles
broad and 1500 to 2000 English miles long" (Nouvelles Annales
des Voyages, 1836, Sept., p. 316). It is not solely the vast extent
of this supposed inundation which prevents me from accepting this
explanation. I have seen plains (the Llanos), where, during the
rainy season, the overflowing of the affluents of the Orinoco annually
cover with water a space of 400 German geographical square miles
(equal to 6400 English geographical square miles). At such times
the labyrinth of branches between the Apure, the Arauca, the Ca-
panaparo, and the Sinaruco (see Maps 17 and 18 of my Geographical
and Physical Atlas), can no longer be traced, for the separate courses

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 199

are obliterated, and all appears one vast lake. But the fable of the
Dorado of the Parime, and of the White Sea or Lake of the Parime,
belongs historically, as I endeavored to show in another work thirty
years ago, to an entirely different part of Guiana, namely, to the
country south of the Pacaraima mountains ; and originated in the
shining appearance of the micaceous rocks of the Ucucuamo, the
name of the Rio Parime (Rio Branco), the overflowings of the
tributaries of that. river, and especially the existence of the Lake of
Amucu, which is in the vicinity of the Rio Rupunuwini or Rupunuri,
and is connected through the Pirara with the Rio Parime.

I have seen with pleasure that the travels of Sir Robert Schom-
burgk have fully confirmed these early views. The part of his map
which gives the course of the Essequibo and the Rupunuri is entirely
new, and of great geographical importance. It places the Pacaraima
chain in 3° 52' to 4° north latitude (I had given it 4° to 4° 10'),
and makes it reach the confluence of the Essequibo and the Rupu-
nuri, in 3° 57' N. lat. and 60° 23' W. long, from Paris (58° 1' from
Greenwich). I had placed this spot half a degree too far to the
north. Sir Robert Schomburgk calls the last-named river Rupu-
nuni, according to the pronunciation of the Macusis ; he gives as
synonymes of Rupuniri, Rupunuwini and Opununy, the Carib tribes
in these districts having much difficulty in articulating the sound of
the letter r. The situation of Lake Amucu and its relations to the
Mahu (Maou) and Tacutu (Tacoto) are quite in accordance with my
map of Columbia in 1825. We agree equally well respecting the
latitude of the lake, which I gave 3° 35', and which he finds to be
3° 33' ; but the Cano Pirara (Pirarara), which connects the Lake of
Amucu with the Rio Branco, flows from it to the north, instead of
to the west, as I had supposed. The Sibarana of my map, of which
Hortsmann places the source near a fine mine of rock-crystal, a little
to. the north of the Cerro Ucucuamo, is the Siparuni of Schomburkg's
map. His Waa-Ekuru is the Tavaricuru of the Portuguese geo-
grapher Pontes Leme; it is the tributary of the Rupunuri, which
approaches' nearest to the Lake of Amucu.

The following remarks from the narrative of Robert Schomburgk
throw some light on the subject before us. " The Lake of Amucu,"
says this traveller, " is incontestably the nucleus of the Lake of Pa-

200 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

rime and the supposed White Sea. When we visited it in December
and January, its length scarcely amounted to a mile, and its surface
was half covered with reeds." (This remark is found as early as in
D'Anville's map, in 1748.) "The Pirara issues from the lake west
north-west of the Indian village of Pirara, and falls into the Maou
or Mahu. The last-named river, from such information as I was
able to gather, rises on the north side of the Pacaraima mountains,
the easternmost part of which only attains a height of 1500 French
(in round numbers 1600 English) feet. The sources of the Mahu
are on a plateau, from whence it descends in a fine waterfall called
Corona. We were about to visit this fall when on the third day of
our excursion to the mountains the sickness of one of my companions
obliged us to return to the station near Lake Amucu. The Mahu
has -"black" or coffee-brown water, and its current is more rapid than
that of the Rupunuri. In the mountains through which it makes
its way it is about 60 yards broad, and its environs are remarkably
picturesque. This valley, as well as the banks of the Buroburo,
which flows into the Siparuni, are inhabited by the Macusis. In
April, the whole of the savannahs are overflowed, and present the
peculiar phenomenon of the waters belonging to different river basins
being intermixed and united. The enormous extent of this tempo-
rary inundation may not improbably have given occasion to the story
of the Lake of Parime. During the rainy season there is formed in
the interior of the country a water communication between the Esse-
quibo, the Rio Branco, and Gran Para. Some groups of trees, which
rise like oases on the sand-hills of the savannahs, assume at the time
of the inundation the character of islands scattered over the exten-
sive lake; they are, no doubt, the Ipomucena Islands of Don Anto-
nio Santos."

In D' Anville's manuscripts, which his heirs have kindly permitted
me to examine, I find that the surgeon Hortsmann, of Hildesheim,
who described these countries with great care, saw a second Alpine
lake, which he places two days' journey above the confluence of the
Mahu with the Rio Parime (Tacutu ?). It is a lake of black water
on the top of a mountain. He distinguishes it clearly from the Lake
of Amucu, which he describes as " covered with reeds." The nar-
ratives of Hortsmann and Santos are as far as the Portuguese

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 201

manuscript maps of the Bureau de la Marine at Rio Janeiro from
indicating or admitting a constant connection between the Rupunuri
and the Lake of Amucu. In D' Anville's maps, the rivers are better
drawn in the first edition of his South America, published in 1748,
than in the more widely circulated edition of 1760. Schomburgk's
travels have completely established this general independence of the
basins of the Rupunuri and the Essequibo ; but he remarks that
during the rainy season the Rio Waa-Ekuru, a tributary of the Ru-
punuri, is in connection with the Cano Pirara. Such is the state of
these river basins, which are, as it were, still imperfectly developed,
and are almost entirely without separating ridges.

The Rupunuri and the village of Anai (lat. 3° 56', long. 58° 34')
are at present recognized as the political boundary between the
British and the Brazilian territories in these uncultivated regions.
Sir Robert Schomburgk makes his chronologically determined lon-
gitude of the Lake of Amucu depend on the mean of several lunar
distances (east and west) measured by him during his stay at Anai,
where he was detained some time by severe illness. His longitudes
for these points of the Parime are in general a degree more easterly
than the longitudes of my map of Columbia. I am far from throw-
ing any doubt on the observations of lunar distances taken at Anai,
and would only remark that their calculation is important, if it is
desired to carry the comparison from the Lake of Amucu to Es-
meralda, which I found in long. 68° 23' 19" W. from Paris (66°
21' 19" Gr.).

We see, then, the great Mar de la Parima — which was so difficult
to displace from our maps that, after my return from America, it
was still set down as having a length of 160 English geographical
miles — reduced by the result of modern researches to the little Lake
of Amucu, of two or three miles, circumference. The illusions cher-
ished for nearly two centuries (several hundred lives were lost in
the last Spanish expedition for the discovery of El Dorado, in
1775,) have thus finally terminated, leaving some results of geo-
graphical knowledge as their fruit. In 1512, thousands of soldiers
perished in the expedition undertaken by Ponce de Leon for the
discovery of the " Fountain of Youth," supposed to exist in one of
the Bahama Islands called Bimini, and which is not to be found on

202 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

our maps. This Expedition led to the conquest of Florida, and to
the knowledge of the great current of the Gulf Stream, which issues
forth through the Bahama channel. The thirst for treasures, and
the desire of renovated youth, stimulated with nearly equal force
the passions and cupidity of the nations of Europe.

(10) p. 175. — <( The Piriguao, one of the noblest of palm trees."
Compare Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, Nova Genera Plant,
gequinoct. t. i. p. 315.

(") p. 184. — "The vault or cemetery of an extinct nation"
During the period of my stay in the forests of the Orinoco, these
caves of bones were examined Iby order of the court. The Mis-
sionary of the Cataracts had been unjustly accused of having dis-
covered in the caves treasures which had been hidden there by the
Jesuits previous to their flight.

THE NOCTUENAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

IN THE

PRIMEVAL FOREST.

^l THE NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

IN THE

PRIMEVAL FOREST.

IF the vivid appreciation and sentiment of nature which differ so
greatly in nations of different descent, and if the natural character
and aspect of the countries which those nations now inhabit, or
which have been the scene of their earlier wanderings or abode,
have rendered different languages more or less rich in well defined
and characteristic expressions denoting the forms of mountains, the
state of vegetation, the appearance of the atmosphere, and the con-
tour and grouping of the clouds, it is also true that long use, and
perhaps their arbitrary employment by literary men, have diverted
many such words from their original meaning. Terms have been gra-
dually regarded as synonymous which ought to have been preserved
distinct ; and thus languages have lost part of the vigor and the
grace, as well as the fidelity, which they might otherwise have been
capable of imparting to descriptions of natural scenery and of the
characteristic physiognomy of a landscape. With the view of
showing how much an intimate acquaintance and contact with
nature, and the wants and necessities of a laborious nomade life,
may increase the riches of a language, I would recall the numerous
characteristic appellations which may be used in Arabic (*) and in
Persian to distinguish plains, steppes, and deserts, according as they
are quite bare, covered with sand, broken by tabular masses of rock,
or interspersed with patches of pasturage, or with long tracts occupied
by social plants. Scarcely less striking is it to observe in the old
Castilian idiom (2) the many expressions afforded for describing the
physiognomy of mountain-masses, and more particularly for desig-
nating those features which, recurring in every zone of the earth's
18

206 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

surface, announce from afar to the attentive beholder the nature of
the rock. As the declivities of the Andes, of Peru, Chili, and
Mexico, and the mountainous parts of the Canaries, the Antilles,
and the Philippines, are all inhabited by men of Spanish descent,
and as these are the parts -of the earth where (with the exception,
perhaps, of the Himalaya and the Thibetian Highlands,) the man-
ner of life of the inhabitants is most affected by and dependent on
the form of the earth's surface, so all the expressions which the
language of the mother country afforded for denoting the forms^ of
mountains in trachytic, basaltic, and porphyritic districts, as well as
in those where schists, limestones, and sandstone are the prevailing
rocks, have been happily preserved in daily use. Under such influ-
ences, even newly-formed words become part of the common treasure.
Speech is enriched and animated by everything that tends to and
promotes truth to nature, whether in rendering the impressions
received through the senses from the contemplation of the external
world, or in expressing thoughts, emotions, or sentiments which
have their sources in the inner depths of our being.

In descriptions of natural objects or scenery, both in the manner
of viewing the phenomena, and in the choice of the expressions f
employed to describe them, this truth to nature must ever be kept in
view as the guiding aim : its attainment will be at once most easily
and most effectually secured by simplicity in the narration of what
we have ourselves beheld or experienced, and by limiting ^nd
individualizing the locality with which the narrative is connected.
Generalization of physical views, and the statement of general results,
belong rather to the "study of the Cosmos," which, indeed,, must
ever continue to be to us a science of Induction; but the animated
description of organic forms (plants and animals), in their local and
picturesque relations to the varied surface of the earth (as a small
fragment of the whole terrestrial life), affords materials towards the
study of the Cosmos, and also tends to advance it by the stimulus
or impulse imparted to the mind when artistic treatment is applied
to phenomena of nature on a great scale.

Among such phenomena must certainly be classed the vast forest
region which, in the tropical portion of South America, fills the great
connected basins of the Orinoco and the Amazons. If the name of

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 207

primeval forest, or "Urwald," which has of late years been so prodi-
gally bestowed, is to be given to any forests on the face of the earth,
none can claim it, perhaps, so strictly as the region of which we are
speaking. The term "Urwald," primitive or primeval forest, as
well as Urseit and Urvolk — primitive age, primitive nation — are
words of rather indefinite meaning, and, for the most part, only
relative import. If this name is to be given to every wild forest full
of a thick growth of trees on which man has never laid a destroying
hand, then the phenomenon is one which belongs to many parts of
the temperate and cold zones. But if the character of the "Urwald"
is that of a forest so truly impenetrable, that it is impossible to clear
with an axe any passage between trees of eight or twelve feet
diameter for more than a few paces, then such forests belong exclu-
sively to the tropical regions. Nor is it by any means, as is often
supposed in Europe, only the interlacing " lianes" or climbers which
make it impossible to penetrate the forest; the "lianes" often form
only a very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacle is
presented by an undergrowth of plants filling up every interval in a
zone where all vegetation has a tendency to become ligneous. An
impatient desire for the fulfilment of a long-cherished wish may
sometimes have led travellers who have only just landed in a tropical
country, or perhaps island, to imagine that although still in the im-
mediate vicinity of the sea-shore they had entered the precincts of a
primeval forest, or " Urwald," such as I have described as impene-
trable. In this they deceived themselves ; it is not every tropical
forest which is entitled to an appellation which I have scarcely ever
used in the narrative of nay travels ; although I believe that of all
investigators of nature now living, Bonpland, Martius, Poppig,
Robert and Richard Schomburgk, and myself, are those who have
spent the longest period of time in primeval forests in the interior
of a great continent.

Rich as is the Spanish language {as I have already remarked),
in appellations of distinct and definite meaning in the description
of nature, yet the same word " Monte" is employed for mountain
and forest, for cerro (montana), and for selva. In an inquiry
into the true breadth and greatest easterly extension of the chain
of the Andes; I have showed how this twofold signification of the

208 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

word "monte" led to the introduction, in a fine and extensively
circulated English map of South America, of high mountain ranges,
where, in reality, only plains exist. When the Spanish map of La
Cruz Olmedilla, which has served as the foundation of so many
other maps, showed "Montes de Cacao" (3), " 'cacao woods," Cor-
dilleras were made to rise, although the cacao seeks only the lowest
and hottest localities.

If we comprehend in one general view the wooded region which
includes the whole of the interior of South America, from the grassy
steppes of Venezuela (los Llanos de Caracas) to the Pampas of
Buenos Ayres, or from 8° north to 19° south latitude, we shall
perceive that this connected forest of the tropical zone has an extent
unequalled in any other portion of the earth's surface. Its area is
about twelve times that of Germany. Traversed in all directions
by systems of rivers, in which the minor and tributary streams
sometimes exceed our Rhine or Danube in the abundance of their
waters, it owes the wonderful luxuriance of the growth of its trees
to the combined influence of great moisture and high temperature.
In the temperate zone, and especially in Europe and Northern Asia,
forests may be named from particular genera or species, which, grow-
ing together as social plants (plantee sociales), form separate and
distinct woods. In the northern forests of Oaks, Pines, and
Birches, and in the eastern forests of Limes or Linden trees,
usually only one species of Amentaceae, Coniferae, or Tiliacese, pre-
vails or is predominant ; sometimes a single species of Needle-trees
is intermingled with the foliage of trees of other classes. Tropical
forests, on the other hand, decked with thousands of flowers, are
strangers to such uniformity of association ; the exceeding variety
of their flora renders it vain to ask of what trees the primeval forest
consists. A countless number of families are here crowded together,
and even in small spaces individuals of the same species are rarely
associated. Each day, and at each change of place, new forms
present themselves to the traveller, who, however, often finds that
he cannot reach the blossoms of trees whose leaves and ramifications
had previously arrested his attention.

The rivers, with their countless lateral arms, afford the only routes
by which the country can be traversed. Between the Orinoco, the

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 209

Cassiquiare, and the Eio Negro, astronomical observations, and
where these were wanting, determinations by compass of the direc-
tion of the rivers, respectively showed us that two lonely mission
villages might be only a few miles apart, and yet that the monks,
when they wished to visit each other, could only do so by spending
a day and a half in following the windings of small streams, in
canoes hollowed out of the trunks of trees. A striking evidence of
the impenetrability of particular parts of the forest is afforded by a
trait related by an Indian of the habits of the large American tiger,
or panther-like jaguar. While in the Llanos of Varinas and the
Meta, and in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, the introduction of
European cattle, horses, and mules has enabled the beasts of prey
to find an abundant subsistence — so^ that, since the first discovery
of America, their numbers have increased exceedingly in those ex-
tended and treeless grassy steppes — their congeners in the -dense
forests around the sources of the Orinoco lead a very different and
far less easy life. In a bivouac near the junction of the Gassiquiare
with the Orinoco we had had the misfortune of losing a large dog,
to which we were much attached, as the most faithful and affec-
tionate companion of our wanderings. Being still uncertain whether
he had been actually killed by the tigers, a faint hope of recovering
him induced us, in returning from the mission of Esmeralda through
the swarms of musquitoes by which it is infested, to spend another
night at the spot where we had so long sought him in vain. We
heard the cries of the jaguar, probably the very individual which
we suspected of the deed, extremely near to us ; and as the clouded
sky made astronomical observations impossible, we passed part of
the night in making our interpreter (lenguaraz) repeat to us the
accounts given by our native boat's crew of the tigers of the country.
The " black jaguar" was, they said, not unfrequently found there;
it is the largest and most bloodthirsty variety, with black spots
scarcely distinguishable on its deep, dark-brown skim It lives at the
foot of the mountains of Maraguaca and Unturan. One of the In-
dians of the Durimund tribe then related to us that jaguars are often
led, by their love of wandering and by their rapacity, to lose them-
selves in such impenetrable parts of the forest that they can no
longer hunt along the ground, and live instead in the trees, where

18*

210 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

they are the terror of tho families of monkeys and of the prehen-
sile-tailed viverra, the Cercoleptes. I borrow these notices from
journals written at the time in German, and which were not entirely
exhausted in the Narrative of my Travels, which I published in tii<-
French language. They contain a detailed description of the noc-
turnal life, or perhaps I might rather say, the nocturnal voices, of
the wild animals in the forests of the torrid zone; which appears to
me particularly suited to form part of a work bearing the title of the
present volumes. That which is written down on the spot, either in
the immediate presence of the phenomena, or soon after the recep-
tion of the impressions which they produce, may at least lay claim
to more life and freshness than can be expected in recollections.

Descending from west to east the Rio Apure, the overflowings
of whose waters and the inundations produced by them were noticed
in the chapter on Steppes and Deserts, we arrived at its junction
with the Orinoco. It was the season of low water, and the average
breadth of the Apure was only a little more than twelve hundred
English feet, yet I found the Orinoco at the confluence of the two
rivers, not far from the granite rock of Curiquima, where I was able
to measure a base line, still upwards of 11,480 French (12,180 En-
glish) feet wide. Yet this point, i. e. the Kock of Curiquima, is
four hundred geographical miles in a straight line from the sea and
from the Delta of the Orinoco. Part of the plains watered by the
Apure and the Pagara are inhabited by tribes of the Yaruros and
Achaguas, who, as they persist in maintaining their independence,
are called savages in the mission villages established by the monks :
their manners, however, are scarcely more rude than those of the
Indians of the villages — who, although baptized, and living "under
the belP; (baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught and
uninstructcd.

On leaving the Island del Diamante, in which Zambos who speak
Spanish cultivate sugar-canes, we entered on scenes of nature charac-
terized by wildness and grandeur. The air was filled with countless
flocks of flamingoes (Phoanicopterus) and other water birds, which
appeared against the blue sky like a dark cloud with continually va-
rying outlines. The river had here narrowed to between 900 and
1000 feet, and flowing in a perfectly straight line, formed a kind of

IN THE PRIMEVAL K)REST. 211

canal, enclosed on either side by dense wood. The margin of the
forest presents at this part a singular appearance. In front of the
almost impenetrable wall of giant trunks of Csesalpinia, Cedrela, and
Desmanthus, there rises from the sandy river beach, with the greatest
regularity, a low hedge of Sauso, only four feet high, consisting of a
small shrub, Hermesia castaneifolia, which forms a new genus (4) of
the family of Euphorbiaceae. Some slender thorny palms, called
by the Spaniards Piritu and Coroso (perhaps/ species of Martinezia
and Bactris), stand next ; and the whole resembles a close, well-
pruned garden hedge, having only occasional openings at considerable
distances from each other, which have doubtless been made by the
larger four-footed beasts of the forest, to gain easy access to the river.
One sees, more especially in the early morning and at sunset, the
American tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and the peccary, lead their young
through these openings to the river to drink. When startled by
the passing canoe, they do not attempt to regain the forest by break-
ing forcibly through the hedge which has been described, but one has
the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along be-
tween the river and the hedge for four or five hundred paces, until
they have reached the nearest opening, when they disappear through
it. In the course of an almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1520
geographical miles on the Orinoco to near its sources, on the Cassi-
quiare, and on the Rio Negro — and during which we were confined
for seventy-four days to a small canoe — we enjoyed the repetition of
the same spectacle at several different points, and I may add, always
with new delight. There came down together, to drink, to bathe,
or to fish, groups consisting of the most different classes of animals,
the larger mammalia being associated with many colored herons,
palamedeas, and proudly-stepping curassow and cashew birds (Crax
Alector and C. Pauxi). « Es como en el Paraiso" — it is here as in
Paradise — said, with a pious air, our steersman, an old Indian, who
had been brought up in the house of an ecclesiastic. The peace of
the golden age was, however, far from prevailing among the animals
of this- American paradise, which carefully watched and avoided
each other. The Capybara, a Cavy three or four feet long (a mag-
nified repetition of the Brazilian Cavy, Cavia aguti), is devoured in
the river by the crocodiles, and on shore by the tiger. It runs so

212 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

indifferently that we were several times able to catch individuals
from among the numerous herds which presented themselves.

Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed the
night as usual, under the open sky, on a sandy flat on the bank of
the Rio Apure, closely bordered by the impenetrable forest. It was
not without difficulty that we succeeded in finding dry wood to kindle
the fire with which it is always customary in that country to surround
a bivouac, in order to guard against the attacks of the jaguar. The
night was humid, mild, and moonlight. Several crocodiles approached
the shore ; I think I have observed these animals to be attracted by
fire, like our cray-fish and many other inhabitants of the water. The
oars of our boat were placed upright and carefully driven into the
ground, to form poles from which our hammocks could be suspended.
Beep stillness prevailed; only from time to time we heard the blow-
ing of the fresh-water dolphins (5) which are peculiar to the Orinoco
net-work of rivers (and, according to Colebrooke, to the Granges as
far as Benares), which followed each other in long lines.

Soon after 11 o'clock such a disturbance began to be heard in the
adjoining forest, that for the remainder of the night all sleep was
impossible. The wild cries of animals appeared to rage throughout
the forest. Among the many voices which resounded together, the
Indians could only recognize those which, after short pauses in the
general uproar, were first heard singly. There was the monotonous
howling of the aluates (the howling monkeys); the plaintive, soft,
and almost flute-like tones of the small sapajous; the snorting grum-
blings of the striped nocturnal monkey (6) (the Nyctipithicus trivir-
gatus, which I was the first to describe) ; the interrupted cries of the
great tiger, the cuguar or maneless American lion, the peccary, the
sloth, and a host of parrots, of parraquas, and other pheasant-like
birds. When the tigers came near the edge of the forest, our dog,
which had before barked incessantly, -came howling to seek refuge
under our hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger was heard to
proceed from amidst the high branches of a tree, and was in such
case always accompanied by the plaintive piping of the monkeys,
who were seeking to escape from the unwonted pursuit. -^i&

If one asks the Indians why this incessant noise and disturbance
arises on particular nights; they answer, with a smile; that " the

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 213

animals are rejoicing in the bright moonlight, and keeping the feast
of the full moon." To me it appeared that the scene had probably
originated in some accidental combat, and that hence the disturbance
had spread to other animals, and thus the noise had increased more
and more. The jaguar pursues the peccaries and tapirs, and these,
pressing against each other in their flight, break through the inter-
woven tree-like shrubs which impede their escape; the apes on the
tops of the trees, being frightened by the crash, join their cries to
those of the larger animals; this arouses the tribes of birds, who
build their nests in communities, and thus the whole animal world
becomes in a state of commotion. Longer experience taught us that
it is by no means always the celebration of the brightness of the
moon which disturbs the repose of the woods: we witnessed the
same occurrence repeatedly, and found that the voices were loudest
during violent falls of rain, or when, with loud peals of thunder, the
flashing lightning illuminated the deep recesses of the forest. The
good-natured Franciscan monk, who, although he had been suffering
for several months from fever, accompanied us through the Cataracts
of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos on the Rio Negro, and to the
Brazilian boundary, used to say, when fearful on the closing in of
night that there might be a thunder-storm, " May Heaven grant a
quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the forest !"

Scenes, such as those I have just described, were wonderfully
contrasted with the stillness which prevails within the tropics dur-
ing the noontide hours of a day of more than usual heat. I
borrow from the same journal the recollections of a day at the
Narrows of Baraguan. At this part of its course the Orinoco
forces for itself a passage through the western portion of the
Parime Mountains. What is called at this remarkable pass a
" Narrow " (Angostura del Baraguan), is still a bed or water-basin
of 890 toises (5690 English feet) in breadth. On the naked rocks
which formed the shores we saw only, besides an old withered
stem of Aubletia (Apeiba tiburba), and a new Apocinea (Alla-
manda salicifolia), a few silvery croton shrubs. A thermometer
observed in the shade, but brought within a few inches of the
towering mass of granite rock, rose to above 40° Reaumur (122°
Fahr.). All distant objects had wave-like, undulating outlines, the

214 NOCTURNAL LIFE OP ANIMALS.

effect of mirage; not a breath of air stirred the fine, dust-like sand.
The sun was in the zenith, and the flood of light which he poured
down upon the river, and which, from a slight rippling movement
of the waters, flashed sparkling back, rendered still more sensible
the red haze which veiled the distance. All the naked rocks and
boulders around were covered with a countless number of large,
thick-scaled iguanas, gecko-lizards, and variously spotted salaman-
ders. Motionless, with uplifted heads and open mouths, they
appeared to inhale the burning air with ecstasy. At such times
the larger animals seek shelter in the recesses of the forest, and
the birds hide themselves under the thick foliage of the trees, or in
the clefts of the rocks ; but if, in this apparent entire stillness of
nature, one listens for the faintest tones which an attentive ear can
seize, there is perceived an all-pervading rustling sound, a humming
and fluttering of insects close to the ground, and in the lower strata
of the atmosphere. Everything announces a world of organic
activity and life. In every bush, in the cracked bark of the trees,
in the earth undermined by hymenopterous insects, life stirs audi-
bly. It is, as it were, one of the many voices of Nature, heard
only by the sensitive and reverent ear of her true votaries.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 215

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(f) p. 205. — " Characteristic names in Arabic and Persian."
More than twenty different terms might be cited as used by Arabs
in speaking of steppes (tanufah), to denote deserts without water,
entirely bare, covered with silicious sand, or interspersed with spots
affording some pasture (sahara, kafr, mikfar, tih, and mehme).
Sahl is a low plain ; dakkah, a desolate elevated plain. In Persian,
"beyaban" signifies the arid sandy desert — as do the Mogul
"gobi," and the Chinese "han-hai" and "scha-mo." "Yaila" is
a steppe covered rather with grasses or herbage than with herbaceous
plants ; so are also the Mogul " kiidah," and the Turkish "tala," or
"tschol," and the Chinese "huang." " Deshti-reft" is ah elevated
plain devoid of vegetation. (Humboldt, Relation hist. t. ii. p. 158.)

(3) p. 205. — " In the old Castilian idiom"
Pico, picacho, mogote, cucurucho, espigon, loma tendida, mesa,
panecillo, farallon, tablon, pena, penon, penasco, penoleria, roca par-
tida, laxa, cerro, sierra, serrania, cordillera, inonte, montana, monta-
nuela, cadena de montes, los altos, malpais, reventazon, bufa, &c.

(3) p. 208. — " Where tJie map had exhibited Montes de Cacao"
On the range of hills which had been converted into the lofty
Andes de Cuchao, see my Rel. hist. t. iii. p. 238.

(4) p. 211.— "Hermesia."

The genus Hermesia, the Sauso, has been described by Bonpland,
and figured in our Plantes equinoxiales, t. i. p. 162, tab. xlvi.

(5) p. 212. — " The fresh-water dolphin"

These are not sea-dolphins, ascending the rivers for a great dis-
tance, as is done by some species of Pleuronectes (flat fish, which

216 NOCTURNAL LIFE OP ANIMALS.

always have both eyes on one side of the body) ; for example, the
Limande (Pleuronectes Limanda), which comes up the Loire to Or-
leans. Some sea forms of fish, as dolphins and skates, are repeated
in the great rivers of both continents. The fresh-water dolphin of
the Apure and the Orinoco differs specifically from the Delphinus
gangeticus, as well as from all sea-dolphins. (See my Rel. hist. t. ii.
pp. 223 239, 406-413.).

(6) p. 212. — " The striped nocturnal monkey"
This is the Douroucouli, or Cusi-cusi of the Cassiquiare, described
by me as Simia trivirgata in my Recueil d'Observations de Zoologie
et d' Anatomic comparee, t. i. pp. 306- 311, tab. xxviii., the plate be-
ing taken from a drawing made by myself from the living animal.
We subsequently saw this nocturnal monkey living in the menagerie
of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. (See the work above cited, t. ii.
p. 340.) Spix also found this remarkable little animal on the Ama-
zons River, and called it Nyctipithecus vociferans.

POTSDAM, June, 1849.

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

I AM indebted to Mr. Pentland (whose scientific labors have
thrown so much light on the geology and geography of Bolivia) for
the following determinations, which he communicated to me in a
letter written from Paris, in October, 1848, after the publication of
his great map : —

Nevado of Sorata, or
Ancohuma.

S. lat.

Long, from
Greenwich.

Height in
English Feet.

South Peak - -
North Peak -

- - 15° 51' 33"
- - 15° 49' 18"

68° 33' 55"
68° 33' 52"

21,286
21,043

Illimani.

South Peak - -
Middle Peak -
North Peak - -

- - 16° 38' 52"
- - 16° 38' 26"
• - 16° 37' 50"

67° 49' 18"
67° 49' 17"
67° 49' 39"

21,145

21,094
21,060

The heights (with the exception of the unimportant difference of
a few feet in the South Peak of Illimam) are the same as those given
in the map of the Lake of Titicaca. A sketch of the last-named
mountain (Illimani), as it shows itself in all its majesty from La
Paz, has been given by Mr. Pentland in the Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society, vol. v. (1835), p. 77. This was five years
after the publication of the first measurements in the Annuaire du
Bureau des Longitudes for 1830, p. 323, which results I myself
hastened to make known in Germany. (Hertha, Zeitschrift fur
Erd und Vblkerkunde, von Berghaus, bd. xiii. 1829, s. 3-29.) The
Nevado de Sorata is to the east of the village Sorata, or Esquibel:
it is called in the Ymarra language, according to Pentland, Anco-
mani, Itampu, and Illhampu. We recognize in "Illimani," the
Ymarra word " illi," snow.

If, however, in the eastern chain of Bolivia the Sorata was long
assumed 3718 French, or 3952 English feet, and the Illimani 2675
19

218 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

French, or 2851 English, feet too high, there are in the western
chain of the same country, according to Pentland's map of Titicaca
(1848), four peaks to the east of Arica and between lat. 18° 7'
and 18° 25', all of which are higher than Chimborazo, which is
21,422 English or 20,100 French feet. These four peaks are—

Pomarape - - . •" - 21,700 English feet, or 20,360 French feet.

Gualateiri - '- 21,960 « " 20,604

Parinacota ... - 22,030 « « 20,670 " . «

Sahama ..... 22,350 « ' Jf • 20,971

Berghaus has applied to the eastern and western chains of the
Andes of Bolivia the investigation published by me in the Annales
des Sciences Naturelles, t. iv. 1825, pp. 225-253, of the proportion
(very different in different mountain chains), which the general
height of the ridge, the crest, or kamm (the mean height of the
passes), bears to the highest summits or culminating points. He
finds, following Pentland's map, the mean height of the passes in
the eastern chain 12,672 French, or 13,506 English feet ; and in
the western chain 13,602 French, or 14,895 English feet. The
culminating points are 19,972 and 20,971 French, 21,286 and
22,350 English feet ; consequently the ratio of the height of the
ridge to that of the culminating point is, in the eastern chain, as
1 : 1.57, and in the western chain as 1 : 1.54. (Berghaus, Zeits-
chrift fur Erdkunde, band. ix. s. 322-326.) This ratio, which is,
as it were, the measure of the subterranean elevating, force, is very
similar to that which exists in the Pyrenees, but very different from
the Alps, where the mean height of the passes is less as compared
with Mont Blanc. The ratios are, in the Pyrenees, = 1 : 1.43,
and in the Alps, = 1 : 2.09.

But, according to Fitzroy and Darwin, the height of the Sahama
is still surpassed by 796 French, or 850 English feet, by that of the
volcano of Acongagua, on the north-east of Valparaiso, in Chili, in
S. lat. 32° 39'. The officers of the Adventure and Beagle, in Fitz
Roy's Expedition, found, in August 1835, the summit of Acongagua
between 23,000 and 23,400 English feet. If we take it at 23,200
(equal to 21,767 Paris feet), this volcano would be 1667 French, or

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 219

1777 English, feet higher than the Chimborazo. (Fitz Hoy, Voyages
of the Adventure and Beagle, 1839, vol. ii. p. 481; Darwin, Journal
of Researches, 1845, pp. 223 and 291.) According to more recent
calculations, the height of Acongagua is given as 22,431 French, or
23,907 English feet. (Mary Somerville, Physical Geogr. 1849,
vol. ii. p. 425.)

Our knowledge of the systems of mountains which, north of the
parallels of 30° and 31° N. lat., are called the Rocky Mountains
and the Sierra Nevada of California, has received most important
additions, geologically, botanically, hypsometrically, and geographi-
cally by astronomical determinations of position, from the excellent
works of Charles Fremont (Geographical Memoir upon Upper Cali-
fornia, an illustration of his Map of Oregon and California, 1848) ;
of Dr. Wislizenus (Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, connected
with Col. Doniphan's Expedition, 1848) ; and of Lieutenants Abert
and Peck (Expedition on the Upper Arkansas, 1845; and Exami-
nation of New Mexico in 1846 and 1847). There prevails through-
out these different North American works a true scientific spirit,
which is deserving of the greatest commendation. The remarkable
elevated plain, which rises to an uninterrupted height of four or five
thousand French (4260 and 5330 English) feet, between the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, of which I have
spoken in p. 54, and which is called the Great Basin, forms an in-
land closed river basin, and has hot springs and salt lakes. None
of its rivers — Bear River, Carson River, and Humboldt River — find
their way to the sea. The Lake, which I was led by combinations
and inferences to represent, in the great Map of Mexico drawn by
me in 1804, under the name of Lake Timpanogos, is the great Salt
Lake of Fremont's Map : it is sixty geographical miles long, from
north to south, and ten broad ; and it communicates with the fresh
water lake of Utah, which is situated at a higher level, and receives
the Timpanogos or Timpanaozu River, which enters it from the east-
ward, in lat. 40° 13'. The circumstance of the Timpanogos Lake
of my map not having been placed by me sufficiently far to the north
and west, is to be attributed to the entire want, at that time, of any
astronomical determinations of the position of Santa Fe, in New

220 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

Mexico. The error amounts, for the western margin of the lake, to
almost 50 minutes of arc ; a difference of absolute longitude which
will appear less surprising, if it is remembered that my itinerary
map of Guanaxuato could only be based for 15 degrees of latitude
on compass surveys, or compass directions, for which I was indebted
to Don Pedro de Rivera. (Humboldt, Essai polit. sur la Nouvelle
Espagne, t. i. pp. 127—136.) These directions being differently
combined by my early deceased fellow-laborer, Herr Friesen, and
myself, gave him as the result of his combinations 107° 58' from
Paris, as the longitude of Santa Fe, and to me as the result of mine
107° 13'. According to actual astronomical determinations since
obtained, the true longitude appears to be 108° 22' W. of Paris, or
106° 00' W. of Greenwich. The relative position of the beds of
fossil salt — found in "thick strata of red clay," on the south-east of
the island-studded Great Salt Lake (my Laguna de Timpanogos),
and not far from the present Fort Mormon and the Utah Lake — was
given with perfect correctness in my large map of Mexico. I may
refer on this point to the latest evidence of the traveller who made
the first well-assured determinations of geographical position in that
district : " The mineral or rock salt, of which a specimen is placed
in Congress Library, was found in the place marked by Humboldt
in his map of New Spain (northern half), as derived from the jour-
nal of the missionary Father Escalante, who attempted (1777) to
penetrate the unknown country from Santa Fe of New Mexico to
Monterey of the Pacific Ocean. South-east of the Lake Timpanogos
is the chain of the Wha-satch Mountains ; and in this, at the place
where Humboldt has written Montagnes de sel gemme, this mineral
is found." (Fremont, Geogr. Mem. of Upper California, 1848, pp.
8 and 67 ; compare Humboldt, Essai politique, t. ii. p. 261.)

A great historical interest attaches to this part of the highland,
and more particularly to the country round the Lake of Timpanogos,
which is perhaps the same with the Lake of Teguayo, the ancestral
seat of the Aztecs. In their migration from Aztlan to Tula, and to
the Valley of Tenochtitlan (Mexico), this people made three halting-
places or stations, at which the ruins of the Casas grandes are still
to be seen. The first sojourn of the Aztecs was at the Lake of

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 221

Teguayo, the second on the Bio Gila, and the third not far from the
Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant Abert found on the banks of the
Gila the same immense number of fragments of pottery ornamented
with painting, and scattered over a considerable tract of ground,
which had astonished the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro
Fonte in that locality. These remains of the products of human
skill are supposed to indicate the existence of a former higher civi-
lization in these now solitary regions. Remains of buildings in the
singular style of architecture of the Aztecs, and of their houses of
seven stories, are also found far to the eastward of the Rio Grande del
Norte ; for example, in Taos. (Compare Abert's Examination of New
Mexico, in the Documents of Congress, No. 41, pp. 489 and 581-
605, with my Essai pol. t. ii. pp. 241-244.) The Sierra Nevada of
California is parallel to the coast of the Pacific ; but between the lati-
tudes of 34° and 41°, between San Buenaventura and the Bay of
Trinidad, there runs, on the west of the Sierra Nevada, another
(smaller) coast chain, of which Monte del Diablo, 3448 French, 3674
English feet high, is the culminating point. In the narrow valley,
between this coast chain and the great Sierra Nevada, flow from
the south the Rio de San Joaquin, and from the north the Rio del
Sacramento, on the banks of which, in rich alluvial soil, are the rich
gold-washings now so much resorted to.

I have already referred, p. 43, to a hypsometric levelling, and to
barometric measurements made from the junction of the Kanzas
River with the Missouri to the Pacific, or throughout the immense
extent of 28 degrees of longitude. Dr. Wislizenus has now success-
fully continued the levelling began by me from the city of Mexico,
in the Equinoctial Zone, to the north as far as Santa Fe del Nuevo
Mexico, in lat 35° 38'. It will be seisn, perhaps, with surprise, that
the elevated plain which forms the broad crest of r the Mexican
Andes is far from sinking down, as had long been supposed, to an
inconsiderable height. I give here for the first time, according to
the measurements which we at present possess, the elevations of
several points, forming a line of levelling from the city of Mexico to
ganta Fe, which latter town is less than four German (sixteen
English) geographical miles from the Rio del Norte,

222 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

French feet. Eng. feet. Observer.

Mexico - %-M ' 7008 799° Ht

Tula :,P ,, 6318 6733 Ht.

San Juan del Rio *-'^ • 6090 6490 Ht.

Queretaro ''.V- 597° 6363 Ht'

Celaya *•*"*• •'"'^•\ - 5646 6017 Ht.

Salamanca - :; * / 5406 5761 Ht.

Guanaxuato - <• - - 6414 6836 Ht.

Silao - n>:? • • #k 5546 5910 Br.

Villa de Leon - 5755 6133 Br.

Lagos - 5983 6376 Br.

Aguas Calientes - - " - - 5875 6261 Br.

San Louis Potosi W~- 5714 6090 Br.

Zacatecas - ' / ||i ' « ; • 7544 8040 Br.

Fresnillo • 6797 7244 Br.

Durango • ' - - 6426 6848 (Oteiza)

Parras - '%&-" '• • 4678 4985 Ws.

Saltillo - 4917 5240 Ws.

»

BBolsondeMapirm - '. - •

Chihuahua - i; *^ I •-*+*> k*<** ' 4352 4638 Ws.

Cosiquiriachi . ? -. • 5886 6273 Ws.

Passo del Norte, on the Rio Grande del Norte 3557 3812 Ws.

Santa Fe del Nuevo Mexico" •' -' 6612 7047 Ws.

The letters Ws., Br., and Ht., are placed to distinguish the baro-
metric measurements of Dr. Wislizenus, Oberbergrath Burkart, and
my own. Wislizenus has appended to his valuable memoir three
vertical sections of the surface of the ground : one from Santa Fe to
Chihuahua by Passo del Norte; one from Chihuahua to Reynosa by
Parras ; and one from Fort Independence (a little to the east of the
confluence of the Missouri and the Kanzas River) to Santa Fe. The
calculation is founded on daily corresponding observations of the
barometer, made by Engelmann, at St. Louis, and by Lilly at New
Orleans. If we consider that the difference of latitude between
Santa Fe" and Mexico is 16°, and that thus (apart from deviations
from a straight line) the distance in the north and south direction is
above 960 geographical miles, we are led to inquire whether there be
in any other part of the whole globe a similar conformation of the
earth, equal in extent and elevation (between 5000 and 7000 French,

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 223

or 5330 and 7460 English feet above the level of the sea) to the
highland of which I have just given the levelling, and yet over which
four-wheeled wagons can travel as they do from Mexico to Santa FC*.
It is formed by the broad, undulating, flattened crest of the chain of
the Mexican Andes, and is not the swelling of a valley between two
mountain chains, as is the case in some other remarkable elevations
of plain or undulating surface — in the Northern Hemisphere, in the
" Great Basin" between the Kocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada
of California, — in the Southern Hemisphere, in the high plain of
the Lake of Titicaca, between the eastern and western chains of the
Andes of Bolivia, — and in Asia, in the highlands of Thibet, between
the Himalaya and the Kuen-liin.

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS,

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

WHEN the active curiosity of man is engaged in interrogating
Nature, or when his imagination dwells on the wide fields of or-
ganic creation, among the multifarious impressions which his mind
receives, perhaps none is so strong and profound as that of the
universal profusion with which life is everywhere distributed. Even
on the polar ice the air resounds with the cries or songs of birds,
and with the hum of insects. Nor is it only the lower dense and
vaporous strata of the atmosphere which are thus filled with life,
but also the higher and more ethereal regions. Whenever Mont
Blanc or the summits of the Cordilleras have been ascended, living
creatures have been found there. On the Chimborazo, (*) eight
thousand feet higher than Etna, we found butterflies and other
winged insects, borne by ascending currents of air to those almost
unapproachable solitudes, which man, led by a restless curiosity or
unappeasable thirst of knowledge, treads with adventurous but
cautious steps : like him strangers in those elevated regions, their
presence shows us that the more flexible organization of animal
creation can subsist far beyond the limits at which vegetation ceases.
The condor, (2) the giant of the Vulture tribe, often soared over our
heads above all the summits of the Andes, at an altitude higher
than would be the Peak of Teneriffe if piled on the snow-covered
crests of the Pyrenees. The rapacity of this powerful bird attracts
him to these regions, whence his far-seeing eye may discern the
objects of his pursuit, the soft-wooled Vicunas, which, wandering
in herds, frequent, like the Chamois, the mountain pastures adjacent
to the regions of perpetual snow.

But if the unassisted eye sees life distributed throughout the
atmosphere, when armed with the microscope we discover far other
marvels. Rotiferse, Brachionse, and a multitude of microscopic

228 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

animalculge, are carried up by the winds from the surface of evapo-
rating waters. These minute creatures, motionless and apparently
dead, are borne to and fro in the air until the falling dews bring
them back to the surface of the earth, dissolve the film or envelop
which encloses their transparent rotating bodies, (3) and, probably
by means of the oxygen which all waters contain, breathe new irri-
tability into their dormant organs.

According to Ehrenberg's brilliant discovery, the yellow sand or
dust which falls like rain on the Atlantic near the Cape de Verde
Islands, and is occasionally carried even to Italy and Middle Europe,
consists of a multitude of silicious-shelled microscopic animals.
Perhaps many of them float for years in the upper strata of the
atmosphere, until they are brought down by vertical currents or in
accompaniment with the superior current of the trade-winds, still
susceptible of revivification, and multiplying their species by spon-
taneous division in conformity with the particular laws of their
organization.

But, besides creatures fully formed, the atmosphere contains in-
numerable germs of future life, such as the eggs of insects and the
seeds of plants, the latter provided with light hairy or feathery
appendages, by means of which they are wafted through the air
during long autumnal wanderings. Even the fertilizing dust or
pollen from the anthers of the male flowers, in species in which the
sexes are separated, is carried over land and sea, by winds and by
the agency of winged insects, (4) to the solitary female plant on
other shores. Thus, wherever the glance of the inquirer into
Nature penetrates, he sees the continual dissemination of life, either
fully formed or in the germ.

If the aerial ocean in which we are submerged, and above the
surface of which we cannot rise, be indispensable to the existence of
organized beings, they also require a more substantial aliment,
which they can find only at the bottom of this gaseous ocean. This
bottom is of two kinds; the smaller portion consisting of dry land
in immediate contact with the external atmosphere, and the larger
portion consisting of water, which may perhaps have been formed
thousands of years ago by electric agencies from gaseous substances,
and which is now incessantly undergoing decomposition in the labor-

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 229

atories of Nature, in the clouds and in the pulsating vessels of ani-
mals and plants. Organic forms also descend deep below the surface
of the earth, wherever rain or surface water can percolate either by
natural cavities or by mines or other excavations made by man : the
subterranean cryptogamic Flora was an object of my scientific re-
search in the early part of my life. Thermal springs of very high
temperature nourish small Hydropores, Conferva, and Oscillatoria.
At Bear Lake, near the Arctic Circle, Richardson saw the ground,
which continues frozen throughout the summer at a depth of twenty
inches, covered with flowering plants.

We do not yet know where life is most abundant — whether on
continents or in the unfathomed depths of the ocean. Through the
excellent work of Ehrenberg, " Uber das Verhalten des kleinsten
Lebens," we have seen the sphere of organic life extend, and its
horizon widen before our eyes, both in the tropical parts of the
ocean and in the fixed or floating masses of ice of the Antarctic seas.
Silicious-shelled Polygastrica, and even Coscinodiscae, with their
green ovaries, have been found alive enveloped in masses of ice only
twelve degrees from the pole; the small black Glacier flea (Desoria
glacialis) and Podurellge inhabit the narrow tubular holes examined
by Agassiz in the Swiss glaciers. Ehrenberg has shown that on
several microscopic Infusoria (Synedra, Cocconeis) others live as
parasites, and that in the Gallionellae such is their prodigious power
of development, or capability of* division, that in the space of four
days an animalcule invisible to the naked eye can form two cubic
feet of the Bilin polishing slate. In the sea, gelatinous worms,
living or dead, shine like stars, (5) and by their phosphoric- light
change the surface of the wide ocean into a sea of fire. Ineffaceable
is the impression made on my mind by the calm nights of the torrid
zone, on the waters of the Pacific. I still see the dark azure of the
firmament, the constellation of the Ship near the zenith, and that of
the Cross declining towards the horizon, shedding through the per-
fumed air their soft and planetary lustre; while bright furrows of
flashing light marked the track of the dolphins through the midst
of the foaming waves.

Not only the ocean, but also the waters of our marshes, hide from
us an innumerable multitude of strange forms. The naked eye can
20

230 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

with difficulty distinguish the Cyclidias, the Euglenes, and the host
of Naiades divisible by branches like the Lemna or Duckweed, of
which they seek the shade. Other creatures inhabit receptacles
where the light cannot penetrate, and an atmosphere variously com-
posed, but differing from that which we breathe : such are the spotted
Ascaris, which lives beneath the skin of the earthworm; the Leu-
cophra, of a bright silvery color, in the interior of the shore Naiad;
and a Pentastoma, which inhabits the large pulmonary cells of the
rattlesnake of the tropics (6). There are animalculse in the blood of
frogs and of salmon, and even, according to Nordmann, in the fluids of
the eyes of fishes and in the gills of the Bleak. Thus the most hid-
den recesses of creation teem with life. We propose in these pages
to direct our attention to the vegetable world, on the existence of
which that of animals is dependent. Plants are incessantly engaged
in disposing into order towards subsequent organization the raw
materials of which the earth is composed : it is their office, by their
vital forces or powers, to prepare those substances which, after un-
dergoing a thousand modifications, are gradually converted to nobler
purposes in the formation of nervous tissues. In directing our
consideration towards the various families of plants, we shall at the
same time glance at the multitude of animated beings to which they
afford nutriment and protection.

The carpet of flowers and of verdure spread over the naked crust
of our planet is unequally woven; it is thicker where the sun rises
high in the ever cloudless heavens, and thinner towards the poles,
in the less happy climes where returning frosts often destroy the
opening buds of spring, or the ripening fruits of autumn. Every-
where, however, man finds some plants to minister to his support
and enjoyment. If new lands are formed, the organic forces are
ever ready to cover the naked rock with life. Sometimes, as at an
early period among the Greek Islands, volcanic forces suddenly ele-
vate above the surface of the boiling waves a rock covered with
Scoriae : sometimes, by a long continued and more tranquil series of
phenomena, the collective labors of united Lithophytes (7) raise
their cellular dwellings on the crusts of submarine mountains, until,
after thousands of years, the structure reaches the level of the ocean,
when the creatures which have formed it die, leaving a low flat coral

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 231

island. How are the seeds of plants brought so immediately to
these new shores ? by wandering birds, or by the winds and waves of
the ocean ? The distance from other coasts makes it difficult to de-
termine this question ; but, no sooner is the rock of the newly raised
islands in direct contact with the atmosphere, than there is formed
on its surface, in our northern countries, a soft silky net-work, ap-
pearing to the naked eye as colored spots and patches. Some of
these patches are bordered by single or double raised lines running
round their margins; other patches are crossed by similar lines
traversing them in various directions. Gradually the light color of
the patches becomes darker, the bright yellow which was visible at
a distance changes to brown, and the bluish gray of the Leprarias
becomes a dusty black. The edges of neighboring patches ap-
proach and run into each other; and on the dark ground thus
formed there appear other lichens, of a circular shape and dazzling
whiteness. Thus an organic film or covering establishes itself by
successive layers; and as mankind, in forming settled communities,
pass through different stages of civilization, so is the gradual pro-
pagation and extension of plants connected with determinate physical
laws. Lichens form the first covering of the naked rock, where
afterwards lofty forest trees rear their airy summits. The suc-
cessive growth of mosses, grasses, herbaceous plants, and shrubs
or bushes, occupies the intervening period of long but undeter-
mined duration. The part which lichens and mosses perform
in the northern countries is effected within the tropics by Por-
tulacas, G-omphrenas, and other low and succulent shore plants.
The history of the vegetable covering of our planet, and its gradual
propagation over the desert crust of the earth, has its epochs, as well
as that of the migrations of the animal world.

Yet although organic life is everywhere diffused, and the organic
powers are incessantly at work in reconnecting with each other the
elements set free by death or dissolution, the abundance and variety
of organized beings, and the rapidity with which they are renewed,
differ in different climates. In the cold zones, the activity of organic
life undergoes a temporary suspension during a portion of the year
by frost; fluidity is an essential condition of life or vital action, and
animals and plants, with the exception of mosses and other crypto-

232 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

gamia, are in those regions buried for several months of each year
in winter sleep. Over a large part of the earth, therefore, there
could only be developed organic forms capable of supporting either
a considerable diminution of heat, or, being without leaves, a long
interruption of the vital functions. Thus we see variety and grace
of form, mixture of colors, and generally the perpetually youthful
energy and vigor of organic life, increase as we approach the tropics.
This increase can be denied only by those who have never quitted
Europe, or who have neglected the study of physical geography.
When, leaving our oak forests, we traverse the Alps or the Pyrenees,
and enter Italy or Spain, or when we direct our attention to some of
the African shores of the Mediterranean, we might easily be led to
draw the erroneous inference that hot countries are marked by the
absence of trees. But those who do so, forget that the South of
Europe wore a different aspect on the first arrival of Pelasgian or
Carthaginian colonies; they forget that an ancient civilization causes
the forests to recede more and more, and that the wants and restless
activity of large communities of men gradually despoil the face of
the earth of the refreshing shades which still rejoice the eye in
Northern, and Middle Europe, and which, even more than any his-
toric documents, prove the recent date and youthful age of our civil-
ization. The great catastrophe which occasioned the formation of
the Mediterranean, when the swollen waters of what was previously
an immense lake burst through the barriers of the Dardanelles and
of the Pillars of Hercules, appears to have stripped the adjacent
countries of a large portion of their coating of vegetable mould.
The traditions of Samothrace, (s) handed down to us by Grecian
writers, appear to indicate the recentness of the epoch of the ravages
caused by this great change. In all the countries which surround
the Mediterranean, and which are characterized by beds of the ter-
tiary and cretaceous periods (nummulitic limestone and neocomian
rocks), great part of the surface of the earth consists of naked rock.
One especial cause of the picturesque beauty of Italian scenery is
the contrast thus afforded between the bare rock and the islands, if
I may so call them, of luxuriant vegetation scattered over its surface.
Wherever the rock is less intersected with fissures, so that it retains
water at the surface, and where it is covered with vegetable mould,

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 233

there, as on the enchanting shores of the Lake of Albano, Italy has
her oak forests, with glades as deeply embowered, and verdure as
fresh as those which we admire in the North of Europe.

The deserts to the south of the Atlas, and the immense plains or
steppes of South America, must be regarded as only local phenomena.
The latter, the South American steppes, are clothed, in the rainy
season at least, with grass, and with low-growing almost herbaceous
mimosas. The African deserts are, indeed, at all seasons devoid of
vegetation ; seas of sand, surrounded by forest shores clothed with
perpetual verdure. A few scattered fan palms alone recall to the
wanderer's recollection that these awful solitudes belong to the do-
main of the same animated terrestrial creation which is elsewhere so
rich and so varied. The fantastic play of the mirage, occasioned by
the effects of radiant heat, sometimes causes these palm trees to ap-
pear divided from the ground and hovering above its surface, and some-
times shows their inverted image reflected in strata of air undulating
like the waves of the sea. On the west of the great Peruvian chain
of the Andes, on the coasts of the Pacific, I have passed entire weeks
in traversing similar deserts destitute of water.

The origin of extensive arid tracts destitute of plants, in the. midst
of countries rich in luxuriant vegetation, is a geognostical problem
which has hitherto been but little considered, but which has doubt-
less depended on ancient revolutions of nature, such as inundations
or great volcanic changes. When once a region has lost the cover-
ing of plants with which it was invested, if the sands are loose and '
mobile, and are destitute of springs, and if the heated atmosphere,
forming constantly ascending currents, prevents precipitation taking
place from clouds, (9) thousands of years may elapse ere organic life
can pass from the verdant shores to the interior of the sandy sea,
and repossess itself of the domain from which it had been banished.

Those, therefore, who can view nature with a comprehensive
glance and apart from local phenomena, may see from the Poles to
the Equator organic life and vigor gradually augment with the aug-
mentation of vivifying heat. But, in the course of this progressive
increase, there are reserved to each zone its own peculiar beauties ;
to the tropics, variety and grandeur of vegetable forms; to the
north; the aspect of its meadows and green pastures, and the periodic

20*

234 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

re-awakening of nature at the first breath, of the mild air of spring.
Each zone, besides its own peculiar advantages, has its own distinc-
tive character. Primeval laws of organization, notwithstanding a
certain degree of freedom in the abnormal development of single
parts, bind all animal and vegetable forms to fixed ever-recurring
types. As we recognize in distinct organic beings a determinate
physiognomy, and as descriptive botany and zoology, in the restricted
sense of the terms, consist in a detailed analysis of animal and
vegetable forms, so each region of the earth has a natural physiog-
nomy peculiar to itself. The idea indicated by the painter by
expressions such as "Swiss nature," "Italian sky," &c., rests on a
partial perception of this local character in the aspect of nature.
The azure of the sky, the lights and shadows, the haze resting on
the distance, the forms of animals, the succulency of the plants and
herbage, the brightness of the foliage, the outline of the mountains,
are all elements which determine the total impression characteristic
of each district or region. It is true that in every zone the same
kinds of rocks, trachyte, basalt, porphyritic schists, and dolomite,
form groups having the same physiognomy and aspect. The green-
stone precipices of South America and Mexico resemble those of
the Fichtel-Glebirge of G-ermany, just as among animals the form
of the Allco, or native race of dogs of the New Continent, corre-
sponds perfectly with that of the European race. For the inorganic
crust of the globe shows itself independent of climatic influences;
whether it be that differences of climate depending on differences
of latitude were more recent than the formation of the rocks, or
that the mass of the earth in solidifying and parting with its heat
regulated its own temperature, (10) instead of receiving it from
without. Thus all the kinds of rock with which we are acquainted
may be met with in all parts of the globe, and everywhere affect
the same characteristic forms. Everywhere basalt rises in twin
mountains and truncated cones; everywhere the porphyritic trap
appears in grotesquely arranged masses, and granite in rounded
summits. Also similar forms of trees — pines and oaks — adorn the
declivities of the mountains of Sweden, and those of the most
southern part of Mexico. (") Yet, notwithstanding thpse corre-
spondences of form; and this similarity of outline in the component

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 235

parts of the picture, their grouping gives to the whole the greatest
difference of character.

Mineralogy is not more distinct from geology than is the individual
description of natural objects from a general description of the
physiognomy of nature. George Forster, in the narrative of his
voyages, and in his other publications — Goethe, in the descriptions
of nature which so many of his immortal works contain — Buffon,
Bernardin de St. Pierre, and Chateaubriand, have traced with in-
imitable truth of description the character of some of the zones
into which the earth is divided. Not only do such descriptions
afford us mental enjoyment of a high order, but the knowledge of
the character which nature assumes in different regions is moreover
intimately connected with the history of man, and of his civilization.
For although the commencement of this civilization is not solely
determined by physical relations, yet the direction which it takes,
the national character, and the more grave or gay dispositions of
men, are dependent in a very high degree on climatic influences.
How powerfully have the skies of Greece acted on its inhabitants !
The nations settled in the fair and happy regions bounded by the
Euphrates, the Halys, and the Egean Sea, also early attained amenity
of manners and delicacy of sentiment. When in the middle ages
religious enthusiasm suddenly re-opened the sacred East to the
nations of Europe who were sinking back into barbarism, our an-
cestors in returning to their homes brought with them gentler
manners, acquired in those delightful valleys. The poetry of the
Greeks, and the ruder songs of the primitive northern nations, owe
great part of their peculiar character to the aspect of the plants
and animals seen by the bard, to the mountains and valleys which
surrounded him, and to the air which he breathed. And to recall
more familiar objects, who does not feel himself differently affected
in the dark shade of the beech, on hills crowned with scattered fir-
trees, or on the turfy pasture, where the wind rustles in the trem-
bling foliage of the birch? These trees of our native land have
often suggested or recalled to our minds images and thoughts, either
of a melancholy, of a grave and elevating, or of a cheerful character.
The influence of the physical on the moral world — that reciprocal
and mysterious action and reaction of the material and the imma-

236 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

terial — gives to the study of nature, when regarded from higher
points of view, a peculiar charm, still too little recognized.

But if the characteristic aspect of different portions of the earth's
surface depends conjointly on all external phenomena — if the con-
tours of the mountains, the physiognomy of plants and animals,
the azure of the sky, the form of the clouds, and the transparency
of the atmosphere, all combine in forming that general impression
which is the result of the whole, yet it cannot be denied that the
vegetable covering with which the whole earth is adorned is the
principal element in the impression. Animal forms are deficient in
mass, and the individual power of motion which animals possess, as
well as often the smallness of their size, withdraw them from our
sight. The vegetable forms, on the contrary, produce a greater effect
by their magnitude and by their constant presence. The age of
trees is marked by their size, and the union of age with the mani-
festation of constantly renewed vigor is a charm peculiar to the
vegetable kingdom. The gigantic Dragon-tree of Orotava (u) (as
sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants of the Canaries as the olive-
tree in the Citadel of Athens, or the Elm of Ephesus), the diameter
of which I found, when I visited those Islands, to be more than 16
feet, had the same colossal size, when the French adventurers, the
Be'thencourts, conquered these gardens of the Hesperides in the
beginning of the fifteenth century; yet it still flourishes, as if in
perpetual youth, bearing flowers and fruit. A tropical forest of
Hymenseas and Caesalpiniese may perhaps present to us a monu-
ment of more than a thousand years' standing.

If we embrace in one general view the different species of phaeno-
gamous plants at present contained in herbariums, the number of
which may now be estimated at considerably above 80,000, (13) we •
shall recognize in this prodigious multitude certain leading forms to
which many others may be referred. In determining these leading
forms or types, on the individual beauty, the distribution, and the
grouping of which the physiognomy of the vegetation of a country
depends, we must not follow the march of systems of botany, in
which from other motives the parts chiefly regarded are the smaller
organs of propagation, the flowers and the fruit ; we must, on the
contrary, consider solely that which by its mass stamps a peculiar

PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 237

character on the total impression produced, or on the aspect of the
country. Among the leading forms of vegetation to which I allude,
there are, indeed, some which coincide with families belonging to
the "natural systems" of botanists. Such are the forms of Bananas,
Palms, Casuarineae, and Coniferse. But the botanic systematist
divides many groups which the physiognomist is obliged to unite.
When plants or trees present themselves in masses, the outlines and
distribution of the leaves and the form of the stems and of the
branches are blended together. The painter (and here the artist's
delicate tact and appreciation of nature are demanded) can distin-
guish in the middle distance and background of a landscape groves
of palms or pines from beech woods, but he cannot distinguish the
latter from woods consisting of other deciduous forest trees.

Above sixteen different forms of vegetation are principally con-
cerned in determining the aspect or physiognomy of Nature. I men-
tion only those which I have observed in the course of my travels both
in the New and Old Continents, where during many years I have at-
tentively examined the vegetation of the regions comprised between
the 60th degree of north and the 12th degree of south latitude.
The number of these forms will no doubt be considerably augmented
when travellers shall have penetrated farther into the interior of
Continents, and discovered new genera of plants. In the south-
eastern part of Asia, the interior of Africa and of New Holland,
and in South America from the river of the Amazons to the province
of Chiquitos, the vegetation is still entirely unknown to us. How
if at some future time a country should be discovered in which
ligneous fungi, Cenomyce rangiferina, or mosses, should form tall
tress? The Neckera dendroides, a G-erman species of moss, is in
fact arborescent; and bamboos (which are arborescent grasses) and
the tree ferns of the tropics, which are often higher than our lime-
trees, and alders, now present to the European a sight as surprising
as would be that of a forest of tree mosses to its discoverer. The
absolute size and the degree of development attained by organic
forms of the same family (whether plants or animals), depend on
laws which are still unknown to us. In each of the great divisions
of the animal kingdom, insects, Crustacea, reptiles, birds, fishes, or
mammalia, the size of the body oscillates between certain extreme

238 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

limits. But these limits, which have been established by observa-
tion as far as it has yet gone, may be corrected by the discovery of
species with which we are still unacquainted.

In land animals, the higher temperatures of the low latitudes ap-
pear to have favored organic development. The small and slender
form of our lizards is exchanged in the south for the gigantic, heavy,
and cuirassed bodies of crocodiles. In the formidable tiger, lion,
and jaguar, we see repeated, on a larger scale, the form of the com-
mon cat, one of the smallest of our domestic animals. If we pene-
trate into the interior of the earth, and search the cemeteries in
which the plants and animals of the ancient world lie entombed, the
fossil remains which we discover not only announce a distribution
inconsistent with our present climates — they also disclose to us gi-
gantic forms that contrast no less with those which now surround us,
than does the simple heroism of the Greeks with the character of
human greatness in modern times. Has the temperature of our
planet undergone considerable changes — possibly of periodical re-
currence? If the proportion between land and sea, and even the
height of the aerial ocean and its pressure, (14) have not always been
the same, the physiognomy of nature, arid the dimensions and forms
of organized beings, must also have been subjected to various alter-
ations. Huge Pachydermata, Mastodons, Owen's Mylodon robustus,
and the Colossochelys, a land-tortoise above six feet high, have ex-
isted, and in the vegetable kingdom there have been forests composed
of gigantic Lepidodendra, cactus-like Stigmarias, and numerous kinds
of Cycadese. Unable to depict fully according to its present features
the physiognomy of our planet in this its later age, I will only ven-
ture to attempt to indicate the characters which principally distin-
guish those vegetable groups which appear to me to be most strongly
marked by physiognomic differences. However favored by the rich-
ness and flexibility of our native language, it is still an arduous and
hazardous undertaking when we attempt to trace in words that which
belongs rather to the imitative art of the painter. I feel also the
necessity of avoiding as much as possible the wearisome impression
almost inseparable from all lengthened enumerations.
| We will begin with palms, (M) the loftiest and noblest of all ve-
getable forms, that to which the prize of beauty has been assigned

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 239

by the concurrent voice of nations in all ages; for the earliest civili-
zation of mankind belonged to countries bordering on the region of
palms, and to parts of Asia where they abound. Their lofty, slender,
ringed, and, in some cases, prickly stems, terminate in aspiring and
shining either fanlike or pinnated foliage. The leaves are frequently
curled, like those of some graminege. Smooth polished stems of
palms carefully measured by me had attained 192 English feet in
height. In receding from the Equator and approaching the temper-
ate zone, palms diminish in height and beauty. The indigenous
vegetation of Europe only comprises a single representative of this
form of plants, the sea-coast Dwarf-palm or Chamaerops, which, in
Spain and Italy, extends as far north as the 44th parallel of lati-
tude. The true climate of palms has a mean annual temperature of
20°.5— 22° Keaumur (78°.2— 81°.5 Fahr). The Date, which is
much inferior in beauty to several other genera, has been brought
from Africa to the south of Europe, where it lives, but can scarcely
be said to flourish, in a mean temperature not exceeding 12° — 13°. 5
Reaumur (59° — 62°. 4 Fahr). Stems of palms and fossil bones of
elephants are found buried beneath the surface of the earth in north-
ern countries, in positions which make it appear probable that their
presence is not to be accounted for by their having been drifted
thither from the tropics, and we are led to infer that, in the course
of the great revolutions which our planet has undergone, great
changes of climate, and of the physiognomy of nature as dependent
on climate, have taken place.

In all parts of the globe the palm form is accompanied by that of
Plantains or Bananas ; the Scitaminese and Musacese of botanists,
Heliconia, Amomum, and Strelitzia. In this form, the stems,
which are low, succulent, and almost herbaceous, are surmounted
by long, silky, delicately-veined leaves of a thin loose texture, and
bright and beautiful verdure. Groves of plantains and bananas
form the ornament of moist places in the equatorial regions. It is
on their fruits that the subsistence of a large part of the inhabitants
of the torrid zone chiefly depends, and, like the farinaceous cereals of
the North, they have followed man from the infancy of his civiliza-
tion. (16) The aboriginal site of this nutritious plant is placed by
some Asiatic fables or traditions on the banks of the Euphrates, and

240 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

by others with more probability, at the foot of the Himalaya. Gre-
cian fables named the fields of Enna as the happy native land of the
cereals; and if in northern climes, where corn is cultivated in im-
mense unbroken fields, their monotonous aspect adds but little to
the beauty of the landscape, the inhabitant of the tropics, on the
other hand, in rearing groves of plantains wherever he fixes his
habitation, contributes to the adornment of the earth's surface by
the extension of one of the most noble and beautiful forms of the
vegetable world.

The form of Malvaceae (*7) and Bombacese, represented by Ceiba,
Cavanillesia, and the Mexican hand-tree Cheirostemon, has enor-
mously thick trunks ; large, soft, woolly leaves, either heart-shaped
or indented ; and superb flowers frequently of a purple or crimson
hue. It is to this group of plants that the Baobab, or monkey
bread-tree (Adansonia digitata) belongs, which, with a very mode-
rate elevation, has a diameter of 32 English feet, and is probably
the largest and most ancient organic monument on our planet. In
Italy, the Malvaceae already begin to impart to the vegetation a
peculiar southern character.

The delicately pinnated foliage of the Mimosa form, (ls) of which
Acacia, Desmanthus, Grleditschia, Porleria, and Tamarindus are im-
portant members, is entirely wanting in our temperate zone in the
Old Continent, though found in the United States, where, in corre-
sponding latitudes, vegetation is more varied and more vigorous than
in Europe. The umbrella-like arrangement of the branches, resem-
bling that seen in the stone pine of Italy, is very frequent among
the Mimosas. The deep blue of the tropic sky, seen through their
finely divided foliage, has an extremely picturesque effect.

The Heath form (19) belongs more especially to the Old World, and
particularly to the African continent and islands; taking for our
guides physiognomic character and general aspect, we may class
under it the Epaerideae and Diosrneae, many Proteaceae, and those
Australian Acacias which have mere leaf-stalks instead of leaves
(phyllodias). This form has some points of similarity with that of
needle trees, and the partial resemblance enhances the effect of the
pleasing contrast which, when these two are placed together, is
afforded by the abundant bell-shaped blossoms of the heaths. Arbo-

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 241

rescent heaths, like some other African plants, extend to the northern
shores of the Mediterranean : they adorn Italy, and the cistus-covered
grounds of the south of Spain. The declivity of the Peak of Tene-
riffe is the locality where I have seen them growing with the greatest
luxuriance. In the countries adjoining the Baltic, and farther to
the north, the aspect of this form of plants is unwelcome, as an-
nouncing sterility. Our heaths, Erica (Calluna) vulgaris, Erica
tetralix, E. carnea, and E. cinerea, are social plants, and for centuries
agricultural nations have combated their advance with little success.
It is remarkable that the extensive genus which is the leading repre-
sentative of this form appears to be almost limited to one side of
our planet. Of the 300 known species of Erica only one has been
discovered across the whole extent of the New Continent, from
Pennsylvania and Labrador to Nootka and Alashka.

The Cactus form, (20) on the other hand, is almost exclusively
American. Sometimes spherical, sometimes articulated or jointed,
and sometimes assuming the shape of tall, upright, polygonal
columns resembling the pipes of an organ, this group presents the
most striking contrast to those of Liliacese and Bananas. It com-
prises some of the plants to which Bernardin de St. Pierre has ap-
plied the term of "vegetable fountains in the desert." In the
waterless plains of South America, the animals suffering from thirst
seek the melon-cactus, a spherical plant half buried in the dry sand,
and encased in formidable prickles, but of which the interior abounds
in refreshing juice. The stems of the columnar cactus rise to a
height of 30 or 32 feet; they are often covered with lichens, and,
dividing into candelabra-like branches, resemble, in physiognomy,
some of the Euphorbias of Africa.

While the above-mentioned plants nourish in deserts almost de-
void of other vegetation, the Orchidese (21) enliven the clefts of the
wildest rocks, and the trunks of tropical trees blackened by excess
of heat. This form (to which the Vanilla belongs) is distinguished
by its bright green, succulent leaves, and by its flowers of many
colors and strange and curious shape, sometimes resembling that of
winged insects, and sometimes that of the birds which are attracted
by the perfume of the honey vessels. Such are their number and
variety, that, to mention only a limited district, the entire life of a
21

242 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

painter would be too short for the delineation of all the magnificent
Orchidese which adorn the recesses of the deep valleys of the Andes
of Peru.

The Casuarina form, (22) leafless, like almost all species of Cactus/
consists of trees with branches resembling the stalks of our Equise-
tums. It is found only in the islands of the Pacific and in India,
but traces of the same singular rather than beautiful type are seen
in other parts of the world. Plunder's Equisetum altissimum,
ForskaTs Ephedra aphylla from the north of Africa, the Peruvian
Colletias, and the Siberian Calligonum pallasia, are nearly allied to
the Casuarina form.

As the Banana form shows the greatest expansion, so the greatest
contraction of the leaf-vessels is shown in Casuarinas, and in the
form of Needle trees (**) (Coniferae). Pines, Thuias, and Cypresses
belong to this form, which prevails in northern regions, and is com-
paratively rare within the tropics : in Darnmara and Salisburia the
leaves, though they may still be termed needle-shaped, are broader.
In the colder latitudes, the never-failing verdure of this form of trees
cheers the desolate winter landscape, and tells to the inhabitants of
those regions that when snow and ice cover the ground the inward
life of plants, like the Promethean fire, is never extinct upon our
planet.

Like mosses and lichens in our latitudes, and like Orchidese in the
tropical zone, plants of the Pothos form (24) clothe parasitically the
trunks of aged and decaying forest trees : succulent, herbaceous stalks
support large leaves, sometimes sagittate, sometimes either digitate
or elongate, but always with thick veins. The flowers of the Aroidese
are cased in hooded spathes or sheaths, and in some of them when
they expand a sensible increase of vital heat is perceived. Stemless,
they put forth aerial roots. Pothos, Dracontiuin, Caladium, and
Arum, all belong to this form, which prevails chiefly in the tropical
world. On the Spanish and Italian shores of the Mediterranean,
Arums combine with the succulent Tussilago, the Acanthus, and
Thistles, which are almost arborescent, to indicate the increasing
luxuriance of southern vegetation.

Next to the last-mentioned form, of which the Pothos and Arum
are representatives, I place a form with which, in the hottest parts

PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 243

of South America, it is frequently associated — that of the tropical
twining rope-plants, or Lianes, (^ which display in those regions,
in Paullinias, Banisterias, Bignonias, and Passifloras, the utmost
vigor of vegetation. It is represented to us in the temperate lati-
tudes by our twining hops, and by our grape vines. On the banks
of the Orinoco the leafless branches of the Bauhinias are often be-
tween 40 and 50 feet long : sometimes they hang down perpendicu-
larly from the high top of the Swietenia, and sometimes they are
stretched obliquely like the cordage of a ship : the tiger-cats climb
up and descend by them with wonderful agility.

In strong contrast with the extreme flexibility and fresh light-
colored verdure of the climbing plants, of which we have just been
speaking, are the rigid, self-supporting growth and bluish hue of the
form of Aloes, (26) which, instead of pliant stems and branches of
enormous length, are either without stems altogether, or have branch-
less stems. The leaves, which are succulent, thick, and fleshy, and
terminate in long points, radiate from a centre and form a closely
crowded tuft. The tall-stemmed aloes are not found in close clus-
ters or thickets like other social or gregarious plants or trees ; they
stand singly in arid plains, and impart thereby to the tropical re-
gions in which they are found a peculiar, melancholy, and I would
almost venture to call it, African character. Taking for our guides
resemblance in physiognomy, and influence on the impression pro-
duced by the landscape, we place together under the head of the
Aloe form (from among the Bromeliaceae), the Pitcairnias, which
in the chain of the Andes grow out of clefts in the rocks ; the great
Pournetia pyramidata (the Atschupalla of the elevated plains of
New Granada); the American Aloe (Agave); Bromelia aranas and
B. karatas ; from among the Euphorbiacese the rare species which
have thick short candelabra-like divided stems ; from the family of
Asphodelese the African Aloe and the Dragon tree (Dracaena draco) ;
and lastly, from among the Liliaceae, the tall flowering Yucca.

If the Aloe form is characterized by an almost mournful repose
and immobility, the form of Grramineae, (27) especially the physiog-
nomy of arborescent grasses, is characterized, on the contrary, by an
expression of cheerfulness and of airy grace and tremulous lightness,
combined with lofty stature. Both in the East and West Indies

244 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

groves of Bamboo form shaded, over-arching walks or avenues. The
smooth polished and often lightly-waving and bending stems of these
tropical grasses are taller than our alders and oaks. The form of
Graminese begins even in Italy, in the Arundo donax, to rise from
the ground, and to determine by height as well as mass the natural
character and aspect of the country.

The form of Ferns, (*) as well as that of Grasses, becomes enno-
bled in the hotter parts of the globe. Arborescent ferns, when they
reach a height of above 40 feet, have something of a palm-like ap-
pearance ; but their stems are less slender, shorter, and more rough
and scaly than those of palms. Their foliage is more delicate, of a
thinner and more translucent texture, and the minutely indented
margins of the fronds are finely and sharply cut. Tree ferns belong
almost entirely to the tropical zone, but in that zone they seek by
preference the more tempered heat of a moderate elevation above
the level of the sea, and mountains two or three thousand feet high
may be regarded as their principal seat. In South America the
arborescent ferns are usually found associated with the tree which has
conferred such benefits on mankind by its fever-healing bark. Both
indicate by their presence the happy region where reigns a soft per-
petual spring.

I will next name the form of Liliaceous plants (39) (Amaryllis,
Ixia, Gladiolus, Pancratium), with their flag-like leaves and superb
blossoms, of which Southern Africa is the principal country ; also
the Willow form, (30) which is indigenous in all parts of the globe,
and is represented in the elevated plains of Quito (not in the shape
of the leaves, but in that of the ramification), by Schinus Molle '>
Myrtacese, (31) (Metrosideros, Eucalyptus, Escallonia myrtilloides) j
Melastomaceae, (3a) and the Laurel form. (M)

It would be an enterprise worthy of a great artist to study the
aspect and character of all these vegetable groups, not merely in
hot-houses or in the descriptions of botanists, but in their native
grandeur in the tropical zone. How interesting and instructive to
the landscape painter (**) would be a work which should present to
the eye, first separately, and then in combination and contrast, the
leading forms which have been here enumerated ! How picturesque
is the aspect of tree-ferns spreading their delicate fronds above the

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 245

laurel-oaks of Mexico 5 or groups of plantains overshadowed Iby
arborescent grasses (Guaduas and Bamboos) ! It is the artist's
privilege, having studied these groups, to analyze them : and thus
in his hands the grand and beautiful form of nature which he would
portray resolves itself (if I may venture on the expression), like the
written works of men^ into a few simple elements.

It is under the burning rays of a tropical sun that vegetation dis-
plays its most majestic forms. In the cold north the bark of trees
is covered with lichens and mosses, whilst between the tropics the
Cymbidium and fragrant Vanilla enliven the trunks of the Anacar-
dias, and of the gigantic fig trees. The fresh verdure of the Pothos
leaves, and of the Dracontias, contrasts with the many-colored flowers
of the Orchideae. Climbing Bauhinias, Passifloras, and yellow flower-
ing Banisterias, twine round the trunks of the forest trees. , Delicate
blossoms spring from the roots of the Theobroma, and from the thick
and rough bark of the Crescentias and the Ghistavia. (35) In the
midst of this profusion of flowers and fruits, and in the luxuriant
intertwinings of the climbing plants, the naturalist often finds it
difficult to discover to which stem the different leaves and flowers
really belong. A single tree adorned with Paullinias, Bignonias,
and Dendrobium, forms a group of plants which, if disentangled
and separated from each other, would cover a considerable space of
ground.

In the tropics vegetation is generally of a fresher verdure, more
luxuriant and succulent, and adorned with larger and more shining
leaves, than in our northern climates. The "social" plants, which
often impart so uniform and monotonous a character to European
countries, are almost entirely absent in the Equatorial regions. Trees
almost as lofty as our oaks are adorned with flowers as large and as
beautiful as our lilies. On the shady banks of the Rio Magdalena
in South America, there grows a climbing Aristolochia bearing
flowers four feet in circumference, which the Indian boys draw over
their heads in sport, and wear as hats or helmets. (36) In the islands
of the Indian Archipelago, the flower of the Rafflesia is nearly three
feet in diameter, and weighs above fourteen pounds.

The great elevation attained in several tropical countries, not only
by single mountains but even by extensive districts, enables the

21*

246 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

inhabitants of the torrid zone — surrounded by palms, bananas, and
the other beautiful forms proper to those latitudes — to behold also
those vegetable forms which, demanding a cooler temperature, would
seem to belong to other zones. Elevation above the level of the sea
gives this cooler temperature even in the hottest parts of the earth ;
and Cypresses, Pines, Oaks, Berberries, and Alders (nearly allied to
our own) cover the mountainous districts and elevated plains of
Southern Mexico and the chain of the Andes at the Equator. Thus
it is given to man in those regions to behold without quitting his
native land all the forms of vegetation dispersed over the globe, and
all the shining worlds which stud the heavenly vault from pole to
pole. (3?)

These and many other of the enjoyments which Nature affords
are wanting to the nations of the North. Many constellations, and
many vegetable forms — and of the latter, those which are most beau-
tiful (palms, tree ferns, plantains, arborescent grasses, and the finely
divided, feathery foliage of the Mimosas) — remain for ever unknown
to them. Individual plants languishing in our hot-houses can give
but a very faint idea of the majestic vegetation of the tropical zone.
But the high cultivation of our languages, the glowing fancy of the
poet, and the imitative art of the painter, open to us sources whence
flow abundant compensations, and from whence our imagination can
derive the living image of that more vigorous nature which other
climes display. In the frigid North, in the midst of the barren
heath, the solitary student can appropriate mentally all that has
been discovered in the most distant regions, and can create within
himself a world free and imperishable as the spirit by which it is
conceived.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 247

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(*) p. 227. — " On the Chiniborazo, eight thousand feet higher than

Etna''

Small singing birds, and even butterflies, are found at sea at
great distances from the coast (as I have several times had opportu-
nities of observing in the Pacific), being carried there by the force
of the wind when storms come off the land. In the same involun-
tary manner insects are transported into the upper regions of the
atmosphere, 16,000 or 19,000 feet above the plains. The heated
crust of the earth occasions an ascending vertical current of air, by
which light bodies are borne upwards. M. Boussingault, an ex-
cellent chemist, who, as Professor at the newly instituted Mining
Academy at Santa Fe de Bogota, visited the Gneiss Mountains of
Caraccas, in ascending to the summit of the Silla witnessed, together
with his companion Don Mariano de Bivero, a phenomenon afford-
ing a remarkable ocular demonstration of the fact of a vertically
ascending current. They saw in the middle of the day, about noon,
whitish, shining bodies rise from the valley of Caraccas to the sum-
mit of the Silla, which is 5400 (5755 E.) feet high, and then sink
down towards the neighboring sea coast. These movements con-
tinued uninterruptedly for the space of an hour, and the objects,
which at first were mistaken for a flock of small birds, proved to be
small agglomerations of straws or blades of grass. Boussingault
sent me some of the straws, which were immediately recognized by
Professor Kunth for a species of Vilfa, a genus which, together
with Agrostis, is very abundant in the provinces of Caraccas and
Cumana : it was the Vilfa tenacissima of our Synopsis Plantarum
sequinoctialium Orbis Novi, t. i. p. 205. Saussure found butterflies
on Mont Blanc, as did B-amond in the solitudes which surround the
summit of the Mont Perdu. When Bonpland, Carlos Montufar,

248 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

and myself reached on the 23d of June, 1802, on the eastern
declivity of the Chimborazo, the height of 18,096 (19,286 E.)
feet — a height at which the barometer sank to 13 inches 11|
lines (14,850 English inches), we saw winged insects fluttering
around us. We could see that they were Dipteras, resembling
flies, but on a sharp ridge of rock (cuchilla) often only ten
inches wide, between steeply descending masses of snow, it was
impossible to catch the insects. The height at which we saw them
was nearly the same at which the uncovered trachytic rock, piercing
through the eternal snows, gave to oiir view, in Lecidea geo-
graphica, the last traces of vegetation. The insects were flying at
a height of about 2850 toises (18,225 E. feet), or about 2600 E.
feet higher than Mont Blanc. Somewhat lower down, at about
2600 toises (15,626 E. feet), also therefore within the region of
perpetual snow, Bonpland had seen yellow butterflies flying very
near the ground. According to our present knowledge, the Mam-
malia which live nearest to the region of perpetual snow are in the
Swiss Alps, the Marmot which sleeps through the winter, and a
very small field-mouse (Hypudseus nivalis), described by Martins,
which on the Faulhorn lays up a store of the roots of phsenoga-
mous alpine plants almost under the snow. (Actes de la Socie*te
Helvetique, 1843, p. 324.) The beautiful Chinchilla, of which
the bright and silky fur is so much prized, is often supposed by
Europeans to be an inhabitant of the high mountain regions of
Chili: this, however, is an error; the Chinchilla laniger (Gray)
only lives in the mild temperature of the lower zone, and is not
found farther south than the parallel of 35°. (Claudio Gay, His-
toria fisica y politica de Chile, Zoologia, 1844, p. 91.)

While on our European Alps, Lecideas, Parmelias, and Umbili-
carias form only a few colored patches on the rocks which are not
completely covered with snow, in the Andes, beautiful flowering
phgenogamous plants, first described by us, live at elevations of
thirteen to fourteen thousand feet (13,700 to nearly 15,000 E.).
We found there woolly species of Culcitium and Espeletia (C.
nivale, C. rufescens, and C. reflexum, E. grandiflora, and E. argen-
tea), Sida pichinchensis, Ranunculus nubigenus, R. Gusmanni with
red or orange-colored blossoms, the small moss-like umbelliferous

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 249

plant Myrrhis andicola, and Fragosa arctioides. On the declivity
of the Chimborazo the Saxifraga boussingaulti, described by Adolph
Brongniart, grows beyond the limit of perpetual snow on loose
boulders of rock, at 14,796 (15,770 E.) feet above the level of the
sea, not at 17,000, as stated in two estimable English journals.
(Compare my Asie Centrale, t. iii. p. 262, with Hooker, Journal of
Botany, vol. i. 1834, p. 327, and Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journalr vol. xvii. 1834, p. 380.) The Saxifrage discovered by
Boussingault is certainly, up to the present time, the highest
known phgenogamous plant on the surface of the earth.

The perpendicular height of the Chimborazo is, according to my
trigonometrical measurement, 3350 toises (21,422 E. feet). (Re-
cueil d'Observ. Astron., vol. i., Introd., p. Ixxii.) This result is
intermediate between those given by French and Spanish acade-
micians. The differences depend not on different assumptions for
refraction, but on differences in the reduction of the measured base
lines to the level of the sea. In the Andes, this reduction could
only be made by the barometer, and thus every measurement called
a trigonometric measurement is also a barometric one, of which the
result differs according to the first term in the formula employed.
If in .chains of mountains of great mass, such as the Andes, we
insist on determining the greater part of the whole altitude trigono-
metrically, measuring from a low and distant point in the plain or
nearly at the level of the sea, we can only obtain very small angles
of altitude. On the other hand, not only is it difficult to find a
convenient base among mountains, but also every step increases the
portion of the height which must be determined barometrically.
These difficulties have to be encountered by every traveller who
selects, among the elevated plains which surround the Andes, the
station at which he may execute his geodesical measurements. My
measurement of the Chimborazo was made from the plain of Tapia,
which is covered with pumice. It is situated to the west of the
Rio Chambo, and its elevation, as determined by the barometer, is
1842 toises (9477 E. feet). The Llanos de Luisa, and still more
the plain of Sisgun, which is 1900 toises (12,150 E. feet, high),
would have given greater angles of altitude ; I had prepared

250 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

everything for making the measurement at the latter station, when
thick clouds concealed the summit of Chimborazo.

Those who are engaged in investigations on languages may not be
unwilling to find here some conjectures respecting the etymology of
the widely celebrated name of Chimborazo. Chimbo is the name
of the Corregimiento or District in which the mountain of Chimbo-
razo is situated. La Condamine (Voyage a 1'Equateur, 1751, p.
184) deduces Chimbo from " chimpani," " to pass over a river."
Chimbo-rac.0 signifies, according to him, " la neige de Tautre bord,"
because at the village of Chimbo one crosses a stream in full view
of the enormous snow-clad mountain. (In the Quichua language
" chimpa" signifies the "other, or farther side;" and chimpani signi-
fies to pass or cross over a river, a bridge, &c.) Several natives of
the province of Quito have assured me that Chimborazo signifies
merely "the snow of Chimbo." "We find the same termination in
Carguai-razo. But razo appears to be a provincial word. The
Jesuit Holguin (whose excellent " Yocabujario de la Lengua gene-
ral de todo el Peru llamada Lengua Quichua 6 del Inca," printed at
Lima in 1608, is in my possession) knows nothing of the word
"razo." The genuine word for snow is "ritti." On the other
hand, my learned friend Professor Buschmann remarks that, in the
Chinchaysuyo dialect (spoken north of Cuzco up to Quito and
Pasto), raju (the j apparently guttural) signifies snow ; see the
word in Juan de Figueredo's notice of Chinchaysuyo words ap-
pended to Diego de Torres Rubio, Arte, y Vocabulario de la Lengua
Quichua, reimpr. en Lima, 1754 ; fol. 222, b. For the first two
syllables of the name of the mountain, and for the village of
Chimbo (as chimpa and chimpani suit badly on account of the a),
we may find a definite signification by means of the Quichua word
chimpu, an expression used for a colored thread or fringe (serial de
lana, hilo 6 borlilla de colores) — for the red of the sky (arreboles) —
and for a halo round the sun or moon. One may try to derive the
name of the mountain directly from this word, without the inter-
vention of the village or district. In any case, and whatever the
etymology of Chimborazo may be, it must be written in Peruvian
Chimporazo, as we know that the Peruvians have no b.

But what if the name of this giant mountain should have nothing

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 251

in common with the language of the Incas, but should have de-
scended from a more remote antiquity? According to the generally
received tradition, it was not long before the arrival of the Spaniards
that the Inca or Quiehua language was introduced into the kingdom
of Quito, where the Puruay language, which has now entirely
perished, had previously prevailed. Other names of mountains,
Pichincha, Ilinissa, and Cotopaxi, have no signification at all in the
language of the Incas, and are therefore certainly older than the
introduction of the worship of the sun and the court language of the
rulers of Cuzco. In all parts of the world the names of mountains
and rivers are among the most ancient and most certain monuments
or memorials of languages ; and my brother Wilhelm von Hum-
boldt has employed these names with great sagacity in his researches
on the former diffusion of Iberian nations. A singular and unex-
pected statement has been put forward in recent years (Yelasco, His-
toria de Quito, t. i. p. 185), to the effect that " the Incas Tupac
Yupanqui and Huayna Capac were astonished to find at their first
conquest of Quito a dialect of the Quiehua language already in use
among the natives." Prescott, however, appears to regard this
statement as doubtful. (Hist, of the Conquest of Peru, vol. i.
p. 115.)

If the Pass of St. G-othard, Mount Athos, or the Rigi, were
placed on the summit of the Chimborazo, it would form an elevation
equal to that now ascribed to the Dhawalagiri in the Himalaya.
The geologist who rises to more general views connected with the
interior of the earth, regards, not indeed the direction, but the rela-
tive height of the rocky ridges which we term mountain -chains, as
a phenomenon of so little import, that he would not be astonished
if there should one day be discovered between the Himalaya and
the Altai, summits which should surpass the Dhawalagiri tind the
Djawahir as much as these surpass the Chimborazo. (See my Yues
des Cordilleres et Monumens des peuples indigenes de TAmerique,
t. i. p. 116; and my notice on two attempts to ascend the Chimbo-
razo, in 1802 and 1831, in Schumacher's Jahrbuch for 1847, s. 176.)
The great height to which the snow line on the northern side of the
Himalaya is raised in summer, by the influence of the heat returned
by radiation from the high plains of the interior of Asia, renders

252 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

those mountains, although situated in 29 to 30 £ degrees of latitude,
as accessible as the Peruvian Andes within the tropics. Captain
Gerard has attained on the Tarhigang an elevation as great, and
perhaps (as is maintained in the Critical Researches on Philosophy
and Geography) 117 English feet greater than that reached by me
on the Chimborazo. Unfortunately, as I have shown more at large
in another place, these mountain journeys beyond the limits of per-
petual snow (however they may engage the curiosity of the public)
are of only very inconsiderable scientific use.

(2) p. 228. — "The Condor, the giant of the Vulture tribe."
In my Recueil d' Observations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic com-
paree, vol. i. pp. 26-45, I have given the natural history of the
Condor, which, before my journey to the equatorial regions, had
been much misrepresented. (The name of the bird is properly
Cuntur, in the Inca language ; in Chili, in the Araucan, Manque ;
Sarcoramphus Condor of Dumeril.) I made and had engraved a
drawing of the head from the living bird, and of the size of nature.
Next to the Condor, the Lammergeier of Switzerland, and the Falco
destructor of Daudin, probably the Falco Harpyia of Linnaeus, are
the largest flying birds.

The region which may be regarded as the ordinary haunt of the
Condor begins . at the height of Etna, and comprises atmospheric
strata from ten to eighteen thousand (about 10,600 to 19,000
English) feet above the level of the sea. Humming birds, which
make summer excursions as far as 61° N. latitude on the north-
west coast of America on the one hand, and the Tierra del Fuego
on the other, have been seen by Von Tschudi (Fauna Peruana,
Ornithol. p. 12), in Puna, as high as 13,700 (14,600 English)
feet. There is a pleasure in comparing the largest and the smallest
of the feathered inhabitants of the air. Of the Condors, the
largest individuals found in the chain of the Andes round Quito
measured, with extended wings, 14 (nearly 15 English) feet, and
the smallest 8 (8j English) feet. From these dimensions, and
from the visual angle at which the bird often appeared vertically
above our heads, we are enabled to infer the enormous height
to which the Condor soars when the sky is serene. A visual angle
of 4'; for example, gives a perpendicular height above the eye

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 253

of 6876 (7330 English) feet. The cave (Machay) of Antisana,
which is opposite the mountain of Chussulongo, and from whence
we measured the height of the soaring bird, is 14,958 (15,942 Eng-
lish) feet above the surface of the Pacific. This would give the
absolute height attained by the Condor at fully 21,834 (23,270 Eng-
lish) feet ; an elevation at which the barometer would hardly reach
12 French inches, but which yet does not surpass the highest sum-
mits of the Himalaya. It is a remarkable physiological phenome-
non, that the same bird, which can fly round in circles for hours in
regions of an atmosphere so rarefied, should sometimes suddenly
descend, as on the western declivity of the Volcano of Pichincha, to
the sea-shore, thus passing rapidly through all gradations of climate.
The membranous air-bags of the Condor, if filled in the lower regions
of the atmosphere, must undergo extraordinary distension at alti-
tudes of more than 23,000 English feet. Ulloa, more than a cen-
tury ago, expressed his astonishment that the vulture of the Andes
could soar in regions where the atmospheric pressure is less than 14
French inches (Voyage de TAme'rique Meridionale, t. ii. p. 2, 1752;
Observations astronomiques et physiques, p. 110). It was then be-
lieved, in analogy with experiments under the air-pump, that no
animal could live in so low a pressure. I have myself, as I have
already noticed, seen the barometer sink on the Chimborazo to 13
French inches 11.2 lines (14.850 English inches). Man, indeed,
at such elevations, if wearied by muscular exertion, finds himself in
a state of very painful exhaustion ; but the Condor seems to perform
the functions of respiration with equal facility under pressures of 30
and 13 English inches. It is apparently of all living creatures on
our planet the one which can remove at pleasure to the greatest dis-
tance from the surface of the earth; I say at pleasure, for minute
insects and silicious-shelled infusoria are carried by the ascending
current to possibly still greater elevations. The Condor probably
flies higher than the altitude found as above by computation. I re-
member on the Cotopaxi, in the pumice plain of Suniguaicu, 13,578
(14,470 English) feet above the sea, to have seen the bird soaring
at a height at which he appeared only as a small black speck. What
is the smallest angle under which feebly illuminated objects can be
discerned ? Their form (linear extension) has a great influence on the
22

254 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

minimum of this angle. The transparency of the mountain atmo-
sphere at the Equator is such that, in the province of Quito, as I have
elsewhere noticed, the white mantle or Poncho of a horseman was
distinguished with the naked eye at a horizontal distance of 84,132
(89,665 English) feet; therefore under a visual angle of 13 seconds.
It was my friend Bonpland, whom, from the pleasant country seat
of the Marques de Selvalegre, we saw moving along the face of a
black precipice on the Volcano of Pichincha. Lightning conductors,
being long thin objects, are seen, as has already been remarked by
Arago, from the greatest distances, and under the smallest angles.

The accounts of the habits of the Condor in the mountainous
districts of Quito and Peru, given by me in a monograph on this
powerful bird, have been confirmed by a later traveller, Gay, who
has explored the whole of Chili, and has described that country in
an excellent work entitled Historia fisica y politica de Chile. The
Condor, which, like the Lamas, Vicunas, Alpacas, and Guanacos,
does not extend beyond the Equator into New Granada, is found as
far south as the Straits of Magellan. In Chili, as in the mountain
plains of Quito, the Condors, which at other times live either soli-
tarily or in pairs, assemble in flocks to attack lambs and calves, or
to carry off young Guanacos (Guanacillos). The ravages annually
committed among the herds of sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as
among the wild Vicunas, Alpacas, and Guanacos of the Andes, are
very considerable. The inhabitants of Chili assert that, in captivity,
the Condor can support forty days' hunger ; when free, his voracity
is excessive, and, vulture-like, is directed by preference to dead flesh.

The mode of capture of Condors in Peru by means of palisades,
as described by me, is practiced with equal success in Chili. When
the bird has gorged himself with flesh, he cannot rise into the air
without first running for some little distance- with his wings half ex-
panded. A dead ox, in which decomposition is beginning to take
place, is strongly fenced round, leaving within the fence only a small
space, in which the Condors attracted by the prey are crowded toge-
ther. WJien they have gorged themselves with food, the palisades
not permitting them to obtain a start by running, they become, as
remarked above, unable to rise, and are either killed with clubs by
the country people, or taken alive by the lasso. On the first decla,-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 255

ration of the political independence of Chili, the Condor appeared
on the coinage as the symbol of strength. (Claudio Gay, Historia
fisica y politica de Chile, publicada bajo los auspicios del Supremo
Grobierno; Zoologia, pp. 194-198.)

Far more useful than the Condor in the great economy of Nature,
in the removal of putrefying animal substances and in thus purify-
ing the air in the neighborhood of human habitations, are the differ-
ent species of Grallinazos, of which the number of individuals is
much greater. In tropical America I have sometimes seen as many
as 70 or 80 assembled at once round a dead animal ; and I am able,
as an eye-witness, to confirm the fact long since stated, but which
has recently been doubted by ornithologists, of the whole assembly
of these birds in such cases taking flight on the appearance of a
single king-vulture, who yet is no larger than the Grallinazos. No
combat ever takes place; but the Gallinazos (the two species of
which, Cathartes urubu and C. aura, have been confounded with
each other by an unfortunately fluctuating nomenclature) appear to
be terrified by the sudden appearance and .courageous demeanor of
the richly colored Sarcoramphus papa. As the ancient Egyptians
protected the bird which rendered them similar services towards the
purification of their atmosphere, so in Peru the careless or wanton
killing of the Grallinazos is punished with a fine, which in some towns
amounts, according to Gray, to 300 piastres for each bird. It is a
remarkable circumstance, stated so long ago as by Don Felix de
Azara, that these species of vultures, if taken young and reared,
will so accustom themselves to the person who feeds them, that they
will follow him on a journey for many miles, flying after the wagon
in which he travels over the Pampas.

(3) p. 228.—" Their rotating bodies.''

Fontana, in his excellent work a tlber das Viperngift," bd. i. s.
62, relates that he succeeded, in the course of two hours, by means
of a drop of water, in bringing to life a rotifera which had lain
for two years and a half dried up and motionless. On the action
and effect of water, see my " Versuche iiber die gereizte Muskel-und
Nervenfaser," bd. ii. s. 250.

What has been called the revivification of Rotiferae, since observa-

256 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

tions have been more exact and have had to undergo stricter criti-
cism, iias been the subject of much animated discussion. Baker
affirmed that he had resuscitated, in 1771, paste-eels which Needham
had given him in 1744 ! Franz Bauer saw his Vibrio tritici, which
had been dried up for four years, move again on being moistened.
An extremely careful and experienced observer, Doyere, in his
Memoire sur les Tardigrades, et sur leur propriete* de revenir a la
vie (1842), draws from hi^ own fine experiments the following con-
clusions : RotiferaB come to life, i. e. pass from a motionless state
to a state of motion, after having been exposed to temperatures of
19°. 2 Reaumur below, and 36° Reaumur above, the freezing point;
i. e. from 11°.2 to 113°.0 Fahr. They preserve the capability of
apparent revivification, in dry sand, up to 56°.4 R. (158°. 9 Fah.);
but they lose it, and cannot be excited afresh, if heated in moist sand
to 44° only (131°.0 Fah.) Doyere, p. 119. The possibility of
revivification or reanimation is not prevented by their being placed
for twenty-eight days in barometer tubes in vacuo, or even by the
application of chloride of lime or sulphuric acid (pp. 130—133).
Doyere has also seen the rotiferse come to life again very slowly after
being dried without sand (desse"che*s k nu), which Spallanzani had
denied (pp. 117 and 129). "Toute dessiccation faite & la tempe"ra-
ture ordinaire pourroit souffrir des objections auxquelles Temploi du
vide sec n'eut peut-etre pas completement repondu : mais en voyant
les Tardigrades perir irre>ocablement k une temperature de 44°, si
leurs tissus sont pe'netre's d'eau, tandis que desseche's ils supportent
sans p4rir une chaleur qu'on peut evaluer a 96° Reaumur, on doit
dtre dispose" & admettre que la revivification n'a dans T animal d'autre
condition que Fintegrite de composition et de connexions organiques."
In the same way, in the vegetable kingdom, the sporules of crypto-
gamia, which Kunth compares to the propagation of certain phgeno-
gamous plants by buds (bulbillae), retain their germinating power in
the highest temperatures. According to the most recent experiments
of Payen, the sporules of a minute fungus (Oidium aurantiacum),
which covers the crumb of bread with a reddish, feathery coating, do
not lose their power of germination by being exposed for half an
hour in closed tubes to a temperature of from 67° to 78° Reaumur
(182°.75 to 2076.5 Fahr.), before being strewed on fresh, perfectly

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 257

unspoilt dough. May not the newly discovered monad (Monas pro-
digiosa), which causes blood-like spots on mealy substances, have
been mingled with this fungus ?

Ehrenberg, in .his great work on Infusoria (s. 492-496), has
given the most complete history of all the investigations which have
taken place on what is called the revivification of Rotiferse. He
believes that, in spite of all the means of desiccation employed, the
organization-fluid still remains in the apparently dead animal. He
contests the hypothesis of " latent life ;" death, he says, is not "life
latent, but the want of life."

We have evidence of the diminution, if not of the entire disap-
pearance or suspension of organic functions, in the hybernation or
winter sleep both of warm and cold-blooded animals, in the dormice,
marmots, sand martins (Hirundo riparia) according to Cuvier (Regne
animal, 1829, t. i. p. 396), frogs, and toads. Frogs, awakened from
winter-sleep by warmth, can support an eight times' longer stay
under water without being drowned, than frogs in the breeding sea-
son. It would seem as if the functions of the lungs in respiration,
for some time after their excitability had been suspended, required a
less degree of activity. The circumstance of the sand-martin some-
times burying itself in a morass is a phenomenon which, while it
seems not to admit of doubt, is the more surprising, as in birds
respiration is so extremely energetic, that, according to Lavoisier's
experiments, two small sparrows, in their ordinary state, decom-
posed, in the same space of time, as much atmospheric air as a por-
poise. (Lavoisier, M&noires de Chimie, t. i. p. 119.) The winter-
sleep of the swallow in question (the Hirundo riparia) is not sup-
posed to belong to the entire species, but only to have been observed
in some individuals. (Milne Edwards, El&nens de Zoologie, 1834,
p. 543.)

As in the cold zone, the deprivation of heat causes some animals
to fall into winter-sleep, so the hot, tropical countries afford an
analogous phenomenon, which has not been sufficiently attended to,
and to which I have applied the name of summer-sleep. (Relation
historique, t. ii. pp. 192 and 626.) Drought and continuous high
temperatures act like the cold of winter in diminishing excitability.
In Madagascar (which, with the exception of a very small portion at

22*

258 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

its southern extremity, is entirely within the tropical zone), as Bru-
guiere had before observed, the hedgehog-like Tenrecs (Centenes,
Illiger), one species of which (C. ecaudatus) has been introduced
into the Isle of France, sleep during great heat. Desjardins makes,
it is true, the objection that the time of their slumber is the winter
season of the southern hemisphere ; but in a country in which the
mean temperature of the coldest month is 3° Reaumur (6°. 75 Fahr.)
above that of the hottest month in Paris, this circumstance cannot
change the three months' " summer-sleep" of the Tenrec in Mada-
gascar and at Port Louis, into what we understand by a winter-sleep,
or state of hybernation.

In the hot and dry season, the crocodile in the Llanos of Vene-
zuela, the land and water tortoises of the Orinoco, the huge boa, and
several smaller kinds of serpents, become torpid and motionless, and
lie incrusted in the indurated soil. The missionarry Grili relates
that the natives, in seeking for the slumbering Terekai (land tor-
toises), which they find lying at a depth of sixteen or seventeen
inches in dried mud, are sometimes bitten by serpents which become
suddenly aroused, and which had buried themselves at the same time
as the tortoise. An excellent observer, Dr. Peters, who has just
returned from the East Coast of Africa, writes thus to me on the
subject : " During my short stay at Madagascar, I could obtain no
certain information respecting the Tenrec ; but, on the other hand,
I know that in the East of Africa, where I lived for several years,
different kinds of tortoises (Pentonyx and Trionchydias) pass months
during the dry season of this tropical country enclosed in the dry,
hard earth, and without food. The Lepidosiren also, in places where
the swamps are dried up, remains coiled up and motionless, encased
in indurated earth, from May to December."

Thus we find an annual enfeeblement of certain vital functions in
many and very different classes of animals, and, what is particularly
striking, without the same phenomena being presented by other
living creatures nearly allied to them, and belonging to the same
family. The northern glutton (Grulo), though allied to the badger
(Meles), does not, like him, sleep during the winter : whereas, accord-
ing to Cuvier's remark, " a Myoxus (dormouse) of Senegal (Myoxus
coupeii), which could never have known winter-sleep in his tropical

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 259

home, being brought to Europe fell asleep the first year on the
setting in of winter." This torpidity or enfeeblement of tha vital
functions and vital activity passes through several gradations, accord-
ing as it extends to the processes of nutrition, respiration, and mus-
cular motion, or to depression of the activity of the brain and nervous
system. The winter-sleep of the solitary bears and of the badger
is not accompanied by any rigidity, and hence the reawakening of
these animals is so easy, and, as was often related to me in Siberia,
so dangerous to the hunters and country people. The first recogni-
tion of the gradation and connection of these phenomena leads us up
to what has been called the tc vita minima" of the microscopic or-
ganisms, which, occasionally with green ovaries and undergoing the
process of spontaneous division, fall from the clouds in the Atlantic
sand-rain. The apparent revivification of Rotiferae, as well as of the
silicious-shelled Infusoria, is only the renewal of long-enfeebled vital
functions — a state of vitality which was never entirely extinct, and
which is fanned into a fresh flame, or excited anew, by the appro-
priate stimulus. Physiological phenomena can only be compre-
hended by being traced throughout the entire series of analogous
modifications.

(*) p. 228.— "Winged insects."

Formerly the fertilization of flowers in which the sexes are sepa-
rated was ascribed principally to the action of the wind : it has been
shown by Kblreuter, and with great ingenuity by Sprengel, that
bees, wasps, and a host of smaller winged insects, are the chief
agents. I say the chief agents, because to assert that no fertilization
is possible without the intervention of these little animals appears to
me not to be in conformity with nature, as indeed has been shown
in detail by Willdenow. (Grundriss der Kr'auterkunde, 4te Aufl.,
Berl. 1805, s. 405-412.) On the other hand, Dichogamy, colored
spots or marks indicating honey-vessels (maculae indicantes), and
fertilization by insects, are, in much the greater number of cases,
inseparably associated. (Compare Auguste de St. Hilaire, Legons de
Botanique, 1840, pp. 565-571.)

The statement which has been often repeated since Spallanzani,
that the dioecious common hemp (Cannabis sativa) yields perfect

260 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

seeds without the neighborhood of pollen-bearing vessels, has been
refuted by later experiments. When seeds have been obtained,
anthers in a rudimentary state, capable of furnishing some grains
of fertilizing dust, have been discovered near the ovarium. Such
hermaphroditism is frequent in the entire family of Urticeae, but a
peculiar and still unexplained phenomenon has been presented in
the forcing-houses at Kew by a small New Holland shrub, the Ccele-
bogyne of Smith. This phsenogamous plant produces in England
perfect seeds without trace of male organs, or the hybridizing intro-
duction of the pollen of other species. An ingenious botanist,
Adrien de Jussieu, in his "Cours Elementaire de Botanique," 1840,
p. 463, expresses himself on the subject as follows : " Un genre
d'Euphorbiacees (?) assez nouvellement decrit, mais cultive depuis
plusieurs annees dans les serres d'Angleterre, le Cojlebogyne, y a
plusieurs fois fructifie, et ses graines etaient eVidemment parfaites,
puisque non seulement on y a observe' un embryon bien constitue,
mais qu'en le semant cet embryon s'est developpe" en une plante
semblable. Or les fleurs sont dioiques; on ne connait et ne possede
pas (en Angle terre) de pieds mUles, et les recherches les plus minuti-
euses, faites par les meilleurs observateurs, n'ont pu jusqu'ici faire
d^couvrir la moindre trace d'antheres ou seulement de pollen. I/ em-
bryon ne venait done pas de ce pollen, qui manque entierement : il
a du se former de toute piece dans 1' ovule."

In order to obtain a fresh confirmation or elucidation of this
highly important and isolated phenomenon, I addressed myself not
long since to my young friend Dr. Joseph Hooker, who, after mak-
ing the Antarctic voyage with Sir James Ross, has now joined the
great Thibeto-Himalayan expedition. Dr. Hooker wrote to me in
reply, on his arrival at Alexandria near the end of December 1847,
before embarking at Suez : " Our Ccelebogyne still flowers with my
father at Kew as well as in the Gardens of the Horticultural Society.
It ripens its seeds regularly : I have examined it repeatedly very
closely and carefully, and have never been able to discover a penetra-
tion of pollen-tubes either in the style or ovarium. In my herba-
rium the male blossoms are in small catkins."

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 261

(5) p. 229.— " Shine like stars:'

The luminosity of the ocean is one of those superb natural phe-
nomena which continue to excite our admiration even when we have
seen them recur every night for months. The sea is phosphorescent
in every zone; but those who have not witnessed the phenomenon
within the tropics, and especially in the Pacific, have only an imper-
fect idea of the grand and majestic spectacle which it affords.
When a man-of-war, impelled by a fresh breeze, cuts the foaming
waves, the voyager standing at the ship's side feels as if he could
never be satisfied with gazing on the spectacle which presents itself
to his view. Every time that in the rolling of the vessel her side
emerges from the water, blue or reddish streams of light appear to
dart upwards like flashes of lightning from her keel. Nor can I
describe tjje splendor of the appearance presented on a dark night
in the tropic seas by the sports of a troop of porpoises, As they
cut through the foaming waves, following each other in long winding
lines, one sees their mazy track marked by intense and sparkling
light. In the Gulf of Cariaco, between Cumana and the Peninsula
of Maniquarez, I have stood for hours enjoying this spectacle.

Le Gentil and the elder Forster attributed the flashing to the
electric friction excited by the ship in moving through the water,
but the present state of our knowledge does not permit us to receive
this as a valid explanation. (Joh. Reinh. Forster' s Bemerkungen
auf seiner Reise um die Welt, 1783, s. 57; Le G-entil, Voyage
dans les Mers de Tlnde, 1779, t. i. pp. 685-698.)

Perhaps there are few natural subjects of observation which have
been so long and so much debated as the luminosity of the waters of
the sea. What we know with certainty on the subject may be
reduced to the following simple facts. There are several luminous
animals which, when alive, give out at pleasure a faint phosphoric
light: this light is, in most instances, rather bluish, as in Nereis
noctiluca, Medusa pelagica var. j3 (Forskal, Fauna ^Egyptiaco-
arabica, s. Descriptiones animalium quse in itinere orientali obser-
vavit, 1775, p. 109), and in the Monophora noctiluca, discovered in
Baudin's expedition, (Bory de St. Vincent, Voyage dans les lies
des Mers d'Afrique, 1804, t. i. p. 107, pi. vi.) The luminous

262 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

appearance of the sea is due partly to living animals, such as are
spoken of above, and partly to organic fibres and membranes derived
from the destruction of these living torch-bearers. The first of
these causes is undoubtedly the most usual and most extensive. In
proportion as travellers engaged in the investigation of natural phe-
nomena have become more zealous in their researches, and more
experienced in the use of excellent microscopes, we have seen in
our zoological systems the groups of Mollusca and Infusoria, which
become luminous either at pleasure or when excited by external
stimulus, increase more and more.

The luminosity of the sea, so far as it is produced by living organic
beings, is principally due, in the class of Zoophytes, to the Acalephae
(the families of Medusa and Cyanea), to some Mollusca, and to a
countless host of Infusoria. Among the small Acalephae, the Mam-
maria scintillans offers the beautiful spectacle of, as it were, the
starry firmament reflected by the surface of the sea. this little
creature, when full grown, hardly equals in size the head of a pin.
Michaelis, at Kiel, was the first to show that there are luminous,
silicious-shelled Infusoria: he observed the flashing light of the
Peridinium (a ciliated animalcule), of the cuirassed monad the Pro-
rocentrum micans, and of a Rotifera to which he gave the name of
Synchata baltica, (Michaelis iiber das Leuchten der Ostsee bei
Kiel, 1830, s. 17.) The same Synchata baltica was subsequently
discovered by Focke in the Lagunes of Yenice. My distinguished
friend and Siberian travelling companion, Ehrenberg, has succeeded
in keeping luminous infusoria from the Baltic alive for almost two
months in Berlin. He showed them to me in 1832 with a micro-
scope in a drop of sea-water : placed in the dark, I saw their flashes
of light. The largest of these little infusoria were 1-8 th, and the
smallest from 148th to 1-9 6th of a Paris line in length (a Paris
line is about nine-hundredths of an English inch) : after they were
exhausted, and had ceased to send forth sparkles of light, the flashing
was renewed on their being stimulated by the addition of acids or
of a little alcohol to the sea-water.

By repeatedly filtering water taken up fresh from the sea, Ehren-
berg succeeded in obtaining a fluid in which a greater number of
these luminous creatures were concentrated. (Abhandlungen der

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 263

Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem J. 1833, s. 307; 1834, s. 537-
575 ; 1838, s. 45 and 258.) This acute observer has found in the
organs of the Photocaris, which emits flashes of light either at plea-
sure or when irritated or stimulated, a cellular structure with large
cells and gelatinous interior resembling the electric organs of the
Gymnotus and the Torpedo. " When the Photocaris is irritated,
one sees in each cirrus a kindling and flickering of separate sparks,
which gradually increase in intensity until the whole cirrus is illumi-
nated; until at last the living fire runs also over the back of the
small Nereis-like animal, so that it appears in the microscope like a
thread of sulphur burning with a greenish-yellow light. It is a
circumstance very deserving of attention, that in the Oceania (Thau-
mantias) hemisphserica the number and situation of the sparks cor-
respond exactly with the thickened base of the larger cirri or organs
which alternate with them. The exhibition of this wreath of fire is
a vital act, and the whole development of light is an organic vital
process, which in the Infusoria shows itself as an instantaneous spark
of light, and is repeated after. short intervals of repose." (Ehren-
berg liber das Leuchten des Meeres, 1836, s. 110, 158, 160, and
163.)

According to these suppositions, the luminous creatures of the
ocean show the existence of a magneto-electric light-evolving pro-
cess in other classes of animals than fishes, insects, Mollusca, and
Acalephse. Is the secretion of the luminous fluid which is effused
in some luminous creatures, and which continues to shine for some
time without any farther influence of the living animal (for ex-
ample, in Lampyrides and Elaterides, in the German and Italian
glowworms, and in the South American Cucuyo, which lives on
the sugar-cane), only a consequence of the first electric discharge,
or is it simply dependent on chemical mixture? The shining of
insects surrounded by air has doubtless other physiological causes
than those which occasion the luminosity of inhabitants of the water,
fishes, MedusaB, and Infusoria. The small Infusoria of the ocean,
being surrounded by strata of salt water, which is a good conducting
fluid, must be capable of an enormous electric tension of their light-
flashing organs, to enable them to shine so intensely in the water.
They strike like Torpedos, Gymnoti, and the Tremola of the Nile,

264 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

through the stratum of water; while electric fishes, in connection
with the galvanic circuit, decompose water and impart magnetism to
steel bars, as I showed more than half a century ago (Versuche
iiber die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser, bd. i. s. 438-441, and
see also Obs. de Zoologie et d' Anatomic comparee, vol. i. p. 84) ; and
as John Davy has since confirmed (Phil. Trans, for 1834, Part ii.
pp. 545-547), do not pass a flash through the smallest intervening
stratum.

The considerations which have been developed make it probable
that it is one and the same process which operates in the smallest
living organic creatures, so minute that they are not perceived by
the naked eye — in the combats of the serpent-like gymnoti — in
flashing, luminous Infusoria which raise the phosphorescence of the
sea to such a degree of brilliancy ; as well as in the thunder-cloud,
and in the auroral, terrestrial, or polar light (silent magnetic light-
nings), which, as the result of an increased tension in the interior
of the globe, are announced for hours beforehand by the suddenly
altered movements of the magnetic needle. (See my letter to the
Editor of the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, bd. xxxvii. 1836,
s. 242-244.)

Sometimes one cannot, even with high magnifying powers, dis-
cern any animalcules in the luminous water ; and yet, whenever
the wave strikes and breaks in foam against a hard body, a light is
seen to flash. In such case, the cause of the phenomenon probably
consists in the decaying animal fibres, which are disseminated in
immense abundance throughout the body of water. If this lumi-
nous water is filtered through fine and closely woven cloths, these
little fibres and membranes are separated in the shape of shining
points. When we bathed at Cumana in the waters of the G-ulf of
Cariaco, and afterwards lingered awhile on the solitary beach in the
mild evening air without our clothes, parts of our bodies continued
luminous from the shining organic particles which had adhered to
the skin, and the light only became extinct at the end of some mi-
nutes. Considering the enormous quantity of animal life in all tro-
pical seas, it is, perhaps, not surprising that the sea water should be
luminous, even where no visible organic particles can be detached
from it. From the almost infinite subdivision of the masses of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 265

dead Dagysse and Medusae, the sea may perhaps be looked on as a
gelatinous fluid, which as such is luminous, distasteful to, and un-
drinkable by man, and capable of affording nourishment to many
fish. If one rubs a board with part of a Medusa hysocella, the
part so rubbed regains its luminosity on friction with a dry finger.
On my passage to South America, I sometimes placed a Medusa on
a, tin plate. When I struck another metallic substance against the
plate, the slightest vibrations of the tin were sufficient to cause the
light. What is the manner in which, in this case, the blow and
the vibrations act ? Is the temperature momentarily augmented ?
Are new surfaces exposed ? or does the blow press out a fluid; such
as phosphuretted hydrogen, which may burn on coming into con-
tact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, or of the air held in solu-
tion by the sea-water ? This light-exciting influence of a shock or
blow is particularly remarkable in a " cross sea," i. e. when waves
coming from opposite directions meet and clash.

I have seen the sea within the tropics appear luminous in the
most different states of weather; but the light was most brilliant
when a storm was near, or with a sultry atmosphere and a vaporous
thickly-clouded sky. Heat and cold appear to have little influence
on the phenomenon, for on the Banks of Newfoundland the phos-
phorescence is often very bright during the .coldest winter weather.
Sometimes under apparently similar external circumstances the sea
will be highly luminous one night and not at all so the following
night. Does the atmosphere influence the disengagement of light,
or do all these differences depend on the accident of the observer
sailing through a part of the sea more or less abundantly impreg-
nated with gelatinous animal substances ? Perhaps it is only in
certain states of the atmosphere that the light-evolving animalcule
come in large numbers to the surface of the sea. It has been asked
why the fresh water of our marshes, which is filled with polypi, is
never seen to become luminous. Both in animals and plants, a
particular mixture of organic particles appears to be required in
order to favor the production of light. Willow-wood is oftener
found to be luminous than oak-wood. In England, experiments have
succeeded in making salt water shine by pouring into it the liquor
from pickled herrings. It is easy to show by galvanic experiments
23

266 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

that in living animals the evolution of light depends on an irritation
of the nerves. I have seen an Elater noctilucus which was dying,
emit strong flashes of light when I touched the ganglion of his fore
leg with zinc and silver. Medusae sometimes show increased bright-
ness at the moment of completing the galvanic circuit. (Humboldt,
Relat. Hist. t. i. pp. 79 and 533.)

Respecting the wonderful development of mass and power of in-
crease in Infusoria, see Ehrenberg, Infus. s. xiii. 291 and 512. He
observes that " the galaxy of the minutest organisms passes through
the genera of Vibrio and Bacterium, and that of Monas" (in the
ktter they are often only ^-^-^ of a line), s. xix. and 244.

(6) p. 230 — " Which inhabits the large pulmonary cells of the rattle-
snake of the tropics"

This animal, which I formerly called an Echinorhynchus, or even
a Porocephalus, appears on closer investigation, and according to the
better-founded judgment of Rudolphi, to belong to the division of the
Pentastones. (Rudolphi, Entozoorum Synopsis, pp. 124 and 434.)
It inhabits the ventral cavities and wide-celled lungs of a species of
Crotalus which lives in Cumana, sometimes in the interior of houses,
where it pursues the mice. Ascaris lumbrici (dozen's Emgeweide-
wiirmer, tab. iv. fig. 10) lives under the skin of the common earth-
worm, and is the smallest of all the species of Ascaris. Leucophra
nodulata, Cleichen's pearl-animalcule, has been observed by Otto
Friedrich Miiller in the interior of the reddish Nais littoralis. (Mul-
ler, Zoologia danica,, fasc. ii. tab. Ixxx. a — e.) Probably these
microscopic animals are again inhabited by others. All are sur-
rounded by air poor in oxygen, and variously mixed with hydrogen
and carbonic acid. Whether any animal can live in pure nitrogen is
very doubtful. It might formerly have been believed to be the case
with Fischer's Cistidicola farionis, because according to Fourcroy's
experiments the swimming bladders of fish appeared to contain an
air entirely deprived of oxygen. Erman's experience and my own
show, however, that fresh-water fishes never contain pure nitrogen in
their swimming bladders. (Humboldt et Proven§al, sur la respira-
tion des Poissons, in the Recueil d'Observ. de Zoologie, vol. ii. pp.
194-216.) In sea-fish, as much as 0.80 of oxygen has been found,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 267

and according to Biot the purity of the air would appear to depend
on the depth at which the fish live. (Memoires de Physique et de
Chimie de la Societe d'Arcueil, t. i. 1807, pp. 252-281.)

(7) p. 230. — "The collective labors of united Lithophytes."
Following Linnaeus and Ellis, the calcareous zoophytes — among
which Madrepores, Meandrinae, Astreae, and Pocilloporae, especially,
produce wall-like coral-reefs — are inhabited by living creatures,
which were long believed to be allied to the Nereids belonging to
Cuvier's Annelidae. The anatomy of these gelatinous little creatures
has been elucidated by the ingenious and extensive researches of
Cavolini, Savigny, and Ehrenberg. We have learnt that in order to
understand the entire organization of what are called the rock-build-
ing coral animals, the scaffolding which survives them, i. e. the layers
of lime, which in the form of thin, delicate plates, or lamellae, are
elaborated by vital functions, must not be regarded as something ex-
traneous to the soft membranes of the food-receiving animal.

Besides the more extended knowledge of the wonderful formation
of the animated coral stocks, there have been gradually established
more accurate views respecting the influence exercised by corals on
other departments of nature — on the elevation of groups of low
islands above the level of the sea — on the migrations of land-plants
and the successive extension of the domains of particular Floras —
and, lastly, in some parts of the ocean, on the diffusion of races of
men, and the spread of particular languages.

As minute organic creatures living in society, corals do indeed
perform an important part in the general economy of nature, although
they do not, as was begun to be believed at the time of Cook's
voyages, enlarge continents and build up islands from fathomless
depths of the ocean. They excite the liveliest interest, whether
considered as subjects of physiology and of the study of the grada-
tion of 'animal forms, or whether they are regarded in reference to
their influence on the geography of plants, and on the geological re-
lations of the crust of the earth. According to the great views of
Leopold von Buch, the whole formation of the Jura consists of
" large raised coral-banks of the ancient world, surrounding the
ancient mountain chains at a certain distance."

268 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

In Ehrenberg's Classification (Abhandlungen der Akad der Wiss.
zu Berlin aus dem, J. 1832, s. 393-432), Coral-animals (often im-
properly called, in English works, Coral-insects) are divided into two
great classes : the single- mouthed Anthozoa, which are either free or
capable of detaching themselves, being the animal-corals, Zooco-
rallia; and those in which the attachment is permanent and plant-
like, being the Phyto-corals. To the first order, the Zoocorallia,
belong the Hydras or Arm-polypi of Trembley, the Actiniae decked
with beautiful colors, and the mushroom-corals; to the second order
or Phyto-corals belong the Madrepores, the Astraeids, and the Ocel-
linaa. The Polypi of the second order are those which, by the cel-
lular wave-defying ramparts which they construct, are the principal
subject of the present note. These ramparts consist of an aggregate
of coral trunks, which, however, do not instantly lose their common
vitality as does a forest-tree when cut down.

Every coral-trunk is a whole which has arisen by a formation of
buds taking place according to certain laws, the parts of which the
whole consists forming a number of organically distinct individuals.
In the group of Phyto-corals these individuals- cannot detach them-
selves at pleasure, but remain united with each other by thin plates
of carbonate of lime. It is not, therefore, by any means the case
that each trunk of coral has a central point of common vitality or
life. (See Ehrenberg's Memoir, above referred to, s. 419.) The
propagation of coral-animals takes place, in the one order, by eggs
or by spontaneous division; and in the other order, by the formation
of buds. It is the latter mode of propagation which, in the deve-
lopment of individuals, is the "most rich in variety of form.

Coral-reefs (according to the definition of Dioscorides, sea-plants,
a forest of stone-trees, Lithodendra) are of three kinds; — coast-reefs,
called by the English "shore or fringing reefs," which are imme-
diately connected with the coasts of continents or islands, as almost
all the coral banks of the Red Sea seen during an eighteen months'
examination by Ehrenberg and Hemprich; — "barrier-reefs," "en-
circling-reefs," as the great Australian barrier-reef on the north-east
coast of New Holland, extending from Sandy Cape to the dreaded
Torres Strait; and as the encircling-reefs surrounding the islands of
Yanikoro (between the Santa Cruz group and the New Hebrides)

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 269

and Ponpynete (one of the Carolinas) ; — and lastly, coral banks en-
closing lagoons, forming " Atolls" or " Lagoon Islands." This highly
natural division and nomenclature have been introduced by Charles
Darwin, and are intimately connected with the explanation which
that ingenious and excellent investigator of nature has given of the
gradual production of these wonderful forms. As on the one hand
Cavolini, Ehrenberg, and Savigny have perfected the scientific ana-
tomical knowledge of the organization of coral-animals, so on the
other hand the geographical and geological relations of coral-islands
have been investigated and elucidated, first by Keinhold and George
Forster in Cook's Second Voyage, and subsequently, after a long
interval, by Chamisso, Peron, Quoy and Gaimard, Flinders, Liitke,
Beechey, Darwin, d'Urville, and Lottin.

The coral-animals and their stony cellular structures or scaffolding
belong principally to the warm tropical seas, and the reefs are found
more frequently in the Southern than in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Atolls or Lagoon Islands are crowded together in what has
been called the Coral-Sea, off the north-east coast of New Holland,
including New Caledonia, the Salomon's Islands, and the Louisiade
Archipelago ; in the group of the Low Islands (Low Archipelago),
eighty in number ; in the Fidji, Ellice, and Gilbert groups ; and in
the Indian Ocean, on the north-east of Madagascar, under the name
of the Atoll-group of Saya de Malha.

The great Chagos bank, of which the structure and rocks of dead
coral have been thoroughly examined by Captain Moresby and by
Powell, is so much the more interesting, because we may regard it
as a continuation of the more northerly Laccadives and Maldives. I
have already called attention elsewhere (Asie Centrale, t. i. p. 218)
to the importance of the succession of these Atolls, running exactly
in the direction of a meridian and continued as far as 7° south lati-
tude, to the general system of mountains and the configuration of
the earth's surface in Central Asia. They form a kind of continua-
tion to the great rampart-like mountain elevations of the Ghauts
and the more northern chain of Bolor, to which correspond in the
trans-Gangetic Peninsula the North and South Chains which are
intersected near the great bend of the Thibetian Tzang-bo River by
several transverse mountain systems running east and west. In

23*

270 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

this eastern peninsula are situated the chains of Cochin China,
Siam, and Malacca which are parallel with each other, as well as
those of Ava and Arracan which all, after courses of unequal
length, terminate in the Gulfs or Bays of Siam, Martaban, and
Bengal. The Bay of Bengal appears like an arrested attempt of
nature to form an inland sea. A deep invasion of the ocean,
between the simple western system of the Ghauts, and the eastern
very complex trans-Gangetic system of mountains, has swallowed
up a large portion of the low lands on the eastern side, but met
with an obstacle more difficult to overcome in the existence of the
extensive high plateau of Mysore.

Such an invasion of the ocean has occasioned two almost pyra-
midal peninsulas of very different dimensions, and differently pro-
portioned in breadth and length; and the continuations of two
mountain systems (both running in the direction of the meridian,
i, e. the mountain system of Malacca, on the east, and the Ghauts
of Malabar on the west) show themselves in submarine chains of
mountains or symmetrical series of islands, on the one side in the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands which are very poor in corals, and on
the other side in the three long-extended groups or series of Atolls
of the Laccadives, Maldives, and the Chagos. The latter series,
called by navigators the, Chagos-bank, forms a lagoon encircled by a
narrow and already much broken, and in great measure submerged,
coral reef. The longer and shorter diameters of this lagoon, or its
length and breadth, are respectively 90 and 70 geographical miles.
Whilst the enclosed lagoon is only from seventeen to forty fathoms
deep, the depth of water at a small distance from the outer margin
of the coral (which appears to be gradually sinking) is such, that
at half a mile no bottom was found in sounding with a line of 190
fathoms, and, at a somewhat greater distance, none with 210
fathoms. (Darwin, Structure of Coral Reefs, p. 39, 111, and 183.)
At the coral lagoon called Keeling- Atoll, Captain Fitz-Roy, at a
distance of only two thousand yards from the reef, found no sound-
ings with 1200 fathoms,

"The corals which, in the Red Sea, form thick wall-like masses,
are species of M^andrina, Astraea, Favia, Madrepora (Porites), Po-
cillopora (hemprichii), Millepora, and Heteropora. The latter are

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 271

among the most massive, although they are somewhat branched.
The corals which lie deepest below the surface of the water in this
locality, and which, being magnified by the refraction of the rays of
light, appear to the eye like the domes or cupolas of a cathedral or
other large building, belong, so far as we were enabled to judge, to
Meandrina and Astrsea." (Ehrenberg, manuscript notices.) It is
necessary to distinguish between separate and in part free and de-
tached polypifers, and those which form wall-like structures and
rocks.

If we are struck with the great accumulation of building polypi-
fers in some regions of the globe, it is not less surprising to remark
the entire absence of their structures in other and often nearly ad-
joining regions. These differences must be determined by causes
which have not yet been thoroughly investigated; such as currents,
local temperature of the water, and abundance or deficiency of ap-
propriate food. That certain thin-branched corals, with less deposit
of lime on the side opposite to the opening of the mouth, prefer the
r epose of the interior of the lagoon, is not to be denied ; but this
preference for the unagitated water must not, as has too often been
done (Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1825, t. vi. p. 277), be re-
garded as a property belonging to the entire class. According to
Ehrenberg' s experience in the Red . Sea, that of Chamisso in the
Atolls of the Marshall Islands east of the Caroline group, the ob-
servations of Captain Bird Allen in the West Indies, and those of
Captain Moresby in the Maldives, living Madrepores, Millepores,
and species of Astrsea and of Meandrina, can support the most violent
action of the waves — "a tremendous surf" — (Darwin, Coral Reefs,
pp. 63-65,) and even appear to prefer the most stormy exposure.
The living organic forces or powers regulating the cellular structure,
which with age acquires the hardness of rock, resist with wonderful
success the mechanical forces acting in the shock of the agitated
water.

In the Pacific, the Galapagos Islands, and the whole "Western
Coast of America, are entirely without coral reefe, although so near
to the many Atolls of the Low Islands, and the Archipelago of the
Marquesas. This absence of corals might perhaps be ascribed to
the presence of colder water, since we know that the coasts of Chili

272 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

and Peru are washed by a cold current coming from the south and
turning to the westward off Punta Parina, the temperature of which
I found, in 1802, to be only 12°.5 Reaumur (60°.2 Fahr.), while
the undisturbed adjacent masses of water were from 22° to 23°
Reaumur (81°. 5 to 83°. 8 Fahr.); and there are also among the G-a-
lapagos small currents running between the islands, having a tem-
perature of only 11°. 7 Reaumur (58°.2 Fahr.). But these lower
temperatures do not extend farther to the north along the shores of
the Pacific, and are not found upon the coasts of Guayaquil, Guati-
mala, and Mexico ; nor does a low temperature prevail at the Cape
de Verde Islands on the West Coast of Africa, or at the small islands
of St. Paul (St. Paul's rocks), or at St. Helena, Ascension, or San
Fernando Noronha — which yet are all without coral reefs.

While this absence of coral reefs appears to characterize the west-
ern coasts of Africa, America, and Australia, on the other hand such
reefs abound on the eastern coasts of tropical America, of Africa, on
the coasts of Zanzibar and Australia, and on that of New South
Wales. The coral banks which I have chiefly had opportunities of
observing are those of the interior of the Gulf of Mexico, and those
to the south of the Island of Cuba, in what are called the " Gardens
of the King and Queen" (Jardines y Jardinillos del Rey y de la
Reyna). It was Columbus himself who, on his second voyage, in
May 1494, gave that name to this little group of islands, because
the agreeable mixture of the silver-leaved arborescent Tournefortia
gnapholoides, flowering species of Dolichos, Avicennia nitida, and
mangrove hedges, gave to the coral islands the appearance of a group
of floating gardens. "Son Cayos verdes y graciosos llenos de arbo-
ledas," says the Admiral. On the passage from Batabano to Trini-
dad de Cuba, I remained several days in these gardens, situated to
the east of the larger island, called the Isla de Pinos, which is rich
in mahogany trees : my stay was for the purpose of determining the
longitude of the different keys (Cayos). The Cayo Flamenco, Cayo
Bonito, Cayo de Diego Perez, and Cayo de Piedras, are coral islands
rising only from eight to fourteen inches above the level of the sea.
The upper edge of the reef does not consist simply of blocks of dead
coral ; it is rather a true conglomerate, in which angular pieces of
coral, cemented together with grains of quartz, are embedded. In

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 273

the Cayo de Piedras I saw such embedded pieces of coral measuring
as much as three cubic feet. Several of the small West Indian coral
islands have fresh water, a phenomenon which, wherever it presents
itself (for example, at Radak in the Pacific; see Chamisso in Kot-
zebue's Entdeckungs-Reise, bd. iii. s. 108), is deserving of exami-
nation, as it has sometimes been ascribed to hydrostatic pressure
operating from a distant coast (as at Venice, and in the Bay of
Xagua east of Batabano), and sometimes to the filtration of rain
water. (See my Essai politique sur Tile de Cuba, t. ii. p. 137.)

The living gelatinous investment of the stony calcareous part of
the coral attracts fish, and even turtles, who seek it as food. In the
time of Columbus, the now unfrequented locality of the Jardines del
Hey was enlivened by a singular kind of fishery, in which the inha-
bitants of the coasts of the Island of Cuba engaged, and in which
they availed themselves of the services of a small fish. They em-
ployed in the capture of turtle the Remora, once said to detain ships
(probably Echeneis Naucrates), called In Spanish "Reves," or re-
versed, because at first sight his back and abdomen are mistaken for
each other. The remora attaches itself to the turtle by suction
through the interstices of the indented and movable cartilaginous
plates which cover the head of the latter, and "would rather,-" says
Columbus, " allow itself to be cut in pieces than lose its hold/'
The natives, therefore, attach a line, formed of palm fibres', to the
tail of the little fish, and after it has fastened itself to the turtle
draw both out of the water together. Martin Anghiera, the learned
secretary of Charles V., says " Nostrates piscem reversum appellant,
quod versus venatur. Non aliter ac nos canibus gallicis per sequora
campi lepores insectamur, illi (incolse Cubaa insulse) venatorio pisce
pisces alios capiebant." (Petr. Martyr, Oceanica, 1532, dec. i. p.
9 ; Gomara, Hist, de las Indias, 1553, fol. xiv.) We learn by
Dampier and Commerson that this piscatorial artifice, the employing
a sucking-fish to catch other inhabitants of the water, is much prac-
ticed on the East Coast of Africa, at Cape Natal and on the Mozam-
bique Channel, and also in the Island of Madagascar. (Lacepede,
Hist. nat. des Poissons, t. i. p. 55.) The same necessities' combine
with a knowledge of the habits of animals to induce the same

274 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

artifices and modes of capture among nations who are entirely un-
connected with each other.

Although, as we have already remarked, the zone included
between 22 or 24 degrees of latitude on either side of the equator,
appears to be the true region of the calcareous saxigenous litho-
phytes which raise wall-like structures, yet coral reefs are also found,
favored it is supposed by the warm current of the Xrulf Stream, in
lat. 32° 23', at the Bermudas, where they have been extremely well
described by Lieutenant Nelson. (Transactions of the Geological
Society, 2d Series, 1837, vol. v. pt. i. p. 103.) In the southern
hemisphere, corals (Millepores and Cellepores) are found singly as
far south as Chiloe, the Archipelago of Ohonos, and Tierra de Fuego,
in 53° lat. ; and Retepores are even found in lat. 72 J°.

Since the second voyage of Captain Cook there have been many
defenders of the hypothesis put forward by him as well as by Rein-
hold and George Forster, according to which the low coral islands
of the Pacific have been built up by living creatures from the depths
of the bottom of the sea. The distinguished investigators of nature,
Quoy and Graimard, who accompanied Captain Freycinet in his
voyage round the world in the frigate Uranie, were the first who
ventured, in 1823, to express themselves with great boldness and
freedom in opposition to the views of the two Forsters (father and
son), of Flinders and of Pe*ron. (Annales des Sciences Naturelles,
t. vi. 1825, p. 273.) "En appelant 1' attention des naturalistes sur
les animalcules des coraux, nous esperons de"montrer que tout ce
qu'on a dit ou cru observer jusqu'& ce jour relativement aux im-
menses travaux qu'il sont susceptibles d'ex&juter, est le plus souvent
inexact et toujours excessivement exagere. Nous pensons que les
coraux, loin d' Clever des profondeurs de I'oc&in des murs perpendicu-
laires, ne forment que des couches ou des encroutemens de quelques
toises d'e*paisseur." Quoy and Graimard also propounded (p. 289)
the conjecture, that the Atolls (coral walls enclosing a lagoon) pro-
bably owed their origin to submarine volcanic craters. Their
estimate of the depth below the surface of the sea at which the
animals which form the coral reefs (the species of Astraea, for
example) could live, was doubtless too small, being at the utmost
from 25 'to 30 feet (26| to 32 E). An investigator and lover of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 275

nature who has added to his own many and valuable observations a
comparison with those of others in all parts of the globe, Charles
Darwin, places with greater certainty the depth of the region of
living corals at 20 to 30 fathoms. (Darwin, Journal, 1845, p. 467 j
and the same writer's Structure of Coral Reefs, pp. 84-87 j and Sir
Robert Schomburgk, Hist, of Barbadoes, 1848, p. 636.) This is
also the depth at which Professor Edward Forbes found the greatest
number of corals in the Egean Sea : it is his " fourth region" of
marine animals, in his very ingenious memoir on the " Provinces of
Depth/' and the geographical distribution of Mollusca, at vertical
distances from the surface. (Report on JEgean Invertebrata, in the
Report of the 13th Meeting of the British Association, held at Cork
in 1843, pp. 151 and 161.) The depths at which corals live would
seem, however, to be very different in different species, and especially
in the more delicate ones which do not form such large masses.

Sir James Ross, in his Antarctic Expedition, brought up corals
with the sounding-lead from great depths, and entrusted them to
Mr. Stokes and Professor Forbes for more thorough examination.
On the west of Victoria Land, near Coulman Island, in S. lat 72°
31', at a depth of 270 fathoms, Retepora cellulosa, a species of
Hornera, and Prymnoa Rossii, were found quite fresh and living.
Prymnoa Rossii is very analogous to a species found on the coast of
Norway. (See Ross, Voyage of Discovery in the Southern and
Antarctic Regions, vol. i. pp. 334 and 337.) In a similar manner
in the high northern regions the whalers have brought up Umbel-
laria grsenlandica, living, from depths of 236 fathoms. (Ehrenberg,
in the Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. aus dem J. 1832, s. 430.) We
find similar relations of species and situation among sponges, which,
indeed, are now considered to belong rather to plants than to
zoophytes. On the coasts of Asia Minor, the common sponge is
found by those engaged in the fishery at depths varying from 5 to
30 fathoms; whereas a very small species of the same genus is not
found at a less depth than 180 fathoms. (Forbes and Spratt, Travels
in Lycia, 1847, vol. ii. p. 124.) It is difficult to divine the reason
which prevents Madrepores, Meandrina, Astrsea, and the entire
group of tropical Phyto-corals which raise large cellular calcareous
structures, from living in strata of water at a considerable depth

276 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

below the surface of the sea. The diminution of temperature in
descending takes place but slowly ; that of light almost equally so ;
and the existence of numerous Infusoria at great depths shows that
the polypifers would, not want for food.

In opposition to the hitherto generally received opinion of the
entire absence of organic life in the Dead Sea, it is deserving of
notice that my friend and fellow-laborer, M. Valenciennes, has
received through the Marquis Charles de 1'Escalopier, and also the
French consul Botta, fine specimens of Porites elongata from the
Dead Sea. This fact is the more interesting because this species is
not found in the Mediterranean, but belongs to the Red Sea, which,
according to Valenciennes, has but few organic forms in common
with the Mediterranean. I have before remarked that in France a
sea fish, a species of Pleuronectes, advances far up the rivers into
the interior of the country, thus becoming accustomed to gill-respira-
tion in fresh water ; so we find that the coral-animal above spoken
of, the Porites elongata of Lamarck, has a not less remarkable
flexibility of organization, since it lives in the Dead Sea, which is
over-saturated with salt, and in the open ocean near the Seychelle
Islands. (See my Asie Centrale, t. ii. p. 51 7.)

According to the most recent chemical analyses made by the
younger Silliman, the genus Porites, as well as many other cellular
polypifers (Madrepores, Andrseas, and Meandrinas of Ceylon and
the Bermudas), contain, besides 92.95 per cent, of carbonate of
lime and magnesia, some fluoric and phosphoric acids. (See pp.
124—131 of " Structure and Classification of Zoophytes," by James
Dana, Geologist of the United States Exploring Expedition, under
the command of Captain Wilkes.) The presence of fluorine in the
solid parts of polypifers reminds us_of the fluorate of lime in the
bones of fishes, according to the experiments of Morechini and Gay
Lussac at Rome. Silex is only found mixed in very small quantity
with fluorate and phosphate of lime in coral stocks ; but a coral-
animal allied to the Horn-coral, Gray's Hyalonema, has an axis of
pure fibres of silex resembling a queue or braided tress of hair.
Professor Forchhammer, who has been lately engaged in a thorough
analysis of the sea-water from the most different parts of the globe,
finds the quantity of lime in the Caribbean Sea remarkably small,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 277

being only 247 parts in ten thousand, while in the Categat it
amounts to 371 parts in ten thousand. He is disposed to attribute
this difference to the many coral-banks among the West Indian
Islands, which appropriate the lime, and lower the per centage
remaining in the sea- water. (Report of the 16th Meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, held in 1846,
p. 91.)

Charles Darwin has developed in a very ingenious manner the
probable genetic connection between fringing or shore-reefs, island-
encircling reefs, and lagoon-islands, i. e. narrow ring-shaped reefs
enclosing interior lagoons. According to his views, these three
varieties of form are dependent on the oscillating condition of the
bottom of the sea, or on periodic elevations and subsidences. The
hypothesis which has been several times put forward, according to
which the closed ring or annular form of the coral-reefs in Atolls or
Lagoon Islands marks the configuration of a submarine volcano,
the structure having been raised on the margin of the crater, is
opposed by their great dimensions, the diameters of many of them
being 30, 40, and sometimes even 60 geographical miles. Our
fire-emitting mountains have no such craters; and if we would
compare the lagoon, with its submerged interior and narrow en-
closing reef, to one of the annular mountains of the moon, we must
not forget that those lunar mountains are not volcanoes, but wall-
surrounded districts. According to Darwin, the process of forma-
tion is the following : He supposes a mountainous island, sur-
rounded by a coral-reef (a lt fringing reef " attached to the shore),
to undergo subsidence : the " fringing reef" which subsides with
the island is continually restored to its level by the tendency of the
coral-animals to regain the surface of the sea, and becomes thus, as
the island gradually sinks and is reduced in size, first an " encir-
cling reef" at some distance from the included islet, and subse-
quently, when the latter has entirely disappeared, an Atoll. Ac-
cording to this view, in which islands are regarded as the culmi-
nating points of a submerged land, the relative positions of the
different coral islands would disclose to us that' which we could
hardly learn by the sounding line, concerning the configuration of
the land which was above the surface of the sea at an earlier epoch.
24

278 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

The entire elucidation of this attractive subject (to the connection of
which with the migrations of plants and the diffusion of races of
men attention was called at the commencement of the present
note) can only be hoped for when inquirers shall have succeeded in
obtaining greater knowledge than is now possessed of the depth and
the nature of the rocks on which the lowest strata of the dead
corals rest.

(8) p. 232.—" Traditions of Samothrace."
Diodorus has preserved to us this remarkable tradition, the
probability of which renders it in the eyes of the geologist almost
equivalent to a historical certainty. The Island of Samothrace,
formerly called also .ZEthiopea, Dardania, Leucania or Leucosia in
the Scholiast to Appollonius Rhodius, and which was a seat of the
ancient mysteries of the Cabiri, was inhabited by the remains of an
ancient nation, several words of whose language were preserved to
a later period in the ceremonies accompanying sacrifices. The
situation of this island, opposite to the Thracian Hebrus and near
the Dardanelles, renders it not surprising that a more detailed
tradition of the catastrophe of the breaking forth of the waters of
the Euxine should have been preserved there. Rites were per-
formed at altars supposed to mark the limits of the irruption of the
waves ; and in Samothrace, as well as in Boeotia, a belief in the
periodically recurring destruction of mankind (a belief which was
^ ^aisa^found among the Mexicans in the form of a myth of four
destructions of the world) was connected with historical recollec-
tions of particular inundations. (Otfr. Miiller Geschichten Hel-
lenischer St'amme und Stadte, bd. i. s. 65 and 119.) According
to 'Diodorus, the Samothracians related that the Black Sea had
once been an inland lake, but that, being swollen by the rivers
which flow into it, it had broken through, first the Strait of the
Bosphorus, and afterwards that of the Hellespont; and this long
before the inundations spoken of by other nations. (Diod. Sicul.
lib. v. cap. 47, p. 369, Wesseling.) These ancient revolutions of
nature have been treated of iij a special work by Dureau de la
Malle, and all the information possessed on the subject has been
collected in Carl von HoiFs important work, entitled Geschichte der

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 279

natiirlichen Veranderungen der Erdoberflache, th. i. 1822, s. 105-
162; and in Creuzer's Symbolik, 2te Aufl. th. ii. s. 285, 318,
and 361. A reflex, as it were, of the traditions of Samothrace
appears in the " Sluice theory" of Strato of Lampsacus, according
to which the swelling of the waters of the Euxine first opened
the passage of the Dardanelles, and afterwards caused the outlet
through the pillars of Hercules. Strabo has preserved to us, in the
first book of his G-eography, among critical extracts from the works
of Eratosthenes, a remarkable fragment of the lost writings of
Strato, presenting views which extend to almost the entire circum-
ference of the Mediterranean.

" Strato of Lampsacus," says Strabo (lib. i. pp. 49 and 50,
Casaub.), "is even more disposed than the Lydian Xanthus" (who
had described impressions of shells at a distance from the sea) " to
expound the causes of the things which we see. He asserts that
the Euxine had formerly no outlet at Byzantium ; but the sea, be-
coming swollen by the rivers which ran into it, had by its pressure
opened the passage through which the waters flow into the Propontis
and the Hellespont. He also says that the same thing has happened
to our Sea (the Mediterranean);" " for here, too, when the sea had
become swollen by the rivers (which in flowing into it had left dry
their marshy banks), it forced for itself a passage through the isth-
mus of land connecting the Pillars. The proofs which Strato gives
of this are, first, that there is still a bank under water running from
Europe to Libya, showing that the outer and inner seas were for-
merly divided; and next that the Euxine is the shallowest, the
Cretan, Sicilian, and Sardoic Seas being on the contrary very deep ;
the reason being that the Euxine has been filled with mud by the
many and large rivers flowing into it from the north, while the other
seas continued deep. The Euxine is also the freshest, and the waters
flow towards the parts where the bottom of the sea is lowest. Hence
he inferred that the whole of the Euxine would finally be choked
with mud if the rivers were to continue to flow into it: and this is
already in some degree the case on the west side of the Euxine to-
wards Salmydessus (the Thraciaa Apollonia), and at what are called
by mariners the " Breasts" off the mouth of the Ister and along the
shore of the Scythian Desert. Perhaps the Temple of Ammon (in

280 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

Lybia) may once have stood on the sea-shore, and causes such as
these may explain why it is now far inland. This, Strato thought,
might account for the celebrity of the Oracle, which would be less
surprising if it had been on the sea-shore; whereas its great distance
from the coast made its present renown inexplicable. Egypt, too,
had been formerly overflowed by the sea as far as the marshes of
Pelusium, Mount Casius, and Lake Serbonis; for, on digging be-
neath the surface, beds of sea-sand and shells are found; showing
that the country was formerly overflowed, and the whole district
round Mount Casius and Gerrha was a marshy sea which joined the
gulf of the Red Sea. When our Sea (the Mediterranean) retreated,
the land was uncovered ; still, however, leaving the Lake of Serbo-
nis : subsequently, this lake also broke through its bounds and the
water flowed off, so that the lake became a swamp. The banks of
Lake Moeris are also more like sea than river banks." An erro-
neously corrected reading introduced by Grosskurd on account of a
passage in Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 809, Cas., gives instead of Moeris
" the Lake Halmyris :" but this latter lake was situated not far from
the mouth of the Danube.

The sluice- theory of Strato led Eratosthenes of Cyrene (the most
celebrated of the series of librarians of Alexandria, but less happy
than Archimedes in writing on floating bodies) to examine the pro-
blem of the equality of level of all external seas, i. e. seas sur-
rounding the Continents. (Strabo, lib. i. pp. 51—56 ; lib. ii. p. 104,
Casaub.) The varied outlines of the northern shores of the Medi-
terranean, and the articulated form of the peninsulas and islands,
had given occasion to the geognostical myth of the ancient land of
Lyctonia. The supposed mode of origin of the smaller Syrtis and
of the Triton Lake (Diod. iii. 53-55), as well as that of the whole
Western Atlas (Maximus Tyrius, viii. 7), was drawn in to form part
of an imaginary scheme of igneous eruptions and earthquakes. (See
my Examen crit. de Phist. de la Geographic, vol. i. p. 179 j t. iii.
p. 136.) I have recently touched .more in detail on this subject
(Cosmos, bd. ii. s. 153; Engl. ed. pp. 118-119) in a passage which
I permit myself to subjoin : —

"A more richly varied and broken outline gives to the northern
shore of the Mediterranean an advantage over the southern or Ly-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 281

bian shore, which according to Strabo was remarked by Eratosthenes.
The three great peninsulas, the Iberian, the Italian, and the Helle-
nic, with their sinuous and deeply indented shores, form, in combi-
nation with the neighboring islands and opposite coasts, many straits
and isthmuses. The configuration of the continent and the islands,
the latter either severed from the main or volcanically elevated in
lines, as if over long fissures, early led to geognostical views, respect-
ing eruptions, terrestrial revolutions, and overpourings of the swollen
higher seas into those which were lower. The Euxine, the Darda-
nelles, the Straits of Grades, and the Mediterranean with its many
islands, were well fitted to give rise to the view of such a system of
sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably wrote in Christian
times, wove antique legends into his song ; he describes the break-
ing up of the ancient Lyktonia into several islands, when ' the dark-
haired Poseidon, being wroth with Father Kronion, smote Lyktonia
with the golden trident/ Similar phantasies, which indeed may
often have arisen from imperfect knowledge of geographical circum-
stances, proceeded from the Alexandrian school, where erudition
abounded, and a strong predilection was felt for antique legends. It
is not necessary to determine here whether the myth of the Atlantis
broken into fragments should be regarded as a distant and western
reflex of that of Lyktonia (as I think I have elsewhere shown to be
probable), or whether, as Otfried Miiller considers, i the destruction
of Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to the Samothracian tradition of a
great flood which had changed the form of that district/ "

(9) p. 233. — "Prevents precipitation taking place from clouds."
The vertically-ascending current of the atmosphere is a principal
cause of many most important meteorological phenomena. When
a desert or a sandy plain partly or entirely destitute of plants is
bounded by a chain of high mountains, we see the sea breeze drive
the dense clouds over the desert without any precipitation taking
place before they have reached the mountain-ridge. This phenome-
non was formerly explained in a very inappropriate manner by a
supposed superior attraction exercised by the mountains on the
clouds. The true reason of the phenomenon appears to consist in
the ascending column of warm air which rises from the sandy plain,

24*

282 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

and prevents the vesicles of vapor from being dissolved. The more
complete the absence of vegetation, and the more the sand is heated,
the greater is the height of the clouds, and the less can any fall of
rain take place. When the clouds reach the mountains, these causes
cease to operate ; the play of the vertically-ascending atmospheric
current is feebler, the clouds sink lower, and dissolve in rain in a
cooler stratum of air. Thus, in deserts, the want of rain, and the
absence of vegetation, act and react upon each other. It does not
rain, because the naked, sandy surface, having no vegetable covering,
becomes more powerfully heated by the solar rays, and thus radiates
more heat ; and the absence of rain forbids the desert, being con-
verted into a steppe or grassy plain, because without water no organic
development is possible.

(10) p. 234.— " The mass of the earth in solidifying and parting
with its heat."

If, according to the hypothesis of the Neptunists, now long since
obsolete, the so-called primitive rocks were precipitated from a fluid,
the transition of the crust of the earth from a fluid to a solid
state must have been accompanied by an enormous disengagement
of heat, which would in turn have caused fresh evaporation and
fresh precipitations. The later these precipitations, the more rapid,
tumultuous, and uncrystalline they would have been. Such a sudden
disengagement of heat might cause local augmentations of tempera-
ture independent of the height of the pole or the latitude of the
place, and independent of the position of the earth's axis ; and the
temperatures thus caused would influence the distribution of plants.
The same sudden disengagement of heat might also occasion a
species of porosity, of which there seem to be indications in many
enigmatical geological phenomena in" sedimentary rocks. I have
developed these conjectures in detail in a small memoir, " liber
ursprungliche Porositat." (See my work, entitled Yersuche iiber
die chemische Zersetzung des Luftkreises, 1799, s. 177; and Moll's
Jahrbiicher der berg- und Hiittenkunde, 1797, s. 234.) According
to the newer views which I now entertain, the shattered and fissured
earth, with her molten interior, may long have maintained a high
temperature on her oxidized surface, independently of position in

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 283

respect to the sun and of latitude. Would not the climate of Ger-
many be wonderfully altered, and that perhaps for centuries, if there
were opened a fissure a thousand fathoms in depth, reaching from the
shores of the Adriatic to the Baltic ? If, in the present condition
of our planet, the stable equilibrium of temperature, first calculated
by Fourier in his Theorie analytique de lachaleur, has been almost
completely restored by radiation from, the earth into space ; and if
the external atmosphere now only communicates with the molten
interior through the inconsiderable openings of a few volcanoes — in
the earlier state of things numerous clefts and fissures, produced by
the frequently recurring corrugations of the rocky strata of the
globe, emitted streams of heated air which mingled with the atmo-
sphere and were entirely independent of latitude. Every planet
must thus in its earliest condition have for a time determined its
own temperature, which afterwards Ibecomes dependent on the posi-
tion relatively to the central body, the Sun. The surface of the
Moon also shows traces of this reaction of the interior upon the
crust.

(41) p. 234.— " The mountain declivities of the southern part of
Mexico."

The greenstone, in globular concretions of the mountain district
of Guanaxuato, is quite similar to that of the Franconian Fichtel-
Grebirge. Both form grotesquely shaped summits, which pierce
through and cover the transition argillaceous schists. In the same
manner, pearl stone, porphyritic schists, trachyte, and pitch-stone
porphyry, constitute rocks similar in form in the Mexican mountains
near Cinapecuaro and Moran, in Hungary, in Bohemia, and in
Northern Asia.

(u) p. 236.— "The Dragon-tree of Orotava.''
This colossal dragon-tree, Dracaena draco, stands in the garden of
Dr. Franqui in the small town of Orotava, the ancient Taoro, one
of the most delightful spots in the world. In June, 1799, when we
ascended the Peak of Teneriffe, we measured the circumference of
the tree, and found it nearly 48 English feet. Our measurement
was taken several feet above the root. Lower down, and nearer to the

284 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

ground, Le Dru made it nearly 79 English feet. Sir George Staun-
ton found the diameter still as much as 12 feet at the height of 10
feet above the ground. The height of the tree is not much above 69
English feet. According to tradition, this tree was venerated by the
Guanches (as was the ash-tree of Ephesus by the Greeks, or as the
Lydian plane-tree which Xerxes decked with ornaments, and the
sacred Banyan-tree of Ceylon), and at the time of the first expedi-
tion of the Be"thencourts in 1402, it was already as thick and as
hollow as it now is. Remembering that the Dracaena grows ex-
tremely slowly, we are led to infer the high antiquity of the tree of
Orotava. Bertholet, in his description of Teneriffe, says, "En
comparant les jeunes Dragonniers, voisins de Tarbre gigantesque, les
calculs qu'on fait sur Tage de ce dernier effraient T imagination."
(Nova Acta Acad. Leop. Carol. Naturae Curiosorum, t. xiii. 1827,
p. 781.) The dragon-tree has been cultivated in the Canaries, and
in Madeira and Porto Santo, from the earliest times; and an accurate
observer, Leopold von Buch, has even found it wild in Teneriffe,
near Igueste. Its original country, therefore, is not India, as had
long been believed ; nor does its appearance in the Canaries contra-
dict the opinion of those who regard the Guanches as having been an
isolated Atlantic nation without intercourse with African or Asiatic
nations. The form of the Dracaenas is repeated at the southern
extremity of Africa, in the Isle of Bourbon, and in New Zealand.
In all ' these distant regions species of the genus in question are
found, but none have been met with in the New Continent, where
its form is replaced by that of the Yucca. Dracaena borealis of
Aiton is a true Convallaria, and has all the " habitus" of that genus.
(Humboldt, Rel. hist. t. i. pp. 118 and 639.) I have given a repre-
sentation of the dragon-tree of Orotava, taken from a drawing made
by F. d'Ozonne in 1776, in the last plate of the Picturesque Atlas
of my American journey. (Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens des
Peuples indigenes de TAmerique, pi. Ixix.) I found d'Ozonne's
drawing among the manuscripts left by the celebrated Borda, in the
still unprinted travelling journal entrusted to me by the Depot de la
Marine, and from which I borrowed important astronomically deter-
mined geographical, as well as barometric and trigonometric, notices.
(Rel. hist. t. i. p. 282.). The measurement of the dragon-tree of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 285

the Villa Franqui was made on Borda's first voyage with Pingre*, in
1771; not in his second voyage, in 1776, with Yarela. It is affirm-
ed that in the earlier times of the Norman and Spanish Conquests,
in the 15th century, Mass was said at a small altar erected in the
hollow trunk of the tree. Unfortunately, the dragon-tree of Orotava
lost one side of its top in the storm of the 21st of July, 1819. There
is a fine and large English copperplate engraving which represents
the present state of the tree with remarkable truth to nature.

The monumental character of these colossal living vegetable forms,
and the kind of reverence which has been felt for them among all
nations, have occasioned in modern times the bestowal of greater
care in the numerical determination of their age and the size of their
trunks. The results of these inquiries have led the author of the
important treatise, " De la longe'vite' des Arbres," the elder Decan-
dolle, Endlicher, Unger, and other able botanists, to consider it not
improbable that the age of several individual tree's which are still
alive, goes back to the earliest historical periods, if not of Egypt, at
least of Greece and Italy. It is said in the Bibliotheque Universelle
de Geneve, 1831, t. Ixvii. p. 50 : " Plusieurs exemples semblent
confirmer Tidee qu'il existe encore sur le globe des arbres d'une
antiquit^ prodigieuse, et peut-etre t&noins de ses demises revolu-
tions physiques. Lorsqu'on regarde un arbre comme un agregat
d'autant d'individus soudes ensemble qu'il s'est developpe de bour-
geons k sa surface, on ne peut pas s'etonner si, de - nouveaux bour-
geons s'ajoutant sans cesse aux anciens, 1'agregat qui en re"sulte n'a
point de terme necessaire £ son existence." In the same manner
Agardh says : u If in trees there are produced in each solar year
new parts, so that the older hardened parts are replaced by new ones
capable of conducting sap, we see herein a type of growth limited
only by external causes." He ascribes the shortness of the life of
herbs, or of such plants as are not trees, " to the preponderance of
the production of flowers and fruit over the formation of leaves."
Unfruitfulness is to a plant a prolongation of life. Endlicher cites
the example of a plant of Medicago sativa, var. /3 versicolor, which,
bearing no fruit, lived eighty years. (Grundziige der Botanik, 1843,
s. 1003.)

With the dragon trees, which, notwithstanding the gigantic de-

286 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

velopment of their closed vascular bundles, must by reason of their
floral parts be placed in the same natural family with asparagus and
garden onions, we must associate the Adansonia (monkey bread-
tree, Baobab), as being certainly among the largest and oldest in-
habitants of our planet. In the very first voyages of tiiscovery of
the Catalans and Portuguese, the navigators were accustomed to cut
their names on these two species of trees, not merely to gratify the
desire of handing down their names, but also to serve as marks or
signs of possession, and of whatever rights nations claim on the
ground of being the first discoverers. The Portuguese navigators
often used as their " marco" or token of possession, the French motto
of the Infant Don Henrique the Discoverer. Manuel de Faria y Sousa
says in his Asia Portuguesa (t. i. cap. 2, pp. 14 and 18) : " Era uso
de los primeros Navegantes de dexar inscrito el Motto del Infante,
talent de bien, faire, en la corteza de los arboles." (Compare also
Barros, Asia, dec. i. liv. ii. cap. 2, t. i. p. 148 ; Lisboa, 1778.)

The above-named motto, cut on the bark of two trees by Portu-
guese navigators in 1435, twenty-eight years, therefore, before the
death of the Infante, is curiously connected in the history of disco-
veries with the elucidations to which the comparison of Vespucci's
fourth voyage with that of Gonzalo Coelho, in 1503, has given rise.
Vespucci relates that Coelho' s admiral's ship was wrecked on an
island which has been sometimes supposed to be San Fernando Nor-
onha, sometimes the Penedo de San Pedro, and sometimes the prob-
lematical Island of St. Matthew. This last-named island was dis-
covered by Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, on the 15th of October, 1525,
in 2£° S. lat., in the meridian of Cape Palmas, almost in the Gulf
of Guinea. He remained there eighteen days at anchor, found
crosses, as well as orange trees which had been planted and had be-
come wild, and on two trunks of trees inscriptions dating back ninety
years. (Navarrete, t. v. pp. 8, 247, and 401.) I have examined
the questions presented by this account more in detail in my inquiries
into the trustworthiness of Amerigo Vespucci. (Examen critique de
Thist. de la Geographic, t. v. pp. 129-132.)

The oldest description of the Baobab (Adansonia digitata), is
that given by the Venetian Aloysius Cadamosto (the real name was
Alvise da Ca da Mosto), in 1454. He found at the mouth of the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 287

Senegal, trunks of which he estimated the circumference at seven-
teen fathoms, or 102 feet (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 109) : he might have
compared them with Dragon-trees which he had seen before. Per-
rottet says in his " Flore de Se'negambie" (p. 76), that he had seen
monkey-bread trees which, with a height of only about 70 or 80
feet, had a diameter of 32 English feet. The same dimensions had
been given by Adanson, in the account of his voyage in 1748 ; the
largest trunks which he himself saw (in 1749) in one of the small
Magdalena islands near Cape de Verde, and in the vicinity of the
mouth of the Senegal River, were from 26 to 28 £ English feet in
diameter, with a height of little more than 70 feet, and a top about
180 feet broad; but he adds at the same time, that other travellers
had found trunks of nearly 32 English feet diameter. French and
Dutch sailors had cut their names on the trees seen by Adanson, in
letters half a foot long ; the dates added to the names showed these
inscriptions to be all of the 16th century, except one which belonged
to the 15th. (In Adanson' s " Families des Plantes," 1763, p. i. pp.
ccxv.-ccxviii., it stands as the 14th century, but this is doubtless an
error of inadvertence.) From the depth of the inscriptions, which
were covered with new layers of wood, and from the comparison of
the thickness of different trunks of the same species in which the
relative age of the trees was known, Adanson computed the probable
age of the larger trees, and found for a diameter of 32 English feet
5150 years. (Voyage au Senegal, 1757, p. 66.) He prudently
adds (I do not alter his curious orthography) : "Le calcul de Taje
de chake couche n'a pas d'exactitude g&>metrike." In the village
of G-rand Galarques, also in Senegambia, the negroes have orna-
mented the entrance of a hollow Baobab tree with sculptures cut out
of the still fresh wood ; the interior serves for holding meetings in
which their interests are debated. Such a hall of the assembly re-
minds one of the hollow or cave (specus) of the plane tree in Lycia,
in which Lucinius Mutianus, who had previously been consul, feasted
with twenty-one guests. Plino (xii. 3) assigns to such a cavity in a
hollow tree the somewhat large allowance of a breadth of eighty
Roman feet. The Baobab was seen by Rene Caillie in the valley of
the Niger near Jenne, by Caillaud in Nubia, and by Wilhelm Peters
along the whole eastern coast of Africa (where it is called Mulapa,

288 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

i. e. Nlapa-tree, more properly Muti-nlapa) as far as Lourenzo
Marques, almost to 26° of S. lat. Although Cadamosto said in the
15th century "erninentia non quadrat magnitudini," and although
Grolberry (Fragmens d'un Voyage en Afrique, t. ii. p. 92) found in
the " Vallee des deux Gragnacks" trunks which, with 36 English feet
diameter near the roots, were only 64 English feet high, yet this
great disproportion between height and thickness must not be re-
garded as general. The learned traveller Peters remarks, that "very
old trees lose height by the gradual decay of the top, while they
continue to increase in girth. On the east coast of Africa one sees
not unfrequently trunks of little more than ten feet diameter, reach
a height of 69 English feet."

If, according to what has been said, the bold estimations of Adan-
son and Perottet assign to the Adansonias measured by them an age
of from 5150 to 6000 years, which would make them cotempora-
neous with the epoch of the building of the Pyramids or even with
that of Menes, a period when the constellation of the Southern Cross
was still visible in Northern Germany (Cosmos, bd. iii. s. 402 and
487; Eng. ed. p. 293, and note 146), on the other hand, the more
secure estimations made from the annual rings of trees in our northern
temperate zone, and from the ratio which has been found to subsist
between the thickness of the layer of wood and the time of growth,
give us shorter periods. Decandolle finds as the result of his inqui-
ries, that of all European species of trees the yew is that which attains
the greatest age. He assigns to the yew (Taxus baccata) of Bra-
borne, in the county of Kent, thirty centuries; to the Scotch yew
of Fortingal, from twenty-five to twenty-six ; and to those of Crow-
hurst in Surrey, and Kipon in Yorkshire, respectively, fourteen and
a half and twelve centuries. (Decandolle, de la longevite des arbres,
p. 65.) Endlicher remarks that the age of another yew tree, in the
churchyard of Grasford, in North Wales, which measures 52 English
feet in circumference below the branches, is estimated at 1400 years,
and that of a yew in Derbyshire at 2096 years. In Lithuania, lime
trees have been cut down which were 87 English feet in circum-
ference, and in which 815 annual rings have been counted." (End-
licher, Grundziige der Botanik, s. 399.) In the temperate zone of
the southern hemisphere, some species of Eucalyptus attain an enor-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 289

mous girth, and as they also reach to a great stature (above 230 Paris,
245 English, feet), they are singularly contrasted with our yew trees,
whose great dimension is in thickness only. Mr. Backhouse found
in Emu Bay, on the coast of Van Diemen Land, trunks of Euca-
lyptus which measured 70 English feet round the trunk near the
ground, and five feet higher up 50 English feet. (Gould, Birds of
Australia, vol. i. introd. p. xv.)

It is not, as is commonly stated, Malpighi, but the ingenious
Michel Montaigne, who has the merit of having been the first, in
1581, in his Voyage en Italic, to notice the relation of the annual
rings to the age of the tree. (Adrien de Jussieu, Cours elementaire
de Botanique, 1840, p. 61.) A skilful artist, engaged in the pre-
paration of astronomical instruments, had called the attention of
Montaigne to the annual rings; and he also maintained that the
rings were narrower on the north side of the tree. Jean Jacques
Rousseau had the same belief; and his Emile, if he loses himself in
a forest, is to direct himself by the indications afforded by the rela-
tive thickness of the layers of wood. More recent observations on
the anatomy of plants teach us, however, that both the acceleration
and also the retardation or intermission of growth, or the varying
production of circles of ligneous fascicles (annual deposits) from the
Cambium cells, depend on influences which are wholly distinct from
the quarter of the heavens towards which one side of the annual
rings is turned. (Kunth, Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1847, t. i. s. 146
and 164; Lindley, Introduction to Botany, 2d edition, p. 75.)

Trees which in individual cases attain a diameter of more than
twenty feet, and an age extending to many centuries, belong to the
most different natural families. I may name here Baobabs, Dragon-
trees, some species of Eucalyptus, Taxodium disticum (Rich.), Pinus
Lambertiana (Douglas), Hymenaea courbaril, Cassalpiniese, Bonabax,
Swietenia mahagoni, the Banyan tree (Ficus religiosa), Liriodendron
tulipifera? Platanus orientalis, and our Limes, Oaks, and Yews.
The celebrated Taxodium distichon, the Ahuahuete of the Mexicans
(Cupressus disticha Linn., Schubertia disticha Mirbel), at Santa Ma-
ria del Tule, in the state of Oaxaca, has not a diameter, of 57, as
Decandolle says, but of exactly 38 French (40 £ English) feet.
(Miihlenpfordt, Versuch einer getreuen Schilderung der Republik
25

290 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

Mexico, bd. i. s. 153.) The two fine Ahuahuetes near Chapultepec,
which I have often seen, and which are probably the surviving rem-
nants of an ancient garden or pleasure-ground of Montezuma, mea-
sure (according to Burkart's account of his travels, bd. i. s. 268, a
work which otherwise contains much information) only 36 and 38
English feet in circumference ; not in diameter, as has often been
erroneously asserted. The Buddhists in Ceylon venerate the gigantic
trunk of the sacred fig-tree of Anourahdepoura. The Indian fig-tree
or Banyan, of which the branches take root round the parent stem,
forming, as Onesicritus well described, a leafy canopy resembling a
many-pillared tent, often attain a thickness of 28 (29 £ English) feet
diameter. (Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, bd. i. s. 260.) On
the Bombax ceiba, see early notices of the time of Columbus, in
Bembo's Historise Venetae, 1551, fol. 83.

Among oak-trees, of those which have been accurately mea-
sured, the largest in Europe is no doubt that near the town of
Saintes, in the Departement de la Charente Inferieure, on the road
to Cozes. This tree, which is 60 (64 English) feet high, has a
diameter of 27 feet 8J inches (29 J English feet) near the ground;
21$ (almost 23 English) feet five feet higher up; and where the
great boughs commence 6 Parisian feet (6 feet 5 inches English).
In the dead part of the trunk a Httle chamber has been arranged,
from 10 feet 8 inches to 12 feet 9 inches wide, and 9 feet 8 inches
high (all English measure), with a semi-circular bench cut out of
the fresh wood. A window gives light to the interior, so that the
sides of the chamber (which is closed with a door) are clothed with
ferns and lichens, giving it a pleasing appearance. Judging by the
size of a small piece of wood which has been cut out above the
door, and in which the marks of 200 annular rings have been counted,
the oak of Saintes would be between 1800 and 2000 years old. (An-
nales de la Societe d' Agriculture de la Rochelle, 1843, p. 380.)

In the wild rose-tree of the crypt of the Cathedral of Hildesheim,
said to be a thousand years old, it is the root only, and not the
stem, which is eight centuries old, according to accurate information
derived from ancient and trustworthy original documents, for the
knowledge of which I am indebted to the kindness of Stadtgerichts-
Assessor Rb'mer. A legend connects the rose-tree with a vow made

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 291

by the first founder of the cathedral, Ludwig the Pious ; and an
original document of the llth century says, "that when Bishop
Hezilo rebuilt the cathedral which had been burnt down, he enclosed
the roots of the rose-tree with a vault which still exists, raised upon
this vault the crypt, which was re-consecrated in 1061, and spread
out the branches of the rose-tree upon the walls." The stem now
living is 26 £ feet high and about two inches thick, and the outspread
branches cover about 32 feet of the external wall of the eastern
crypt ; it is doubtless of considerable antiquity, and well deserving
of the celebrity which it has gained throughout Germany.

If extraordinary development in point of size is to be regarded
as a proof of long-continued organic life, particular attention is due
to one of the thalassophytes of the sub-marine vegetable world, i. e. to
the Fucus giganteus, or Macrocystis pyrifera of Agardh. According
to Captain Cook and Greorge Forster, this sea-plant attains a length
of 360 English feet; surpassing, therefore, the height of the loftiest
Coniferae, even that of the Sequoia gigantea, Endl., or Taxodium
sempervirens, Hook and Arnott, which grows in California. (Dar-
win, Journal of Researches into Natural History, 1845, p. 239 ; and
Captain Fitz-Roy in the Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure
and Beagle, vol. ii. p. 363.) Macrocystis pyrifera is found from 64°
south to 45° north latitude, as far as San Francisco on the north-
west coast of .America ; and Joseph Hooker believes it to extend as
far as Kamtschatka. In the Antarctic seas it is even -seen floating
among the pack-ice. (Joseph Hooker, Botany of the Antarctic
Voyage under the command of Sir James Ross, 1844, pp. 1, 7, and
178 } Camille Montagne, Botanique cryptogame du Voyage de la
Bonite, 1846, p. 36.) The immense length to which the bands or
ribbands and the cords or lines of the cellular tissue of the Macro-
cystis attain, appears to be limited only by accidental injuries.

(13) p. 236. — " Species of phcenogamom plants already contained

in herbariums"

We must carefully distinguish between three different questions :
How many species of plants are described in printed works ? how
many have been discovered, i. e. are contained in herbariums, though
without being described ? how many are probably existing on the

292 PHYSIOGNOMY Or PLANTS.

globe ? Murray's edition of the Linnean system contains, includ-
ing cryptogamia, only 10;042 species. Willdenow, in his edition of
the Species Plantarum between the years 1797 and 1807, had
already described 17,457 phsenogamous species (from Monandria to
Polygamia dioecia). If we add 3000 cryptogamous species, we
obtain the number which Willdenow mentions, viz. 20,000 species.
More recent researches have shown how much this estimation of the
number of species described and contained in herbariums falls short
of the truth. Robert Brown counted above 37,000 phaenogamous
plants. (General Remarks on the Botany of Terra Australis, p. 4.)
I afterwards attempted to give the geographical distribution (in
different parts of the earth already explored) of 44,000 phaeuoga-
mous and cryptogamous plants. (Humboldt, de distributione geo-
graphica Plantarum, p. 23.) Decandolle found, in comparing Per-
soon's Enchiridium with his Universal System in 12 several families,
that the writings of botanists and European herbariums taken
together might be assumed to contain upwards of 56,000 species of
plants. (Essai elernentaire de Geographic botanique, p. 62.) If
we consider how many species have since that period been described
by travellers — (my expedition alone furnished 3600 of the 5800
collected species of the equinoctial zone) — and if we remember that
in all the botanical gardens taken together there are certainly above
25,000 phaenogamous plants cultivated, we shall easily perceive how
much Decanclolle's number falls short of the truth. Completely un-
acquainted as we still are with the larger portions of the interior of
South America — (Mato-Grosso, Paraguay, the eastern declivity of
the Andes, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and all the countries between
the Orinoco, the Rio Negro, the Amazons, and Puruz) — of Africa,
Madagascar, Borneo, and Central and Eastern Asia— the thought
rises involuntarily in the mind that we may not yet know the third,
or probably even the fifth part of the plants existing on the earth !
Drege has collected 7092 species of phaenogamous plants in South
Africa alone. (See Meyer's pflanzen geographische Documente, s.
5 and 12.) He believes that the Flora of that district consists of
more than 11,000 phaenogamous species, while on a surface of equal
area (12,000 German, or 192,000 English square geographical miles)
von Koch has described in Germany or Switzerland 3300, and De-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 293

candolle in France 3645 species of phsenogamous plants. I would also
recall that even now new Genera (some even consisting of tall
forest trees), are being discovered in the small West Indian Islands
which have been visited by Europeans for three centuries, and in
the vicinity of large commercial towns. These considerations, which
I propose to develop in further detail at the close of the present
annotation, make it probable that the actual number of species
exceeds that spoken of in the old myth of the Zend-Avesta, which
says that " the Primeval Creating Power called forth from the blood
of the sacred bull 120,000 different forms of plants!"

If, then, we cannot look for any direct scientific solution of the
question of how many forms of the vegetable kingdom — including
leafless Cryptogamia (water Algae, funguses, and lichens), Characese,
liver-worts, mosses, Marsilacese, Lycopodiaceae, and ferns — exist on
the dry land and in the ocean, in the present state of the organic
life of our globe, we may yet attempt an approximate method by
which we may find some probable "lowest limits" or numerical
minima. Since 1815, I have sought, in arithmetical considerations
relating to the geography of plants, to examine first the ratios which
the number of species in the different natural families bear to the
entire mass of the phsenogamous vegetation in countries where the
latter is sufficiently well known. Robert Brown, the greatest
botanist among our cotemporaries, had previously determined the
numerical proportions of the leading divisions of the vegetable
kingdom; of Acotyledons (Agamae, Cryptogamic or cellular plants)
to Cotyledons (Phanerogamic or vascular plants), and of Mono-
cotyledonous (Endogenous) to Dicotyledonous (Exogenous) plants.
He finds the ratio of Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons in the tro-
. pical zone as 1 : 5, and in the cold zones of the parallels of 60° N.
and 55° S. latitude, as 1 : 2j. (Robert Brown, General Remarks
on the Botany of Terra .Australis, in Flinders' Voyage, vol. ii. p.
338.) The absolute number of species in the three leading divisions
of the vegetable kingdom are compared together in that work
according to the method there laid down. I was the first to pass
from these leading divisions to the divisions of the several families,
and to consider the ratio which the number of species of each family
bears to the entire mass of phsenogamous plants belonging to a zone

25*

294 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

of the earth's surface. (Compare my memoir, entitled "De distribu-
tione geographica Plantarum secundem coeli temperiem et altitudinem
montium, 1817, pp. 24-44 ; and the farther development of the sub-
ject of these numerical relations given by me in the Dictionnaire des
Sciences naturelles, t. xviii. 1820, pp. 422-436; and in the Annales
de Chimie et de Physique, t. xvi. 1821, pp. 267-292.

The numerical relations of the forms of plants, and the laws ob-
served in their geographical distribution, may be considered in two
very different ways. If plants are studied in their arrangement
according to natural families, without regard to their geographical
distribution, it is asked, What are the fundamental forms or types
of organization to which the greatest number of species correspond?
Are there on the entire surface of the earth more Glumaceae than
Composites? Do these two orders make up between them one-fourth
part of the whole number of phaenogamous plants? What is the
proportion^ of Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons? These are questions
of General Phytology, or of the science which investigates the organi-
zation of plants and their mutual connection, or the present state of
the entire vegetable world.

If, on the other hand, the species of plants which have been
grouped according to the analogy of their structure are considered,
not abstractedly, but according to their climatic relations, or accord-
ing to their distribution over the surface of the earth, .we have ques-
tions offering quite another and distinct interest. We then examine
what are the families which prevail more in proportion to other
Phanerogamse in the torrid zone than towards the polar circle ? Are
Composites more numerous, either in the same geographical latitudes
or on the same isothermal lines, in the New than in the Old Con-
tinent? Do the forms which gradually lose their predominance in
advancing from the Equator towards the Poles follow a similar law
of decrease in ascending mountains situated in the equatorial regions ?
Do the proportions of particular families to the whole mass of Pha-
nerogamae differ in the temperate zones, and on equal isothermal
lines, north and south of the Equator? These questions belong pro-
perly to the Geography of Plants, and connect themselves with the
most important problems of meteorology and terrestrial physics.
The character of a landscape or country is also in a high degree

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 295

dependent on the predominance of particular families of plants,
which render it either desolate or adorned, smiling or majestic.
Grasses forming extensive savannahs, Palms and other trees afford-
ing food, or social Coniferse forming forests, have powerfully influ-
enced nations in respect to their material condition, to their manners,
to their mental dispositions, and to the more or less rapid develop-
ment of their prosperity.

In studying the geographical distribution of forms, we may con-
sider species, genera, and natural families, separately. In social
plants, a single species often covers extensive tracts of country; as
in northern regions forests of Pines or Firs and extensive heaths
(ericeta), in Spain cistus-covered grounds, and in tropical America
assemblages of the same species of Cactus, Croton, Brathys, or
Bambusa Gruadua. It is interesting to examine these relations more
closely, and to view in one case the great multiplicity of individuals,
and in another the variety of organic development. We may in-
quire what species produces the greatest number of individuals in a
particular zone, or we may ask which are the families to which, in
different climates, the greatest number of species belong. In a high
northern region, where the Composite and the Ferns are to the sum
of all the phsenogamous plants in the ratio of 1 : 13 and 1 : 25
(i. e. where these ratios are found by dividing the sum total of all
the Phanerogams by the number of Species belonging to the family
of Compositse or to that of Filices or Ferns), it may nevertheless
happen that a single species of Fern covers ten times more ground
than do all the species of Composites taken together. In this case
Ferns predominate over Composite by their mass, or by the number
of individuals belonging to the same species of Pteris or Polypo-
dium ; but they do not so predominate if we only compare the
number of the different specific forms of Filices and Composite
with the sum of all the phsenogamous plants. Since, then, multipli-
cation of plants does not follow the same law in all species, — that is
to say, all species do not produce the same number of individuals, —
therefore the quotients given by dividing the sum of the phseno-
gamous plants by the number of species belonging to one family, do
not suffice by themselves to determine the character of the landscape,
or the physiognomy which Nature assumes in different regions of the

296 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

earth. If the attention of the travelling botanist is engaged by the
frequent repetition of the same species, their mass, and the uni-
formity of vegetation thus produced, it is even more arrested by the
rarity or infrequency of several other species which are valuable to
mankind. In tropical regions, where the Rubiacese, Myrtaceae,
Leguminosse, or Terebinthaceae, form forests, one is astonished to
find the trees of Cinchona, particular species of Swietenia (Maho-
gany), Haematoxylon, Styrax, and balsamic Myroxylum, so sparingly
distributed. We had occasion, on the declivities of the high plains
of Bogota and Popayan, and in the country round Loxa, in descend-
ing towards the unhealthy valley of the Catamayo and to the Ama-
zons River, to remark the manner in which the trees which furnish
the precious fever-bark (species of Cinchona) are found singly and
at considerable distances from each other. The China Hunters,
Cazadores de Cascarilla (the name given at Loxa to the Indians and
Mestizoes who collect each year the most efficacious of all fever-
barks, that of the Cinchona Condaminea, among the lonely moun-
tains of Caxanuma, TJritusinga, and Rumisitana), climb, not without
peril, to the summits of the loftiest forest trees in order to gain a
wide prospect, and to discern the solitarily scattered slender aspiring
trunks of the trees of which they are in search, and which they
recognize by the shining reddish tint of their large leaves. The
mean temperature of this important forest region, situated in 4° to
4£° S. lat. and at an elevation of about 6400 to 8000 English feet,
is from 12£° to 16° Reaumur (60a-2 to 68° Fahr.). (Humboldt
and Bonpland, Plantes e*quinoxiales, t. i. p. 33, tab. 10.)

In considering the distribution of species, we may also proceed,
without regard to the multiplication of individuals, to the masses
which they form or the space which they occupy, and may simply
compare together the absolute number of species belonging to a
particular family in each country. This is the mode of comparison
which Decandolle has employed in the work entitled Regni vegeta-
bilis Systema naturale (t i. pp. 128, 396, 439, 464, and 510), and
Kunth has carried it out in regard to the whole number of species
of Compositse, at present known (above 3300). It does not show
which is the predominant family either in the number of species or
in the quantity of individuals as compared with other families ; it

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 297

merely tells how many of the species of one and the same family
are indigenous in each country or each quarter of the world.
The results of this method are on the whole more exact, because
they are obtained by the careful study of single families without the
necessity of being acquainted with the whole number of the phane-
rogamse belonging to each country. The most varied forms of
Ferns, for example, are found between the tropics ; it is there, in
the tempered heat of moist and shaded places in mountainous
islands, that each genus presents the largest number of species : this
variety of species in each genus diminishes in passing from the tro-
pical to the temperate zone, and decreases still farther in approaching
nearer to the pole. Nevertheless, as in the cold zone — in Lapland,
for example — those plants succeed best which can best resist the cold,
so the species of Ferns, although the absolute number is less than in
France or Germany, are yet relatively more numerous than in those
countries; i. e. their number bears a greater proportion to the sum
total of all the phsenerogamous plants of the country. These propor-
tions or ratios, given as above mentioned by quotients, are in France
and Germany ^ and ^\, and in Lapland JT. I published numeri-
cal ratios of this kind — (i. e. the entire quantity of phaenogamous
plants in each of the different Floras divided by the number of
species in each family) — in my Prolegomenis de distributione geo-
graphica Plantarum, in 1817; and in the Memoir on the distribution
of plants over the Earth's surface, subsequently -published in the
French language, I corrected my previously published numbers by
Robert Brown's great works. In advancing from the Equator to the
Poles, the ratios taken in this manner vary considerably from the
numbers which would be obtained from a comparison of the absolute
number of species belonging to each family. We often find the
value of the fraction increase by the decrease of the denominator,
while yet the absolute number of species has diminished. ,In the
method by fractions, which I have followed as more instructive in
reference to the geography of plants, there are two variables ; for in
proceeding from one isothermal line, or one zone of equal tempera-
ture, to another, we do not see the sum total of all the phanero-
gamae change in the same proportion as does the number of species
belonging to a particular family.

298 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

We may, if we please, pass from the consideration of species to
that of divisions formed in the natural system of botany according
to an ideal series of abstractions, and direct our attention to Genera,
to Families, and even to the still higher, i. e. more comprehensive,
Classes. There are some genera, and even some entire families,
which belong exclusively to particular zones of the Earth's surface ;
and this not only because they can only flourish under a particular
combination of climatic conditions, but also because both the local-
ities in which they originated, and their migrations, have been
limited. It is otherwise with the greater number of genera and of
families, which have their representatives in all regions of the globe,
and at all latitudes of elevation. The earliest investigations into
the distribution of vegetable forms related solely to genera ; we find
them in a valuable work of Treviranus, in his Biology (bd. ii. s. 47,
63, 83, and 129). This method is, however, less fitted to afford
general results than that which compares either the number of spe-
cies of each family, or the great leading divisions (of Acotyledons,
Monocotyledons, and Dicotyledons) with the sum of all the phanero-
gamse. "VVe find that in the cold zones the variety of forms does
not decrease so much if estimated by genera as if estimated by spe-
cies ; in other words, we find relatively more genera and fewer spe-
cies. (Decandolle, The"orie el&nentaire de la Botanique, p. 190;
Humboldt, Nova genera et species Plantarum, t. i. pp. xvii. and 1.)
It is almost the same in the case of high mountains whose summits
support single members of a large number of genera, which we should
have been d priori inclined to regard as belonging exclusively to the
vegetation of the plains.

I have thought it desirable to indicate the different points of view
from which the laws of the geographical distribution of plants may
be considered. It is by confounding these different points of view
that apparent contradictions are found, which are unjustly attributed
to uncertainties of observation. (Jahrbiicher der Gewachskunde,
bd. i. Berlin, 1818, s. 18, 21, 30.) When such expressions as the
following are made use of — " This form, or this family, diminishes
as the cold zones are approached; — it has its true home in such or
such a latitude ; — it is a southern form ; — it predominates in the
temperate zone;" care should always be taken to state expressly

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 299

whether the writer is speaking of the absolute number of species,
and its increase or decrease with the change of latitude ; or whether
he means that the family in question prevails over other families of
plants as compared with the entire number of phanerogamae of which
a Flora consists. The impression of prevalence as conveyed by the
eye depends on relative quantity.

Terrestrial physics have their numerical elements, as has the Sys-
tem of the Universe, or Celestial Physics, and by the united labors
of botanical travellers we may expect to arrive gradually at a true
knowledge of the laws which determine the geographical and clima-
tic distribution of vegetable forms. I have already remarked that
in the temperate zone the Compositae (Synantherese), and the Glu-
maceae (including under this latter name the three families of
Grasses, Cyperoidae and Juncacese), make up the fourth part of all
phaenogamous plants. The following numerical ratios are the results
of my investigations for 7 great families of the vegetable kingdom
in the same temperate zone.

Glumaceae -\ (Grasses alone T'y)

Composite £

Leguminosse yg

Labiatse o1?

Umbelliferae ^ff

Amentaceae (Cupuliferse, Betulineae, and Salicineae) fa

Cruciferae TV

The forms of organic beings are in reciprocal dependence on each
other. In the unity of nature these forms limit each other accord-
ing to laws which are probably attached to periods of long duration.
If on any particular part of the globe we know with accuracy the
number of species of one of the great families of Grlumacae, Legumi-
nosaa, or Compositae, we may with a tolerable degree of probability
form approximative inferences, both as to the sum of all the phane-
rogamae of the country, and also as to the number of species belong-
ing to the rest of the leading families of plants. The number of
Cyperoidae determines that of Compositae, and the number of Com-
positae that of Leguminosas ; they even enable us to judge in what
classes or orders the Floras of countries are still incomplete, and
teach us, if we are on our guard against confounding together very

300 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

different systems of vegetation, what harvest may still remain to be
reaped in the several families.

The comparison of the numerical ratios of families in different
already well-explored zones, has conducted me to the recognition of
laws according to which, in proceeding from the Equator to the Poles,
the vegetable forms constituting a natural family decrease or increase
as compared with the whole mass of phanerogamse belonging to each
zone. We have here to regard not only the direction of the change
(whether an increase or a decrease), but also its rapidity or measure.
We see the denominator of the fraction which expresses the ratio
increase or decrease : let us take as our example the beautiful family
of Leguminosse, which decreases in going from the equinoctial zone
towards the North Pole. If we find its proportion or ratio for the
torrid zone (from 0° to 10° of latitude) at T4^, we obtain for the part
of the temperate zone which is between 45° and 52° latitude T'T,
and for the frigid zone (lat. 67° to 70°) only ^T. The direction
followed by the great family of Leguminosae (increase on approach-
ing the Equator), is also that of the Rubiaceae, the Euphorbiaceae,
and especially the Malvaceae. On the contrary, the Grasses and
Juncacese (the latter still more than the former) diminish in ap-
proaching the Equator, as do also the Ericeae and Arnentaceaa. The
Compositae, Labiatae, Umbelliferae, and Cruciferae, decrease in pro-
ceeding from the temperate zone, either towards the Pole or towards
the Equator, the Umbelliferae and Cruciferae decreasing most rapidly
in the last-named direction ; while at the same time in the temperate
zone the Cruciferae are three times more numerous in Europe than
in the United States of North America. On reaching Greenland,
the Labiatae have entirely disappeared with the exception of one,
and the Umbelliferae with the exception of two species ; the entire
number of phaenogamous species, still amounting, according to
Hornemann, to 315 species.

It must be remarked at the same time that the development of
plants of different families, and the distribution of vegetable forms,
do not depend exclusively on geographical, or even on isothermal
latitude ; the quotients are not always on the same isothermal line
in the temperate zone, for example, in the plains of North America
and those of the Old Continent. Within the tropics there is a very

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 301

sensible difference between America, India, and the "West Coast of
Africa. The distribution of organic beings over the surface of the
earth does not depend wholly on thermic or climatic relations, which
are of themselves very complicated, but also on geological causes
almost unknown to us, belonging to the original state of the earth,
and to catastrophes which have not affected all parts of our planet
simultaneously. The large pachydermatous animals are at the pre-
sent time wanting in the New Continent, while we still find them
in analogous climates in Asia and Africa. These differences ought
not to deter us from endeavoring to search out the concealed laws
of nature, but should rather stimulate us to the study of them
through all their intricacies.

The numerical laws of the families of plants, the often striking
agreement of the numbers expressing their ratios, where yet the
species of which the families consist are for the most part different,
conduct us into the mysterious obscurity which envelops all that is
connected with the fixing of organic types in the species of plants
and animals, or with their original formation or creation. I will
take as examples two adjoining countries which have both been
thoroughly explored — France and Germany. - In France, many
species of Grasses, Umbelliferse and Cruciferae, Compositse, Legumi-
nosae, and Labiatse are wanting, which are common in Germany;
and yet the numerical ratios of these six great families are almost
identical in the two countries, as will be seen by the subjoined com-
parison.

Families. Germany. France.

Gramineae. T'5 T^

Umbelliferae^ ^ 2>T

Cruciferse. T'¥ - T^

Compositse. £ . 4

Leguminosae. -fa yff

Labiataa. ^ fa

This agreement in the number of species in each family compared
to the whole number of phaenogamous species in the Floras of France
and Germany, would not by any means exist if the German species
which are missing in France were not replaced there by other types
belonging to the same families. Those who are fond of imagining
26

302 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

gradual transformations of species, and suppose the different kinds
of parrots proper to two islands not far removed for each other to
present examples of such a change, will be inclined to attribute the
remarkable similarity between the two columns of figures which
have just been given, to a migration of species which, having been
the same at first, have been altered gradually by the long-continued
action of climatic causes during thousands of years, so that their
identity being lost they appear to replace each other. But why is
it that our common heather (Calluna vulgaris), why is it that our
oaks have never advanced to the eastward of the Ural Mountains,
and so passed from Europe to Northern Asia ? Why is there no
species of the genus Rosa in the Southern Hemisphere, and why are
there scarcely any Calceolarias in the Northern Hemisphere ? The
necessary conditions of temperature are insufficient to explain this.
Thermic relations alone cannot, any more than the hypothesis of
migrations of plants radiating from certain central points, explain
the present distribution of fixed organic forms." Thermic relations
are hardly sufficient to explain the limits beyond which individual
species do not pass, either in latitude towards the pole at the level
of the sea, or in vertical elevation towards the summits of mountains.
The cycle of vegetation in each species, however different its duration
may be, requires, in order to be successfully passed through, a cer~
tain minimum of temperature. (Playfair, in the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. v. 1805, p. 202 ; Humboldt, on
the sum of the degrees of temperature required for the cycle of
vegetation in the Cerealia, in Mem. sur les lignes isothermes, p.
96; Boussingault, Economic rurale, t. ii. pp. 659, 663, and 667;
Alphonse Decandolle, sur les causes qui limitent les especes vege"tales,
1847, p. 8.) But all the conditions necessary for the existence of
a plant, either as diffused naturally or by cultivation — conditions
of latitude or minimum distance from the pole, and of elevation or
maximum height above the level of the sea — are farther complicated
by the difficulty of determining the commencement of the thermic
cycle of vegetation, and by the influence which the unequal distri-
bution of the same quantity of heat into groups of successive days
and nights exercises on the excitability, the progressive develop-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 303

ment, and the whole vital process ; to all this must be further added
hygrometric influences and those of atmospheric electricity.

My investigations respecting the numerical laws of the distribu-
tion of forms may possibly be applied at some future day with
advantage to the different classes of Rotiferse in the animal creation.
The rich collections at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in the
Jardin des Plantes at Paris, already contained, in 1820 (according
to approximate estimations), above 56,000 phsenogamous and crypto-
gamous plants in herbariums, 44,000 insects (a number doubtless
too small, though given me by Latreille), 2500 species of fish, 700
reptiles, 4000 birds, and 500 mammalia. Europe has about 80
species of indigenous mammalia, 400 birds, and 30 reptiles. In the
Northern temperate zone, therefore, the species of birds are five times
more numerous than those of mammalia, as there are in Europe five
times as many Compositaa as there are Amentaceee and Coniferse,
and five times as many Leguminosse as there are Orchideae and Eu-
phorbiacse. In the southern hemisphere, the ratio of mammalia is in
tolerably striking agreement, being as 1 to 4.3. Birds, and still
more reptiles, increase in the number of species, in approaching the
torrid zone, more than the mammalia. Cuvier's researches might
lead us to believe that the proportion was different in the earlier
state of things, and that many more mammalia had perished by re-
volutions of Nature than birds. Latreille has shown what groups
of insects increase towards the Pole, and what towards the Equator.
Illiger has given the countries of 3800 species of birds according to
the quarters of the globe : it would have been much more instruc-
tive if the same thing had been done according to zones. We should
find little difficulty in comprehending how, on a given space of the
earth's surface, the individuals of a class of plants or animals limit
each other's numbers/or how, after long-continued contest and many
fluctuations caused by the requirements of nourishment and mode
of life, a state of equilibrium should be at last established; but the
causes which have limited not the number of individuals of a form,
but the forms themselves, in a particular space, and founded their
typical diversity, are placed beneath the impenetrable veil which still
conceals from our eyes all that relates to the manner of the first
creation and commencement of organic beings.

304 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

If, then, we would attempt to solve the question spoken of in the
early part of this dissertation, by giving in an approximate manner
the numerical limit (le nombre limite of French mathematicians),
which the whole phanerogam SB now existing on the surface of the
earth cannot be supposed to fall short of, we may, perhaps, find our
safest guide in a comparison of the numerical ratios (which, as we
have seen, may be assumed to exist between the different families of
plants) with the number of species contained in herbariums and
cultivated in our great botanic gardens. I have said that in 1820
the number of species contained in the herbariums of the Jardin
des Plantes at Paris was already estimated at 56,000. I do not per-
mit myself to conjecture the amount which the herbariums of Eng-
land may contain ; but the great Paris herbarium, which was formed
with much personal sacrifice by Benjamin Delessert, and given by
him for free and general use, was stated at his death to contain
86,000 species ; a number almost equal to that which, as late as
1835, was conjecturally assigned by Lindley as that of all the spe-
cies existing on the whole earth. (Lindley, Introduction to Botany,
2d edit. p. 504.) Few herbariums have been reckoned with care,
after a complete and strict separation, and withdrawal of all mere
varieties. Not a few plants contained in smaller collections are still
wanting in the greater herbariums which are supposed to be general
or complete. Dr. Klotzsch estimates the present entire number of
phsenogamous plants in the great Royal Herbarium at Schoneberg,
near Berlin, of which he is the curator, at 74,000 species.

London's useful work, Hortus Britannicus, gives an approximate
view of all the species which are, or at no remote time have been,
cultivated in British gardens : the edition of 1832 enumerates, in-
cluding indigenous plants, exactly 26,660 phsenogamous species.
We must not confound with this large number of plants which have
grown or been cultivated at any time, and in any part of the whole
British Islands, the number of living plants which can be shown at
any single moment of time in any single botanic garden. In this
last-named respect, the Botanic Garden of Berlin has long been re-
garded as one of the richest in Europe. The fame of its extraor-
dinary riches rested formerly only on uncertain and approximate
estimations ; and, as my fellow-laborer and friend of many years'

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 305

standing, Professor Kunth, has justly remarked (in manuscript
notices communicated to the Gartenbau-Verein, in December, 1846),
" no real enumeration or compuation could be made until a sys-
tematic catalogue, based on a rigorous examination of species, had
been prepared. Such an enumeration has given rather above 14,060
species : if we deduct from this number 375 cultivated Ferns, we
have remaining 13,685 phaenogamous species; among which, we
find 1600 Composite, 1150 Leguminosae, 428 Labiatae, 370 Um-
belliferae, 460 Orchideae, 60 Palms, and 600 Grasses and Cyperaceae.
If we compare with these numbers those of the species already de-
scribed in recent works — Composites (Decandolle and Walpers)
about 10,000; Leguminosse, 8070; Labiatse (Bentham), 2190;
Umbelliferse, 1620 ; Grasses, 3544 ; and Cyperacese (Kunth, Enu-
meratio Plantarum), 2000 — > we shall perceive that the Berlin
Botanic Garden cultivates, of the very large families (Compositae,
Leguminosae, and Grasses), only 1-7 th, 1-8 th, and l-9th$ — and of
the small families (Labiatae and Umbelliferae), about l-5th, or l-4th,
of described species. If, then, we estimate the number of all the
different phaenogamous plants cultivated at one time in all the
botanic gardens of Europe at 20,000, we find that the cultivated
species appear to be about the eighth part of those which are already
either described or preserved in herbariums, and that these must
nearly amount to 160,000. This estimate need not be thought ex-
cessive, since of many of the larger families (for example, Gutti-
ferae, Malpighiaceae, Melastomeae, Myrtaceae, and Rubiaceae) hardly
a hundredth part are found in our garden." If we take the number
given by London in his Hortus Britannicus (26,660 species) as a
basis, we shall find (according to the justly drawn succession of in-
ferences of Professor Kunth, in the manuscript notices from which
I have borrowed the above) the estimate of 160,000 species rise to
213,000 ; and even this is still very moderate, for Heynhold's No-
menclator botanicus hortensis (1846) even rates the phaenogamous
species then cultivated at 35,600 ; whereas, I have employed Lou-
don's number for 1832, viz. 26,660. On the whole, it would
appear from what has been said — and the conclusion is, at first
sight, a sufficiently striking one — that at present there are almost
more known species of phaenogamous (plants with which we are ac-

26*

306 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

quainted by gardens, descriptions, or herbariums), than there are
known insects. According to the average of the statements which
I have received from several of our most distinguished entomologists,
whom I have had the opportunity of consulting, the number of in-
sects at present described, or contained in collections without being
described, may be taken at between 150,000 and 170,000 species.
The rich Berlin collection does not contain less than 90,000 species,
among which are about 32,000 Coleoptera. A very large number
of plants have been collected in distant parts of the globe, without
the insects which live on them or near them being brought at the
same time. If, however, we limit the estimates of numbers to a
single part of the world, and that the one which has been the best
explored in respect to both plants and insects, viz. Europe, we find
a very different proportion ; for while we can hardly enumerate be-
tween seven and eight thousand European phsenogamous plants,
more than three times that number of European insects are already
known. According to the interesting communications of my friend
Dohrn, at Stettin, 8700 insects have already been collected from the
rich Fauna of that vicinity (and many micro-Lepidopterae are still
wanting), while the phaenogamous plants of the same district scarcely
exceed 1000. The Insect Fauna of Great Britain is estimated at
11,600 species. Such a preponderance of animal forms need the
less surprise us, since large classes of insects subsist solely on
animal substances, and others on agamous vegetation (funguses,
and even those which are subterranean). Bombyx pini, alone (the
spider which infests the Scotch fir, and is the most destructive of
all forest insects), is visited, according to Ratzeburg, by thirty-five
parasitical Ichneumohides.

If these considerations have led us to the proportion borne by the
species of plants cultivated in gardens to the entire amount of those
which are already either described or preserved in herbariums, we
have still to consider the proportion borne by the latter to what we
conjecture to be the whole number of forms existing upon the earth
at the present time ; i. e. to test the assumed minimum of such
forms by the relative numbers of species in the different families,
therefore, by uncertain multipliers. Such a test, however, gives for
the lowest limit or minimum number results so low as to lead us to

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 307

perceive that even in the great families — our knowledge of which
has been of late most strikingly enriched by the descriptions of bota-
nists— we are still acquainted with only a small part of existing
plants. The Repertorium of Walpers completes Decandolle's Pro-
dromus of 1825, up to 1846: we find in it, in the family of Legu-
minosa3, 8068 species. We may assume the ratio, or relative
numerical proportion of this family to all phaenogamous plants, to
be -Jr — as we find it ^ within the tropics, TV in the middle tempe-
rate, and 3^3 in the cold northern zone. The described Leguminosae
would thus lead us to assume only 169,400 existing phaenogamous
species on the whole surface of the earth; whereas, as we have
shown, the Compositsei indicate more than 160,000 already known
species. The discordance is instructive, and may be further eluci-
dated and illustrated by the following analogous considerations.

The major part of the Composite, of which Linnaeus knew only
785 species, and which has now grown to 12,000, appear to belong to
the Old Continent; at least Decaiidolle described only 3590 Ameri-
can, whilst the European, Asiatic, and African species amounted to
5093. This apparent richness in Compositae is, however, illusive,
and considerable only in appearance; the ratio or quotient of the
family ( r]T between the tropics, \ in the temperate zone, and -fj in
the cold zone), shows that even more species of Compositas than
Leguminosse must hitherto have escaped the researches of travellers;
for a multiplication by 12 would give us only the improbably low
number of 144,000 Phaenogamous species. The families of Grasses
and Cyperacese give still lower results, because comparatively still
fewer of their species have been described and collected. We have
only to cast our eyes on the map of South America, remembering
the wide extent of territory occupied by grassy plains, not only in
Venezuela and on the banks of the Apure and the Meta, but also
to the south of the forest-covered regions of the Amazons, in Chaco,
Eastern Tucuman, and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and Patagonia,
bearing in mind that of all these extensive regions the greater part
have never been explored by botanists, and the remainder only im-
perfectly and incompletely so. Northern and Central Asia offer an
almost equal extent of Steppes, but in which, however, dicotyledo-
nous herbaceous plants are more largely mingled with the Grammeae.

308 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

If we had sufficient grounds for believing that we are now acquainted
with half the phsenogamous plants on the globe, and if we took the
number of known species only at one or other of the before-men-
tioned numbers of 160,000 or 213,000, we should still have to
take the number of grasses (the general proportion of which appears
to be y1^), in the first case at least at 26,000, and in the second case
at 35,000 different species, which would give respectively in the two
cases only either i or -^ part as known.

The assumption that we already know half the existing species of
phaenogamous plants is farther opposed by the following considera-
tions. Several thousand species of Monocotyledons and Dycotyledons,
and among them tall trees— (I refer here to my own Expedition) —
have been discovered in regions, considerable portions of which
had been previously examined by distinguished botanists. The
portions of the great continents which have never even been trodden
by botanical observers considerably exceed in area those which have
been traversed by such travellers, even in a superficial manner. The
greatest variety of phaenogamous vegetation, i. e. the greatest number
of species on a given area, is found between the tropics, and in the
sub-tropical zones. This last-mentioned consideration renders it so
much the more important to remember how almost entirely unac-
quainted we are, on the New Continent, north of the Equator, with
the Floras of Oaxaca, Yucatan, Guatimala, Nicaragua, the Isthmus of
Panama, Choco, Antioquia, and the Provincia de los Pastes ; — and
south of the Equator, with the Floras of the vast forest region between
the Ucayale, the Rio de la Madera, and the Tocantin (three great tribu-
taries of the Amazons), and with those of Paraguay and the Provincia
de los Missiones. In Africa, except in respect to the coasts, we know
nothing of the vegetation from 15° north to 20° south latitude; in
Asia, we are unacquainted with the Floras of the south and south-
east of Arabia, where the highlands rise to about 6400 English feet
above the level of the sea — of the countries between the Thian-
schan, the Kuenliin, and the Himalaya, all the west part of China,
and the greater part of the countries beyond the Ganges. Still more
unknown to the botanist are the interior of Borneo, New Guinea,
and part of Australia. Farther to the south, the number of species
undergoes a wonderful diminution, as Joseph Hooker has well and '

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 309

ably shown from his own observation in his Antarctic Flora. The
three islands of which New Zealand consists extend from 34 £° to
47 i° S. latitude; and as they contain, moreover, snowy mountains
of above 8850 English feet elevation, they must include consider-
able diversity of climate. The Northern Island has been examined
with tolerable completeness from the voyage of Banks and Solander
to Lesson and the Brothers Cunningham and Colenso, and yet in
more than 70 years we have only become acquainted with less
than 700 phaenogamous species. (Dieffenbach, Travels in New
Zealand, 1843, vol. i. p. 419.) The paucity of vegetable corresponds
to the paucity of animal species. Joseph Hooker, in his Flora
Antarctica, pp. 73—75, remarks, that " the botany of the densely
wooded regions of the southern islands of the New Zealand group
and of Fuegia is much more meagre not only than that of similarly
clothed regions of Europe, but of islands many degrees nearer to
the Northern pole than these are to the Southern one. Iceland, for
instance, which is from 8 to 10 degrees farther from the Equator than
the Auckland and the Campbell Islands, contains certainly five times
as many flowering plants. In the Antarctic Flora, under the in-
fluence of a cool and moist, but singularly equable climate, great
uniformity, arising from paucity of species, is associated with great
luxuriance of vegetation. " This striking uniformity prevails both at
different levels (the species found on the plains appearing also on
the slopes of the mountains) and over vast extents of country, from
the south of Chili to Patagonia and even to Tierra del Fuego, or
from lat. 45° to 56°. Compare, on the other hand, in the northern
temperate region, the Flora of the South of France, in the latitude
of the Chonos Archipelago on the coast of Chili, with the Flora of
Argyleshire in Scotland, in the latitude of Cape Horn, and how great
a difference of species is found; while in the Southern Hemisphere
the same types of vegetation pass through many degrees of latitude.
Lastly, on Walden Island, in lat. 80|° Nv or not ten degrees from
the North Pole of the earth, ten species of flowering plants have
been collected, while in the southernmost islet of the South Shet-
lands, though only in lat. 63° S., only a solitary grass was found."
These considerations on the distribution of plants confirm the belief
that the great mass of still unobserved, uncollected, and undescribed

310 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

flowering plants must be sought for in tropical countries, and in the
latitudes from 12° to 15° distant from the tropics.

It has appeared to me not unimportant to show the imperfect state
of our knowledge in this still little cultivated department of arith-
metical botany, and to propound numerical questions in a more dis-
tinct and determinate manner than could have been previously done.
In all conjectures respecting numerical relations, we must seek first
for the possibility of deducing the lower or minimum limits ; as in
a question treated of by me elsewhere, on the proportion of coined
gold and silver to the quantity of the precious metal fabricated in
other ways; or as in the questions of how many stars, from the 10th
to the 12th magnitude, are dispersed over the sky, and how many of
the smallest telescopic stars the Milky Way may contain. (John
Herschel, Results of Astron. Observ. at the Cape of Good Hope,
1847, p. 381.) We may consider it as established, that, if it were
possible to know completely and thoroughly by observation all the
species belonging to one of the great families of phanerogamous or
flowering plants, we should learn thereby at the same time, approxi-
matively, the entire sum of all such plants (including all the families).
As, therefore, by the progressive exploration of new countries, we
progressively and gradually exhaust the remaining unknown species
of any of the great families, the previously assigned lowest limit
rises gradually higher; and since the forms reciprocally limit each
other in conformity with still undiscovered laws of universal organi-
zation, we approach continually nearer to the solution of the great
numerical problem of organic life. But is the number of organic
forms itself a constant number ? Do new vegetable forms spring
from the ground after long periods of time, while others become
more and more rare, and at last disappear ? G-eology, by means of
her historical monuments of ancient terrestrial life, answers to the
latter portion of this question affirmatively. "In the Ancient
World," to use the remark of an eminent naturalist, Link (Abhandl.
der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem Jahr 1846, s. 322), "we
see characters, now apparently remote and widely separated from
each other, associated or crowded together in wondrous forms, as if
a greater development and separation awaited a later age in the
history of our planet."

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 311

(14) p. 238. — "If the height of the aerial ocean and its pressure have
not always been the same."

The pressure of the atmosphere has a decided influence on the
form and life of plants. From the abundance and importance of
their leafy organs provided with porous openings, plants live prin-
cipally in and through their surfaces ; and hence their dependence
on the surrounding medium. Animals are dependent rather on in-
ternal impulses and stimuli ; they originate and maintain their own
temperature, and, by means of muscular movement, their own
electric currents, and the chemical vital processes which depend on
and react upon those currents. A species of skin-respiration is an
active and important vital function in plants, and this respiration,
in so far as it consists in evaporation, inhalation, and exhalation of
fluids, is dependent on the pressure of atmosphere. Therefore it is
that alpine plants are more aromatic, and are hairy and covered with
numerous pores. (See my work, iiber die gereizte Muskel- und Ner-
venfaser, bd. ii. s. 142—145.) For, according to Zoonomic experience,
organs become more abundant and more perfect in proportion to the
facility with which the conditions necessary for the exercise of their
functions are fulfilled — as I have elsewhere shown. In alpine
plants, the disturbance of their skin-respiration, occasioned by in-
creased atmospheric pressure, makes it very difficult for such plants
to flourish in the low grounds.

The question, whether the mean pressure of the aerial ocean
which surrounds our globe has always been the same, is quite un-
decided : we do not even know accurately whether the mean height
of the barometer has continued the same at the same place for a
century past. According to Poleni's and Toaldo's observations, the
pressure would have seemed to vary. The correctness of these ob-
servations has long been doubted, but the recent researches of Car-
lini render it almost probable that the mean height of the barome-
ter is diminishing in Milan. Perhaps the phenomenon is a very
local one, and dependent on variations in descending atmospheric
currents.

312 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

(15) p. 238.—"

It is remarkable, that of this majestic form of plants (some of
which rise to more than twice the height of the Royal Palace at
Berlin, and to which the Indian Amarasinha gave the character-
istic appellation of " Kings among the Grasses") up to the time of
the death of Linnaeus only 15 species were described. The Peru-
vian travellers Ruiz and Pavon added to these 8 more species.
Bonpland and I, in passing over a more extensive range of country,
from 12° S. lat. to 21° N* lat., described 20 new species of palms,
and distinguished as many more, but without being able to obtain
complete specimens of their flowers. (Humboldt de distrib. geogr.
Plantarum, pp. 225-233.) At the present time, 44 years after my
return from Mexico, there are from the Old and New World, in-
cluding the East Indian species brought by Griffith, above 440
regularly described species. The Enumeratio Plantarum of my
friend Kunth, published in 1841, had already 356 species.

A few, but only a few species of palms, are, like our Coniferae,
Quercinese, and Betulineae, social plants : such are the Mauritia
flexuosa, and two species of ChamaBrops, one of which, the Cha-
maerops humilis, occupies extensive tracts of ground near the
mouth of the Ebro, and in Valencia ; and the other, C. mocini, dis-
covered by us on the Mexican shore of the Pacific, and . entirely
without prickles, is also a social plant. While some kinds of palms,
including Chamasrops and Cocos, are littoral or shore-loving trees,
there is in the tropics a peculiar group of mountain palms, which,
if I am not mistaken, was entirely unknown previous to my South
American travels. Almost all species of the family of palms grow
on the plains or low grounds, in a mean temperature of between
22aand 24° Reaumur (81°. 5 and 86°, Fahr.); rarely ascending
so high as 1900 English feet on the declivities of the Andes : but
in the mountain palms to which I have alluded, the beautiful wax-
palm (Ceroxylon andicola), the Palineto of Azufral at the Pass of
Quindiu (Oreodoxa frigida), and the reed-like Kunthia montana
(Cana de la Vibora) of Pasto, attain elevations between 6400 and
9600 English feet above the level of the sea, where the thermome-
ter often sinks at night as low as 4°. 8 and 6° of Reaumur (42°. 8

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 313

and 45°. 5 Fahr.), and the mean temperature scarcely amounts to
11° Reaumur, or 56°. 8 Fahrenheit. These Alpine Palms grow
among Nut trees, yew-leaved species of Podocarpus and Oaks
(Quercus granatensis). I have determined by exact barometrical
measurement the upper and lower limits of the range of the Wax-
palm. We first began to find it on the eastern declivity of Andes
of Quindiu, at the height of 7440 (about 7930 Eqglish) feet above
the level of the sea, and it extended upwards as far as the Garita
del Paramo and los Yolcancitos, or to 9100 (almost 9700 English)
feet : several years after my departure from the country, the dis-
tinguished botanist Don Jose Caldas, who had been long our com-
panion amidst the mountains of New Granada, and who afterwards
fell a victim to Spanish party hatred, found three species of palms
growing in the Paramo de Guanacos very near the limits of perpetu-
al snow; therefore, probably at an elevation of more than 13,000
(13,855 English) feet. (Semanario de Santa Fe de Bogota, 1809,
No. 21, p. 163.) Even beyond the tropics, in the latitude of 28°
north, the Chamserops martiana reaches on the sub-Himalayan
mountains a height of 5000 English feet. (Wallich, Plantae Asia-
ticae, vol. iii. tab. 211.)

If we look for the extreme geographical limits of palms (which
are also the extreme climatic limits in all the species which inhabit
localities but little raised above the level of the sea), we see some,
as the date-palm, the Chamaarops humilis, C. palmetto, and the
Areca sapida of New Zealand, advance far into the temperate zones
of either hemisphere, into regions where the mean temperature of
the year hardly equals 11°.2 and 12°. 5 Reaumur (57°.2, and 60°.2
Fahrenheit). If we form a series of cultivated plants or trees,
placed in order of succession according to the degree of heat they
require, and beginning with the maximum, we have Cacao, Indigo,
Plantains, Coffee, Cotton, Date-palms, Orange and Lemon Trees,
Olives, Sweet Chestnuts, and Vines. In Europe, date-palms- (intro-
duced, not indigenous) grow mingled with Chamserops humilis in
• the parallels of 43 J° and 44°, as on the Genoese Rivera del Ponente,
near Bordighera, between Monaco and San Stefano, where there is
an assemblage of more than 4000 palm-stems; and in Dalmatia
round Spalatro. It is remarkable that Chainasrops humilis is abund-
27

314 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

ant both at Nice and in Sardinia, and yet is not found in the Island
of Corsica, which lies between those localities. In the New Con-
tinent, the Chamserops palmetto, which is sometimes above 40
English feet high, only advances as far north as 34° latitude, a
difference sufficiently explained by the inflexions of the isothermal
lines. In the Southern Hemisphere, in New Holland, palms, of
which there are very few (six or seven species), only advance to 34°
of latitude (see Robert Brown's general remarks on the Botany of
Terra Australis, p. 45); and in New Zealand, where Sir Joseph
Banks first saw an Areca palm, they reach the 38th parallel. In
Africa, which, quite contrary to the ancient and still widely prevail-
ing belief, is poor in species of palms, only one palm, the Hyphsene
coriacea, advances to Port Natal in 30° latitude. The Continent
of South America presents almost the same limits in respect to
latitude. On the eastern side of the Andes, in the Pampas of
Buenos Ayres and in the Cis-Plata province, palms extend, according
to Auguste de St.-Hilaire, to 34° and 35° S. latitude. This is also
the latitude to which, on the western side of the Andes, the Coco
de Chile (our Jubsea spectabilis ?), the only Chilian palm, extends,
according to Claude Gay, being as far as the banks of the Rio
Maule. (See also Darwin's Journal, edition of 1845, pp. 244 and
256.)

I will here introduce some detached remarks which I wrote in
March, 1801, on board the ship in which we were sailing from the
palmy shores of the mouth of the Rio Sinu, west of Darien, to
Cartagena de las Indias.

"We have now, in the course of the two years which we have
spent in South America, seen 27 different species of palms. How
many must Commerson, Thunberg, Banks, Solander, the two For-
sters, Adanson, and Sonnerat have observed in their distant voyages !
Yet, at the present moment, when I write these lines, our systems
of botany do not include more than from 14 to 18 systematically
described species. In truth, the difficulty of procuring the flowers
of palms is greater than can readily be imagined. We have felt it
so much the more from having especially directed our attention to
Palms, Grasses, Cyperacese, Juncacese, Cryptogamous Plants, and
such other objects as have been least studied hitherto. Most species

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 315

of palms flower only once a year, in the neighborhood of the Equator
in the months of January and February. But how often is it im-
possible for travellers to be precisely at that season in places where
palms are principally found. In many species of palms, the flowers
last only so few days that one almost always arrives too late, and
finds the fertilization completed and the male blossoms gone. Fre-
quently only three or four species of palms are found in areas of
2000 square German geographical miles (3200 English geographical V
square miles). How is it possible during the short flowering season
to visit the different places where palms abound : the Missions on
the Rio Caroni, the Morichales at the mouth of the Orinoco, the
valley of Caura and Erevato, the banks of the Atabapo and the Rio
Negro, and the side of the Duida Mountain? Add to this the dif-
ficulty of reaching the flowers, when, in the dense forests, or on the
swampy river banks (as on the Temi and Tuamini), one sees them
hanging from stems above 60 feet high, and armed with formidable
spines. A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an expedi-
tion in which natural history is one of his leading objects, flatters
himself with the thoughts of shears or curved blades fastened to
long poles, with which he imagines he will be able to reach and cut
down whatever he desires; he dreams, too, of native boys, who,
with a cord fastened to their two feet, are to climb up the highest
trees at his bidding. But, alas ! very few of these fancies are ever
realized; the great height of the blossoms renders the poles useless;
and in the missions established on the banks of the rivers of Guiana,
the traveller finds himself among Indians whose poverty, stoicism,
and uncultivated state render them so rich, and so free from wants
of every kind, that neither money nor other presents that can be
made to them will induce them to turn three steps out of their path.
This insurmountable apathy is the more provoking to a European,
because he sees the same people climb with inconceivable agility
wherever their own fancies lead them; for example, when they wish \,
to catch a parrot, or an iguana, or a monkey, which having been
wounded by their arrows saves himself from falling by holding on
to the branches with his prehensile tail. Even at the Havannah
we met with a similar disappointment. We were there in the
month of January, and saw all the trees of the Palma Real (our

316 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

Oreodoxa Regia), in the immediate vicinity of the city and on the
public walks, adorned with snow-white blossoms. For several days
we offered the negro boys whom we met in the streets of Regla and
Guanavacoa two piastres for a single bunch of the blossoms which
we wanted, but in vain ! Between the tropics men are indisposed
to laborious exertion, unless compelled by constraint or by extreme
destitution. The botanists and artists of the Royal Spanish Com-
mission for researches in Natural History — under the direction of
Count Jaruco y Mopor (Estevez, Boldo, Guio, and Echeveria) —
acknowledged to us that, during several years, they had not been
able to obtain these flowers for examination. These difficulties suf-
ficiently explain what would have been incomprehensible to me
before my voyage, namely, that although, during our two years' stay
up to the present time, we have, indeed, discovered more than 20
different species of palms, we have as yet been only able to describe
systematically 12. How interesting a work might be produced by
a traveller in South America who should occupy himself exclusively
with the study of palms, and should make drawings of the spathe,
spadix, inflorescence, and fruit, all of the size of nature I" (I wrote
this many years before the Brazilian travels of Martius and Spix,
and the admirable and excellent work of Martius on Palms.)
"There is considerable uniformity in the shape of the leaves of
palms; they are generally either pinnate (feathery, or divided like
the plume of a feather) ; or else palmate or palmo-digitate (of a
fan-like form) : the leaf-stalk (petiolus) is in some species without
spines, in others sharply toothed (serrato-spinosus). The form of
the leaf in Caryota urens and Martinezia caryotifolia (which we saw
on the banks of the Orinoco and Atabapo, and again in the Andes,
at the pass of Quindiu, 3000 Fr. (3197 English) feet above the
level of the sea), is exceptional and almost unique among palms, as
is the form of the leaf of the Gingko among trees. The port and
physiognomy of palms have a grandeur of character very difficult
to convey by words. The stem, shaft, or caudex is generally simple
and undivided, but in extremely rare exceptions divides into branches
in the manner of the Dracaenas, as in Crucifera thebaica (the Doum-
palin), and Hyphaene coriacea. It is sometimes disproportionately
thick (as in Corozo del Sinu, our Alfonsia oleifera) ; sometimes feeble

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 317

as a reed (as in Piritu, Kunthia montana, and the Mexican Cor ypha
nana); sometimes swelling towards the base (as in Cocos); some-
times smooth, and sometimes scaly (Palma de covija o de sombrero,
in the Llanos); sometimes armed with spines (as Corozo de Cumana
and Macanilla de Caripe), the long spines being distributed with
much regularity in concentric rings."

" Characteristic differences are also furnished in some species by
roots which, springing from the stem at about a foot or a foot and a
half above the ground, either raise the stem as it were upon a scaf-
folding, or surround it with thick buttresses. I have seen Viverras,
and even very small monkeys, pass underneath this kind of scaffold-
ing formed by the roots of the Caryota. Often the shaft or stem is
swollen only in the middle, being more slender above and below, as
in the Palma Heal of the Island of Cuba. The leaves are sometimes
of a dark and shining green (as in the Mauritia and the Cocoa-nut
palm) ; sometimes of a silvery white on the under side (as in the
slender Fan-palm, Corypha miraguama, which we found in the
Harbor of Trinidad de Cuba). Sometimes the middle of the fan or
palmate leaf is ornamented with concentric yellowish or bluish
stripes like a peacock's tail; as in the thorny Mauritia which Bon-
pland discovered on the banks of the Rio Atabapo."

" The direction of the leaves is a character not less important than
their form and color. The leaflets (foliola) are sometimes arranged
like the teeth of a comb, set on in the same plane, and close to each
other, and having a very rigid parenchyma (as in Cocos, and in
Phosnix the genus to which the Date belongs) ; whence the fine
play of light from the sunbeams falling on the upper surface of the
leaves (which is of a fresher verdure in Cocoa, and of a more dead
and ashy hue in the Date-palm) ; sometimes the leaves are flag-like,
of a thinner and more flexible texture, and curl towards the ex-
tremities (as in Jagua, Palma Real del Sinu, Palma Real de Cuba,
and Piritu dell' Orinoco). The peculiarly majestic character of
palms is given not only by their lofty stems, but also in a very high
degree by the direction of their leaves. It is part of the beauty of
any particular species of palms that its leaves should possess this
aspiring character; and not only in youth, as is the case in the
Date-palm, but also throughout the duration of the life of the tree.

27*

318 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

The more upright the direction of the leaves, or, in other words, the
more acute the angles which they form with the upper part or con-
tinuation of the stem, the grander and more imposing is the general
character and physiognomy of the tree. How different are the
character and aspect given by the drooping leaves of the Palma de
covija del Orinoco y de los Llanos de Calabozo (Corypha tectorum) ;
the more nearly horizontal or at least less upright leaves of the
Date and Cocoa-nut palms; and the aspiring, heavenward pointing
"branches of the Jagua, the Cucurito, and the Pirijao!

"Nature has lavished every beauty of form on the Jagua palm,
which, intermingled with the Cucurito or Vadgihai (85 to 106
English feet high), adorns the Cataracts of Atures and Maypures,
and is, occasionally found also on the lonely banks of the Cassiquiare.
The smooth, slender stems of the Jagua, rising to between 64 and
75 English feet, appear above the dense mass of foliage of other
kinds of trees from amidst which they spring like raised colonnades,
their airy summits contrasting beautifully with the thickly-leaved
species of Ceiba, and with the forest of Laurineae, Calophyllum, and
different species of Amyris which surround them. The leaves of
the Jagua, which are few in number (scarcely so many as seven or
eight), are sixteen or seventeen feet long, and rise almost vertically
into the air; their extremities are curled like plumes; the ultimate
divisions or leaflets, having only a thin, grass-like parenchyma, flutter
lightly and airily round the slowly balancing central leaf-stalks. In
all palms, the inflorescence springs from the trunk itself, and below
the place where the leaves originate; but the manner in which this
takes place modifies the physiognomic character. In a few species
only (as the Corozo del Sinu), the spathe (or sheath enclosing the
flowers and fruits) rises vertically, and the fruits stand erect, form-
ing a kind of thyrsus, like the fruits of the Bromelia: in most
species of palms, the spathes (which are sometimes smooth and
sometimes rough and armed with formidable spines) are pendent;
in a few species, the male flowers are of a dazzling whiteness, and
in such cases the flower-covered spadix, when fully developed,
shines from afar. In most species of palms, the male flowers are
yellowish, closely crowded, and appear almost withered when they
disengage themselves from the spathe.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 319

" In Palms with pinnate foliage, the leaf-stalks either proceed (as
in the Cocoa-nut, the Date, and the Palma Real del Sinu) from the
dry, rough, woody part of the stem; or, as in the Palma Real de la
Havana (Oreodoxa regia) seen and admired by Columbus, there
rises upon the rough part of the stem a grass-green, smooth, thin-
ner shaft, like a column placed upon a column, and from this the
leaf-stalks spring. In fan-palms, { foliis palmatis/ the leafy crown
(as in the Moriche and the Palma sombrero de la Havana) often
rests on a previous bed of dry leaves, a circumstance which gives to
the tree a sombre and melancholy appearance. In some umbrella-
palms, the crown consists of very few leaves, which rise upwards,
carried on very slender petioles or foot-stalks (as in Miraguama).

" The form and color of the fruits of Palms also offer much more
variety than is commonly believed in Europe. Mauritia flexuosa
bears egg-shaped fruits, whose scaly, brown, and shining surface,
gives them something of the appearance of young fir-cones. What
a difference between the enormous triangular cocoa-nut, the soft
fleshy berries of the date, and the small, hard fruits of the Corozo !
But among the fruits of palms, none equal in beauty those of the
Pirijao (Pihiguao of S. Fernando de Atabapo and S. Balthasar) ;
they are egg-shaped, mealy, and usually without seeds, two or three
inches thick, and of a golden color, which on one side is overspread
with crimson; and these richly colored fruits, crowded together in a
bunch, like grapes, are pendent from the summits of majestic palm
trees." I have already spoken at p. 175, of these beautiful fruits,
of which there are seventy or eighty in a bunch, and which can
be prepared as food in a variety of ways, like plantains and po-
tatoes.

In some species of Palms the flower sheath, or spathe surround-
ing the spadix and the flowers, opens suddenly with an audible
sound. Richard Schomburgk (Reisen in Britisch Guiana, th. i. s.
55) has, like myself, observed this phenomenon in the flowering of
the Oreodoxa oleracea. This first opening of the flowers of Palms,
accompanied by sound, recalls the vernal Dithyrambus of Pindar,
and the moment when, in Argive Nemea, " the first opening shoot
of the date-palm proclaims the arrival of balmy spring." (Cosmos,
bd. ii. s. 10; Eng. ed. p. 10.)

320 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

Three vegetable forms of peculiar beauty are proper to the tropi-
cal zone in all parts of the globe ; Palms, Plantains or Bananas,
and Arborescent Ferns. It is where heat and moisture are com-
bined that vegetation is most vigorous, and its forms most varied ;
and hence South America excels the rest of the tropical world in
the number and beauty of her species of Palms. In Asia, this form
of vegetation is more rare, perhaps because a considerable part of
the Indian continent which was situated immediately under the equi-
noctial line has been broken up and covered by the sea in the course
of former geological revolutions. We know scarcely anything of
the palm trees of Africa between the Bight of Benin and the Coast
of Ajan; and, generally speaking, we are only acquainted, as has
been already remarked, with a very small number of species of
Palms belonging to that quarter of the globe.

Palms afford, next to Coniferae and species of Eucalyptus, belong-
ing to the family of Myrtaceae, examples of the greatest loftiness of
stature attained by any of the members of the vegetable kingdom.
Of the Cabbage Palm (Areca oleracea), stems have been seen from
150 to 160 French (160 to 170 English) feet high. (Aug. de
Saint-Hilaire, Morphologic, ve'ge'tale, 1840, p. 176.) The Wax-
palm, our Ceroxylon andicola, discovered by us on the Andes, be-
tween Ibague and Carthago, on the Montana de Quindiu, attains the
immense height of 160 to 180 French (170 to 192 English) feet.
I was able to measure with exactness the prostrate trunks which had
been cut down and were lying in the forest. Next to the Wax-
palm, Oreodoxa Sancona, which we found in flower near Eoldanilla
in the Cauca Valley, and which affords a very hard and excellent
building wood, appeared to me to be the tallest of American palms.
The circumstance that, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of
fruits produced by a single Palm tree, the number of individuals
of each species which are found in a wild state is not very conside-
rable, can only be explained by the frequently abortive development
of the fruits (and consequent absence of seeds), and by the vora-
city of their numerous assailants, belonging to all classes of the
animal world. Yet, although I have said that the wild individuals
are not very numerous, there are in the basin of the Orinoco entire
tribes of men who live for several months of the year on the fruits

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 321

of palms. "In palmetis, Pihiguao consitis, singuli trunci quotan-
nis fere 400 fructus ferunt pomiformes, tritumque est verbum inter
Fratres S. Francisci, ad ripas Orinoci et Gauinise degentes, mire
pinguescere Indorum corpora, quoties uberem Palma? fructum fun-
dant." (Humboldt, de Distrib. geogr. Plant, p. 240.)

(16) p. 239. — " Since the earliest infancy of human civilization"
In all tropical countries we find the cultivation of the Banana or
Plantain established from the earliest times with which tradition or
history makes us acquainted. It is certain that, in the course of the
last few centuries, African slaves have brought new varieties to
America, but it is equally certain that Plantains were cultivated in
the New World before its discovery by Columbus. The Guaikeri
Indians, at Cumana, assured us that, on the coast of Paria, near the
Golfo Triste, when the fruits were allowed to remain on the tree till
ripe, the plantain sometimes produced seeds which would germinate ;
and in this manner plantains are occasionally found growing wild in
the recesses of the forest, from ripe seeds conveyed thither by birds.
Perfectly formed seeds have also sometimes been found in plantain
fruits at Bordones, near Cumana.. (Compare my Essai sur la G6o-
graphie des Plantes, p. 29; and my Relat. hist. t. i. pp. 104 and
587, t. ii. pp. 355 and 367.)

I have already remarked elsewhere (Cosmos, bd. ii. s. 191;
English edition, p. 156), that Onesicritus and the other companions
of Alexander, while they make no allusion to the tall, arborescent
ferns, speak of the fan-leaved umbrella palm, and of the delicate
and always fresh verdure of the cultivated plantains or bananas.
Among the Sanscrit names given by Amarasinha for the plantain
or banana (the Musa of botanists) there are bhanu-phala (sun-fruit),
varana-buscha, and moko. Phala signifies fruit in general. Lassen
explains the words of Pliny (xii. 6), " arbori nomen palae, pomo
ariense" thus : " The Roman mistook the word pala, fruit, for the
name of the tree ; and varana (in the mouth of a Greek ouarana)
became transformed into ariena. The Arabic mauza may have been
formed from moko, and hence our Musa. Bhanu-fruit is not far
from banana-fruit. (Compare Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde,

322 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

bd. i. s. 262, with my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t.
ii. p. 382, and Rel. hist. t. i. p. 491.)

(17) p. 240. — " The form of Malvaceae"

Larger malvaceous forms begin to appear as soon as we have
crossed the Alps; at Nice and in Dalmatia, Lavatera arborea; and
in Liguria, Lavatera olbia. The dimensions of the Baobab, monkey-
bread tree, have been mentioned above (vol. ii. p. 90). To this form
are attached the also botanically allied families of the Byttneriaceae
(Sterculia, Hermannia, and the large-leaved Theobroma Cacao, in
which the flowers spring from the bark both of the trunk and the
roots) ; the Bombacese (Adansonia, Helicteres, and Cheirostemon) ;
and lastly the Tiliaceae (Sparmannia Africana). I may name more
particularly, as superb representatives of the Mallow-form, our Ca-
vanillesia platanifolia, of Turbaco, near Carthagena- in South Ame-
rica, and the celebrated Ochroma-like Hand-tree, the Macpalxochi-
quahuitl of the Mexicans (from macpalUj the flat hand), Arbol de
las Manitas of the Spaniards, our Cheirostemon platanoides ; in which
the long curved anthers project beyond the fine purple blossom,
causing it to resemble a hand or claw. Throughout the Mexican
States this one highly ancient tree is the only existing individual of
this extraordinary race : it is supposed to be a stranger, planted about
five centuries ago by the kings of Toluca. I found the height above
the sea where the Arbol de las Manitas stands to be 8280 French
(8824 English) feet. Why is there only a single individual, and
from whence did the kings of Toluca procure either the young tree
or the seed? It seems no less difficult to account for Montezuma
not having possessed it in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Cha-
poltepec, and Iztapalapan, of which Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip
II., was still able to avail himself, and of which some traces remain
even to the present day; and it seems strange that it should not
have found a place among the representations of objects of natural
history which Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be drawn
half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is asserted
that the Hand-tree exists in a wild state in the forests of Guatemala.
(Huinboldt and Bonpland, Plantes e*quinoxiales, t. i. p. 82, pi. 24;
Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Esp., t. i. p. 98.) At the Equator, we have

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 323

seen two Malvaceae, Sida Phyllanthos (Cavan), and Sida pichinchensis,
ascend, on the mountain of Antisana and the Volcano Rucu-Pichincha,
to the great elevation of 12,600 and 14,136 French (13,430 and
15,066 English) feet. (See our Plantes 4quin., t. ii. p. 113, pi.
116.) Only the Saxifraga boussingaulti (Brogn.) reaches, on the
slope of the Chimborazo, an altitude six or seven hundred feet higher.

(1S) p. 240.—" The Mimosa form."

The finely feathered or pinnated leaves of Mimosas, Acacias,
Schrankias, and species of Desmanthus, are most truly forms of
tropical vegetation. Yet there are some representations of this form
beyond the tropics; in the Northern Hemisphere in the Old Conti-
nent I can indeed cite but one, and that only in Asia, and a low-
growing shrub, the Acacia Stephaniana, according to Kunth's more
recent investigations a species of the genus Prosopis. It is a social
plant, covering the arid plains of the province of Shirwan, on the
Kur (Cyrus), as far as the ancient Araxes. Olivier also found it
near Bagdad. It is the Acacia foliis bipinnatis mentioned by Bux-
baum, and extends as far north as 42° of latitude. (Tableau des
Provinces situees sur la Cote occidentale de la Mer Caspienne, entre
les fleuves Terek et Kour, 1798, pp. 58 and 120.) In Africa the
Acacia gummifera of Willdenow advances as far as Mogador, or to
32° north latitude.

On the New Continent, the banks of the Mississippi and the
Tennessee,- as well as the savannahs of Illinois, are adorned with
Acacia glandulosa (Michaux), and A. brachyloba (Willd.). Mi-
chaux found the Schrankia uncinata extend northwards from Florida
into Virginia, or to 37° N. latitude. Grleditschia tricanthos is found,
according to Barton, on the east side of the Alleghany mountains,
as far north as the 38th parallel, and on the west side even as far
as the 41st parallel.^ Gleditschia monosperma ceases two degrees
farther to the south. These are the limits of the Mimosa form in
the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, we find
beyond the tropic of Capricorn simple leaved Acacias as far as Van
Diemen Island; and even the Acacia cavenia, described by Claude
Gay, grows in Chili between the 30th and 37th degrees of south
latitude. (Molina, Storia Naturale del Chili, 1782, p. 174.) Chili

/^' Qf:-!:iTV

324 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

has no true Mimosa, but it has three species of Acacia. Even in
the north part of Chili, the Acacia cavenia only grows to a height of
twelve or thirteen feet; and in the south, near the sea coast, it
hardly rises a foot above the ground. In South America, north of
the Equator, the most excitable Mimosas were (next to Mimosa
pudica), M. dormiens, M. somnians, and M. somniculosa. Theo-
phrastus (iv. 3) and Pliny (xiii. 10) mention the irritability of the
African sensitive plant; but I find the first description of the South
American sensitive plants (Dormideras) in Herrera, Becad. ii. lib.
iii. cap. 4. The plant first attracted the attention of the Spaniards
in 1518, in the savannahs on the isthmus near Nombre de Dios :
"parece como cosa sensible;" and it was said that the leaves (ade
echura de una pluma de pajaros") only contracted on being touched
with the finger, and not if touched with a piece of wi)od. In the
small swamps which surround the town of Mompox on the Magda-
lena, we discovered a beautiful aquatic Mimosacea (Desman thus
lacustris). It is figured in our Plantes equinoxiales, t.*i. p. 55, pi.
16. In the Andes of Caxamarca we found two Alpine Mimosese
(Mimosa montana and Acacia revoluta), 8500 and 9000 French
(about 9060 and 9590 English) feet above the surface of the
Pacific.

Hitherto no true Mimosa (in the sense established by Willde-
now), or even Inga, has been found in the temperate zone. Of all
Acacias, the Oriental Acacia julibrissin, which Forskal has con-
founded with Mimosa arborea, is that which supports the greatest
degree of cold. In the botanic garden of Padua there is in the
open air a tree of this species with a stem of considerable thickness,
although the mean temperature of Padua is below 1 0°. 5 Reaumur
(55°.6 Fahr.).

(») p. 240.— "Heaths."

In these physiognomic considerations we by no means comprise
under the name of Heaths the whole of the natural family of
EricaceaB, which on account of the similarity and analogy of the
floral parts includes Rhododendron, Befaria, Gaultheria, Escallonia,
&c. We confine ourselves to the highly accordant and character-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 325

istic form of the species of Erica, including Calluna (Erica) Vul-
garis, L., the common heather.

"While, in Europe, Erica carnea, E. tetralix, E. cinerea, and
Calluna vulgaris, cover large tracts of ground from the plains of
Germany, France, and England to the extremity of Norway, South
Africa offers the most varied assemblage of species. Only one
species which is indigenous in the Southern Hemisphere at the
Cape of Grood Hope, Erica umbellata, is found in the Northern
Hemisphere, i. e. in the north of Africa, in Spain, and Portugal.
Erica vagans and E. arborea also belong to the two opposite coasts
of the Mediterranean : the first is found in North Africa, near
Marseilles, in Sicily, Dalmatia, and even in England; the second
in Spain, Italy, Istria, and in the Canaries." (Klotzsch on the
G-eographical Distribution of species of Erica with persistent corol-
las, MSS.) The common heather, Calluna vulgaris, is a social
plant covering large tracts from the mouth of the Scheldt to the
western declivity of the Ural. Beyond the Ural, oaks and heaths
cease together : both are entirely wanting in the whole of Northern
Asia, and throughout Siberia to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Grmelin (Flora Sibirica, t. iv. p. 129) and Pallas (Flora Kossica,
t. i. pars 2, p. 53) have expressed their astonishment at this disap-
pearance of the Calluna vulgaris — a disappearance which, on the
eastern declivity of the Ural Mountains, is even more sudden and
decided than might be inferred from the expressions of the last-
named great naturalist. Pallas says merely : " Ultra Uralense jugum
sensim deficit, vix in Isetensibus campis rarissime apparet, et ulte-
riori Sibiriae plane deest." Chamisso, Adolph Erman, and Hein-
rich Kittlitz, have found Andromedas indeed in Kamtschatka, and
on the north-west coast of America, but no Calluna. The accurate
knowledge which we now possess of the mean temperature of several
parts of Northern Asia, as well as of the distribution of the annual
temperature into the different seasons of the year, affords no sort
of explanation of the cessation of heather to the east of the Ural
Mountains. Joseph Hooker, in a note to his Flora Antarctica, has
treated and contrasted with great sagacity and clearness two very
different phenomena which the distribution of plants presents to us :
on the one hand, " uniformity of surface accompanied by a similarity
28

326 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

of vegetation;" and on the other hand, " instances of a sudden
change in the vegetation unaccompanied by any diversity of geolo-
gical or other features." (Joseph Hooker, Botany of the Antarctic
Voyage of the Erebus and Terror, 1844, p. 210.) Is there any
species of Erica in Central Asia ? The plant spoken of by Saunders
in Turner's Travels to Thibet (Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxix. p. 86), as
having been found in the Highlands of Nepaul (together with other
European plants, Yaccinium myrtillus and V. oxycoccus), and de-
scribed by him as Erica vulgaris, is believed by Robert Brown to
have been an Andromeda, probably Andromeda fastigiata of Wal-
lich. No less striking is the absence of Calluna vulgaris, and of all
the species of Erica throughout all parts of the Continent of Ame-
rica, while the Calluna is found in the Azores and in Iceland. It
has not hitherto been seen in Greenland, but was discovered a few
years ago in Newfoundland. The natural family of the Ericaceae
is also almost entirely wanting in Australia, where it is replaced by
Epacridese. Linnaeus described only 102 species of the genus Erica;
according to Klotzsch's examination, this genus really contains, after
a careful exclusion of all mere varieties, 440 true species.

(») p. 241.—" The Cactus fo
If we take the natural family of the Opuntiaceae separated from
the Grrossulariaceae (the species of Ribes), and, viewed as it is by
Kunth (Handbuch der Botanik, s. 609), we may well regard it as
belonging exclusively to America. I am aware that Roxburgh, in
the Flora Indica (inedita), cites two species of Cactus as belonging
to South Eastern Asia; — Cactus indicus and C. chinensis. Both
are widely disseminated, and are found in a wild state (whether they
were originally wild or have become so), and are distinct from Cactus
opuntia and C. coccinellifer; but it is remarkable that the Indian
plant (Cactus indicus) has no ancient Sanscrit name. Cactus chinensis
has been introduced in St. Helena as a cultivated plant. Now that
a more general interest has at length been awakened on the subject
of the original distribution of plants, future investigation will dispel
the doubts which have been felt in several quarters respecting the
existence of true Asiatic Opuntiaceae. . In the animal kingdom par-
ticular forms are found to occur singly. Tapirs were long regarded

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 327

as a form exclusively characteristic of the New Continent; and yet the
American tapir has been found as it were repeated in that of Malacca
(Tapirus indicus, Cuv.).

Although the species of Cactus belong, generally speaking, more
properly to the tropical regions, yet some are indigenous in the tem-
perate zone, as on the Missouri and in Louisiana, Cactus missuriensis
and C. vivipara; and Back saw with astonishment the shores of
Rainy Lake, in north lat. 48° 40', covered with C. opuntia. South
of the Equator, the species of Cactus do not extend beyond the Rio
Itata, in lat. 36°, and the Rio Biobio, in lat. 37° 15'. In the
part of the Andes which is situated between the tropics, I have seen
species of Cactus (C. sepium, C. chlorocarpus, C. bonplandii) growing
on elevated plains nine or ten thousand (French) feet (about 9590
and 10,660 English) above the level of the sea; but a still more
alpine character is shown in latitudes belonging to the temperate
zone, in Chili, by the Opuntia ovallei, which has yellow flowers and
a creeping stem. The upper and lower limits beyond which this
plant does not extend have been accurately determined by barometric
measurement by the learned botanist Claude Gay : it has never been
found lower than 6330 French (6746 English) feet, and it reaches
and even passes the limits of perpetual snow, having been found on
uncovered masses of rock rising from amongst the snows. The
last small plants were collected on spots situated 12^820 French
(13,663 English) feet above the level of the sea. (Claudio Gay,
Flora Chilensis, 1848, p. 30.) Some species of Echino-cactus are
also true alpine plants in Chili. A counterpart to the fine-haired
Cactus senilis is found in the thick-wooled Cereus lanatus, called by
the natives Piscol, which has handsome red fruit. We found it in
Peru, near Guancabamba, when on our journey to the Amazons
River. The dimensions of the different kinds of Cactace93 (a group
on which the Prince of Salm-Dyck has been the first to throw great
light) offer great variety and contrasts. Echinocactus wislizeni,
which is 4 feet high and 7 feet in circumference (4 feet 3 inches
and 7 feet 5 inches English), is still only the third in size, being
surpassed by E. ingens (Zucc.) and by E. platyceras (Lem.).
(Wislizenus, Tour to Northern Mexico, 1848, p. 97.) The- Echino-
cactus stainesii reaches from 2 to 2 J feet diameter; E. visnago, from

328 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

Mexico, upwards of 4 English feet high, is above 3 English feet
diameter, and weighs from 700 to 2000 Ibs. : while Cactus nanus,
which we found near Sondorillo, in the province of Jaen, is so small
that, being only slightly rooted in the sand, it gets between the toes
of dogs. The Melocactuses, which are full of juice in the dryest
seasons like the Ravanela of Madagascar (forest-leaf in the language
of the country, from rave, raven, a leaf, and ala, the Javanese Jialas,
a forest), are vegetable fountains; and the manner in which the
horses and mules stamp them open with their hoofs, at the risk of
injury from the spines, has been already mentioned (vol. i. p. 19).
Since the last quarter of a century Cactus opuntia has extended
itself in a remarkable manner into Northern Africa, Syria, Greece,
and the whole of the South of Europe; even penetrating, in Africa,
from the coasts far into the interior of the country, and associating
itself with the indigenous plants.

When one has been accustomed to see Cactuses only in our hot-
houses, one is astonished at the degree of density and hardness which
the ligneous fibres attain in old cactus stems. The Indians know
that cactus wood is incorruptible, and excellent for oars and for the
thresholds of doors. There is hardly anything in vegetable physiog-
nomy which makes so singular and ineffaceable an impression on a
newly arrived person, as the sight of an arid plain thickly covered,
like those near Cumana, New Barcelona, and Coro, and in the pro-
vince of Jaen de Bracamoros, with columnar and candelabra-like
divided cactus stems.

(21) p. 24.—" Orckidese."

The almost animal shape of blossoms of Orchidese is particularly
striking in the celebrated Torito of South America (our Anguloa
grandiflora); in the Mosquito (our Restrepia antennifera) ; in the
Flor del Espiritu Santo (also an Anguloa, according to Florse Peru-
vianas Prodrom. p. 118, tab. 26) ; in the ant-like flower of the
Chiloglottis cornuta (Hooker, Flora antarctica, p. 69) ; in the Mex-
ican Bletia speciosa ; and in the highly curious host of our European
species of Ophrys: 0. muscifera, 0. apifera, O. aranifera, O. arach-
nites, ,&c. A predilection for this superbly flowering group of
plants has so increased, that the number cultivated in Europe by

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 329

the brothers Loddiges in 1848 has been estimated at 2360 species;
while in 1843 it was rather more than 1650, and in 1813 only 115.
What a rich mine of still unknown superb flowering Orchideae the
interior of Africa must contain, if it is well watered ! Lindley, in
his fine work, entitled " The Genera and Species of Orchideous
Plants," described in 1840 precisely 1980 species; at the end of the
year 1848 Klotzsch reckoned 3545 species.

While in the temperate and cold zones there are only "terrestrial"
Orchideae, i. e. growing on and close to the ground, tropical coun-
tries possess both forms, i. e. the " terrestrial" and the " parasitic,"
which grow on trunks of trees. To the first-named of these two
divisions belong the tropical genera Neottia, Cranichis, and most of
the Habenarias. We have also found both forms growing as alpine
plants on the slopes of the chain of the Andes of New Granada and
Quito : of the parasitical Orehideae (Epidendreae), Masdevallia uni-
flora (at 9600 French, or about 10,230 English feet) ; Cyrtochilum
flexuosum (at 9480 French, or about 10,100 English feet) ; and
Dendrobium aggregatum (8900 French, or about 9480 English
feet) : and of the terrestrial Orchideae, the Altensteinia paleacea,
near Lloa Chiquito, at the foot of the Volcano of Pichincha. Claude
Gay thinks that the Orchideae said to have been seen growing on
trees in the Island of Juan Fernandez, and even in Chiloe, were
probably in reality only parasitical Pourretias, which extend at least
as far south as 40° S. lat. In New Zealand, we find that the tropi-
cal form of Orchideae hanging from trees extends even to 45° S. lat.
The Orchideae of Auckland's and Campbell's Islands, however
(Chiloglottis, Thelymitra, and Acianthus), grow on the ground in
moss. In the animal kingdom, one tropical form at least advances
much farther to the south. In Macquarie Island, in lat. 54° 39',
nearer to the South Pole therefore than Dantsic is to the North
Pole, there is a native parrot. (See also the section Orchideae in
my work de Distrib. geogr. Plant., pp. 241-247.)

(33) p. 242.—" The Camarinese."

Acacias which have phyllodias instead of leaves, some Myrtaceae
(Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, Melaleuca, and Leptospermum), and
Casuarinas, give a uniform character to the vegetation of Australia

28*

330 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

and Tasmania (Van Dienien Island). Casuarinas with their leafless,
thin, string-like, articulated branches, having the joints provided
with membranous denticulated sheaths, have been compared by tra-
vellers, according to the particular species which fell under their
observation, either to arborescent Equisetacese (Horsetails) or to our
Scotch firs. (See Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 449.) Near
the coast of Peru the aspect of small thickets of Colletia and Ephedra
also produced on my mind a singular impression of leaflessness.
Casuarina quadrivalvis advances, according to Labillardiere, to 43°
S. lat. in Tasmania. The sad-looking Casuarina form is not un-
known in India and on the east coast of Africa.

(a*) p. 242. — " Needle-leaved trees."

The family of Coniferae holds so important a place by the number
of individuals, by their geographical distribution, and by the vast
tracts of country in the northern temperate zone covered with trees
of the same species living in society, that we are almost surprised at
the small number of species of which it consists — even including
members which belong to it in essential respects, but deviate from
it in a degree by the shape of their leaves and their manner of
growth (Dammara, Ephedra, and Gnetum, of Java and New Guinea).
The number of known Coniferae is not quite equal to three-fourths
of the number of described species of palms ; and there are more
known Aroideae than Coniferae. Zucearini, in his Beitragen zur
Morphologic der Coniferen (Abhandl. der mathem. physikal. Classe
der Akademie der Wiss. zu Miinchen, bd. iii. -s. 752, 1837-1843),
reckons 216 species, of which 165 belong to the Northern and 51 to
the Southern Hemisphere. Since my researches, these proportionate
numbers must be modified, as, including the species of Pinus, Ci*-
pressus, Ephedra, and Podocarpus, found by Bonpland and myself
in the tropical parts of Peru, Quito, New Granada, and Mexico, the
number of species between the tropics- rises to 42. The most recent
and excellent work of Endlicher, Synopsis Coniferarum, 1847, con-
tains 312 species now living, and 178 fossil species found in the
coal measures, the bunter-sandstone, the keuper, and the Jurassic
formations. The vegetation of the Ancient World offers to us more
particularly forms which, by their simultaneous affinity with several

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 331

different families of the present vegetable world, remind us that
many intermediate links have perished. Coniferse abounded in the
Ancient World : their remains, belonging to an early epoch, are found
especially in association with Palms and Cycadeae; but in the latest
beds of lignite we also find pines and firs associated as now with
Cupuliferse, maples, and poplars. (Cosmos, bd. i. s. 295—298, and
468-470; Engl. edit, pp. 271-274, and Ixxxix.)

If the earth's surface did not rise to considerable elevations within
the tropics, the highly characteristic form of needle-leaved trees
would be almost unknown to the inhabitants of the equatorial zone.
In common with Bonpland, I have labored much in the determina-
tion of the exact lower and upper limits of the region of Coniferse
and of oaks in the Mexican highlands. The heights at which both
begin to grow (los Finales y Encinales, Pineta et Quereeta) are
hailed with joy by those who come from the sea-coast, as indicating
a climate where, so far as experience has hitherto shown, the deadly
malady of the black vomit (Vomito prieto, a form of yellow fever)
does not reach. The lower limit of oaks, and more particularly of
the Quercus xalapensis (one of the 22 Mexican species of oak 'first
described by us), is on the road from Vera Cruz to the city of Mex-
ico, a little below the Venta del Encero, 2860 (3048 E.) feet above
the. sea. On the western side of the highlands between the city of
Mexico and the Pacific, the limit is rather lower down, for oaks be-
gin to be found near a hut called Venta de la Moxonera, between
Acapulco and Chilpanzingo, at an absolute elevation of 2328 (2480
E.) feet. I found a similar difference in the height of the lower
limit of pine woods on the two sides of the Continent. On the Pa-
cific side, in the Alto de los Caxones north of Quaxiniquilapa, we
found this limit for Pinus Montezumse (Lamb.), which we at first
took for Pinus occidentals (Swartz), at an elevation of 3480 (3709
E.) feet; while towards Vera Cruz, on the Cuesta del Soldado, pines
are first met with at a height of 5610 (5980 E.) feet. Therefore
both the kinds of trees spoken of above, oaks and pines, descend
lower on the side of the Pacific than they do on the side of the An-
tillean sea. In ascending the Cofre di Perote, I found the upper
limit of the oaks 9715 (10,354 E.) feet, and that of the Pinus Mon-
tezumse at 12,138 (12,936 E.) feet above the sea, or almost 2000

PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

(2132 E.) feet higher than the summit of Etna. Considerable
quantities of snow had fallen at this elevation in the month of Feb-
ruary.

The more considerable the heights at which the Mexican Coniferse
are first met with, the more striking it appears to find, in the Island
of Cuba (where, indeed, on the borders of the torrid zone, northern
breezes sometimes cool the atmosphere down to 6|° Reaumur, 46°
.6 Fah.), another species of pine (P. occidentalis of Swartz), growing
in the plains or on the low hills of the Isle de Pinos, intermixed with
palms and mahogany trees (Swietenias). Columbus mentions a
small pine wood (Pinal) in the journal of his first voyage (Diario
del 25 de Nov. 1492), near Cayo de Moya, on the north-east of the
Island of Cuba. In Hayti, also, Pinus occidentalis descends from
the mountains to the sea-shore, near Cape Samana. The trunks of
these Pines, carried by the Grulf Stream jbo the Islands of Graciosa
and Fayal in the Azores, were among the chief indications from
which the great discoverer inferred the existence of unknown lands
to the West. (See my Examen crit., t. ii. p. 246 — 259.) Is -it
true that in Jamaica, notwithstanding the height of its mountains,
Pinus occidentalis is entirely wanting ? We may also ask what is
the species of Pinus found on the Eastern coast of Gautimala, as P.
tenuifolia (Benth.) probably belongs only to the mountains near
Chinanta ?

If we cast a general glance on the species which form the upper
limits of arborescent vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere, from
the frigid zone to the Equator, we find, beginning with Lapland,
that, according to Wahlenberg, on the Sulitelma Mountain (lat.
68°) it is not needle-trees which form the upper limit, but that
birches (Betula alba) extend much higher up than Pinus sylves-
tris; — whilst in the . temperate zone, in the Alps (lat. 45f°), Pinus
picea (Du Roi) advances highest, leaving the birches behind ; and in
the Pyrenees (lat. 42 £°), Pinus uncinata (Ram.) and P. sylvestris
var. rubra: within the tropics, in lat. 19° — .20°, in Mexico, Pinus
Montezumse leaves far behind Alnus toluccensis, Quercus spicata, and
Q. crassipes; while in the snow mountains of Quito at the Equator,
Escallonia myrtilloides, Aralia avicennifolia, and Drymis winteri,
take the lead. The last-named tree, which is identical with Dry-
mis granatensis (Mut.) and Wintera aromatica (Murray), presents,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 333

as Joseph Hooker has shown (Flora Antarctica, p. 229), the strik-
ing example of the uninterrupted extension of the same species of
tree from the most southern part of Tierra del Fuego and Hermit
Island, where it was discovered by Drake's Expedition in 1577, to
the northern highlands of Mexico; or through a range of 86 degrees
of latitude, or 5160 geographical miles. Where it is not birches
(as in the far North), but needle-trees (as in the Swiss Alps and the
Pyrenees), which form the limit of arborescent vegetation on the
highest mountains, we find above them, still nearer to the snowy
summits which they gracefully enwreath with their bright garlands,
in Europe and Western Asia, the Alp roses, the Rhododendra, —
which are replaced on the Silla de Caracas and in the Peruvian
Paramo de Saraguru by the purple flowers of another genus of Eri-
caceae, the beautiful race of Befarias. In Lapland, the needle-trees
are immediately followed by Rhododendron laponicum; in the Swiss
Alps by Rhododendron ferrugineum and R. hirsutum; in the Pyre-
nees by the R. ferrugineum only; and in the Caucasus by R. cau-
casicum. Decandolle found the Rhododendron ferrugineum growing
singly in the Jura (in the Creux de Vent), at the moderate altitude
of 3100 to 3500 (3304 to 3730 E.) feet, 5600 (5968 E.) feet lower
down than its proper elevation. If we desire to trace the last zone
of vegetation nearest to the snow line in the tropics, we must name,
from our own observations, in the Mexican part of the tropical zone,
Cnicus nivalis and Chelone gentianoides ; in the cold mountain
regions of New Granada, the woolly Espeletia grandiflora, E. corym-
bosa and E. argentea; and in the Andes of Quito, Culcitium rufes-
cens, C. ledifolium, and C. nivale, — yellow flowering Composite,
which replace in the last-named mountains the somewhat more
northerly Espeletias of New Granada, to which they bear a strong
physiognomic resemblance. This replacement, the repetition of re-
sembling or almost similar forms, in countries separated either by
seas or by extensive tracts of land, is a wonderful law of nature
which appears to prevail even in regard to some of the rarest forms
of vegetation. In Robert Brown's family of .the Rafflesiese, sepa-
rated from the Cytinese, the two Hydnoras described by Thunberg
and Drege in South Africa (H. africana and H. triceps) have their
counterpart in South America in Hydnora americana (Hooker).": "->-

334 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

Far above the region of Alpine plants, grasses, and lichens, and
even above the limit of perpetual snow, the botanist sees with as-
tonishment, both in the temperate and tropical zones, isolated
phaenogamous plants occur now and then sporadically on rocks
which remain free from the general surrounding snowy covering,
and which may possibly be warmed by heat ascending through open
fissures. I have already spoken of the Saxifraga boussingaulti,
which is found on the Chimborazo at an elevation of 14,800 (15,773
E.) feet; in the Swiss Alps, Silene acaulis has been seen at a height
of 10,680 (11,380 E.) feet, being in the first-named case 600 (640
E.) feet, and in the second 2460 (2620 E.) feet above the limit of
the snows, that limit being taken as it was in the two cases respect-
ively at the time when the plants were found.

In our European Coniferae, the Red and White Pine show great
and remarkable differences in respect to their distribution. While
in the Swiss Alps the Red Pine (Pinus picea, Du Roi, foliis com-
presso — tetragonis; unfortunately called by Linnaeus, and by most
of the botanists of the present day, Pinus abies!) forms the upper
limit of arborescent vegetation at a mean height of 5520 (5883
English) feet, only an occasional low-growing mountain-alder (Alnus
viridis, Dec., Betula viridis, Vill.) advancing now and then still nearer
to the snow-line; the White Pine (Pinus abies, Du Roi, Pinus picea,
Linn., foliis planis, pectinato-distichis, emarginatis) ceases, according
to Wahlenberg, more than a thousand feet lower down. The Red
Pine does not appear at all in the South of Europe, in Spain, the
Apennines, and Greece; even on the northern slope of the Pyre-
nees it is seen only, as Ramond remarks, at great elevations, and is
entirely wanting in the Caucasus. The Red Pine advances in Scan-
dinavia farther to the north than the White Pine, of which last-
named tree there is in Greece (on Mounts Parnassus, Taygetus, and
(Eta) a long, needled variety (foliis apice integris, breviter mucrona-
tis), the Abies Apollinis of Link. (Linnaea, bd. xv. 1841, s. 529;
and Endlicher, Synopsis Coniferarum, p. 96.)

On the Himalaya, the Coniferae are distinguished by the great
thickness and height of their trunks, and by the length of their
leaves. The Deodwara Cedar, Pinus deodara (Roxb.) — (properly,
in Sanscrit, dewa-d^ru, timber of the Gods) — which is from 12 to

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 335

13 \ feet thick, is the great ornament of the mountains. It grows
in Nepaul to 11,000 (11,720 E.) feet above the level of the sea.
More than 2000 years ago, the Deodara supplied the materials for
the fleet of Nearchus on the Hydaspes (the present Behut). In the
valley of Dudegaon, north of the copper mines of Dhunpour in
Nepaul, Dr. Hoffmeister, so early lost to science, found the Pinus
longifolia of Royle (the Tschelu Pine) growing among tall stems of
the Chamserops martiana of Wallich. (Hoffmeister' s Briefe aus
Indien wahrend der Expedition des Prinzen Waldemar von Preussen,
1847, s. 351.) Such an intermixture of pineta and palmata had
excited the surprise of the companions of Columbus in the New Con-
tinent, as a friend and cotemporary of the Admiral, Petrus Martyr
Anghiera, has informed us. (Dec. iii. lib. 10, p. 68.) I saw myself
this intermixture of pines and palms for the first time on the road
from Acapulco to Chilpanzingo. The Himalaya, like the Mexican
highlands, has, besides Pines and Cedars, also the forms of Cypresses
(Cupressus torulosa, Don.), of Yews (Taxus wallichiana, Zuccar.), of
Podocarpus (P. nereifolia, Robert Brown), and of Juniper ( Juniperus
squamata-, Don., and J. excelsa, Bieberst ; Juniperus excelsa is also
found at Schipke in Thibet, in Asia Minor, in Syria, and in the
Greek Islands). Thuja, Taxodium, Larix, and Araucaria, are forms
found in the New Continent, but wanting in the Himalaya.

Besides the 20 species of Pines which we already know from
Mexico, the United States of North America, which in their present
extent reach to the Shores of the Pacific, have 45 described species,
while Europe has only 15. There is a similar difference in respect
to Oaks : i. e. greater variety of forms in the New Continent which
extends continuously through a greater extent of latitude. The re-
cent very exact researches of Siebold and Zuccarini have, however,
completely refuted the previous belief, that many European species
of Pines extend also across the whole of Northern Asia to the Islands
of Japan, and even grow there, interspersed, as Thunberg has stated,
with genuine Mexican species, the Weymouth Pine, Pinus Strobus
of Linnaeus. What Thunberg took for European Pines are wholly
different and distinct species. Thunberg' s Red Pine (Pinus abies,
Linn.) is P. polita, (Sieb.) and is often planted near Buddhistic
temples; his common Scotch Fir (Pinus sylvestris) is P. Massoniana

336 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

(Lamb.) ; his P. cembra (the G-erman and Siberian pine with eatable
seeds) is P. parviflora (Sieb.) ; his common Larch (P. larix) is P.
leptolepis (Sieb.); and his supposed Taxus baccata, the fruits of
which are eaten by Japanese courtiers in case of long-protracted court
ceremonials (Thunberg, Flora Japonica, p. 275), constitutes a dis-
tinct genus, and is the Cephalotaxus drupacea of Siebold. The
Islands of Japan, notwithstanding the vicinity of the Continent of
Asia, have a very distinct character of vegetation. Thunberg's sup-
posed Japanese Weymouth Pine (Pinus Strobus), which would offer
an important phenomenon, is only a planted tree, and is besides quite
distinct from the American species of Pine. It is Pinus korajensis
(Sieb.), and has been brought to Nipon from the peninsula of Corea,
and from Kamtschatka.

Of the 114 species of the Genus Pinus with which we are at pre-
sent acquainted, not one belongs to the Southern Hemisphere, for
the Pinus merkusii described by Junghuhn and De Vriese belongs
to the part of the Island of Sumatra which is north of the Equator,
to the district of the Battas ; and Pinus insularis (Endl.) although
it was at first given in London's Arboretum as P. timoriensis, really
belongs to the Philippines. Besides the Genus Pinus, the Southern
Hemisphere, according to the present state of our now happily ad-
vancing knowledge of the geography of plants, is entirely without
species of Cupressus, Salisburia (Gingko), Cunninghamia (Pinus
lanceolata, Lamb). Thuja (one of the species of which, Th. gigantea,
Nutt. found on the banks of the Columbia, has a height of above
180 Eng. feet), Juniperus, and Taxodium (MirbeFs Schubertia).
I include the last-named genus with the less hesitation, as a Cape of
Good Hope plant (Sprengel's Schubertia capensis) is no Taxodium,
but constitutes a genus of itself Widringtonia (Endl.), in quite a dif-
ferent division of the family of Coniferse.

This absence, from the Southern Hemisphere, of true Abietinese,
JuniperineaB, Cupressinese, and all the TaxodineaD, as well as of
Torreya, Salisburia adiantifolia, and Cephalotaxus from among the
Taxinese, recalls forcibly the obscurity which still prevails in the
conditions which have determined the original distribution of vege-
table forms, a distribution which cannot be sufficiently and satisfac-
torily explained solely by similarity or diversity of soil, thermic re-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 387

lations, or meteorological phenomena. I remarked long ago that the
Southern Hemisphere for example has many plants belonging to the
natural family of Rosacese, but not a single species .of the genus
Rosa. We learn from Claude Gay that the Rosa chilensis described ]
by Meyen is only a wild variety of the Rosa centifolia (Linn.), which
has been for thousands of years a European plant. Such wild va- '
rieties (i..e. varieties which have become wild) occupy large tracts
of ground in Chili, near Valdivia andOsorno. (Gray, Flora Chilen-
sis, p. 340.)

In the tropical region of the Northern Hemisphere, we also found
only one single native rose, our Rosa montezumse, in the Mexican
highlands near Moran, at an elevation of 8760 (9336 Engl.) feet.
It is one of the singular phenomena in the distribution of plants,
that Chili, which has Palms, Pourretias, and . many species of Cac-
tus, has no Agave ; although A. americana grows luxuriantly in
Roussillon, near Nice, near Botzen, and in Istria, having probably
been introduced from the New Continent since the end of the 16th
century, and in America itself forms a continuous tract of vegeta-
tion from Northern Mexico across the Isthmus of Panama to the
southern part of Peru. I have long believed that Calceolarias were
limited, like Roses, exclusively to one side of the Equator ; of the
22 species which we brought back with us, not one was collected to
the north of Quito and the Volcano of Pichincha ; but my friend
Professor Kunth remarks that Calceolaria perfoliata, which Bous-
singault and Captain Hall found at Quito, advances to New Gra-
nada, and that this species, as well as C. integrifolia of Santa Fe de
Bogota, were given by Mutis to the great Linnaeus.

The species of Pinus, which are so frequent in the tropical An-
tilles and in the tropical mountains of Mexico, do not pass the
Isthmus of Panama, and are not found in the equally mountainous
parts of the tropical portion of South America, and in the high
plains of New Granada, Pasto, and Quito. I have been both in
the plains and on the mountains from the Rio Sinu, near the Isth-
mus of Panama, to 12° S. lat. ; and in this tract of almost 1600
geographical miles the only forms of needle-trees which I saw
were a Taxus-like species of Podocarpus with stems 60 (64 Eng.)
feet high (Podocarpus taxifolia), growing in the Pass of Quindiu
29

338 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

and in the Paramo de Saraguru, in 4° 26' north, and 3° 40' south
latitude ; and an Ephedra (E. ainericana) near Guallabamba, north
of Quito.

Among the Coniferae, there are common to the Northern and
Southern Hemispheres the genera Taxus, Gnetum, Ephedra, and
Podocarpus. The last-named genus was distinguished from Pinus
long before L'Heritier by Columbus himself, who wrote on the
25th of November, 1492 : " Pinales en la Serrania de Haiti que
no llevan pinas, pero frutos que parecen azeytunos del Axarafe de
Sevilla." (See my Examen Grit., t. iii. p. 24.) There are species
of Taxus from the Cape of Good Hope to 61° N. lat. in Scandi-
navia, or through more than 95 degrees of latitude ] Podocarpus
and Ephedra extend almost as far. In Cupuliferge, the species of
oak which we are accustomed to regard as a northern form do not
indeed pass beyond the Equator in South America ; but in the Indian
Archipelago they re-appear in the Southern Hemisphere in the
Island of Java. To the Southern Hemisphere belong exclusively
ten genera of Coniferse, of which I will name here only the princi-
pal : Araucaria, Dammara (Agathis Sal.), Frenela (with eighteen
New Holland species), Dacrydium and Lybocedrus, which is found
both in New Zealand and at the Straits of Magellan. New Zea-
land has one species of the genus Dammara (D. australis) and no
Araucaria. In New Holland in singular contrast the case is oppo-
site.

Among tree vegetation, it is in the form of needle-trees that
Nature presents to us the greatest extension in length (longitudinal
axis) : I say among tree vegetation, because, as we have already
remarked, among oceanic Algse, Macrocystis pyrifera, which is
found between the coast of California and 68° S. lat., often attains
from 370 to 400 (about 400 to 430 Eng.) feet in length. Of
Coniferaei (setting aside the six Araucarias of Brazil, Chili, New
Holland, Norfolk Island, and New Caledonia), the loftiest are those
which belong to the northern temperate zone. As in the family
of Palms we found the most gigantic, the Ceroxylon andicola,
above 180 French (192 English) feet high, in the temperate
mountain climate of the Andes, so the loftiest Coniferse belong,
in the Northern Hemisphere, to the temperate north-west coast of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 339

America and to the Rocky Mountains (lat. 40°-52°); and in the
Southern Hemisphere to New Zealand, Tasmania or Van Diemen
Island, the south of Chili and Patagonia (between 43° and 50°
latitude). The most gigantic forms belong to the genera of Pinus,
Sequoia (Endl.), Araucaria, and Dacrydium. I propose to name
only those species which not only attain but often exceed 200
French feet (213 Eng.). In order to afford a standard of compari-
son, it should be remarked that in Europe the tallest Red and
White Pines, the latter especially, attain about 150 or 160 (160-
170 Eng.) feet; that, for example, in Silesia the Pine of the
Lampersdorf Forest near Frankenstein enjoys great celebrity, al-
though, with a circumference of 17 English feet, its height is only
153 Prussian, or 148 French, or 158 English feet. (Compare
Ratzeburg, Forstreisen, 1844, s. 287.)

Pinus grandis (Douglas), in New California, attains 224 English
feet.

Pinus fremontiana (Endl.), also in New California, probably
attains the same stature as the preceding. (Torrey and Fremont,
Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, in
1844, p. 319.)

Dacrydium cupressinum (Solander), from New Zealand, 213
English feet.

Pinus lambertiana (Dougl.), in North-west America, 224—235
English feet.

Araucaria excelsa (R. Brown), the Cupressus columnaris of
Forster, in Norfolk Island, and the surrounding rocky islets, 181-
224 English feet. The six species of Araucaria which have be-
come known to us hitherto, fall, according to Endlicher, into two
groups :—

a. The American group (Brazil and Chili) : A. brasiliensis
(Rich.), between 15° and 25° S. lat.; and A. imbricata (Pavon),
between 35° and 50° S. lat., the latter growing to 234-260
English feet.

b. The Australian group : A. bidwilli (Hook.) and A cunning-
hami (Ait.) on the east side of New Holland; A. excelsa on Norfolk
Island, and A. cookii (R. Brown) in New Caledonia. Corda, Presl.

340 PHYSIOGNOMY OF .PLANTS.

G-oppert, and Endlicher have already discovered five species of
Araucarias belonging to the Ancient World in the lias, in chalk, and
in beds of lignite (Endlicher, Coniferse fossiles, p. 301.)

Pinus Douglasii (Sabine), in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains
and on the banks of the Columbia River (north lat. 43°— 52°).
The meritorious Scotch botanist from whom this tree is named
perished in 1833 by a dreadful death in collecting plants in the
Sandwich Islands, where he had arrived from New California. He
fell inadvertently into a pit in which a fierce bull belonging to
the cattle which have become wild, had previously fallen, and was
gored and trampled to death. By exact measurement a stem of
Pinus Douglasii was 57 J English feet in girth at 3 feet above the
ground, and its height was 245 English feet. (See Journal of the
Royal Institution, 1826, p. 325.)

Pinus trigona (Rafinesque), on the western declivity of the Rocky
Mountains, described in Lewis and Clarke's Travels to the Source
of the Missouri River -and across the American Continent to the
Pacific Ocean. (1804-1806), 1814, p. 456. This gigantic Eir
was measured with great care; the trunks were often 38 to 45
English feet in girth, 6 feet above the ground : one tree was 300
English feet high, and the first 192 feet were without any division
into branches.

Pinus Strobus grows in the eastern parts of the United States of
North America, especially on the east of the Mississippi ; but it is
found again in the Rocky Mountains from the sources of the
Columbia to Mount Hood, or from 43° to 54° N. lat. It is called
in Europe the Weymouth Pine, and in North America the White
Pine; its ordinary height does not exceed 160 to 192 Eng. feet,
but several trees of 250 to 266 Eng. feet have been seen in New
Hampshire. (Dwight, Travels, vol. i. p. 36; and Emerson's
Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing, naturally in the Forests
of Massachusetts, 1846, pp. 60-66.)

Sequoia gigantea (Endl.), Condylocarpus (Sal.), from New Cali-
fornia ; like Pinus trigona, about 300 English feet high.

The nature of the soil, and the circumstances of heat and moisture
on which the nourishment of plants depends, no doubt influence the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 341

degree to which they flourish, and the increase in the number of
individuals in a species ; but the gigantic height attained by the
trunks of a few among the many other nearly allied species of the
same genus, depends not on soil or climate ; but, in the vegetable
as well as in the animal kingdom, on a specific organization and
inherent natural disposition. I will cite, as the greatest contrast to
the Araucaria imbricata of Chili, the Pinus Douglasii of the
Columbia Eiver, and the Sequoia gigantea of New California, which
is from 245 to 300 Eng. feet .in height, not a plant taken from
among a vegetation stunted by cold either of latitude or elevation
as is the case with the small Willow-tree, two inches in height
(Salix arctica) ; but a small phaonogamous plant belonging to the
fine climate of the southern tropic in the Brazilian province of
Goyaz. The moss-like Tristicha hypnoides, from the monocotyle-
donous family of the Podostemese, hardly reaches the height of 3
lines (^ths, or less than three-tenths of an English inch). "En
traversant le Rio Claro dans la Province de Goyaz," says an excel-
lent observer, Auguste de St.-Hilaire, "j'apercus sur une pierre une
plante dont la tige n'avoit pas plus de trois lignes de haut et que
je pris d'abord pour une mousse. C'e"toit cependant une plante
phanerogame, le Tristicha hypnoides, pourvue d'organes sexuels
comme nos chenes et les arbres gigantesques qui a Pentour elevaient
leur cimes majestueuses." (Auguste de St.-Hilaire, Morphologic
Vegetable, 1840, p. 98.)

Besides the height of their stems, the length, breadth, and posi-
tion of the leaves and fruit, the form of the ramification aspiring or
horizontal, and spreading out like a canopy or umbrella — the gra-
dations of color, from a fresh green or silvery gray to a blackish-
brown, all give to Coniferae a peculiar physiognomy and character.
The needles of Douglas's Pinus lambertiana from North-west
America are five French inches long; those of Pinus excelsa of
Wallich, on the southern^ declivity of the Himalaya, near Kat-
mandoo, seven French inches; and those of P. longifolia (Roxb.),
from the mountains of Kashmeer, above a French foot long. In
one and the same species the length of the leaves or needles varies
in the most striking manner, from the influence of soil, air, and
elevation above the level of the sea. In travelling in an east and west

29*

342 .PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

direction through eighty degrees of longitude (above 3040 geogra-
phical miles), from the mouth of the Scheldt through Europe and
the north of Asia to Bogoslowsk in the northern Ural and Barnaul
beyond the Obi, I have found differences in the length of the needles
of our common Fir (Pinus sylvestris) so great, that sometimes a tra-
veller may be misled, by the shortness and rigidity of the leaves, to
think that he has discovered a new species allied to the Mountain
Pine, P. rotundata (Link), P. uncinata (Ram.). Link has justly
remarked (Linnsea, bd. xv. 1841, s. 489) that such instances may
be regarded as transitions to Ledebour's P. sibirica of the Altai.

,In the Mexican highlands, I have looked with particular pleasure
on the delicate cheerful green of the Ahuahuete, Taxodium dis-
tichum (Rich.), Cupressus disticha (Linn.), which, however, is
much given to shedding its leaves. In this tropical region, the
above-mentioned tree (of which the Aztec name signifies water-
drum, from ail, water, and Imeliueil, a drum, the trunk swelling to
a great thickness) nourishes 5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 Eng-
lish) feet above the level of the sea; while in the United States of
North America it is found in the low grounds of the cypress swamps
of Louisiana, in the 43d parallel. In the Southern States of North
America, the Taxodium distichum (Cypres chauve) reaches, as in the
Mexican highlands, the height of 120 (128 English) feet, and the
enormous thickness of 30 to 37 (32 to 39 English) feet, measured
near the ground. (Emerson, Report on the JForest, pp. 49 and
101.) The roots present the striking phenomenon of woody excres-
cences which project from 3 to 4£ feet above the earth, and are coni-
cal and rounded, and sometimes tabular. Travellers have compared
these excrescences in places where they are very numerous to the
grave tablets in a Jewish burying-ground. Auguste de St. Hilaire
remarks with much acuteness : \ <l CeS excroissances du Cypres
chauve, ressemblant a des bornes, peuvent etre regarde"es comme des
exostoses, et comme elles vivent dans 1'air, il s'en echapperoit sans
doute des bourgeons adventifs, si la nature . du tissu des plantes
coniferes , ne s'opposoit au de"veloppement des germes caches qui
donnent naissance a ces sortes de bourgeons." (Morphologic v£ge-
table, p. 91.) A singularly enduring power of vitality in the roots of
trees of this family is shown by a phenomenon which has excited the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 343

attention of vegetable physiologists/ and appears to be of only very
rare occurrence in other dicotyledonous trees. The remaining
stumps of White Pines which have been cut down continue for
several years to make fresh layers of wood, and to increase in thick-
ness, without putting forth new shoots, leaves, or branches. Goppert
believes that this only takes place by means of root nourishment
received by the stump from a neighboring living tree of the same
species ; the roots of the living individual, which has branches and
leaves, having become organically united with those of the cut tree
by their having grown together. (Goppert, Beobachtungen iiber das
sogenannte Umwallen der Tannen-stocke, 1842, s. 12.) Kunth, in
his excellent new " Lehrbuch der Botanik," objects to this expla-
nation of a phenomenon which was known, imperfectly, so early
as Theophrastus. (Hist. Plant, lib. iii. cap. 7, pp. 59 and 60,
Schneider.) He considers the case to be analogous to what takes
place when metal-plates, nails, carved letters, and even the antlers of
stags, become enclosed in the wood of a growing tree. " The cam-
bium, i. e. the viscid secretion out of which new elementary organs
are constructed either of woody or cellular tissue, continues, without
reference to the buds (and quite apart from them), to deposit new
layers of wood on the outermost layer of the ligneous substance/'
(Th. t. s. 143 and 166.)

The relations which have been alluded to, between elevation above
the level of the sea and geographical and thermal latitude, manifest
themselves often when we compare the tree vegetation of the tropical
part of the chain of the Andes with the vegetation of the north-west
coast of America, or with that of the shores of the Canadian Lakes.
Darwin and Claude Gay have made the same remark in the Southern
Hemisphere, in advancing from the high plains of Chili to Eastern
Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, where they found Drymis winteri
and forests of Fagus antarctica and Fagus forsteri forming a uni-
form covering throughout long, continuous lines, running from north
to south, and descending to the low grounds. We find even in Eu-
rope small deviations (dependent on local causes which have -not yet
been sufficiently examined) from.the law of constant ratio as regards
stations or habitat of plants between elevation above the sea and
geographical latitude. I would recall the limits, in respect to oleva-

344 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS^.

tion, of the birdumd the common fir in a part of the Swiss Alps,
on the Grimsel. The fir (Pinus sylvestris) extends to 5940, and the
birch (Betula alba) to 6480 French (6330 and 6906 English) feet;
above the birches there is a higher line of Pinus cembra, whose
upper limit is 6890 (7343 English) feet. Here, therefore, we have
the birch intervening between two zones of Coniferae. Accord-
ing to the excellent observations of Leopold von Buch, and the re-
cent ones of Martins, who also visited Spitzbergen, the following
geographical limits were found in Lapland : , Pinus sylvestris extends
to 70°; Betula alba to 70° 40'; and Betula nana quite up to 71°;
Pinus cembra is altogether wanting in Lapland. (Compare linger
iiber den Einfluss des Bodens auf die Vertheilung der Gewachse,
s. 200 ; Lindblom, Adnot. in geographicam plantarum intra Sueciam
distributionem, p. 89; Martins, in the Annales des Sciences natu-
relles, t. xviii. 1842, p. 195.)

If the length and arrangement of the needle-shaped leaves go far
to determine the physiognomic character of Coniferse, this character
is still more influenced by the specific differences in the breadth of
the needles, and the degree of development of the parenchyma of
the appendicular organs. Several species of Ephedra may be called
almost leafless; but in Taxus, Araucaria, Dammara (Agathis), and
the Salisburia adiantifolia of Smith (Gringko biloba, Linn.), the sur-
faces of the leaves become gradually broader. I have here placed
the genera in morphological succession. The specific names first
chosen by botanists testify in favor of such a succession. The Dam-
mara orientalis of Borneo and Java, often above ten feet in diame-
ter, was first called loranthifolia ; and Dammara australis (Lamb.) of
New Zealand, which is 140 (149 English) feet high, was first called
zamsefolia. In both these species of trees the leaves are not needles,
but " folia alterna oblongo-lanceolata, opposita, in arbore adultiore
saepe alterna, enervia, striata." The under surface of the leaves is
thickly set with porous openings. This passage or transition of the
appendicular system from the greatest contraction to a broad-leaved
surface, like all progression from simple to compound, has at once a
morphological and a physiognomic interest (Link, Urwelt, th. i.
18B4, s. 201-211). The short-stalked, broad, cleft leaf of the
Salisburia (Kampfer's Gringko) has also its breathing pores only on

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 845

the under side of the leaf. The original native country of this tree
is unknown to us. By the connection and intercourse of Buddhistic
communities, it early passed from the temple-gardens of China to
those of Japan.

In travelling from a port on the Pacific to Mexico, on our way to
Europe, I witnessed the singular and painful impression which the
first sight of a pine forest near Chilpanzingo made on one of our
companions, who, born at Quito under the equinoctial line, had
never seen needle-trees, or trees with " folia acerosa." It seemed
to him as if the trees were leafless ; and he thought that, as we were
travelling towards the cold north, he already recognized, in this ex-
treme contraction of the vegetable organs, the chilling and impover-
ishing influence of the Pole. The traveller whose impressions I
here describe, whose name neither my friend Bonpland nor myself
can pronounce without regret, was Don Carlos Montufar (son of the
Marquis of Selvalegre), an excellent young man, whose noble and
ardent love of freedom led him, a few years later, in the war of inde-
pendence of the Spanish Colonies, to meet courageously a violent
death, of which the dishonor did not fall on him.

(«) p. 242.—" Tlie Pothos-form, Aroidese."
Caladium and Pothos are exclusively forms of the tropical world ;
the species of Arum belong more to the temperate zone. Arum
italicum, A. dracunculus, and A. tenuifolium, extend to Istria and
Friuli. No Pothos has yet been discovered in Africa. India has
some species of this genus (Pothos scandens and P. pinnata) which
are less beautiful in their physiognomy, and less luxuriant in their
growth, than the American species. We discovered a beautiful and
truly arborescent member of the group of Aroidese (Caladium arbo-
reum) having stems from 16 to 21 English feet high, not far from
the convent of Caripe, to the east of Cumanas. A very curious
Caladium (Culcasia scandens) has been discovered by Beauvois in
the kingdom of Benin. (Palisot de Beauvois, Flore d'Oware et de
Benin, t. i. 1804, p. 4, pi. iii.) In the Pothos-form the parenchyma
is sometimes so much extended that the surface of the leaf is inter-
rupted by holes as in Calla pertusa (Kuntji), and Dracontium pertu-
sum (Jacquin), which we collected in the woods round Cumana.

346 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

The Aroideae first led attention to the remarkable phenomenon of
the fever-heat, which in certain plants is sensible by the thermometer
during the development of their inflorescence, and which is con-
nected with a great and temporary increase of the absorption of
oxygen from the atmosphere. Lamarck remarked, in 1789, this
increase of temperature at the time of flowering in Arum italicum.
According to Hubert and Bory de St. Vincent, the vital heat of Arum
cordifolium in the Isle of France was found to rise to 35° and 39°
Reaumur (110°. 6 and 119°. 6 Fahr.), while the temperature of the
surrounding air was only 15°.2 R. (66°.2 F.). Even in Europe,
Becquerel and Breschet found as much as 17£° Reaumur difference
(39°. 4 Fahr.). Dutrochet remarked a paroxysm, an alternate de-
crease and increase of vital heat, which appeared to reach a double
maximum in the day. Theodore de Saussure observed analogous
augmentations of temperature, though to a less amount, only from
0°.5toO°.8 of Reaumur's scale (1°.15 to 1°.8 Fahr.), in plants,
belonging to other families ; for example, in Bignonia radicans and
Cucurbita pepo. In the latter plant, the use of a very sensitive
thermoscope shows that the increase of temperature is greater in the
male than in the female plant. Dutrochet, who previous to his
early death made such meritorious researches in physics and in vege-
table physiology, found, by means of thermo-magnetic multiplicators
(Comptes rendus de Hnstitut, t. viii. 1839, p. 454, t. ix. pp. 614
and 781), an increase of vital heat from 0°.l to 0°.3 Reaumur
(0°.25 to 0°.67 Fahr.) in several young plants (Euphorbia lathyris,
Lilium candidum, Papaver somniferum), and even among funguses
in several species of Agaricus and Lycoperdon. This vital heat dis-
appeared at night, but was not prevented by placing the plants in
the dark during the day-time.

A yet more striking physiognomic contrast than that of Casuari-
neae, Needle trees, and the almost leafless Peruvian Colletias, with
Aroideao, is presented by the comparison of those types of the
greatest contraction of the leafy organs with the Nymphaeaceae and
Nelumboneae. We find in these, as in the Aroideae, leaves, in which
the cellular tissue forming their surface is extended to an extreme
degree, supported on long, fleshy, succulent leaf-stalks ; as in Nym-
phaea alba ; N. lutea ; N. thermalis (once called N. lotus, from the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 347

hot spring of Pezce near Groswardein, in Hungary) ; the species of
Nelumbo ; Euryale amazonica of Poppig ; and the Victoria Regina
discovered in 1837 by Sir Robert Schomburgk in the River Berbice
in British Guiana, and which is allied to the prickly Euryale, al-
though, according to Lindley, a very different genus. The round
leaves of this magnificent water plant are six feet in diameter, and
are surrounded by turned up margins 3 to 5 inches high, light green
inside, and bright crimson outside. The agreeably perfumed flowers,
twenty or thirty blossoms of which may be seen at the same time
within a small space, are white and rose colored, 15 inches in dia-
meter, and have many hundred petals. (Rob. Schomburgk, Reisen
in Guiana und am Orinoko, 1841, s. 233.) Poppig also gives to
the leaves of his Euryale amazonica which he found near Tefe, as
much as 5 feet 8 inches French, or 6 English feet, diameter. (Pop-
pig, Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazonenstrome, bd. ii.
1836, s. 432.) If Euryale and Victoria are the genera which pre-
sent the greatest extension in all dimensions of the parenchyma of
the IcaveSj the greatest known dimensions of a, flower belong to a
parasitical Cytinea, the Rafflesia Arnoldi (R. Brown), discovered by
Dr. Arnold in Sumatra, in 1818 : it has a stemless flower of three
English feet diameter, surrounded by large leaf-like scales. Fungus-
like, it has an animal smell, resembling beef.

(25) p. 243. — " LianeSj rope-plants, (' Busli ropes;' in Spanish,
Vejuccos"^)

According to Kunth's division of the Bauhinieae, the true genus
Bauhinia belongs to the New Continent : the African Bauhinia, B.
rufescens (Lam.), is a Pauletia (Cav.), a genus of which we found
some new species in South America. So also the Banisterias, from
among the Malpighiaceas, are properly an American form ; although'
two species are natives of India, and one species, Banisteria leona,
described by Cavanilles, is a native of Western Africa. Within the
tropics and in the Southern Hemisphere, we find among the most
different families of plants the twining rope-like climbers which in
those regions render the forests at once so impenetrable to man, and
on the other hand so accessible and habitable to the QuadrumanaD
(or Monkeys), and to the Cercoleptes and the small tiger-cats. The

348 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

rapid ascent to the tops of lofty trees, the passage fronTtree to tree,
and even the crossing of streams by whole herds or troops of gre-
garious animals, are all greatly facilitated by these twining plants or
Lianes.

In the South of Europe and in North America, Hops from among
the Urticeee, and the species of Vitis from among the Ampelideae,
belong to the class of twining climbers, and between the tropics we
find climbing Grasses or Grraminese. We have seen, in the plains of
Bogota, in the pass of Quindiu, in the Andes, and in the Quina-
producing forests of Loxa, a Bambusacea allied to Nastus, our Chus-
quea scandens, twine round massive and lofty trunks of trees adorned
at the same time with flowering Orchidese. T^he Bambusa scandens
(Tjankorreh), which Blume found in Java, belongs probably either
to the genus Nastus or to that of Chusquea, the Carrizo of the Span-
ish settlers. Twining plants appear to me to be entirely absent in
the Pine-woods of Mexico; but in New Zealand, besides the Ripogo-
num parviflorum of Robert Brown (a climber belonging to the Smi-
lacese which renders the forests almost impenetrable), the sweet-
smelling Freycinetia Banksii, which belongs to the Pandanese^ twines
round a gigantic Podocarpus 220 English feet high, the P. dacry-
oides (Rich), called in the native language Kakikatea. (Diefienbach,
Travels in New Zealand, 1843, vol. i. p. 426.)

With climbing GrraminesB and Pandaneae are contrasted by their
beautiful and many-colored blossoms the Passifloras (among which,
however, we even found an arborescent, self-supporting species, Pas-
siflora glauca, growing in the Andes of Popayan, at an elevation of
9840 French (10,487 English) feet; the Bignoniaceae, Mutisias,
Alstrb'merias, Urvillese, and Aristolochias. Among the latter, our
Aristolochia cordata has a crimson-colored flower of 17 English
inches diameter ! "flares gigantei, pueris mitrae instar inservientes."
Many of these twining plants have a peculiar physiognomy and ap-
pearance, produced by the square shape of their stems, by flattenings
not caused by any external pressure, and by riband-like wavings to
and fro. Cross sections of Bignonias and Banisterias show cruciform
or mosaic figures produced by the mutual pressure and interpenetra-
tion of the stems which twine around each other. (See very accu-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 349

rate drawings in Adrien de Jussieu's Cours de Botanique, pp. 77-79,
fig, 105-108.)

(26)p. 243.—" The form of Aloes."

To this group of plants, characterized by so great a similarity of
physiognomy, belong : Yucca aloifolia, which extends as far north
as Florida and South Carolina; Y. angustifolia (Nutt.), which ad-
vances as far as the banks of the Missouri ; Aletris arborea ; the
Dragon-tree of the Canaries and two other Draecaenas from New
Zealand; arborescent Euphorbias; Aloe dichotoma (Linn.) (form-
erly the genus Rhipidodendrum of Willdenow); and the cele-
brated Koker-boom of Southern Africa, with a trunk twenty-one
feet high and above four feet thick, and a top of 400 (426 English)
feet in circumference. (Patterson, Reisen in das Land der Hotten-
totten und der Kaffern, 1790, s. 55.) The forms which I have thus
brought together belong to very x different families : to the Liliaceae,
Asphodeleae, Pandaneae, Amaryllideae, and Euphorbiaceae ; all, how-
ever, with the exception of the last, belonging to the great division
of the Monocotyledones. A Pandanea, Phytelephas macrocarpa
(Ruiz), which we found in New Granada on the banks of the Mag-
dalena, with its pinnated leaves, quite resembles in appearance a
small palm-tree. This Phytelephas, of which the Indian name is
Tagua, is besides, as Kunth remarks, the only one of the Pandaneae
found (according to our present knowledge) in the New Continent.
The singular Agave-like and at the same time very tall-stemmed
Doryanthes excelsa of New South Wales, which was first described
by the acutely observing Correa de Serra, is an Amaryllidea, like
our low-growing Narcissuses and Jonquils.

In the Candelabra shape of plants of the Aloe form, we must not
confound the branches of an arborescent stem with flower-stalks. It
is the latter which in the American Aloe (Agave Americana, Maguey
de Cocuyza, which is entirely wanting in Chili) as well as in the
Yucca acaulis (Maguey de Cocuy) presents in the rapid and gigantic
development of the inflorescence, a candelabrum-like arrangement of
the flowers which, as is well known, is but too transient a phenom-
enon. In some arborescent Euphorbias, on the other hand, the
physiognomic effect is given by the branches and their division, or
30

350 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

by ramification properly so called. Lichtenstein, in his " Reisen im
siidlichen Africa" (th. i. s. 370), gives a Vivid description of the im-
pression made upon him by the appearance of a Euphorbia officinar-
um which he found in the " Chamtoos Rivier," in the Colony of the
Cape of Good Hope ; the form of the tree was so symmetrical that
the candelabrum-like arrangement was regularly repeated on a
smaller scale in each of the subdivisions of the larger branches, up
to 32 English feet high. All the branches were armed with sharp
spines.

Palms, Yuccas, Aloes, tall-stemmed Ferns, some Aralias, and the
Theophrasta where I have seen it growing luxuriantly, different as
they are in the structure of their flowers, yet offer to the eye in the
nakedness (absence of branches) of their stems, and in the orna-
mental character of their tops or crowns, a certain degree of physiog-
nomic resemblance.

The Melanoselinum decipiens (Hofm.), which is sometimes up-
wards of 10 or 12 feet high, and which has been introduced into
our gardens from Madeira, belongs to a peculiar group of arborescent
umbelliferous plants, to which Araliacese are otherwise allied, and
with which other plants, which will doubtless be discovered in course
of time, will be associated. Ferula, Heracleum, and Thapsia, do
indeed attain a considerable height, but they are still herbaceous
plants. Melanoselinum is still almost entirely alone as an umbel-
liferous tree ; Bupleurum (Tenonia) fruticosum (Linn.) of the shores
of the Mediterranean ; Bubon galbanum of the Cape, and Crithmum
maritimum of our sea-shores, are only shrubs. On the other hand,
the tropical zone, in which, according to the old and very just re-
mark of Adanson, UmbeUiferaB and Cruciferaa are almost entirely
wanting in the plains, presented to us on the high ridges of the
American Andes, the smallest and most dwarf-like of all umbel-
liferous plants. Among 38 species of plants which we collected at
elevations where the mean temperature is below 10° Reaumur
(54°. 5 Fah.), there vegetate almost like mosses, and as if they made
part of the rock and of the often frozen earth, at an elevation of
12,600 (13,430 English) feet above the level of the sea, Myrrhis an-
dicola, Fragosa arctio'ides, and Pectophyturn pedunculare, intermin-
gled with which there is an equally dwarfed Alpine Draba. The

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 351

only umbelliferous plants growing in the low grounds within the
tropics, observed by us in the New Continent, were two species of
Hydrocotyle (H. umbellata and H. leptostachya) between Havan-
nah and Batabano ; therefore at the extreme limits of the torrid zone.

(*9 p. 243.—" The form of Gramineae."

The group of arborescent grasses which Kunth, in his able treatise
on the plants collected by Bonpland and myself, has combined under
the name of Bambusacese, is among the most beautiful adornments
of the tropical world. (Bambu, also called Mambu, is a word in
the Malay language, but appears according to Buschmann to be of
doubtful origin, as the usual Malay expression is buluh, in Java and
Madagascar wuluh, voulu.) The number of genera and species
which form this group has been extraordinarily augmented by the
zeal of botanists. It is now recognized that the genus Bambusa is
entirely wanting in the New Continent, to which on the other hand
Gruadua, from 50 to 60 French or about 53 to 64 English feet high,
discovered by us, and Chusquea, exclusively belong; that Arundin-
aria (Rich) is common to both continents, although the species are
different; that Bambusa and Beesha (Rheed.) are found in India
and the Indian Archipelago, and Nastus in the Island of Bourbon,
and in Madagascar. With the exception of the tall-climbing Chus-
quea, the forms which have been named may be said to replace each
other morphologically, in the different parts of the world. In the
Northern Hemisphere, inthe valley of the Mississippi, the traveller is
gratified, long before reaching the tropics, with the sight of a form
of bamboo, the Arundinaria macrosperma, formerly called also
Miegia, and Ludolfia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Gray has dis-
covered a Bambusacea (a still undescribect species of Chusquea, 21
English feet high, which does not climb, but is arborescent and self-
supporting) growing in southern Chili, between the parallels of 37°
and 42° S. latitude; where, intermixed with Drymis chilensis, a
uniform forest covering of Fagus obliqua prevails.

While in India the Bambusa flowers so abundantly that in Mysore
and Orissa the seeds are mixed with honey and eaten like rice (Buch-
anan, Journey through Mysore, vol. ii. p. 341, and Stirling in the
Asiat. Res. vol. xv. p. 205), in South America the Gruadua flowers so

352 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

rarely, that in four years we were only twice able to procure blossoms ;
once on the unfrequented banks of the Cassiquiare (the arm which
connects the Orinoco with the Rio Negro and the Amazons River),
and once in the province of Popayan between Buga and Quilichao. It
is striking to see plants in particular localities grow with the greatest
vigor without producing flowers : it is thus with European Olive-trees,
which have been planted for centuries between the tropics near Quito,
9000 (about 9590 English) feet above the level of the sea, and also
in the Isle of France, with Walnut-trees, Hazel-nuts, and, as at Quito,
Olive-trees (Olea europea) : see Bojer, Hortus Mauritianus, 1837, p.
291.

As some of the Bambusaceae (arborescent grasses) advance into
the temperate zone, so, within the tropics, they do not suffer from
the temperate climate of the mountains. They certainly grow more
luxuriantly as social plants from the seacoast to the height of about
2560 English feet; for example, in the province de las Esmeraldas,
west of the Volcano of Pichincha, where Guadua angustifolia (Bam-
busa Guadua, in our Plantes 6quinoxiales, t. i. tab. xx.) produces in
its interior much of the silicious Tabaschir (Sanscrit tvakkschira,
ox-milk). In the Pass of Quindiu, we saw the Guadua growing at
an elevation which we found by barometric measurement to be 5400
(5755 English) feet above the level of the Pacific. Nastus borboni-
cus is called by Bory de St. Vincent a true alpine plant; he states
that it does not descend lower on the declivity of the Volcano in the
Island of Bourbon than 3600 (3837 English) feet. This recurrence
or repetition as it were at great elevations of the forms characteristic
of the hot plains, recalls the mountain group of palms before pointed
out by me (Kunthia Montana, Ceroxylon andicola, and Oreodoxa
frigida), and a grove or thicket of Musaceae sixteen English feet
high (Heliconia, perhaps Maranta), which I found growing isolated
at an elevation of 6600 (7034 English) feet, on the Silla de Carac-
cas. (Relation hist. t. i. p. 605-606.) As, with the exception of
a few isolated herbaceous dicotyledones, grasses form the highest
zone of phasnogamous vegetation round the snowy summits of lofty
mountains, so also, in advancing in a horizontal direction towards
either pole of the Earth, the phaenogamous vegetation terminates
with grasses.

To my young friend Joseph Hooker, who, but just returned with

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 353

Sir James Ross from the frozen antarctic regions, is now exploring
the Thibetian portion of the Himalaya, the geography of plants is
indebted not only for a great mass of important materials, but also
for excellent general deductions. He calls attention to the circum-
stance that phgenogamous flowering plants (grasses) approach 17 J°
nearer to the Northern than to the Southern Pole. In the Falkland
Islands, near the thick masses of Tussack grass (Dactylis caespitosa,
Forster, according to Kunth a Festuca), and in Tierra del Fuego or
Fuegia, under the shade of the birch-leaved Fagus antarctica, there
grows the same Trisetum subspicatum which extends over the whole
range of the Peruvian Cordilleras, and over the Rocky Mountains
to Melville Island, Greenland, and Iceland, and which is also found
in the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, in the Altai mountains, in Kamt-
schatka, and in Campbell Island, south of New Zealand; therefore,
from 54° south to 74 £° north latitude, or through 128 £° of lati-
tude. " Few grasses," says Joseph Hooker, in his Flora Antarctica,
p. 97, "have so wide a range as Trisetum subspicatum (Beauv.),
nor am I acquainted with any other Arctic species which is equally
an inhabitant of the opposite polar regions." The South Shetland
Islands, which are divided by Bransfield Strait from D'Urville's
Terre de Louis Philippe and the Volcano of Haddington Peak,
situated in 64° 12' south latitude, and 7046 English feet high, have
been very recently visited by a Botanist from the United States of
North America, Dr. Eights. He found there (probably in 62° or
62 £°, S. latitude) a small grass, Aira antarctica (Hooker, Icon.
Plant, vol. ii. tab. 150), which is "the most antarctic flowering plant
hitherto discovered."

In Deception Island, of the same group, S. lat. 62° 50', lichens
only are found, and not a single species of grass ; and so also, farther
to the south-east, in Cockburn Island (lat. 64° 12'), near Palmer's
Land, there were only found Lecanoras, Lecideas, and five Mosses,
among which was our German Bryum argenteum : " this seems to
be the ultima Thule of antarctic vegetation." Farther to the south,
&mc?-cryptogamic, as well as phsenogamic, vegetation is entirely
wanting. In the great bay formed by Victoria Land, on a small
island which lies opposite to Mount Herschel (S. lat. 71° 49'), and
in Franklin Island, 92 geographical miles North of the great volcano

30*

354 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

Mount Erebus, 12,400 English feet high (lat. 76° 7' South), Hooker
found not a single trace of vegetable life. It is quite different in
respect to the extension even of the forms of higher vegetable organi-
zation in the high northern latitudes. Phgenogamous plants there
approach 18 £° nearer to the Pole than in the Southern Hemisphere :
Walden Island (N. lat. 80£°) has still ten species. The antarctic
phaenogamous vegetation is also poorer in species at corresponding
distances from the Pole (Iceland has five times as many flowering
plants as the southern group of Auckland and Campbell Islands) ;
but this less varied antarctic vegetation is, from climatic reasons,
more luxuriant and succulent. (Compare Hooker, Flora antarctica,
p. vii. 74, and 215, with Sir James Ross, Voyage in the Southern
and Antarctic Regions, 1839-1843, vol. ii. p. 335-342.)

(»)p. 244.— "Ferns."

If, with a naturalist deeply versed in the knowledge of the Agamse,
Dr. Klotzsch, we estimate the whole number of cryptogamic species
hitherto described at 19,000, this gives to Fungi 8000 (of which
the Agarici constitute l-8th) ; Lichens, according to J. yon Flotow
of Hirschberg, and Hampe of Blankenburg, at least 1400 ; Algse
2580 ; Mosses and Liver-worts, according to Carl Midler of Halle,
and Dr. Grottsche of Hamburgh, 3800 ; and Ferns 3250. We are
indebted for this last important result to the thorough investigation
of all that is known concerning this group of plants by Professor
Kunze of Leipsio. It is remarkable that, of the entire number of
described Filices, the family of Polypodiaceae, alone,' comprises 2165
species; while other forms, even Lycopodiacese and Hymenophyl-
laceae, only count 350 and 200. There are, therefore, almost as
many described ferns as described grasses.

It is remarkable that, in the ancient classic writers, Theophrastus,
Dioscorides, and Pliny, no notice occurs of the beautiful form of
arborescent ferns ; while, from information derived from the com-
panions of Alexander, Aristobulus, Megasthenes, and Nearchus,
mention is made of Bamboos "quae fissis internodiis lembi vice
vectitabant navigantesj" of the Indian trees "quarum folia non
xninora clypeo suntj" of the fig-tree of which the branches take
root round the parent stem ; and of Palms " tantse proceritatis, ut

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 355

sagittis superjici nequeant." (Humboldt, de distributione geogr.
Plantarum, pp. 178 and 213.) I find the first description of tree-
ferns in Oviedo's Historia de las Indias, 1535, fol. xc. This expe-
rienced traveller, who had been placed by Ferdinand the Catholic as
director of the gold-washings in Hayti, says : " Among the many
ferns there are some which I reckon among trees, for they are as
thick and as tall as pines (Helechos que yo cuento por arboles, tan
gruesos como grandes pinos y muy altos). They grow chiefly in the
mountains where there is much water/' The height is exaggerated.
In the dense forests round Caripe, even our Cyathea speciosa only
attains a height of 30 to 35 (32 to 37 English) feet; and an excel-
lent observer, Ernst Dieffenbach, in the northernmost of the three
islands of New Zealand, saw no stems of Cyathea dealbata of more
than 40 (42$ English) feet in height. In the Cyathea speciosa and
the Miniscium of the Chaymas missions we observed, in the midst
of the shadiest primeval forest, in very luxuriantly growing indivi-
duals, the scaly stems covered with a shining carbonaceous powder.
It seemed like a singular decomposition of the fibrous parts of the
old frond stalks. (Humboldt, Rel. hist. t. i. p. 437.)

Between the tropics, where, on the declivities of the Cordilleras,
climates are placed successively in stages one above another, the
proper zone of the tree-ferns is between three and five thousand
feet (about 3200 and 5330 English) above the level of the sea. In
South America and in the Mexican highlands they seldom descend
lower towards the plains than 1200 (about 1280 Eng.) feet. The
mean temperature of this happy zone falls between 17° and 14°. 5
Reaumur (70°.2 and 64°.6 Fahr.). This region enters the lowest
stratum of clouds, or that which floats next above the sea and the
plains; and hence, besides great equality of temperature, it also
enjoys uninterruptedly a high degree of humidity. (Robert Brown,
in Appendix to Expedition to Congo, p. 423.) The inhabitants,
who are of Spanish descent, call tlu> zone " tierra templada de los
helechos." The Arabic word for fern is feledschun, f being changed
into lij in helechos, according to the Spanish custom ; perhaps the
Arabic feledschun is connected with " faladscha," t( it divides ;" , in
allusion to the finely divided margins of fern leaves or fronds. (Abu

356 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

Zacaria Ebn el Awam, Libro de Agricultura, traducido por J. A.
Banqueri, t. ii. Madr. 1802; p. 736).

The conditions of mild temperature and an atmosphere nearly
saturated with vapor, together with great equability of climate in
respect to both temperature and moisture, are fulfilled on the
declivities of the mountains, in the valleys of the Andes, and above
all in the mild and humid atmosphere of the Southern Hemisphere,
where arborescent ferns extend not only to New Zealand and Van
Diemen Island (Tasmania), but even to the Straits of Magellan
and to Campbell Islands, or to a latitude almost corresponding to
that of Berlin in the Northern Hemisphere. Of tree-ferns, Dick-
sonia squarrosa grows vigorously in 46° south latitude, in Dusky
Bay (New Zealand); D. antarctica of Labillardiere, in Tasmania; a
Thyrsopteris in Juan Fernandez ; an undescribed Dicksonia, with
stems from 12 to 15 (nearly 13 to 16 English) feet, in the south of
Chili, not far from Valdivia ; and a Lomaria, of rather less height,
in the Straits of Magellan. Campbell Island is still nearer to the
South Pole, in 52 J° lat., and even there the stem of the Aspidium
venustum rises to 4 feet (4 feet 3 inches, English) before the fronds
branch off.

; The climatic relations under which Ferns in general flourish, are
manifested in the numerical laws of their quotients of distribution,
taken in the manner alluded to in an earlier part of the present
volume. In the low plains of the great continents within the tropics,
the quotient for ferns is, according to Robert Brown, and according
to late researches, l-20th of all the species of phaenogamous plants
growing in the same region; in the mountainous parts of the great
continents in the same latitudes it is from l-8th to l-6th. But a
very different ratio is found in the small islands dispersed over the
wide ocean. The proportion of ferns to the whole number of Pha-
nerogams increases there in such a manner that, in the groups of
islands between the tropics in the Pacific, the ferns equal a fourth —
and in the solitary, far-detached islands in the Atlantic Ocean, St.
Helena, and Ascension — almost equal the half of the entire phaeno-
gamous vegetation. (See an excellent memoir of D'Urville, entitled
Distribution ge"ographique des Fougeres sur la surface du Globe, in
the Annales des Sciences Nat. t. vi. 1825, pp. 51, 66, and 73.)

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 357

From the tropics (where in the great continents D'Urville estimates
the ratio generally at 1 : 20) we see the relative frequency of ferns
decrease rapidly in the temperate zone. The quotients are: for
North America and for the British Islands -fj} for France -fjj'foT
Germany J^, for the dry parts of the south of Italy j\, and for
Greece j\. Towards the colder regions of the north we see the re-
lative frequency increase again rapidly ; that is to say, the number
of species of ferns decreases much more slowly than does the num-
ber of species of phamogamous plants. At the same time, the lux-
uriance, abundance, and mass of individuals in each species augments
the illusive impression of absolute numbers. According to Wahlen-
berg's and Hornemann's Catalogues, the relative numbers of Filices
are, for Lapland ^T) for Iceland -j'g-, and for Greenland y1^.

Such, according to the present state of our knowledge, are the
natural laws manifested in the distribution of the pleasing form of
Ferns. But it would seem as if in the family of Ferns, which has
so long been regarded as a cryptogamic family, we had quite recently
arrived on the traces of another natural law, a morphological one of
propagation. Count Leszczyc-Suminski, who happily unites the gift
of microscopic examination with distinguished artistic talent, has
discovered in the prothallium of ferns an organization by which fruc-
tification is effected. He distinguishes a bisexual arrangement in the
ovule-like cell on the middle of the theca, and in the ciliated anthe-
ridia or spiral threads before examined by Nageli. The fertilization
is supposed to take place not by pollen tubes but by the movable
ciliated spiral threads. (Suminski zur Entwickelungs-geschichte der
Farrnkrauter, 1848, s. 10-14.) According to this view, Ferns, as
Ehrenberg expresses it (Monatl. Berichte der Akad. zu Berlin, Ja-
nuar 1848, s. 20), would be produced by a microscopic fertilization
taking place on the prothallium as a receptacle; and throughout the
whole remainder of their often arborescent development they would
be flowerless and fruitless plants, forming buds or bulbs; the spores
or sori on the under side of the frond not being seeds but flower buds.

(a9) p. 244. — "Liliacese."

The principal seat of this form is Africa, where it is both most
varied and most abundant, and where these beautifully flowering

358 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

plants are assembled in masses and determine the aspect and charac-
ter of the country. The New Continent does, indeed, also possess
superb Alstromerise and species of Pancratium, Hscmanthus, and
Crinum (we augmented the first-named of these genera by nine, and
the second by three species) ; but these American Liliacese grow dis-
persed, and are less social than our European Iridese.

(3°) p. 244. — "Willow Form."

Of the leading representative of this form, the Willow itself, 150
different species are already known. They are spread over the North-
ern Hemisphere from the Equator to Lapland. They appear to in-
crease in number and diversity of form between the 46th and 70th
degrees of north latitude, and especially in the part of north of
Europe where the configuration of the land has been so strikingly
indented by early geological changes. Of Willows as tropical plants
I am acquainted with ten or twelve species, which, like the willows
of the Southern Hemisphere, are deserving of particular attention.
As Nature seems as it were to take pleasure in multiplying certain
forms of animals, for example, Anatidae (Lamellirostres) and Co-
lumbse, in all the zones of the earth; so are Willows, the different
species • of Pines, and Oaks, no less widely disseminated: the latter
(oaks) Toeing always alike in their fruit, though much diversified in
the forms of their leaves. In Willows, the similarity of the foliage,
of the ramification, and of the whole physiognomic appearance, in
the most different climates, is unusually great — almost greater than
even in Coniferae. In the southern part of the temperate zone of
the Northern Hemisphere, the number of species of willows decreases
considerably, yet (according to the Flora atlantica of Desfontaines)
Tunis has still a species of its own, resembling Salix caprea; and
Egypt reckons, according to Forskal, five species, from the catkins
of whose male flowers a medicine much employed in the East, Moie
chalaf (aqua salicis), is obtained by distillation. The Willow which
I saw in the Canaries is also, according to Leopold von Buch and
Christian Smith, a peculiar species, common however to that group
and to the Island of Madeira — S. canariensis. Wallich's Catalogue
of the plants of Nepaul, and of the Himalaya, cites from the Indian
Bub-tropical zone thirteen species, partly described by Don, Roxburgh,

ANNOTATIONS AND AUDITIONS. 359

and Lindley. Japan has its indigenous willows, one of which, S.
japonica (Thunb.), is also found as a mountain plant in Nepaul.

Previous to my expedition, the Indian Salix tetrasperma was the
only known intertropical species, so far as I am aware. We collected
seven new species, three of which were from the elevated plains of
Mexico, and were found to extend to an elevation of 8000 (about
8500 English) feet above the level of the sea. At still greater ele-
vations— for example, on the mountain plains situated between 12,000
and 14,000 feet (about 12,790 and 14,920 English), which, we
often visited — we did not find, either in the Andes of Mexico or in
those of Quito and Peru, any thing which could recall the small,
creeping, alpine willows of the Pyrenees, the Alps, and Lapland (S.
herbacea, S. lanata, and S» reticulata). In Spitzbergen, where the
meteorological conditions have much analogy with those of the Swiss
and Scandinavian snow-mountains, Martins described two dwarf
willows, of which the small woody stems and branches creep on the
ground, and which lie so concealed in the turf-bogs that their small
leaves are only discovered with difficulty under the moss. The spe-
cies found by me in Peru, in 4° 12' S. latitude, near Loxa, at the
entrance of the forests where the best Cinchona bark is collected,
and described by Willdenow as Salix humboldtiana, is the one which
is most widely distributed in the western part of South America.
A sea-shore species, S. falcata, which we found on the sandy coast
of the Pacific, near Truxillo, is, according to Kunth, probably only
a variety of the above ; and possibly the fine and often pyramidal
willow, which accompanied us along the banks of the Magdalena,
from Mahates to Bojorque, and which, according to the report of the
natives, had only extended so far within a few years, may also be
identical with Salix humboldtiana. At the confluence of the Rio
Opon with the Magdalena, we found all the islands covered with
willows, many of which had stems 64 English feet high, but only
8 to 10 inches in diameter. (Humboldt and Kunth, Nova Gen.
Plant, t. ii. p. 22, tab. 99.) Lindley has made us acquainted with
a species of Salix from Senegal, and therefore in the African equi-
noctial zone. (Lindley, Introduction to the Natural System of Bo-
tany, p. 99.) Blume also found two species of Salix near the Equa-
tor, in Java: one wild and indigenous, S. tetrasperma; and another

360 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

cultivated, S. sieboldiana. From the southern temperate zone I know
only two willows described by Thunberg (S. hirsuta and S. mucro-
nata) ; they grow by the side of Protea argentea (which has itself
very much the physiognomy of a willow), on the banks of the Orange
River, and their leaves and young shoots form the food of the hip-
popotamus. Willows are entirely wanting in Australia and the
neighboring islands.

(31) p. 244.— " Myrtacese."

An elegant form, with stiff, shining, thickly set, generally unin-
dented, small leaves, studded with pellucid dots. Myrtaceae give a
peculiar character to three districts of the earth's surface : the
South of Europe, particularly the calcareous and trachytic islands
which rise above the surface of the Mediterranean ; the continent
of New Holland, adorned with Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, and Lep-
tospermum ; and an intertropical region, part of which is low, and
part from nine to ten thousand feet high (about 9590 to 10,660
English), in the Andes of South America. This mountain district,
called in Quito the district of the Paramos, is entirely covered with
trees which have a myrtle-like aspect and character, even though they
may not all belong to the natural family of Myrtacse. Here, at the
above-named elevation, grow the Escallonia myrtilloides, E. tubar,
Simplocos alstonia, some species of Myrica, and the beautiful Myr-
tus microphylla which we have figured in the Plantes equinoxiales,
t. i. p. 21, pi. iv. We found it growing on mica slate, and extend-
ing to an elevation of more than ten thousand English feet, on the
Paramo de Saraguru, near Vinayacu and Alto de Pulla, which is
adorned with so many lovely alpine flowering plants. Myrtus myr-
sinoides even extends in the Paramo de G-uamani up to 10,500
(11,190 English) feet. Of the 40 species of the Genus Myrtus
which we collected in the equinoctial zone, and of which 37 were
undescribed, much the greater part belonged, however, to the plains
and lower mountains. From the mild tropical mountain climate of
Mexico we brought back only a single species (Myrtus xalapensis) ;
but the Tierra templada, towards the Volcano of Orizaba, must no
doubt contain several more. We found M. maritima near Acapulco,
quite on the sea-coast of the Pacific,"

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 361

The Escallonias — among which E. myrtilloides, E. tubar, and
E. floribunda are the ornament of the Paramos, and by their phy-
siognomy remind the beholder strongly of the myrtle-form — once
constituted, in combination with the European and South American
Alp-roses (Rhododendrum and Befaria), and with Clethra, Andro-
meda, and G-aylussaceia buxifolia, the family of Ericese. Robert
Brown (see the Appendix to Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to
the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1823, p. 765) has raised them to the
rank of a separate family, which Kunth places between Philadel-
phese and Hamamelidese. The Escallonia floribunda offers- in its
geographical distribution one of the most striking examples, in the
habitat of the plant, of proportion between distance from the Equa-
tor and vertical elevation above the .'level of the sea. In making
this statement, I again support myself on the authority of my acute
and judicious friend Auguste de St.-Hilaire (Morphologic vegetable,
1840, p. 52): "Messieurs de Humboldt et Bonpland ont decou-
vert dans leur expedition T Escallonia floribunda a 1400 toises par
les 4° de latitude australe. Je Fai retrOuve* par les 21° au Bresil
dans un pays eleve, mais pourtant infiniment plus bas que les Andes
du Perou : il est commun entre les 24°. #0' et les 25°. 55' dans les
Campos Grerses, enfin je le revois au Rio de la Plata vers les 35°, au
niveau melne I'ocean."

Trees belonging to the group of Myrtacese — to which Melaleuca,
Metrosideros, and Eucalyptus belong in the subdivision of Lepto-.
spermese — produce partially, either where the leaves are replaced by
phyllodias (leaf-stalk leaves), or by the peculiar disposition or direc-
tion of the leaves relatively to the un swollen leaf-stalk, a distribution
of stripes of light and shade unknown in our forests of round-leaved
trees. The first botanical travellers who visited New Holland were
struck with the singularity of the effect thus produced/ Robert
Brown was the first to show that this strange appearance arose from
the leaf-stalks (the phyllodias of the Acacia longifolia and A. sua-
veolens) being expanded in a vertical direction, and from the circum-
stance that the light, instead of falling on horizontal surfaces, falls
on and passes between vertical ones. (Adrien^de Jussieu, Cqurs de
Botanique, pp. 106, 120, and 700 ; Darwin, Journal of Researches,
1845, p. 433.) Morphological laws in the development of the leafy

362 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

organs determine the peculiar character of the effects produced, the
outlines of light and shade. " Phyllodias," says Kunth, " can,
according to my view, only occur in families which have compound
pinnated leaves ; and in point of fact they have as yet only been
found in Leguminosae (in Acacias). In Eucalyptus, Metrosideros,
and Melaleuca, the leaves are simple (sirnplicia), and their edgewise
position arises from a half turn or twist of the leaf-stalk (petiolus) ;
it should be remarked at the same time that the two surfaces of the
leaves are similar." In the comparatively shadeless forests of New
Holland, the optical effects here alluded to are the more frequent, as
two groups of Myrtaceae and Leguminosa3> species of Eucalyptus
and of Acacia, constitute almost the half of all tho grayish-green
trees of which those forests consist. In addition to this, in Mela-
leuca there are formed between the layers of the inner bark easily
detached portions of epidermis which press outwards, and by their
whiteness remind the European of our birch bark.

The distribution of Myrtaceae is very different in the two conti-
nents. In the New Continent, and especially in its western portion,
it scarcely extends beyond the 26th parallel of north latitude, ac-
cording to Joseph Hooker (Flora Antarctica, p. 12); while, in the
Southern Hemisphere, according to Claude Gay, there are in Chili
10 species of Myrtus and 22 species of Eugenia, which, intermixed
with Proteaceae (Embothrium and Lomatia), and with Fagus obliqua,
form forests. The Myrtacese become more abundant beyond 38° S.
lat,. — in the Island of Chiloe, where a Metrosideros-like species of
Myrtus (Myrtus stipularis) forms almost impenetrable thickets under
the name, of Tepuales; in Patagonia; and in Fuegia, to its extremity
in 56s0 S. lat. . In the Old Continent, they prevail in Europe as
far as the 46th parallel of north latitude : in Australia, Tasmania,
New Zealand, and the Auckland Islands, they advance to 50 5°
south latitude.

(32) p. 244.—" Mdastomaceae."

This group comprises the genera Melastoina (Fothergilla and To-
coca Aubl.) and Rhexia (Meriana and Osbeckia), of which we found,
on either side of the Equator in tropical America alone, 60 new spe-
cies. Bonpland has published a superb work on Mclastomacese, in

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 363

two volumes, with colored drawings. Some species of Rhexia and
Melastoma ascend in the Andes, as alpine or Paramos shrubs, as
high as nine and ten thousand five hundred (about 9600 and 11,190
English) feet : among these are Rhexia cernua, R. stricta, Melas-
toma obscurum, M. aspergillare, and M. lutescens.

f53) p. 244.— " Laurel-form."

To this form belong the genera of Lauras and Persea, the Ocotese
so numerous in South America, and (on account of physiognomic
resemblance) Calophyllum, and the superb aspiring Mammea, from
among the Guttiferse.

(^ p. 244 — "How interesting and instructive to the landscape painter

would be a work which should present to the eye the leading forms

of vegetation"

In order to define somewhat more distinctly what is here only
briefly alluded to, I permit myself to introduce some considerations
taken from a sketch of the history of landscape painting, and of a
graphical representation of the physiognomy of plants, which I have
given in the second volume of Cosmos (bd. ii. s. 88—90 ; English
edit. vol. ii. pp. 86-87).

"All that belongs to the expression of human emotion, and to the
beauty of the human form, has attained perhaps its highest perfec-
tion in the northern temperate zone, under the skies of Italy and
Greece. By the combined exercise of imitative art and of creative
imagination, the artist has derived the types of historical painting
at once from the depths of his own mind, and fronl the contempla-
tion of other beings of his own race. Landscape painting, though
no merely imitative art, has, it may be said, a more material sub-
stratum and a more terrestrial domain : it requires a greater mass
and variety of distinct impressions, which the mind must receive
within itself, fertilize by its own powers, and reproduce visibly as a
free work of art. Hence landscape painting must be a result at
once of a deep and comprehensive reception of the visible spectacle
of external nature, and of this inward process of the mind."

" Nature, in every region of the earth, is indeed a reflex of the
whole : the forms of organized beings are repeated everywhere in

364 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

fresh combinations ; even in the icy north, herbs covering the earth,
large alpine blossoms, and a serene azure sky cheer a portion of the
year. Hitherto landscape painting has pursued amongst us her
pleasing task, familiar only -with the simpler form of our native
floras, but not, therefore, without depth of feeling, or without the
treasures of creative imagination. Even in this narrower field,
highly gifted painters, the Caracci, Gaspar Poussin, Claude Lorraine,
and Ruysdael, have, with magic power, by the selection of forms of
trees and by effects of light, found scope wherein to call forth some
of the most varied and beautiful productions of creative art. The
fame of these master-works can never be impaired by those which I
venture to hope for hereafter, and to which I could not but point, in
order to recall the ancient but deeply-seated bond which unites natu-
ral knowledge with poetry and with artistic feeling; for we must
ever distinguish in landscape painting, as in every other branch of
art, between productions derived from direct observation, and those
which spring from the depths of inward feeling and from the power
of the idealizing mind. The great and beautiful works which owe
their origin to this creative power of the mind applied to landscape-
painting, belong to the poetry of nature, and, like man himself, and
the imagination with which he is gifted, are not riveted to the soil,
or confined to any single region. I allude here more particularly to
the gradation in the form of trees from Ruysdael and Everdingen,
through Claude Lorraine to Poussin and Annibal Caracci. In the
great masters of the art, we perceive no trace of local limitation ; but
an enlargement of the visible- horizon, and an increased acquaintance
with the nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the luxuriant
fulness of life in the tropical world, offer the advantage not only of
enriching the material substratum of landscape-painting, but also of
affording a more lively stimulus to less gifted artists, and of thus
heightening their powers of production."

(M) p. 245. — " From the rough bark of Creseentias and Gfustavia."
In the Crescentia cujete (the Tutuma or Calabash-tree, whose
large fruit-shells are so useful to the natives for household purposes)
— in the Cynometra, the Theobroma (the Cacao-tree), and the Pe-
rigara (the Gustavia of Linnaeus) — the delicate flowers break through

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 365

the half-carbonized bark. When children eat the fruit of the Piri-
gara speciosa (the Chupo), their whole body becomes tinged with
yellow; it is a jaundice, which lasts from 24 to 36 hours, and then
disappears without the use of medicine.

I have never forgotten the impression which I received of the
luxuriant power of vegetation in the tropical world, when, on enter-
ing a Cacao plantation (Caca hual), in the Valles de Aragua, after a
damp night, I saw for the first time large blossoms springing from a
root of the Theobroma deeply imbedded in black earth. It was one
of the most instantaneous manifestations of the activity of the vege-
tative organic forces. Northern nations speak of the -" awakening of
Nature at the first breath of the mild air of spring." Such an ex-
pression is singularly contrasted with the imagination of the Stagy-
rite, who recognized in plants forms which " lie buried in a tranquil
slumber that knows no waking, free from the desires which impel
to spontaneous motion." (Aristot, de generat. Animal., v. i. p. 778,
and de somno et vigil., cap. 1, p. 455, Bekker.)

(36) p. 245. — " Draw over tlieir heads"

The flowers of our Aristolochia cordata, to which I have already
referred in Note 25. The largest flowers in the world, apart from
Composite (in the Mexican Helianthus annuus), belong to Rafflesia
arnoldi, Aristolochia, Datura, Barringtonia, Gustavia, Carolinea,
Lecythis, Nymphaea, Nelumbium, Victoria regina, Magnolia, Cactus,
and to Orchideous and Liliaceous plants.

(3?) p. 246. — " To behold all the shining worlds which stud the

heavenly vault from pole to pole"

The finest portion of the southern celestial hemisphere, where
shine the constellations of the Centaur, the Ship, and the Southern
Cross, and where the soft lustre of the Magellanic clouds is seen,
remains for ever concealed from the view of the inhabitants of Eu-
rope. It is only beneath the equinoctial line that Man enjoys the
peculiar privilege of beholding at once all the stars both of the south-
ern and the northern heavens. Some of our northern constellations
seen from thence appear from their low altitude of a surprising and

31*

366 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

almost awful magnitude : for example, Ursus Major and Minor. As
the inhabitant of the tropics sees all the stars of the firmament, so
also, in regions where plains alternate with deep valleys and lofty
mountains, Nature surrounds him with representatives of all the
forms of plants.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 367

POSTSCRIPT

ON THE

PHYSIOGNOMIC CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS.

IN the preceding sketch of a " Physiognomy of Plants/7 I have
had principally in view three nearly allied subjects : the absolute
diversity of forms; their numerical proportion, i. e. their local
predominance in the total number of species in phsenogamous floras;
and their geographic and climatic distribution. If we desire to rise
to general views respecting organic forms, the physiognomy of plants,
the study of their numerical proportions (or the arithmetic of bo-
tany), and their geography (or the study of their zones of distri-
bution), cannot, as it appears to me, be separated from each other.
In the study of the physiognomy of plants, we ought not to dwell
exclusively on the striking contrasts presented by the larger organic
forms separately considered, but we should also seek to discern the
laws which determine the physiognomy of Nature generally, or the
picturesque character of vegetation over the entire surface of the
globe, and the impression produced on the mind of the beholder by
the grouping of contrasted forms in different zones of latitude and
of elevation. It is from this point of view, and with this concen-
tration or combination of objects, that we become aware, for the
first time, of the close and intimate connection between the subjects
which have been treated of in the foregoing pages. We are here
conducted into a field which has been as yet but little cultivated.
I have ventured to follow the method first employed with such
brilliant results in the Zoological works of Aristotle, and which is
especially suited to lay the foundation of scientific confidence — a

368 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS.

method which, whilst it continually aims at generality of conception,
seeks, at the same time, to penetrate the specialties of phenomena
by the consideration of particular instances.

The enumeration of forms according to physiognomic diversity
is, from the nature of the case, not susceptible of any strict classi-
fication. Here, as everywhere else, in the consideration of external
conformation, there are certain leading forms which present the
most striking contrasts : such are the groups of arborescent grasses,
plants of the aloe form, the different species of cactus, palms,
needle-trees, Mimosacese, and Musacese. Even a few scattered
individuals of these groups are sufficient to determine the character
of a district, and to produce on a non-scientific but sensitive beholder
a permanent impression. Other forms, though perhaps much more
numerous and preponderating in mass, may not be calculated — either
by the outline and arrangement of the foliage, or by the relation of
the stem to the branches, by luxuriant vigor of vegetation, by
cheerful grace; or, on the other hand, by cheerless contraction of
the appendicular organs — to produce any such characteristic impres-
sions.

As, therefore, a "physiognomic classification," or a division into
groups from external aspect or "fades," does not admit of being
applied to the whole vegetable kingdom, so also, in such a classifica-
tion, the grounds on which the division is made are quite different
from those on which our systems of natural families and of plants
(including the whole of the vegetable kingdom) have been so happily
established. Physiognomic classification grounds her divisions and
the choice of her types on whatever possesses "mass" — such as
shape, position, and arrangement of leaves, their size, and the cha-
racter and surfaces (shining or dull) of the parenchyma ; therefore,
on all that are called more especially the "organs of vegetation,"
i. e. those on which the preservation — the nourishment and develop-
ment— of the individual depend : while systematic Botany, on the
other hand, grounds the arrangement of natural families on the
consideration of the organs of propagation^ — those on which the
continuation or preservation of the species depends. (Kunth,
Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1847, th. i. s. 511; Schleiden, die Pflanze
und ihr Leben, 1848, s. 100.) It was already taught in the school

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 369

of Aristotle (Probl. 20, 7) that the production of seed is the ulti-
mate object of the existence and life of the plant. Since Caspar
Fried. Wolf (Theoria Generations, §§ 5-9 ), and since our great
(German) Poet, the process, of development in the organs of fructi-
fication has become the morphological foundation of all systematic
botany.

That study, and the study of the physiognomy of plants, I here
repeat, proceed from two different points of view : the first from
agreement in the inflorescence or in the delicate organs of repro-
duction ; the second from the form of the parts which constitute
the axes (/. e. the stems and branches), and the shape of the leaves,
dependent principally on the distribution of the vascular fascicles.
As, then, TiEeTaxes and appendicular organs predominate by their
volume and mass, they determine and strengthen the impression
which we receive; they individualize the physiognomic character of
the vegetable form and that of the landscape, or of the region in
which any of the more strongly-marked and distinguished types
severally occur. The law is here given by agreement and aflinity
in the marks taken from the vegetative, i. e. the nutritive organs.
In all European colonies, the inhabitants have taken occasion, from
resemblances of physiognomy (of "habitus," "facies"), to bestow
the names of European forms upon tropical plants or trees bearing
very different flowers and fruits from .those from which the names
were originally taken. Everywhere, in both hemispheres, northern
settlers have thought they found Alders, Poplars, Apple and Olive-
trees. They have been misled, in most cases, by the form of the
leaves and the direction of the branches. The illusion has been
favored by the cherished remembrance of the trees and plants of
home, and thus European names have been handed down from gene-
ration to generation ; and in the slave colonies there have been added
to them denominations derived from Negro languages.

The contrast so often presented between a striking agreement of
physiognomy and the greatest diversity in the inflorescence and
fructification — between the external aspect as determined by the
appendicular or leaf-system, and the reproductive organs on which
the groups of the natural systems of botany are founded — is a
remarkable and surprising phenomenon. We should have been in-

370 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.

clined beforehand to imagine that the shape of what are exclusively
termed the vegetative organs (for example, the leaves) would have
been less independent of the structure of the organs of reproduction ;
but in reality such a dependence only shows itself in a small number
of families — in Ferns, Grasses, and Cyperaceae, Palms, Coniferse,
Umbelliferse, and Aroidese. In Leguminosae, the agreement in
physiognomic character is scarcely to be recognized until we divide
them into the several groups (Papilionacese, Csesalpinese, and Mi-
mosese). I may name, of types which, when compared with each
other, show considerable accordance in physiognomy with great
difference in the structure of the flowers and fruit, Palms and Cy-
cadeae, the latter being more nearly allied to Coniferae; Cuscuta,
one of the Convolvulacae, and the leafless Cassytha, a parasitical
Laurinea; Equisetum (belonging to the great division of Crypto-
gamia) and Ephedra, closely allied to Coniferae. On the other
hand, our common gooseberries and currants (Ribes) are so closely
allied by their inflorescence to the Cactus, i. e. to the family of
Opuntiaceae, that it is only quite recently that they have been sepa-
rated from it ! One and the same family (that of Asphodeleae)
comprises the gigantic Dracaena draco, the common asparagus, and
the Aletris with its colored flowers. Not only do simple and com-
pound leaves often belong to the same family, but they even occur
in the same genus. We found in the high plains of Peru and New
Granada, among twelve new species of Weinmannia, five with " foliis
simplicibus," and the rest with pinnate leaves. The genus Aralia
shows still greater independence in the form of the leaves: "folia
simplicia, integra, vel lobata, digitata et pinnata." (Compare Kunth,
Synopsis Plantarum quas in itinere collegerunt, Al. de Humboldt
et Am. Bohpland, t. iii. pp. 87 and 360.)

Pinnated leaves appear to me to belong chiefly to families which
are in the highest grade of organic development, namely, the Poly-
petalae; and among these, in the Perigynic class, to the Leguminosae,
Rosaceae, Terebinthaceae, and Juglandeae; and in the Hypogynic,
to the Aurantiaceae, Cedrelaceae, and Sapindaceae. The beautiful,
doubly-pinnated leaves which form one of the principal ornaments
of the torrid zone, are most frequent among the Leguminosse, in
Mimoseae, also in some Caesalpineae, Coulterias, and Gleditschias;

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 371

never, as Kunth remarks, in Papilionacese. " Folia pinnata" and
"folia composita" are never found in Gentianeas, Rubiaceae, and
Myrtaceae. In the morphological development presented by the
abundance and variety of form in the appendicular organs of Dico-
tyledones, we can at present discern only a small number of general
laws.

ON THE

STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

OF

VOLCANOS;

IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE GLOBE.

32

ON THE

STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

OF

VOLCANOS,

• ,>! • v.. •

IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE GLOBE.

[This dissertation was read in a public assembly of the Academy at Berlin,
on the 24th of January, 1823.]

WHEN we reflect on the influence which, for some centuries past;-
the progress of geography and the multiplication of distant voyages
and travels have exercised on the study of nature, we are not long
in perceiving how different this influence has been, according as the
researches were directed to organic forms on the one hand, or on the
other to the study of the inanimate substances* of which the earth is
composed — to the knowledge of rocks, their relative ages, and their
origin. Different forms of plants and animals enliven the surface
of the earth in every zone, whether the temperature of the atmo-
sphere varies in accordance with the latitude and with the many
inflections of the isothermal lines on plains but little raised above
the level of the sea, or whether it changes rapidly in ascending in
an almost vertical direction the steep declivities of mountain-chains/
Organic nature gives to each zone of the earth a peculiar physiog-
nomy; but where the solid crust of the earth appears unclothed by
vegetation, inorganic nature imparts no such distinctive character.
The same kinds of rocks, associated in groups, appear in either

376 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OP ACTION

hemisphere, from the Equator to the Poles. In a remote island, sur-
rounded by exotic vegetation, beneath a sky where his accustomed
stars no longer shine, the voyager often recognizes with joy the
argillaceous schists of his birth-place, and the rocks familiar to his
eye in his native land.

This absence of any dependence of geological relations on the
present constitution of climates does not preclude or even diminish
the salutary influence of numerous observations made in distant re-
gions on the advance and progress of geological science, though it
imparts to this progress something of a peculiar direction. Every
expedition enriches natural history with new species or new genera
of plants and animals : there are thus presented to us sometimes
forms which connect themselves with previously long known types,
and thus permit us to trace and contemplate in its perfection the
really regular though apparently broken or interrupted network of
organic forms : at other times, shapes which appear isolated — either
surviving remnants of extinct genera or orders, or otherwise mem-
bers of still undiscovered groups, stimulating afresh the spirit of
research and expectation. The examination of the solid crust of the
globe does not, indeed, unfold to us such diversity and variety; it
presents to us, on the contrary, an agreement in the constituent
particles, in the superposition of the different kinds of masses, and
in their regular recurrence, which excites the admiration of the geo-
logist. In the chain of the Andes, as in the mountains of Middle
Europe, one formation appears, as it were, to summon to itself
another. Rocks of the same name exhibit the same outlines; basalt
and dolerite form twin mountains; dolomite, sandstone, and por-
phyry, abrupt precipices; and vitreous feldspathic trachyte, high,
dome-like elevations. In the most distant zones, large crystals se-
parate themselves in a similar manner from the compact texture of
the primitive mass, as if by an internal development, form groups
in association, and appear associated in layers, often announcing the
vicinity of new, independent formations. Thus in any single system
of mountains of considerable extent we see the whole inorganic
substances of which the crust of the earth is composed represented,
as it were, with more or less distinctness; yet, in order to become
completely acquainted with the important phenomena of the com-

OF VOLOANOS. 377

position, the relative age, and mode of origin of rocks, we must
compare together observations from the most varied and remote
regions. Problems which long perplexed the geologist in his native
land in these northern countries, find their solution near the Equator.
If, as has been already remarked, new zones do not necessarily pre-
sent to us new kinds of rock (i. e. unknown groupings or associations
of simple substances), they, on the other hand, teach us to discern
the great and everywhere equally prevailing laws, according to which
the strata of the crust of the earth are superposed upon each other,
penetrate each other as veins or dykes, or are upheaved or elevated
by elastic forces.

If, ihen, our geological knowledge is thus promoted by researches
embracing extensive parts of the earth's surface, it is not surprising
that the particular class of phenomena which form the subject of
the present discussion should long have been regarded from a point
of view the more restricted as. the points of comparison were of diffi-
cult, I might almost say arduous and painful, attainment and access.
Until the close of the last century, all real or supposed knowledge
of the structure or form of volcanos, and of the mode of operation of
subterranean forces, was taken from two mountains of the South of
Europe, Vesuvius and Etna. The former of these being the easiest
of access, and its eruptions, as is generally the case in volcanos of
small elevation, being most frequent in their occurrence, a hill of
minor elevation became the. type which regulated all the ideas
formed respecting phenomena exhibited on a far larger scale in
many vast and distant regions, as in the mighty volcanos arranged
in linear series in Mexico, South America, and the Asiatic Islands,
Such a proceeding might not unnaturally recall Virgil's shepherd,
who thought he beheld in his humble cottage the type of the Eternal
City, Imperial Rome.

A more careful examination of the whole of the Mediterranean,
and especially of those islands and coasts where men awoke to the
noblest intellectual culture, might, however, have dispelled views
formed from so limited a consideration of nature. Among the Spo-
rades, trachytic rocks have been upraised from the deep bottom of
the sea, forming islands resembling that which, in the vicinity of the
Azores, appeared thrice periodically, at nearly equal intervals, in

32* '; "

378 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

three centuries. The Peloponnesus has, between Epidaurus and
Trcezene, near Methone, a Monte Nuovo described by Strabo and
seen again by Dodwell, which is higher than the Monte Nuovo of
the Phlegraaan Field near Baiae, and perhaps even higher than the
new volcano of Jorullo in the plains of Mexico, which I found sur-
rounded by several thousand small basaltic cones, which had been
protruded from the earth, and were still smoking. In the Mediter-
ranean and its shores, it is not only from the permanent craters of
isolated mountains having a constant communication with the in-
terior, as Stromboli, Vesuvius, and Etna, that volcanic fires break
forth : at Ischia, on the Monte Epomeo, and also, as it would appear
by the accounts of the ancients, in the Lelantine plain near Chalcis,
lavas have flowed from fissures which have suddenly opened at the
surface of the earth. Besides these phenomena — which fall within
the historic period, or within the "restricted domain of well-assured
tradition, and which Carl Hitter will collect and elucidate in his mas-
terly work on Geography — the shores of the Mediterranean exhibit
numerous remains of more ancient volcanic action. In the south
part of France, in Auvergne, we see a separate, complete system of
volcanos arranged in lines, trachytic domes alternating with cones of
eruption, from which streams of lava have flowed in narrow bands.
The plain of Lombardy, as level as the surface of the sea, and form-
ing an inner Gulf of the Adriatic, surrounds the trachyte of the
Euganean Hills, where rise domes of granular trachyte, obsidian,
and pearl-stone, masses connected by a common origin, which break
through the lower cretaceous rock and nummulitic limestone, but
have never flowed in narrow streams. Similar evidences of ancient
revolutions of nature are found in several parts of the mainland of
Greece and in Asia Minor, countries which will one day offer a rich
field for geological investigation, when intellectual light shall revisit
the seats from which it has radiated to the Western world, and when
oppressed humanity shall no longer be subject to the barbarism of
Turkish rule.

I recall the geographical proximity of these various phenomena,
in 'order to show that the basin of the Mediterranean, with its series
of islands, might have offered to an attentive observer much that has
been recently discovered, under various forms, in South America,

OF VOLCANOS. 379

Teneriffe, and the Aleutian Islands near the polar circle. The ob-
jects to be observed were assembled within a moderate distance; yet
distant voyages, and the comparison of extensive regions in and out
of Europe, have been required for the clear perception and recog-
nition -of the resemblance between volcanic phenomena and their
dependence on each other.

Our ordinary language, which often gives permanency and apparent
authority to the first-formed erroneous views of natural phenomena,
but which also often points instinctively to the truth.— our ordinary lan-
guage, I repeat, applies the term " volcanic" to all eruptions of sub-
terranean fires or molten substances; to columns of smoke and vapor
rising from rocks, as at Colares, after the great earthquake of Lisbon;
to " Salses" or mud volcanos, argillaceous cones emitting mud, as-
phalte, and hydrogen, as at Girgenti in Sicily, and at Turbaco in
South America ; to the Geysers, hot springs in which, as in those of
Iceland, the waters, pressed by elastic vapors, rise in jets to a con-
siderable altitude; and, in general, to all operations of natural forces
having their seat in the interior of our planet. In Central America
(Guatimala), and in the Philippine Islands, the natives even dis-
tinguish formally between water and fire-volcanos, Volcanes de agua
y de fuego, giving the former name to those mountains from which
subterranean waters issue from time to time with violent earthquake
shocks and a hollow noise.

Not denying the connection of the different phenomena which
have been referred to, it yet appears desirable to give greater pre-
cision to the terms employed in the physical as well as in the
mineralogical part of geology, and not to apply the word "volcano"
at one moment to a mountain terminating in a permanent igneous
opening or fiery crater, and at another to every subterranean cause
of volcanic phenomena. In the present state of our planet, the
most ordinary form of volcanos is indeed in all parts of the globe
that of an isolated conical mountain, such as Vesuvius, Etna, the
Peak of Teneriffe, Tunguragua, and Cotopaxi. I have myself seen
such volcanos varying in size from the smallest hill to an elevation
of 18,000 (19,184 English) feet above the sea. But, besides these
isolated cones, there are also permanent openings or craters, having
established channels of communication with the interior of the

380 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

earth, which are situated on long chains of mountains with serrated
crests, and not even always on the middle of the ridge, but some-
times at its extremity: such is Pichincha, situated between the
Pacific and the city of Quito, and which acquired celebrity in con-
nection with Bouguer's earliest barometric formulae, and such are
the volcanos which rise in the elevated Steppe de los Pastes, itself
ten thousand (10,657 English) feet high. All these summits,
which are of various shapes, consist of trachyte, formerly called
Trap-porphyry: a granular, vesicular rock composed of different
kinds of feldspar (Labradorite, Oligoklase, and Albite), augite,
hornblende, and sometimes interspersed mica, and even quartz. In
cases where the evidence of the first outburst or eruption, or I might
say where the ancient structure or scaffolding remains entire, the
isolated conical mount is surrounded by an amphitheatre or lofty
circular rampart of rocky strata superimposed upon each other.
Such walls or ring-formed ramparts are called " craters of eleva-
tion," a great and important phenomenon, concerning which a
memorable treatise was presented to our Academy five years ago
(4. e. in 1818), by the first geologist of our time, Leopold von
Buch, from whose writings I have borrowed several of the views
contained in the present discussion.

Volcanos which communicate with the atmosphere through per-
manent openings, conical basaltic hills, and craterless trachytic
domes, sometimes as low as Sarcouy, sometimes as lofty as the
Chimborazo, form various -groups. Comparative geography shows
us sometimes small clusters or distinct systems of mountains, with
craters and lava:currents in the Canaries and the Azores, and with-
out craters and without lava-currents, properly so called, in the
Euganean hills and the Siebengebirge near Bonn; — and at other
times the same study describes to us . volcanos arranged in single
or double lines extending through many hundred leagues in length,
these lines being either parallel to the direction of a great chain of
mountains, as in Guatimala, in Peru, and in Java, or cutting it
transversely or at right angles, as in tropical Mexico. In this land
of the Aztecs the fire-emitting trachytic mountains are the only
ones which attain the elevation of the lofty region of perpetual
snow; they, are ranged in the direction of a parallel of latitude, and

OP VOLCANOS. 381

have probably been raised from a fissure of 420 English geographi-
cal miles long, traversing the Continent from the Pacific to the
Atlantic Ocean.

These assemblages of volcanos, whether in rounded groups or in
double lines, show in the most conclusive manner that the volcanic
agencies do not derjend on small or restricted causes, in near
proximity to the surface of the earth, but that they are great phe-
nomena of deep-seated origin. The whole of the eastern part of
the American Continent, which is poor in metals, is, in its present
state, without fire-emitting mountains, without masses of trachyte,
and perhaps even without basalt containing olivine. All the Ame-
rican volcanos are on the side of the Continent which is opposite to
Asia, in the chain of the Andes which runs nearly in the direction
of a meridian, and extends over a length of 7200 geographical
miles.

The whole plateau or high-land of Quito, of which Pichincha,
Cotopaxi, and Tunguragua form the summits, is to be viewed as a
single volcanic furnace. The subterranean fire breaks forth some- '
times through one and sometimes through another of these open-
ings, which it has been customary to regard as separate and distinct
volcanos. The progressive march of the subterranean fire has been
here directed for three centuries from north to south. Even the
earthquakes which occasion such dreadful ravages in this part of
the world afford remarkable proofs of the existence of subterranean
communications, not only between countries where there are no
volcanos (a fact which had long been known), but also between fire-
emitting openings situated at great distances asunder. Thus in
1797 the volcano of Pasto, east of the G-uaytara River, emitted
uninterruptedly for three months a lofty column of smoke, which
column disappeared at the instant when, at a distance of 240 geo-
graphical miles, the great earthquake of Riobamba a'nd the immense
eruption of mud called " Moya" took place, causing the death of
between thirty and forty thousand persons.

The sudden appearance of the Island of Sabrina near the Azores,
on the 30th of January, 1811, was the precursor of the terrible
earthquake movements which, much farther to the west, shook
almost incessantly, from the month of May, 1811, to June, 1813',

382 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

first the West Indian Islands, then the plain of the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi, and lastly, the opposite coast of Venezuela or Caraccas.
Thirty days after the destruction of the principal city of that pro-
vince, the long tranquil volcano of the Island of St. Vincent burst
forth in an eruption. A remarkable phenomenon accompanied this
eruption : at the same moment when the explosion took place, on
the 30th of April, 1811, a loud subterranean noise was heard in
South America, which spread terror and dismay over a district of
2200 (German) geographical square miles (35,200 English geo-
graphical square miles). The dwellers on the banks of the Apure,
near the confluence of the Rio Nula, and the most distant inhabitants
of the sea coast of Venezuela, alike compared the sound to that of
the discharge of great pieces of ordnance. Now from the confluence
of the Nula with the Apure (by which latter river I arrived on the
Orinoco) to -die volcano of St. Vincent is a distance in a straight
line of 628 English geographical miles. The sound, which certainly
was not propagated through the air, must have proceeded from a
deep-seated subterranean cause; for its intensity was scarcely greater
on the sea coast nearest to the volcano where the eruption was
'taking place, than in the interior of the country, in the basin of
the Apure and the Orinoco.

It would be unnecessary to multiply examples by citing other
instances which I have collected ; but, to recall a phenomenon of
European historical importance, I will only farther mention the
celebrated earthquake of Lisbon. Simultaneously with that event,
on the 1st of November, 1755, not only were the Swiss lakes and
the sea near the coast of Sweden violently agitated, but even among
the eastern West Indian Islands, Martinique, Antigua, and Bar-
badoes, where the tide never exceeds thirty inches, the sea suddenly
rose more than twenty feet. All these phenomena show the opera-
tion of subterranean forces, acting either dynamically in earthquakes,
in the tension and agitation of the crust; or in volcanos, in the
production and chemical alteration of substances. They also show
that these forces do not act superficially, in the thin outermost crust
of the globe, but from great depths in the interior of our planet,
through crevices or unfilled veins, affecting simultaneously widely
distant points of the earth's surface.

OF VOLCANOS. 383

The greater the variety of structure in volcanos, or in the eleva-
tions which surround the channel through which the molten masses
of the interior of the earth reach its surface, the greater the im-
portance of submitting this structure to strict investigation and
measurement. The interest attaching to these measurements, which
formed a particular object of my researches in another quarter of
the globe, is enhanced by the consideration, that at many points the
magnitude to be measured is found to be a variable quantity. The
philosophical study of nature endeavors, in the vicissitudes of phe-
nomena, to connect the present with the past.

If we desire to investigate either the fact of a periodical return,
or the law of progressive variations or changes in phenomena, it is
essential to obtain, by means of observations carefully made and
connected with determinate epochs, certain fixed points which may
afford a base for future numerical comparisons. If we only possessed
determinations made once in each period of a thousand years, of the
mean temperature of the atmosphere and of the earth in different
latitudes, or of the mean height of the barometer at the' level of the
sea, we should know whether, and in what ratio, the temperature of
different climates had increased or decreased, or whether the height
of the atmosphere had undergone changes. Such points of com-
parison are also needed for the inclination and declination of the
magnetic needle, as well as for the intensity of the magneto-electric
forces, on which, within the circle of this Academy, two excellent
physicists, Seebeck and Erman, have thrown so much light. As it
is an honorable object for the exertions of scientific societies to trace
out perseveringly the cosmical variations of temperature, atmo-
spheric pressure, and magnetic direction and intensity, so it is the
duty of the geological traveller, in determining the inequalities of
the earth's surface, to attend more particularly to the variable height
of volcanos. The endeavors made by me for this object in the
Mexican mountains, in respect to the Volcan de Toluca, the Popo-
catepetl, the Cofre de Perote or Nauhcampatepetl, and the Jorullo,
and also the volcano of Pichincha in the Andes of Quito* have been
continued since my return to Europe at different epochs on Vesuvius.
Where complete trigonometric or barometric measurements are want-
ing, accurate angles .of altitude, taken at points which are exactly

384 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

determined, may be substituted for them; and for a comparison of
determinations made at different epochs, angles of altitude so mea-
sured may even be often preferable to the complication of circum-
stances which more complete operations may involve.

Saussure had measured Mount Vesuvius, in 1773, when the two
margins of the crater, the north-western and the south-eastern, ap-
peared to him to be of equal height. He found their height above
the level of the sea 609 toises, 3,894 English feet, The eruption of
1794 occasioned a breaking down of the margin of the crater on the
southern side, and a consequent inequality between the height of the
two edges which the most unpracticed eye does not fail to distinguish
even at a considerable distance. In 1805, Leopold von Buch, Gray-
Lussac, and myself measured the height of Vesuvius three times,
and found the northern margin opposite to La Somma (the Rocca
del Palo) exactly as given by Saussure, but the southern margin
75 toises, or 450 French or 479 English feet, lower than he had
found it in 1773. The whole elevation of the volcano on the side
of Torre del Greco (the side towards which, for the last thirty years,
the igneous action has, as it were, been principally directed) had at
that time diminished one-eighth. The height of the cone of ashes,
as compared with the whole height of the mountain, is in Vesuvius
as 1 to 3 ; in Pichincha, as 1 to 10; and in the Peak of Teneriffe,
as 1 to 22. In these three volcanic mountains, the cone of ashes is
therefore, relatively speaking, highest in Vesuvius; probably be-
cause, being a low volcano, the action has been principally by the
summit.

A few months ago (1822) I was enabled not only to repeat my
former barometric measurements of the height of Vesuvius, but also,
during the course of three visits to the summit, to make a more
complete determination of all the edges of the crater. (*) These
determinations may not be without interest, since they include the
long period of great eruptions between 1805 and 1822, and consti-
tute perhaps the only known examination and measurement of a
volcano at different epochs, in winch the different parts of the ex-
amination are all truly comparable with each other. We learn
from it that the margins of craters are a phenomenon of far more
permanent character than had been previously inferred from passing

OF VOLCANOS. 385

observations, and this not only where (as in the Peak of Teneriffe,
and in all the volcanos of the chain of the Andes) they are visibly
composed of trachyte, but also elsewhere. According to my last
determinations, the north-west edge of Vesuvius has, perhaps, not
altered at all since the time of Saussure, an interval of 49 years j
and the south-eastern side, on the side towards Bosche Tre Case,
which, in 1794, had become 400 French (426 English) feet lower,
has since then hardly altered 10 toises (60 French or 64 English
feet).

If the public journals, in describing great eruptions, often state
the shape of Vesuvius to have undergone an entire change, and if
these assertions appear to be confirmed by picturesque views sketch-
ed at Naples, the cause of the error consists in the outlines of the
margin of the crater having been confounded with those of the cones
of eruption, accidentally formed in the middle of the crater, on its
floor or bottom, which has been upheaved by vapors. Such a cone
of eruption, consisting of loosely heaped-up rapilli and scoriae, had
in the course of the years 1816-1818 gradually risen so as to be
seen above the south-eastern margin of the crater; and the eruption
of the month of February 1822 augmented it so much, that it even
became from 100 to 110 (about 107 to 117 English) feet higher
than the north-western margin of the crater (the Rocea del Palo).
This remarkable cone, which it had become customary in Naples to
regard as the. true summit of the mountain, fell in, with a dreadful
noise, in the last eruption, on tne night of the 22d of October
(1822) : so that the floor of the crater, which had been constantly
accessible since 1811, is now 750 (almost 800 English) feet lower
than the northern, and 200 (213 English) feet lower than the
southern edge of the volcano. Variations in the form and relative
position of the cones of eruption — the openings of which ought not
to be confounded, as they often are, with the crater of the- volcano
itself — give to Vesuvius at different epochs a different appearance,
which would enable a person well acquainted with the history of the
volcano, on a mere inspection of Hackert's paintings in the palace
of Portici, to tell from the outlines of the summit, according as the
northern or the southern side of the mountain is represented as the
33

386 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

highest, in what year the artist had taken the sketch from which the
picture was made.

In the last eruption, in the night of the 23d to the 24th of Octo-
ber, twenty-four hours after the falling in of the great cone of scoriae
which has been mentioned, and when the small but numerous cur-
rents of lava had already flowed off, the fiery eruption of ashes and
rapilli commenced : ' it continued without intermission for twelve
days, but was greatest in the first four days. During this period,
the detonations in the interior of the volcano were so violent that
the mere concussion of the air (for no earthquake movement was
perceived) rent the ceilings of the rooms in the palace of Portici.
In the neighboring villages of Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre del
Annunziata, and Bosche Tre Case, a remarkable phenomenon was
witnessed. Throughout the whole of that part of the country the
air was so filled with ashes as to cause in the middle of the day pro-
found darkness, lasting for several hours : lanterns were carried in
the streets, as has so often been done at Quito during the eruptions
of Pichincha. The flight of the inhabitants had never been more
general : lava currents are regarded by those who dwell near Vesu-
vius with less dread than an e'ruptkm of ashes, a phenomenon which
had never been known to such a degree in modern times ; and the
obscure tradition of the manner in which the destruction of Hercu-
laneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae took place, filled the imaginations of
men with appalling images.

The hot aqueous vapors which rose from the crater during the
eruption and spread themselves in the atmosphere, formed, in cool-
ing, a dense cloud, surrounding the column of fire and ashes, which
rose to a height of between nine and ten thousand feet. So sudden
a condensation of vapor, and even, as Gay-Lussac has shown, the
formation of the cloud itself, augmented the electric tension. Flashes
of forked lightning, issuing from the column of ashes, darted in
every direction ; and the rolling thunders were distinctly heard, and
distinguished from the sounds which proceeded from the interior of
the volcano. In no other eruption had the play of the electric forces
formed so striking a feature.

On the morning of the 26th of October, a surprising rumor pre-
vailed, to the effect that a torrent of boiling water was gushing from

OF VOLCANOS. 387

the crater, and pouring down the slope of the cone of ashes. The
learned and zealous observer of the volcano, Monticelli, soon dis-
covered that this erroneous rumor had arisen from an optical illusion.
The supposed torrent of water was in reality a flow of dry ashes,
which, being as loose and movable as shifting sands, issued in large
quantities from a crevice in the upper margin of the crater. The
cultivated fields had suffered much from a long-continued drought
which had preceded the eruption • towards its close, the " volcanic
thunder-storm" which has been described produced an exceedingly
violent and abundant fall of rain. This phenomenon is associated
in all climates with the close of a volcanic eruption. As during the
eruption the cone of ashes is generally enveloped in a cloud, and as
it is in its immediate vicinity that the rain is most violent, torrents
of mud are seen to descend from it in all directions, which the ter-
rified husbandman imagines to consist of waters which have risen
from the interior of the volcano and overflowed the crater; while
geologists have erroneously thought they recognized in them either
sea-water or muddy products of the volcano, " Eruptions boueuses/'
or, in the language of some old French systematists, products of an
igneo-aqueous liquefaction.

Where, as is generally the case in the Andes, the summit of the
volcano rises into the region of perpetual snow (even attaining, in
some cases, an elevation twice as great as that of Etna), the melting
of the snows renders such inundations as have been described far
more abundant and disastrous. The phenomena in question are
meteorologically connected with the eruptions of volcanos, and are
variously modified by the height of the mountain, the dimensions
of that part of it which is always covered with snow, and the extent
and degree to which the sides of the cone of cinders become heated ;
but they are not to be regarded as volcanic phenomena properly so
called. Vast cavities also often exist on the slope or at the foot of
volcanos which, communicating through many channels with the
mountain torrents, form large subterranean lakes or reservoirs of
water. When earthquake shocks, which, in the Andes, usually
precede all igneous eruptions, convulse the entire mass of the
volcano, these subterranean reservoirs are opened, and there issue
from them water, fishes, and tufaceous mud. There is the singular

388 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

phenomenon which brings to light an otherwise unknown fish? the
Pimelodes Cyclopum, called by the inhabitants of the highlands of
Quito " Prenadilla," and which I described soon after my return.
When, on the night of the 19th of June, 1698, the summit of a
mountain situated to the north of Chimborazo, the Carguairazo,
above 19,000 English feet high, fell in, the country for nearly thirty
English geographical square miles round was covered with mud and
fishes ; and seven years earlier a putrid fever, in the town of Ibarra,
was ascribed to a similar eruption of fish from the volcano of Im-
baburu.

I recall these facts, because they throw some light on the differ-
ence between the eruption of dry ashes and miry inundations of
tufa and trass, carrying with them wood, charcoal, and shells. The
quantity of ashes emitted by Vesuvius in the recent eruption, like
everything connected with volcanos and other great natural phe-
nomena of a character to excite terror, has been exceedingly exag-
gerated in the public papers ; and two Neapolitan chemists, Vieenzo
Pepe and Giuseppe di Nobili, notwithstanding the statements of
Monticelli and Covelli to the contrary, even describe the ashes as
containing silver and gold. According to the results of my re-
searches and inquiries, the thickness of the bed of ashes formed by
the twelve days' shower was but little above three feet, towards
Bosche Tre Case, on the slope of the cone where rapilli were
mingled with them; and in the plain, from 15£ to 19 inches at the
utmost. Such measurements ought not to be taken in places where
the ashes have been heaped up by the action of wind, like drifted
snow or sand, or have accumulated from being carried thither by
water. The times are passed for seeking only the marvellous in
volcanic phenomena, in the manner of the ancients, among whom
Ctesias made the ashes of Etna to be conveyed as far as the Indian
peninsula. There are in Mexico veins of gold and silver in trachytic
porphyry; but in the ashes of Vesuvius which I brought back
with me, and which an excellent chemist, Heinrich Rose, has ex-
amined at my request, no traces of either gold or silver have been
discovered.

Although the above-mentioned results, which are quite in ac-
cordance with the exact observations of Monticelli, differ much from

OF VOLCANOS. 389

the accounts which have been current during the short interval
which has elapsed, it is nevertheless true that the eruption of ashes
from Vesuvius from the 24th to the 28th of last October (1822) is
the most memorable of any of which we possess an authentic account,
since that which occasioned the death of the elder Pliny. The
quantity of ashes, is, perhaps, three times as great as has ever been
seen to fall since volcanic phenomena have been attentively observed
in Italy. A stratum of ashes, from 16 to 19 inches thick, appears
at first sight insignificant compared with the mass which we find
covering Pompeii ; but, not to speak of the increase which that mass
has probably received by the effects of heavy rains and other causes
during the centuries which have, since elapsed, and without renew-
ing the animated debate respecting the causes of the destruction of
the Campanian towns, and which, on the other side of the Alps, has
been carried on with a considerable degree of skepticism, it should
here be recalled to recollection that the eruptions of a volcano, at
widely separated epochs, do not well admit of comparison, as respects
their intensity. All inferences derived from analogy are inadequate
where quantitative relations are concerned ; as the quantity of lava
and ashes, the height of the column of smoke, and the, loudness or
intensity of the detonations.

From the geographical, description of Strabo, and from an opin-
ion given by Vitruvius respecting the volcanic origin of pumice, we
perceive that, up to the year of the death of Vespasian, i. e. pre-
vious to the eruption which overwhelmed Pompeii, Vesuvius had
more the appearance of an extinct volcano than of a Solfatara.
"When, after long repose, the subterranean forces suddenly opened
for themselves new channels, and again broke through the beds of
primitive and trachytic rocks, effects must have been produced for
which subsequent ones do not furnish a standard. From the well-
known letter in which the younger Pliny informs Tacitus of his
uncle's death, it may be clearly seen that the renewal of volcanic
outbursts, or what might be called the revival of the slumbering
volcano, began with an eruption of ashes. The same thing was
observed at Jorullo, when in September, 1759, the new volcano,
breaking through beds of syenite and trachyte, rose suddenly in the
plain. The country people took flight on finding their huts strewed

33*

390 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

with ashes which had been emitted from the everywhere opening
ground. In the ordinary periodical manifestations of volcanic ac-
tivity, on the contrary, the shower of ashes marks the termination
of each particular eruption. There is a passage in the letter of the
younger Pliny which shows clearly that, at a very early stage of
the eruption, the dry ashes which had fallen had reached a thick-
ness of four or five feet, without accumulation from drift or other
extraneous cause. He writes, in the course of his narrative, " The
court which had to be crossed, to reach the room in which Pliny
was taking his noonday repose, was so filled with ashes and pumice,
that, if he had longer delayed coming forth, he would have found
the passage stopped." In an enclosed space like a court, the
action of wind in drifting the ashes can scarcely have been very
considerable.

I have interrupted my general comparative view of volcanos by a
notice of particular observations made on Vesuvius, partly on ac-
count of the great interest excited by th§ recent eruption, and
partly on account of those recollections of the catastrophes of Pom-
peii and Herculaneum, which are almost involuntarily recalled to
our minds by the occurrence of any considerable shower of ashes.
I have recorded in a note the measurements of height made by my-
self and others on Vesuvius and in its vicinity.

We have hitherto been considering the structure and mode of
action of those volcanos which have a permanent communication
with the interior of the earth by craters. The summits of such
volcanos consist of masses of trachyte and lava upheaved by elastic
forces and traversed by veins. The permanency of their action
gives us reason to infer great complexity of structure. They have,
so to speak, an individual character which remains unaltered for
long periods of time. Neighboring mountains often present the
greatest differences in their products : leucitic and feldspathic lavas,
obsidian with pumice, and masses of basalt containing olivine.
They belong to the most recent terrestrial phenomena, breaking
through almost all the sedimentary strata, and their products and
lava currents are of later origin than our valleys. Their life, if I
may permit myself to employ this figurative mode of- expression,
depends on the manner and permanence of their communications

OF VOLCANOS. 391

with the interior of the earth. They often continue for centuries
in a state of repose, are then suddenly rekindled, and end by
becoming Solfataras, emitting aqueous vapors, gases, and acids;
sometimes, however, as in the case of the Peak of Teneriffe, we find
that their summit has already become a laboratory of regenerated
sulphur ; while from the sides of the mountain there still issue large
torrents of lava, basaltic in the lower part, but towards the upper
part, where the pressure is less, (2) presenting the form of obsidian
with pumice.

Distinct from these volcanos provided with permanent craters,
there is another class of volcanic phenomena more rarely observed,
but particularly instructive to the geologist, as they recall the
Ancient World, or the earliest geological revolutions of our planet.
Trachytic mountains open suddenly, emit lava and ashes, and close
gain, perhaps never to reopen. Thus it was with the gigantic
mountain of Antisana in the chain of the Andes, and with the
Monte Epomeo in Ischia in 1302. Sometimes such an outbreak
has even taken place in plains : as in the high plateau of Quito, in
Iceland, at a' distance from Mount Hecla, and in Euboea, in the
Lelantine Fields. Many of the upheaved islands belong to this
class of transitory phenomena. In all these cases, the communica-
tion with the interior of the earth is not permanent, and the action
ceases as soon as the cleft or fissure forming a temporary channel
closes again. Veins or dykes of basalt, dolerite, and porphyry,
which in different parts of the earth traverse almost all formations,
and masses of syenite, augitic porphyry, and amygdaloid, which
characterize the recent transition and oldest sedimentary rocks, have
probably been formed in a similar manner. In the youth of our
planet, the substances of the interior being still fluid, penetrated
through the everywhere fissured crust of the globe, sometimes
becoming solidified in the form of rocky veins or dykes of granular
texture, and sometimes spreading out in broad sheets, and resem-
bling superimposed strata. The volcanic products or rocks trans-
mitted to us from the earlier ages of our planet have not flowed in
narrow bands like the lavas of the isolated conical volcanos of the
present time. The mixtures of augite, titaniferous iron, feldspar,
and hornblende, may have been the same at different epochs, some-

392 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OF ACTION

times approximating more to basalt and sometimes to trachyte;
and (as we learn from the important researches of Mitecherlieh,
and the analogy of artificial igneous products) chemical substances
may have united in definite proportions in a crystalline form : in
all cases we recognize that substances similar in composition have
arrived at the surface of the earth by very different ways ; either
simply upheaved, or penetrating through temporary fissures; and
that breaking through the older rocks (t*. e. the earlier oxidized
crust of the globe), they have finally issued as lava currents from
conical mountains having a permanent crater. To confound to-
gether phenomena so different, is to throw the geological study of
volcanos and volcanic action back into the obscurity from which, by
the aid of numerous comparative observations and researches, it has
gradually begun to emerge.

The question has often been propounded : What is it that burns
in volcanos — what produces the heat which melts and fuses together
earths and metals? Modern chemical science has essayed to answer,
That what burns are the earths, the metals, the alkalies themselves ;
viz. the metalloids of those substances. The solid and already-
oxidized crust of the globe separates the surrounding atmosphere,
with the oxygen which it contains, from the inflammable unoxidized
substances in the interior of our planet : when those metalloids come
in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere there arises disengage-
ment of heat. The great and celebrated chemist who propounded
this explanation of volcanic phenomena soon himself relinquished it.
Observations made in mines and caverns in all climates, and which
in concert with M. Arago I have collected in a separate memoir,
show that, even at what may be considered a very small depth, the
temperature of the earth is much above the mean temperature of
the atmosphere at the same place. A fact so remarkable, and so
generally confirmed, connects itself with that which we learn from
volcanic phenomena. The depth at which the globe may be re-
garded as a molten mass has been calculated. The primitive cause
of this subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the process of formation
itself, the separation of the spherically condensing mass from a cos-
mical gaseous fluid, and the cooling of the terrestrial strata at
different depths by the loss of heat parted with by radiation. All

OP VOLCAN08. 393

volcanic phenomena are probably the result of a communication
either permanent or transient between the interior and exterior of
the globe. Elastic vapours press the molten oxidizing substances
upwards through deep fissures. Volcanos might thus be termed
intermitting springs or fountains of earthy substances j i. e. of the
fluid mixture of metals, alkalies, and earths which solidify into lava
currents and flow softly and tranquilly, when being upheaved they
find a passage by which to escape. In a similar manner the
Ancients represented (according to Plato's Phaedon) all volcanic
fiery currents as streams flowing from the Pyriphlegethon.

To these considerations and views let me be permitted to add
another more bold. May we not find in this internal heat of our
globe — (a heat indicated by thermometric experiments on the
waters of springs rising from different depths, (3) as well as by our
observations on volcanos) — a cause which may explain one of the
most wonderful phenomena with which the study of fossils has
made us acquainted ? Tropical forms of animals, and, in the vege-
table kingdom, arborescent ferns, palms, and bambusaceae, are found
buried in the cold regions of the North. Everywhere, the Ancient
World shows a distribution of organic forms at variance with our
present climates. To resolve so important a problem, recourse has
been had to several hypotheses ; such as the approach of a comet,
a change in the obliquity of the Ecliptic, and a different degree of
intensity in the solar light. None of these explanations are satis-
factory at once to the astronomer, the physicist, and the geologist.
For my part I willingly leave the axis of the earth in its place, and
suppose no change in the light of the solar disk (from whose spots a
celebrated astronomer was inclined to explain the favorable or un-
favorable harvests of particular years); I am disposed to recognize
that in each planet there exist, independently of its relations to the
central body of the system to which it belongs, and independently of
its astronomical position, various causes for the development of heat ;
— processes of oxidation, precipitations and chemical changes in the
capacity of bodies, by increase of electro-magnetic intensity, and
communications opened between the internal and external portions
of the planet.

It may be that, in the Ancient World, exhalations of heat issuing

394 STRUCTURE, AND MODE OP ACTION OF VOLCANOS.

forth through the many openings of the deeply fissured crust of the
globe may have favored, perhaps for centuries, the growth of palms
and tree-ferns and the existence of animals requiring a high tempe-
rature, over entire countries where now a very different climate
prevails. According to this view of things (a view already indi-
cated by me, in a work entitled " Geological Essay on the Super-
position of Kocks in both Hemispheres"), the temperature of
volcanos would be that of the interior of the earth ; and the same
cause which, operating through volcanic eruptions, now produces
devastating effects, might in primeval ages have clothed the deeply
fissured rocks of the newly oxidized earth in every zone with the
most luxuriant vegetation.

If, with a view to explain the distribution of tropical forms whose
remains are now discovered buried in northern regions, it should be
assumed that the long-haired species of Elephant now found en-
closed in ice was originally indigenous in cold climates, and that
forms resembling the same leading type may, as in the case of lions
and lynxes, have been able to live in wholly different climates, still
this manner of solving the difficulty presented by fossil remains
cannot be extended so as to apply to vegetable productions. From
reasons with which the study of vegetable physiology makes us
acquainted, Palms, Musaceae, and arborescent Monocotyledones, are
incapable of supporting the deprivation of their appendicular organs
which would be caused by the present temperature of our northern
regions ; and in the geological problem which we have to examine,
it appears to me difficult to separate vegetable and animal remains
from each other. The same mode of explanation ought to compre-
hend both.

I have permitted myself at the conclusion of the present dis-
cussion to connect with facts collected in different and widely sepa-
rated countries some uncertain and hypothetical conjectures. The
philosophical study of Nature rises beyond the requirements of a
simple description of Nature : it does not consist in a sterile accu-
mulation of isolated facts. It may sometimes be permitted to the
active and curious mind of man to stretch forward from the present
to the still obscure future ; to divine that which cannot yet be
clearly known; and thus to take pleasure in the ancient myths of
geology reproduced in our own days in new and varied forms.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 395

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(*) p. 384. — "A more complete determination of the height of all

parts of the margin of the crater."

Oltmanns, my astronomical fellow-laborer, of whom, alas ! science
has been early deprived, re-calculated the barometric measurements
of Vesuvius referred to in the preceding memoir (of the 22d and
25th of November and of the 1st of December, 1822), and has
compared the results with the measurements which have been com-
municated to me in manuscript by Lord Minto, Yisconti, Monticelli,
Brioschi, and Poulett Scrope.

A. Rocca del Palo, the highest and Northern Margin of the Crater of Vesuvius.

Toises. Eng. ft.

Saussure, barometric measurement computed in 1773, pro-
bably by Deluc's formula - - - ^!'K *&u - * 609 — 3894
Poli, 1794, barometric - > .^ \ - •* * ... 606 — 3875
Breislak, 1794, barometric (but, like Poli, the formula em-
ployed uncertain) - . < ,*s V* " 613, — 3920
Gay-Lassac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, baro-
metric computed by Laplace's formula, as are also all the
barometric results which follow ----- 603 , — 3856

Brioschi, 18 10; trigonometric 638 — 4080

Visconti, 1816, trigonometric - - - - - - - 622 — 3977

Lord Minto, 1822, barometric, often repeated - - - 621 — 3971
Poulett Scrope, 1822, barometric, somewhat uncertain, from
the proportion between the diameters of the tube and

cistern being unknown - - --.-<*"•- - 604 — 3862

Monticelli and Covelli, 1822 - ~ - - - * -~ - - 624 — 3990

Humboldt, 1822 - 629 — 4022

Most probable result, 317 toises, or 2027 English feet, above the Hermit-
age; or 625 toises, or 3996 English feet, above the level of the sea.

396 STRUCTURE AND ACTION OF VOLCANOS.

B. The lowest and Southern Margin of the Crater, opposite to Bosche Tre Case.

Toises. Eng. ft.

After the eruption of 1794, this edge became 400 (426
Eng.) feet lower than the Rocca del Palo ; therefore, if
we estimate the latter at 625 toises (3996 English feet) 559 — 3574
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Bueh, and Humboldt, 1805, baro-
metric - 534 — 3414

Humboldt, 1822, barometric 546 — 3491

C. Height of the Cone of Scoria inside the Crater, which fell in on
the 22d of October, 1822.

Toises. Eng. ft.

Lord Minto, barometric 650 — 4156

Brioschi, trigonometric, according to different combinations

either 636 — 4066

Or 641 — 4098

Probable final result, for the height of the above-mentioned cone of scoriae,
646 toises, or 4130 English feet.

D. Pimta Nasone, highest summit of the Somma.

Toises. Eng. ft.
Schuckburgh, 1794, barometric, probably computed by his

own formula ,ri«. . -:^: .-.••,**/. „«•«•.?.' •'* >C. > •-* - - 584 — 3734
Humboldt, 1822, barometric, Laplace's formula - - 586 — 3747

E. Plain of the Atria del Cavallo.

Toises. Eng. ft.
Humboldt, 1822, barometric 403 — 2577

F. Foot of the Cone of Ashes.

Toises. Eng. ft.

Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, baro-
metric 370 — 2366

Humboldt, 1822, barometric .... *\ -'_> 388 — 2481

G. Hermitage del Salvatore.

Toises. Eng. ft.

Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, baro-
metric 300 — 1918

Lord Minto, 1822, barometric 307.9 1969

Humboldt, 1822, barometric repeated .... 3Q8.7 — 1974

Part of my measurements have been printed in MonticellF s Storia
de' fenomeni del Vesuvio, avyenuti negli anni 1821-1823, p. 115;

ANNOTATIONS AND~ABDITIONS. 397

but the neglected correction for the height of the mercury in the
cistern has somewhat disfigured the results as there published.
When it is remembered that the results given in the above table
were obtained with barometers of very different constructions, at
various hours of the day, with winds from very different quarters,
and on the unequally heated declivity of a volcano, in a locality in
which the decrease of atmospheric temperature differs greatly from
that which is supposed in our barometric formulae, — the agreement
will be found to be as great as could be expected, and quite satis-
factory.

My measurements in 1822, at the time of the Congress of Yerona,
when I accompanied the late King of Prussia to Naples, were made
with more care and under more favorable circumstances than those
of 1805. Differences of height are besides always to be preferred
to absolute heights, and these show that, since 1794, the difference
between the heights of the edges of the crater at the Rocca del Palo
and on the side towards Bosche Tre Case has continued almost the
same. I found it in 1805 exactly 69 toises (441 English feet), and
in' 1822 almost 82 toises (524 English feet): A distinguished
geologist, Mr. Poulett Scrope, found 74 toises (473 English feet),
although the absolute heights which he assigns to the two sides of
the crater appear to be rather too small. So little variation in a
period of twenty-eight years, in which there were such violent com-
motions in the interior of the crater, is certainly" a striking pheno-
menon.

The height attained by cones of scorise rising from the floor of
the crater of Vesuvius is also deserving of particular attention. In
1776, Schuckburgh found such a cone 615 toises, or 3932 English
feet, above the surface of the Mediterranean i according to the mea-
surements of Lord Minto (a very accurate observer), the cone of
scoriae which fell in on the 22d of October, 1822, even attained the
height of 650 toises, or 4156 English feet. On both occasions,
therefore, the height of the cones of scoriae in the crater surpassed
that of the highest part of the margin of the crater. When we
compare together the measurements of the Rocca del Palo from
1773 to 1822, we are almost involuntarily led to entertain the bold
conjecture that the north margin of the crater has been gradually
34

STRUCTURE, AND ACTION OP VOLCANOS.

upraised by subterranean forces. The accordance of the three mea-
surements between 1773 and 1805 is almost as striking as that of
those taken from 1816 to 1822> In the latter period, we cannot
doubt the height being from about 621 to 629 toises (3970 to 4022
English feet). Are the measurements made from thirty to forty
years earlier, which gave only 606 to 609 toises (3875 to 3894
English feet), less certain ? At some future day, after longer periods
shall have elapsed, it will be possible to decide what is due to errors
of measurement, and what to an actual rise in the margin of the
crater. There cannot be in this case any accumulation of loose
materials from above. If the solid trachyte-like lava beds of the
Rocca del Palo really become higher, we must assume them to be
upheaved from below by volcanic forces.

My learned and indefatigable friend Oltmanns has placed all the
details of the above measurements before the public, accompanied by
a careful critical examination of them, in the Abhandl. der konigl.
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1822-1823, s. 3-20.
May this investigation be the means of inducing geologists fre-
quently to examine hypsometrically this low and most easily acces-
sible (except Stromboli) of the European volcanos, so that in the
course of centuries there may be obtained a frequently checked and
accurate account of its periods of development !

(3) p. 391. — "Where the pressure is less"

Compare Leopold von Buch on the Peak of Teneriffe, in his Phy-
sikalische Beschreibung der canarischen Inseln, 1825, s. 213 ; and
in the Abhandlungen der konigl. Akademie zu Berlin, 1820-1821,
s. 99.

(3) p. 393. — "Waters of springs rising from different depths"
Compare Arago in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour
1835, p. 234. The increase of temperature is in our latitudes 1° of
Reaumur (2°. 2 5 of a degree of Fahrenheit) for every 113 Parisian
feet (120.5 English feet), or 1° Fah. to 53.5 English feet nearly.
In the Artesian boring at New Salzwerk (Oeynhausen's Bad), not
far from Minden, which is the greatest known depth below the level
of the sea, the temperature of the water at 2094 £ Parisian feet
(2232 1 Eng.) is fully 26°.2 Reaumur, or 91° Fahr. } while the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 399

mean temperature of the air above may be taken at 7°. 7 Reaumur,
or 49°. 2 Fahr. It is very remarkable that in the third century
Saint Patricius, Bishop of Pertusa, was led, by seeing the hot springs
near Carthage, to a very just view respecting the cause of such an
increase of heat. (Acta S. Patricii, p. 555, ed. Ruinart; Cosmos,
bd. i. s. 231 — English edition, vol. i. p. 211.)

THE

VITAL FORCE;

OR,

THE RHODIAN GENIUS

[FIRST PRINTED IN 1795.]

34*

THE VITAL FORCE;

OR,

THE EHODIAN GENIUS.

THE Syracusans, like the Athenians, had their Poecile, in which
representations of gods and heroes, the works of Grecian and
Italian art, adorned the halls, glowing with varied colors. The
people resorted thither continually ; the young warriors to contem-
plate the exploits of their ancestors, the artists to study the works
of the great masters. Among the numerous paintings which the
active zeal of the Syracusans had collected from the mother coun-
try, there was one which, for a century past, had particularly at-
tracted the attention of spectators. Sometimes the Olympian Jove,
Cecrops, the founder of cities, and the heroic courage of Harmodius
and Aristogiton, would want admirers, while men pressed in crowd-
ed ranks around the picture of which we speak. Whence this pre-
ference ? Was it a rescued work of Apelles, or of the school of
Gallimachus ? No; it possessed, indeed, grace and beauty; but yet
neither in the blending of the colors, nor in the character and
style of the entire picture, could it "be compared with many other
paintings in the Poecile.

The multitude (comprehending therein many classes of society)
often regard with astonishment and admiration what they do not
comprehend : this picture had occupied its place for a hundred
years ; but though Syracuse contained within the narrow liniifeen-
closed by its walls more of the genius of art than the clwBdte $£ the
remainder of sea-surrounded Sicily, no one had .yelndiyined/tihe: hid-
den meaning of the design. It was even uncertain; to &haM*em'ple
the painting had originally belonged, for it fhacbfljeeii rescuei^&om

404 THE VITAL FOBCE;

a shipwrecked vessel, which was only conjectured, from the mer-
chandise it contained, to have come from Rhodes.

On the foreground of the picture, youths and maidens formed a
closely crowded group. They were without clothing and well
formed, but at the same time did not exhibit the more noble and
graceful proportions admired in the statues of Praxiteles and Alca-
menes. Their robust limbs, showing the traces of laborious efforts,
and the purely terrestrial expression of their desires and sorrows,
seemed to take from them everything of a diviner character, and
to chain them exclusively to their earthly habitation. Their hair
was simply ornamented with leaves and field-flowers. Their arms
were outstretched towards each other, as if to indicate their desire of
union, but their troubled looks were turned towards a Genius who,
surrounded by bright light, hovered in the midst. A butterfly was
placed on his shoulder, and in his hand he held on high a lighted
torch. The contours of his form were soft and childlike, but his
glance was animated by celestial fire : he looked down as a master
upon the youths and maidens at his feet. Nothing else that was
characteristic could be discovered in the picture. Some persors
thought they could make out at its foot the letters £ and $, from
whence (as antiquaries were then no less bold in their conjectures
than they now are) they took occasion to infer, in a somewhat
forced manner, the name of Zenodorus ; thus attributing the work
to a painter of the same name as the artist who at a later period
cast the Colossus of Rhodes.

The t( Rhodian Genius," however — for such was the name given
to the picture — did not want for commentators and interpreters
in Syracuse. Amateurs of the arts, and especially the younger
amongst them, on returning from a short visit to Corinth or Athens,
would have thought it equivalent to renouncing all pretensions to
connoisseurship if they had not been provided with some new ex-
planation. Some regarded the Genius as the personification of
Spiritual Love, forbidding the enjoyment of sensual pleasures;
others said it was the assertion of the empire of Reason over De-
sire : the wiser among the critics were silent, and presuming some
high, though yet undiscovered meaning, examined meanwhile, with
pleasure, the simple composition of the picture.

OR, THE RHODIAN GENIUS. 405

Still, however, the question remained unsolved. The picture
had been copied with various additions and sent to Greece, but not
the least light had been thrown on its origin ; when at length, at
the season of the early rising of the Pleiades, and soon after the re-
opening of the navigation of the Egean Sea, ships from Rhodes
entered the port of Syracuse, bearing a precious collection of statues,
altars, candelabras, and paintings, which Dionysius's love of art
had caused to be brought together from different parts of Greece.
Among the paintings was one which was immediately recognized as
the companion or pendent of the Rhodian Genius : the dimensions
were the same, and the coloring similar, but in a better state of
preservation. The Genius was still the central figure, but the but-
terfly was no longer on his shoulder ; his head was drooping, and
his torch extinguished and inverted. The youths and maidens
pressing around him had met and embraced; their glance, no longer
subdued or sad, announced, on the contrary, emancipation from re-
straint, and the fulfilment of long-cherished desires.

The Syracusan antiquaries were already seeking to modify the
explanations they had previously proposed, so as to adapt them to
the newly-arrived picture, when Dionysius commanded the latter to
be carried to the house of Epicharmus, a philosopher of the Pytha-
gorean school, who dwelt in a remote part of Syracuse called Tyche.
Epicharmus rarely presented himself at the court of Dionysius ; for
although the latter was fond of calling around him the most distin-
guished men from all the Greek colonial cities, yet the philosopher
found that the proximity of princes takes even from men of the
greatest intellectual power part of their spirit and their freedom.
He devoted himself unceasingly to the study of natural things,
their forces or powers, the origin of animals and plants, and the
harmonious laws in accordance with which the heavenly bodies, as.
well as the grains of hail and the flakes of snow, assume their dis-
tinctive forms. Oppressed with age, and -unable to proceed far
without assistance, he caused himself to be conducted daily to the
Poecile, and thence to the entrance of the port, where, as he said, his
eyes received the image of the boundless and the infinite which his
epirit ever strove in vain to apprehend. He lived, honored alike

406 THE VITAL FORCE;

by the tyrant, whose presence he avoided, and by the lower classes
of the people, whom he met gladly, and often with friendly help.

Exhausted with fatigue, he was reposing on his couch, when the
newly-arrived picture was brought to him by the command of Dio-
nysius. Care had been taken to bring, at the same time, a faithful
copy of the " Rhodian Genius," and the philosopher desired the two
paintings to be placed side by side before him. After having re-
mained for some time with his eyes fixed upon them, and absorbed
in thought, he called his scholars together, and spoke to them in the
following terms, in a voice which was not without emotion :< —

" Withdraw the curtain from the window, that I may enjoy once
more the view of the fair earth animated with living beings. During
sixty years I have reflected on the internal motive powers of nature,
and on the differences of substances : to-day, for the first time, the
picture of the Rhodian Genius leads me to see more clearly that
which I had before only obscurely divined. As living beings are
impelled by natural desires to salutary and fruitful union, so the
raw materials of inorganic nature are moved by similar impulses.
Even in the reign of primeval night, in the darkness of chaos, ele-
mentary principles or substances sought or shunned each other in
obedience to indwelling dispositions of amity or enmity. Thus the
fire of heaven follows metal, iron obeys the attraction of the load-
stone, amber rubbed takes up light substances, earth mixes with
earth, salt collects together from the water of the sea, and the acid
moisture of the Stypteria (atvittrfiia, vypa), as well as the flocculent
salt Trichitis, love the clay of Melos. In inanimate nature, all things
hasten to unite with each other according to their particular laws.
Hence no terrestrial element (and who would dare to include light
among the number of such elements?) is to be found anywhere in
its pure and primitive simple state. Each as soon as formed tends
to enter into new combinations, and the art of man is needed to dis-
join and present in a separated state substances which you would
seek in vain in the interior of the earth, and in the fluid oceans of
air or water. In dead, inorganic matter, entire inactivity and repose
reign so long as the bonds of affinity continue undissolved, so long
as no third substance comes to join itself to the others. But even

OR, THE BHODIAN GENIUS. 407

then, the action and disturbance produced are soon again succeeded
by unfruitful repose.

" It is otherwise, however, when the same substances are brought
together in the bodies of plants and animals. In these, the vital
force or power reigns supreme, and, regardless of the mutual amity or
enmity of the atoms recognized by Democritus, commands the union
of substances which in inanimate nature shun each other, and sepa-
rates those which are ever seeking to enter into combination.

" Now come nearer to me, my friends ; look with me on the first
of the pictures before us, and recognize in the Rhodian Genius, in
the expression of youthful energy, in the butterfly on his shoulder,
and in the commanding glance of his eye, the symbol of vital force
animating each individual germ of the organic creation. At his feet
are the earthy elements, desiring to mix and unite, conformably to
their particular tendencies. The Genius, holding aloft his lighted
torch with commanding gesture, controls and constrains them, with-
out regard to their ancient rights, to obey his laws.

" Now view with me the new picture which the tyrant has sent
to me for explanation : turn your eyes- from the image of life to that
of death. The butterfly has left its former place and soars upwards;
the extinguished torch is reversed, the head of the youth has sunk :
the spirit has fled to other spheres, and the vital force is dead. Now
the youths and maidens joyfully join hands, the earthy substances
resume their ancient rights : they are freed from the chains that
bound them, and follow impetuously after long restraint the impulse
to union. Thus inert matter, animated awhile by vital force, passes
through an innumerable diversity of forms, and perhaps in the same
substance which once enshrined the spirit of Pythagoras, a poor
worm may have enjoyed a momentary existence.

" Go, Polycles, and tell Dionysius what thou hast heard ; — and
you my friends, Buryphamos, Lysis, and Scopas, come nearer to me
and support me ; I feel that, in my weakened frame, the enfeebled
vital power will not long hold in subjection the earthy substances,
which reclaim their ancient liberty. Lead me once again to the
Pcecile, and thence to the sea-shore ; soon you will collect my ashes/7

408 THE VITAL FORCE.

NOTE.

I HAVE noticed, in the Preface to the Second and Third Editions
(s. xiii. p. xii. English Trans.), the subject of the republication here
of the preceding pages, which were first printed in Schiller's Horen
(Jahrg. 1795, st. 5, s. 90-96). They contain the development of
a physiological idea clothed in a semi-mythical garb. In the Latin
" Aphorisms from the Chemical Physiology of Plants," appended to
my " Subterranean Flora/7 in 1793 — I had defined the " vital force"
as " the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following
their original affinities." The first of my aphorisms were as follows :
"Rerum naturam si totam consideres, magnum atque durabile, quod
inter elementa intercedit, discrimen perspicies, quorum altera aflmita-
tum legibus obtemperantia, altera, vinculis solutis, varie juncta ap-
parent. Quod quidem discrimen in elementis ipsis eorumque indole
neutiquam positum, quum ex sola distributione singulorum petendum
esse videatur. Materiam segnem, brutam, inanimam earn vocamus,
cujus stamina secundum leges chymicse aflmitatis mixta sunt. Ani-
mata atque organica ea potissimun corpora appellamus, quae, licet in
novas mutari formas perpetuo tendant, vi interna quadam conti-
nentur, quominus priscam sibique insitam formam relinquant.

"Vim internani, quaa chymicse aninitatis vincula resolvit, atque
obstat, quominus elementa corporum libere conjungantur, vitalem
vocamus. Itaque nullum certius mortis criterium putredine datur,
qua primse partes vel stamina reruin, antiquis juribus revocatis,
aflmitatum legibus parent. Corporum inanimorum nulla putredo
esse potest." (Yide Aphorism! ex doctrina Physiologise chemicse
Plantarum, in Humboldt, Flora Fribergensis subterranea, 1793, pp.
133-136.)

I have placed in the mouth of Epicharmus the above propositions,
which were disapproved by the acute Vicq d'Azyr, in his Traite*
d' Anatomic et de Physiologic, t. i. p. 5, but are now entertained by
many distinguished persons among my friends. Reflection and con-
tinued study in the domains of physiology and chemistry have deeply
shaken my earlier belief in a peculiar so-called vital force. In 1797,

NOTE. 409

at the close of my work entitled " Versuche uber die gereizte Muskel
und Nervenfaser, nebst Vermuthimgen liber den chemischen Process
des Lebens in der Thier und Pflanzcnwelt" (bd; ii. s. 430-436), I
already declared that I by no means regarded the existence of such
peculiar vital forces as demonstrated. Since that time, I have no
longer called peculiar forces what may possibly only be the operation
of the concurrent action of the several long-known substances and
their material forces. We may, however, deduce from the chemical
relations of the elements a safer definition of animate and inani-
mate substances than the criteria which are taken from voluntary
motion, from the circulation of fluids within solids, from internal
appropriation and from the fibrous arrangements of the elements.
I term that an animated substance "of which the parts being
separated by external agency alter their state of composition after
the separation, all other and external relations continuing the same."
This definition is merely the enunciation of a fact. The equilibrium
of the elements in animated or organic matter is preserved by their
being parts of a whole. One organ determines another, one gives to
another its temperature and tone or disposition; in all which, these
and no other affinities are operative. Thus in organized beings all
is reciprocally means and end. The rapidity with which organic
parts, separated from a complete living organism, change that state of
combination, differs greatly, according to the degree of their original
dependence, and to the nature of the substance. Blood of animals,
which varies much in the different classes, suffers change sooner than
the juices of plants. Funguses generally decay sooner than leaves
of trees, and muscle more easily than the cutis.

Bones, the elementary structure o£ which has been very recently
recognized, hair of animals, wood in plants or trees, the feathery
appendages of seeds of plants (Pappus), are not inorganic or without
life ; but even in life they approximate to the state in which they
are found after their separation from the rest of the organism. The
higher the degree of vitality or susceptibility of an animated sub-
stance, the more rapidly does organic change in its composition ensue
after separation. " The aggregate total of the cells is an organism,
and the organism lives so long as the parts are active in subservience
to the whole. In opposition to lifeless or inorganic, organic nature
35

410 THE VITAL FORCE.

appears to be self-determining." (Henle, Allgemeine Anatomic,
1841, s. 216-219.) The difficulty of satisfactorily referring the
vital phenomena of organic life to physical and chemical laws con-
sists chiefly (almost as in the question of predicting meteorological
processes in the atmosphere), in the complication of the phenomena,
and in the multiplicity of simultaneously acting forces and of the
conditions of their activity.

I have remained faithful, in " Cosmos/' to the same mode of view-
ing and representing what are called " Lebenskrafte," vital forces,
and vital affinities (Pulteney, in the Transact, of the Royal Soc. of
Edinburgh, vol. xvi. p. 305), the formation-impulse, and the active
principle in organization. I have said, in Cosmos, bd. i. s. 67
(English ed. vol. i. p. 62), "The myths of imponderable matter
and of vital forces peculiar to each organism have complicated and
perplexed the view of nature. Under different conditions and forms
of recognition, the prodigious mass of our experimental knowledge
has progressively accumulated, and is now enlarging with increased
rapidity. Investigating reason essays from time to time with vary-
ing success to break through ancient forms and symbols, invented to
effect the subjection of rebellious matter, as it were, to mechanical
constructions." Farther on, in the same volume (p. 339 English,
and 367 of the original), I have said, " In a physical description of
the universe, it should still be noticed that the same substances which
compose the organic forms of plants and animals are also found in the
inorganic crust of the globe; and that the same forces or powers which
govern inorganic matter are seen to prevail in organic beings like-
wise, combining and decomposing the various substances, regulating
the forms and properties of organic tissues, but acting in these cases
under complicated conditions yet unexplained, to which the very
vague terms of < vital phenomena/ l operations of vital forces/ have
been assigned, and which have been systematically grouped, accord-
ing to analogies more or less happily imagined." (Compare also the
critical notices on the assumption of proper or peculiar vital forces
in Schleiden's Botanik als inductive Wissenchaft (Botany as an
Inductive Science), th. i. s. 60, and in the recently published ex-
cellent Untersuchungen iiber thierische Elektricitat (Researches on
Animal Electricity), by Eniil du Bois-Reymond, bd. i. s. xxxiv.-l.)

THE

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA,

THE

ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INC A ATAHUALLPA

AND

THE FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN,
FROM THE CREST OF THE ANDES.

THE

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA,
THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA.

AFTER a residence of an entire year on the crest of the chain of
the Andes or Antis, (*) between 4° north and 4° south latitude,
in the high plains of New Granada, Pastes, and Quito, whose mean
elevations range between 8500 and 12,800 English feet, we rejoiced
in descending gradually through the milder climate of the Quina-
yielding forests of Loxa to the plains of the upper part of the course
of the Amazons, a terra incognita rich in magnificent vegetation.
The small town of Loxa has given its name to the most efficacious
of all the species of medicinal Fever Bark : Quina, or Cascarilla fina
de Loxa. It is the precious production of the tree which we have
described botanically as Cinchona condaminea, but which, under the
erroneous impression that all the kinds of the Quina or fever bark
of commerce were furnished by the same species of tree, had pre-
viously been called Cinchona officinalis. The Fever Bark was first
brought to Europe towards the middle of the seventeenth century,
either, as Sebastian Badus asserts, to Alcala de Henares in 1632, or
to Madrid in 1640, on the arrival of the wife of the Viceroy, the
Countess of Chinchon, (2) who had been cured of intermittent fever
at Lima, accompanied by her physician, Juan del Vego. The trees
which yield the finest quality of Quina de Loxa are found from 8 to
12 miles to the south-east of the town, in the mountains of Uritu-
singa, Villon aco, and Rumisitana, growing on mica-slate and gneiss,
at very moderate elevations above the level of the sea, being between
5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 English) feet, heights about equal
respectively to those of the Hospice on the Grimsel and the Pass of

35*

414 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

the Great St. Bernard. The proper boundaries of the Quina- woods
in this quarter are the small rivers Zamora and Cachiyacu.

The tree is cut down in its first flowering season, or in the fourth
or seventh year of its age, according as it has sprung from a vigor-
ous root-shoot, or from a seed : we heard with astonishment that, at
the period of my journey, according to official computations, the
collectors of Quina (Cascarilleros and Cazadores de Quina, Quina
Hunters) only brought in 110 hundred weight of the Bark of the
Cinchona condaminea annually. None of this precious store found
its way at that time into commerce ; the whole was sent from the
port of Payta on the Pacific, round Cape Horn to Cadiz, for the use
of the Spanish court. In order to furnish this small quantity of
11,000 Spanish pounds, eight or nine hundred trees were cut down
every year. The older and thicker stems have become more and
more scarce; but the luxuriance of vegetation is such that the
younger trees, which are now resorted to, though only 6 inches in
diameter, often attain from 53 to 64 English feet in height. This
beautiful tree, which is adorned with leaves above 5 English inches
long and 2 broad, growing in dense woods, seems always to aspire to
rise above its neighbors. As its upper branches wave to and fro in
the wind, their red and shining foliage produces a strange and pecu-
liar effect recognizable from a great distance. The mean tempera-
ture in the woods where the Cinchona condaminea is found, ranges
between 12£° and 15° Keaumur (60°.2 and 65°.8 Fahrenheit),
which are about the mean annual temperatures of Florence and the
Island of Madeira; but the extremes of heat and cold observed at
these two stations of the temperate zone are never felt around Loxa.
Comparisons between the climates of places, one of which is situated
in an elevated tropical plain, and the other in a higher parallel of
latitude, can be from their nature but little satisfactory.

In order to descend south-south-east from the mountain knot of
Loxa to the hot Valley of the Amazons, it is first necessary to pass
over the Paramos of Chulucanas, Gruamani, and Yamoca — mountain
wildernesses of a peculiar character of which we have already spoken,
and to which, in the southern parts of the Andes, the name of Puna
(a word belonging to the Quichua language) is given. They mostly
rise above 9500 (10,125 English) feet; they are stormy, often en^.

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 415

veloped for days in dense mist, or visited by violent and formidable
showers of hail — consisting not merely of hailstones of different
spherical forms, usually a good deal flattened by rotation, but also
sometimes of less regular forms, the hail having run together into
thin plates of ice (papa-cara) which cut the face and hands. At
such times, I have occasionally seen the thermometer sink to 7° or
5° Reaumur (47°. 8 and 43°. 2 Fahr.), and the electric tension of
the atmosphere, measured by Volta's electrometer, pass in a few
minutes from positive to negative. When the temperature sinks
below 5° Reaumur (43°. 2 Fahrenheit), snow falls in large and thinly
scattered flakes. The vegetation of the Paramos has a peculiar
physiognomy and character, from the absence of trees, the short
close branches of the small-leaved, myrtle-like shrubs, the large sized
and numerous blossoms, and the perpetual freshness of the whole
from the constant and abundant supply of moisture. No zone of
alpine vegetation in the temperate or cold parts of the globe can
well be compared with that of the Paramos in the tropical Andes.

The impressions produced on the mind by the natural characters
of these wildernesses of the Cordilleras are heightened, in a remark-
able and unexpected manner, from its being in those very regions
that we still see admirable remains of the gigantic work, the arti-
ficial road of the Incas, which formed a line of communication through
all the provinces of the Empire, extending over a length of more
than a thousand English geographical miles. We find, placed at
nearly equal distances apart, stations consisting of dwelling houses
built of well-cut stone ; they are a kind of Caravanserai, and are
called Tambos and sometimes Inca-pilca (from pircca, the wall ?).
Some of them are surrounded by a kind of fortification ; others were
constructed for baths, with arrangements for conducting hot water j
the larger were designed for the use of the family of the Monarch
himself. I had previously seen measured, and drawn with care,
buildings of the same kind in a good state of preservation at the foot
of the volcano of Cotopaxi, near Callo. Pedro de Cie§a, writing in
the 16th century, called them " Aposentos de Mulalo." (3) In the
pass between Alausi and Loxa, called the Paramo del Assuay — (a
much frequented route across the Ladera de Cadlud, 14,568 French
or 15,526 English feet above the level of the sea, -or almost equal

416 PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA.

to the height of Mont Blanc) — as we were leading our heavily laden
mules with great difficulty through the marshy ground on the ele-
vated plain del Pullal, our eyes meanwhile were continually dwell-
ing on the grand remains of the Inca's road, which with a breadth
of twenty-one English feet ran by our side for above a German
mile. It had a deep under-structure, and was paved with well-cut
blocks of blackish trap-porphyry. Nothing that I had seen of the
remains of Roman roads in Italy, in the south of France, and in
Spain, was more imposing than these works of the ancient Peru-
vians, which are moreover situated, according to my barometric
measurements, at an elevation of 12,440 (13,258 English) feet above
the sea, or more than a thousand feet higher than the summit of
the Peak of Teneriffe. The ruins of what is called the Palace of
the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, and which are known by the name of the
" Paredones del Inca," are situated at the same elevation on the
Assuay. Proceeding from thence to the southward towards Cuenca,
the road leads to the small but well-preserved fortress of Caiiar, (4)
belonging probably to the same period, that of Tupac Yupanqui,
or to that of his warlike son, Huayna Capac.

We saw still finer remains of the old Peruvian artificial roads on
the way between Loxa and the Amazons, at the Baths of the Incas
on the Paramo de Chulucanas, not far from Guancabamba, and in
the neighborhood of Ingatambo, at Pomahuaca. These last named
remains are at a so much lower elevation, that I found the difference
of level between the Inca's Road at Pomahuaca and that on the
Paramo del Assuay upwards of 9100 (about 9700 English) feet.
The distance in a straight line is, by astronomically determined lati-
tudes, exactly 184 English geographical miles, and the ascent of the
road is 3500 (3730 English) feet greater than the height of the Pass
of Mount Cenis above the Lake of Como. There are two great arti-
ficial Peruvian paved roads, or systems of roads, covered with flat
stones, or sometimes even with cemented gravel (5) (Macadamized) ;
one passes through the wide and arid plain between the Pacific
Ocean and the chain of the Andes, and the other over the ridges of
the Cordilleras. Mile-stones, or stones marking the distances, are
often found placed at equal intervals. The road was conducted
across rivers and deep ravines by three kinds of bridges, stone, wood,

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 417

and rope bridges (Puentes de Hamaca or de Maroma), and there
were also aqueducts, or arrangements for bringing water to the Tam-
bos (hostelries or caravanserais), and to the fortresses. Both systems
of roads were directed to the central point, Ouzco, the seat of govern-
ment of the great empire, in 13P 31' South latitude, and which is
placed, according to Pentland's map of Bolivia, 10,676 Paris or
11,378 English feet above the level of the sea. As the Peruvians
employed no wheel carriages, and the roads were consequently only
designed for the march of troops, for men carrying burdens, and for
lightly laden lamas, we find them occasionally interrupted, on account
of the steepness of the mountains, by long flights of steps, provided
with resting places at suitable intervals. Francisco Pizarro and
Diego Almagro, who on their distant expeditions used the military
roads of the Incas with so much advantage, found great difficulties
for the Spanish cavalry at the places where these steps occurred. (6)
The impediment presented to their march on these occasions was so
much the greater, because, in the early times of the Conquista, the
Spaniards used only horses instead of the carefully treading mule,
who in the difficult parts of the mountains seems to deliberate on
every step he takes. It was not until a later period that mules were
employed.

Sarmiento, who saw the^ Roads of the Incas whilst they were still
in a perfect state of preservation, asks, in a "Relacion" which long
lay unread, buried in the Library of the Escurial, "how a nation
unacquainted with the use of iron could have completed such grand
works in so high and rocky a region ('Carninos tan grandes y tan
sovervios'), extending from Cuzco to Quito on the one hand, and to
the coast of Chili on the other ^ The Emperor Charles," he adds,
"with all his power, could not accomplish even a part of what the
well-ordered Government of the Incas effected through the obedient
people over whom they ruled." Hernando Pizarro, the most educated
and civilized of the three brothers, who for his misdeeds suffered a
twenty years' imprisonment at Medina del Campo, and died at last,
at a hundred years of age, "in the odor of sanctity," "en olor de
Santidad," exclaims: "In the whole of Christendom there are no-
where such fine roads as those which we here admire." The two
important capitals and seats of government of the Incas, Cuzco and

418 PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA.

Quito, are 1000 English geographical miles apart in a straight line
(SS.E., NN.W.), without reckoning the many windings of the
way; and including the windings, the distance is estimated by Gar-
cilasso de la Vega and other Conquistadores at " 500 leguas." Not-
withstanding the great distance, we learn, from the well-confirmed
testimony of the Licentiate Polo de Ondegardo, that Huayna Capac,
whose father had conquered Quito, caused some of the building
materials for the "princely buildings" (the houses of the Incas) in
the latter city, to be brought from Cuzco.

"When enterprising races inhabit a laud where the form of the
ground presents to them difficulties on a grand scale which they
may encounter and overcome, this contest with nature becomes a
means of increasing their strength and power as- well as their
courage. Under the despotic, centralizing system of the Inca-rule,
security and rapidity of communication, especially in the movement
of troops, became an important necessity of government. Hence
the construction of artificial roads on so grand a scale, and hence
also the establishment of a highly improved postal system. Among
nations in very different stages of cultivation, we see the national
activity display itself with peculiar predilection in some particular
directions, but we can by no means determine the general state of
culture of a people from the striking development of such particular
and partial activity. Egyptians, Greeks, (7) Etruscans, and Romans,
Chinese, Japanese, and Hindoos show many interesting contrasts in
these respects. It is difficult to pronounce what length of time may
have been required for the execution of the Peruvian roads. The
great works in the northern part of the Empire of the Incas, in the
highlands of Quito, must at all events have been completed in less
than 30 or 35 years, i. e. within the short period intervening be-
tween the defeat of the Ruler of " Quitu" and the death of Huayna
Capac, but entire obscurity prevails as to the period of the forma-
tion of the Southern, and more properly speaking Peruvian roads.

The mysterious appearance of Manco Capac is usually placed 400
years before the landing of Pizarro in the Island of Puna (1532),
therefore towards the middle of the 12th century, almost 200 years
before the foundation of the city of Mexico (Tenochtitlan) ; some
Spanish writers even reckon, instead of 400, 500 and 550 years

PLATEAU OF CAXAMA11CA. 419

between Manco Capac and Pizarro. But the history of the Empire
of Peru only recognizes thirteen ruling princes of the Irica-dynasty,
a number which, as Prescott very justly remarks, is not sufficient to
occupy so long an interval as 550 or even 400 years. Quetzalcoatl,
Botschica, and Mauco Capac are the three mythical forms with
which the commencements of civilization among the Aztecs, the
Muyscas (more properly Chibchas), and the Peruvians, are connect-
ed. Quetzalcoatl, bearded, clothed in black, a high -priest of Tula,
subsequently a penance-performing anchorite on a mountain near
Tlaxapuchicalco, comes to the highlands of Mexico from the coast
of Panuco ; therefore, from the eastern coast of Anahuac. Botschica,
or rather Nemterequeteba (8) (a Buddha of the Muyscas), a mes-
senger sent by the Deity, bearded and wearing long garments, arrives
in the high plains of Bogota from the grassy steppes east of the chain
of the Andes. Before Manco Capac, a degree of civilization already
prevailed on the picturesque shores of the Lake of Titicaca. The
strong fort of Cuzco, on the hill of Sacsahuaman, was formed on the
pattern of the older constructions of Tiahuanaco. In the same man-
ner, the Aztecs imitated the pyramidal structures of the Toltecs, and
these, those of the Olmecs (Hulmecs) ; and, gradually ascending, we
arrive, still on historic ground in Mexico, as far back as the sixth
century of our era. According to Siguenza, the Toltec step-pyramid
(or Teocalli) of Cholula is a repetition of the form of the Hulmec
step-pyramid of Teotihuacan. Thus, as we penetrate through eaeh
successive stratum of civilization, we arrive at an earlier one; and
national self-consciousness not having awoke simultaneously in the
two Continents, we find in each nation the imaginative, mythical do-
main always immediately preceding the period of historic knowledge.
Notwithstanding the tribute of admiration which the first Con-
quistadores paid to the roads and aqueducts of the Peruvians, not
only did they neglect the repair and preservation of both these classes
of Useful works, but they even wantonly destroyed them; and this
still more towards the sea-coast (for the sake of obtaining fine cut
stones for new buildings; and where the want of water consequent
on the destruction of the aqueducts has rendered the soil barren)
than on the ridges of the Andes, or in the deep-cleft valleys by
which the mountain chain is intersected. In the long day's journey

420 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

from the sycnitic rocks of Zaulaca to the Valley of San Felipe (rich
in fossils, and situated at the foot of the icy Paramo de Yamoca),
we were obliged to wade through the Rio de Gruancabamba (which
flows into the Amazons) no less than twenty-seven times, on account
of the windings of the stream ; while we continually saw near us,
running in a straight line along the side of a steep precipice, the
remains of the high-built road of the Incas with its Tambos. The
mountain torrent, though only from 120 to 150 English feet broad,
was so strong and rapid that, in fording it, our heavily laden mules
were often in danger of being swept away by the flood. They car-
ried our manuscripts, our dried plants, and all that we had been
collecting for a year past. Under such circumstances, one watches
from the other side of the stream with very anxious suspense until
the long train of eighteen or twenty beasts of burden has passed in
safety.

The same Rio de Gruancabamba, in the lower part of its course,
where it has many falls and rapids, is made to serve in a very singu-
lar manner for the conveyance of correspondence with the coast of
the Pacific. In order to expedite more quickly the few letters from
Truxillo which are intended for the province of Jaen de Bracainoros,-
a "swimming courier," "el correo que nada," as he is called in the
country, is employed. This post messenger, who is usually a young
Indian, swims in two days from Pornahuaca to Tomependa, first by
the Rio de Chamaya (the name given to the lower part of the Rio
de Gruancabamba), and then by the Amazons. He carefully places
the few letters entrusted to him in a large cotton handkerchief, which
he winds round his head in the manner of a turban. When he
comes to waterfalls, he leaves the river, and makes a circuit through
the woods. In order to lessen the fatigue of swimming for so long
a time, he sometimes throws one arm round a piece of a. very light
kind of wood (Ceiba, Palo de balsa), of a tree belonging to the fa-
mily of BombaceaB. Sometimes also a friend goes with him to bear
him company. The pair have no concern about provisions, as they
are always sure of a hospitable reception in any of the scattered
huts, which are abundantly surrounded with fruit trees, in the beau-
tiful Huertas de Pucara and Cavico.

Happily, the river is free from crocodiles, which, in the upper part

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 421

of the Amazons, are first met with below the cataracts of Mayasi.
These unwieldy and slothful monsters generally prefer the more
tranquil waters. According to my measurements, the Rio de Cha-
maya, from the Ford (Paso) de Pucara to the place where it enters
the Amazons River below the village of Chores, has a fall (9) of
1668 (1778 English) feet in the short space of 52 English geograph-
ical miles. The G-overnor of the province of Jaen de Bracamoros
assured me that letters carried by this singular water-post were rarely
either wetted or lost. Soon after my return to Europe from Mexico,
I received, in Paris, letters from Tomependa, which had been sent
in the manner above described. Several tribes of wild Indians, liv-
ing on the banks of the Upper Amazons, make their journeys in a
similar manner, swimming down the stream sociably in parties. I
had the opportunity of seeing in this manner, in the bed of the river,
the heads of thirty or forty persons (men, women, and children), of
the tribe or the Xibaros, on their arrival at Tomependa. The
"Correo que nada" returns by land by the difficult route of the Pa-
ramo del Paredon.

On approaching the hot climate of the basin of the Amazons, the
eye is cheered by the aspect of a beautiful, and occasionally very
luxuriant vegetation. We had never before, not even in the Cana-
ries, or on the hot sea-coast of Cumana and Caraccas, seen finer
orange trees than those of the Huertas de Pucara. They were* prin-
cipally the sweet orange (Citrus aurantium, Risso), and less fre-
quently the bitter or Seville orange (C. vulgaris, Risso). Laden
with many thousands of their golden fruits, they attain a height of
sixty or sixty-four English feet; and, instead of rounded tops or
crowns, have aspiring branches, almost like a laurel or bay tree.
Not far from thence, near the Ford of Cavico, we were surprised by
a very unexpected sight. We saw a grove of small trees, only about
eighteen or nineteen English feet high, which, instead of green, had
apparently perfectly red or rose-colored leaves. It was a new spe-
cies of Bougainvillaea, a genus first established by the elder Jussieu,
from a Brazilian specimen in Coinmerson's herbarium. The trees
were almost entirely without true leaves, as what we took for leaves
at a distance, proved to be thickly crowded bracteas. The appearance
was altogether different, in the purity and freshness of the color,
36

4:22 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

from the autumnal tints which, in many of our forest trees, adorn
the woods of the temperate zone at the season of the fall of the leaf.
A single species of the South African family of Proteacese, Rhopala
ferruginea, descends here from the cold heights of the Paramo de
Yamoca to the hot plain of Chamaya. We often found here the
Porlieria hygrometrica (belonging to the Zygophyllese), which, by
the closing of the leaflets of its finely pinnated foliage, foretels an
impending change of weather, and especially the approach of rain,
much better than any of the Mimosacese. It very rarely deceived us.
We found at Chamaya rafts (balsas) in readiness to convey us to
Tomependa, which we desired to visit for the purpose of determining
the difference of longitude between Quito and the mouth of the
Chinchipe (a determination of some importance to the geography
of South America, on account of an old observation of* La Conda-
mine).(10) We slept as usual under the open sky on the sandy
shore (Playa de Guayanchi) at the confluence of the Rio de Cham-
aya with the Amazons. The next day we embarked on the latter
river, and descended it to the Cataracts and Narrows (Pongo, in the
Quichua language, from puncu, door or gate) of Rentema, where
rocks of coarse-grained sandstone (conglomerate) rise like towers,
and form a rocky dam across the river. I measured a base line on
the flat and sandy shore, and found that at Tomependa the after-
wards mighty River of the Amazons is only a little above 1386
English feet across. In the celebrated River Narrow or Pongo of
Manseritche, between Santiago and San Borja, in a mountain ravine,
where at some points the overhanging rocks and the canopy of
foliage forbid more than a very feeble light to penetrate, and where
all the drift-wood, consisting of a countless number of trunks of
trees, is broken and dashed in pieces, the breadth of the stream is
under 160 English feet. The rocks by which all these Pongos or
Narrows are formed, undergo many changes in the course of centu-
ries. Thus a part of the rocks forming the Pongo de Rentema,
spoken of above, had been broken up by a high flood a year before
my journey; and there has ever been preserved among the inhabit-
ants, by tradition, a lively recollection of the precipitous fall of the
then towering masses of rock along the whole of the Pongo — an
event which took place in the early part of the eighteenth century.

PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA. 423

This fall, and the consequent blocking up of the channel, arrested
the flow of the stream; and the inhabitants of the village of Puyaya,
situated below the Pongo de Rentema, saw with alarm the wide
river-bed entirely dry; but after a few hours the waters again forced
their way. Earthquake movements are not supposed to have occa-
sioned this remarkable occurrence. The powerful stream appears to
be, as it were, incessantly engaged in improving its bed ; and some
idea of the force which it exerts may be formed from the circum-
stance that, notwithstanding its breadth, it is sometimes so swollen
as to rise more than 26 English feet in the course of twenty or thirty
hours.

We remained for seventeen days in the hot valley of the Upper
Maranon or Amazons. In order to pass from thence to the shores
of the Pacific, the Andes have to be crossed at the point where, be-
tween Micuipampa and Caxamarca (in 6° 57' S. lat. and 78° 34' W.
long, from Greenwich), they are intersected, according to my obser-
vation, by the magnetic equator. Ascending to a still higher eleva-
tion among the mountains, the celebrated silver mines of Chota are
reached, and from thence with a few interruptions the route descends
until the low grounds of Peru are gained ; passing intermediately
over the ancient Caxamarca, where 316 years ago the most sangui-
nary drama in the annals of the Spanish Conquista took place, and
also over Aroma and Grangamarca, Here, as almost everywhere in
the Chain of the Andes and in the Mexican Mountains, the most
elevated parts are picturesquely marked by tower-like outbreaks of
porphyry (often columnar), and trachyte. Masses of this kind give
to the crest of the mountains sometimes a cliff-like and precipitous,
and sometimes a dome-shaped character. They have here broken
through calcareous rocks, which, both on this and on the northern
side of the Equator, are largely developed ; and which, according to
Leopold von Buch's researches, belong to the cretaceous group.
Between G-uambos and Montan, 12,000 French (12,790 English)
feet above the sea, we found marine fossils (n) (Ammonites, nearly
fifteen English inches in diameter, the large Pectan alatus, oyster
shells, Echini, Isocardias, and Exogyra polygona). A species of
Cidaris, which, according to Leopold von Buch, cannot be distin-
guished from that which Brongniart found in the lower part of the

424 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

chalk series at the Perte du Rhone, was collected by us, both at
Tomependa in the basin of the Amazons and at Micuipampa — sta-
tions of which the elevations differ 9900 (10,551 English) feet. In
a similar manner, in the Amuich Chain of the Caucasian Daghestan,
the cretaceous beds rise from the banks of the Sulak, which are
hardly 530 English feet above the sea, to a height of fully 9000
(9592 English) feet on the Tschununi; while on the summit of the
Schadagh Mountain, 13,090 (13,950 English) feet high, the Ostrea
diluviana (Goldf.) and the same cretaceous beds are again found.
Abich's excellent observations in the Caucasus would thus appear
to have confirmed in the most brilliant manner Leopold von Buch's
geological views on the mountain development of the cretaceous
group.

From the lonely grazing farm of Montan, surrounded by herds of
lamas, we ascended more to the south the eastern declivity of the
Cordilleras, and arrived as night was closing in at an elevated plain
where the argentiferous mountain of Gualgayoc, the principal site of
the celebrated silver mines of Chota, afforded us a remarkablo
spectacle. The Cerro de Gualgayoe, separated by a deep-cleft
ravine or valley (Quebrada) from the limestone mountain of Cor-
molatsche, is an isolated mass of silicious rock traversed by a
multitude of veins of silver which often meet or intersect, and
terminated to the north and west by a deep and almost perpen-
dicular precipice. The highest workings are 1445 (1540 English)
feet above the floor of the gallery, the Socabon de Espinachi. The
outline of the . mountain is broken by numerous tower-like and
pyramidal points ; the summit bears indeed the name of " Las
Puntas," and offers the most decided contrast to the " rounded out-
lines" which the miners are accustomed to attribute to metalliferous
districts generally. " Our mountain," said a rich possessor of mines
with whom we had arrived, ."stands there like an enchanted castle
(como si fuese un castillo encantado)." The Gualgayoc reminds
the beholder in some degree of a cone of dolomite, but still more of
the serrated crest of the Monserrat Mountains in Catalonia, which
I have also visited, and which were subsequently described in so
pleasing a manner by my brother. The silver mountain Gualgayoc,
besides being perforated to its summit by many hundred galleries

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 425

driven in every direction, presents also natural openings in the mass
of the silicious rock, through which the intensely dark blue sky of
these elevated regions is visible to a spectator standing at the foot of
the mountain. These openings are popularly called " windows," "las
ventanillas de Gualgayoc." Similar "windows" were pointed out
to us in the trachytic walls of the volcano of Picliincha, and called
by a similar name — " ventanillas de Pichincha." The strangeness
of the view presented to us was still farther increased by the nume-
rous small sheds and dwelling-houses which nestled on the side of the
fortress-like mountain wherever a flat surface admitted their erection.
The miners carry down the ore in baskets, by very steep and dan-
gerous paths, to the places where the process of amalgamation is
performed.

The value of the silver furnished by the mines in the first thirty
years (from 1771 to 1802) amounted probably to considerably above
thirty-two millions of piastres. Notwithstanding the hardness of
the quartzose rock, the Peruvians, before the arrival of the Spaniards
(as ancient galleries and excavations testify), extracted rich argenti-
ferous galena on the Cerro de la Lin and on the Chupiquiyacu, and
gold in Curumayo (where native sulphur is also found in the quartz
rock as well as in the Brazilian Itacolumite). We inhabited near
the mines the small mountain town of Micuipampa, which is 11,140
(11,873 English) feet above the level of the sea, and where, though
only 6° 43' from the Equator, water freezes in the house nightly
throughout a large portion of the year. In this desert, devoid of
vegetation, live three or four thousand persons, who are obliged to
have all their means of subsistence brought from the warm valleys,
as they themselves only rear some kinds of kale and excellent salad.
In this wilderness, as in every town in the high mountains of Peru,
ennui leads the richer class of persons, who are not on that account
more cultivated or more civilized, to pass their time in deep gam-
bling: thus wealth quickly won is still more quickly dissipated.
There is milch that reminds one of the soldier of Pizarro's troop,
•who, after the pillage of the temple at Cuzco, complained that he
had lost in one night at play "a great piece of the sun" (a gold
plate). I observed the thermometer at Micuipampa at 8 in the
morning 1°, and at noon 7° Reaumur X-°>4°. 2 and 47°. 8

f>C*

iih*

426 PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA.

We found among the thin blades of Ichhu-grass (perhaps our Stipa
eriostachya), .a beautiful Calceolaria (C. sibthorpioides), which we
should not have expected at such an elevation.

Not far from the town of Micuipampa, in a high plain called
Llanos or Pampa de Navar, there have been found throughout an
area of above an English geographical square mile, immediately
under the turf, and as it were intertwined with the roots of the
alpine grasses, enormous masses of rich red silver ore and threads of
pure silver (in remolinos, clavos, and vetas manteadas). Another
elevated plain west of the Purgatorio, near the Quebrada de Chiquera,
is called "Choropampa" or the "Field of Shells" (chiiru, in the
Quichua language, signifies shells, and particularly small eatable
kinds, hostion, mexillon). The name refers to fossils which belong
to the cretaceous group, and which are found there in such abundance
that they early attracted the attention of the natives. This is the
place where there was obtained near the surface a mass of pure gold
spun round with threads of silver in the richest manner. Such an
occurrence shows how independent many of the ores thrown up from
the interior of the earth into fissures or veins, are of the nature of
the adjacent rock and of the relative age of the formations broken
through. The rock of the Cerro de Grualgayoc and of Fuentestiana
has a great deal of water, but in the Purgatorio absolute dryness
prevails. I found to my astonishment that, notwithstanding the
height of the strata above the level of the sea, the temperature of
the. last-named mine was 15°. 8 Keaumur (67°. 4 Fahr.); while in
the neighboring Mina de Guadalupe, the water in the mine showed
about 9° Keaumur (52°. 2 Fahr.). As in the open air the thermo-
meter only rises to about 4° Keaumur (41° Fahr.), the miners,
whose toil is severe, and who are .almost without clothing, call the
subterranean heat in the Purgatorio stifling.

The narrow path from Micuipampa to the ancient city of the
Incas, Caxamarca, is difficult even for mules. The name of the
town was originally Cassamarca or Kazamarca, i. e. the Frost town
(marca, as signifying a place or locality, belongs to the northern
Chinchaysuyo or Chinchaysuyu dialect, while the word in the general
Quichua language signifies the stories of houses, and also defences
or forts). Our way lay for five or six hours over a succession of

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 427

Paramos, where we were exposed almost incessantly to the fury of
the wind and to the sharp-edged hail so peculiar to the ridges of the
Andes. The height of the route above the level of the sea is gene-
rally between nine and ten thousand feet (about 9600 and 10,660
Eng.). It afforded me, however, the opportunity of making a mag-
netic observation of general interest; i. e. the determination of the
point where the North Inclination of the Needle passes into South
Inclination, or where the traveller's route- crosses the Magnetic
Equator. (M)

On reaching at length the last of these mountain wildernesses,
the Paramo de Yanaguanga, the traveller looks down with increased
pleasure on the fertile valley of Caxamarca. It affords a charming
prospect \ a small river winds through the elevated plain, which is
of an oval form and about six or seven German geographical square
miles in extent (96 or 112 English geographical square miles).
The plain resembles that of Bogota : both are probably the bottoms
of ancient lakes ; but at Caxamarca there is wanting the myth of the
wonder-working Botschica or Idacanzas, the high-priest of Iraca,
who opened for the waters a passage through the rock of Tequen-
darna. Caxamarca is situated 600 (640 Eng.) feet higher than
Santa Fe de Bogota, therefore almost as high as the city of Quito;
but being sheltered by surrounding mountains it enjoys a far milder
and more agreeable climate. The soil is extremely fertile, and the
plain full of cultivated fields and gardens traversed by avenues of
Willows, large flowered red, white, and yellow varieties of Datura,
Mimosas, and the beautiful Quinuar-trees (our Polylepsis villosa,
a Rosacea allied to Alchemilla and Sanguisorba). Wheat yields
on an average, in the Pampa de Caxamarca, fifteen to twentyfold,
but the hopes of a plentiful harvest are sometimes disappointed by
night frosts, occasioned by the great radiation of heat towards the
unclouded sky through the dry and rarefied mountain air: the frosts
are not felt in the roofed houses.

In the northern part of the plain, small porphyritic domes break
through the widely extended sandstone strata, and probably once
formed islands in the ancient lake before its waters had flowed off.
On the summit of one of these domes, the Cerro de Santa Polonia,
we enjoyed a pleasing prospect. The ancient residence of Atuhu-

428 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

allpa is surrounded on this side by fruit gardens and by irrigated
fields of lucerne (Medicago sativa, " campos de alfalfa"). Columns
of smoke are seen at a distance rising from the warm baths of Pul-
tamarca, which are still called Banos del Inca. I found the tempe-
rature of these sulphur-springs 55° 2 Reaumur (156°. 2 Fahrenheit).
Atahuallpa spent a part of the year at these baths, where some slight
remains of his palace still survive the devastating rage of the Con-
quistadores. The large and deep basin or reservoir in which, ac-
cording to tradition, one of the golden chairs in which the Inca was
carried had been sunk and has ever since been sought in vain,
appeared to nie, from the regularity of its circular shape, to have
been artificially excavated in the sandstone rock above one of the
fissures through which the springs issue.

Of the fort and palace of Atahuallpa there are also only very
slight remains in the town, which is now adorned with some fine
churches. The destruction of the ancient buildings has been accele-
rated by the devouring thirst of gold which led men, before the
close of the sixteenth century, in digging for supposed hidden trea-
sures, to overturn walla and carelessly to undermine or weaken the
foundations of all the houses. The palace of the Inca was situated
on a hill of porphyry which had originally been hollowed at the
surface, so that it surrounds the principal dwelling almost like a
wall or rampart. A state prison and a municipal building (la Casa
del Cabildo) have been erected on a part of the ruins. The most
considerable ruins still visible, but which are only from 13 to 16
feet high, are opposite the convent of San Francisco; they consist,
as may be observed in the house of the Cacique, of fine cut blocks
of stone two or three feet long, and placed upon each other without
cement, as in the Inca-Pilca or strong fortress of Cailar, in the
high land of Quito. .

There is a shaft sunk in the porphyritic rock which once led into
subterranean chambers, and a gallery, said to extend to the other
porphyritic dome before spoken of, that of Santa Polonia. .Such
arrangements show an apprehension of the uncertainties of war, and
the desire to secure the means of escape. The burying of treasures
was an old and very generally prevailing Peruvian custom. There

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 429

may still be found subterranean chambers below many of the private
dwellings of Caxaniarca.

We were shown steps cut in the rock, and also what is called the
Inca's foot-bath (el lavatorio de los pies). The washing of the
monarch's feet was accompanied by some inconvenient usages of
court etiquette. (13) Minor buildings, designed according to tradi-
tion for the servants, are constructed partly like the others of cut
stones, and provided with sloped roofs, and partly with well-formed
bricks alternating with silicious cement (muros y obra de tapia).
In the latter class of constructions there are vaulted recesses, the
antiquity of which I long doubted, but, as I now believe, without
sufficient grounds-.

In the principal building, the room is still shown in which the
unhappy Atahuallpa was kept a prisoner for nine months, (14) from
November, 1532, and there is pointed out to the traveller the wall
on which the captive signified to what height he would fill the room
with gold if set free. This height is given very variously, by Xerez,
in his " Conquista del Peru," which Barcia has preserved for us, by
Hernando Pizzaro in his letters, and by other writers of the period.
The prince said, that " gold in bars, plates, and vessels, should be
heaped up a^high as he could reach with his hand." Xerez assigns
to the room a length of 23, and a breadth of 18 English feet. Grar-
cilasso de la Vega, who quitted Peru in his 20th year, in 1560, esti-
mates* the value of the treasure collected from the temples of the
sun at Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco, and Pachacamac, up to the
fateful 29th of August 15^3, on which day the Inca was put to
death, at 3,838,000 Ducados de Oro. (15)

In the chapel of the state prison, to which I have before alluded
as built upon the ruins of the Inca's palace, the stone still marked
by the indelible stains of blood is shown to the credulous. It is a
very thin slab, 13 feet long, placed in front of the altar, and has
probably been taken from the porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity.
One is not permitted to make any more precise examination by
striking off a part of the stone, but the three or four supposed blood
spots appear to be natural collections of hornblende or pyroxide in
the rock. The Licentiate Fernando Montesinos, who visited Peru
scarcely a hundred years after the taking of Caxamarca, even at that

430 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

early period gave currency to the fable that Atahuallpa was be-
headed in prison, and that stains of blood were still visible on the
stone on which the execution had taken place. There is no reason
to doubt the fact, confirmed by many eye-witnesses, that the Inea,
in order to avoid being burnt alive, consented to be baptized under
the name of Juan de Atahuallpa by his fanatic persecutor, the
Dominican monk Vicente de Valverde. He was put to death by
strangulation (el garrote) publicly, and in the open air. Another
tradition relates, that a chapel was raised over the spot where Ata-
huallpa was strangled, and that his body rests beneath the stone ; in
such case, however, the supposed spots of blood would remain unac-
counted for. In reality, however, the corpse was never placed
beneath the stone in question. After a mass for the dead, and
solemn funereal rites, at which the brothers Pizarro were present in
mourning habits (!), it was conveyed first to the churchyard of the
convent of San Francisco, and .afterwards to Quito, Atahuallpa's
birthplace. This last transfer was in compliance with the expressed
wish of the dying Inca. His personal enemy, the astute Ruminavi
(" stone-eye," a name given from the disfigurement of one eye by a
wart; "rumi" signifying "stone," and "iiaui" "eye," in the Qui-
chua language), from political motives caused the body to be buried
at Quito with solemn obsequies.

We found descendants of the monarch, the family of the Indian
Cacique Astorpilco, dwelling in Caxamarca, among the melancholy
ruins of ancient departed splendor, and living in great poverty and
privation; but patient and uncomplaining. Their descent from
Atahuallpa through the female line has never been doubted in Caxa-
marca, but traces of beard may perhaps indicate some admixture of
Spanish blood. Of the sons of the Great (but for a child of the sun
somewhat free thinking) (16) Huayna Capac, neither of the two who
swayed the sceptre before the arrival of the Spaniards, Huascar and
Atahuallpa, left behind them acknowledged sons. Huascar became
the prisoner of Atahuallpa in the plains of Quipaypan, and was soon
afterwards secretly murdered by his order. Neither were there
any surviving male descendants of the two remaining brothers of
Atahuallpa, the insignificant youth Toparca, whom Pizarro caused to
be crowned as Inca in the autumn of 1553, and the enterprising

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 431

Manco Capac, similarly crowned, but who afterwards rebelled again.
Atahuallpa left indeed a son, whose Christian name was Don Fran-
cisco (but who died very young), and a daughter, Dona Angelina,
by whom Francisco Pizarro (with whom she led a wild and warlike
life) had a son whom he loved fondly, grandchild of the slaughtered
monarch. Besides the family of the Cacique Astorpilco, with whom
I was acquainted at Caxamarca, the Carguraicos and Titu Busca-
inayta were pointed out at the period of my visit as belonging to the
Inca dynasty; but the Buscamayta family has since become extinct.

The son of the Cacique Astorpilco, a pleasing and friendly youth
of seventeen, who accompanied me over the ruins of the palace of
his ancestor, while living in extreme poverty, had filled his imagina-
tion with images of buried splendor and golden treasures hidden
beneath the masses of rubbish upon which we trod. He related to
me, that one of his more immediate forefathers had bound his wife's
eyes, and then conducted her through many labyrinths cut in the
rock into the subterranean garden of the Incas. There she saw,
skilfully and elaborately imitated, and' formed of the purest gold,
artificial trees, with leaves and fruit, and birds sitting on the
branches ; and there too was the much sought for golden travelling
chair (una de las andas) of Atahuallpa. The man commanded his
wife not to touch any of these enchanted riches, because the long
foretold period of the restoration of the empire had not yet arrived,
and that whoever should attempt, before that time, to appropriate
aught of them would die that very night. These golden dreams and
fancies of the youth were founded on recollections and traditions of
former days. These artificial " golden gardens" (Jardines o Huertas
de oro) were often described by actual eye-witnesses, Cieza de Leon
Sarmiento, Garcilasso, and other early historians of the Conquest.
They were found beneath the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, in Caxa-
marca, and in the pleasant Valley of Yucay, a favorite residence of
the monarch's family. Where the golden Huertas were not below
ground, living plants grew by the side of the artificial ones : among
the latter, tall plants and ears of maize (mazorcas) are mentioned as
particularly well executed.

The morbid confidence with which the young Astorpilco assured
me that below our feet, a little to the right of the spot on which I

432 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

stood at the moment, there was an artificial, large-flowered Datura
tree (Guanto), formed of gold wire and gold plates, which spread its
branches over the Inca's chair, impressed me deeply but painfully,
for it seemed as if these illusive and baseless visions were cherished
as consolations in present sufferings. I asked the lad — " Since you
and your parents believe so firmly in the existence of this garden,
are not you sometimes tempted in your necessities to dig in search
of treasures so close at hand ?" The boy's answer was so simple,
and expressed so fully the quiet resignation characteristic of the
aboriginal inhabitants of the country, that I noted it in Spanish in
my journal. "Such a desire (tal antojo) does not come to us;
father says it would be sinful (que fuese pecado). If we had the
golden branches, with all their golden fruits, our white neighbors
would hate and injure us. We have a small field and good wheat
(buen trigo)." Few of my readers, I think, will blame me for
recalling here the words of the young Astorpilco and his golden
visions.

The belief, so widely current among the natives, that to take pos-
session of buried treasures which belonged to the Incas would be
wrong, and would incur punishment and bring misfortune on the
entire race, is connected with another belief which prevailed, espe-
cially in the 16th and 17th centuries, i. e. the future restoration of
a kingdom of the Incas. Every suppressed nationality looks for-
ward to a day of change, and to a renewal of the old government.
The flight of Manco Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, into the forests
of Vilcapampa on the declivity of the eastern Cordillera, and the
sojourn of Sayri Tupac and Inca Tupac Amaru in those wildernesses,
have left permanent recollections. It was believed that the de-
throned dynasty had settled between the rivers Apurimac and Beni,
or still farther to the east in Guiana. The myth of el Dorado and
the golden city of Manoa, travelling from the west to the east, in-
creased these dreams, and Raleigh's imagination was so inflamed by
them, that he founded an expedition on the hope of " conquering
* the imperial and golden city,' placing in it a garrison of three or
four thousand English, and levying from the ' Emperor of Guiana/
a descendant of Huana Capac, and who holds his court with the
same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000 sterling, as the

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 433

price of his promised restoration to the throne in Cuzco and Caxa-
marca." Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language has extended,
some traces of such expectations of the return of the Inca's sove-
reignty continue (17) to exist in the minds of many among those of
the natives who are possessed of some knowledge of the history of
their country.

We remained for five days in the town of the Inca Atalmallpa,
which at that time scarcely reckoned seven or eight thousand inhabi-
tants. Our departure was delayed by the number of mules which
were required for the conveyance of our collections, and by the
necessity of making a careful choice of the guides who were to con-
duct us across the chain of the Andes to the entrance of the long
but narrow Peruvian sandy desert (Desiertode Sechura). The pass-
age over the Cordillera is from north-cast to south-west. Immedi-
ately after quitting the plain of Caxamarca, on ascending a height
of scarcely 9600 (10,23,0 English) feet, the 'traveller is struck with
the sight of two grotesquely shaped porphyritic summits, Aroma
and Cunturcaga (a favorite haunt of the powerful vulture which we
commonly call Condor; kqcca, in the Quichua language, signifies
"the rock"). These summits consisted of five, 'six, or seven-sided
columns, 37 to 42 English feet high, and some of them jointed.
The Cerro Aroma is particularly picturesque. By the distribution
of its often converging series of columns placed one above another,
it resembles a two-storied building, which, moreover, is surmounted
by a dome or cupola of non-columnar rock. Such outbursts of por-
phyry and trachyte are, as I have before remarked, characteristic of
the high crests of the Cordilleras, to which they impart a physiog-
nomy quite distinct from that presented by the Swiss Alps, the
Pyrenees, and the Siberian Altai.

From Cunturcaga and Aroma we descended by a ^ig-zag course a
steep rocky declivity of 6400 English feet into the deep-cleft valley
of the Magdalena, the bottom o£ which is still 4260 English feet
above the level of the sea. A few wretched huts, surrounded by
the same wool or cotton-trees (Bombax discolor) which we had first
seen on the banks of the Amazons, were called an Indian village.
The scanty vegetation of the valley bears some resemblance to that
of the province of Jacn dc Bracanioros, but we missed the red groves
37

434 FIRST VIEW OP THE PACIFIC.

of Bougainvillaea. This valley is one of the deepest with which I
am acquainted in the chain of the Andes : it is a true tranverse
valley directed from east to west, deeply cleft, and hemmed in on the
two sides by the Altos de Aroma and Guangamarca. In this val-
ley recommences the same quartz formation which we had observed
in the Paramo de Yanaguanga, between Micuipampa and Caxamarca,
at an elevation of 11,720 English feet, and which, on the western
declivity of the Cordillera, attains a thickness of several thousand
feet, and was long an enigma to me. Since von Buch has shown us
that the cretaceous group is also widely extended in the highest
chains of the Andes, on either side of .the Isthmus of Panama, the
quartz formation which we are now considering, which has perhaps
been altered in its texture by the action of volcanic forces, may be
considered to belong to the Quadersandstein, intermediate between the
upper part of the chalk series and the Gault and Greensand. -On
quitting the mild temperature of the Magdalena Valley, we had to
ascend again for three hours the mountain wall of 5120 English
feet, opposite to the porphyritic group of the Alto de Aroma. The.
change of climate in so doing was the more sensible, as we were often
enveloped, in the course of the ascent, in. a cold fog.

The longing desire which we felt. to enjoy once more the open
view of the sea, after eighteen months' constant sojourn in the ever-
restricted range of the interior of the mountains, had been height-
ened by repeated disappointments. In looking from the summit
of the volcano of Pichincha, over the dense forests of the Provincia
de las Esmeraldas, no sea horizon can be clearly distinguished, by
reason of the too great distance of the coast and height of the
station : it is like looking down from an air-balloon into vacancy.
One divines, but one does not distinguish. Subsequently, when
between Loxa and Guancabamba we reached the Paramo de Gua-
mini, where there are several ruined buildings of the times of the
Incas, and from whence the mule-drivers had confidently assured us
that we should see beyond the plain, beyond the low districts of
Piura and Lambajeque, the sea itself which we so much desired to
behold, a thick mist covered both the plain and the distant sea-
shore. We saw only variously shaped masses of rock alternately

FIRST VIEW OP THE PACIFIC. 435

rise like islands above the waving sea of mist, and again disappear,
as had been the case in our view from the Peak of Teneriffe. We
were exposed to almost the same disappointment in our subsequent
transit over the Pass of G-uangamarca, at the time of which I am
now speaking. As we toiled up the mighty mountain side, with our
expectations continually on the stretch, our guides, who were not
perfectly acquainted with the road, repeatedly promised us that at
the end of the hour's march which was nearly concluded, our hopes
would be realized. The stratum of mist which enveloped us ap-
peared occasionally to be about to disperse, but at such moments
our field of view was again restricted by intervening heights.

The desire which we feel to behold certain objects does not depend
solely on their grandeur, their beauty, or their importance ; it is
interwoven in each individual with many accidental impressions of
his youth, with early predilection for particular occupations, with an
attachment to the remote and distant, and with the love of an active
and varied life. The previous improbability of the fulfilment of a
wish gives besides to its realization a peculiar kind of charm. The
traveller enjoys by anticipation the first sight of the constellation of
the Cross, and of the Magellanic clouds circling round the Southern
Pole — of the snow of the Chimborazo, and the column of smoke
ascending from the volcano of Quito — -of the first grove of tree-ferns,
and of the Pacific Ocean. The days on which such wishes are
realized form epochs in life, and produce ineffaceable impressions ;
exciting feelings of which the vividness seeks not justification by pro-
cesses of reasoning. With the longing which I felt for the first
view of the Pacific from the crests of the Andes, there mingled the
interest with which I had listened as a boy to the narrative of the
adventurous expedition of Yasco Nunez de Balboa, (**) the fortunate
man who (followed by Francisco Pizarro) first among Europeans
beheld from the heights of Quarequa, on the Isthmus of Panama, the
eastern part of the Pacific Ocean — the " South Sea." The reedy
shores of the Caspian at the place where I first saw them, i. e. from
the Delta formed by the mouths of the Volga, cannot certainly be
called picturesque; yet I viewed them with a gratification heightened
almost into delight by the particular interest and pleasure with
which, in early childhood, I had looked at the shape of this Asiatic

436 FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC.

inland sea on maps. That which is thus excited in us (19) by childish
impressions, or by accidental circumstances in life, takes at a later
period a graver direction, and often becomes a motive for scientific
labors and distant enterprises.

When after many undulations of the ground, on the summit of
the steep mountain ridge, we finally reached the highest point, the
Alto de Guangamarca, the heavens, which had long been veiled,
became suddenly clear : a sharp west wind dispersed the mist, and
the deep blue of the sky in the thin mountain air appeared between
narrow lines of the highest cirrous clouds. The whole of the
western declivity of the Cordillera by Chorillos and Cascas, covered
with large blocks of quartz 13 to 15 English feet long, and the
plains of Chala and Molinos, as far as the sea-shore near Truxillo,
lay beneath our eyes in astonishing apparent proximity. We now
saw for the first time the Pacific Ocean itself; and we saw it clearly :
forming along the line of the shore a large mass from which the
light shone reflected, and rising in its immensity to the well-defined,
no longer merely conjectured horizon. The joy it inspired, and
which was vividly shared by my companions Bonpland and Carlos
Montufar, made us forget to open the barometer until we had
quitted the Alto de Guangamarca. From our measurement taken
soon after, but somewhat lower down, at an isolated cattle-farm
called the Hato de Guangamarca, the point from which we first saw
the sea would be only somewhere between 9380 and 9600 English
feet above the level of the sea.

The view, of the Pacific was peculiarly impressive to one who like
myself owed a part of the formation of his mind and character, and
many of the directions which his wishes had assumed, to intercourse
with one of the companions of Cook. My^ schemes of travel were
early made known, in their leading outlines at least, to George
Forster, when I enjoyed the advantage of making my first visit
to England under his guidance, more than half a century ago.
Forster's charming descriptions of Otaheite had awakened through-
out Northern Europe a general interest (mixed, I might almost say,
with romantic longings) for the Islands of the Pacific, which had at
that time been seen by very few Europeans. I too cherished, at the
time of which I am speaking, the hope of soon landing on them ;

FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC. 437

for the object of my visit to Lima was twofold — to observe the
transit of Mercury over the solar disk, and to fulfil an engagement
made with Captain Baudin before I left Paris, to join him in a
voyage of circumnavigation which was to take place as soon as the
Government of the French Kepublic could furnish the requisite
funds.

Whilst we were in the Antilles, North American newspapers
announced that the two Corvettes, Le Gre'ographe and Le Naturaliste,
would sail round Cape Horn and touch at Callao de Lima. On
receiving this intelligence at Havana, where I then was, after having
completed my Orinoco journey, I relinquished my original plan of
going through Mexico to the Philippines, and hastened to engage a
vessel to convey me from the Island of Cuba to Cartagena de Indias.
Baudin' s Expedition, however, took quite a different route from that
which was announced and expected ; instead of sailing round Cape
Horn, as had been designed when it had been intended that Bon-
pland and myself should form part of it, it sailed round the Cape of
Good Hope. One of the two objects of my Peruvian journey and
of our last passage over the Chain of the Andes failed ; but on the
other hand I had, at the critical moment, the rare good fortune of a
perfectly clear day, during a very unfavorable season of the year,
on the misty coast of Low Peru. I observed the passage of Mer-
cury over the Sun at Callao, an observation which has become of
some importance towards the exact determination of the longitude
of Lima, (20) and of all the south-western part of the New Conti-
nent. Thus, in the intricate relations and graver circumstances of
life, there may often be found associated with disappointment, a germ
of compensation.

37:

438 PLATEAF OF CAXAMARCA,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(J) p. 413. — " On the ridge of the Chain of the Andes or Antis"
The Inca Garcilasso, who was well acquainted with the language
of his country, and was fond of dwelling on etymologies, always
calls the Chain of the Andes las Montanas de Ids Antis. He says
positively, that the great Mountain chain east of Cuzco derived its
name from the tribe of the Antis, and the Province of Anti, which
is to the east of the Capital of the Incas. The Quaternary divi-
sion of the Peruvian Empire according to the four quarters of the
heavens, reckoned from Cuzco, borrowed its terminology, not from the
very circumstantial words taken which signify East, West, North, and
South in the Quichua language (intip lluscinanpata, intip yaucunan-
pata, intip chaututa chayananpata, intip chaupunchau chayanan-
pata) ; but from the names of the Provinces and of the tribes or
races (Provincias llamadas Anti, Cunti, Chincha y Colla), which are
east, west, north, and south of the Centre of the Empire (the city of
Cuzco). The four parts of the Inca-theocracy are called accordingly
Antisuyu, Cuntisuyu, Chinchasuyu, and Collasuyu. The word sui/u
signifies " strip," and also " part.'7 Notwithstanding the great dis-
tance, Quito belonged to Chinchasuyu; and in proportion as by their
religious wars the Incas extended still more widely the prevalence
of their faith, their language, and -their absolute form of govern-
ment, th«se Suyus also acquired larger and unequally increased
dimensions. Thus" the names of provinces came to be used to ex-
press the different quarters of the heavens; " Nombrar aquellos Par-
tidos era lo misrao," says Garcilasso, que decir al Oriente, 6 al
Poniente." The Snow Chain of the Antis was thus looked upon as
an east chain. " La Provincia Anti da nombre 4 las Montafias de
los Antis. Llamaron la parte a del Oriente Antisuyu, por la qual
tainbien llaman Anti & toda aquella gran Cordillera de Sierra Nevada

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 439

que pasa al Oriente del Peru, por dar a entender, que esta al
Oriente." (Commentarios Reales, p. i. pp. 47 and 122.) Later
writers have tried to deduce the name of the Chain of the Andes
from "anta," which signifies "copper," in the Quichua language.
This metal was indeed of the greatest importance to a nation whose
tools and cutting instruments were made Hot of iron but of copper
mixed with tin, but the name of the " Copper Mountains" can
hardly have been extended to so great a chain; and besides, as
Professor Buschmann very justly remarks, the word anta retains its
terminal a when making part of a compound word : anta, cobre y
antamarca Provincia de Cobre. Moreover, the form and composi-
tion of words in the ancient Peruvian language are so simple that
there can be no question of the passage of an a into an i; and thus
" anta" (copper) and " Anti or Ante" (meaning, as dictionaries of
the country explain, " la tierra de los Andes, el Indio hombre de
los Andes, la Sierra de los Andes," *. e. the country of the Andes,
an inhabitant of the Andes, or the chain of mountains themselves)
are and must continue two wholly different and distinct words.
There are no means of interpreting the proper name (Anti) by con-
necting it with any signification or idea ; if such connection exist, it
is buried in the obscurity of the past. Other Composites of Anti,
besides the above-mentioned Antisuyu, are " Anteruna" (the native
inhabitant of the Andes) and Anteunccuy or Antionccoy (sicknes
of the Andes, mal de los Andes pestifero). v

(3) p. 413. — " The Countess of Chmchon."
She was the wife of the Viceroy Don Greronimo Fernandez de
Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chmchon, who administered
the government of Peru from 1629 to 1639. The cure of the Vice-
Queen falls in the year 1638. A tradition which has obtained cur-
rency in Spain, but which I have heard' much combated at Loxa,
names a Corregidor del Cabildo de Loxa, Juan Lopez de Caiiizares,
as the person by whom the Quina-bark was first brought to Lima
and generally recommended as a remedy. I have heard it asserted
in Loxa, that the beneficial virtues of the tree were known long be-
fore in the mountains, though not generally. Immediately after my
return to Europe, I expressed the doubts I felt as to the discovery

440 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

having been made by the natives of the country round Loxa, since
even at the present day the Indians of the neighboring valleys,
where intermittent fevers are very prevalent, shun the use of bark.
(Compare my memoir, entitled "iiber die Chinawalder," in the
" Magazin der Gresellschaft naturforschender Freunde," zu Berlin,
Jahrg. i. 1807, s. 59.) The story of the natives having learnt the
virtues of the Cinchona from the lions, who " cure themselves of in-
termittent fevers by gnawing the bark of the China (or Quina)
trees"— (Hist, de 1'Acad. des Sciences, ann£e 1738, Paris, 1740,
p. 233) — appears to be entirely of European origin, and nothing
but a monkish fable. Nothing is known in the New Continent of
the "Lion's fever;" for the large so-called American Lion (Felis
concolor), and the small mountain Lion (Puma), whose footmarks I
have seen on the snow, are never tamed and made the subjects of
observation; nor are the different species of Felinae in either con-
tinent accustomed to gnaw the bark of trees; The name of Countess's
Powder (Pulvis Comitissae), occasioned by the remedy having been
distributed by the Countess of Chinchon, was afterwards changed
to that of Cardinal's or Jesuit's powder, because Cardinal de Lugo,
Procurator-General of the order of the Jesuits, spread the know-
ledge of this valuable remedy during a journey through France,
and recommended it to Cardinal Mazarin the more urgently, as the
brethren of the order were beginning to prosecute a lucrative trade
in South American Quina-bark, which they obtained through their
missionaries. It is hardly necessary to remark that, in the long
controversy which ensued respecting the good or bad effects of the
fever bark, the Protestant physicians sometimes permitted them-
selves to be influenced by religious intolerance and dislike of the
Jesuits.

(3) p. 415.— "Aposenfos de MuMo."

Respecting these aposentos (dwellings, inns, in the Quichua lan-
guage tampiij whence the Spanish form tambo), compare Cieca,
Chronica del Peru. cap. 41 (ed. de 1554, p. 108) and my Vues des
Cordilleres, PI. xxiv.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 441

(4) p. 416.—" The fortress of (lie Canar"

Is situated not far from Turche, at an elevation of 9984 (10,640
English) feet. I have given a drawing of it in the Vues des Cor-
dilleres., PI. xvii. (compare also Cie§a, cap. 44, p. i. p. 120). Not
far from the Fortaleza del Canar, in the celebrated ravine of the
Sun, Inti-Guaycu (in the Quichua or Quechhua language, liuaycco),
is the rock on which the natives think they see a representation of
the Sun, and of an enigmatical sort of bank or bench, which is called
Inga-Chungana (Incachuncana), the Inca's play. I have drawn
both. See Vues des Cordilleres, PL xviii. and xix.

'• :-3 '' ^ *r *' '

(5) p. 416. — " Artificial roads, covered with cemented yravcl"
Compare Velasco, Historia de Quito, 1844, t. i. p. 126-1 28, and
Prescott, Hist, of the Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 157.

(r>) p. 417. — " Where tfie road was 'interrupted ~by flights of steps"
Compare Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, vol. iii. fol. 404, and Ex-
tracts from Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro, employed by
the great historical writer now living at Boston; Prescott, vol. i. p.
444. " El camino de las sierras es cosa de ver, porque en verdad
en tierra ton fragosa en la cristiandad no se han visto tan hermosos
caminos, toda la mayor parte de calzada."

(7) p. 418.- — " Greeks and Romans slww these contrasts"
"If," says Strabo (lib. v. p. 235, Casaub), "the Greeks, in
building their cities, sought for a happy result by aiming especially
at beauty and solidity, the Romans on the other hand have regarded
particularly, objects which the Greeks left unthought of; — stone
pavements in the streets; aqueducts bringing to the city abundant
supplies of water; and provisions for drainage so as to wash away
and carry to the Tiber all uncleanliness. , They also paved the roads
through the country, so that wagons may transport with ease the
goods brought by trading ships."

(s) p. 419. — " The messenger of the deity Nemtereqiieieba"
civilization of ancient Mexico (the Aztec land of Anahuac),

442 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

and that of the Peruvian theocracy or empire of the Incas, the Chil-
dren of the Sun, have so engrossed attention in Europe, that a third
point of comparative light and of dawning civilization, which existed
among the nations -inhabiting the mountains of New Granada, was
long almost entirely overlooked. I have touched on this subject in
some detail in the Viie des Cordilleres et Monumens des Peuplcs
Indigenes de l'Ame*rique (ed. in 8vo.) t. ii. p, 220-267. The form
of the government of the Muyscas of New Granada reminds us of
the constitution of Japan and the relation of the Secular Ruler
(Kubo or Seogun, at Jeddo) to the sacred personage, the Dairi, at
Miyako. When Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada advanced to the high
table land of Bogota (Bacata, i. e. the extremity of the cultivated
fields, probably from the proximity of the mountain wall), he found
there three powers or authorities respecting whose reciprocal rela-
tions and subordination there remains some uncertainty. The spi-
ritual chief, who was appointed by election, was the high-priest of
Iraca or Sogamoso (Sugamuxi, the place of the disappearance of
Nemterequeteba) : the secular rulers or princes were the Zaks
(Zaque of Hunsa or Tunja), and the Zipa of Funza. In the feudal
constitution, the last-named prince appears to have been originally
subordinate to the Zake.

The Muyscas had a regular mode of computing time, with inter-
calation for amending the lunar year : they used small circular plates
of gold, cast of equal diameter, as money (any traces of which among
the highly civilized ancient Egyptians have been sought in vain),
and they had temples of the Sun with stone columns, remains of
which have very recently been discovered in the Valley of Leiva.
(Joaquin Acosta, Compendio historico del Descubrimiento de la
Nueva Granada^ 1848, pp. 188, 196, 206, and 208; Bulletin de la
Socie'te' de Geographic de Paris, 1847, p. 114.) The tribe or race
of the Muyscas ought, properly speaking, to be always denoted by
the name of Chibchas; as Muysca, in the Chibcha language, signifies
merely "men," ."people." The origin and elements of the civiliza-
tion introduced are attributed to two mystical forms, Bochica (Bots-
chica) and Nemterequeteba, which are often confounded together.
The first of these is still more mythical than the second; for it was
only Botschica who was regarded as divine, and made almost equal

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 443

to the Sun itself. His fair companion Chia or Huythaca occasioned
by her magical arts the overflowing of the valley of Bogota, and for
so doing was banished by Botschica from the earth, and made to
revolve round it for the first time, as the moon. Botschica struck
the rock of Tequendama, and gave a passage for the waters to flow
off near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes)r in which the
bones of elephant-like mastodons lie buried, at an elevation of 8250
(8792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea. Captain Cochrane
(Journal of a Kesidence in Colombia, 1825, vol. ii. p. 390), and
Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru,
1827, p. 397), state that animals of this species are still living in
the Andes, and shed their teeth! Nemterequeteba, also called
Chinzapogua (enviado de Dios), is a human person, a bearded man,
who came from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso.
The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to
him and sometimes to Botschica, and, as the latter is said to have
borne also the name of Nemqueteba, the confusion between the two,
on ground so unhistoric, is easily accounted for.

My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work, entitled
Compendio de la Hist, de la Nueva Granada, p. 185, endeavors to
prove, by means of the Chibcha language, that " potatoes (Solanum
tuberosum) bear at Usrne the native non-Peruvian name of Yorni,
and were found by Quesada already cultivated in the province of
Velez as early as 1537, a period when their introduction from Chili,
Peru, and Quito, would seem improbable, and therefore that the plant
may be regarded as a native of New Granada." I would remark,
however, that the Peruvian invasion and complete possession of
Quito took place before 1525, the year of the death of the Inca
Huayna Capac. The southern provinces of Quito even fell under
the dominion of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, at the conclusion of the 15th
century (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 332). In the un-
fortunately still very obscure history of the first introduction of the
potato into Europe, the merit of its introduction is yet very gene-
rally attributed to Sir John Hawkins, who is supposed to have
received it from Santa Fe in 1563 or 1565. It appears more cer-
tain that Sir Walter Raleigh planted the first potatoes on his Irish
estate near Youghal, from whence they were taken to Lancashire.

444 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

Before the Conquista, the plaintain (Musa), which since the arrival
of the Spaniards has been cultivated in all the warmer parts of New
Granada, was only found, as Colonel Acosta believes (p. 205), at
Choco. On the name Cundinamarca — applied by a false erudition
to the young republic of New Granada in 1811, a name " full of
golden dreams" (suenos dorados), more properly Cundirumarca (not
Cunturmarca, Garcilasso, lib. viii. cap. 2) — see also Joaquin Acosta,
p. 189. Luis Daza, who joined the small invading army of the
Conquistador Sebastian de Belalcazar which came from the south,
had heard of a distant country abounding in gold, called Cundiru-
marca, inhabited by the tribe of the Chicas, and whose prince had
solicited Atahuallpa, at Caxamarca, for auxiliary troops. These
Chicas have been confounded with the Chibchas or Muyscas of New
Granada; and thus the name of the unknown more southern coun-
try has been unduly transferred to -that territory.

(9) p. 421.— "-The fall of the Rio de Chamaya." -
Compare my Recueil d'Observ. Astron!, vol. i. p. 304; Nivelle-
ment barometrique, No. 236-242. I have given in the Vues des
Cordilleres, PI. xxxi. a drawing of the " swimming post," as he
binds round his head the handkerchief containing the letters.

(10) p. 422. — " Which, on account of an old observation of La
Condamine, was of some importance to the geography of South
America." : ; i;:

I desired to connect chronometrically Tomependa, the point at
which La Condamine began his voyage, and other places geographi-
cally determined by him on the Amazons River, with the town of
Quito. La Condamine had been, in June, 1743 (69 years before
me), at Tomependa, which place I found, by star observations taken
for three nights, to be in south lat. 5° 31' 28", and west longitude
from Paris 80° 56' 37" (from Greenwich 78° 34' 55"). Previous
to my return to France, the longitude of Quito was in error to the
full amount of 50 ? minutes of arc, as Oltmanns has shown by my
observations, and by a laborious recalculation of all those previously
made. (Humboldt, Recueil d' Observations Astron., vol. ii. p. 309-
359). Jupiter's satellites, lunar distances, and occultations, give a

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 445

Satisfactory accordance, and all the elements of the calculation are
placed before the public. The too easterly longitude of Quito was
transferred by La Condamine to Cuenca and the Amazons river.
" Je fis," says La Condamine, " mon premier essai de navigation sur
un radeau (balsa) en descendant la riviere de Chinchipe jusqu'a
Tomependa. II fallut me contenter d'en determiner la latitude et
de conclure la longitude par les routes. J'y fis mon testament
politique en redigeant Textrait de mes observations le plus impor-
tantes." (Journal du Voyage fait a 1'Equateur, 1751, p. 186.)

(") p. 423. — " At upwards of twelve thousand feet above the

sea ice found fossil marine shells."

See my Essai ge"ognostique sur le Gisement des Roches, 1823,
p. 236; and for the first zoological determination of the fossils
contained in the cretaceous group in the chain of the Andes, see
Leop. de Buch, Purifications recueillies en Amerique, par Alex, de
Humboldt et Charles Degenhardt, 1839 (in fol.), pp. 2-3, 5, 7, 9,
11, and 18-22. Pentland found fossil shells of the Silurian for-
mation in Bolivia, on the Nevado de Antakaua, at the height of
164,000 French (17,480 English) feet (Mary Somerville, Physical
Geography, 1849, vol. i. p. 185).

f13) p. 427. — " Where the chain of the Andes is intersected Ly
the magnetic equator."

Compare my Relation hist, du Voyage aux Regions equinoxiales,
t. iii. p. 622; and Cosmos, bd. i. s. 191 and 432; where, however,
by e\ >rs of the press, the longitude is once 48° 40', and afterwards
80° 40', instead of, as it should.be, 80° 54' from Paris (or 78° 32'
from Greenwich), (English edit. p. 173, and note 159).

(**) p. 429. — "Accompanied by inconvenient ceremonies of court

etiquette."

In conformity with a highly ancient court ceremonial, Atahuallpa

spat not on the ground,, but into the hand of one of the principal

ladies present; "all," says Garcilasso, "on account of his majesty."

El Inca nunca escupia en el suelo, sino en la mano de una Senora

38

446 PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA.

mui principal, por Majestad (Garcilasso, Comment. Reales, p. ii.
p. 46).

(14) p. 429.—" Captivity of Atahuallpa:'

A short time before the captive Inca was put to death/ he was
taken into the open air, in compliance with his request, to see a
large comet. The "greenish-black comet, nearly as thick as a man"
(G-arcilasso says, p. ii. p. 44, una cometa verdinegra, poco menos
gruesa que el cuerpo de un hombre), seen by Atahuallpa before his
death, therefore in July or August, 1533, and which he supposed
to be the same malignant comet which had appeared at the death
of his father, Huayna Capac, is certainly the one observed by Appian
(Pingre, Come'tographie, t. i. p. 496; and G-alle's "Notice of all
the Paths of Comets hitherto computed," in "Giber's Leichtester
Methode die Bahn eines Cometen zu berechnen," 1847, s. 206),
and which, on the 21st of July, standing high in the north, near
the constellation of Perseus, represented the sword which Perseus
holds in his right hand. (Madler, Astronomic, 1846, s. 307;
Schnurrer, Die Chronik der Seuchen in Verbindung mit gleich-
zeitigen Erscheinungen, 1825, th. ii. s. 82.) Robertson considers
the year of Huayna Capac's death uncertain; but, from the re-
searches of Balboa and Velasco, that event appears to have occurred
towards the close of 1525 : thus the statements of Hevelius (Come-
tographia, p. 844) and of Pingre* (t. i. p. 485) derive confirmation
from the testimony of Garcilasso (p. i. p. 321) and the tradition
preserved among the "amautas, que son los filosofos de aquella
Republica." I may here introduce the remark, that Oviedo alone,
and certainly erroneously, asserts, in the inedited continuation of
his Historia de las Indias, that the proper name of the Inca was
not Atahuallpa, but Atabaliva (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i.
p. 498).

(15) p. 429.— "Ducados de Oro,"

The sum mentioned in the text is that which is stated by Grar-
cilasso de la Vega in the Commentaries reales de los Incas, parte ii.
1722, pp. 27 and 51. The statements of Padre Bias' Valera and
of Gomara, Historia de las Indias, 1553, p. 67, differ, however,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 447

considerably. (Compare my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne
(ed. 2), 1. iii. p. 424.) It is, moreover-, no less difficult to determine
the value of the Ducado, Castellano, or Peso de Oro. (Essai pol.,
t. iii. pp. 371 and 377; Joaquin Acosta, Descubrimiento de la
Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 14.) The modern excellent historical
writer, Prescott, has been able to avail himself of a manuscript
bearing the very promising title, "Acta de Reparticion del Rescate
de Atahuallpa." The estimate of the whole Peruvian booty which
the brothers- Pizarro and Almagro divided amongst themselves at
the (I believe) too large value of three and a half millions of pounds
sterling, includes doubtless the gold of the ransom and that taken
from the different temples of the Sun and from the enchanted
gardens (Huertas de Oro). (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. pp.
464-477.)'

(16) p. 4aO. — " The great, but, for a Son of the Sun, somewhat
free-thinking Huayna Capac"

The nightly absence of the Sun excited in the Inca many philo-
sophical doubts as to the government of the world by that luminary.
Padre Bias Valera noted down the remarks of the Inca on the
subject of the Sun: " Many maintain that the Sun lives, and is the
Maker and Doer of all things (el hacedor de todas las cosas) ; but
whoever would complete anything must remain by what he is doing.
Now many things take place when the Sun is absent; therefore he
is not the original cause of all things. It se&ms also doubtful
whether he is living ; for, though always circling round, he is never
weary (no se cansa). If he was living, he would become weary, as
we do; and if he was free,, he would surely move sometimes into
parts of the heavens where we never see him. The Sun is like an
animal fastened by a cord so as always to move in the same round
(como una Res atada que siempre hace un mismo cerco); or as an
arrow which only goes where it is sent, and not where it chooses
itself." (Garcilasso, Comment. Reales, p. i. lib. viii. cap. 8, p. 276.)
The view taken of the circling round of a heavenly body, as if it
was fastened to a cord, is very striking. As Huayna Capac died
at Quito in 1525, seven years before the arrival of the Spaniards,
he no doubt used, instead of "res atada," the general expression of

448 PLATEAU OP CAXAMARCA.

an "animal" fastened to a cord; but indeed, even in Spanish, "res"
is by no means limited to oxen, but may be applied to any tame
cattle. We cannot examine here how far the Padre m^iy have
mingled parts of his own sermons with the heresies of the Inca,
with the view of weaning the natives from the official and dynastic
worship of the Sun, the religion of the court. We see, in the very
conservative State policy, and in the maxims of State and proceed-
ings of the Inca Roca, the conqueror of the province of Charcas,
the solicitude which was felt to guard strictly the lower classes of
the people from such doubts. This Inca founded schools for the
upper classes only, and forbade, under heavy penalties, to teach the
common people anything, "lest they should become presumptuous,
and should create disturbances in the State !" (No es lecito que
ensenen d los hijos de los Plebeios las Ciencias, porque la gente
baja no se eleve y ensobervezca y menoscabe la Republica; Garcilasso,
p. i. p. 276.) Thus the policy of the Inca's theocracy was almost
the same as that of the Slave States in the United Free States of
North America.

(17) p. 433. — " Tlie restoration of an empire of the Incas"
I have treated this subject more fully in another place (Relation
hist. t. iii. pp. 703-705 and 713). Raleigh thought there was in
Peru an old prophecy, "that from Inglaterra those Ingas should be
againe in time to come restored and deliuered from the seruitude of
the said conquerors. I am resolued that if there were but a smal
army afoote in Guiana marching towards Manoa, the chiefe citie of
Inga, he would yield Her Majestic by composition so many hundred
thousand pounds yearely, as should both defend all enemies abroad
and defray all expences at home, and that he woulde besides pay a
garrison of 3000 or 4000 soldiers very royally to defend him against
other nations. The Inca wil be brought to tribute with great glad-
nes." (Raleigh, " The discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful
Empire of Guiana, performed in 1595," according to the edition
published by Sir Robert Schomburgk, 1848, pp. 119 and 187.)
This scheme of a Restoration promised much that might be very
agreeable to both sides, but unfortunately the dynasty who were to
be restored, and who were to pay the money, were wanting !

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 449

(u) p. 435.—" Of the expedition of Vasco Nunez de Balboa."
I have already remarked elsewhere (Examen critique de Thistoire
de la Geographic du Nouveau Continent, et des progres de FAstro-
nomie nautique aux 15eme et 16eme siecles, t. i. p. 349) that Co-
lumbus knew, fully ten years before Balboa's expedition, the exist-
ence of the South Sea and its great proximity to the east coast of
Yeragua. He was conducted to this knowledge, not by theoretical
speculations respecting the configuration of Eastern Asia, but by the
local and positive reports of the natives, which he collected on his
fourth voyage (May 11, 1502, to November 7, 1504). On this
fourth voyage the Admiral went from the coast of Honduras to the
Puerto de Mosquitos, the western end of the Isthmus of Panama.
The reports of the natives, and the comments of Columbus on those
reports in the "Carta rarissima" of the 7th of July, 1503, were to
the efiect that, " not far from the Rio de Belen, the other sea (the
South Sea) turns (boxa) to the mouths of the Granges, so that the
countries of the Aurea (i. e. the countries of the Chersonesus aurea
of Ptolemy) are situated, in relation to the eastern coasts of Veragua,
as Tortosa (at the mouth of the Ebro) is to Fuentarrabia (on the
Bidassoa) in Biscay, or as Venice in relation to Pisa." Although
Balboa first saw the South Sea from the heights of the Sierra de
Quarequa on the 25th of September (Petr. Martyr, Epist. dxl.
p. 296), yet it was not until several days later that Alonso Martin
de Don Benito, who found a way from the mountains of Quarequa
to the Gulf of San Miguel, embarked on the South Sea in a canoe.
(Joaquin Acosta, Compendio hist, del Descubrimiento de la Nueva
Granada, p. 49.)

As the taking possession of •& considerable part of the west coast
of the New Continent by the United States of North America, and
the report of the abundance of gold in New California (now called
Upper California), have rendered more urgent than ever the forma-
tion of a communication between the Atlantic States and the re-
gions of the west through the Isthmus of Panama, I feel it my duty
to call attention once again to the circumstance that the shortest
way to the shores of the Pacific, which was shown by the natives to
Alonso Martin de Don Benito, is in the eastern part of the Isthmus,

QS*

450 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA,

and led to the Golfo de San Miguel. We know that Columbus
(Vida del Almirante por Don Fernando Colon, cap. 90) sought for
an "estrecho de Tierra firme;" and in the official documents which
we possess of the years 1505 and 1507, and especially 1514, men-
tion is made of the desired " opening" (abertura), and of the pass
(passo) which should lead directly to the "Indian Land of Spices."
Having for more than forty years been occupied with the subject of
the means of communication between the two seas, I have con-
stantly, both in my printed works and in the different memoirs which
with honorable confidence the Free States of Spanish America have
requested me to furnish, urged that the Isthmus should be examined
hypsometrically throughout its entire length, and more especially
where, in Darien and the inhospitable former Provincia de Biru-
quete, it joins the Continent of South America ; and where, between
the Atrato and the JBay of Cupica (on the shore of the Pacific), the
mountain chain of the Isthmus almost entirely disappears. (See in
my Atlas geographique et physique de la Nouvelle Espagne, pi. iv. ;
in the Atlas de la Relation historique, pi. xxii. and xxiii. ; Voyage
aux Regions e*quinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, t. iii. pp. 117-154 ;
and Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, t. i.
2de e-dit. 1825, pp. 202-248.)

G-eneral Bolivar, at my request, caused an exact levelling of the
Isthmus between Panama and the mouth of the Rio Chagres to be
made in 1828 and 1829 by Lloyd and Falmarc. (Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the year 1830,
pp. 59—68.) Other measurements have since been executed by ac-
complished and experienced French engineers, and projects have
been formed fbr canals and railways with locks and tunnels, but
always in the direction of a meridian between Portobello and Pana-
ma— or more to the west, towards Chagres and Cruces. Thus the
most important points of the eastern and south-eastern part of the
Isthmus have remained unexamined on both shores ! So long as
this part is not examined geographically by means of exact but
easily obtained determinations of- latitude and of longitude by chro-
nometers, as well as hypsometrically in the conformation of the sur-
face by barometric measurements of elevation — so long I consider
that the statement I have repeatedly made, and which I now repeat

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 451

in 1849, will still be true, viz. " that it is as yet unproved and quite
premature to pronounce that the Isthmus does not admit of the form-
ation of an Oceanic Canal (i. e. a canal with fewer locks than the
Caledonian Canal) permitting at all seasons the passage of the same
sea-going ships between New York and Liverpool on the one hand,
and Chili and California on the other."

On the Atlantic side (according to examinations which the Di-
reccion of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid have entered on their
maps since 1809), the Ensenada de Mandinga penetrates so deeply
towards the south that it appears to be only four or five German
geographical miles, fifteen to an equatorial degree (i. e. 16 or 20
English geographical miles), from the coast of the Pacific on the
east of Panama. On the Pacific side, the isthmus is almost equally
indented by the deep Grolfo de San Miguel, into which the Rio Tuyra
falls, with its tributary river the Chuchunque (Chuehunaque). This
last-named stream, in the upper part of its course, approaches within
16 English geographical miles of the Atlantic side of the isthmus
to the west of Cape'Tiburon. For more than twenty years I have
had inquiries made from me on the subject of the problem of the
Isthmus of Panama, by associations desirous of employing con-
siderable pecuniary means : but the simple advice which I have given
has never been followed. Every scientifically educated engineer
knows that, between the tropics (even without corresponding obser-
vations), good barometric measurements (the horary variations being
taken into account) afford results which are well assured to less than
from 70 to 90 French or 75 to 96 English feet. It would besides
be easy to establish for a few months on the two shores two fixed
corresponding barometric stations, and to compare repeatedly the
portable instruments, employed in preliminary levelling, with each
other and with those at the fixed stations. Let that part be particu-
larly examined where, near the Continent of South America, the
separating mountain ridge sinks into hills. Seeing the importance
of the subject to the great commerce of the world, the research
ought not, as hitherto, to be restricted to a limited field. A great
and comprehensive work, which shall include the whole eastern part
of the Isthmus — and which will be equally useful for every possible
kind of operation or construction — for canal, or for railway — can

452 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA.

alone decide the much discussed problem either affirmatively or
negatively. That will be done at last which should, and, had my
advice been taken, would have been done in the first instance.

(19) p. 436. — a That which is awakened in us l>y childish impressions

or ty tlie circumstances of life."

On the incitements to the study of nature, compare Cosmos, bd.
ii. s. 5 (English edit. vol. ii. p. 5).

(20) p. 437. — " Of importance for the exact determination of tlie

longitude of Lima?'

At the period of my expedition, the longitude of Lima was given
in the maps published in the Deposito hidrografico de Madrid,
from the observations of Malaspina, which made It 5h, 16m. 53s.
from Paris. The transit of Mercury over the sun's disk on the 9th
of November, 1802, which I observed at Callao, the port of Lima
(in the northern Torreon del Fuerte de San Felipe), gave for Callao,
by the mean of the contact of both limbs, 5h. 18m. 16s. 5, and
by the exterior contact only 5h. 18m. 18s. (79° 34' 30"). This
result (obtained from the transit of Mercury) is confirmed by
those of Lartigue, Duperrey, and Captain Fitz Roy in the Expedi-
tion of the Adventure and Beagle, Lartigue found Callao 5h.
17m. 58s., Duperrey 5h. 18m. 16s., and Fitz Roy 5h. 18m. 15s. (all
west of Paris). As I determined the difference of longitude be-
tween Callao and the Cpnvent de San Juan de Dios at Lima by
carrying chronometers between them four times, the observation of
the transit of Mercury gives the longitude of Lima 5h. 17m. 51s.
(79° 27' 45" W. from Paris, or 77° 6' 3" W. from Greenwich).
Compare my Recueil d' observations astron. vol. ii. pp. 397, 419 and
428, with my Relat. hist. t. iii. p. 592.

POTSDAM, June, 1849.

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

Preface to the First Edition — p. v. to p. vi.
Preface to the Second and Third Editions — p. vii. to p. ix.

Note by the Translator — p. xi.
Steppes and Deserts — p. 25 to p. 42.

Coast chain and mountain valleys of Caraccas. Lake of Tacarigua.
Contrast in respect to the luxuriance of vegetation between those
districts and the treeless plains. The steppe regarded as the bottom
of a Mediterranean Sea; broken strata a little higher than the rest
of the plain called "banks." General phenomena of extensive
plains ; the Heaths of Europe, the Pampas and the Llanos of South
America, the African Deserts, and the Steppes of Northern Asia.
Different characters of the vegetable covering of the surface. Ani-
mal life. Pastoral nations, and their invasive migrations 25 — 28

Description of the South American plains and prairies — -their extent
and climate ; the latter dependent on the outline of the coasts, and
on the hypsometric conformation of the New Continent. Compari-
son with the plains and deserts of Africa . . . 29 — 33

Original absence of pastoral life in America. Food furnished by the
Mauritia palm ; the Guaranis' huts raised on trees . 33 — 36

Since the discovery of America, the Llanos have become more habit-
able. Extraordinary increase in the number of wild cattle, horses,
asses, and mules. Description of the season of extreme dryness,
and of the rainy season. Appearance of the surface of the ground
and of the sky. Life of the animals — their sufferings, their con-
flicts ; power of adaptation with which certain aninials and plants
are endowed. Jaguars, crocodiles, and electric fishes. Unequal
conflict between Gymnoti and horses .... 36 — 40

Retrospective glance at the countries surrounding the Steppes and
Deserts. Forest wildernesses of the Orinoco and the Amazons.
Indian tribes separated by the wonderful diversity of their lan-
guages and differences of their habits ; their hardships, and fre-

454 SUMMARY OP THE CONTENTS.

quent variance between the different tribes. Figures graven on
the rocks show that these solitudes were once the seat of a degree
of civilization which has now disappeared . . . 40 — 42

Scientific Elucidations and Additions — p. 43 to p. 165.
The island-studded Lake of Tacarigua ; its relations to the neighbor-
ing mountain chains. Geological description. Progress of culti-
vation and of European civilization. Varieties of the sugar-cane.
Cacao plantations. Great fertility of soil associated within the
tropics with insalubrity of atmosphere . £- 4''' ~".< 43 — 47

"Banks" or broken strata. General horizontality of the surface.
Subsidences of the surface . . . . . : 47 — 49

Resemblance of the distant steppe to the ocean. Naked stony crust.
Tabular masses of syenite ; whether prejudicial to health 49 — 50

General views respecting the mountain systems of North and South
America, embracing the most recent information. Chains running
in a south-west and north-east direction in Brazil and in the At-
lantic portion of the United States of North America. The low
province of Chiquitos ; small swellings of the ground constitute the
division between the waters of the Guapore and Aguapehi in 15°
and 17° S. lat., and between the river basins of the Orinoco and
the Rio Negro in 2° and 3° N. lat. . . . . 50—51

Continuation of the chain of the Andes north of the Isthmus of
Panama (through the Aztec country, where Popocatepetl, 16,626
French, or 17,720 English feet high, has very recently been again
ascended by Captain Stone) in the Sierra de las Grullas and the
Rocky Mountains. Excellent scientific investigations of Captain
Fremont. The longest barometric levelling ever made, showing a
profile or vertical section of the earth's surface through a space of
28° of longitude. Culminating point of the route from the coast of
the Atlantic to the Pacific. " South Pass," south of the Wind
River Mountains. Swelling of the ground in the Great Basin.
Long contested existence of the Timpanogos Lake. Coast Chain,
Maritime Alps, or Sierra Nevada of California. Volcanic eruptions.
Falls of the Columbia . . .. f' . .,.. ^ :, „. _ .. . _ . 51—59

General considerations on the contrasts shown by the spaces included
between the Central Chain (the Rocky Mountains) and the diverging
chains on the east and west (the Alleghanies and the Sierra Nevada
of California) ; hypsometric characters of the low eastern space,
which is only from 400 to 600 French, or 426 to 639 English feet
.above the level of th« sea, and of the arid, uninhabited plain 5000
or 6000 (5330 to 6400 English) feet above the same level, called
the Great Basin. Sources of the Mississippi in the Lake of Istaca
according to Nicollet's highly meritorious researches. Buffalo
country; Gomara's assertion of buffaloes having been formerly
tamed in the northern part of Mexico . \ ' . . ' 59 — 62

SUMMARY OP THE CONTENTS. 455

Retrospective view of the chain of the Andes from the Rocks of
Diego Ramirez toBehring's Strait. Long circulated errors respect-
ing the heights of mountains in the eastern chain of the Andes of
Bolivia, especially the Sorata and the Illimam. Four summits of
the western chain of Bolivia, which, according to Pentland's latest
determinations, are higher than the Chimborazo, but are not equal
in height to the still active volcano of Acongagua measured by
Fitz-Roy . ' . . 62—64

The African mountains of Harudsch-el-Abiad. Oases . 64 — 66

"West winds on the coast of the Sahara. Accumulation of sea-weed ;
position of the great bank of Fucus from the time of Scylax of
Caryanda to that of Columbus, and to the present day . 66 — -70

Tibbos and Tuaricks. The camel and its distribution . 70 — 73

Mountain systems of the interior of Asia between Northern Siberia
and India. Erroneous belief in the existence of a single great
elevated plain called " Plateau de la Tartarie" . . 73 — 76

Chinese literature a rich source of orographic knowledge. Series of
elevations of different highlands. Desert of Gobi. Probable mean
height of Thibet . . .^ V i^ft^ f ' *. - 76—83

Review of the mountain systems of the interior of Asia. Chains
running in the direction of the meridian ; the Ural, which separates
the low part of Europe from the low part of Asia, or divides into
two portions the Scythian Europe of Pherecydes of Syros and of
Herodotus ; Bolor ; Khingan and the Chinese chains, which, near
the great bend in the direction of the Thibetian and Assamo-Bur-
mese River Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The elevations
which, between 66° and 77° E. long, from Greenwich, follow the
direction of meridians from Cape Comorin to the Icy Sea, alternate
like veins or dikes in which there are faults or displacements ; thus
the Ghauts, the Soliman Chain, the Paralassa, the Bolor, and the
Ural, succeed each other from south to north ; the Bolor gave occa-
sion among the ancients to the idea of the Imaus, which Agatho-
daemon supposed to be prolonged to the north into the low basin of
the lower Irtysch. Parallel chains running east and west; the
Altai ; Thian-schan, with its active volcanoes at a distance of 1528
geographical miles from the Icy Sea at the mouth of the Obi,
and of 1512 geographical miles from the Indian Sea at the mouth
of the Ganges ; the Kuen-lun, recognized by Eratosthenes, Marinus
of Tyre, Ptokmy, and Cosmas Indicopleustes, as the longest fixis
of elevation in the Old World, runs between 35 J° and 36° of latitude
in the direction of the diaphragm of Dicearchus. Himalaya. The
Kuen-lun, considered as an axis of elevation, may be traced from
the wall of China near Lung-tscheu through the somewhat more
northerly chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan, through the
mountain knot near the Lake called the "Starry Sea," through the

456 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

Hindu-Coosh (the Parapanisus and Indian Caucasus of the an-
cients), and through the chain of Demawend and the Persian
Elbourz, to Taurus in Lycia. Near the intersection of the Kuen-
liin and the Bolor, the correspondence of the direction of the axes
of elevation (east and west in the Kuen-llin and the Hindu-Coosh,
whereas that of the Himalaya is south-east and north-west) shows
that the Hindu-Coosh is a continuation of the Kuen-llin, and not
of the Himalaya. The point where the direction of the Himalaya
changes to south-east and north-west from having been east and
west, is about the 79th degree of east longitude from Paris (81° 22'
. Greenwich). Next to the Dhawalagiri, it is not, as has been hitherto
supposed, the Jawahir which is the highest summit of the Himalaya ;
that rank belonging, according- to the most recent intelligence re-
ceived from Dr. Joseph Hooker, to a mountain situated between
Boutan and Nepaul in the meridian of Sikkim, the Kinchinjinga:
the western summit of this mountain, which has been measured
by Colonel Waugh, director of the trigonometrical survey of India,
is 28,178 feet, and its eastern summit 27,826 feet high, according
to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Nov. 1848 : The
mountain which is now supposed to be higher than the Dhawalagiri
is figured on the frontispiece of the magnificent work of Joseph
Hooker, entitled " The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya, 1849."
— Determination of the lower limits of the snow-line on the north-
ern and southern declivities of the Himalaya ; its height being on
an average 3400 to 4600 French, or 3620 to 4900 English feet higher
on the northern face. New data on the subject from Hodgson.
Without this remarkable distribution of temperature in the upper
strata of the atmosphere, the mountain plains of Western Thibet
would be uninhabitable to the millions of human beings who now
dwell there , 83—94

The Hiong-nu, regarded by Deguignes and Johannes Mliller as a
tribe of Huns, appear rather to have been one of the widely scat-
tered tribes of the Turks of the Altai and Tang-nu mountains. The
Huns, whose name was known to Dionysius Perigetes, and who are
noticed by Ptolemy as Chuns (whence the later appellation of
Chunigard given to a country!), are a Finnish race of the Ural

. mpuntains ]. w ^ ... . 94 — 95

Figures of the sun and of animals, and other signs carved on rocks
in the Sierra Parime, as well as in North America, have often been
supposed to be writing 95 — 96

Description of the cold mountain elevations between 11,000 and 13,000
(or 11,720 and 13,850 English) feet, which are distinguished by the
appellation of Paramos ; character of their vegetation . 96 — 98

Notices of the two groups of mountains (Pacaraima Mountains, and
the Sierra de Chiquitos) which separate the three plains of the
Lower Orinoco, the Amazons, and the Rio de la Plata . 98

SUMMARY OF TliE CONTENTS. 457

On the dogs of South America ; both the aboriginal race and the de-
scendants of European dogs which have become wild. Sufferings
of cats when taken to elevations exceeding 13,000 (13,850 Eng.)
feet r. V > ^••^'j^ . V^xi^ ;>".• .:.•,'.- ' v- . 98—102

The low tract of the Sahara, and its relations to the Atlas Mountains,
according to the latest information given by Daumas, Carette, and
Renou. The barometric measurements of Fournel make it appear
very probable that part of the North African desert is lower than
the level of the sea. Oasis of Biscara ; abundance of fossil salt in
zones or bands running from south-west to north-east. Causes of
the nocturnal cold in the desert according to Melloni . 102 — 106

Notices of the River Wady-Dra (l-6th longer than the Rhine, and
dry a large portion of the year), and of the country of Sheikh
Beirouk, a chief independent of the Emperor of Morocco, from
manuscript communications of the Naval Captain Count Bouet-
Villaumez. The mountains north of Cape Noun (a name used by
Edresi, in which, since the 15th century, an allusion to the nega-
tive particle has been erroneously sought) attain 8600 (9166 Eng-
lish) feet of elevation . . . . .' r."" . 106—107

The vegetation of the tropical American -Llanos consisting of grasses,
compared with the vegetation of the North Asiatic Steppes con-
sisting of herbaceous plants. In the last-named Steppes, and espe-
cially the more fertile among them, a pleasing effect is produced in
spring by small snow-white and red-flowering Rosacese, Amygda-
lese, species of Astragalus, Crown Imperials, Cypripedias, and
Tulips. Contrast with the desolate salt Steppes full of Chenopodi-
acese, species of Salsola and Atriplex. Considerations on the rela-
tive numbers of the prevailing families of plants. The plains
adjoining the Icy Sea, north of the limit determined by Admiral
Wf angel as that of the -growth of Coniferse and Amentacese, "are
the domain of cryptogamous plants. Aspect and physiognomy of
the Tundras, where the soil, which is perpetually frozen, is covered
either with a thick coating, of Sphagnum {ind other mosses, or with
the snow-white Cenoniyce and Stereocaulon paschale, . 107 — 109

Principal causes of the very different distribution of temperature in
the European and American Continents. Direction and curvature
of the isothermal lines, or lines of equal temperature, for the entire
year, for the winter, and for the summer . . . . 109 — 119

Are there any grounds for believing that America emerged later than
the Old Continent from the chaotic watery covering? . 119 — 121

Thermic comparison of the- Northern and Southern Hemispheres in
high latitudes .. . . . . . ; * . ' > 121— 123

Apparent connection of the African sea of sand with those of Persia,
Herman. Belooi'histan. and the interior of Asia. On the western
39

458 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

part of Mount Atlas, and the connection of purely mythical ideas
,with geographical traditions. Indistinct allusions to igneous erup-
tions. Triton Lake. Crater-like forms of a locality south of Han-
nb's "Bay of the Gorilla Apes." Singular description of the
" hollow Atlas" from the Dialexes of Marinus Tyrius . 124 — 127

Notices respecting the Mountains of the Moon (Djebel al-Komr) in
the interior of Africa by Reinaud, Beke, and Ayrton. Werne's
instructive notice of the second expedition undertaken by the orders
of Mehemet AH. The Abyssinian mountains, which rise, accord-
ing to Riippell, almost to the height of Mont Blanc. The most
ancient notice of snow between the tropics contained in the Inscrip-
tion of Adulis, which is somewhat more modern than Juba. High
mountains which, between 6° and 4° of north latitude, and still
more to the south, appraach the Bahr el-Abiad. A considerable
swelling of the ground divides the White Nile from the basin of
the Goschop. Line of separation between the waters which flow
to the Mediterranean and those which flow to the Indian Ocean
according to Carl Zimmerman's map. Lupata Chain according to
the instructive researches of Wilhelm Peters . . 128 — 134

Oceanic currents. In the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean the
waters are impelled in a true revolving current. That the first im-
pulse which causes the Gulf Stream is to be sought at the southern
extremity of Africa, was already known to Sir Humphry Gilbert
in 1560. Influence of the Gulf Stream on the climate of Scandi-
navia. How it contributed to the discovery of America. Instances
of Esquimaux who, aided by the returning eastward flowing por-
tion of the warm Gulf Stream, and by north-west winds, arrived
on the coasts of Europe. Such a case related by Cornelius Nepos
and Pomponius Mela (of Indians given by a king of the Boii to
Quintus Metellus Celer, Proconsul of Gaul) ; others, in the time of
the Othos and of Frederic Barbarossa, of Columbus, and of Cardi-
nal Bembo. Again, in the years 1682 and 1684 natives of Green-
land appeared in the Orkneys . . , / • -•; ' 134—138

Operation of lichens and other Cryptogamla in the cold and temper-
ate zones in preparing the way for the more rapid establishment
of larger phaenogamous plants. Within the tropics lichens are
often replaced in this respect by succulent plants. Milk-yielding
animals of the New Continent ; the Lama, the Alpaca, the Guan-
aco V >• . . . . . . . . 138—141

Cultivation of farinaceous grasses . .- *. .- . 141 — 144
On the earliest population of America . . . . . 144

The coast nation of the Guaranis (Warraus), and the Mauritia palm
of the coasts, according to the accounts given by Bembo in the
Historise Venetse, and those of Raleigh, Hillhouse, and Robert and
Richard Schomburgk .> V' . . . ... 144r— 150

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS. 459

Phenomena which long-continued drought produces in the Steppe ;
sand-spouts, hot winds (Mirage) ; awakening of crocodiles and
tortoises from long summer sleep ..... 150 — 156

Otomacs. General considerations on the practice of earth-eating
among particular nations or tribes. Clays and earths containing
Infusoria . . . . . . . . . 156—160

Figures graven on rocks throughout a zone running from east to
west, and extending from the Rupunuri, Essequibo, and the Pa-
caraima Mountains, to Caycara and the wildernesses of the Cassi-
quiare. Earliest notice (April, 1749) of these traces of former
civilization in the manuscript account of the travels of the surgeon
Nicolas Hortsmann of Hildesheim, found among D'Anville's papers

160—164

The vegetable poison Curare or Ourari . . . . . 165

Cataracts of the Orinoco — p. 169 to p. 186.

The Orinoco ; general view of its course. Ideas excited in Columbus
on seeing its embouchure. Its unknown sources are east of the
Mountain of Duida and the groves of Bertholletia. Causes of the
principal bends of the river . . . . . . 169 — 177

The falls or rapids ; Raudal of Maypures enclosed by four streams.
Former state of the district. Island-like form of the rocks Keri
and Ocp. Grandeur of the view obtained on descending the hill of
Manimi, where a foaming river-surface of four miles in extent pre-
sents itself at once to the eye. Iron-black masses of rock rise like
castles from the bed of the river ; the summits of the lofty palm
trees pierce through the cloud of spray and vapor . 177 — 182

Raudal of Atures; numerous islands; rocky dikes connecting one
island with another, and the resort of pugnacious golden Pipras.
Parts of the bed of the river at the cataracts are dry, from the
waters having found a passage by subterranean channels. We
visited the rocks at the closing in of night and during storm and
heavy rain. Unsuspected proximity of crocodiles . 182 — 183

Celebrated cave of Ataruipe, the sepulchral vault of an extinct nation

183—186

Scientific Elucidations and Additions — p. 187 to p. 202.
The river-cow (Trichecus manati) lives in the sea at the place where,
in the Gulf of Xagua, on the south coast of the Island of Cuba,
springs of fresh water break forth .... 187 — 188

Geographical discussion on the sources of the Orinoco . 189 — 193
The Bertholletia, a Lecythidea, a remarkable example of highly deve-

460 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

loped organization. Stem of an Arundinarea sixteen to seventeen
feet long from knot to knot . ' ;. * •" ; *'-- '. . ' '"." 193 — 194

< . • • !' - ' '•'' " • "'•• -

On the myth or fable of the Lake of Parime • / *-^ ?'-;J- 194—202

The Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest — p. 205 to p. 214.

Difference between languages in respect to their richness in well-
defined expressions for characterizing natural phenomena, such as
the state of vegetation, the forms of plants, the outlines and group-
ing of clouds, the appearance of the surface of the ground, and the
farms of rocks and mountains. Loss which languages suffer by
the disuse of such words, or by their signification becoming im-
paired. The misinterpretation of a Spanish word, " Monte," has
caused the undue extension or introduction of mountains in maps.
Primeval Forest ; frequent abuse of the term. Absence of the
uniformity which is produced by the association of the same kinds
of trees, characteristic of tropical forests. Causes of the impene-
trability of forests between the tropics ; the twining plants, Lianes,
often form only a small portion of the underwood . 205—210

Appearance of the Rio Apure in the lower part of its course. Margin
of the forest fenced like a garden by a low hedge of Sauso (Her-
mesia). The wild animals of the forest lead their young to the
river through small openings in this hedge. Flocks of large water-
hogs or Cavies (Capybara). Fresh-water dolphins . 210 — 212

Wild cries of animals resound throughout the forest. Cause of the
nocturnal uproar 212 — 213

Contrast with the stillness which reigns during the noon-tide hours
on days of more than usual heat in the torrid zone. Description
of the narrows of the Orinoco at Baraguan. Humming and flut-
tering of insects. Life stirs audibly in every bush, in the clefts, of
the bark of trees, and in the earth undermined and furrowed by
Hymenopterous insects . . . . % _;•-» ^v -\ "i 213 — 214

Scientific Elucidations and Additions — p. 215 to p. 216.
Characteristic terms in Arabic and Persian descriptive of the surface
of the ground (Steppes, grassy plains, deserts, &c.). Richness of
the old Castilian idiom in words expressive of the form of mountains.
Fresh-water skates and dolphins. In the great rivers of both con-
tinents some organic sea-forms are repeated.- American nocturnal
monkeys, the three-striped Douroucouli of the Cassiquiare 215 — 216

Hypsometric Addenda — p. 217 to p. 223.

Pentland's measurements in the eastern mountain chain of Bolivia.
Height of the volcano of Aconcagua according to Fitzroy and
Darwin. Western mountain chain of Bolivia . . 217 — 219

Mountain systems of North America. Rocky Mountains and the

II

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS. 461

Snowy Chain (Sierra Nevada) of California. Laguna de Tim-
panogos 219 — 221

ypsometrical profile of the Highland of Mexico from the city of
Mexico to Santa Fe" 221—223

Physiognomy of Plants.— -p. 227 to p. 246.

Universal profuse distribution of organic life on the declivities of the
highest mountains, on the ocean, and in the atmosphere. Sub-
terranean Flora. Silicious-shelled Polygastrica in masses of polar
ice. Podurellse in tubular holes in the glaciers of the Alps ; the
glacier flea (Desoria glacialis). Small organic creatures in the
dust, which falls like rain in the neighborhood of the African
Desert . . .. . ... . . . 227—230

History of the vegetable covering of the surface of the globe. Gra-
dual extension of vegetation over the bare rocky crust. Lichens,
mosses, and succulent plants. Causes of the present absence of
vegetation in particular districts 230 — 233

Each zone has its peculiar character. All animal and vegetable
forms attached to fixed and always recurring types. Physiognomy
of Nature. Analysis of the general impression produced by the
aspect of a country or district. The several elements which make
up this impression ; outlines of the mountains, azure of the sky,
and form of the clouds : but principally determined by the vegetable
covering. Animal organization far less influential on the land-
scape from deficiency of mass. The power of locomotion of indi-
viduals, and frequently their small size, also contribute to lessen
their general effect on the landscape .... 233 — 236

Enumeration of the forms of plants which principally determine the
physiognomy of Nature, and which decrease or increase from the
Equator to the Poles according to laws which have been made the
subject of investigation ...... 236 — 238

Palms . > ' . ' ; . " '•; ~-;V .: "-,7 ' "T^ ~\ 238—239, 312—321

Plantains or Bananas •/•*» ^ :>[ •; V- -:*. . . 239—240,321—322
Malvaceae'. '.* '-" ^r f^JJ.t , V • . ^i 240, 322—323

Mimosa* .^".' . : ... . ; . 240,323—324

Ericese, or Heath form .....'., . 240—241,324—326

Cactus form . - j ;-;:'' i . 241,326—328

Orchidese 241—242, 328—329

Casuarinse . . . ... . 242, 329—330

Needle trees . . . . . . . 242, 330—345

Pothos and Aroidese 242, 345—347

39*

462 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

Lianes, or twining rope plants iv:'- " ** '" . 242 — 243, 347 — 349

Aloe form '.''.' 243, 349—351

Graminese -V^'Sr*** -Jtr ^«*t*^&'^> *> ;*- 243—244, 351—354
Ferns J." ' ' ', ." ',!.--. '.-','• ' * -* • • 244,354—357

Liliacese . .:^ ?^~ - •' • •• *. ' 244,357—358
Willow form . .*V';V", - - ^^-:\ 244,358—360
Myrtacese <,•" '^.V«v • • • '* ' .< W 244,360—362
Melastomacese «' r v > .:'*; -V: » ;.-. "%•' 244,362—363
Laurelfbrm . . . ...^' V ^ •,*."',. ^ :<5: .|- ;^ 244, 363

Enjoyment derived from the sight of the natural grouping and con-
trasts of these forms of plants. Importance of the physiognomic
study of plants to the landscape painter . 244—246, 363—369

Scientific Elueidations and Additions — p. 227 to p. 371.
Organic forms, animal and vegetable, in the highest mountain regions
adjacent to the limit of perpetual snow in the Andes and the Alps ;
insects carried up involuntarily by ascending currents of air. The
Hypudseus nivalis of the Swiss Alps. On the true elevation above
the sea reached by the Chinchilla laniger in Chili . 247 — 248

Lecidias and Parmelias on rocks not entirely covered with snow ;
some phsenoganious plants also wander in the Cordilleras beyond
the limits of perpetual snow, as the Saxifraga boussingaulti, to
15,770 English feet above the level of the sea. Groups of phseno-
gamous plants extend in the Andes to 13,700 and 14,920 English
feet above the sea; species of Culcitium, Espeletia, and Kanunculus ;
small umbelliferous plants resembling mosses in appearance;
Myrrhis andicola and Fragosa arctioides >!./'*'«•'> <248— 249

Measurement of the height of Chimborazo, and etymology of the
name . . . . . . . . . 249—291

On the greatest absolute heights which have yet been reached by any
human beings in either Continent; in the Cordilleras and the
Himalaya, on the Chimborazo and the Tarhigang . 251 — 252

Habits and haunts of the Condor (Cuntur, in the Inca language), and
singular mode of capturing these powerful birds in an enclosure
fenced by palisades .... .252—255

Useful services rendered by the Gallinazos (Cathartes urubu and C.
aura) in purifying the air in the neighborhood of human habita-
tions ; these birds sometimes tamed . . . . 255

On what has been called the revivification of Rotiferse; views of
Ehrenberg and Doyere. According to Payen, germs of Crypto-

SUMMARY OP THE CONTENTS. 463

garni a preserve their power of germination even after being ex-
posed to the highest temperatures .... 255 — 257

Diminution, if not entire suspension, of organic functions in the
winter sleep of animals belonging to the higher classes. . 257

Summer sleep of animals in the tropical zone; great dryness acts
like winter cold. Tenrecs, crocodiles, tortoises, and the Lepidosiren
of Eastern Africa , , . :- . . . . . 257—259

Anther dust or pollen: fertilization of flowers. The Coelebogyne
found to produce perfect seeds in England, without any traces of
pollen being discovered . . . ."'-.'. . 259 — 260

The luminosity of the ocean produced by living luminous animals and
by decaying fibres and membranes of animals. Acalephse and
silicious-shelled luminous Infusoria. Influence on the luminosity
of a stimulus applied to the nerves .... 261 — 266

Pentastomes inhabiting the pulmonary cells of the rattle-snake of
Cumana •**£&&* -^- V ;•*,,• v ;- . . . 266—267

Rock-building corals. The scaffolding or solid material which survives
the death of the coral animals. More correct views of recent times.
Shore reefs, encircling reefs, and lagoon islands. Atolls, or coral
walls enclosing a lagoon. The coral islands to the south of Cuba, the
Jardines del Rey of Columbus. The living gelatinous investment
of the calcareous scaffolding of the coral trunks attracts fish and
turtles in search of food. Singular mode of fishing by the aid of
the Remora (the Echeneis naucrates) . . - . . 267 — 274

Probable greatest depth of coral structures . . . 274 — 276

Besides much carbonate of lime and magnesia. Madrepores and
Astraeas also contain some fluoric and phosphoric acids 276 — 277

Oscillatorv state of the bottom of the sea according to Darwin

277—278

Traditions of Sainothrace. Irruptions of the sea. Mediterranean
Sluice theory of Strato. Myth of Lyktonia, and the " Atlantis
broken into fragments" . . . . . 278 — 281

On the -causes which prevent the sinking down of clouds and precipi-
tation taking place from them . . . . . 281 — 282

Heat disengaged from the crust of the earth while solidifying. Hot
currents of air which in the early ages of the earth, from frequent
corrugations of the strata and elevations of land, may have been
diffused in the atmosphere from temporary fissures . 282 — 283

464 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

Colossal size and great age of some kinds of trees ; Dragon tree of
Orotava thirteen, and Adansonia digitata (Baobab) thirty-two Eng-
lish feet in diameter. Characters cut in the bark of the trees in
the 15th century. Adanson assigns to some of the Baobab trunks
in Senegarnbia an age of between 5100 and 6000 years 283—288

Judging by the annular rings, there are yew-trees (Taxus baccata)
from 2600 to 3000 years old. Is it true that, in the northern tem-
perate zone, the part of the tree turned towards the north has nar-
rower annular rings, as Michel Montaigne affirmed in 1581 ? Species
of trees in which individuals attain a size of above twenty-one or
twenty-two English feet diameter, and an age of several centuries,
belong to the most different natural families . . 288 — 289

Diameter of the Mexican Schubertia disticha of Santa Maria del Tule
40 J English feet ; the sacred Banyan fig-tree of Ceylon almost 30 ;
and the oak at Saintes (Dep. de la Charente Inf6rieure) 29 J English
feet. The age of the oak tree estimated from its annular rings at
from 1800 to 2000 years. The root of the rose tree growing against
the crypt of the Cathedral of Hildesheim is 800 years old. A kind
of sea-weed, Macrocystis pyrifera, attains a length of 630 English
feet, exceeding therefore the height of the loftiest Coniferae, even
that of the Sequoia gigantea . . . . . 289—291

Examination of the probable number of phaenogamous plants hitherto
described or preserved in herbariums. Relative numbers. Laws
discovered in the geographical distribution of plants. Relative

) numbers of the great divisions of Cryptogamia to Cotyledonous
plants, and of Monocotyledonous to Dicotyledonous plants, in the
.torrid, temperate, and frigid zones. Elements of arithmetical bota-
ny. Number of individuals ; predominance of social plants. The
forms of organic beings are mutually dependent on and limit each
other. If we know exactly the number of species of one of the
great families of Glumacese, Leguminosae, or Compositae, at any one
part of the globe, we may infer approximatively both the number
of species in the remaining families, and the entire number of
phsenogamous plants in the same district. Application of the nu-
merical ratios to the direction of the isothermal lines. Mysterious
original distribution of types. Absence of Roses in the southern,
and of Calceolarias in the northern hemisphere. Why has our
heather (Calluna vulgaris), and why have our oaks never advanced
eastward beyond the Ural Mountains into Asia ? The vegetation
cycle of each .species requires for its successful organic develop-
ment a certain minimum amount of temperature . . 291 — 303

Analogy between the numerical laws of the distribution of animal and
of vegetable forms. If there are now cultivated in Europe above
35,000 species of phsenogamous plants, and if our herbariums pro-
bably contain, described and undescribed, from 160,000 to 212,000
species of phaenogamous plants, it is probable that the number of
collected insects and collected phaenogamous plants are nearly

SUMMARY OP THE CONTENTS. 465

equal ; whilst we know that certain well-explored districts in Eu-
rope have more than three times as many insects as pheenogamous
plants .-..••. -: ;.'•::; -i -. .v . . . . 303—306

Considerations on the probable proportion which the number of known
phgenogamous plants bears to the entire number existing on the
surface of the globe ... .*:"-<•:.- ,- 306—310

The different forms of plants successively noticed. Physiognomy of
plants treated in a threefold manner ; viz. as to the absolute diver-
sity of forms, their local predominance in comparison with the en-
tire number of species in different phsenogamous Floras, and their
geographical climatic distribution . . . . 312 — 363

Greatest extension in height or of the longitudinal axis in arborescent
vegetation : examples of 235 to 245 English feet in Pinus lamber-
tiana and P. douglasii ; of 266 English feet in P. strobus ; of 298
and 300 English feet in Sequoia gigantea and Pinus trigona. All
these examples are from the north-west part of the New Continent.
Araucaria excelsa of Norfolk Island only attains, according to well-
assured measurements, 203 to 223 English feet ; and the Mountain
Palm of the Cordilleras, Ceroxylon andicola, 192 English feet

338—340

These gigantic vegetable forms contrasted with the stem of two inches
high of a willow-tree stunted by cold of latitude or of mountain
elevation ; and still more remarkably with a phaenogamous plant,
Tristicha hypnoides, which, when fully developed in the plains of
a tropical country, is only a quarter of an English inch in height

o41

Bursting forth of blossoms from the rough bark of the Crescentia
cujete, the Gustavia augusta, and the roots of the Cacao tree. The
largest flowers, Rafflesia arnoldi. Aristolochia cordata, Magnolia,
Helianthus annuus, Victoria regina, Euryale amazonica, &c.

364—365

The different forms of plants determine the character of the land-
scape as dependent on vegetation in different zones. Physiogno-
mic classification or division into groups according to external
"facies" or aspect, entirely different in its principles from the
classification according to the system of natural families. The
study of the physiognomy of plants is based principally on what
are called th"e vegetative organs, or those on which the preservation
of the individual depends ; systematic botany grounds the arrange-
ment of natural families on a consideration of the reproductive
organs, or those on which the preservation of the species depends

367—371

On the Structure and Mode of Action of Volcanos in the different Parts

of the Earth— -p. 373 to p. 394.
Influence of journeys in distant^ countries on the generalization of

466 SUMMARY OP THE CONTENTS.

ideas, and the progress of physical geology. Influence of the form
of the Mediterranean on the earliest ideas respecting volcanic phe-
nomena. Comparative geology of volcanos. Periodical recurrence
of certain natural changes or revolutions which have their origin
in the interior of the globe. Relative proportion of the height of
volcanos to that of their cones of ashes in Pichincha, the Peak of
Teneriffe, and Vesuvius. Changes in the height of the summit of
volcanos. Measurements of the height of the margins of the crater
of Vesuvius, from 1773 to 1822 : the author's measurements com-
prise the period from 1805 to 1522 &j£SSte$ '->r •.".<••• 375 — 386

Particular description of the eruption in the night of 23-24th October,
1822. Falling, in of a cone of cinders 426 English feet in height,
which previously stood in the interior of the crater. The eruption
of ashes, from the 24th to the 28th of October, is the most remark-
able of which we possess any certain knowledge since the death
of the elder Pliny 386—390

Difference between volcanos with permanent craters ; and the pheno-
mena (very rarely observed within historic times) in which trachy-
tic mountains open suddenly, emit lava and ashes, and reclose again
perhaps for ever. , The latter class of phenomena are particularly
instructive to the geologist, because they recall the earliest revolu-
tions of the oscillating, upheaved, and fissured surface of the
globe. They led, in classical antiquity, to the view of the Pyri-
phlegethon. Voleanos are intermitting earth springs, indicating a
communication (permanent or transient) between the interior and
the exterior of our planet ; they are the result of a reaction of the
still fluid interior against the crust of the earth ; it is therefore
needless to ask what chemical substance burns, or supplies materials
for combustion, in volcanos. ' . . . . . 390 — 393

The primitive cause of subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the pro-
cess of formation itself, i. e. the forming of the aggregating mass
from a cosmical gaseous fluid. Power and influence of the radia-
tion of heat from numerous open fissures and unfilled veins in the
Ancient World. Climate (or atmospheric temperature) atthat period
very independent of the geographical latitude, or of the position of
the planet in respect to the central body, the sun. Organic forms
of the present tropical world buried in the icy regions of the north.

393—394

Scientific Elucidations and Additions — p. 395 to p. 399.
Barometric measurements of Vesuvius. Comparison of the height of
different points of the crater of Vesuvius . . . 395—398

Increase of temperature with depth, 1° Reaumur for every 113 Parisian
feet, or 1° of Fahrenheit for every 53.5 English feet. Temperature
of the Artesian well at Oeynhausen's Bad (New Salzwerk, near
Minden), the greatest depth yet reached below the level of the sea.
The hot springs near Carthage led Patricius, Bishop of Pertusa, in

SUMMARY OF TUB CONTENTS. 467

the 3d century, to form just conjectures respecting the cause of the
increase of temperature in the interior of the earth . 398 — 399

The Vital Force; or, the Rhodian Genius — p. 403 to p. 407.

Note to " The Vital Force; or, the Rhodian Genius"— -p. 408 to p. 410.

The Rhodian Genius, the development of a physiological idea in a
mythical garb. Difference of views respecting the hypothesis of
peculiar vital forces .. ,;; v '•• . . . . . '. 408

The difficulty of satisfactorily reducing the vital phenomena of organ-
ization to physical and chemical laws, is principally founded on
the complication of the phenomena, and on the multiplicity of
simultaneously acting forces, as well as the varying conditions of
the activity of those forces. Definition of the expressions " ani-
mate" and "inanimate" substances. Criteria derived from the
composition of the elements after a substance has been separated
into parts by external agency are the simple enunciation of facts

408—410

The Plateau of Caxamarca, the ancient residence of the Inca Atahuallpa,
and the iirst view of the Pacific from the crest of the Andes —

p. 411 to p. 438.

Quina-producing forests in the valleys of Loxa. First use of the
fever-bark in Europe ; the Countess of Chinchon, wife of the
Viceroy . . . 413—414

Alpine vegetation of the Paramos. Remains of ancient Peruvian
artificial roads ; they rise in the Paramo del Assuay almost to the
height of the summit of Mont Blanc .... 414—420

Singular mode of communication by a " swimming post" messenger.

420—421

Descent to the Amazons River. Vegetation round Chamaya and
Tomependa; Red Groves of Bougainvillaea. Ridges of rock traverse
the Amazons. Its breadth at the Pongo de Manseriche less than
160 English feet. The falling in of masses of rock at Rentema left
the bed of the river below the falls dry for some hours, to the great
alarm of those who lived on the banks . . , . 421 — 423

Passage across the chain of the Andes at the part where it is inter-
sected by the magnetic equator. Ammonites nearly 15 English
inches long, Echini, and Isocardias of the cretaceous group, collected
between Guambos and Montan, 12,790 English feet abpve the level
of the sea. Rich silver mines of Chota. The picturesquely tower-
ing Cerro de Gualgayoc. Large mass of pure native silver in fila-
ments or wire found in the Pampa de Navar. A fine piece of pure
gold, wound round with similar threads of silver, found in the Cho-
ropampa (field of shells), so called from the numerous fossils. Out-
bursts of silver and gold ores amongst the cretaceous rocks. The

468 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS.

small mountain town of Micuipampa is 11,874 English feet above
the level of the sea . . ;. :. ••_... :AVV» '$& -• •*% 423—427

From the mountain wilderness of the Paramo de Yanaguanga the
traveller descends into the beautiful valley, or rather plateau, of
Caxamarca (the elevation of which is nearly equal to that of the
city of Quito). Hot baths of the Incas. Ruins of the Palace of
Atahuallpa inhabited by his descendants, the family of Astorpilco,
who live there in the greatest poverty. Strong belief of the still
remaining subterranean "golden gardens" of the Inca beneath the
ruins ; such certainly existed in the Valley of Yucay, beneath the
Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and at several other points. Conver-
sation with the youthful son of the Curaca Astorpilco. The room
is still shown in which (1553) the unhappy Atanuallpa was impri-
soned for nine months, also the wall on which the Inca indicated
the height to which he would fill the room with gold if he should
regain his liberty. Manner in which the Inca was put to death on
. the 29th of August, 1533, and remarks on what are erroneously
called " the indelible stains of blood" on a stone slab in front of the
altar of the chapel of the state prison .... 427 — 430

Hope of a restoration of the empire of the Incas (which was also en-
tertained by Raleigh) has been preserved among the natives. Cause
of this expectation . . . . . .- .*»,.- > 432

Journey from Caxamarca to the sea-coast. Passage over the Cordil-
lera by the Altos de Guangamarca. Often disappointed hope of
•enjoying the first view of the Pacific Ocean from the crest of the
Andes. This hope at last fulfilled at an elevation of 9,380 English
feet . . . . 433—437

Scientific Elucidations and Additions — p. 438 to p. 452.
On the origin of the name borne by the chain of the Andes 438 — 439

Epoch of the introduction of the Quina-bark in Europe 439 — 440

Remains of the roads of the Incas, and of fortified dwellings ; Apo-
zentos de Mulalo, Fortaleza del Canar, Inti-Guaycu 440 — 441

On the ancient civilization of the Ghibchas or Muyscas of New Granada

441—443

Potatoes and Plantains, when first cultivated . . . . 443

Etymology of the word Cundinamarca, which has been corrupted from
Cundirumarca, and was used in the first years of republican inde-
pendence to denote the whole country of New Granada 444

Chronometric connection of the town of Quito with Tomependa on
the upper waters of the Amazons, and with Callao de Lima, the

SUMMARY OP THE CONTENTS. 469

position of which was accurately determined by observations of the
transit of Mercury on the 9th day of November, 1802 . 444—445

Unpleasant etiquette in the Inca's court. Atahuallpa's captivity;
his proposed ransom 445 — 446

Philosophic doubts of Huayna Capac (according to the report of Padre
Bias Valera) respecting the Deity of the Sun. Objections of the
Inca-government to the extension of knowledge among the poorer
and lower classes of the people . . . . . 447 — 448

Raleigh's project for restoring the dynasty of the Incas under Eng-
lish protection, for which a yearly tribute of several hundred thou-
sand pounds was to be paid . ... . . . 448

Earliest evidence obtained by Columbus of the existence of the South
Sea or Pacific Ocean. The South Sea first beheld by Vasco Nunez
de Balboa (25th Sept. 1513), and first navigated by Alonso Martin
de Don Benito 449

On the possibility of the formation of an Oceanic Canal (with fewer
locks than the Caledonian Canal) through the Isthmus of Panama.
Points in which the examination has been neglected . 449 — 452

Determination of the longitude of Lima . , ". , 452

40

INDEX.

ADANSONIA digitata (monkey-bread tree), one of the largest and oldest
trees of the globe, 286.

Allco, the native Peruvian dog, 99.

Aloe, 243, 349.

Altai, one of the four parallel mountain chains in Central Asia, 83.*

American races, connection between the inhabitants of Western Ame-
rica and Eastern Asia probable, but its nature and period uncer-
tain, 146.

Andes, etymological considerations connected with the word Andes
or Antis, 438.

Animal life, its universal diffusion, 227.

Asia, Central, general review of its mountain systems, 83.

Atlas. — The position of the ancient Atlas discussed, 124.

Atahuallpa, site of his ancient palace, 428 ; his prison, 429 ; death,
429 ; descendants, 430 ; notice of the comet which appeared in the
year on which the Inca was put to death, 446.

Banks, slightly elevated portions of the Llanos, called "Banks" by

the natives, 25, 47.
Boa, swims in the South American rivers, and carries its head above

water like a dog, 155.
Bogota, the seat- of an ancient civilization of the Muyscas or Chib-

chas, 442.

Cactus, 241, 326.

Camel, 71 ; Hitter's memoir on the diffusion of the camel, present
existence in a wild state, 72 ; fossil in the Sewalik hills, 73.

Casas grandes, ruins of an Aztec palace, 141.

Casuarinese, 242, 329.

Caxamarca, the ancient capital of the Incas, 413, 427.

Cereals. — Original country of the principal Cereals discussed, 141.

Chibchas, 442.

Chimborazo, conjectures as to the origin of the name, 250.

Chota, silver mines of, 424.

Cinchona, fever-bark, or quina, 413, 439.

Climate of the eastern or flat portions of South America widely dif-
ferent from that of Africa in the same latitudes, causes of the

472 INDEX.

difference, 30, 109 ; the southern hemisphere cooler and moister

than the northern, 121.
Climatic effects of extensive forests, 112.

Coelebogyne, produces perfect seeds without any trace of pollen hav-
ing been discovered, 260.
Condor. — Discussion of the height in the atmosphere to -which the

condor ascends, 252.
Coniferse, or needle-trees, 242, 330.
Coral reefs, classified by Darwin, 268; his hypothesis of the origin

and growth of coral reefs, 277.
Correo que nada, the "swimming post" in the upper waters of the

Amazons river, 420.

Curare, plant from which the poison is obtained, 165.
Current. — Great revolving current of the Atlantic Ocean discussed,

134.

Dogs. — European dogs have become wild in South America, and live
in troops in the Pampas, 98 ; native Peruvian dogs, 99 ; Tschudi's
remarks on the indigenous races of dogs in America, 101.

Dragon-tree of Orotava, 236, 283.

Esquimaux, instances recorded of their having been carried across
the Atlantic to the shores of Europe, 136.

Ferns, 244, 354.

Figured rocks, i. e. figures engraven on rocks in an extensive district
of South America, 160.

Fresh water springs in the ocean near Cuba, 187.

Fournel, recent contributions to the physical geography of Northern
Africa, 104.

Fremont, Captain, importance of his geographical memoirs on our
knowledge of the geography of North America, 50 ; and gene-
rally in Note (6), also 219.

Geographical distribution of plants, laws of the, 295.

Gobi, the plateau of, 75, 78.

Graminese, 243, 351.

Guaranis, a tribe inhabiting the seacoast and rivers near the mouth
of the Orinoco, 147.

Granite, leaden-colored rocks of, in the Orinoco, 154.

Great basin, the elevated plain so called, between the Rocky Mount-
ains and the Sierra Nevada of California, 55 ; forms an inland
closed river basin, 219.

Gymnotus, description of its capture in South America by means of
horses, 39.

Heat in plants developed during inflorescence, 346.

Heaths, 240, 324.

Himalaya, one of the four parallel mountain chains of Central Asia, 88.

Hiongnu, 94.

Hooker, Dr. J., recent determination of the elevation of the Kinchin-

INDEX. 473

jinga, one of the highest peaks of the Himalaya, 88; on the pro-
duction of perfect seeds by the Coelebogyne, 259 ; remarks on
the geographical distribution of plants in Antarctic floras, 309.

Illimani and Sorata, their height above the sea recently corrected,
63, 90, 217.

Kashmeer, valley of, 79.

Kinchinjinga, one of the highest peaks of the Himalaya, its elevation

recently determined, 88.
Kuen-lun, one of the four parallel mountain chains in Central Asia,

74, 86.

Lama, alpaca, and guanaco, three originally distinct species of

animals, described, 139.

Laurels as a characteristic form of vegetation, 244, 363.
Lianes, 243, 347.
Liliaceee, 244, 357.
Llanos, their description, 29 ; climate strongly contrasted with that

of the African plains, 30 ; animals which inhabit them, 34 ; their

prevalent vegetation, 107.
Luminosity of the ocean, 261.

Malvaceae, 240.

Maranon, or Amazons, upper valley of, 423.

Mauritia palm, 35, 149.

Melastomaceae, 244, 362.

Mimpsese, 240, 323.

Mississippi, river, its source correctly ascertained, 60.

Moon, mountains of the, their existence, extent, distance from the

Equator, and general direction, discussed, 128.
Mountain chains in Asia, in the direction of parallels of latitude, 83 ;

those coinciding nearly with meridians, 89.
Muyscas, ancient civilization of the, 442.
Myrtacese, 244, 360.

North America, general aspect of its natural features, and considera-
tions on its physical geography, 51.

Orchidese, 241, 328.

Orinoco, 169 ; magnitude of the river compared with that of the

rivers Plate and Amazons, 172 ; its sources yet unvisited, 173 ;

general description of its course, 174; " black waters" of the

Upper Orinoco, 175 ; Cataracts of Atures and Maypures, 176 ;

discussion of questions concerning its sources, 191 ; supposed

origin in a lake, 194.
Otomacs, a tribe on the Orinoco who use earth as food, 156.

Pacific, the author's gratification at first seeing the Pacific from the

Alto de Guangamarca, 436.
Palms, 238, 312.

474 INDEX.

Panama. — Communication by canal or railroad across the Isthmus of
Panama discussed, 449.

Paramo, a mountainous region in -South America so called, 97 ; its
climate and vegetation, 97, 414.

Pastoral life almost unknown to the original inhabitants of America,
34.

Plants, physiognomy of, essentially distinct from a botanical arrange-
ment, 235, 236, 369 ; is the principal element in the characteristic
aspect of different portions of the earth's surface, 236 ; about six-
teen different forms of plants enumerated, which are chiefly con-
cerned in determining the aspect of Nature, 237 ; Palms, 238 ;
Plantains or Bananas, 239 ; Malvaceae and Bombaceas, 240 ; Mi-
mosas, 240 ; Heaths, 240 ; Cactuses, 241 ; Orchidese, 241 ; Casu-
arineae, 242 ; Coniferae, 242 ; Pothos, 242 ; Lianes, 243 ; Aloes,
243; Grasses, 243; Ferns, 244; Liliaceaa, 244; Willows, 244;
Myrtaceae, Melastomaceae, and LaurineaD, 244 ; number of species
contained in herbariums, 291 ; points of view in which the laws
of the geographical distribution of plants may be regarded, 295 ;
conjectures as to the whole number of species on the globe, 306 ;
more than half the number of species are probably yet unknown,
308 ; heat developed during inflorescence, 346 ; general remarks
on a physiognomic classification, 367.

Pothos, 242, 345.

Quina (or fever bark), 413.

Koads, old Peruvian, of the times of the Incas, 415.
Rotiferae, their revivification, 255.

Sahara (African desert) composed of several detached basins, 103..

Sand-spouts a phenomenon characteristic of the Peruvian Sand De-
sert, 150.

Sargasso, Mar de ; its geographical position discussed, 68 ; is the most
remarkable assemblage of plants of a single species yet known
on the globe, 68.

Schomburgk. — Travels of the brothers Robert and Richard Schom-
burgk important in many respects in regard to the physical geo-
graphy of Guiana and the bordering countries, 148, 160, 189,
199. "

Sleep, summer and winter, of animals, 36, 152, 257.

Snow, limit of perpetual ; inequality of this limit on the northern and
southern declivities of the Himalaya, 92.

Sorata and Illimani ; their heights above the sea recently corrected.
63, 90, 217.

Steppes and Deserts, characteristics of the European, 26 ; African,
26 ; Asiatic, 27 ; South American, 29 ; analogies and contrasts
between the steppes and the ocean, 26, 49.

Strato, his sluice theory, 279.

Sugar-cane ; of Tahiti, of the West Indies, and of Guiana, 45.

Tacarigua, Lake of, 25 ; its scenery and vegetation, 43.

INDEX. 475

Temperature. — Contrast between the temperature of the east coast of
America and the west coast of Europe in the same latitudes,
114 ; general remarks on the temperature of the United States
of America, 115.

Thian-schan, one of the four parallel mountain chains in Central
Asia, 74, 81.

Thibet, occupying the valley between the great chains of the Kuen-
lun and Himalaya, divided into Upper, Middle, and Little Thibet ;
its mean elevation and description, 80.

Tibbos, 70.

Timpanogos, Laguna de, 55 ; is the Great Salt Lake of Fremont, 219.

Traditions of Samothrace, 278.

Trees, age of, 283 ; trees of highest growth, 338.

Trisetum subspicatum, an inhabitant both of the Arctic and Antarc-
tic Circles, 353.

Tuaricks, 70.

Urwald, or primeval forest, a name too lightly used, 206 ; true cha-
racter of a primeval forest, 207 ; description of the nocturnal life
of wild animals in the Urwald, 209.

Vegetation, its propagation and extension over newly formed lands,
230 ; the absence of trees erroneously supposed to characterize
hot countries, 232 ; extensive arid tracts in countries otherwise
of luxuriant vegetation a geological problem which has not been
sufficiently considered, 233 ; characteristic aspect of vegetation
in the tropics, 245; characteristic vegetation of the Alps and
Andes at great elevations, 248.

Vesuvius, measurements of height at different periods, 384, 395 ; par-
ticulars of the eruption of 1822, 386.

Vital force, the, orKhodian Genius, 403.

Volcanos of the Thian-schan chain situated in the interior of Asia far
distant from the sea, 85 ; structure and mode of action of, 375 ;
instances of extensive volcanic connection, 381 ; importance of
repeating exact measurements of the heights of craters, 383.

Willows, 244, 358.

THE END.

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