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THE PLANT

A BIOGRAPHY.

1 vot. 12 mo. cloth, price 12s. 6 d. illustrated ivith 15 plain and coloured plates.

A COMPLETE COURSE OF METEOROLOGY.

BY F. L. KAEMTZ,

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE.

With Notes, by Ch. Martins, and an Appendix, containing the graphic
representation of the Numerical Tables, by L. Lalanxe.

TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS,

BY C. V. WALKER, ESQ.

OF THE ELECTRICAL SOCIETY.

London, 1845.

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THE PLANT;

A BIOGRAPHY.

IN A

SERIES OF POPULAR LECTURES.

BY

M. J. SCHLEIDEN, M.D.

PROFESSOR OF BOTANY TO THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA.

TRANSLATED BY

ARTHUR HENFREY, F.L.S. &c.

LECTURER ON BOTANY AT ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL, LONDON,
AUTHOR OF

“ OUTLINES OF STRUCTURAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY.”

WITH FIVE COLOURED PLATES AND THIRTEEN WOOD ENGRAVINGS.

LONDON :

HIPPOLYTE BAILLIERE, PUBLISHER,

FOREIGN BOOKSELLER TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS,

219, REGENT STREET.

PARIS: J. B. BAILLIERE, 13, RUE DE l'eCOLE DE MEDECINE.

1848.

LONDON :

Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Professor Schleiden, the Author of these Lectures,
is one of the most distinguished Botanists of the present
day, and he has added to the obligations which his brother
Botanists are under to him, by presenting their favourite
Science in such an attractive form to the general Public.

At the commencement of my pleasant task of preparing
them for the English reader, I thought of adding a few
notes, especially to those passages relating to certain views
which are not universally received ; but further consideration
induced me to confine myself to a simple translation, since,
while foot-notes would have disturbed the integrity of the
plan of the Work, had they been placed in an Appendix,
probably they wTould not have been much read.

There is an especial difficulty in rendering works like the
present into a different language, since style must be
attended to as well as faithfulness to the literal meaning.
The accumulation of adjectives in descriptive portions is
often very embarrassing ; should some of these be found
rather un-English, I must beg for the indulgence of the
reader, on the plea of an earnest endeavour not to lose any
of the peculiar character of the Original.

The Translator.

LONDON, MAY, 1848.

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CONTENTS

Preface and Introduction .... Page I

FIRST LECTURE.

The Eye and the Microscope . . . 13

SECOND LECTURE.

On the Internal Structure of Plants . . .39

THIRD LECTURE.

On the Propagation of Plants . . .57

FOURTH LECTURE.

The Morphology of Plants . . . 77

FIFTH LECTURE.

About the Weather . . . .105

SIXTH LECTURE.

What does Man live upon ? (First Reply) . . 129

SEVENTH LECTURE.

What does Man live upon ? (Second Reply) . . 155

Vlll

CONTENTS.

EIGHTH LECTURE.

On the Milk-saii of Plants . . .185

NINTH LECTURE.

An Essay on the Cactus Tribe . . . 209

TENTH LECTURE.

The Geography of Plants . . . 225

ELEVENTH LECTURE.

The History of the Vegetable World . . 269

TWELFTH LECTURE.

The ^Esthetics of the Vegetable World . . 309

APPENDIX.

Description of the Plates

361

INTRODUCTION.

The following Lectures have been composed during
the course of the last eight years, at the instance of an
intelligent and cultivated circle, free from “ the dust
of schools,” and were by no means intended for publica-
tion ; in this point, however, I have yielded to the wishes
of my friends, and so now find myself compelled to add a
few words, in order to place the Lectures in their proper
light.

From the nature of the circumstances which led to their
composition, they were not, of course, intended to teach
the positive substance of the science, to bring forward new
results from my own researches or to solve problems of
inquiry. Here and there even may perchance be found, in
spite of all my efforts to avoid it, some trifling matter not
quite correctly stated; but this defect will not at all interfere
with the design I had in view in the preparation of these
little essays. My chief aim was, in fact, the satisfaction of
what may be called a class-vanity. A large proportion of
the uninitiated, even among the educated classes, are still
in the habit of regarding the Botanist as a dealer in
barbarous Latin names, a man who plucks flowers, names

1

2

INTRODUCTION.

them, dries and wraps them up in paper, and whose whole
wisdom is expended in the determination and classification
of this ingeniously collected hay. This portrait of the
Botanist was, alas ! once true, but it pains me to observe,
that now, when it bears resemblance to so few, it is still held
fast to by very many persons ; and I have sought, therefore,
in the present discourses, to bring within the sphere of
general comprehension, the more important problems of
the real science of Botany, to point out how closely it is
connected with almost all the most abstruse branches
of philosophy and natural science, and to show how
almost every fact or larger group of facts tends, as well
in Botany as in every other branch of human activity,
to suggest the most earnest and weighty questions,
and to carry mankind forward beyond the possessions of
sense, to the anticipations of the spirit.

If, through my efforts, the reader of these sketches shall
hereafter hold a worthier opinion of Botany, and the
Botanist shall form a more accurate conception of the
compass and objects of our Science, I shall be content.
Should they excite an interest for Botany itself in a wider
circle, should one or other reader be led by my words to
wish to penetrate further into these so agreeable and so
inexhaustible questions, my desires will he more than
accomplished.

A few words more, as to the mode of treatment of the
subject may here find place. True to my own convictions,

I have kept free from all the pratings of the physiophilo-
sophers of the Schelling school, and I am firmly persuaded,
that Science has no need of these fopperies to make it
appear interesting to the uninitiated. Humboldt in his
Views of Nature, Dove in his masterly Lectures on the
Climate of Berlin, have proved that science may really

INTRODUCTION.

3

appear lovely and captivating, without adorning herself
with the false tinsel of those conscious or unconscious
falsehoods, which would substitute poetry for thought,
imagination for knowledge, or dreams for truths. I have
endeavoured to adorn these essays with as many graces
as my imperfect aesthetic culture enabled me to impart, hut
that it has not been my intention to enter the lists with
those masters of language, need scarcely be mentioned.
I believe, however, that if men of science would more
often seek to introduce truth into society, in fair attire,
the path of that intolerable, mystical and pretentious,
empty chattering, would be more effectually arrested than
by any rational argumentation against it. The Germans have
too sound a judgment, too pure a taste, not to prefer, with-
out much hesitation, the true and valuable to empty straw,
if the two be but offered them in equally palatable form.

With regard to the contents of the individual Lectures,
from the circumstances under which they originated, each is
of course complete in itself and independent of the others,
at the same time a kind of thread runs through all, essen-
tially connecting them. I may be allowed perhaps to make
this more evident by presenting it here in an isolated form.

The vegetable world, if it be but looked upon as some-
thing more than the materials for a herbarium, offers so
many points of contact to the human race, that those who
devote themselves to its study, instead of having to
complain of want of material, become oppressed with the
multitude of interesting questions and problems which
crowd upon them. The different subjects of consideration
may be conveniently arranged under four aspects ; firstly,
the condition of the plant itself as a question of scientific
inquiry ; secondly, the relations of the individual plants to
each other ; thirdly, the relations of plants as organisms to

1*

4

INTRODUCTION.

the organism of the whole earth ; and fourthly, the relation
of the human race to the vegetable world. But since
each of these four relations is fulfilled by the plant at one
and the same time, it is infinitely difficult, if not impossible,
to keep each aspect clear and unmixed, and when we enter
upon one of these relations with the desire to subject it to
closer investigation, we are always involuntarily constrained,
sooner or later, to direct our attention to the rest and to
draw them within the circle of our researches. Though
we establish upon these questions, according to their order,
the following branches of study : Theoretical , or Pure
Botany ; Systematic Botany ; Geographical and Applied
Botany ; yet not one of these can be treated from its own
principal point of view alone, if it would lay claim to a
scientific or profound character ; still more difficult is it,
however, to keep strictly within the boundaries of these
four divisions when the object in view is not dry scientific
teaching, but a lively demonstration of the more important
points. In the following essays, therefore, the division
into these four branches can only be adopted to a limited
extent, and a freer treatment becomes necessary from the
abundance of material which continually allures us to
turn aside from our path, to gather here and there a bright
or fragrant flower ; or the companionship in which we
wander through the land of science, induces us oftentimes
to leave the straight, but dusty and fatiguing high-road,
now to pursue our course through lanes which wind
among pleasant meadows, now to explore a shady forest
path. Let us see whither we are going.

A plant is not, like a crystal or a pure fluid, a perfectly
homogeneous body, to fathom the nature of which it
suffices to know the substance composing it and its
external form, it is far more than this ; built up of many

INTRODUCTION.

5

minute and most curiously formed cells, filled with most
varied matters, a thorough and penetrating examination of
its internal Structure must precede all other considera-
tions (n). But the little bodies, which I have just named, the
cells, are in almost every case so small, that the unassisted
eye is not by any means equal to the task of their investi-
gation. The microscope is the necessary instrument,
without this the Botanist can make no step forward in
security. Now there are many persons labouring under
the delusion, that for microscopical researches merely an
eye and an instrument are necessary, and all may be done.
But not only is the use of the microscope an art to be
acquired only by considerable pains, but scientific vision
with even the naked eye has its difficulties ; so that it is
particularly necessary to indicate at least the point of view,
from wThich the use of the Eye and Microscope is to be
regarded (i).#

Advancing a step, the next question that meets us is,
to discover what then combines all those little organisms,
the cells of the plant, into a single individual ; and our
attention is thus directed to the consideration of the forms
which are constructed out of these cells. Morphology, or
the study of form (iv) makes its own distinct claim to the
exertion of our perceptive faculties. Here, however, we
rarely find that we have to deal with a simple plant, for
most vegetables consist of a multitude of individuals grown
together and vitally connected, like the colony of polypes’
on a coral ; these are the product of the propagative activity
of the plant, and, therefore, before we enter upon morpho-
logy, it appears more judicious that we should trace out to
some extent the Propagation of Vegetables (in).

Quckstt, Practical treatise on the Use of the ^1 lcroscope.'1
Bailliere.

6

INTRODUCTION.

When we have become acquainted with the internal and
external structure of the plant, we see how it rejoices in an
untiring power of development, ever calling forth new
plants in inexhaustible abundance, careful that no bare
spot shall show itself in the rich and variegated carpet with
which nature clothes the naked earth. The development
of the form and organs of the plant, the calling forth and
the production of numerous descendants, requires material.
It must come into existence, maintain itself and multiply,
and thus we are led to the Nutrition of plants. At this
point, more particularly, we are compelled to observe the
relations of the plant to its supporter, the earth, and to
its destroyer, man. The whole animal world, and, above
all, mankind, asserts its claim upon the vegetable world ;
this must furnish sustenance to a countless poor, since it
subsists and grows subject to the destination that the
matter applied to its own development shall, moreover,
serve for the food or uses of the other earthly organisms.
This nutrition of plants, however, may be looked at in two
ways, for, to express it briefly, if we burn a plant, a
portion only is destroyed, which combustible part we call
the organic matter of the plant, and this claims our especial
interest (vi), because it includes the main substance of the
nutriment of the animal world. But a varying proportion
of the plant remains behind, as ash, after the burning ;
and this also, which we call inorganic matter, invites our
attention (vn), so much the more, indeed, when we find
that this ash, improbable as it may at first appear, likewise
plays no unessential part in the nutrition of animals and
man In both ways of looking at the subject, we are
reminded that man, where advanced civilization has
crowded him more closely upon small areas, is and can be
no longer content with what mother-earth freely brings

INTRODUCTION.

7

forth and proffers to him as food, but agriculture must
furnish him with the means to satisfy his increased
necessities. But man only ploughs the field and strews the
seed; in faith he awaits a blessing from above. All
vegetation depends far more closely than is usually believed
upon the phenomena which, in sunshine and cold, drought
or rain, in the storm or the soft breath of the south-
western breeze, constitute that which we call weather and
climate. We shall, therefore, justly make the considera-
tion of Weather precede the investigation into the nutrition
of plants (v).

While the fact of the plants preparing their nutriment is
the most important basis for the existence of the animal
world upon the earth, man is also entitled and enabled by
his industiy to make an incomparably greater use of plants
and the matters contained in them. Thus is opened a new,
and, indeed, almost unbounded field. Need I enumerate all
the crafts which derive the material on which their labours
are exerted from the vegetable kingdom ? Every one who
looks around his chamber or his household, will be at once
aware of how many of the conveniencies and pleasures of
life he must be deprived if the vegetable world should cease
to pay its tribute. Need we open all the drawers and
boxes of the grocer or the druggist, to see what a store
of means vegetation contributes here also? A general
summary would give but a dry catalogue of names ; a
detailed account of all would occupy many volumes. We
will be content with a single example, and examine some-
what closely the Milky Juices of plants (vm).

The formation of milky juices is not confined to one,
nor to a small number of allied plants, but we find at least
three very large groups, which principally furnish this inte-
resting substance. The number of distinct species of plants

8

INTRODUCTION.

is so great (probably, according to the estimate of some
writers, 200,000), that to enable us to survey this mass, a
scientific expedient has been requisite, in the shape of a
systematic arrangement of the different genera. Fortu-
nately, Nature meets us half-way. In all the external
forms, in the number, the arrangement and the structure
of the separate parts, in the laws which regulate their
development, the larger groups of species of plants exhibit
a great agreement among themselves, and by this very
fact are distinguished from other groups. Who can
notice, at the time of blossoming, a carrot, the hemlock,
parsley, chervil, anise, dill and the rest, without being struck
with the agreement of these plants in general structure ?
Who would not, in like manner, perceive the close relation
which exists between the various kinds of cabbage, the
mustard, horse-radish, radish, turnip and similar plants ?
Any one who examines a little more closely, will recognize
a multitude of plants which are distinguished by a strong
aroma, the balm, mint, sage, thyme, marjoram, lavender
&c., and a wonderful agreement of structure will be
observed. Thus Nature herself indicates to us the path we
are to take ; following out such traces, Botanists have
gradually recognized and characterized a great number of
these groups of plants, which they have called Families.
That in this, as in the foregoing case, there is no space
here for completeness, need scarcely be mentioned, but we
could not deny it to ourselves to take one family, as an
example, and characterize it more accurately (ix).

In the group selected, the Cactus plants, our attention is
attracted, among many other things, to their remarkable
distribution over a comparatively small part, of the earth’s
surface; and this leads very naturally to the question, how
the different species of plants spread themselves over the

INTRODUCTION.

9

earth in greater or lesser groups ; whether this distribution
is the result of accident, or is regulated by laws, and if so,
what laws ? Well, let us follow Humboldt’s footsteps and
committing ourselves to the care of such a guide, let us
enter a new, widely-expanded region, first discovered by
him — Geographical Botany (x).* A science of a peculiar

nature, still young and burdened with all the faults of
youth, overflowing with the fulness of life, certain of a fair
and powerful manhood, but still disorderly and obscure,
gathering much, at present unintelligible, for use in riper
years, and as yet dreaming much more than thinking.
A brief outline of its attractive phenomena cannot but
prove interesting. This youth leads forward a sister, still
younger, yet indeed in the tenderest age of childhood, but
a hopeful bud nevertheless. Let us turn with friendly ear
to her childish prattle, the chords full of promise of a
future harmonious beauty ; if she do not teach us very
much, she will help us pleasantly to while away a brief
hour. Why should we not then afford a little place to her,
the History of Plants? (xi).

And ought we here, above all places, to shun children ?
Are not children, flowers — flowers, children ? An uncon-
scious unfolding, a peaceful, sweet but dream-like existence.
How close is that comparison which poets have so oft
expressed :

“ Sweet flowers gaze on us
With gentle child-like eyes.”

It is referable to the similar tone which is set vibrating
in our souls by the contemplation of children and of
flowers. But every one will readily admit, that this resem-

* ‘‘Kosmos; a General Survey of the Physical Phenomena of
the Universe.” Baillihre.

10

INTRODUCTION.

blance is limited to certain flowers. No one will assert it
of the white Lily, of the toad-like speckled Stapelia, or of
the magic Queen of the Night. Still less will the parallel
hold good for the whole vegetable kingdom. Rather does
this make the most varied impression on the human sense,
according to the manifold shapes in which it presents itself ;
but ever one so difficult to repel, that scarcely can the
rudest of mankind altogether avoid it. Like all nature,
the vegetable world is to us a hieroglyphic of the Eternal ;
in the material fashionings do we seek and find the
indication of a spiritual existence. Well might we here
look for a special study of these matters, the /Esthetics of
Plants (xii), which should contemplate them in then-
relation to the human spirit. But, alas ! we have none.
A few fragmentary indications must supply its place.

This will suffice to show the chain which binds the
contents of the separate Lectures into a settled whole ; it is
necessary, however, to add a few words respecting the garb
in which the Lectures appear before the public. “ Fine
feathers make fine birds,” it is said; and so why should
not a fine book make fine Lectures ? In point of fact, this
is not altogether a jest ; to a certain extent, it is unpleasant
earnest. These treatises were not written for the reading,
absent public, but for the hearing and seeing audience.
All could be made lively and attractive to those present, by
living illustrations, demonstrations under the microscope
and the exhibition of abundance of pictures. These adorn-
ments may have given the essays an interest in the eyes ot
favouring friends, which led them to desire their publica-
tion. The charm thus upheld, where one has all the facts
before one’s eyes, and, following the exposition, feels as if
deducing the conclusions of science itself from observation ;
this charm necessarily disappears when such a treatise is

INTRODUCTION.

11

read ; with the ornaments goes also the estimation in which
the matter is held, and is wholly, or for the most part, lost.
The author has, therefore, to dread, especially when he
speaks of relations of form, in which the best description
can never represent the appearance, that his reader will be
wearied, when he could easily keep up a lively interest in his
hearers and spectators.

To obviate this difficulty, it became necessary to bring
at least some little aid to the reader, in the shape of pic-
torial illustration. But, since I could not aim at costly
copper-plates, which would have defeated the purpose in
view, I was compelled to restrict myself a little more
to assist the fancy of the reader with sketches and make a
demand upon his imaginative faculties. Thus originated
the pictures which have been determined on as illustrations
to these Lectures, regarding which I have but a few words
to say. They relate, in every instance, to the contents
of the Lectures in which they are found and for the most
part are amply described there. The title vignettes are
explained by some remarks upon the foot of the title itself;
to some, explanation is unnecessary. May then the garb
be gay enough to hide the faults and weaknesses of the
matter, or at least to render them less evident ; in short,
may these really unpretending thoughts find indulgent and
friendly readers.

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dFtrgst atctuit.

THE EYE AND THE MICROSCOPE.

Oculus ad vitam nihil facit, ad vitam beatam nihil magis.

SENECA.

The eye, no servitor of duty.

But minister of all life’s beauty.

The vignette represents an ideal section through the little camera -
obscura, which is called the eye-ball. The arrow and the dotted
lines indicate the manner in which the picture is brought on to the
retina (the receiving plate of the apparatus) .

LECTURE I.

The words of an ancient sage, so apt a motto for this
discourse, may not perhaps remain wholly uncontested ; at
all events, pretty general experience shows that while all
perfectly deaf persons are sad, gloomy and hypochondriacal,
all the blind are gay and cheerful ; the eye leads only into
the world of matter, but the ear into our proper home, into
the communion of spiritual existence. Nothing can be
more unquestionable, however, than that among all our
senses, there is not one to which we either actually owe
so many elements of our knowledge of the world we live
in, or attribute so much of that which we have, it may
be an incorrect, knowledge of, as to the sense of sight.
Above all, it is the sense which originally introduces and
unceasingly expands our whole knowledge of the corporeal
world, and we may, therefore, with great propriety, call it
the Sense of the Naturalist. We can scarcely imagine
natural science to exist without it, and it the more pre-
eminently deserves a close examination, since this itself
will be the more fruitful, that most of the general laws
which our investigations make us acquainted with, not only

16

THE EYE

regulate it, but, making allowance for special peculiarities
in the particular senses, are applicable to sense generally.

As we run through the history of the gradual develop-
ment of our knowledge of Nature, we are met by a pheno-
menon which has ever had the greatest possible influence,
almost always intermingling itself with our researches,
checking and perplexing us, and bedimning our vision
of the simple and clear conformity to law. Reflecting
Man, feels himself at once a citizen of two worlds. His
existence is not wholly comprehended in the mere corporeal
world ; a freer, more spiritual existence, in which he seeks
immortality, in which he bethinks him of God as a bene-
ficent ruler, claims its share of his being. Most mysterious
and, while we are but men, ever incomprehensible is the
blending of soul and body — the spiritual and material — in
our nature. Where is the limit of the one and the com-
mencement of the other ? Mankind in general, and even
the most gifted seekers after knowledge, answer us : We
know not ; no boundary can be detected ; they pass over
and inter-penetrate each other in every direction.

Here lies the path of delusion, pressing itself so closely
on the notice of the inquirer, that only by unceasing effort
can he avoid it, that often it misleads the most intelligent ;
and yet a path utterly delusive, since mind and body are in
us so strictly, so inevitably separated, that the chasm
between them is at no point bridged over. This is not the
place to unfold all the relations of this connection, or
fundamentally to discuss it in its whole extent, but the
careful examination of that which we call Sight, will give
us occasion to point out, at least in one instance, the great
gap between the corporeal and the spiritual, as the uncon-
sciousness of their separation in the eye has often led the
greatest observers into perplexities.

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

17

What is the world wherein the eye finds its home —
what the domain of sight ? The world of light and colour.
The light —

“ From matter streaming, it makes matter bright,

Matter arrests it on its onward flight —

And so I fancy ’twill but have its day.

And when the matter vanishes, so fade away.”

In a few powerful touches, Mephistopheles thus reviews the
whole doctrine of light Light, if we contemplate it wholly
by itself, is not transparent, not yellow and blue and red ;
light is a motion of a matter of extreme tenuity extending
through all space, the ether — vibrations which are propa-
gated in straight lines through this, like the waves of
sound through the air. In their straight course they strike
upon bodies which lie in their way and if the body is what
we call opaque, recoil like billows striking on the sea-shore ;
but if the body is transparent, they pass through like
waves through a canal opening into the sea. Coal-gas
burns, and during its combination with oxygen, it sets the
ether vibrating, it emits light ; the coal-gas is burnt, and
with the matter which has “ vanished,” “ faded ” the light.
An infinite ocean of ether filling the whole universe, and
in it thousands upon thousands of waves hastening in
every possible direction, crossing, destroying or deadening
each other ; this is the material nature of light and colour.
Who can say that he has seen this light, these colours ?
So little are we in a condition to do it, that the acuteness
of the greatest intellects was required to unfold to us this
the true nature of light.

Through the thick roof of vine-leaves, a sunbeam trem-
bles in the calm, favouring shade ; you believe it is the ray
of light you see ; but far from that, what you perceive is

2

18

THE EYE

nothing but the fine dust, carried through the air by the
most gentle breezes ; and these are by no means the waves
winch chase each other in restless succession through the
ether at a speed of more than 190,000 miles in a second.
If the natural philosopher could extricate himself from his
human nature, and look upon the world around with
the eye of science alone, he would behold but a deso-
late, colourless and lightless mass, a gloomy and vast piece
of clock-work, in which thousands of substances and motive
forces were united in an ever-varying dance.

But let us now look on the faker reverse of the picture.
Night is past ; the vivifying ray of the morning sun comes
darting over the distant hills. The verdant meadows glow,
warmed by the touch of heavenly fight. Here the flower
opes her crown of radiant hues to the wished-for elements ;
soon flutters the awakened bird his gorgeous plumage
through the blue air ; the splendid butterflies caressing
swarm around the lovely rose, — while close at hand, the
busy beetle in his emerald coat creeps up the dusky moss
to quench his thirst in sparkling dew-drops. A whole, full,
beauteous world of fight and radiance, of colours and
shapes, lies outspread before us ; every motion is fife, is
beauty, and beautiful in its freedom. “ And I see all,”
says man, and turns his thoughts in ecstasy to the Giver
of all good. But what is this sight ? It is not a percep-
tion of what actually exists without. It is a magical
phantasmagoria, which the mind itself produces in free
creation, guided and restrained only in a wondrous fashion
by that which actually exists without, and all unconscious
meanwhile of this very actuality.

When the voyager on the ocean reaches the southern
latitudes, the majestic form of the Southern Cross emerges
before him from the distant horizon, shining in the deep,

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

19

dark heavens, with a glory which we can scarcely imagine.
“ Glory and thanks to the Almighty Creator,” he cries,
and irresistibly impelled, he sinks upon his knees in adora-
tion. Well may such thanks be offered to the holy Source
of all existence, but not because He has made the world so
fair, since this itself is neither fair nor foul ; but because, as
the old sage tells us, he breathed his spirit into Man and
thus bestowed on him the gift, to feel life, freedom and
beauty in all that surrounds him.

As distant from each other as these two sketches, lie the
worlds of matter and spirit. When the fresh green of
Spring fills us with joyful hopes, when the yellow, falling
leaf of Autumn pierces us with melancholy like a parting
sigh, the leaf is but to us green and yellow and in these
colours an emblem of moral relations, in itself, to the tree
which bore it, to the earth on which it falls, in a word, to
all material nature, the leaf has no colour but contains a
substance repelling certain waves of light which then strike
upon our eyes ; in Autumn it gives off some atoms of
oxygen and the same waves pass unhindered through and
through it, while other waves of a different nature are
reflected.

Let us dwell still a moment on this example. If we
apply the fresh verdant leaf upon our tongue, and after-
wards try that bleached autumnal one, our sense of taste at
once bears evidence of the difference in the chemical nature
of the two conditions, but it produces no conception of the
colour. If we crush near our ear a fresh and green, and a
dried leaf, the difference of sound indicates that the latter
has been deprived of its water, but nothing tells us here
that light will be reflected in different ways by the fresh and
dried leaves. In a word, we find that each of our senses is
only sensible to a certain definite external influence, and

2#

20

THE EYE

that the excitation of each sense calls forth a wholly
different conception in our minds. Thus, the organs of
sense stand as mediators between the outer soulless world,
which is laid open and made practicable to our footsteps by
science, and the beautiful world which we spiritually discover
within us. These first experience the impressions, these
deliver over then the suggestions to the mind, suggestions
guided by which the mind executes its world-pictures in
colour and form. Let us now seek for what is essential in
these organs of sense — the artfully contrived skeleton, at
once so firm and mobile, the powerful muscles which by
their contraction set in motion that lever-work of bones
— the heart with its multitude of tubes — the veins, a
hydraulic engine of masterly execution, which drives the
nutrient fluid, the blood, through every part — the whole
complicated structure of receptacles and canals into which
the food is received, in manifold ways chemically decom-
posed and again combined, here mingled with the blood,
there rejected as useless — the multitude of fibres and mem-
branes which bind all parts together, enclose the whole and
round it into the fair form of humanity — it is none of
these. No part of all this reaches up to the domain of
spirit. But through all these structures, penetrating all,
pass millions of the most delicate filaments, the nerves,
which at one extremity spread out in those parts, at the
other gather together in a single hemisphere, the brain.
These filaments it is which are excited by contact with the
motions and changes of the external world, and convey
this stimulus to the brain. But the brain is the mys-
terious place where soul and body meet. Every alteration
in the brain is accompanied by change in the play of our
ideas ; with every thought directed to the external world,
there is a concurrent alteration in the brain, which is con-

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

21

veyed by the nerves, as a command to the organ which
the will would move. The nerves, therefore, are the
peculiarly essential part of the organs of sense, in which we
have to seek the intermediate links between mind and
body ; if we would use them to instruct ourselves as to the
nature of our union with the material world, we must
thoroughly inquire into their legitimate action.

Two points only require especial notice, but these are
peculiar enough. The master has a curious way of pro-
ceeding with his servants ; he, the mind, translates all that
they, the nerves, bring him word of into his own language,
and for every one of the servants has he a fellow. Let the
fibres of the optic nerve be struck by what they will, let
waves of fight agitate them, the finger press them, the
over-filled vessels pulsate on them or an electric spark dart
through them, the mind translates all these different im-
pressions into the language of fight and colour. If from
excitement the blood, distending the vessels, presses upon
the nerves, we feel it as pain in the finger, we hear it as a
humming in the ear, we see it as dartings of fight in the
eye. And herein we have the most distinct proof that our
ideas are free creations of our mind, that we do not con-
ceive the external world as it really is, but that its action
upon us gives rise to a peculiar mental activity, the products
of which have frequently a certain definite connection with
the outer world, but are also frequently totally unconnected
with it. We press upon our eye and behold a luminous
circle before us, but there exists no luminous body. How
full and dangerous a spring of errors of all kinds here flows
forth, is at once evident. From the odd shapes of the
moonlight cloud-landscape, to the maddening visions of the
ghost-seer, we have a series of deceptions, none of which
fall to the charge of Nature or her strict conformity, but

22

THE EYE

belong to the domain of the free, and for that very reason,
fallible activity of the mind. Great circumspection, a very
comprehensive training, must the mind possess, before it
can free itself from all its own misconceptions and learn
wholly to command itself. Sight, in the common sense
of the word, appears to us so easy, yet is it a difficult
art. Only by degrees do we learn what messages of the
senses we may trust, and how to form our conceptions
from them. Men of science may themselves err here — err
often, and the oftener, the less they comprehend where they
have to seek for the source of error.

But still more striking than the relations just unfolded,
is the fact, that the master, that is the soul, receives
messages from his servants, the nerves, and delivers orders
to them without being conscious at the moment of their
presence. Not at first, but after his knowledge has pro-
gressed far forward, does man discover that nerves exist
and have their appointed functions. He sees and knows
not of his optic nerve, a burnt hand pains him but he is
all unconscious of the fibres that convey the impression ; he
moves the tongue playing with fluent rapidity, but is
ignorant of the course of its appointed nerves. In a word,
we never experience the condition of a nerve, but form a
conception of an external object immediately the nerve is
excited, and it required scientific intelligence to recognize
this object as the cause of the excitement of a nerve.

However, to retain the comparison we have chosen, if
the relation of the master to his servants is one wholly
peculiar, the servants are no less of a quite especial kind.
No one of them knows anything of another, is at all aware
of his existence and activity, or shares it with him. Nav,
what is still more important, no one of them, that is no
nervous fibril, can carry more than one single, simple

and the microscope.

23

message at a time, and therein they resemble simple-witted
servants Two notices given to them simultaneously, become
blended into a single one. This is most readily exhibited by
touching with the points of an open pan' of compasses,
those parts of the body where the nerves are much
isolated and lie far apart, as in the upper arm or the
median line of the back. When the points are as much as
an inch apart, one single prick only is felt on the places
mentioned, because the nerves are so distant from each
other that the two pricks fall in the district of one fibre,
and this is incapable of conveying away more than one
impression at a time.

After these general explanations of the peculiar nature of
nervous action, we may again approach our proper subject,
by the special consideration of the optic nerve. Where this
enters the eye-ball, it consists of a tolerably thick bundle
composed of numerous distinct nervous fibres, and these
expand in the eye-hall into a hemispherical plate, in such a
manner that every fibre occupies a small portion of this
plate. The eye-hall itself, however, perfectly resembles
an optical instrument, a camera obscura, and the hemis-
pherical layer of the optic nerve, called the retina, corres-
ponds to the sheet of paper which receives the picture.
Every one of the fibrils on which the picture falls, imme-
diately catches up a point of it, and brings an account
thereof to the brain where the conceiving soul has its
abode, and then this has to construe the picture out of all
these separate points. Whether this is truly 01 falsely
construed depends on the training and cultivation which the
mind has received. I may be told that we have not the
slightest consciousness of this construction, and that sight
must be a much more simple matter than this. However,
we can easily find some examples, showing that it is only

24

THE EYE

habit which makes the matter so easy that we become
wholly unconscious of the efforts of the mind. A child
who has not had this practice often construes falsely, grasps
at the stars, as at the shining buttons on his father’s
coat ; tries to blow out the moon, as he would the light
upon the table. And we find that the same phenomena
are observed in those born blind, who have been operated
on ; one remarkable case of this kind, is, in particular,
recorded in the annals of opthalmic surgery, where a man
born blind obtained his sight in his later years, when he
was capable of giving an account of his experiences, and
who was able fully to report how he gradually learned to
collocate the different sensations of light and colour into
orderly vision. But the most distinct proof of the correct-
ness of the assertion advanced lies in the fact, that we,
when the conditions are misleading, construe falsely, when
the picture on the retina has given no cause. For instance,
the moon appears larger when it rises, than when it is
sailing over us in the dark ocean of the sky. But measure-
ments show that the size is actually the same in both cases,
and that its picture on the retina is always of the same
diameter. The reason of the false construction is this ;
when the moon rises above the horizon, between hills, trees
or houses we are familiar with, we judge of its distance
from the objects surrounding it, the. real distance of which
we know. But when the moon is above in the vault of
heaven, we fancy it nearer because there are no objects
between it and ourselves, by which we can estimate its
distance. Thus in the act of judging, deceived by the
distance, we construe differently one and the same retina-
picture ; therefore, under any circumstances once falsely.

These investigations, which 1 have rather sketched out
and indicated, than given a complete picture of, lead to

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

25

the following result : in the actual world a multitude of
substances and forces exist in a continual round ot meta-
morphoses ; when these come in contact with the nervous
fibres of our bodies, they alter their condition, and this
altered condition is the cause of the production of those
pictures of the world, which our mind itself executes.
This self-sustaining world makes the most lively impres-
sion on us when the exciting conditions are in relation
with the optic nerves, but even here we can most distinctly
prove that the world of our conceptions, though always
dependent on the world without, is never homogeneous or
identical with it.

One more example may serve to render this clear, and
at the same time to bring us on our way to the subsecpient
considerations. Undoubtedly the simplest condition which
we can imagine to exist in the external world is that of
substance, matter or whatever we please to call it, which
occupies a certain space. Therefore, to make our concep-
tion of the world agree at all with the actual world, we
must first of all know, how great the space is, and how
large a portion of the space the matter, for example a
rock, occupies. But we have no scale by which to esti-
mate the size of space and, therefore, no definite notion of
the size of the world. When we say : “ this man is six
feet high,” that only means, “ in the world of our concep-
tions the conceived man is six times the height of the
conceived foot ■” it is but a comparison of two conceptions.
Thence naturally originate the questions : how long is a
foot, an inch, a line and so on ? and we can only answer
by comparison with other just as indefinite magnitudes.
We see at once that not even in the most simple case,
can we arrive at a knowledge of the actual world from the
play of our conceptions ; the whole of our ideas of magni-

26

THE EYE

tude are without essential significance in relation to the
world, they belong only to our conceptions. And yet the
microscopist talks of magnifying, and thinks thus to
understand the objects better than before. To comprehend
this, we must yet philosophize a little longer about magni-
tude, to invest this ambiguous notion with more distinct-
ness and substantiality. We call the foot of Schwanthaler’s
“ Bavaria” colossal, the foot of a full grown man large and
that of a lady small, and why ? This is easily answered ;
if we divide each of the three feet into twelve inches,
each inch into twelve lines, and each line into twelve parts,
we shall find these twelfths of a line undistinguishable in
the lady’s foot, in the man’s tolerably plain, but in the
“ Bavaria” we might divide these twelfths again into
twelve parts, and every one of these would still be quite
distinct. Here then we have at once found a simple
definition of magnitude. A thing is large to us in propor-
tion to the number of parts into which we can divide it.

But there is another consideration which may occur to
us in this definition of the idea. We have accompanied a
parting friend as far as the hill beyond the town, once
more we embrace him, once more gaze long and deeply on
his countenance, to impress more firmly on our soul each
dear, familiar feature. At last he leaves us, hastens thence,
while we stand lingering, gazing after him. He turns, and
still we recognize the well-known face. But the distance
continually increases, and by degrees the peculiarities of
shape vanish. A turn in the road hides him from us for
a while ; then he emerges yet again on the slope of the
farthest hill, a little, moving, black point ; he stops, waves his
handkerchief, but we are scarcely able to distinguish this
motion and at last lie disappears wholly in the distance.
The farther our friend retreated from us, the less distinctly

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

27

could we see him, the smaller he appeared, till at last a
pin’s head held before the eye would have been the larger.
While we here remark how an object well known to us
becomes gradually smaller, and at last totally disappears,
we become aware of the means by which we can enlarge
an object, so as to see it more distinctly and distinguish
a greater quantity of separate parts in it, namely, by bring-
ing it nearer to the eye.

Experiment shows us, surely enough, the applicability of
this means ; but we soon discover that there is a certain
limit here, beyond which the object cannot be brought, in
approaching it to the eye, without the loss of all distinct
vision. The cause of this lies in the construction of the
little camera obscura, which we call the eye-ball. This,
like the similar instrument of the optician, can be adapted
only to certain distances, and if we wish to look more
closely at anything, we must make a corresponding altera-
tion in the optical apparatus, which is done very simply,
by bringing before the eye a transparent body, shaped
according to a certain law ; and for this purpose we gene-
rally use glass, ground into a particular form. Such a
glass is a lens or simple microscope, and its action consists
in enabling us to see distinctly an object placed in such
close proximity to the eye, that it would otherwise be
invisible. It is unnecessary to enter into an explanation
of the optical laws by which this action is regulated. I
will only observe, that they render it very easy to determine
how much an object must appear to be enlarged by a
simple microscope of this kind. It is assumed, that on an
average, the human eye sees distinctly at the distance of
ten inches, but not when the object is brought nearer.
Now, if I use a glass which permits me to see the object
distinctly at a distance of five inches, it appears twice as

28

THE EYE

large ; at a distance of two inches and a half, four times ;
at one tenth, a hundred times as large, and so on ; in
a word, the enlargement depends alone upon the degree of
proximity to the eye into which the object Is brought.
In former days, these simple microscopes were used very
extensively and almost exclusively for the purposes of
science, because the compound microscopes were then so
bad as to be far inferior to the simple instrument The
celebrated Leuwenhoek made all his wonderful microscopic
observations with simple spheres of glass, which he made
for himself, by melting fine threads of glass in a lamp. In
the present day, the simple microscope is generally used
where very small magnifying power is required, the com-
pound instrument where any considerable enlargement is
desirable. While the latter fatigues the eye comparatively
little, observation with the simple microscope, especially with
high magnifying power, is so great a strain upon it, that
disease of the eye is but too frequently the result.

The principle of the compound microscope is also very
easily explained. It depends on a combination of the
camera obscura with the simple microscope. The common
camera obscura consists, essentially, of some glasses ground
into the shape of a lens ; the rays of light proceeding from
an object pass through these glasses and produce behind
them a picture of the object, which is usually received, in
the common optical toy, upon a plate ot ground glass or a
surface of white paper. The further the object is removed
from the glasses, the smaller appears the picture. Bringing
the object nearer, the picture grows till picture and object
are of equal size. But if the object is now placed closer to
the glasses, the picture becomes larger than the object.
We never use the camera obscura in this condition, but
we do the magic lantern, which in its essential construction

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

29

is in no way different from it. In the compound micro-
scope, an apparatus of this kind is made use of in such
a manner, that the enlarged picture of the object is not
seen immediately hy the eye, but looked at through a
simple microscope and thus again considerably magnified.
For example, if the picture is a hundred times larger than
the object, and we magnify this picture ten times, the
object, of course, appears a thousand times larger. There-
fore, the compound microscope is composed of a double
optical apparatus ; first, the glasses which are directed to
the thing to he examined, or object, of which they project
an enlarged picture, these are called the object-glasses, or
objectives ; secondly, of a simple microscope, by which the
enlarged picture of the object is again magnified, and which
from being turned towards the eye, is called the eye-piece
or ocular.

From the foregoing statements, it might be imagined
that we can magnify to any degree we like, since the size
of the picture depends solely upon the extent to which we
approach the object towards the object-glass, and then the
enlargement of the picture is only conditional on the approxi-
mation of the picture to the eye. But so many practical
difficulties oppose this theoretical possibility, that the instru-
ments actually constructed all fall far short of the theore-
tical limit.

I shall here mention only the most important circum-
stance, and in order to make this clear, make use of a very
familiar fact. Books intended for very general use, such as
bibles and hymn-books, are printed in many different types,
sometimes with very small, sometimes moderate sized and,
for the old and weak-sighted, with very large letters. A
single word in the type of the last kind, is perhaps six
times as large as in the first and is very easily recognized,

30

THE EYE

but at the same time we of course see no more letters in
this than in the others. The same word also may be
written by a clever penman so small, that to the unassisted
eye it will look like a single black point. By magnifying
the point it might be resolved into its separate parts, so
that the letters and their flourishes would be distinguish-
able, but a further magnification would then merely enlarge
the scale on which the letters were seen, without bringing
into sight any finer parts before invisible. A similar
condition occurs in the microscope. Up to a certain point,
the picture which the object-glass throws up is such, that
the individual parts of the object are resolved or made
distinct by the eye-piece. But a limit is soon found,
beyond which, on account of the imperfection of the object-
glass, the picture which this throws up may, indeed, be
enlarged, but this does not render any more of its indivi-
dual parts visible. It is composed, as it were, of a certain
number of letters, which when more magnified are more
easily distinguished, but the increased enlargement does
not show any apparently simple letter to be composed of
two still smaller. From this cause arises the important
.circumstance, that with a well-constructed microscope we
can often see far more, that is more of the individual parts
of the object, with a low power, than when it has been
much more enlarged by means of an inferior instrument.
Now as in all scientific investigations, every thing depends
upon the recognition of the individual parts and structural
relations, the enlargements by the microscope are only so
far of consequence as they enable us to do this more
completely.

The limit occurs in all the instruments yet constructed
at an enlargement of from three to four hundred diameters,
.and all stronger magnifying is either useless trifling or, and

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

31

indeed most frequently, only nominal, like the magnifying-
millions of times by the oxy-hydrogen microscope which
the charlatans boast of, and which in most instances does
not exhibit so much as the fifty times of a good common
microscope.

From these observations it will be evident that to the
scientific inquirer it is of infinite importance to be able to
form an accurate judgement of the goodness of an instru-
ment in tins respect, and the greatest efforts have been
used to discover some means thereto. To this end, have
been sought what are called test-objects, which generally
consist of objects exhibiting some delicate structure, diffi-
cult to make out. Either artificial or natural objects may
be chosen for such test-objects. The former have only
been prepared hitherto by Robert, an optician in Konigs-
berg, and consist of glass plates on which are ruled with a
diamond, systems of a hundred lines which, ten by ten,
approach closer together and are finer, according to a
definite standard. With most instruments only the sixth
and seventh systems can be distinctly made out to be
composed of separate lines, superior instruments reach the
eighth and ninth. No instrument yet constructed has
resolved the tenth system into its component parts. These
systems of lines when they are perceived, are very evident,
but they have the essential fault that they do not quite
exactly resemble one another, and consequently every
inquirer gets a different standard. With incomparably
greater accuracy works nature, and therefore the scales of
butterflies are always regarded as the best test-objects.
These are mostly little longish plates having a little stem,
beset upon their surface with fine longitudinal furrows,
which are united by the most delicate possible transverse
stria;. These two kinds of striae are of very different

32

THE EYE

degrees of fineness in different butterflies, and the cross-
striae of Hipparchia Janira, a very common brown butter-
fly, are in particular so delicate that only the very best
instruments exhibit them distinctly.

Besides these common scales, there are many others
of different shape and differently marked upon their sur-
face, and when we have pursued the investigation of them
for any length of time we are overwhelmed with infinite
abundance of forms, which Nature has here developed in the
most insignificant and diminutive parts. Many indeed,
and especially in former days, have been content with the
delight which the contemplation of these elegant forms
afforded them, and scarcely anticipated the importance of
microscopic investigations to science, as may be seen from
the titles of so many of the works published in the last
century, such as Ledermiiller’s “ Microscopic delights for
the Eye and Soul,” (Nuremberg, 1761), Rosel von Rosen-
hoff’s “Insect Recreations,” (Nuremberg, 1746 — 61),
&c. Yet observers were not wanting even thus early,
who saw fully the seriousness of this branch of natural
history studies, and we have an example even of an excess
in Swammerdam, who in his last days committed to the
flames, a great portion of the results he had obtained only
by the most tedious labours, because he thought that the
Creator had not veiled these minute circumstances from
the eyes of man without wise purpose, and it were sacri-
lege to profane God’s mysteries. But such a notion, if
consequently carried out, would oppose every advance
of humanity beyond the rudest and almost brute condition
of Nature.

It was reserved for our century to apply the microscope
to its true use, to the study of Nature, and it is most
delightful to observe how the application of this instru-

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

33

ment continually opens new paths, and what ever-widening
circles of the most interesting results are won.

It may readily be conceived that the study of the con-
ditions of the minuter structures of animals and of man
himself, must throw a wholly new light upon the physio-
logical processes which go on within the body, and, in
point of fact, in all branches of medical science, a new era
must be dated from the application of the microscope. And
it is equally evident, that the microscope must be a most
distinct “ turning-point” in the knowledge of the more
minute organisms of the animal and vegetable world. But
it is not quite so plain, how microscopic observation should
find its peculiar field in the departments of chemistry, mine-
ralogy and geognosy. Nevertheless, it has its importance
here ; this has, indeed, been already recognized by some of
the most distinguished inquirers, and must, ere long, be
generally comprehended. In organic chemistry, especially,
an instrument cannot be spared, which alone, oftentimes,
will enable us to decide whether we have to do with a
simple substance, or a mechanical mixture of various con-
stituents. Many purely imaginary subtances would never
have cumbered the field of science, the powers of great
inquirers which have been wasted on them would have
been saved, had the nature of these things been first
investigated by the microscope. Thus we find even the
first chemists, such as Berzelius, Liebig &c., speaking of
substances which have no existence. Thus, the starchy
fibre of potatoes, by which is understood the unprofitable
portion, is a mixture of starch and ligneous fibre or cellu-
lose, both wholly of the usual kind ; so is pollenine, as the
elementary coastituent of pollen is called, a multifarious
mixture of a great many distinct and well-known sub-

3

34

THE EYE

stances. Innumerable examples of the kind could be
furnished.

Still more striking is the importance of the microscope
in mineralogy and geognosy. Here it affords us an entirely
different and more accurate acquaintance with the peculiar
nature of whole systems of rocks, of vast formations, or
individual mineral substances — an acquaintance such as
these sciences could not hitherto give us. Formerly, in
the mountain-chains which stretch along Western Asia,
girdle the north of Germany and France, and again appear
in the Grecian Archipelago, we only saw a shelly mass of
carbonate of lime which, from its peculiar condition, we
called chalk ; in the tripoli, mountain-meal, &c., finely-
divided silex ; in dysodil, only a mixture of silex and
bitumen ; and in most opals and flints, only denser, glass-
like silex; but Ehrenberg’s microscopic researches have
laid open to us a wholly new world, full of life. We find
the origin of no inconsiderable portion of the firm crust of
our planet dependant, in the most remarkable maimer, for
its peculiar form, on the life of animals so small that they
are invisible to the naked eye, which, by their almost
miraculous rapidity of multiplication, make up through
absolute number and the indestructibility of their remains,
what they want in magnitude.

Certain of the Infusoria consist wholly of a gelatinous
animal substance ; but besides these, there are other kinds
which, like snails and cockles, are enclosed in firm shells of
the most elegant forms, which are composed either of car-
bonate of lime or silex. The dead animal itself soon decays,
but the dwelling which it had built itself, the shell, remains,
and in circumstances favourable to the life of the animals,
these shells accumulate to such an extent, that whole

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

35

systems of rocks are found almost solely consisting of them.
The siliceous shells sometimes become blended together by
a peculiar process, not yet explained, and so form flints and
opals. The Botanist must not disdain a nearer acquaintance
with these siliceous animalcules, for the question which has
long been agitated, even with some bitterness, whether
these little organisms are animals or plants, is not yet set at
rest. In regard to magnitude, the formations originating
from the calcareous Infusoria are still more important. A
considerable portion of Russia, on the Wolga, of Poland,
Pomerania ( e . g. Rugen), Mecklenburg, Denmark, Sweden,
of the south of England, Northern Ireland, the north of
France, Greece, Sicily, of the north of Africa, and perhaps
also Sahara, of the north-western and Arabian portion of
Asia, consist of such calcareous soils and masses of chalk
rock, the thickness of which may often be estimated, as in
England, at a thousand feet. The imagination halts in the
attempt to realize these masses of organic life, when we
remember that a single chalk-enamelled visiting card forms
a zoological cabinet of, perhaps, a hundred thousand shells.

As Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Herschel introduced us
into an infinite world of huge magnitudes, as Columbus,
Magellan and their successors first unfolded to us one
entire half of the earth, so in the present day, has Ehren-
berg, by his untiring industry, laid open to us a wonderful
world of organic life, which, small as are the individuals
composing it, invisible to the keenest eye when unassisted,
through the inconceivable activity of development, through
the number, vast beyond expression, of single beings, heaps
up masses, before which man himself seems insignificant.

On the 26th of January, 1843, a great crowd collected
at the Round Down Cliff, near Dover, in anxious expecta-
tion, to witness the event of the grandest and most daring

3*

36

THE EYE

blasting ever attempted by the skilful combination of
human ingenuity. The labour of years had been expended
on the preparations, in the opening of shafts and gal-
leries. The largest quantity of powder ever yet used,
185 cwts., was ignited at once by means of a gigantic
galvanic battery. Almost in silence was the enormous
cliff hurled into the sea ; in one minute were a million tons
of chalk torn away, and a surface of almost fifteen acres
covered twenty feet deep with its fragments. From this
may be estimated the tremendous force which must have
been exerted. And with what did the power of the
human mind enter into this giant struggle ? With the
remains of creatures, a thousand of which might be
annihilated by the pressure of a finger. We wonder, and
ask ourselves : What does “ small ” mean, in Nature?

There can, however, be no possible doubt that it indi-
cates a most barbarous age, or a very low state of refine-
ment, when the value, the importance of a tiling is
measured by great and small, a standard indeed which finds
no application in all that we know most essential and
valuable, for the human mind is not to be defined by foot,
inch or line. Physical magnitude imposes only on the
sensuous nature ; cultivated man seeks to know the object
of his contemplation perfectly in all its relations ; and then
only, from the perfect knowledge, does he permit himself to
judge as to the essential and inessential ; very frequently
this leads him to declare that the most significant which
has the smallest dimensions.

This observation is especially applicable to Botany.
There was an era in this science, in which it began to
work its way out of the mediaeval night of Nothing;
when, therefore, only its crudest elements existed ; this
was the era of the Linnaean school. We wish not to

AND THE MICROSCOPE.

37

detract from the merit of Linnaeus, since greater is
the glory to discover, to shape out a science, than
to build it upward after the foundations have been laid ;
we wish not, as we have said, to disparage Linnaeus,
when we describe him as the author of one of the
saddest of prejudices, which has long kept Botany in
the lowest condition, and even now is not so totally
overthrown but that its evil operations are still, in many
ways, obstacles in the onward path of science. We mean
Linnaeus’s objection to the microscope, and his contempt of
all knowledge only to be obtained by its help. The
influence of the Linnaean school was so pernicious in this
respect, that almost all that which had already been achieved
by a few distinguished men, particularly by Malpighi, at
the close of the seventeenth century, became so completely
lost to science in the eighteenth, that in the beginning of
the present century, even the most excellent observers did
not by a long way attain to the rank of Malpighi in all
points. The following Essay, however, will, among others,
bear testimony how a scientific treatment of Botany — a
treatment which shall be more than an empty, fruitless,
wilderness of names committed to memory — can scarcely be
thought of without an almost constant employment of the
microscope. Hither has the whole new direction of science
turned, and names like Robert Brown, Brisseau-Mirbel,
Amici and Mohl, mark the commencement of a new and
richly-blessed epoch.

IfcfroiU) llcrturc.

THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

“ The Great you have no power to touch.
And so attempt the Small.”

FAUST.

The vignette exhibits the whole stock in trade of the scientific
dealer in small wares, the microscopist ; to the right, a simple micro-
scope for the preparation of small objects ; to the left, one of Amici’s
compound instruments; around them, the forceps, lens, knife, razor,
needles, &c.

LECTURE II.

As we watch a clever juggler, exhibiting the magic-like
operations of his art, we become gradually quite lost in
amazement, until at last he elicits from us the expressions
of admiration which are the usual accompaniments and
reward of his success. But if we are then allowed to
walk on to his stage, in the strictest sense of the phrase
“ to look at his cards,” how our amazement fades away
when we become aware of the complicated preparations
required, of the many aids which must be at hand, in a
word, of the various and abundant means he must make
use of, to bring about results which yet after all have no
relation to the means employed. And taking a wider
field, when we look around us on all the circumstances
of life, do not we soon find it to be a characteristic
feature of the circumscribed position of Man, that his
boldest efforts attain, at last, to little or nothing, that
when he has availed himself of all the assistance talent
and favouring circumstances can afford, he must in the
end confess, that what he has obtained by all this toil
and labour, is but a small recompense for the outlay ?

42

THE INTERNAL

Nature offers a direct contrast to this. Accustomed,
from our youth upward, to see her works outspread before
us in eternally renewing riches, we commonly pass them
coldly by. The contemplative mind is attracted by her,
and begins to divine, with a kind of softened terror, the
mysterious powers in action round us. With what wondrous
means, we think, must not this great artist be provided !
What wondrous chains of powers, yet unknown, mast
there not yet lie hidden in her bosom ! Science seeks
the solution of this enigma, and in trembling assumes its
task, fearful lest perhaps human intelligence be unequal
to comprehend and grasp a complexity so marvellously
interwoven, and the farther we penetrate, the greater waxes
our amazement. Every step brings us to a simple solution
of an entangled question ; every compound phenomenon
directs us back to simpler causes and forces, and our
astonishment becomes at last converted into devout
adoration, when we behold with what small means Nature
attains the most stupendous results. By the simple
relation, that bodies in motion have a mutual attraction,
Nature arches over us the whole starry heavens and
prescribes to the sun and its planets their underfating
courses. But we need not ascend to the stars, to
recognize how little Nature requires to the unfolding of
wonders.

Let us tarry a moment with the vegetable world. From
the slender palm, waving its elegant crown in the refreshing
breezes, high aloft over the hot vapours of the Brazilian
forests, to the delicate moss, barely an inch in length,
which clothes our damp grottos with its phosphorescent
verdure, from the splendid flower of Victoria Regina with
its rosy leaves cradled in the silent floods of the lakes of
Guiana, to the inconspicuous yellow blossom of the

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

43

duck-weed on our own ponds — what a wonderful play of
fashioning, what wealth of forms !

From the six thousand years old Baobab, on the shores
of Senegal, the seeds of which perhaps vegetated before the
foot of man trod the earth, to the fungus, to which the
fertilizing warmth of a summer-night gave an existence
which the morning closed — what differences of duration !
From the firm wood of the New Holland oak, from which
the wild Aboriginal carves his war-club, to the green
slime upon our tombs, what multiformity, what gradations
of texture, composition and consistence ! Can one really
believe it possible to find order in this embarrassing
wealth, regularity in this seemingly disorderly dance of
forms, a single type in these thousandfold varieties of
habit ? Till within a few years of the present time, indeed,
the possibility was not yet conceived, for as I have before
remarked, we may never expect to be enabled to spy into
the mysteries of Nature, until we are guided by our
researches to very simple relations. Thus could we never
attain to scientific results respecting the plant, till we had
found the simple element, the regular basis of all the
various forms, and investigated and defined its vital
peculiarities. By the help of the improved microscopes,
we have at last advanced far enough to find the point of
departure of the general theory of the plant.

The basis of the structure of all the so very dissimilar
vegetables, is a little closed vesicle, composed of a membrane
usually transparent and colourless as water ; this Botanists
call the “cell” or “vegetable-cell.” A review of the life
of the cell must necessarily precede the endeavour to
comprehend the whole plant, nay it is as yet, properly
speaking, almost the only really scientific paid of Botany.

But in these investigations our organs of sense fail us.

44

THE INTERNAL

The human eye, unassisted, can see nothing of all these
mysteries, and therefore it must be observed, that none of
the following facts can be brought to light without the
aid of the microscope. To meet the temporary require-
ments of my readers, I have given pictures of the most
important objects, obtained by means of a good microscope.

If we remove the outer, compact membrane of the
snow-berry ( Symphoricarpos racemosaj a plant common
enough in our gardens, we come to a mass of substance
composed of small, slippery, shining white granules. Each
of these is a separate perfect cell. (PI. i, Fig. 1.) If we
strip off the outer membrane of the leaf of the common
pink, we find a velvety, green tissue, a portion of which
may easily be scraped off. In water, this separates into
little green points ; these, too, are perfect cells which only
differ from the foregoing in containing a quantity' of
green granules in addition to the viscid yellowish substance
and transparent fluid sap (PI. I, Fig. 2.) These two
kinds of cells, and in like manner all living, vegetating
cells, have this in common : then wall consists of a double
layer, a firm colourless one, the proper cell-membrane and
a semi-fluid, viscid and rather yellowish substance, which
invests the whole internal surface of the cell-membrane,
and thus constitutes one of the coats of the cell. The
latter layer is connected most closely with the life of the
cell. Not unfrequently, and then not necessarily separated
from the cell-membrane, the yellowish, viscid substance is
found wholly or in particular, denser, streak-like portions,
in continuous flowing movement, which is called the
circulation of the cell-sap. The proper cell-wall is composed
of cellulose, a substance formed of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen ; the semi-fluid investment, on the other hand,
called by Hugo von Mold the primordial utricle, contains

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

45

also nitrogen. It am be made more evident by applying
a drop of nitric acid to the cell, when, being of a very
similar nature to albumen, it coagulates and contracts from
the action of the acid, so as to lie as a loose sac within the
cell. (PI. i, Fig. 3.)

The origin of the cell is by no means yet quite clearly
made out ; only this much is certain, that a peculiar little
body appertaining to the primordial utricle and called the
cell-nucleus, (PL i, Fig. 1, a.) plays a very important part
in it.

These cells in the course of then* development become
crowded closely together, and thus form the whole mass
of the plant, the cellular tissue, which however may be
divided into three principal classes of tissue, according to
the different forms of the cells, and more especially
according to their importance to the life of the plant.

But before we betake ourselves to the consideration of
these three tissues, we must make a somewhat close
acquaintance with the metamorphoses which the cell may
pass through during its life. We may regard the cell
as a little independant organism, living for itself alone.
It imbibes fluid nutriment from the surrounding parts,
out of which, by chemical processes which are constantly
in action in the interior of the cell, it forms new substances
which are partly applied to the nutrition and growth of
its walls, partly laid up in store for future requirements,
partly again expelled as useless and to make room for
the entrance of new matters. In this constant play of
absorption and excretion, of chemical formation, trans-
formation and decomposition of substances, especially
consists the life of the cell and — since the plant is nothing
but a sum of many cells united into a definite shape — also
the life of the whole plant.

46

THE INTERNAL

In the nutrition and growth of the cell- wall, two
conditions may be distinguished. The growth, namelv,
may be solely confined to the alteration and enlargement
of the boundaries of the cell. Hence, very various forms
gradually arise out of the originally roundish cells. In the
next place when they become crowded closely together,
they lose their roundly protruded shape, press each other
flat, and then appear like very irregular honey-comb cells
or, in a delicate cross section, like many-sided meshes,
(PI. I, Fig. 13, a.) Other cells take a stellate figure in
their expansion, and form elongated processes which
sometimes convert them into elegant six-rayed stars,
and as often give them very irregular and curious shapes.
Others again become flattened by pressure on two opposite
sides, and, finally, others become elongated and assume
the appearance of cylinders, prisms, &c., or when still
more stretched out, are found spindle-shaped or in the
form of long, thin filaments, (PI. I, Figs. 6, 7, 8, and
13, b .)

Throughout all these changes of form, the wall of the
cell may retain its original thickness ; it always remains
closed and perfectly entire. But a second change generally
occurs, the thickening of the wall. The way in which
this is produced, is by the deposition of a new layer upon
the inside of the original cell-wall, between it and the
primordial utricle. There are some peculiarities in this
process ; the new layer is never a similar perfectly entire
membrane, but seems broken up in a great variety of
different ways. Sometimes it is perforated all over with
little chinks, (PI. I, Fig. 6 ; PI. n, Fig. 8, b,) at others
with longer slits, (PI. I, Fig. 4,) now it appears like
a net-work, now it is completely cut up into a spirally-
wound band, (PI. I, Fig. 5,) and in another case it exhibits

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

47

itself only in the form of separate rings, (PI. i, Fig. 7.)
These are named, according to these appearances of the
thickening layers of the cell, porous or streaked cells,
reticulated, spiral, or annular fibrous cells. When one
thickening layer has been formed in this manner, a second
and third frequently follow, and often so on until almost
the whole cavity of the cell is filled up. It will easily be
conceived how from these changes, in conjunction with
the variations of form mentioned just before, even from
so simple an element as the cell may proceed an almost
countless number of differences in the tissue, and in plants
we actually find such. Added to this, foreign matters, such
as lime, silex, &c., are frequently deposited in the cell-wall
and its thickening layers, whence originate numerous
modifications of softness and hardness, tenacity and
brittleness.

We have yet one more important peculiarity of the
vegetable cell to discuss before we can go further. If the
nutrient matter, within the cell, increases in quantity beyond
a certain measure, new cells are formed from it within the
first, called secondary or daughter-cells ; they propagate,
and in the usual course the mother-cell then gradually
dissolves and disappears, while the two, four, eight or more
young cells produced by it, occupy its place. The whole
process, which we call growth, in plants, consists in its
essential elements of a continuous propagation of cells of
this kind, whence the number of cells becomes multiplied
beyond calculation, nay, almost beyond credibility. From
an approximative calculation, for example, in a rapidly
growing fungus, the Bovista gigantea, 20,000 new cells
are formed every minute.

Elegant as the above-described forms of the cells may
be when seen beneath the microscope, interesting as

48

THE INTERNAL

may be to the Botanist the search for the laws on which
depend the formation of these innumerable varieties, they
are at present of no importance to us, since the life of the
whole plant is the question before us, and here, passing by
all those distinctions, we must endeavour to -establish other,
quite different divisions of the tissues of plants, which, as
we shall see, in some cases have no agreement, and in
others but a very moderate one, with the definite forms of
the cells.

Every plant in its course of formation, and even- unde-
veloped part of a plant, consists exclusively of small, deli-
cate, roundish cells. Differently as the individual cells of
this tissue may be modified afterwards, there are yet only
two portions which in their subsequent development and
their importance to the life of the whole plant, distinguish
themselves essentially from that fundamental mass, which
forms the chief tissue of the plant in the subsequent full-
grown condition. One is the whole external layer of the
plant, which developes in contact with water or earth, but
which is more especially exposed to the ah'. The cells of
this layer are so firmly united together, that it may gene-
rally be stripped off the plant as a continuous membrane.
It becomes clothed, sooner or later, with a layer of varying
thickness, of a homogeneous substance, which receives
besides, a thin coating of wax or resin ; thus the envelop-
ing membrane becomes impenetrable by fluids, and even
repels them, since water runs off it as from a greasy
substance. In certain places, however, little orifices are
left between the cells, leading into the interior of the plant.
In these orifices usually lie two crescent-shaped cells, having
their concave sides applied together, so as to leave a slit
open between them, but otherwise closing up the orifice.
These slits, through which the plant communicates with

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

49

the atmosphere, and expires gases and watery vapour, are
opened wider or contracted as may be required. The
orifices with the crescentic cells are called stomates, and
the whole layer in which they occur is the epidermis of the
plant (PI. i. Fig. 12).

In every actively vegetating part of a plant exists a
continuous influx of new nutrient matter, which is absorbed
by the roots while its superfluous water is evaporated
through the stomates. This movement of the sap trans-
forms the tracts of cells through which it passes, moving
with especial activity in the elongated cells. Most of them
become very much thickened, some also lose all at once
their fluid contents, and receive air instead ; such are called
vessels (air-vessels), and thus are formed, in the mass of
cellular tissue, bundles of elongated cells and vessels, called
vascular bundles (PI. i, Fig. 13, b), which to the naked eye
look like dense fibres running through the tissue of the
plant. In one great division of plants, in the Monoco-
tyledons, to which the Grasses, Lilies, Palms, &c., belong,
the development of these vascular bundles stops short at a
certain stage, and they undergo no further alteration. In
another class, on the contrary, in the Dicotyledons, to which
belong our forest-trees, kitchen vegetables and many
others, there is a continuous development of cells on the
outer side of each vascular bundle, which become in turn
vascular bundle cells, and so unceasingly increase the thick-
ness of the bundles. In consequence of this, the bundles
gradually close up together into a firm tissue, into that
which in common life we call wood (PI. II. Figs. 8, 9, 10).

When we seek to discover the relation in which these
three parts of the plant stand to the wants of Man, here
again we find a threefold distinction. In its common
condition, the epidermis is useless, but in perennial plants,

4

50

THE INTERNAL

particularly in trees, bark becomes developed from it, which
in some trees (for example, in the Cork-oak, Quercus
suber ) is very soft and elastic and, as cork, is applied to a
number of purposes. The vascular bundles are important
on account of the substance of their cell-walls constituting
wood and woody-fibre or bass. The remaining tissue, the
cellular, is chiefly useful on account of the contents of the
cells.

Of all the forms of cells, the wood and bass-cells are
undoubtedly the most important in the domestic economy
of mankind. The different kinds of wood may be easily
distinguished by the microscope, even in the most minute
fragments ; the distinction of the most consequence, is
that between the peculiar wood of the Fir and Pine tribe
and that of all other trees, and this is perceptible even in
petrified wood (PI. n. Figs. 8, 9, 10). The “bass-cells”
are the longest of all ; their walls are generally very thick
and mostly much bent (PL i. Fig. 8), but very rarely
marked with pores or spiral fibres ; only in the silk-plant
(. Asclepias Syriaca), the Oleander and allied plants is a
spiral striation of the walls observed. No other bass-cells
are easily distinguishable by the microscope, however
different may be the plants from which they have been
taken. The bass-cells, however, on account of their length
and curvature, supply almost the sole material of our woven
fabrics and cordage. As I have already observed, plants
of the most different lands are used for these purposes.
Among us, flax and hemp are the staple ; in the Philippine
Isles, the bass from the leaves of a species of Plantain ; in
Mexico the leaves of some wild species of Pine-apple furnish
a similar substance. The New Zealand flax has recently
become of some importance for naval purposes ; this is
obtained from the leaves of a Liliaceous vegetable. Peculiar

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

51

fabrics are prepared in the West Indian Islands, without
spinning or weaving, from the bass of the Lace-tree, {Palo
di laghetto of the Spaniards), and in Tahiti from the
Paper- mulberry.

An endless variety of plants are used for cordage, for
almost every country applies its own plants to this purpose.
By the kindness of a friend in Berlin, I once obtained
a little piece of string, which had been tied round a
vine-vase in Pompeii, and I found to my astonishment,
that it had been prepared from the easily recognizable
bass cells of the Silk-plant ( Asclepias SyriacaJ which
so far as we know, are now nowhere applied to this use.

Cotton, which forms a hairy down around the seeds
of the cotton-plant, is very different from these bass-fibres.
It is, indeed, also composed of long cells, but these have
very thin walls, whence, when dried, they collapse into a
flat band with rather rounded borders, while the bass-fibres
form a perfectly smooth, thick cylindrical filament, (PI. i,
Fig. 9.) By this distinction, which is decided enough,
we are enabled by the microscope, to perceive in a moment
the mixture of cotton with linen ; and by this means, even
the origin of the fabrics in which the Egyptian mummies
are rolled, has been distinctly shown. We may here
remark, by the way, that the fibre of wool, (PI. i, Fig. 1 1 ,)
and the fine filament of the silk-worm, (PI. i, Fig. 10,)
exhibit equally striking characteristics, as a glance at the
engraving at once shows, and the microscope is perhaps
really the only perfectly certain means by which every
mixture of these various filaments, in textile fabrics, may
be immediately detected.

We have now seen how the simple cell, in its various forms,
is the basis of every plant, in all the multiformity of their
appearances ; but what makes the matter infinitely more

4*

52

THE INTERNAL

curious, is, that these cells, which have all been formed in
the same way, and even when their subsequent shape remains
exactly the same, have the power of producing the most
varied substances in then interior, and thus become a
means, in the hand of Nature, of multiplying to infinity the
riches and beauty of the vegetable world.

This leads us to the peculiar vital processes of the
vegetable cell. Every separate cell has, as it were, its own
especial life. Its walls, indeed, are not perforated, but,
nevertheless, the fluid which it requires for its nutrition
makes its way in. This is composed of water, carbonic
acid, salts of ammonia and other soluble salts of the soil.
The few substances absorbed by the cell, become changed
by its peculiar power, and from them are formed all
the various materials which give the plant value, either
in the eyes of the aesthetic observer, or in the household of
the economist.

A great many cells contain merely colourless sap, this is
the case with the wood and bass-cells ; many merely air,
as for instance, the so-called vessels. But others display
the most splendid tints in their juices, some giving flowers
and fruits the charm of then1 lovely enamelling of colour,
while others cause various parts of plants, otherwise green,
to assume a chequered, mottled aspect (PL n, Fig. 7.)
Here we find every shade of red, blue and yellow. The
green colouring of plants depends, on the other hand,
on wholly different causes, for the sap of plants is never
grepn. When we examine, with the microscope, cells
which to the naked eye seem green, we see that the green
appearance is produced by separate granules of a green
substance (chlorophylle, or leaf-green,) which adhere to
the inside of the wall of the cell (PI. I, Fig. 2, 1 3, c.) The
splendid colour, indigo, is nothing but a peculiar modification

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

53

of this green colouring matter, which is produced, in especial
abundance, in the various kinds of indigo (Indig of era
tinctoria and anil,) in woad, (Isatis tinctorial and the
dyer’s knot-grass ( Polygonum tinctorium) .

In some cells we find exceedingly elegant crystalline
formations, consisting either of single crystals or bundles
of needle-shaped ones, or of a number of them collected
into a little crystalline nucleus (PI. n, Fig. 1 .)

The contents of the vegetable cells, however, which are
most interesting to mankind, are those which furnish
him with necessary food, agreeable refreshment or stimu-
lating spices, and not less important are those substances
which, administered to the diseased organism, bring back
the uninjured capability of enjoying anew the rich gifts
of creative Nature. This field of observation is one of
extraordinary extent, and not yet nearly sufficiently
explored ; nevertheless, the researches which have already
been followed out, have led to an interesting law, namely,
that those plants which are nearly allied in their external
form, also contain similar or closely connected substances
in their corresponding organs. Thus there are whole
families in which all the plants are more or less poisonous,
as the Nightshade plants, the allies of our potato and
tobacco ; while others are insipid, and tasteless, and
therefore devoid of any peculiar substance, such as the
allies of our garden pink. It would lead us too far, to
attempt to enumerate here all the different matters, and
where they occur in the vegetable world ; we must content
ourselves, therefore, with a few general observations, and
a more minute examination of some of the most interesting *
substances.

The substances which we find in the cells of plants,
may be divided into those soluble in water and the

54

THE INTERNAL

insoluble. Regarding the former, we can arrive at no
conclusions by the microscope, since they disappear in the
watery cell-sap ; chemistry alone can then demonstrate their
presence. To this class belong, among others, albumen,
gum, sugar and the agreeable acids of our fruits, such
as the malic and citric acids. The sap of the Sugar-cane
is perfectly clear and transparent in the cells, the dissolved
sugar only appears after the expression and evaporation of
the fluid.

The fluid oils, on the contrary, are very readily dis-
tinguished beneath the microscope, both the fat oils, which
swim in the cell-sap in the form of little shining yellow
globules, as in the kernel of the almond, and the aromatic
(etherial) oils which usually occur alone and fill a whole cell
in one large drop.

Two of the most important constituents in the vegetable
cell, however, are the semi-fluid, half-granular mucus,
composed of a nitrogenous substance, which either wholly
fills the cells or occurs with oil or starch, and this latter
substance itself. Certain nitrogenous constituents form
the peculiar nutrient matter in plants. One portion,
albumen, occurs dissolved in the cell-sap ; another and
more important, in small mucous granules. If we make
a cross-section of a grain of wheat or rye, and place it
under the microscope, we perceive very distinct layers in
it as we examine from without inwards. The outer of
them belong to the husk of the fruit and seed, (PI. n,
Fig. 2, a,) and are separated as bran in grinding. But the
mill-stone does not separate so exactly as the eye may
by means of the microscope, not even so accurately as
the knife of the vegetable anatomist, and thus with the
bran is separated also the whole outer layer of the cells
of the nucleus, and even some of the subjacent layers. A

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

55

glance at the Fig. 2 in PI. n, shows, however, at once,
that the contents of the outer cells of the nucleus are very
different from those of the inner; for while the latter
enclose a great quantity of starch and very little nitrogenous
matter, in the outer layer of cells we find only the
latter substance which, in the cereal grains, usually receives
the name of gluten ; thus the anatomical investigation of
one of these corn grains at once explains, why bread is
so much the less nutritious, the more carefully the bran has
been separated from the meal.

But starch is, after all, the most remarkable substance
that we meet with in the cells, not merely because it plays
so important a part in the nutrition of mankind, but also,
setting that out of the question, on account of the peculiar
and elegant forms which it exhibits under the microscope,
and which indicate a high degree of internal organiza-
tion.

It occurs in every plant, in every part, but only the
roots, tubers, seeds, fruits and, more rarely (as in the
Sago palm), the pith contain it in sufficient quantity to serve
as food, or to repay the trouble of separating the starch
from them.

We have to thank an exceedingly curious peculiarity of
starch for our power to recognize it in any spot and
in the smallest quantity in the interior of plants. This
is the sudden assumption of a beautiful violet-blue
colour when it is moistened with a solution of iodine.

Starch itself consists of little shining transparent granules,
from twenty to thirty of which often lie in one cell,
(PI. ii, Fig. 2, c.) The separate granules sometimes
exhibit a very compound structure. They consist of a
small nucleus around which a varying number of layers
have been deposited. As these layers are usually thicker

56

THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF PLANTS.

on one side than on the other, the nucleus hardly ever
appears in the middle, (PI. n, Fig. 3.) This structure is
not in all cases so readily perceptible as in the egg-
shaped granules of the potato, or of the genuine West
India arrow-root, (PI. n, Fig. 5,) (for this is nothing
but a very pure starch,) or as in the flat, disc-shaped
granules of the East India arrow-root, (PI. n, Fig. '6.)
In other plants it exhibits another peculiarity, two, three,
four or more starch-granules being, as it were, grown
together. This is seen very beautifully in the corms
of the meadow-saffron, fColchicum autumnalej and
similar forms occur much more often than the true form,
in the adulterated West India arrow-root of the shops,
(PI. ii, Fig. 6.)

I have thus delineated, in a hasty, superficial sketch,
the interior of the plant. How simple are the structure
and relations, and yet how infinite the results, which
Nature obtains by these simple means ! The few
allusions which I have allowed myself to make, to the
influence of plants on the well-being of mankind, nay even
on theff very existence, must suffice. A complete exposi-
tion of this subject would lead us too far. Worthily indeed,
are the richness and beauty of the vegetable world, the
ever inexhaustible theme of all poets, of all times and
nations, — but here I draw back, since the dry earnestness
of science reaches not into those bright regions.

<Tljut> Hectare.

ON THE PROPAGATION OF PLANTS.

“ In air, in water and on earth
A thousand germs come struggling forth,
In drought and damp, in heat or cold.”

FAUST

■»*

LECTURE III.

Deep in the soul of man abides the feeling, that in his
better nature he belongs not to this material world which
environs him, — that a world of independent living spirits
is his proper home ; and readily does he soar in inspired
anticipation to those regions, which seem to him his truer
sphere. Returning from such a flight, for which the feeling
of his origin lent him wings — when, after such exaltation,
he is again transplanted into the dead world of matter, he
tears himself unwillingly from the fair pictures, and readily,
especially in the youth, both of individuals and of the whole
race, invests surrounding Nature with the free spiritual life,
so congenial to himself. Youthful fancy lends to the
rock, the tree, the flower, an animating genius, and in the
thunder hears the voice of God. Then comes earnest
science stripping Nature of that inspiring charm, and sub-
stituting the unvarying law of blind necessity. The real
aim of man is to place his spirit in its true sphere, inde-
pendent and irrespective of external Nature, and in the full
understanding of this Nature, with pious hope to exalt over
all, the Highest Being ; but in the transition to this elevated

60

ON THE PROPAGATION

condition, the warmer feelings are severely tried, and it is
indeed with bitter sorrow, that man tears himself from the
living shapes with which he had peopled his world.

This disunion, this separation, which has not yet resolved
itself into the higher reconciliation, has rarely been so beau-
tifully expressed as by Schiller, in his “ Gods of Greece.”

My mission too it is, according to my powers, to labour
at this unspiritualizing of Nature, and I took occasion in my
former Lecture, to point out how the forms of the world of
plants, impressing themselves so vividly on the sensuous
nature, have their mysterious and silent weavings and
workings transformed before the eye of the instructed
naturalist, into chemico-physiological processes, which take
place on and in an invisible utricle, the vegetable cell.
The whole plant, however, is not one cell, but merely a
compound of them, composed, indeed, according to so
definite a rule, that for thousands of years, on all parts of
the earth, the same firmly fixed forms recur. It is
naturally asked, is then this assembling and combination
of cells into entire plants, subject to definite natural laws?
Before we can arrive at the answer to this question, we
must look closer into the manner in which certain forms
of plants are preserved in Nature; in a word, into the
Propagation of Plants.

I must be allowed to approach this question by a some-
what indirect course. A review of the mass of animal life
existing on the earth, will most conveniently lead us to it.
Whithersoever man is guided by his wants, his self-interest
or the more noble spirit of inquiry, animal life accompanies
him. On the ocean, the active hosts of Nereus play
around him, the pilot-fish glides before his ship, and the
voracious shark follows, waiting for his prey. On land,
the manifold forms of the animal world are everywhere in

OF PLANTS.

61

friendly or hostile motion around him. In the icy North,
the faithful dog and the useful rein-deer are his companions,
the seal his captive, yielding clothing, food and light, and
the polar bear meets him in fierce strife. Beneath the
vertical rays of the glowing sun, the sharp tooth of the
great cats threatens him, the slender gazelle sports around
him, “ the ruminant with cloven hoof,” furnishes him with
food and clothing. The butterfly fluttered round Humboldt
and his companions on the chilling snow plains of Chim-
borazo, and yet the giant condor floated at an incalculable
height over them. Even in the firm coat of the earth, on
which we tread, the worm burrows his dark track. And
all this mass of life, not excepting man himself, is sustained
at the sole expense of the organic matter which the vege-
table world prepares for it. No single living creature which
is reckoned among animals, can live on inorganic matter.
The few examples which have been made known to us, the
earth-eating Otomacs, the negroes who swallow pellets of
clay, mentioned by Humboldt, the instances of men, pressed
by want, eating the so-called mountain-meal, or as Ehren-
berg as recently pointed out among the Finns, con-
suming the shells of fossil Infusoria, when accurately
investigated by physiologists, have shown merely that
these inorganic substances are to be regarded, not as food,
but as means of deadening the irritability of the stomach.

But let us go back to an earlier epoch of our earth’s
duration; there appear masses of living beings, formerly
peopling our globe, of which we can hardly form a con-
ception, and which, be it observed, were almost all animals
living upon vegetable food. The vast herds of Mammoths
which traversed the plains of Siberia, the countless remains
of gigantic oxen, sheep, stags, swine and tapirs, give us
evidence of the enormous consumption of vegetable sub-

62

ON THE PROPAGATION

stances in former ages. And yet, all that we can make out
as to the number of the great animals of the past world,
dwindles into nothing before the masses of diminutive crea-
tures which have been preserved to us. The whole of those
elevated ridges, partly still subsisting, partly destroyed by
later floods, for instance, from Rugen to the Danish islands,
the white chalk rocks, which gave England the name of
Albion and stretch through France to the south of Spain,
the whole of the chalk mountains of Greece to which, among
others, Crete owes its name, — -consist, according to Ehren-
berg’s researches, of the shells of minute animals, partly
destroyed, partly well preserved. When we turn to these,
the smallest creatures which Nature exhibits, existences
which make up by the number of individuals what the
individuals want in size, animalcules which are mostly so
small as to be invisible to the naked eye, yet fulfil an
important purpose in the universal life of Nature, the
imagination is wholly unable to express the quantity7 in
abstract numbers. Ehrenberg’s discovery of fossil Infusoria
has deservedly attracted great attention, for every picture
here fails to enable us to grasp the conception of such
numbers. In one cubic inch of the tripoli (polir-schiefer)
of Bilin, there are forty-one thousand millions of animals,
and the whole deposit extends over from thirty to forty
square miles, with a varying thickness of from two to
fifteen feet.

Making a more special examination of the animal world
in general, we find two great divisions determined by the
nature of their food, whether vegetable or animal. The
latter contains by far the smallest number of species, and
the particular species appear in small numbers. The
vegetable feeders, on the contrary, are innumerable ; if
we may adopt the excessive estimates of recent works, we

OF PLANTS.

63

shall assume 560,000 species of insects alone, the greater
number of which feed on plants, to live and multiply upon
the earth. And this is not all, the species of vegetable
feeders almost always exceed the animal fecdeis in in-
dividual number. All great herbivora live a social life,
forming great herds, and the swarms of insects especially
set all control at defiance, replacing, by number and
enormous voracity, what they want in bodily magnitude :
the oak alone has to support seventy different insects.

For all these hungry guests, Nature spreads the table
when she brings forth plants, and if she would not let
one of her worlds, the animal, become extinct, she must
provide so surely for the multiplication of plants, that
spite of all injurious and destructive influences, a general
famine shall be impossible.

That this may not be effected by a simple, well-defined
form of multiplication, as in the higher animals, is in itself
evident, and becomes still more so when we observe, that
mankind and most animals draw upon those parts of the
plants for their nourishment, which we usually consider
to be the peculiar organs of reproduction : I mean the seeds.

The first observation which affords itself to the searching
glance of man, is, that most plants form certain organs,
out of which, under suitable circumstances, a new plant is
produced ; and this may indeed be seen in the larger kinds,
already shaped out and enclosed by its proper envelopes, in
the seed. The comparison of this with an egg is very close,
with an egg in which the germ is already matured into a
young animal, — the embryo. But we do not stop here.
At a very early period, it was noticed that in many species
of plants, two different forms of individuals appear, only
one of which bears seed, as in the hemp ( Cannabis
sativaj the Date palm ( Phoenix dactyliferaj or the

64

ON THE PROPAGATION

Pistachio ( Pistacia lentiscus.) It was also early observed
that the seeds of the one plant are never perfected, unless
a specimen of the other form grows and flowers simul-
taneously in its vicinity. Theophrastus and Pliny even,
tell us that the country-people who were engaged in the
culture of Dates, hung up flowering branches of the one
tree among the flowers of the other, the seed-bearing form,
and thus caused the development of the seed and fruit.
Kampfer relates that in an inroad of the Turks into
Bassora, the inhabitants accomplished the expulsion of
the enemy, solely by hastily cutting down all the palms
of the one kind, so that the others remained sterile,
whereby the enemy was deprived of his only source
of food. Still more striking appear the proceedings
observed by Micheli, in an Italian water-plant, ( Vallisneria
spiralis.) This plant has two different kinds of flowers ;
those in which the seeds are developed have long stalks, and
elevate themselves to the surface of the water ; the others
are shortly-stalked, and therefore fixed at the bottom. At
a particular period, the latter break away from their stems,
come to the surface and swum to the others, which then
become capable of perfecting their seeds.

This fanciful account, which, however, is not supported
by any accurate scientific observation, led the way to the
making of husband and wife of these two flowers, to
investing the natural phenomena in question with the
mysteries of the love with which the human heart is
blessed. Scarcely was the idea broached when science
seized upon it, extended it, in all its particulars, to all
plants, and even at the present time we call the Linnaean
arrangement of plants, the sexual system.

Unfortunately, these beautiful dreams, which poets
especially have so often tenderly dwelt upon, were attacked

OF PLANTS.

65

by the new discoveries of science, which uses only its senses,
and showed us that all these visionary comparisons with
the totally differently organized animals, are devoid of the
smallest foundation. It was my lot, in the share I have
taken in the advancement of Botany, to bring this result
to light.

In order to sketch briefly the actual processes of the
multiplication of vegetables, I must recall to recollection
some points stated in a former lecture. I observed there,
that among its other characters, the individual vegetable-
cell is endowed with the power of forming new cells in
its interior, and thus, as it were, of propagating itself.
Now the newly-formed cells have also this peculiarity, they
grow and arrange themselves conformably to the .cell in
which they originate. Thus is the power given to all
plants, to develop new plants out of any of their cells,
when these come to be placed in favourable circumstances,
and by this power is explained the facility with which
almost all plants may be multiplied.

We can, however, distinguish several very different
states, according to the difference of the conditions under
which Nature renders possible the development of the single
cell into a new plant.

1. In the cells of the plant in general, as I have ex-
pressed the law, it very seldom occurs, because it is only
in rare cases that the necessary conjunction of all the
favouring conditions is brought about. Nevertheless, there
are actually some such striking instances of the kind, where
leaves of a plant lying on the ground, and even in a her-
barium, have suddenly become covered with buds, that is
to say the foundations of new plants, so that we cannot
doubt the validity of the law.

2. Instances of a somewhat more limited application of

5

66

ON THE PROPAGATION

the law, on the other hand, occur with exceeding frequency,
for whole definite parts of leaves can be made to bring
forth young plants. If, for example, a leaf of Bryophyllum
calycinum is placed upon moist earth, young plants are
developed from all the indentations of the leaf, and these
can only derive their existence from the extraordinary deve-
lopment of certain, appointed cells (PI. hi. Fig. 5). The
same phenomenon occurs on broken surfaces of detached
leaves of the beautiful scarlet-flowered Echeverias, and in
many other succulent plants, as also in the Orange-tree.
Gardeners take advantage of this phenomenon to multiply
these plants, and even in the Middle Ages, an Italian,
Mirandola, travelled about, boasting of a secret art by
which he could make trees out of leaves. If a notch is
made in one of the thick veins of the splendid Gesneria, a
new young plant is produced on the broken surface in
about a week.

3. In other plants, we find little protuberances formed
regularly and spontaneously upon the leaves, still attached
to the stem, and at the points of these, buds which send
off rootlets below, thus constituting new plants. This
peculiarity is especially common in many Ferns and
Aroidese, the allies of the Calla athiopica, or Trumpet-lily,
as it is called. The situation where these protuberances
and buds are produced, is not indeed perfectly definite
here, but it is so far regular that certain parts of
the leaf, namely, the angles where veins separate, exclu-
sively possess the power of forming them. When such
a leaf dies in the natural course of vegetation, these buds,
alone retaining vitality, fall to the earth and grow up
into perfect plants. Here, therefore, exists an actual
natural propagation, or reproduction of the individual ;
whereas, before, it depended principally upon external
influences.

OF PLANTS.

67

4. The following condition depends much more upon
definite circumstances. Properly speaking, the simple
plant consists merely of a simple stem and its leaves ; but
in the angles of the leaves, particular cells are regularly
developed into buds (PI. in. Fig. 3). Now a bud is essen-
tially nothing more than a repetition of the plant on which
it is formed. This foundation of a new plant consists
equally of a stem and leaves, and the sole distinction is,
that the stem becomes intimately blended at its base with
the mother-plant, in its growth, and has no free radical
extremity, like that exhibited by the plant developed from
a seed. However, this distinction is not so great as it
appears at the first glance. Every plant of high organiza-
tion possesses the power of shooting out adventitious roots
from its stem, under the favouring influence of moisture ;
and very frequently even plants that have been raised from
seed are forced to content themselves with such adven-
titious roots, since it is the nature of many plants, for
instance the Grasses, never to develop their proper root,
although the germ is actually present.

We are, it is true, accustomed to look upon the matter
as though the buds must always be developed to twigs and
branches, on and in connection with the plant itself, and
thus in common life we regard them as parts of a plant
and not as independent individuals, which they are in fact,
although they, like children which remain in their paternal
home, remain in the closest connection with the plant on
which they were produced. That they are at least capable
of becoming independent plants, is shown by an experi-
ment frequently successful when the necessary care is
taken, namely the breaking off and sowing of the buds
of our forest-trees. The well-known garden operations
of grafting and budding are other examples of this, and

5#

68

ON THE PROPAGATION

layering only differs from the sowing of the buds, in that
the buds on the layers are allowed to acquire a certain
degree of maturity before they are separated from the
parent plant. All here depends upon the facility with
which these bud-plants root as it is called, that is, develop
adventitious roots, when they are brought in contact with
moist earth.

Human art is not by any means the only influence by which
the multiplication of plants in this mode is brought about,
for Nature herself very often makes use of this method to
multiply certain plants in incalculable numbers. In a few
cases, the process resembles the artificial sowing of buds,
as when the plant spontaneously throws off the perfect
buds at a certain period ; an instance of this is afforded by
some of our garden Lilies, which throw off the little bulb-
like buds which appear in the axils of the upper leaves.
The more common mode of proceeding is as follows : those
buds which have been formed near the surface of the soil,
grow up into shoots provided with leaves ; but the shoots
are long, slender, and delicate, the leaves, too, stunted into
little scales ; in their axils, however, develop strong buds,
which either in the same or following year take root, and
the slender shoot connecting them with the parent plant
dying and decaying, they become free independent plants.
In this manner the Strawberry (PI. hi. Fig. 4), soon covers
a neglected garden ; in this manner is the Potato almost
exclusively propagated, for this useful tuber is nothing but
a large subterranean fleshy bud ; in a similar way, too, the
Duck-weed, which seldom flowers and bears seed, in a very
short time covers our ditches and ponds, in the spring,
with thousands of individuals. Many more examples
might be adduced, but these familiar ones will suffice.
This propagation by buds stands in a remarkable relation

OF PLANTS.

69

to the multiplication by seeds we shall presently speak of,
since it may be laid down as a pretty general rule, that the
less seed a plant ripens, the more it becomes multiplied by
buds, and vice versd ; Nature has here, as it were, taken
care that the plants shall be preserved under any circum-
stances.

5. All the modes of reproduction hitherto noticed may
be placed together under the head of irregular propagation,
and be opposed to the regular propagation, which exhibits
essentially the following phenomena: — Every plant pro-
duces within itself a definite number of single, free, uncon-
nected cells, which at a certain epoch spontaneously separate
from the plant. It is the peculiar character of those plants
which have true leaves, to produce these cells only in the
interior of the leaves, which at the same time often assume
a very different form, as for instance in the stamens.
Another condition is also worthy of remark. Only in the
very lowest plants, flowering wholly under water, is the
propagative cell naked (PI. hi. Fig. 1) ; in all others, it is
invested with a peculiar substance, which has not yet been
chemically examined, but is mostly yellow and very inde-
structible. This substance frequently assumes very strange
forms. Sometimes it resembles little warts or spines, and
often little projecting ridges are formed, taking the shape
of arcades, battlements with turrets, &e. Nature, however,
has not yet given us the slightest clue to the possible
purpose of these varied forms. Elegant as they are, they
appear to be of no actual use. Fritsche, of St. Petersburg,
in a work especially devoted to them, has given representa-
tions of the most exquisite forms. Now these cells are
especially destined to the reproductive function, since from
every one of them is a new plant developed. An essential
distinction, however, occurs in this development ; one,

70

ON THE PROPAGATION

indeed, recognized at an early period, and so exclusively
regarded, that the higher agreement was altogether over-
looked. The following are the two modes of development.

A. In the one case, the cells destined to the repro-
duction, are at once scattered on the earth or in the
water, where the new plants are to grow7. Then either
the whole cell is gradually transformed into a new plant,
new cells originating in it and taking its place, in these
others and so on, which is the case in the Algae, (PI. ill,
Fig. 1) Fungi, Lichens, and part of the Liver-mosses; or
the cell expands into a longish utricle or tube, but only
one extremity of this tube becomes filled with cells, which
gradually grow up into a new plant, the remaining portion
of the cell, meanwhile, decaying ; this is the case in the
remaining Liver-mosses, the Mosses, Ferns, Lycopodia and
Horsetails. An example of this kind of development may
be found in every hot-house containing Ferns, for they
may almost always be found germinating, (PI. ill, Fig. 2.)

All the plants just mentioned were united together by
Linnaeus, under the name of Cryptogamia, or hidden-
tlowercd, because he mistakenly supposed that they were
not devoid of the second organ of reproduction, presently
to he mentioned, the “ ovary,” but that it was merely so
small and so hidden that it had not been detected. But
the real fact is, that it is either altogether absent, or merely
inessential indications of it exist. In all these Cryptogamia,
the reproductive cells are called spores or germinal
grains.

B. In those plants which, with Linnaeus, we call
Phanerogamia or evident-flowered, the matter is differently
arranged. The reproductive cells, which are here called
pollen , are formed in peculiarly metamorphosed leaves,
the stamens. But other organs, besides the stamens, are

OF PLANTS.

71

found, either in the blossom of the same plant, or of another
individual of the same species. These consis' '■ssentially of
hollow and generally pear-shaped bodies wnich have a
small opening at the upper end. A body of this kind is
called the germen, and the orifice the stigma. In the
cavity occur little protuberances formed of cellular tissue,
the seed-buds, to which the very inappropriate name of
ovules was formerly given. In each of the seed-buds is
one very large cell, called the embryo-sac. At the flowering
period, the pollen falls upon the stigma, and then
commences the development of the reproductive cells.
Each one extends itself into a long filament, exactly as
in the Cryptogamia, and in this form penetrates to the
cavity of the germen, to enter one of the seed-buds, and
finally, into the embryo-sac. The extremity which has
passed in, now becomes filled with cells, and these develop
forthwith into a perfect, though as yet simple and minute,
plantule, the so-called embryo or germ, (PI. hi,
Figs. 6 — 9.) Simultaneously with the development of
the pollen-cell into the embryo, the seed-bud is perfected
into a seed, the germen into the fruit. A pause in the
growth now suddenly occurs, and the seed may often be
preserved for a long time in this apparently dead condition.
But when favourable external circumstances come into
play, the life begins anew with the further unfolding of the
plant, which is commonly called germination, (PI. hi,
Figs. 10 — 12.) How long the vital power may slumber

in the seed, is shown by the fact that the late Count von
Sternberg raised healthy plants of wheat from grains which
were found in a mummy-case, (which, therefore, must have
reposed for 3000 years) and laid these before the Assembly
of Naturalists in Freyburg. This experiment has also been
made in England.

72

ON THE PROPAGATION

In the plants called “ Cryptogamia,” it is very evident
that the multiplication of the plants is perfectly secured,
since the spores, which occur in enormous numbers, fall
at once upon the ground, where they may become fully
developed. But the matter does not seem quite so certain
in the Phanerogamia. In many blossoms, it is true, the
germens and the stamens are so closely associated, that the
pollen apparently cannot miss the place, the stigma, on
on which its development is to begin. But this relative
position is not alone sufficient ; the two parts, the stamens
and the germen, or, more correctly, the pollen and the
stigma, must simultaneously stand in the same physiological
stage of development ; when the anther bursts, when the
pollen falls out, the stigma must also be ready to receive
it and call forth its power of development. Now, in a
great many blossoms, this does not take place ; the pollen
is probably lost to the stigma of the same flower much
oftener than perhaps is usually supposed, either because
the latter is not yet sufficiently perfect, or, on the other
hand, has begun to decay, at the moment when the
scattering of the pollen approaches. And much more
adverse are the circumstances in a not inconsiderable
number of plants, in which each blossom contains only
stamens or only germens, and where these two kinds of
blossoms are at some distance from each other, either in
the same plant or in different plants, such as those which
Linnaeus called single-housed ( Monoecia ,) and double-
housed (Dioecia.) In many groups of plants, as in the
Asclcpiadacese and Orchidaceae, Nature appeal's to have
methodically taken pains, in the complicated and irregular
structure of the organs, to render impossible the natural
application of the pollen upon the stigma. Here totally
foreign powers come wonderfully to the aid of the

OF PLANTS.

73

vegetable world, and, in the fulfilment of their own
irrelative natural duties, casually exert so essential an
influence on the life of the plants, that one would almost
believe it was their proper destination. For, be they land
plants, the wind drives the enormous quantity of pollen
far and wide, and the air is often so filled with it that
sudden rain throws it down in visible quantity, as the
so-called sulphur-showers. Where there is such profusion,
a sufficient number of granules must of course reach their
destined resting place. If they be water plants, the
germens float in such a manner that the light waves wash
over them, and the pollen, driven about in the water, is
thus brought to its place. In the two great families,
especially, the Asclepiadacese, to which belongs the Syrian
Silk-plant, and the Orchidacese, which, with their blossoms
imitating bright, splendid butterflies and strangely fashioned
insects, adorn the damp shades of the tropical forests ;
in these two groups of plants especially is seen, the distinct
interference of living creatures in the reproduction of
plants. In them the pollen of each anther is glued
together by a matter like bird-lime, and it adheres so
firmly to the nectar-seeking insect, that he cannot get rid
of it. The nectaries are so situated in the flower, that
the insect, in order to reach them, must come into close
contact with the stigma, and thus the pollen is brought
to its destined place. We often see flies crawling on
the Silk-plant, with a number of such club-shaped pollen-
masses hanging to their legs, and in some localities
the bee-keepers speak of a peculiar disease of their indus-
trious little animals, “ the club-sickness,” which consists
solely in the adherence of so many pollen-masses of
Orchidacese to the heads of the bees, that they are
disabled from flying, and thus arc lost. A copious work

74

ON THE PROPAGATION

was written at the end of the last century, by Christian
Conrad Sprengel, on the share which insects take in the
reproduction of vegetables ; in the enthusiastic warmth of
his investigations he wished to claim for insects the part of
Nature’s universal gardeners. Easy as it may be to point
out, with an ironical smile, the narrow views of this
child-like, pious naturalist, in individual instances, it ls
exceedingly difficult to find the true point of view, from
which to form an opinion on this apparently most strange
phenomenon in the life of Nature. It is, indeed, a very
natural connection, when a glutinous substance is produced
with the pollen in a plant; it is easily comprehended
that the pollen must then necessarily adhere to the bees ;
it is certainly simplest and most natural to assume, that
in their subsequent rovings, this pollen becomes merely
accidentally deposited in its right place ; that a rivulet
should play in little ripples, that in air increased in weight
by the hot sand of Sahara, the wind should carry about
the light pollen of the Date-palm, are of course natural
events, and depend upon invariable laws of Nature. And
yet, when we conceive of the phenomena in a mass, as a
connected whole, we can neither repel nor answer the
questions which press upon us. What has the wind to
do with the Date harvest of Bileduljerid, and with the
sustenance of millions of men ? Knows the inanimate
wave, which bears the Cocoa-nut to far and uninhabited
islands, on the shore of which it shall germinate — that thus
it paves the way to the further diffusion of the human
race ? What cares the gall-fly that on its activity depends
the Fig trade of Smyrna, and the food or support of
thousands of human beings? Or does the beetle, whose
theft facilitates the increase of the Kamschatkan Lily,
imagine that their bulbs shall be the means to save the

OF PLANTS.

75

whole population of Greenland from starvation in the follow-
ing hard winter '? If all this is the result of insubstantial
natural laws, whence this wonderful inter-dependance and
connection of subordinate forces, to bring to pass events
which have so deep an influence on the history of

humanity ? We do, indeed, see into the mechanism of

the puppet ; but Who holds the strings, and directs all

its motions to One Purpose ? Here closes the office
of the naturalist, and, instead of answering, he turns
from the world of space and lifeless matter upward to
where, in holy anticipation, we seek the Ruler of

Worlds.

jFourtlj Uerturr.

THE MORPHOLOGY OF PLANTS.

All shapes are similar, yet all unlike,

The chorus thus a hidden law reveals.

GOETHE.

LECTURE IV.

Some years ago, I was very intimate with the directing
physician of a large Lunatic Asylum, and I used industriously
to avail myself of the liberty I thus obtained, to visit at
will the house and its inhabitants. One morning I entered
the room of a madman, whose constantly varying hallucina-
tions especially interested me. I found him crouching
down by the stove, watching, with close attention, a
saucepan, the contents of which he was carefully stirring.
At the noise of my entrance, he turned round and, with
a face of the greatest importance, whispered : — “ Hush,
hush ! don’t disturb my little pigs ; they will be ready
directly.” Full of curiosity to know whither his diseased
imagination had now led him, I approached nearer. “ You
see,” said he, with the mysterious expression of an
alchemist, “here I have black-puddings, pigs’ hones and
bristles in the saucepan, everything that is necessary, we
only want the vital warmth, and the young pig will be
ready made again.” Laughable as this circumstance
appeared to me at the time, it has often recurred to me
since in seriousness, when I have reflected on certain errors

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THE MORPHOLOGY

in science, and if the mere form of the delusion were the
criterion of sanity or insanity, even many distinguished
naturalists of our time would have to share the narrow cell
of my unfortunate Mahlberg.

The purport of the error, expressed in general terms,
is this : that a definite mixture of definite substances is at
once a perfect individualized natural body ; while, in reality,
there must be combination of two different kinds ; namely,
of matter and of form or shape, which two things are
equally necessary to complete the special conception of an
organism. The defined limitation in space, is exactly that
which we consider the chief characteristic of an indivi-
dualized natural body. The surrounding material world
exhibits itself, according to the manner in which we look
at it, with three totally different sides, and each of these
gives us opportunity to develop a peculiar scientific
system. No human being can foresee whether we shall
ever succeed in including two, much more all three of
these systems in one common scientific theory of the
world, proceeding from a single principle. These three
systems, which are the primary divisions of natural science
as a whole, may be most simply and intelligibly explained
by a consideration of our solar system. In this we find,
in the first place, certain great bodies which are formed
of matters of different kinds. These matters and their
peculiarities, the mass, which is the basis of the whole
system, is the first subject of our inquiries, thus arises
the study of matter or Hylology. But we observe, at the
same time, that these, ponderous masses of matter are never
at rest, that unceasing change of relative position drives
them through space. The motions and their regulation
become the second object of our research, the study of
motion or Phoronomy. But we have not yet exhausted

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the knowledge of the solar system in these two. Neither
from the peculiar properties of matter, nor the laws of
motion, can we deduce the reason why fourteen planets
circulate round the sun, why only Earth, Jupiter, Saturn
and Uranus have satellites, why Saturn alone a ring,
why the planes of the planets’ paths have this and no
other inclination toward each other, &c. In short, there
are still definite, permanent, created relations in space
which do not follow from the law of motion, which cannot
be considered as peculiarities of substance or of matter
in general, relations which are the cause of the form
under which the moving masses appear to us ; in a word,
the definite shape of this our solar system, which seems
accidental in so far that countless other shapes are possible,
and, perhaps, in other solar systems are actual. These last
considerations give us the study of fashioning, or Morpho-
logy. If we pass now from the solar system to the
circumstances of our own earth, Hylology becomes Che-
mistry ; Phoronomy, Physics, or, in reference to organized
bodies, Physiology ; and Morphology gives the characteristic
studies, Mineralogy, Zoology and Botany.

The simplest plant we investigate, shows us, quite as well
as the solar system on a larger scale, a series of facts, which
may be distributed into the three primary divisions of
science. The plant, chemically analyzed, is found to be com-
posed of greater or smaller quantities of different substances,
the peculiarities of which, so far as we know at present, are
most intimately connected with the individuality of the
whole plant (Study of matter). But by closer attention, we
soon find that these substances are never at rest ; that, on
the one hand, matters arc entering the plant, on the other,
leaving it and, in the plant itself, in constant motion from
one place to another, — constantly combining and separating

6

82

THE MORPHOLOGY

(Study of motion or Physiology of plants). Have we
then exhausted the whole existence of the plant? By no
means ; and, in fact, so far from it, that it is conceivable
that all these substances, all their motions (so far as they
relate to chemical union and separation) might be imitated
in the retorts and crucibles of our laboratories, without any
phenomenon occurring to remind us in the most distant
manner of a plant. From sugar, gum or vegetable jelly ls
formed cellulose ; but cellulose is not as yet a cell. This
cell-formation, consequently the shaping, first changes the
substances into vegetable organisms. All existing plants
are composed of cells of the same kind, but the different
plants are distinguished from one another by the contour,
the design according to which the cells are united together.
Whether it arises from the essential nature of the cir-
cumstances or not, we cannot say, but, at least so far
as appearance goes, the production of shape is so prominent
a point in the Natural History of Plants, that all the rest
has often been forgotten for its sake ; and thus the study of
form, or Morphology, becomes in any case the most
important branch of teaching in all Botany. But it would
be a great mistake to suppose that Morphology is merely a
meagre enunciation and description of forms. It is also a
scientific question : it has also to seek for the knowledge of
laws, and must, at least as a preliminary step, arrange the
multitude of appearances under primary points of view,
place them according to rule and exception, and so
gradually approach nearer to the discovery of the actual
laws of Nature.

The notion of such a regulation of the shapes of plants,
was first expressed by Gothe, in his idea of a typical plant,
whereby he signified an ideal plant, the realization of which,
as it were, Nature had proposed to herself, and which she

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83

had only attained in a certain degree in the individual
plants. This conception is certainly by no means faultless.
In the first place, it is scarcely necessary to say to any one
who is accustomed to refined speculations, that in reference
to all these things, human strivings after the archetypes of
Nature are mere unsubstantial play of the imagination,
which at best can but help a tottering brain to bring the
conditions nearer to its power of comprehending them ; but
this always at the cost of the only true comprehension
itself. The setting up of a design, the carrying out, the
commission of errors therein, and consequent only partial
success of the whole, are conditions which belong only
to the imperfect reason of human beings, “ whose know-
ledge is patchwork.” This so-called Anthropopathy
(humanization), however, is without meaning in the pre-
sence of Nature ; for this is, according to the stand-point
which the human judgment takes, either the product of blind
force acting under unvarying laws — and then to speak of
plan and a greater or less degree of perfection is absurd, since
all is rigid necessity, — or, it appears to us as the Creation
of a Holy Author, and then plan and execution are equally
perfect and complete in the least as in the greatest, but for
the son of earth everywhere mysterious and inconceivable.
On the other hand, also, Gothe’s idea of a typical plant
suffers from obscurity, since it is not clear how a man can
imagine such a type. This much is certain, that the
disagreeable, tasteless heaping up of a number of indi-
vidually possible forms into such an actual vegetable
monster as Turpin has perpetrated in his Atlas to Gothe’s
scientific works, is anything but what Gbtho pictured to
himself in his ideal plant. In order to impress the idea
upon the senses, we, also, must make use of a representation
of an ideal plant, which shall give us the highest develop-

6*

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THE MORPHOLOGY

ment of the vegetable world in its simplest form ; from
which, therefore, all the lower stages may he deduced
by omission or contraction, all the allied by combination
and complication.

The accompanying plate (iv) will serve to represent such
a plant. It may he regarded as an abstraction of a very
simple and familiar plant, the Anagallis phcenicea, the large
blue-flowered variety of which decorates our windows,
under the name of Anagallis monelli. A close examina-
tion of this picture will render some of the more important
morphological conceptions more readily intelligible. A
mere glance even shows us the following characteristics : —
In the first place, we distinguish a continuous principal
trunk (a to a vi), with various lateral appendages attached to
it (b, c to c vn and cl). Viewed more narrowly, these latter
exhibit some very striking differences, which are capable of
being arranged into three classes (which, therefore, are dis-
tinguished by the three letters b, c and d). Continuing
our investigation, we find the organs marked d (see Figs.
d i, d ii) to be also composed of a main trunk and lateral
organs, and, having exactly the same characters as the
plant itself in their subsequent development, they are mere
repetitions of it, only distinguished by not being free
at the lower extremity. We may, therefore, readily exclude
these parts, called “ buds” altogether from our consideration.
The organs marked b agree so perfectly in all their charac-
ters with the inferior free end of the plant, that we have no
hesitation in regarding them as portions of it, although
science subsequently points out that they differ essentially
in many points. We have now, therefore, only two organs
in the whole plant. The first is the continuous main trunk
of the plant, called “ the axis” or “ stem-organ ” the latter
term being employed because the various forms of the

1‘lateIV.

On,'Xut& Oy J ErxUben,

London, Publish ^ by H BaiLLcrc, 1&4-& -Day^SonlUh™ to the. Queen

OF PLANTS.

85

vegetable stem are all developed from this part. The axis
is the primary and fundamental portion of the plant from
its very origin, and not unfrequently the other organs are
but imperfectly formed, or appear in particular special
forms, as in the Cactus tribe, the Stapelias, and almost
all parasitical plants. The second organ is represented by
the lateral bodies marked c, exhibiting a multitude of dif-
ferences in the individuals, yet one essential, fundamental
physiognomy, which they never wholly throw aside, and
which is especially risible during their development ; —
they receive the general name of u leaf -organs,” or “ leaves .”
Thus we perceive that even the most perfect plant only
possesses two essential organs, namely, the stem and the
leaf ; therefore, that the ideal plant depicted by fancy, the
typical plant, has a basis simple beyond all anticipation.
But we must distinguish and name more minutely the
following modifications of the primary organs : —

1. Of the axis, we find a lower end, which is called
“ the roof’ (a), with its lateral organs “ accessory roots or
rootlets ” (&), an intermediate portion (a i to a v) the
proper “ stem,” the supporter of the leaf-organs and buds ;
lastly, an upper end (a vi) which subsequently, after
manifold occurrences, developcs into a seed, and therefore
receives the suitable name of “ seed-hud.” (Formerly an
unfortunately chosen term, “ vegetable ovules ,” was applied
to the seed-buds).

2. A far greater diversity of forms occurs in the leaves.
The first which are exhibited by the unfolding plant,
and which may mostly be found already tolerably perfect in
the embryo, are the “ seed-lobes” or “ cotyledons” (c),
their outline being very simple. From these to the middle
of the stem, the leaves, according to a tolerably prevalent
law, become more diverse and complicated in their outline,

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THE MORPHOLOGY

and from the middle to near the upper end progressively
more simple again (c i — c hi). These forms are collec-
tively included under the name of “ leaves ” and they alone
are known under this name in common life. The suc-
ceeding foliaceous organs (c iv — c vn), together with their
intermediate portions of stem, are comprehended in the
somewhat indefinite word “ flower or “ blossom ” but
four degrees of development may be distinguished in them.
The first, second and fourth (c iv, c v, c vn), differ onlv
from the true leaves in the delicacy of their texture, and
the second more especially by their colour; they are
called “ calyx,” “ corolla ,” and “ carpels ” or “ fruit-
leaves” The last derived their name of fruit-leaves from
the circumstance, that in their subsequent most remarkable
changes, they mostly form the essential portion of what
is commonly called the fruit. The third state of develop-
ment has totally different peculiarities, the leaf undergoes
such important structural metamorphoses, that it can
scarcely be recognised. The chief points consist in this, —
it becomes slender and thick, while several (frequently four)
long cavities, lying side by side, are excavated in its inte-
rior; these become filled Math a quantity of perfectly
isolated, dust-like cells, which by the regular opening
of the cavities are expelled and scattered around. These
leaves arc called “ stamens,” or, down to the point where the
cavities terminate, “ anthers,” and the isolated cells “ pollen”
If from this ideal plant the more compound leaves
(c i and c n) are omitted, and we imagine the pairs
of its leaf organs increased to fives, these to be grown
together in four circles, and again, instead of the one
seed-bud, a number of them united into a kind of knob
at the upper extremity of the stem, we shall thus obtain
a plant of the above-mentioned Anagallis.

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87

But if we would reduce this ideal plant to a simpler
form of vegetable life, e. g., a Fern, Moss, Conferva, &c.,
we must confound and blend together its parts, till nothing
at cill remains which retains the slightest resemblance to it.
Now, attempts at a morphological legislation are just as
little to the purpose, since they engage us, not in the actual
world, hut on the sportive products of our own imagination,
and lead us to content ourselves with explanations and
laws, which only find application in a small portion of
the vegetable world, while all the rest remains dark and
incomprehensible. Gothe’s typical plant, therefore, will
be of no use to us, and we must seek another path by
which to enter upon the contemplation of the relations
of form in the vegetable world.

The subject has greater difficulties than at first appear ;
and to obtain a correct insight into this question, indeed
to avoid a gross error which renowned observers both
have, and do still daily fall into, it is necessary to take
a very comprehensive view of the kingdom of Plants.
When we speak of forms, of shapes, we mean the defined,
limited bodies existing in nature. The conception of any
body whatsoever, however, already presupposes, that it is
extended in all three directions of space, length, breadth
and depth. A mere line or surface is not a body, and
therefore no shape, and it gives us merely the simplest
relations to space, consequently, no basis for classification.
Now, one or two of these directions of extension may
predominate in a body ; we easily distinguish a thread
from a sheet of paper, simply by these conditions. Here,
however, there is but a simple more or less, but no deeper
essential distinction, as is most distinctly shown by the
fact, that where the external bounding or definition first
acquires a great importance in natural science, namely,

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THE MORPHOLOGY

in crystals, one and the same kind of crystal may appear
as a long needle, a little flat plate or as a body equally
extended in all directions. The crystallized oxalate of
lime, occurring so frequently in plants, has in all its forms
a square surface as its constant basis, Upon which a square
column is built. When this is very short, a little quadran-
gular plate is the result, if higher, it gradually approaches
the cube; becoming taller, it passes up beyond this, and
at last appears as a long slender needle, almost filiform ;
but the shape of the crystal, the essential form, remains
ever the same, a square column ; just as we may recognise
the same human shape, though mankind are short and
stout, or tall and slender. The conclusion which may now
be drawn from this is, that we can deduce no characters
from the general conception of a body, wherewith to distin-
guish and classify it. Glorious systems may, indeed, be
thought out on paper in the study, but these have no
meaning or importance in the actual world. Thus, as we
enter upon these things, we must rather modestly inquire
whether Nature is inclined to display her mysteries to
us ; whether she will, in this or that individual instance
make manifest what characters are essential in their shape ;
in a word, what basis she will afford us for the erection of
our system.

In reference to this point, our science stands at very
different degrees of completion in the different classes of
natural bodies, in all, however, yet far distant from its
object. This object is, namely, to be able to explain all
shapes by the regular action of force in nature, and this is
not at present possible in one single case. The preparatory
stages, however, by which we arc to attain to this object,
consist in the first place, in the accurate knowledge and
arrangement of different shapes according to their inner

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89

affinities, and secondly, in the gradually completed discovery
and collection of the external circumstances, under the
influence of which the individual shapes are formed. For
the latter part of the subject, we have collected here and
there a few solitary fragments ; for the former half, the
arrangement of the forms of crystals is tolerably perfect ;
in plants and animal worlds, on the contrary, we have only
gained, from very various stand-points, a few prospects and
surveys, which, on the whole, exhibit but very little inward
connection.

The great hindrance in the last case, in relation to certain
points, is exactly that phenomenon which we call vitality ;
wherein the characteristic of this life lies, is but rarely
distinctly to he perceived.

The crystal does not spring at once a perfect Minerva
from the head of the Jupiter ; the matter of which it is
formed undergoes a constant series of changes, the find
result of which is the completed shape of the crystd. The
crystal, too, has an individual history, a biography, hut
only a history of its becoming , its origination. Once
become, its life is at an end, its consistence excludes
every change ; the moment of its birth is that of the
expiration of its life, it is dead from the moment in which
it begins its perfect existence. Plants and animals form
the most direct contrast to this, and herein lies that
common nature, which induces us to comprehend them
in one conception, as organic or living existence. In the
following explanations, however, to avoid prolixity, I will
restrict myself to the Vegetable Kingdom.

In Spring we commit the barley-corn to its nurse, the
earth ; the germ begins to move, starts from its envelopes,
which fall to decay. One leaf after another appears and
unfolds itself; then the flowers display themselves in a

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THE MORPHOLOGY

thickly-crowded spike ; called forth through wonderful
metamorphoses, originates in each the germ of a new life,
and while this, with its envelopes, becomes perfected into
a seed, constant changes in the plant, from below upwards,
are in progress ; one leaf after another dies and withers, at
last but the dry and naked straw-halm stands there ; bowed
down by the burden of the golden-gift of Ceres, it breaks
up and rots upon the earth, while within the scattered
grain, lightly and snugly covered by protecting snow, a
new period of development is preparing, which beginning
in the following Spring, continues on the unceasing
repetition of these processes. Here there is nothing firm,
nothing consistent ; an endless becoming and unfolding,
and a continual death and destruction, side by side and
intergrafted— such is the plant ! It has a history, not
only of its formation, but also of its existence, not merely
of its origin, but of its persistence. We speak of plants ;
where are they ? When is a plant perfect, complete, so
that I may snatch it out of the continual change of matter
and form, and examine it as a thing become ? We speak of
shapes and forms ; when shall we grasp them, disappearing,
Proteus-like, every moment, and transformed beneath our
hands? As in Dobler’s dissolving views, one picture
imperceptibly disappears before our eyes and another takes
its place, without one being able to determine the moment
when the former was lost or the latter began to appear.
In every given moment is the plant the ruin of the past,
and yet, at the same time, the potentially and actually
developing germ of the future ; still more, it also appears
a perfect, complete and finished product for the present.
Here lies the fundamental cause why a morphology of the
crystal or the inorganic world must have so essentially
different an import and development from the study of the

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shapes of the so-called living existences ; but there is yet
another condition, though truly, compared to that just
mentioned, one of very little importance, whereby the
examination of organic bodies is involved in difficulty and
complexity, to which human powers of comprehension are
not nearly equal with the assistance at present at their
command.

Bv shape is understood the limitation of bodies in space ;
the limits or boundaries by which the definite shape is
separated from boundless space, are surfaces. Surfaces
themselves are either plane, and these again bounded by
lines, or curved, and then defined in different ways by the
relation of their parts to one or more lines. The plane
surfaces are easily constructed and arranged if their
boundary fines are straight, as also are the bodies
bounded by plane surfaces, like crystals. In planes
which are bounded by curves, the difficulty gradually
increases to that great complexity which the theory of
curved fines presents. On the other hand, only a few of
the curved surfaces, such as the sphere, the ellipsoid and
so on, are capable of accurate geometrical definition, the
conditions soon become so complex that they bid defiance
to the most acute combinations of the greatest mathema-
ticians. Now, all fines and surfaces which occur in
organized bodies, are curved, and almost always so
irregularly, that a geometrical definition of them is at
present out of the question. Thus, leaving out of view
all the other difficulties, we are already disabled from
using accurately defined geometrical terms, even in the
mere description of the particular organic forms, and we
are compelled to have recourse to comparisons, and a
peculiar technical language derived from them, which,
from the nature of its origin, is very ambiguous. Even

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THE MORPHOLOGY

such expressions as cylindrical, prismatic, circular, spherical
and the like, have no longer a well-defined geometrical
signification in their application to plants, but merely an
approximative, comparative value.

From these circumstances, it is evident that very general
information and a peculiar tact, I might almost say instinct,
for natural science, is necessary to the safe advance of a
single step forward in the study of the forms of plants, and
that here we must, in the very first place, develop special,
guiding maxims from the nature of the object itself,
according to which to criticise, reject or admit the
innumerable possible systems of Vegetable Morphology.
This, indeed, gives us but the negative result, that all
the rules tending to the rejected systems are useless, while
the admitted acquire only a possibility, but no certainty of
correctness. Nevertheless, much has already been gained
by it, since the investigations become continually more
simple. When, guided by such principles, we direct our
attention to the plant, it presents two peculiarities, which
make good then’ distinct claim to regard in all our investi-
gations. One is the composition of the plant out of little,
almost independent and individualized elementary organisms,
namely the cells ; the other is the continuous process of
absorption and excretion of matter, the production and
dissolution of cells, and as a consequence of both, the
constant alteration of the internal and external form, the
structure and the shape.

The maxims to be derived from these are : —

“ Whatever, in the plant, has not been traced back to
its composition from individual cells, is not yet known
or understood, consequently cannot be used as the basis
of any theoretical considerations.” And secondly :

“ No individual, persistent, or rather, apparently per-

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93

sistent form, but only the course of its development, can
be the object of a study of form in Botany ; every system
which devotes itself to the isolated formal relations of this
or that epoch, without regard to the law of development,
is a fanciful air-castle, which has no foundation in actuality,
and therefore does not belong to scientific Botany.”

It is not at all my intention to unfold all the separate posi-
tions which Morphology has hitherto secured, or is believed
to have secured, from the observation of facts under the
guidance of these maxims; this would be nothing less
than to write a whole system of Botany. Here I can only
proffer a general Hew of the Vegetable World, sketched
according to its morphological characters.

Regarding the vegetable kingdom as a whole, as an
individual, the various stages of life and development of
which lie as close beside each other, as they follow after
one another in a single plant, we are enabled to regard the
simplest form as also the commencement of the Vegetable
World ; and then we find that this, like the individual plant,
is produced and developed from a simple cell. When on
old, damp walls and palings, or in glasses in which we
have let soft water stand for several days in summer, we
find a delicate, bright green and often almost velvety coat,
we meet with the first beginning of vegetation. Under
the microscope, we detect in these green masses a number
of small, spherical cells filled with sap, colourless granules
and chlorophyll. In other places occur similar cells, but
yellowish, brown or red, and almost all, at least at present,
may be regarded as perfect plants, which have received
various names from Botanists. The most suitable name
for them is Protococcus, primary vesicle. From this
simple cell, vegetating as an independent plant, the develop-
ment of the vegetable world takes its departure, and ascends

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THE MORPHOLOGY

by continually greater combinations and complications, to
the most complex plants, which we are compelled to look
upon as the highest states, although the uninitiated may
think it strange when I name as a representative of this
highest expression of vegetable development, the little,
common, and therefore despised, Daisy.

The forms immediately following the above-mentioned
simplest plants, also consist of a simple cell, but this is
elongated into a filament and often branched, thus ex-
hibiting a higher development of form ; next the cells
arrange themselves into lines in manifold ways ; a variety
of forms of vegetation soon grows up, which in water
appear as the Silk-weeds or Confervas, generally of a green
colour, or on decaying organic bodies, as Moulds, in very
various and often most elegant forms, with the most bril-
liant play of colour. Then the cells unite to compose flat
structures, known to Botanists by the name of Ulvas, and
frequently growing in the sea, almost like young Lettuce
leaves, sometimes green, sometimes red, often afford a
meagre meal to the poor inhabitants of the coast. Next
they crowd together into solid masses, forming clumps and
balls of the greatest possible variety of shapes. Now
commences an unfolding of richer and more varied forms
which were possible before in the simple element ; but
the differences of development in length and breadth,
or length, breadth and depth, are especially frequently
repeated in the lower stages of the Vegetable World in the
individual groups, and in the higher stages in almost all
the individual organs.

It will be in place here to call attention to a peculiar
condition of plants, which in the animal world either does
not occur at all, or in a much less striking degree, and then
only in those parts which, even without it, allow the draw-

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95

ing and maintaining of the closest analogies with plants,
namely, in the bones and the dermal system. In the
inferior plants hitherto mentioned, we can, in general,
neither detect definite members in the individual parts, nor
a definite distribution of the Natality in separate determinate
portions of the whole. Generally speaking, there are no
organs here, neither such as, through a definite shape, or
through a generally repeated relation of form in one
manner to the form of the whole plant, are morphologically
definite, nor any to which a definite individual vital ex-
pression is always attached by a form different from that
of the other parts of the plant, which consequently could be
described as physiologically definite. By degrees, indeed,
we see in the somewhat more highly developed Sea-weeds,
in the Fungi and Lichens, certain quite definite cells,
essentially differing from the rest, and destined to the
production of the reproductive cells ; we find the ceEs
arranged in perfectly determinate forms, according to the
varied structure of which we are then able to distinguish
the larger and small groups ; but there the matter rests in
the vegetable world. Up to the most highly-developed
plant, we always find, excepting in the organs of repro-
duction, a perfect independence of the physiological and
the morphological import of the individual organs ; and
mischievous confusion, which it is difficult to get clear of,
has been brought into the study of the Forms of the
Vegetable World, by the misconception of this relation.
One and the same organ may serve the most different vital
offices in different plants, and the same vital process may
belong to the leaf in one plant, to the stem in another.

After these preliminary remarks, we may extend our
review to a further portion of the vegetable kingdom.
The whole world of plants is divided into two unequal

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THE MORPHOLOGY

portions, the smaller of which is composed of the three
groups of the Alga or sea-weeds, the Fungi , and the
Lichens. In this division wTe have, in general, no other
organs but the apparatus for the formation of reproductive
cells, and for this reason, that the process of development
is one and the same in all parts of the plant, each part,
therefore, represents the whole plant, and as such may
continue to live and grow. The forms are here mostlv
bounded by extraordinarily vague outlines, especially in
the Fungi in which the plant itself is merely a wonderfully
perishable interwoven mass of delicate filaments. The
bodies usually called Fungi, in common life, are only the
reproductive organs, as it were the fruit of the plant. A
similar indeterminateness of form prevails also in the
simpler Algae, common water plants, and not less in
the lower Lichens, the crustaceous kinds which cover
walls, stones and palings, with a whitish, grey or yellow
scurf. In the highest Algae and Lichens alone, the forms
become somewhat more definite, and often exhibit very
constant shapes, which even possess a resemblance to
stems and leaves, but without the same import, the
same morphological value as in the next great division
of plants.

In the latter, we first meet with two so essentially
different processes of development in one and the same
plant, that we are obliged to regard their products as
essentially different elementary organs.

One organ is the first, the original, and developes
itself unceasingly at its two free extremities, these extre-
mities are always its youngest, last formed parts ; this
organ we call the stem, in the widest sense of the word,
or the axis of the plant. On this original elementary
organ, and out of it, grows a second, the free end of

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which originates first, and, therefore, is the oldest part
of the organ ; it grows only at the base, where it is con-
nected with the stem, and this only for a certain length
of time, being thus, as it were, pushed up out of the
stem. This is a leaf in the widest signification of the
term. While the former exhibited unlimited growth,
the latter is through the very mode of its formation
arrested at a certain boundary. We perceive two things
here : first, that the stem and the leaf are actually
contrasted with one another ; only where the one is present
can we speak of the other. From this we draw a distinc-
tion in the plants of this primary division, and separate
the stemless plants from those with stems. Secondly,
it follows, from what has been premised, that the plant
in general can have but two essentially different organs,
namely, leaf and stem, and that all the remaining so-called
organs of the plant must be only unimportant variations
of form of one of these organs, or, structures resulting
from the combination and blending together of both.
This proposition was first definitely expressed by Caspar
Frederic Wolff and Gothe, and the result of the obser-
vation, that all the organs of a plant possessing a stem
may be traced back to one or other of the elementary
organs, has given rise to a peculiar study, which is univer-
sally known by the name given to it by Gothe, “ the
metamorphosis of plants.” What has already been revealed
by publications now in our possession, includes but a very
small part of that branch of study, which, as Morphology,
will hereafter be the most essential section of all Botany.

We might here easily give a brief review of this subject,
by an example, without entering into all the individual
points which still contain many difficulties and unsolved
problems. The most important, however, have already

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THE MORPHOLOGY

been dealt with in the explanation of the idea of a typical
plant, and therefore we shall only need some little addi-
tions in reference to the formation of the flower, which
exhibits some complexity.

In the place where the carpels or fruit-leaves, and seed-
buds are situated in the typica plant, that is, in the centre
of the flower, most plants display an organ which is closed
in all round, but hollow ; it encloses the seed-buds, and its
cavity only communicates with the external air by a canal
which is usually almost imperceptible. This body, as a
whole, is called the “ pistil that part which encloses the
seed-buds the “ germen” (also fruit-bud), and the opening
above, the “ stigma” If the body is elongated into a kind
of stem between the germen and the stigma, this portion
is called the “style” (PL iv. Fig. 2). Now, this body
is especially variable in its composition ; sometimes it
is wholly formed of one or several carpels, at others,
its lower part, the germen or even the whole is a
portion of the peculiarly transformed stem. Those por-
tions of the stem, too, which otherwise belong to the
blossom (a in — a v) are often metamorphosed in the
strangest ways, and on these two conditions depends in
part the great variety of flowers, to which also the con-
ditions of number and position in the remaining portions
contribute their share of influence.

The terms which we derive from such scientific exami-
nation of plants, appear strange when they are used in
common life, and it sounds strangely enough to hear,
that the grateful juicy part of a Strawberry is but a
portion of the flower-stalk , while the actual fruit consists
in the little inedible granules ; on the other hand, that
in a Raspberry we eat a quantity of little genuine fruits,
the carpels which have become fleshy and succulent, while

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99

the same portion of the stem which delighted our palate in
the nearly allied Strawberry, is here represented by the
little white, spongy cone; that in the Apple we eat a
part of the flower -stalk ; in the Cherry, part of a leaf-,
and that in the Nut and Almond we devour a whole
diminutive plant, root, stem, leaves, and buds.

But we must here once more recall to mind, what has
already been mentioned at the outset of our examination
of the typical plant: namely, that by no means all the
individual parts and forms described in the typical plant
make their appearance in every plant, nay, even in every
plant having a stem. Among those last, indeed, are found
a large number with a much more simple structure and,
therefore, in order to proceed with the unfolding of the
series of steps, we are again obliged to recur to the repro-
duction of plants.

It will be remembered from a former Lecture, that the
general process of the multiplication of all plants consists
of the formation of definite reproductive cells, the detach-
ment of these from the place where they were produced,
and their development into new plants ; but that an
essential distinction was founded on the circumstances
under which the development takes place : whether the
reproductive cell can at once unfold itself into a new
plant in water or on the earth, or must acquire a certain
degree of maturity within a peculiar organ of' the plant,
the so-called seed-bud. To the plants of the former kind,
which are called Cryptogamous, or asexual, belong a
considerable number of the stem-plants. I will here
especially cite only the Liver- worts and Mosses, the
Lycopodiacecc or Club-mosses, the Ferns, and the Equi-
seta or Horsetails. In all these groups can be distin-
guished a distinct stem with leaves, but a peculiar series

7*

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THE MORPHOLOGY

of gradations is exhibited by them in the formation of
the reproductive cells, which, in the Liver-worts and
Mosses are found in a morphologically indefinite capsule,
in the succeeding groups come into more intimate con-
nection with the leaf, and at last assert so strongly their
exclusive claim to definite foliaceous organs, that the said
organs lose all their resemblance to the other leaves. As
the reproductive cells are called spores, these leaves receive
the name of “ spore-leaves ” and in the Horsetails they
have the same form as in the succeeding and highest of
the great divisions of the stem-plants, which form, in the
sexual or Phanerogamous plants, is that of stamens with
their anthers.

In the Liver-worts, Mosses, and Ferns, we find an
organ of a peculiar kind, which in. its structure corresponds
to the seed-buds of the sexual plants ; its morphological
import is as yet undetermined, its physiological relations
are wholly inexplicable at present, but it certainly has no
essential connection with the reproductive functions. These
organs are usually called antlieridia. They remind us
very strongly of a phenomenon observed in the progressive
gradations of animals, where we also often find an organ
prefigured in a group or genus in which it performs no
function, acquiring its actual importance to the life of the
animal in a neighbouring group.

Stem and leaf as elementary organs,, definite leaves
transformed into spore-leaves for the formation of repro-
ductive cells, and an organ of an uncertain nature with the
structure of a seed-bud, these are the acquisitions with
which Nature enters upon the development of the last
great division of the Vegetable Kingdom, the group of
Sexual Plants. The characteristic of this group is the
entrance of the seed-bud upon its true office, that of a

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101

reproductive apparatus, and it here distinctly shows itself
to be the terminal joint of the stem-organ ( a vi).

The sexual plants again separate into two divisions
of unequal magnitude. In the first and smaller, the
inflorescence is still very simple, since, on the one hand,
it is devoid of what is understood as a flower in common
life ; on the other, the seed-bud, and consequently the seed
developed from it, is naked and unenclosed in any germen.
This division, which includes the Fir tribe, the Loranthacea
with the parasite Misletoe, so injurious to our fruit trees
and a family of tropical plants — the Cycadacece, is con-
trasted as the class of naked-seeded plants, as Gymnosperms,
with the covered-seeded class, the Angiosperms. — In the
last great division of plants, it is the inflorescence which
especially attracts our attention. Here, too, the elements
of a graduated series are unmistakeable, but we must
first direct our observations to one more speciality which
separates the whole of the plants belonging to this class, as
it were into two parallel series of developments. As the
embryo is gradually developed from the reproductive cell,
upon the axis, which of course is first formed — either one
first leaf is produced, wholly surrounding the axis like a
sheath, and completely covering its upper part; or, simul-
taneously and opposite to each other upon the stem, two
first leaves appear, each of which half embraces it, and
which enclose the upper part of the embryo between
them. The first series are called the one-seed-lobed or
Monocotyledons, to which, for example, belong all
Liliaceous plants, Palms, Grasses, Sedges, &c. ; the second,
the two-seed-lobed or Dicotyledons, for examples of
which, common garden plants and trees may be taken.
The plants of the two series not only differ essentially in
their apparently unimportant characters, but in all the rest

102

THE MORPHOLOGY

of their organization, and are so strikingly distinct in their
external appearance, that a little practice enables the eye
to recognize them readily at the first glance. The first
generally have the fibre -like wood -bundles scattered
throughout the stem, as in the stem of the Maize;
the second a closed, firm circle of wood like the Willow ;
in the leaves of the first, the veins are usually parallel
as in the Grasses ; the veins of the others ramify like the
branches of a tree, and thus form an elegant net- work on
the surface of the leaf, as in the Lime ; finally, we find
the number three frequently prevailing in the inflorescence
of the former, as in the Tulip, while in the latter it is five,
as in the Primrose. These two series proceed, step by
step, parallel with one another, and what is about to be
stated regarding the inflorescence, holds equally good in
both. We have to learn what those elements are, the
combination which, into a higher unity, is here the
purpose of Nature. The first thing which she does is to
enclose the seed-bud in the peculiar apparatus which we
have above described as the pistil. Originally, the stamens
and pistil have no essential relation to each other in re-
ference to position. Each organ forms a blossom in itself.
Then both are united, by the combination of a definite
number of stamens, with one or more pistils. Next enter
one, then more circles of foliaceous organs into this blossom,
and thus form that which people commonly call a flower.
These leaves acquire different forms, different colours,
the structure of a portion of them becomes more delicate
and they receive the names of floral envelopes, calyx
corolla, &c. Finally, in the highest stage, Nature unites
a number of separate flowers of this kind into one great,
definite whole, in which she arranges them according to a
strongly marked type, and surrounds and defines them with

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103

circles of leaves. These compound flowers , (as Linnaeus
called them,) characterize the Grasses in the first series, or
Monocotyledons ; in the second, or Dicotyledons, that family
to which the Daisy, Dandelion, Thistle, Artichoke, and
such plants belong, and which, on account of this peculiarity,
is called the compound-blossomed family, or Composites.
That which the maidens call the flower of corn, when
they entwine it in their garlands, is, in fact, a whole company
of small but perfect flowers. If we would recognize a
series, in the progress from the simplest to the most
complex, we must evidently regard the Grasses and
Composites as holding the highest station in existing
vegetation. Remarkably enough, also, precisely these
two families, by their number of species and individuals,
constitute the most peculiar characteristic components of
the existing Flora, for, in the collective number of about,
300 families of plants, the Grasses alone include one
twentieth, the Composites a tenth, therefore both together
almost one seventh of the whole number of species
known.

I must be content that I have in the preceding sketch
brought forward the principal points which, in the present
condition of our science, constitute the most important
features of morphological inquiry. That countless questions
and considerations crowd upon us in the details, must
be evident to any one who reflects. To those who have
never been accustomed to look through the modes of
external appearance into the essential internal connection of
the variations of form, it will indeed seem paradoxical,
to say that the globular, furrowed, fleshy Cactus, with
its splendid blossom, is properly nothing but a tropical
Gooseberry-bush; — that the Palm-like stem of the Dracesnas,
often thirty feet high, with mighty bunches of great Lily-

104

THE MORPHOLOGY OF PLANTS.

flowers, belongs to exactly the same circle of forms and
development as our plain-looking garden Asparagus ; — that
the wild Mallow, creeping over and adorning all the banks
of our country lanes, is far more nearly allied to the
old giant-stemmed Baobab, which has lived to six thou-
sand years on the west coast of Africa, than to the wild
Poppy growing beside it ; and yet all this is undoubtedly
true. Once more, then, to return to the principle above
laid down, in organic life it is not the appearance of the
existing, but the law of becoming, which decides between
like and unlike, similar and dissimilar ; and it is the idea of
the course of development, which is the only fruitful
thought in the scientific contemplation of life, and deter-
mines the value of the study ; therefore stands Physiological
higher than Systematic Botany, Comparative Anatomy
higher than Descriptive Zoology, as History is nobler than
Statistics.

dFtftft itccturr.

Round earth and ocean.
Tempests rush and roar.
And weave a mighty chain
All nature o’er.

FAUST,

LECTURE V.

It has long been agreed in good society, that to talk
about the weather is not good ton, that no topic can be so
tiresome, and that it ought, therefore, to be left to sailors
and bashful lovers. When now I enter upon a disquisition
concerning the weather, I am quite ready to admit that my
Lecture is likely enough to prove somewhat tedious ; but I
altogether deny that the weather is less talked about in
the best society than elsewhere, and must distinctly declare
that the weather is not a tedious subject. For what is
tedious ? Seldom or never the subject, but the manner in
which it is treated. Can anything be more interesting to
ladies (and it may be to some gentlemen) than the fashions ?
But a lady would think any one very tiresome who addressed
her with such a remark as, “ The fashions are very pretty
now quite as tiresome, I think, as if he said, “ The
weather is very fine.” It is very different, when in such
conversation, noticing how well the chosen cap or bonnet
suits the head, one passes to the head-dresses of different
nations, to those of celebrated women, pointing out what
influence climate, necessity, and national peculiarities have

108

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

on the adoption of certain forms of apparel; how taste
seizes on certain forms which have thus originated, alters
them to suit its own purposes, and, in the end, caprice
enters the field, and by its whimsical interference, calls
forth the motley variety, which always pleases the eye, save
where sated sense and depraved taste have produced
manifest ugliness. The same holds good of the weather,
and the more that nothing actually so deeply affects our
bodily and mental life as this. Who can say his health is
absolutely sound, when he thinks of the complicated nature
of the vital processes ? Need I point to the influences of
the weather on those whose health is imperfect ; how
dependent all those affected with chronic diseases are for
then' comfort on the condition of the weather ? Every one
knows the old proverb, “ Man is his own calendar the
continually annoying sensations in a diseased joint, a wound,
or the surface of an amputated limb, even when the indi-
vidual is otherwise perfectly healthy, indicating the
changes occurring in the weather. The nerves stretching
out in all directions through the body, as so many
feelers of the mind, often give us more accurate and
earlier intelligence of the changes, than the eye which
perceives the phenomena only after they have visibly
commenced. And, on account of these very nerves, we
cannot but believe that even healthy persons are always
open to the influence of the weather. It may, indeed,
be demanded of every man that he shall oppose these
imperceptible operations by his will ; that he shall not
allow them any influence over his thoughts and labours ;
but whoever disowns this operation of the weather upon
him, upon the feeling of pleasure or discomfort, upon
health and strength, or dejection and debility, I must
either accuse of insincerity or imperfect observation, or

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

109

else set him down as a man of abnormally insensible
nerves. Nay, perhaps there is a tone of mind for every
shade of alteration in the weather, which may be discovered
by its influence on the nerves, on those objects with which
it is so continually in hostile contact. Our ancestors knew
and named a “joy-month” (May), and in England,
November is called “ the month of fog, misanthropy,
and suicide.” It is a fact that most suicides happen there
in this month, Frommond relates that when the south-
wind blows, in the Azores, the inhabitants walk about
with the head bent down, and even the children sit sad
at home instead of playing in the streets. Sanctorius
remarked that all men feel duller in damp, cloudy
weather ; and Unzer held that both the sick and healthy
are always better when the barometer is high. So early
as Hippocrates, we find it noticed that damp Springs are
followed by violent epidemic fevers, and it is believed on
all sea-coasts, that the greatest number of persons die
wThen the moon is at 90° from its culmination, that is
at the time of the ebb. I do not bring these matters
forward in the belief that the facts themselves are all
beyond doubt, but merely to show how generally diffused
is the conviction that the well-being of man is dependant
on the weather. When we are upon a high mountain,
clouds, rain and all disturbances of the weather often
lie far below us, and so may they who move foremost
among men, the rulers of nations and the great stand,
less interfered with by the changes of the weather ; but
in the lower regions, all the weal and woe of life hangs
upon rain and sunshine. Let us go, for a moment, along
with Le Sage’s Asmodeus, and peep into the interior of
the houses ; — here abides the loving wife ; she hastens
joyfully to meet her husband on his return, and is sullenly

110

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

repulsed ; the little child runs rejoicing to his father,
and, with dirty fingers, hangs to his clothes ; a rude
blow is his greeting ; the man throws himself gloomily
on his couch, and painful silence reigns in the chamber ;
in a word, where one looks for love and joy, ill-humour
and melancholy are found, and why? The continued
rain has mined and washed away the hay-crop ; the loss
amounts to many hundreds of pounds.

And then, on a sunny autumn morning, a wife’s face
has rather an anxious expression ; when in rushes the
husband, embraces her, and says : — “ A glorious year, a
wine of ‘ ’ll,’ clear profit of 10,000 dollars; I have sold
the whole. Rejoice with me, love !” and then he gives
her the long-wished-for cashmere shawl; friends come to
wash him joy, and, late in the night, the passers-by hear the
sound of festivity within. It is the weather which here
gladdens, and there troubled.

Lastly, let us ascend to a still higher point of view.
The whole earth lies outspread beneath our feet. There
we see an effeminate race ; the despot revelling in every
pleasure, the bonze all-powerful, the pariah oppressed and
trodden down, superstition instead of faith, mere mechanical
life instead of mind. Here, a mighty people, proud of
their power ; where, as the poet says, “ liberty walks
unhindered to the poorest huts, and scatters wealth over the
favoured plains.”

Liberty abroad

Walks, unconfin’d, even to thy farthest cots.

And scatters plenty with unsparing hand.

Thomson’s seasons.

There we see a nation whose mental development and
culture surpasses all others, constantly occupied with the

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

Ill

highest questions of humanity, and mostly fortunate in then-
solution, and among these reigns the mental life, almost
forgetting the bodily and carelessly leaving the manage-
ment of their affairs to a few ; while under other latitudes
the same race, degenerated through luxury, sunk in
almost animal enjoyment of sensual delights, over which,
as despotic lord it reigns, troubles itself not as to whether
there is such a thing as a soul, to give it a higher claim to
development and education.

Let us review, in one glance, the gay Tahitans, the
dull Fuegians, the formal Chinese, the roving Bedouins,
the child-like Hindoos, the manly English, the abstracted
Germans, the material Yankees, and we find that all
these, and the thousand other varieties of human nature
are fundamentally dependant on, or promoted by the
weather.

Is it possible then, that Man can longer forget this
dependance ? And this enormous power which prevails
over body and mind, the life of the individual and the
history of humanity, should it not be a worthy object
of reflection — of conversation ? But can we actually
penetrate into this workshop of Nature, or is the object
unworthy of much interest because we are condemned to
remain always upon the surface? Holy Writ says : — “ The
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither
it goeth !”

I cannot, alas ! wholly turn aside the reproof, that we
naturalists do not receive very much from the Bible.
But it is also quite possible, that for the very reason
that we do not receive much, we comprehend that little
which we do receive more clearly, more purely, and
therefore more correctly than others ; but this has

112

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

nothing to do with our subject. I must of course confess,
that so far as questions of natural science are concerned,
we cannot look upon the Bible as any authority, and
therefore believe that, in that passage, it addressed itself
to a very circumscribed condition of humanity in an
ignorant and uneducated century. We believe now, most
certainly, that we know whence the wind comes and
whither it goes.

It is next requisite that we should state more definitely
what we understand by Weather. The chief point I have
already mentioned. In our regions it is the wind which,
changing according to its various directions, brings us
clouds and sunshine, warmth and cold, rain and snow,
calm and storm, and through all these, impresses upon the
general character of the season the individual peculiarities
which we call weather. All these different phenomena,
and, above all, the wind, are merely alterations, various
conditions of combination, rest and motion of the subtile
matters which surround us, and which we name the
atmosphere. When, in the clear night, we go out and
look upward at the stars, our eyes perceive no boundary
between us and those celestial fires. We, indeed, fancy
that an invisible something surrounding us, must extend
uninterruptedly to those shining worlds, the light of which
appears to stream so unobstructedly upon us. But it is
not so. If we could ascend to them, we should arrive
at the limit of the atmosphere before we had left behind
us a portion of our journey worth speaking of. The poets
well name this the aerial ocean, and the adventurous
mortals who fly through it, aerial navigators. It surrounds
our globe as a thin fluid layer and shares its adventures.
With it, it flies through the space of the universe, in its
course round the sun ; with it, in equal velocity, it turns

A ROUT THE WEATHER.

113

from west to east around its axis. If it did not, if it
moved more slowly than the earth, we who are chained to
its surface and revolutions should necessarily he pressed
upon by the air ; it would seem to come against us like a
hurricane — a fact which, as will subsequently be shown, is
of great importance in the theory of the wind. I have
called the ah* a fluid, and it is actually such. It flows
from one place to another, and this very stream of air is
what we name wind. But, it will be asked, where are
these places into which it streams, for the air is evenly
distributed; consequently, universal equilibrium must prevail,
as in a vessel of water at rest. To elucidate this, I must
describe somewhat closely one of the most important
peculiarities of air. Heat, it is well known, expands the
bodies into which it enters. An iron rod, measured at a
red heat, is thicker and longer than when it is perfectly
cold. The same holds good of air, it expands, and there-
fore becomes lighter, as is shown by the simplest kind of
balloon, which, from its discoverer, is called a Montgolfier ;
this rises when the common ah- within it is heated by
means of a strong flame placed beneath its open extremity.
The air, thus become lighter, rises through the colder air,
as oil rises through water, and swims upon it. If cold air
lies upon an oblique surface, the warm air flows down over
the cold, like water upon a mountain, apparently without
mixing with it, when the difference of temperature is great
enough.

But since warm air is thinner than cold, that is, because
there is less air in an equal space when it is warm than
when it is cold, the cold air flows into that space which is
warmed, and, because it is heavier, comes to the bottom.
If the door of a heated room is opened in very cold
weather, the cold air flows in on the ground, and the warm

8

114

ABOUT THE WEATIIEH.

air out above, as may easily be perceived by the motion of
the flame of a candle held high up or low down in the
door-way. In small things, this is the cause of the
draughts so dreaded by the delicate female sex, and even by
some delicate gentlemen. In greater matters, it is the
cause of that which the mariner, according to circum-
stances, prays and whistles for, or curses — wind and
storm. I shall indeed be answered, that we are none the
wiser for this. For when the vernal storm bellows around
the hare summit of the Brocken, and whirls the snow up
in showery drifts, so that the blinded wanderer, already
within a hundred paces of the hospitable house, strays from
the path and becomes the prey of death, — the question still
remains, where here is the heated room and the opened
door ? And after all, the old saying is still true, that he is
a wise man who always knows which way the wind blows.
I will venture, nevertheless, to point out, that it is by no
means so difficult a matter, since the said proverb assumes,
that as many winds blow over the earth as there are
points on the compass, while in fact, there are really only
two winds.

Meanwhile, before I pass to the explanation of tiffs
seemingly strange assertion, I must make mention of
another property of the air, not less important in relation
to the phenomena which constitute what we call the
weather. I allude to a fact well known to every one.
When a glass, quite dry, but very cold, is brought into a
warm room, it becomes dim, as we say, that is, it becomes
suddenly covered with minute drops of water, and this
water is so much the more abundantly deposited, the
greater the difference between the temperature of the room
and that of the glass. Whence comes this water?
Certainly not out of the glass, for this was previously

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

115

dried, but out of the air ot the room. The reason why
this previously invisible, aeriform water appears suddenly
in the form of little visible drops, lies in the difference of
the temperature of the air of the chamber in general, and
that of the air cooled by contact with the cold glass ; and
thereby is indicated the law, that the warmer air is, the
more invisible water it can contain. This is the cause of
the formation of clouds, rain, snow and similar phenomena
of our globe.

The consideration of these two points, the cause of the
wind and formation of the watery precipitate of the atmo-
sphere, leads us to a force upon which both phenomena are
dependent, namely, heat. Seeking the general source of
this, we come to the sun. This is the mover of all upon
the earth, and, in a wonderfully simple manner, it main-
tains a constant circulation of matter, through which alone
the life of organic existence, of plants and animals, is
rendered possible. The Emperor Aurelian said, that
among all the gods which the universal ruler, Rome, had
borrowed from the vanquished and gathered together, he
had found none truly worthy of adoration but the sun ;
and among all the forms of heathenism, certainly that
is the most elevated form of worship which the Parsee
offers, waiting in the early morning on the sea-shore, till
the first rays of the sun dart over the shining waves, to
prostrate himself before them, and in silent prayer, to greet
the return of the all- vivifying and all-producing.

Unhappily, the decision of the Bible, which asserts an
equal distribution of the heavenly gifts on all mankind
(“The Lord maketh it to rain over righteous and un-
righteous”) is again wrong, and man has, according to his
place of abode, a very different share of the warming and
vivifying influence of the sun. It distributes its blessings

8*

116

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

in greatest abundance only where its rays fall perpendicu-
larly upon the earth, and this, on account of the position
of the globular earth in relation to the sun, only happeas
in a narrow zone on each side of the equator, together only
forming a quarter of the length between the north and
south poles. From this girdle, its action diminishes so
rapidly, that at about 70 degrees of north and south lati-
tude, it can only thaw the frozen earth to a depth of a few
feet, and at 80 degrees the surface is stark with unmelted
ice throughout the height of summer. The equator itself
lies beneath the vertical rays of the sun twice a year, at
the two equinoxes ; and the same holds good of all the
places within the equatorial zone, but in such a manner,
that the periods are always approaching together till they
fall coincident under the tropics, which are only warmed by
the vertical rays of the sun once in the year, namely, the
tropic of Cancer at the time of our longest day, and the
tropic of Capricorn on our shortest day.

When the vessel on its voyage to the South approaches
the equator in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, anxious
fear seizes the whole crew. Sooner or later, according to
the time of year, the favouring wind which had brought
them thus far, becomes weaker and weaker; at first it
ceases for a little while, and at last drops entirely. Around
extends the sea, an endless glassy surface. The ship,
hitherto speeding onward with a bird-like flight, lies bound
on the crystal fluid. The rays of the sun, falling perpen-
dicularly, glow through and through the narrow space in
which the men are enclosed. The deck burns through
the soles of the shoes. A stifling vapour fills the cabins.
A fortnight has the ruler of the sea lain immoveable in
the same spot. The store of water is exhausted. Glow-
ing thirst glues the parched tongue to the palate. Each

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

117

man looks upon his companions in suffering with the wild,
murderous glance of despair.

The sun sinks below the horizon, the evening sky is
illumined by a peculiar coppery redness; and with the
advancing night, arises a black wall to the eastward ; a
low, shrill pipe resounds from the distance, from whence a
streak of foam advances over the black ocean. The ship
sways and rocks upon the irregular waves, but the sail still
hangs against the mast, flapping dismally upon the spars.
Suddenly the storm bursts over with frightful roar: — with
a shriek, the sails are torn asunder and fly in ribbons ! — a
loud crack ! a second, and the mainmast goes overboard !
By a violent effort the crew succeed in cutting through the
remaining ropes, and the ship now flies over the ocean —
now borne high upon the backs of the waves — now hurled
down into the depths ; so that every seam creaks and
groans as though it would part asunder. The thunder rolls
unceasingly, continuous lightning darts through the agitated
atmosphere ; the rain falls in streams instead of drops. Ten
times the sailors give themselves up for lost, w'hen the
quaking barque falls into the trough of the sea, and as many
times does it rise over the waves again. At last the storm
lulls ; single shocks follow, always at longer intervals ; the
waves become smoother, and when the consoling sun rises
in the east, it illuminates the same dreary picture as on the
former day. Mirror-like the endless surface again expands,
and in eight days is the store of collected water exhausted ;
and again the silent spectres creep about and turn mur-
derous looks upon each other. A new storm, a new calm,
and so on in frightful alternation, till at last the ship is
driven into the region of the peaceful trade-wind on the
other side of the equator. Hundreds of ships have gone
down in storms here; hundreds lost their crews by the

118

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

most frightful of deaths, that from thirst ; and those who
have passed the fearful region of calms, turn in earnest
worship to Heaven with thanks for their new-won life.

In the German legends, we read of a cavern, in which
the Dame Holle sits and brews the weather. That region
of calms and storms, is an actual Dame Holle’s Hole. The
weather of the whole world is manufactured there.

The sun, which comes twice a year to be directly
over this region, never goes far enough away from it
to allow of any cooling; and the atmosphere is here so
much heated, that it becomes thinner and lighter , and,
therefore, is always rushing upward in a continuous stream
(courant ascendant). At the same time, an incalculable
quantity of water is evaporated from the vast surfaces of
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, diffusing itself through the
warm air, and rising with it. But in proportion as the ah'
rises higher from the earth, it becomes cooled, the tempera-
ture often falling many degrees quite suddenly, and then a
large portion of the water taken up becomes suddenly preci-
pitated in the form of drops ; by this are caused great
alterations in the electrical condition of the atmosphere, and
thus arise those frightful storms so rapidly coming and
going in that region, where in general there is perfect
absence of wind, on account of the continual ascent of
the air.

Matters are differently arranged at the two borders of
this zone. The air, which is continually rising because of
the heat, leaves a space behind which contains only ex-
tremely rarefied air ; and into this space the cold air from
north and south incessantly flows with great force and
constancy. This is one of the winds of the earth, and as it
flows from the poles to the equator, we will call it the Polar
current. In the northern hemisphere, it is of course a

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

119

north wind ; in the southern, a south wind. We must
bear in mind, however, that this current or wind is only a
portion of the atmosphere in motion, and this is bound
wholly to the earth and its destiny, revolving with it, as has
already been mentioned, round the axis from west to east.
Now, this revolution, as a glance at the globe shows, takes
place with different velocities in different places. While
the ah1 at the poles only turns upon itself, without pro-
gressing forward, the air at the equator speeds on through
more than 1,000 miles in an hour. Then, if we imagine
the air from the pole to be suddenly removed to the equator,
some time must elapse before it could acquire the same ve-
locity of motion from west to east which is possessed by
the air always there ; it would remain behind, therefore, the
earth gliding away, as it were, from beneath it, or in other
words, it would have the appearance, in going from east
to west, of an east wind. Applying this to the Polar
currents, we see that the longer they blow, the nearer they
approach the equator, the more must they appear as north-
east and south-east winds. In reality, there is a region on
each side of the region of calms and storms, in which, year
after year, there blows in the northern an east-north-east, in
the southern an east-south-east wind, which all sailors know
by the name of the trade-winds.

I have now only to mention that the polar air is heavier,
colder, and drier ; that, therefore, in the north, north-east,
and east winds, (they are all one wind), the barometer
rises, the thermometer sinks and the sky becomes clearer :
and thus all the essential peculiarities of one principal
wind, the Polar current, have been named.

We must now inquire farther about the fate of the
heated air, which forms the constantly ascending stream
in the tropics. The higher it rises, the cooler it becomes,

120

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

and consequently the heavier, so that it begins to sink ;
but since the heavy, cold Polar current forms, as it were,
a firm floor underneath, it flows away over this layer
of air towards the poles, and thus forms the second great
wind prevailing over the earth, which, from its origin,
is called the Equatorial current. To us, it comes as a
south wind ; in the southern hemisphere it is, of course,
the north wind. But just as the Polar current, in its
progress towards the equator, becomes gradually changed
into an east wind, from the same cause, the stream of air
flowing from the equator to the poles, diverted in the
opposite direction, becomes gradually a west wind. The
Equatorial currents naturally possess directly opposite pecu-
liarities to the Polar currents, being lighter, warmer
and moister; they cause the fall of the barometer, the
ascent of the thermometer, and give rise to the formation
of clouds, rain and snow. By these two streams in con-
junction, a continual circulation of the whole atmosphere
is maintained, rendering it impossible that any local
influence should anywhere cause a complete consumption
of those substances, in the atmosphere, necessary to life —
oxygen and nitrogen ; or that the noxious one, carbonic
acid, should accumulate in excess. Thus is the existence
of all living nature dependent on this circulation.

At the first glance, the simple and grand features of
the fundamental laws of atmospheric changes, as I have
endeavoured to sketch them, do not seem to agree at
all with what appears to us the capricious variation of
the weather, which in virtue of that very character, is
taken as the type of changeableness and inconstancy. The
following may, perhaps, explain this apparent contradiction.
The surface of the earth may be divided into two unequal
portions, according to their meteorological phenomena :

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

121

into the region of constant weather, and the region of the
changeable. So far as the influence of the trade-winds

O

extends on each side of the tropical region, the weather
may be prophecied, almost to the day and hour, many
years beforehand. The median zone (from 2° — 4° N. L.),
is that in which nocturnal showers and storms alternate
with excessive heat and calms, without interruption,
throughout the whole year. On either side, towards
north and south, follows a zone (from 4° — 10° N. L.),
wherein such phenomena only occur in the summer ;
in the winter the trade-wind causes a rainless sky.
Next comes a zone (from 10° — 20° N. L.) in which
the incessant trade-winds allow no bedimming of the
eternal blue of heaven, and often years pass, without one
short, rapidly passing shower moistening the parched
earth. Finally, one more zone extends north and south
fi'om 20° — 30° N. L.), the boundaries of the constant
weather, in which the trade-winds cause a rainless summer,
while the winter brings a warm but not quite constant
rain. The approximative statement of the latitude relates
only to the northern hemisphere and the Atlantic Ocean,
the only place whereof we possess sufficiently accurate
observations. To these follow a zone about 24° broad, in
which a constant struggle between the Polar currents
with the returning Equatorial currents, produces a most
changeable climate, which appears to us so capricious and
accidental, because the circumstances determining the
prevalence of the one or other current in a particular
locality, are so complicated, that we have not yet been
able to deduce the law of the changes from the various
observations. Looking somewhat closely into the matter
we find the following facts. According to the statements
already made, there are but two wind-currents upon the

122

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

earth, that blowing from the poles to the equator, and
that returning to the poles. Let us imagine a place in the
region of what I have called the changeable weather, say
in Germany, and let us assume that this spot lies directlv
in the direction of the Polar current. A north wind blows,
the air is cold, the sky serene and remaining so while the
wind gradually changes, and at last appears as a true east
wind, the dry, highly oxygenated Polar air of which is so
perilous to those whose lungs are affected. This wind
blows until another replaces it, and this is none other
than the Equatorial current which always begins as a
south wind, and the meeting of this with the east pro-
duces the south-east wind, having an intermediate direc-
tion ; in this the moist, warm air of the Equatorial current
is cooled down by the cold Polar current, and constrained
to deposit part of the water it contains in the form of
clouds, snow or rain. Gradually the Equatorial current
acquires the mastery ; in the south wind it becomes warm
and bright and so remains till the Equatorial current
gradually diverges round to the west. The northern Polar
current alone can take its place at a change, and the mixture
of this with the moist ah in the north-west wind, again
gives rise to abundant atmospheric precipitation. These
are the cold, damp days in which those persons suffer so
much who have nervous complaints.

Thus it goes on, in the same order, which is now first
scientifically enounced from the long known facts, in
that which Dove has named the law of the circulation of
the wind, and we can now prophecy the weather with great
certainty even in these regions, only not for defined periods
of time, since we arc ignorant of the circumstances regulat-
ing the duration of one or other current in their strifes in
the south-east or north-west quadrants.

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

1*23

It is remarkable enough, that this changeable zone,
which might be imagined to be the least favourable to
the development of the human race, includes almost all
middle Asia, the northern coast of Africa, Europe and
North America, consequently the whole arena in which the
history of humanity and its spiritual unfolding is acted out.
Perhaps this phenomenon may be connected with the fact
that in this region such a peculiar influence is exerted on
the development of the vegetable world, that without the
aid of human activity, it cannot produce a sufficient amount
of nourishment for any considerable number of men ; and
thus, even for the satisfaction of the first and most pressing
necessity, calls upon man for mental effort. Beyond this
region, in the neighbourhood of the poles, the climate appears
again subject to simpler laws ; but from causes easily con-
ceived, we are still in want of sufficient observations in those
places, to enable us to speak of them with certainty.

Having thus, on the one hand, roughly sketched out the
distribution of the weather on the earth, and found the
simple laws which cause its variations, we must not, on the
other side, forget that this regular distribution would only
hold good for an earth, the surface of which was every
where uniform, which was either wholly covered with water
or clothed with a smooth, even layer of earth. But this is
not the case here ; and the distinctions between sea and
land, plain and mountain, bare sandy deserts and densely-
wooded tracts, &c., cause so many interruptions in the
action of those simple laws, that it was long before the
simple basis was perceived through the complicated con-
ditions which had been enumerated. Alexander von Hum-
boldt it was, who thus became the discoverer of scientific
Meteorology, and Dove he who, with eminent talent, first
developed the system on all its sides.

124

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

The peculiar distribution of land and water upon the
globe, is one of the most important influences which essen-
tially modify the simple regularity of the distribution of
the weather. Land, when exposed to the rays of the sun,
becomes warm much more rapidly, and acquires a far
higher temperature than water, which, however, once
warmed, for the same reason cools the more slowly. The
immediate consequence of this is, that the hottest zone, the
region of the calms, is not divided into two equal parts by
the equator, but on account of the greater quantity of land
in the northern half, lies wholly on this side. This pro-
jection towards the north is most striking in the Indian
Ocean, where the north-east trade-wind blows in winter, but
in summer is wholly supplanted and replaced by the over-
powering south-east trade-wind. But on account of the
revolution of the earth, this must deviate to the west so
soon as it passes the equator, and thus the two trade-
winds are here formed, the north-east and south-
west winds, regularly alternating every six months,
which are called by sailors the monsoons. To us Euro-
peans, however, it is a fact . of greater importance and
interest, that by the great Sahara so intensely heated
by the sun, the region of calms, and therefore that of the
Polar current or trade-wind, is pushed farther northward
into the south of Europe; so that the returning, warm
Equatorial current does not reach the ground nearly so far
south as is the case in Asia and America ; or when it
descends early, as the Sirocco in Italy, or as the Fohn
in Switzerland, it is much hotter than elsewhere. It is
principally on this account, that Europe has a mild climate
so much farther toward the pole, than any other place in
the same latitude. While Rye is still cultivated in Ranen-
fiord in Norway, the same latitude of North America is

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

125

bound in snow and ice almost throughout the whole
summer. While Wheat yet grows at Drontheim, at
Hudson’s Bay, in the same latitude, no human settlements
are possible ; and in Siberia, under the same parallel, the
soil is scarcely thawed two feet deep in the height of
summer. Drontheim has pretty nearly the temperature of
Canada, which lies further south than Paris. In New
York, which is in the same latitude with Naples, the trees
begin to blossom at the same time as in Upsala. Spitz-
bergen has a kind of short summer, while, on a warm
summer’s day in Melville’s Island, three degrees more south,
the thermometer is at zero of Fahrenheit.

The circumstance in question, however, is not the only
one which Europe has to thank for this pre-eminence.
There is yet another force, which takes, and by no means
an inconsiderable, part in the distribution of heat, and there-
fore of the weather, on the globe. I allude to the currents
of water in the great Oceans. The elevation of the
temperature by the equatorial sun, produces exactly
similar phenomena here to those in the aerial ocean ;
here two Polar currents are caused, which carry the
cold water to the line, and returning Equatorial currents,
which bring back the warmer water to the poles.
These currents, enclosed in beds of firm land, hindered or
assisted in their course by submarine mountain-chains, are
naturally much more diverted from the regularity which
they should follow from the producing principle, than the
unfettered air-currents, which often rush over the summits
of the highest mountains. One of these returning Equa-
torial currents, the water of which is, as it were, heated in
a kettle in the Gulf of Mexico, flows in a north-easterly
direction straight to the west coast of Europe, and brings
hither the warmth which it has acquired on the coast of

126

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

Tampico and Vera Cruz. This is the Gulf-stream, which
carries vessels with the speed of more than six miles an
hour from the rock-hound Cape Hatteras to the stormy
Bay of Biscay, and drifts the products of the West India
Islands even to the coast of Ireland.

Another consequence of the unequal warming of land
and sea, is a phenomenon which all coasts exhibit,
namely, during the day a strong breeze blows from
the cooler sea to the heated land, a “ land-wind in
the evening, in the so-called “ sea-wind,” a current arises
from the rapidly cooling land towards the sea, which
retains the heat longer. In the evening the mariner leaves
the safe harbour, those departing find consolation in the
arms of sleep ; in the morning the sailor steers for port,
and he whose home again greets him after a lengthened
absence, sees it in the glance of the rising sun.

It would lead me too far here, were I to attempt to
unfold all the circumstances which act in concert, to
impress upon the simple regular progress of meteorological
phenomena, the countless minor deviations which give
the local character to the climate of every spot. But I
must mention, if I cannot thoroughly explain, one other
of the most important phenomena connected with the
regulation of the weather.

We have seen that heat and its varied distribution
according to latitude and longitude, height and depth, is
the peculiar fundamental phenomenon, around which the
others group themselves, upon which they are dependant.
Most intimately is the degree of moisture of the air con-
nected with it, and warmth and moisture are the primary
conditions of all vegetable life. On those two principal
forces, therefore, hangs almost entirely the distribution
of plants over the earth. The animal world follows

ABOUT TIIE WEATHER.

127

the plants, since the vegetable feeders are directly, the
Carnivora indirectly connected with determinate forma-
tions of plants. So that heat and cold are not the
only consequences of the position of the sun in regard
to the earth, but also the whole life existent thereon :
the action of its mightiest forces in the raging hurricane,
which hurls four-and-twenty pounders through the air,#
to the invisible labour of the most minute Infusorium ; the
roar of the Chilian Pine, and the low whisper of the nor-
thern Birch, from the roar of the lion, the slayer of the gazelle,
even to the pipe of the mouse-hunting screech owl, whose
discordant note the awakened sleeper’s superstition interprets
as “ komm mit, komm mit” (come with me.) The fox and
tiger point to the barn-door fowl and the giraffe, these
to Barley fields and Acacia groves, these again to the
corresponding zones of Europe and to the glowing
savannahs of Africa. On the sun depend not only

vitality and motion, but also the first arrangement,
and its shining rays are the pencils with which it paints
the light and shade, the glowing yellow of the arid
sand, the cool green of the moist meadow, with which it
lays down the geography of plants and animals upon the
surface of the earth, and even sketches the design of an
ethnographic chart of the human race.

And when we look beneath into the internal con-
nection— when we perceive that all the elements pre-
vailing over the rest, perhaps nowhere appear so irre-
gular and abnormal as in our Europe, while a part of
the tropical regions intelligibly expresses every funda-
mental law, when we thus find the thing which causes

* Report of General Baudrand on the hurricane at Guadaloupe,
on the 25th of July, 1825.

128

ABOUT THE WEATHER.

the progress of all studies, the understanding of Nature,
is scarcely possible except in foreign regions, we gain the
explanation of another phenomenon in the history of Man-
kind, which at first appears enigmatical and inexplicable,
namely, the fact that in every study having the most
remote connexion with Natural Science, and particularly
in this itself, all progress is most intimately dependant
on the extension of our geographical knowledge, that the
Naturalist though constantly encompassed by one Nature,
knows no higher enjoyment than travel, that he often
even with mistaken contempt for that which his own
neighbourhood affords, grasps at exotic treasures, that
hot-houses and herbaria have become indispensible to the
Botanist, and Zoological gardens and collections to the
Zoologist.

Had I wished to give a more adequate representation,
I could but trace out a hasty sketch of the great
picture teeming with fife ; let me hope that I have suc-
ceeded at least in making out the principal features with
sufficient clearness and distinctness. In any case, I have
so managed matters, that if the question be asked, “ Was
it interesting ?” the answer will be, with a shrug, “ Well
now, he talked of nothing but the Weather.”

Sixtfj ffcutttrt.

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

FIRST REPLY.

"» 'WW' r'

“ The fool, indeed, nought earthly eats nor drinks.”

FAUST.

9

LECTURE VI.

When we ask the student why he broods over the most
abstract problems in his solitary chamber, far from all the
enjoyments of life — the soldier why he has allowed himself
to be subjected to the toil and dust of the hard recruit
school — the hustling merchant, to what purpose he early
and late strives to equalize demand and supply over the
earth by his activity — nay, even when we inquire of the
criminal the cause which led him boldly to dare a shameful
death, we receive one answer from all, which though
clothed in the particular language of each, is ever essentially
the same : “ What can we do ? we cannot help it ; a man
cannot live upon air.” This answer appears to every one
to afford an explanation ; and even the stern judge is so
convinced of the validity of this plea, that he allows hunger
to be a good ground for showing mercy in certain cases.

But then comes the Naturalist, an impracticable kind of
man, who will recognize no authority, and who believes in
nothing hut what he can grasp in his hand, and says,
“ You foolish people, man can very well live upon air ; nay,
in point of fact, he does live on air alone, and nothing else

9*

132

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

whatever.” This seems a very presumptuous speech to the
Theologian ; he reminds us angrily : “ Man, bethink thyself
of thine end ; from dust thou earnest, and to dust mast
again return.” “ What nonsense !” cries the Naturalist
with a laugh ; “ that were a strange metamorphosis of
matter ! Out of air we were created, and at our dissolu-
tion we shall return unto it.” This vexes the moralist,
and he thinks that the reproachful term of “ windy
boaster” is once more to he proposed as the general title
of honour of mankind. The Naturalist now pauses. At
bottom it is by no means his wash to affront all these good
gentlemen. However, the paradox has been uttered, and
he must see how he can make it good.

What do men really live upon ? The answers will be
various enough. The Gaucho who in the vide Pampas
of Buenos Ayres, managing his half-wild horse with incre-
dible dexterity, throws the lasso or bolas to catch the
Ostrich, the Guanaco, or the Wild-bull, consumes daily
from ten to twelve pounds of meat, and regards it as a
high feast-day, when in any hacienda he gains a variety-
in the shape of a morsel of pumpkin. The word bread
does not exist in his vocabulary. The Irishman, on the
other hand, regales .himself in careless mirth on his
“ potatoes and point,” after a day of painful labour — he
who cannot help making a joke even of the name he gives
to his scanty meal. Meat is a strange idea to him, and he
is happy indeed, if four times a year he can add a herring
to season the mealy tubers. The hunter of the Prairies
lays low the Buffalo with sure bullet ; and its juicy, fat-
streaked hump, roasted between two hot stones, is to him
the greatest of delicacies. Meanwhile, the industrious
Chinese carries to market his carefully fattened Rats, deli-
cately arranged upon white sticks, certain to find a good

FIRST REPLY.

133

customer among the epicures of Pekin ; and in his hot,
smoky hut, fast buried beneath the snow and ice, the
Greenlander consumes his fat, which he has just carved,
rejoicing over the costly prize, from a stranded Whale.
Here the black slave sucks the Sugar-cane and eats his
Banana, there the African merchant fills his wallet with
sweet Dates, his sole sustenance in the long desert journey ;
and there the Siamese crams himself with a quantity of
Rice, from which an European would shrink appalled.
And wheresoever over the whole inhabited earth we
approach and demand hospitality, in almost every little
spot a different kind of food is set before us, and the
“ daily bread” offered in another form.

But, we may ask, is Man then really so versatile a being,
that he can build the visible house of his spirit, in the
same way, out of the most varied materials? Or do all
those so varied kinds of nourishment contain one or a few
similar matters, which peculiarly serve for the food of man-
kind ? The latter is actually the fact of the matter.

“ Four elements
In one firm band.

Give form to life.

Build sea and land.”

SCHILLER.

The whole of that by which we are surrounded, is com-
posed of a very few, somewhere about fifty-three, elementary
substances, which have been gradually discovered by
chemists. But among these there are four especial ones,
which alone take an essential share in the composition of
all that which we call organic or living existence. Nitrogen
and oxygen form the two most important constituents of pure
atmospheric air ; oxygen and hydrogen are the two elements
by the combination of which water is produced ; carbon

134

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

and oxygen, by their combination in carbonic acid (fixed air),
render the Grotto del Cane, at Naples, and the vapour
caverns in Pyrmont, torture-chambers for the poor dogs ;
lastly, nitrogen and hydrogen unite to form ammonia, the
volatile alkali, a kind of air which streams forth in enor-
mous quantity from those chimneys of subterranean fires —
the volcanoes. Here we have the four elements, carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, which, in combination,
form all those substances of which plants and animals are
composed ; hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, being airs or
gases, carbon a solid substance, which in its crystalline form
we call diamond.* At the same time, too, we here men-
tion the most important and most generally diffused
compounds of these elements, namely, the usually fluid
water, which, however, is contained in large quantity7 by
the air, in the form of vapour ; also carbonic acid and
ammonia, both of which occur as gases in the atmosphere.
On the examination of these three compounds of these
four elements turns the whole study of vegetable and
animal life.

Our atmosphere is a mixture of about a of nitrogen
with i of oxygen, to which are added about iroVo part of
carbonic acid, and a yet undetermined quantity of ammonia.
Since we have, through Priestley, come to know oxygen,
and to comprehend its importance to respiration, we believe
that we are able to ascertain the goodness of air by deter-
mining the quantity of oxygen it contains. A peculiar
science, Eudiometry, has thus originated, which chiefly
concerns itself with the estimation of the relation of oxygen
and nitrogen in air ; the methods have gradually acquired
greater clearness and accuracy, and by these means it has

* See Dumas and Boussingault, “ The Chemical and Physiological
Balance of Organic Nature,” 12mo. London, 1S44.

FIRST REPLY.

135

been discovered, that even to its thousandth parts, the air,
wheresoever it has been examined, has always the same
composition.

But conclusions relating to the vital processes of plants
and animals have been very hastily deduced from this
constant composition of the atmosphere. Our atmosphere,
according to Poggendorf’s estimate, contains about 1 ,954,5 7 8
cubic geographical miles of oxygen, while the respiration
of man and animals, together with the various processes
of combustion, consume annually about 2| cubic miles ;
consequently 250 cubic miles in a hundred years, or only
nearly a ten-thousandth part. Our instruments, however,
would not mark a diminution of so small an extent, even
were they ever so accurately constructed, and carefully used
for centuries. Our methods of determining the amount of
carbonic acid in the air admit of far greater accuracy, and
a much more certain estimate has thus been obtained,
applicable, as will subsequently be seen, to the same deduc-
tions. In respiration, for every cubic inch of oxygen he
inspires, a man expires a cubic inch of carbonic acid, and
exactly the same exchange occurs in processes of combus-
tion. According to this assumption, about 12,500 cubic
geographical miles of carbonic acid have been breathed out
into the air in the course of five thousand years, leaving
out of the question the vast quantity which yearly streams
forth out of volcanoes. The carbonic acid in the air, there-
fore, should be in proportion to oxygen as 1 to 155, while
in reality, it amounts to but one-fourth per cent. It is
clear from this, that some process must exist by which the
carbonic acid is extracted from the air, and brought into
some other combination.

Oxygen lias the property of combining readily with
other substances, especially with carbon and hydrogen ; a
process which chemists call combustion, even though it is

136

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

not always accompanied by the production of light, but in
which a quantity of heat, bearing a definite proportion to
the amount of oxygen consumed, is always liberated.
Nitrogen, on the other hand, has but small affinity for
the other substances ; it is scarcely combustible, but readily
unites with hydrogen to form ammonia.

The four elements under consideration form numerous
compounds by their union one with another ; but only two
classes of these have a very deep importance in relation to
the organic world. One of the classes comprehends the
substances which are compounded of all four elements.
This includes albumen, fibrine, caseine, and gelatine. All
animal bodies are formed out of these substances, which
when separated from them as dead matter, all pass rapidly
by decomposition into water, ammonia, and carbonic acid,
which are diffused through the air. The second class, on
the other hand, includes the substances devoid of nitrogen,
namely gum, sugar, starch, the liquors prepared from
them, such as spirit, wine, beer, and, lastly, all the various
kinds of fat.* All these merely pass through the animal
body, since the carbon and hydrogen are burnt off by
means of the oxygen received in respiration, and are expired
as carbonic acid and water. By this slow but uninterrupted
process of combustion is maintained the heat indispensible
to life. But by the recent brilliant discoveries in chemistry
and physiology, we have become aware that the animal
body is incapable of composing from their elements, or of
forming from any other substance excepting caseine, the
substances, albumen, fibrine, &c., absolutely necessary to its
development and support ; that the animal must indeed
receive substances ready prepared, in order to apply them
to its nutrition, or to convert them into gelatine for the

* See Mitchell’s “ Treatise on the Adulterations of Food, and the
Chemical means to detect them,” 12mo. London, 1848.

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137

formation of its bony structures. Albumen, fibrine and
caseine, are therefore rightly named by Liebig the exclusive
materials for nutrition ; they cannot be replaced by any
other substance ; when they are entirely withheld, the body
must necessarily die of starvation. But the components
devoid of nitrogen must, also be present, as it were for fuel
on the hearth of organic life ; and these substances, which
are in common life also called food, Liebig appropriately
denominates materials for respiration. Comparing these
requisitions, which the animal body makes in behalf of its
maintenance, with the contents of plants which serve for
the food of man and animals, we find in all plants, in all
then- organs, a certain amount of albumen dissolved in the
juices. In the inestimable gifts of Ceres, in the seeds of
the various kinds of grain, there always occurs more or less
of a substance which was formerly called gluten. Liebig*
and Mulder have pointed out that this resembles a mixture
of gelatine and animal fibrine. The earlier chemists disco-
vered in the Pulses a substance, which from the family in
which it was found, the Leguminosce, was called legumine.
We now know, from more recent researches, that this is in
no way different from animal caseine. Legumine and
gluten, or caseine and fibrine, possibly occur in small
quantity in the cells of all plants.

The second class, the substances devoid of nitrogen, or ma-
terials for respiration, are no less widely distributed throughout
the vegetable world. When we review all the nutritive sub-
stances which mankind obtains from the vegetable kingdom,
we find three groups, the first of which is remarkable for the
great quantity of starch contained in the plants composing
it. To this group belong the Cereals and Pulses, the

* See Liebig, “ Chemistry and Physics in relation to Physiology
and Pathology,” 8vo. London, 1847.

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

tuberous vegetables, Potatoes, Sow-breads, Mandioc, Yams,
and Tara ('Colocasia ?J, and lastly, the parenchymatous
stems of the Cycadese and Palms, which furnish Sago.
The second group includes the fruits rich in sugar and
gum, which owe their peculiar cooling properties to malic,
citric and tartaric acids, and their delicious flavours to the
presence of a small quantity of an aromatic substance ; in
addition to our well-known fruits, appear especially the
Date, the Banana, and the Bread-fruit, the Sugar-cane,
with its juicy stem, and lastly, the saccharine and gummy,
fleshy roots, which constitute so large a proportion of our
kitchen vegetables. Finally, the third class consists of the
oleaginous kernels of various fruits ; the Cocoa-nut, the
nut of the Chilian Pine, the Brazil-nut, and the many kinds
of nut or almond which in Europe pay their tribute, either
to hunger or the satisfaction of the palate. Neither must
we here forget to enumerate the many beverages, which
are almost all derived from the vegetable kingdom. The
European cultivates the Vine wherever the climatal
conditions do not render it impossible. Cyder, Beer
and ardent Spirits are widely distributed. A peculiar
problem, indeed, is presented to the psychologist in the
remarkable circumstance, that wheresoever the human race
is found, in the highest condition of civilization as in the
first dawnings of culture (with the exception, perhaps, of
some few races, almost more like animals than men), the
custom ever exists, of transporting themselves by various
means into a higher condition of mental activity, which in
its excessive and evil phenomena is called drunkenness.
The Maguey-wine, or Pulque, of the Mexicans, the Palm-
wine of the Chilians, the beverage prepared from Maize
by the inhabitants of the countries of the Orinoco
and Amazon, lastly, the Kumiss of the Tartars, prepared

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139

from the milk of mares, all so far resemble our drinks,
that in all, the intoxicating principle is spirit produced by
the fermentation of sugar or starch.* The action of the
Cocca, the leaf of an American tree ( Erythroxylon coca )
is altogether unknown. The greatest enjoyment of the
Permian “ muletero” consists in chewing these leaves and
thereby producing a dreamy stupor, in which, without
being drunk, but merely in a state of agreeable lassitude,
he passes the whole day in inaction. The use of the
Amanita muscaria by the inhabitants of northern Siberia,
the smoking of Opium by the southern Asiatics, of the
Hashish, or Hemp-extract, by the northern and southern
Africans, and lastly, the drink which the South Sea
Islanders prepare from a particular kind of Pepper ( Piper
methysticum ), are actual narcotic poisonings, which by
frequent repetition, very quickly cause the destruction of
the physical frame. With all these means of increasing
(and at first with agreeable results), the activity of the
mind, and especially of the imagination, by influence upon
the body, war was very recently declared by two individuals,
with, however, very different results. One fought with
material weapons and was vanquished, namely, the Em-
peror of China; the other gained a victory every day by
the power of the mind ; I mean the dauntless Apostle of
Temperance, the pious Father Mathew. The latter has
allowed, in compensation for the renunciation he demands,
another drink, which we have borrowed from the Chinese.
Whether this beverage, Tea, is actually a harmless substi-
tute, it perhaps remains for more accurate investigations
than have hitherto been made to determine, and these
I cannot pause to consider here. But I cannot refrain
from calling attention in this place to a most interesting
and as yet unsolved physiological problem.

Tre atise on the Adulteration of Food.”

140

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

In the year 1554 a violent tumult arose in Constan-
tinople ; the chiefs of the priests attacked the Sultan and
threatened him with all the terrors which their office placed
at their command, the reason being the brilliant success of
the first coffee-houses, which were in that year opened.
These were crowded all day, while the mosques were almost
deserted. The Sultan relieved himself from the difficultly
by the means most profitable to himself; he laid a heavy
tax upon the coffee-houses, and thus, quieting the Muftis,
obtained a considerable revenue ; for in spite of this, the
use of coffee spread with wonderful rapidity over Europe.
In 1652, the Greek, Pasqua, opened the first London
coffee-house in George Yard, Lombard Street, (according
to McCulloch, in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, in the place
where the Virginia coffee-house lately stood) ; and in 1671,
the first in Marseilles was established. The present pro-
duction is probably about 250,000 tons, while a hundred
and fifty years ago, it scarcely exceeded 5,000. In 1820,
A. von Humboldt estimated the consumption in Europe at
75,000 tons, valued at £4,500,000 ; while the value of
the present consumption of 125,000 tons, does not perhaps
reach £3,700,000. Whence came this custom of drink-
ing Coffee ? Who discovered the precious substance ? We
know not. We find the most trustworthy account in the
work of the Scheikh Abd-Alkader-Ebn-Mohammed, dated
in the year 1566, which has been published by Sylvestre
de Sacy in his “ Chrestomathie Arabe,” and which bears
the title of: “ The Prop of Innocence, in reference to the
lawfulness of Coffee.”

According to this account, the very learned and pious
Scheikh Djemal-eddin-Ebn-Abou-Alfaggar introduced the
drinking of Coffee in the beginning of the fifteenth century,
into Aden, the city which has in recent times acquired such
great political importance, and from thence it soon spread

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141

to Mecca and Medina. He himself became acquainted
with this beverage in Abyssinia, where it had been known
from time immemorial. The common notion, therefore,
that Coffee was originally indigenous in Arabia, is altogether
incorrect. At that tune, a decoction of the roasted shells
was as often drunk as that of what from the Arabian word
Bounn are called the Beans. The beverage was in both
cases called Kahwa. Wise men, like, for instance, Tad-
jeddin-Ebn-Jacoub, even at that time, recommended cold
water to be drunk with the Coffee, to prevent the sleepless-
ness resulting from its use. But this was in direct oppo-
sition to the cause of the introduction of Coffee. It was
used by those who wished to keep themselves awake during
the holy nights of prayer. The Coffee was originally drawn
from a large brown vessel into small cups, which were
handed round, more particularly during religious services,
and this affords a ready explanation of why this beverage
immediately became, to some of the orthodox Mahometans
an object of enmity, and above all, a subject for exceedingly
learned theological researches. The opposers of Coffee went
even so far as to affirm that the countenances of those who
drank Coffee, would, on the day of resurrection, appear blacker
than the Coffee-grounds. Since, however according to
the Koran, women do not enter Paradise, they may
indulge without fear in the enjoyment of their favourite
beverage.

According to the other accounts published by Abd- -
Alkader-Ebn-Mohammed, it appears also that the custom
of Coffee-drinking goes back beyond the time of historical
record in Abyssinia, and that in Arabia even, Coffee only
supplanted a drink of similar properties, the Cafta, made
from the leaves of the Cat ( Celaslrus edulis, Forsk)., the

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

use of which they also inherited from their ancestors,
without any account of its origin.

When the Spaniards first landed in Mexico, they became
acquainted with a native beverage, which had been used
from time immemorial, called by the natives Chocollatl,
and prepared from the seeds of a tree, which they named
Cacahoaquahuitl (Cacao-tree). Wherever the Spanish
dominion has subsequently extended to, there also has the
use of Chocolate reached, and the rest of Europe has
asserted an abundant claim to a share in this new
beverage.

In the commencement of the seventeenth century, a
quantity of carefully-packed, dried green leaves, were pre-
sented to a Russian Embassy in China, in return for their
gifts of splendid sable furs, and even forced upon them in
spite of their protestations against such useless wares. But
when they brought the same to Moscow, and had them
prepared according to the directions, the Tea, for such it was,
found equally great approval. Almost at the same time,
the Dutch East India Company attempted to sell to the
Chinese, Sage, which at that time was used as Tea is now,
and they obtained in exchange Chinese tea. In 1664, the
English East India Company considered that they made a
brilliant present to the Queen of England, in the shape
of two pounds of Tea. The use of Tea as a beverage in
China, goes back to the earliest periods, and the traditions
speak of it distinctly so early as the third century. The
oldest Chinese legend reminds one strongly of the course of
the introduction of Coffee into Arabia. It narrates : “ A
pious hermit, who in his watchings and prayers had often
been overtaken by sleep, so that his eyelids closed, in holy
wrath against the weakness of the flesh, cut them oft and

FIRST REPLY.

143

threw them on the ground. But a god caused a Tea-shrub
to spring out of them, the leaves of which exhibit the form
of an eyelid bordered with lashes, and possess the gift of hin-
dering sleep.” At the period when the Europeans first became
acquainted with it, it was already spread generally over the
whole of south-eastern Asia, and Europe did not long
remain behind its teachers. No less than 25,000 tons are

A t

annually exported by sea from China ; over Kiachta some
5,000; to Thibet, India, &c., perhaps nearly 15,000. In
China and Japan themselves, certainly 200,000 tons are
consumed, so that the whole produce is not over-estimated
at 250,000 tons.

With the same passion with which the Chinese takes
his Tea, the Brazilian and almost the whole population of
South America rejoice in their Mate, or Paraguay tea, the
leaves of a Brazilian Holly (Ilex Paraguay ensis ), which is
sometimes confounded with the Camini, the leaves of the
Cassine Gongonha, or with the Guarana, a kind of Coffee,
prepared from the seeds of Paullinia sorbilis. The use
of Mate also has been a custom in Brazil from time
immemorial.

Thus have all these beverages become everywhere neces-
saries of life ; everywhere is the origin of their use
enveloped in mythical obscurity; everywhere has man,
not led by rational considerations, by knowledge of the
properties and action, or by comparison of them with
already known nutritive substances, but, as it were, instinc-
tively added them to the number of his daily wants.

On account of the importance of the substance itself,
and of the interest which must naturally have been excited
by the considerations just alluded to, Chemistry has sought
to know how far it is able to contribute to the explanation
of these strange phenomena. The result has proved con-

144

WIIAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

trary to all expectation, and has only still more entangled
the problem. Oudry found in Tea a substance crystal-
lizing in delicate white needles, which he called Theine,
and the quantity of which amounted to about £ per cent.
Even earlier, in 1820, Runge had detected in Coffee, a
substance in fine crystals, with a silky lustre, of which there
was scarcely i per cent. Runge named it Caffeine.
Another inquirer found in Cacao, Theobromine in smaller
quantity ; then theine was shown to exist in Mate, caffeine
in Guarana ; and finally, more accurate researches demon-
strated that theine and caffeine are one and the same
substance, which is distinguished from all other known
vegetable substances by the extraordinarily large proportion
of nitrogen it contains, and that theobromine if not iden-
tical, is most intimately related to it. Is it not in the
highest degree remarkable, that a proportion, even though
only very small, of one and the same peculiar substance,
occurs in all these beverages, which have with such striking
rapidity become necessaries of life over the whole inhabited
globe ? A remarkable problem, from the solution of which
we are still so far the more distant, that the experiments
hitherto instituted by physicians and chemists, have as yet
furnished no evidence of a special action resulting from the
administration of large quantities of pure theine; the
substance, therefore, appears devoid of any striking action
on the animal economy.

I return from this digression, which, however, is not
altogether foreign to the main question, to my peculiar
subject. Man requires for his nutrition three principal
substances, rich in nitrogen, fibrine, caseine, and albumen ;
and these occur not only in the animal kingdom, but are
generally distributed in the vegetable world. Further, for
the maintenance of respiration, and therefore of heat, lie

FIRST REPLY.

145

consumes a certain quantity of substances devoid of nitro-
gen, which are afforded him both by the fat of animals,
and, in the greatest abundance, by the majority and most
widely distributed of the vegetable substances.

We now readily comprehend some of the most
striking phenomena of the mode of respiration of man
and animals. Nations of hunters and carnivorous ani-
mals, require a large quantity of their usually fatty
nourishment. In violent corporeal activity, they first
decompose then nitrogenous food into two constituents,
one containing the whole of the nitrogen, another which
contains a part of the carbon and hydrogen, and the latter
is applied to the purposes of respiration, since on account
of the incombustibility of nitrogen, the nitrogenous sub-
stances are not fitted for it. Hence comes the explanation
of the inquiet, restlessly active habits of the rapacious
animals, as of the hunter, since only by violent efforts of
the body can they decompose so much nitrogenous food,
and furnish the necessary material for the respiratory pro-
cess. The great quantity of nutriment which such a mode
of life requires, is likewise explained by this, particularly as
much more animal life is usually destroyed than imme-
diately corresponds to the requirements of nutrition. From
both causes the carnivorous animals, as well as the
nations of hunters, require an extended area for their
existence, and this condition always necessitates scanty
population.

Where the breeding of cattle is carried on, we have a
transitional state, since Man here makes use of the domestic
animals to provide himself, in addition to meat, with the
substances devoid of nitrogen, in the constituents of milk
and the rich fat of the domestic animals, which is almost
wholly absent in the wild kinds.

10

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

But a skilful agricultural people leads the most judicious
life, mingling the nutriment exactly in the same proportions
as Nature has mixed it for the suckling in milk. For this
contains the nitrogenous nourishment in the caseine, and
the material for respiration, in the most accurate propor-
tions, in the butter and the sugar of milk. We meet with
the other extreme among the nations which, as in the
East Indian races, the Negroes and the inhabitants of
certain tracts in Europe, live wholly on rice, bananas,
potatoes, or similar vegetable substances, in which very
little nitrogenous matter exists. Hence the enormous
quantity which these nations are forced to take, in order to
collect the necessary amount of actual nourishment from
the mass of material for respiration. These nations ap-
proach those of our domestic animals bring wholly upon
vegetables and the rest of the vegetable feeders, which pass
the whole of their life in feeding and sleeping, and must
necessarily consume a great quantity of food, because only
a relatively small quantity of actual nutriment is contained
in it. Finally, in the Polar regions in general, we find an
immoderate consumption of fat inseparably united with the
habits of life in these climates. This instinct also is very
readily expbcable from the foregoing considerations. Here
man must produce a greater quantity of heat in order to
live, and requires thereto a larger amount of combustible
matter, or fuel. For this purpose there could scarcely be
any substance so appbcable as the fat of animals, which
always consists solely of carbon and hydrogen.

Our investigations have thus led us to recognize that
the whole animal world lives upon the vegetable kingdom,
either immediately by actual vegetable food, or mediately by
the vegetable feeders collecting the peculiar nutritive matters
for the carnivora, from the plants, depositing the material

FIRST REPLY.

147

for respiration, which contains no nitrogen, in the form of
fat. But we do not arrive at the conclusion of our inquiries
here ; for now the question comes : What do plants live
upon?

The reply to this question comprehends the subject of
the most lively discussion that has occupied science in recent
times ; it includes the theory of the most important mode
of applying his industry that Man has invented, namely
Agriculture. The correct solution of this question had
already been in part found by vegetable physiologists and
chemists, in the middle of the last century, and has been
subsequently undergoing more minute development by
particular individuals, but was first asserted with so much
liveliness and clearness in the present times by Liebig, that
an active and universal strife has been stirred up, which
will end in the general recognition of the true basis, and its
introduction as new-found letters into the A B C of
science.

In the first place we must ask, what is the plant com-
posed of? Disregarding for the moment, as we did in
regard to the animals, the inorganic constituents, the earths
and salts, the answer has been already given in the fore-
going account of the two classes of substances. The body
of the plant is made up of constituents which contain no
nitrogen, namely of cellulose and vegetable jelly, which
have altogether similar composition with the other matters,
sugar, gum, and starch, and are only different from
the various fatty and waxy substances, in that the latter
contain a smaller proportion of oxygen. But besides these,
the plant requires nitrogenous matters ; not indeed to form
part of its frame, but to give rise to those chemical processes,
through which the transformation of the nutrient matter
which has been taken up, is effected. The inquiry into

10#

148

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

the nutrition of the plant includes, therefore, the inquiry
into the sources of carbon and nitrogen ; oxygen and
hydrogen being sufficiently provided by water and atmo-
spheric air. The notion which has hitherto been generally
received, is, that the plant extracts its carbon and nitrogen
from manure, or from the humus of the soil.

All animal and vegetable bodies, so soon as they are
dead, pass over into a state of decomposition, by means of
which they are dissipated, sooner or later, in the atmo-
sphere, being changed into carbonic acid, ammonia and
water. So long as this process is incomplete, a residue,
itself much altered, of a brownish or black colour, remains,
which at the commencement of the decomposition is called
manure, and toward its close, humus or vegetable mould.
It is a complex mixture of very manifold products of
decomposition. Now it was argued thus : carbon and
nitrogen are abundant in humus ; in a soil that is rich in
humus or is well manured, plants thrive better than in one
which is poor in humus ; consequently, humus is the source
of the carbon and nitrogen of plants. But this reasoning
is altogether inconclusive.

There was a period of our earth’s existence when yet no
vegetation clothed its solid crust, in which no animal lived, in
which no humus could possibly be present. From this soil,
devoid of humus, gradually developed vegetation, in such vast
quantity, in such gigantic luxuriance, that the same, buried
and preserved for us by subsequent revolutions, assumes a
most essential place in human economy in the present day ;
I mean the vegetation of one of the oldest geognostic. forma-
tions— the coal period. The annual consumption of coal in
Europe amounts to more than 33,875,000 tons, and
geognosy shows that, even if the consumption of coal
should increase, (lie store will certainly last for five him-

FIRST REPLY.

149

dred years longer. Such a store corresponds to about
12,025,000,000 tons of carbon, which these plants evi-
dently could not have acquired from the soil of the ancient
world, in which no humus existed. That unsound argu-
ment does, in fact, silently pre-suppose the following
hypothesis :

“ There exists on the earth a definite quantity of organic
matter, which circulates between the vegetable and animal
kingdoms; the decaying animal serves as nutriment to
the plant, and the developed plant again to the animal.”

Now this might certainly be the case if the putrefactive
process did not come between, through which undoubtedly
at least a portion of the organic matter is continually being
withdrawn from the pretended circle, and dissipated in the
atmosphere in the shape of inorganic compounds, carbonic
acid and ammonia. In the course of thousands of years,
the organic substance, which it is thus assumed was at
once created with the earth, must have long since been
used up. But we find exactly the contrary. Equally in
the course of the great geognostic periods, and in the course
of the history of the earth beginning with mankind, there
is seen, in the former from period to period, in the latter
from century to century, an ever-increasing fulness of
organic life, an incessant multiplication in the animal and
in the vegetable world. Whence springs this, if there is
no process by which the inorganic matter is carried over
into the circle of the organic ? On the other hand, we
may easily imagine what enormous quantities of ammonia
and carbonic acid must have been poured forth into the air
during the thousands of years, by respiration and combus-
tion, from the decomposition of so many thousand millions
of animal and vegetable bodies, and by the continual flow
from the great volcanoes ; while the fact is, that ammonia

150

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

only occurs in exceedingly small, uncertain quantities, and
carbonic acid takes a definite but exceedingly small share
in the composition of the atmosphere. There must, there-
fore, exist a regular and invariable drain, by which those
matters are withdrawn again from the atmosphere and
re-embodied in the organic world. And we can demon-
strate this both on a large scale and on a small, in portions
of the world and in still smaller spheres.

In the Pampas of South America, existed, at the period
of their occupation by the Spaniards, the same thirsty
vegetation of the steppes as at present — excepting that the
immediate vicinity of the towns has been altered by the
running wild of the great Pampas Thistle and the Arti-
choke— the same scanty population, the same quantity of
indigenous animals that now wander over its desert plains.
The Spaniards introduced the horse and neat cattle, and
these multiplied in incredibly short time in such profusion,
that Monte Video alone annually exports 300,000 ox
hides ; that the military expeditions of General Rosa cost
many hundred thousand horses, without any diminution
becoming observable.

The native organic life and its quantity have, therefore,
since the discovery by the Spaniards, not diminished, but
importantly increased, and millions of pounds of carbon
and nitrogen, combined into organic substances, have been
exported in the trade in hides, without the land receiving
the smallest appreciable return of organic matter. Where
could these masses have come from, if not from the atmo-
sphere ? If wre leave out of view all the other constituents
of tea, China exports more than 300,000 lbs. of nitrogen
in the half per cent of theine, without receiving any con-
siderable return. From forests maintained in good con-
dition, we annually obtain about 4,000 lbs. of dry wood

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151

per acre, which contain about 1,600 lbs. of carbon. But
we do not manure the soil of the forests, and its supply
of humus, far from being exhausted, increases considerably
from year to year, from the breakage by wind and from
the fall of the leaf. The hay-maker of Switzerland and
Tyrol mows his definite amount of grass every year on the
Alps, inaccessible to cattle, and gives not back the smallest
quantity of organic substance to the soil. Whence comes
this hay, if not from the atmosphere ? The plant requires
carbon and nitrogen, and in South America, in the woods
and on the wild Alps, there is no possibility of its acquiring
these matters except from the ammonia and carbonic acid
of the atmosphere. The northern provinces of Holland,
Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe, export annually about
a million pounds of nitrogen in then- cheese. They obtain
it through the cows from their meadows, which receive
no manure but that from the cattle grazing thereon. The
meadows receive no return by this, since all that the cows
produce comes itself from the meadows. Whence then
these enormous quantities of nitrogen ? Perhaps Vesuvius
or Etna, or the great fire-abysses of the Cordilleras pour
forth this abundance of carbonate of ammonia, which is
carried by currents of air to the plants of the Dutch mea-
dows, and then, through the cows, becomes as caseine, an
object of trade and of delight to the palate.

These and innumerable similar facts, taken together,
give us a very safe conclusion, which has finally been placed
beyond doubt by the experiments of Boussingault, the most
extensive and almost the only really scientific researches
which have been instituted in agricultural inquiries. Bous-
singault devoted, on his estate at Bechelbronn, in Alsace,
four hectares of land (nearly five acres) to experiments
which were pursued with undeviating accuracy for many

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WIIAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

years. The length of time and the extent of the area,
remove all those objections which may readily be made to
experiments on a small scale. Boussingault allowed those
four hectares to be cultivated in the usual Alsatian manner
during twenty-one years of the inquiry. But the manure
which was used was carefully weighed, as well as all that
which was each year harvested, and the quantity of carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and ash of both, were always
accurately ascertained by chemical examination. The result
of these experiments was that, on an average, the annual
harvest gained from the soil, twice as much nitrogen, three
times as much carbon and hydrogen, and four times as
much oxygen, as had been given to it in manure — presup-
posing here that the whole contents of the manure enter
the plants, which is in reality not the case.

Since then carbonic acid, ammonia and water form the
food of plants, and we find that these matters never can be
so combined as not to contain far more oxygen than the
substances occurring in plants, free oxygen gas must neces-
sarily be set free in the vital processes of vegetables.

And thus, as the final result of our inquiry, we arrive
at the following grand view of the interchange of matter
between the three kingdoms of Nature. Decomposition
and the process of respiration set free all vegetable and
animal substances (diminishing the amount of oxy gen in
the air), in the form of carbonic acid, ammonia and water,
which diffuse themselves in the atmosphere. The plant
takes possession of these substances, and forms from them,
accompanied by an incessant increase of the oxygen of the
atmosphere, compounds rich in carbon and hydrogen, but
devoid of nitrogen, such as starch, gum, sugar and the
various fatty matters, and others rich in nitrogen, namely
albumen, fibrine and caseine. These compounds are for

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the service of the animal, which builds up its corporeal
frame from the latter and burns the former in the respira-
tory process, for the maintenance of the necessary heat.#
This theory stands now firm and unshakeable upon the
facts which have been brought forward, and the naturalist
is perfectly correct when he says, that Man, through the
mediation of plants in the first instance, lives upon air.
Or we may express it in this way : the plant collects the
matters from the atmosphere, and compounds from them
the food of Man. But life itself is but a process of com-
bustion, of which decomposition is only the final conclusion.
Through this combustion all the constituents return back
into the ah', and only a small quantity of ashes remain to
the earth from which they came. But from these slow,
invisible flames rises a new-born Phoenix, the immortal soul,
into regions where our Science has no longer any value.

* See Dumas and Boussingault’s “ Organic Nature.”

« r u c iu t) itcrtuic.

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

SECOND REPLY.

“ Dust shall he eat, and gladly,

As does my cousin, the renowned Serpent.”

FAUST.

LECTURE VII.

Whether the words of our motto, which the poet has
placed in the mouth of the Evil Spirit, are true ; whether
the saying of common life, as of the sacred poetry, that
Man springs from dust, and to dust and ashes returns, is
more than a poetic figure — only natural science — only
physiology can tell us.

I took leave, in a former Lecture, to defend the natu-
ralist when he asserted that Man lives on air alone, springs
from it, and again returns into the same. Decomposition
dissolves all animal bodies into ammonia, carbonic acid and
water, and these exhale as gas and watery vapour into the
air. Mankind extract their food, mediately or immediately,
wholly from the vegetable kingdom, and this lives essentially
at the cost of the carbonic acid, ammonia, and water of the
atmosphere.

These views, for which we have to thank the researches
which the most distinguished inquirers of the last hundred
years have occupied themselves in following out and com-
pleting, have, in the present times, however, been first so
expressed by Liebig, as to attract universal attention.
Loud cries have arisen against him, in very various quarters,
but the reasons and objections which have been made good,

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

are exceedingly different in their character. One part of
the opposition was not directed against the views, such as
I have already been permitted to detail them, but against
the very indefensible rudeness with which Liebig depre-
ciated sciences which were wholly strange to him, and indis-
criminately defamed the men who opposed him, while at
the same time he displayed the grossest ignorance in these
studies. Another portion of the objections comes from the
ignorant and narrow-minded heads of the old school of
naturalists, who are devoid of no less than everything, but
particularly of a solid acquaintance with physics and
chemistry, which would fit them to give an opinion on
these points. Lastly, another portion arose out of a mis-
understanding which Liebig himself gave occasion to, by
want of clearness of comprehension, and by faulty expres-
sion of his views. It was imagined, namely, that this
theory of the interchange of matter through the three
kingdoms of Nature, was intended for a theory of animal
and vegetable life, and therefore it was thought that this
theory itself might be overturned, by pointing out that very
much remained unexplained and obscure, and that very
many things could not be made to square with it. But the
relation of that grand theory to animal and vegetable life,
is quite a different one. Those general outlines are in
themselves firmly and unshakeably completed and esta-
blished.* But in regard to the vegetable and animal king-
doms, they only afford us guiding maxims, in accordance
with which we are to attempt the more exact delineation
of the picture ; according to which we have to discrimi-
nate as to the admissibility of hypotheses in individual
cases; and it may be, that we have yet long to seek

* See Liebig, “ Chemistry and Physics in Relation to Physiology
and Pathology," 8vo. London, 1847.

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159

before we shall discover all the separate links, which shall
perfectly complete the chain. The theory of the interchange
of matter tells us only in general terms, what goes on between
plants and animals, animals and atmosphere, atmosphere
and plants, but says not what processes occur in the plant,
in the animal, but it indeed restrains our further investiga-
tions so far, that we must henceforth reject every illus-
trative experiment as false, which contradicts that theory of
the interchange. All experiments, for instance, for the
purpose of deducing the nutrition of plants from the organic
constituents of the soil, are at once rendered vain, because
we know certainly from that theory, that we can never
account even for the fourth part of the plants growing
upon the soil, from the whole of the organic matter con-
tained in it.

But an objection here starts up, quite independently,
which appears very unfavourable to the whole theory. We
most undoubtedly see that cultivated plants thrive better in
soils rich in humus or well manured fields, than in those
not manured. If then the plant draws carbonic acid,
ammonia and water from the air, if this is its only source
of food, what is the use of the manure ? Why must we
use it, if we would not renounce that flourishing condition
of the plants under culture ? This question can only be
met by two answers, one derived from physics, the
other from chemistry ; the one explaining the action of
humus in general, the other the especial necessity for, and
advantage of, the use of manure.

Carbonic acid, ammonia and watery vapour are cer-
tainly the food of plants, but the question is, by what
organs do they absorb these matters? In regard to
water, there is no doubt it must be wholly, or up to 99
per cent, absorbed by the roots. From the experiments

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

of the Englishman, Hales, and the German, Schiibler, it
seems to follow that plants consume a much greater quan-
tity of water than falls in the shape of rain. A sun-flower
consumes daily 22 ounces of water; consequently, if every
plant occupies four square feet of the soil, the plants of one
acre would require 1,826,706 lbs. in the four summer
months. But the ground between them is overgrown with
grass and weeds, and these consume water, which mav
again be estimated at about the same quantity. Therefore,
an acre of land, planted with sunflowers, would require
altogether more than three million pounds of water.

By similar calculations it is found, that an acre planted
with cabbages, requires more than five million pounds of
water ; an orchard stocked with dwarf apple-trees, an equal
quantity ; and an acre planted with hops, as much as six
or seven millions of pounds.

The experiments on which these calculations are founded,
were made in England, where, during the summer months,
at most not more than 2,325,000 lbs. of rain fall on an
acre of land. But it would be a great error to suppose
that all this rain-water is available to the plant. A large
portion is diffused by evaporation through the air, and a
yet greater portion runs away, and is carried to the sea by
springs, brooks and rivers. We do not at present possess
any measurements and calculations sufficiently accurate to
enable us to determine this latter quantity. It is, however,
very remarkable, that as in the course of centuries the
methods of determination have been gradually deve-
loped and improved, and the observations become more
accurate, it has turned out that these quantities of
water were formerly estimated at much below the real
amount. The older natural philosophers assumed that
one-sixth of the water falling as rain was carried away

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161

by rivers to the sea. The much more accurate estimates
of Dausse for the Seine, and Dalton for the Thames, show
that we may at least assume one-third. Still more exact
are the statements of Berghaus with regard to the lower
part of the Rhine’s course, and Studer’s for the Upper
Rhine ; according to which, in the former case three-fourths
and in the latter four-fifths of all rain, snow and dew, runs
away through the Rhine. Lastly, the facts respecting the
Weser, published by Berghaus, and going very much into
detail, are such, that it becomes almost probable that this
river carries away even more water than atmospheric pre-
cipitation can furnish ; therefore, that some other natural
process must supply it with water. However, if we assume
that altogether only half the rain-water flows away, we yet
see Low improbable it is that the remaining 1,162,500 lbs.
of water, putting evaporation out of the question, can cover
the necessities of the plants, which amount to from three to
six millions. The watery vapour of the atmosphere must,
therefore, be brought to the plant in some other way, and
this happens through the property of absorbing the mois-
ture of the atmosphere, which is possessed by most of the
constituents of the soil. No substance possesses this
property in so high a degree as the humus, originating
out of the gradual decomposition of organic matters. The
humus is also remarkably distinguished for its special power
of extracting and, as it were, collecting the carbonic acid
and ammoniacal gas of the air ; no solid substance of the
soil equals it in this particular, and water itself only ranks
second after it. Humus consequently contains, under all
circumstances, water impregnated with carbonic acid and
ammonia, and in proportion as this is withdrawn from it
by the roots of the plants, the loss is replaced out of the
atmosphere. This is certainly the principal road by which

1 1

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WIIAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

water is conveyed into the plant, most probably the most
essential canal through which it is fed with ammonia, and
there is no doubt that at least a great portion of the
carbonic acid is thus brought to it.

Look at a recently exposed surface of a block of granite,
for instance, on the summit of the Brocken ; there we find
that vegetation is soon developed, in the form of a little
delicate plant, which requires the microscope for its recog-
nition; and this is nourished by the small quantity of
atmospheric water impregnated with carbonic acid and
ammonia. This, the so-called Violet-stone, a scarlet, pul-
verulent coating over the bare stone, which on account of
the peculiar smell of violets which it emits when rubbed,
has become a curiosity, industriously sought by the thoughful
wanderer on the Brocken. By the gradual decay and
decomposition of this little plant, a very thin layer of
humus is by degrees produced, which now suffices to pro-
cure from the atmosphere, food sufficient for a couple of
great blackish-brown lichens. These lichens, which densely
clothe the heaps of earth round the shafts of the mines of
Fahlun and Dannemora in Sweden, and through their
gloomy colour, which they impress on all around, make
those pits and shafts look like the gloomy abysses of
Death, have been appropriately called by the botanists the
Stygian and Fahlun Lichens. But they are no messengers
of death here ; their decay prepares the soil for the elegant
little Alpine Moss, the destruction of which is speedily
followed by the appearance of greener and more luxuriant
mosses, until sufficient soil has been formed for the
Whortle-berry, the Juniper, and finally for the Pine. Thus,
from an insignificant beginning, an ever-increasing coating
of humus grows up over the naked rock, and a vegetation,
continually stronger and more luxuriant, takes up its

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163

position, not to be nourished on that humus, which
increases instead of decreasing with every decaying genera-
tion, but by its means to be supplied with nourishment
from the atmosphere.

Boussingault, in his “ Economic Rurale,”* brings forward
a still more interesting example. In his first sojourn in
America, he visited a spot in the neighbourhood of
La Vega da Supia, which, during his stay, was converted
by an earthquake into a waste surface of fragments of
porphyry, whereby all vegetation was destroyed, and buried
many fathoms deep beneath the rocks. When he returned
to the same spot, after an absence of ten years, the wild
and bare masses of rock were already clothed with a young,
luxuriantly- vegetating Acacia grove. And without doubt,
the rock-islands arising by volcanic force from beneath the
floods of the ancient ocean, at a period which lies hundred,
thousands of years beyond the human history of our globe,
were gradually clothed in a similar manner with vegetation
until, in favourable places, those masses of humus were
at last accumulated, which serve as the luxuriant sub-
stratum of the inexhaustible vegetable life of the primeval
forests of the tropics. In this physical property of humus,
and not in its chemical constituents, we have to seek the
reason why a more luxuriant vegetation thrives upon a soil
rich in humus, than on one in which an admixture of this
substance is wanting.

But how now ? If carbonic acid, ammonia and water
form the sole food of plants, if these matters are already
present in sufficient quantity in the vast reservoir of the
aerial ocean, if even without humus these matters may be

* “ Rural Economy, in its relations with Chemistry, Physics and
Meteorology/’ by J. B. Boussingault, translated into English. Second
Edition, 8vo. London, 1846.

II*

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

brought to a scanty vegetation, if these prepare the soil for
better plants by their decay — wherefore occurs, in spite of
any supply of humus, so great a difference in vegetation ?
Why does one and the same plant thrive most luxuriantly on
this soil, while on that it is stunted, or does not develop at all?

“Non omnis fert omnia tellus,

Hie segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvae.”

VIRG. GEORG.

“ Not every soil, each grateful gift supplies.

Here waving corn — there, happier, vineyards rise.”

The beautiful Orchidaceous plant, the Ladies’-slipper,
grows over all parts of the Swiss Fore- Alps, where the soil
is formed of the Alpine limestone ; it accompanies the
whole Swabian Muschelkalk, and disappears suddenly when
we come to the sand of the Jura and Keuper formations on
this side of the Danube. It next makes its appearance on
the Muschelkalk of Thuringia, and comes down with that
on the Werra as far as the neighbourhood of Gottingen,
then leaps over the Bunter-sandstone of the lower Eichs-
feld, the granite of the upper Hartz, and again gladdens
the eye of the wanderer on the calcareous formations east-
ward of the Brocken. It is sought in vain over all the
clay and sand formations of the northern German plains,
till in the extreme North it again shows itself at Riigen,
where the chalk rocks of Arkona and Stubbenkammer lift
their heads. On the western coast of France grow various
insignificant-looking shore-plants, species of Salsola and
Salicornia, which the inhabitants there use to obtain soda
from the ashes. When we travel from thence toward the
east, we everywhere miss these little plants, even when
searching most carefully, and merely one or other ot them
makes its appearance in such places where the soil is
moistened by some salt spring. At last we arrive at the
great Steppes of the south-east of Russia, which in summer

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165

are often covered with a thick crust of salt, showing them-
selves to be the ancient bottom of some dried-up sea, and
here these plants are found growing in the same abundance
and luxuriance as in the west of France. On the northern
coast of Germany, the little pale- red Maiden-pink grows
upon the arid sand-dunes, and is universally distributed
over the sandy plains of northern Germany ; but these are
succeeded by the granite, clay-slate, and gypsum of the
Hartz, the porphyry and Muschelkalk of Thuringia, and
our little pink is not met with again till we arrive at the
Keuper-sand plains, on the further side of the Maine,
surrounding the venerable city of Nuremberg. It extends
further south, through the Palatinate, till the Muschelkalk
of the Swabian Alps again sets a limit to it ; but it leaps
over these and the whole Alpine region, and at last appears
again on the sandy soils of northern Italy. How is it that
these plants everywhere disdain the richest soils in their
range of geographical distribution, and are confined to
perfectly determinate geognostic formations? Must not
the lime, the salt, the sand, or rather the silex, have a most
distinct influence in the matter ?

And it may further be asked : How does it happen that
one and the same soil can bring the one plant to the
highest state of development, while another soil is not able
to sustain its life? Wherefore is it, lastly, that we see
the life and healthy condition of most of our cultivated
plants so distinctly connected with the manuring of the
soil with organic substances ? This question has been first
answered in a profound and truly scientific manner by
Liebig. How is it, he asks on the other side, that wheat
does not flourish in soils rich in humus, in pure vegetable
mould ? Because wheat contains a substance, silex, with-
out which it cannot exist, and which it does not find in

166

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

vegetable mould. If we burn a plant, be it what it may,
we obtain a residue which does not become dissipated with
the products of combustion — a variable quantity of ash.
Lime, silex, soda and potash, common salt and a mixture
of carbonate and phosphate of lime (called bone-earth,
because it forms the incombustible portion of bones), gyp-
sum and some other constituents, are the substances of
which the ash is usually composed. When we compare
among themselves, the results of the investigation of the
ashes of a large series of plants, we arrive at some remark-
able laws. We find that any given plant always yields
very nearly the same relative quantity of ash, that this ash,
within certain very, narrow7 limits, defined by chemical prin-
ciples, has a regular composition. We discover, lastly,
that different plants leave behind after combustion, ashes
composed either of very different substances, or of very
different mixtures of these substances.

Unreasonable as it w7ould be to maintain that Arrow-root
only forms so pure a starch, in order that w7e may make
use of it for the food of our children and invalids, and that
this substance has no definite importance to the life of the
plant itself, it would be equally preposterous to assume that
plants only take up a perfectly definite quantity of the
constituents of the ash from the soil, in order that we may
here and there obtain potash from them, or that this ash
should be a troublesome residue in our stoves. WTe must
rather, from the phenomenon that certain plants regularly
take up certain inorganic, mineral constituents from the
soil, be led to the opinion that these constituents are as
essential to the existence, and consequently to the nutrition,
of the plant as those elements out of which it composes its
organic structures. It is quite a matter ol indifference here
whether we are enabled by the condition of our science to

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167

point out, in every individual case, what import this or that
particular substance possesses in the life of the plant. It
suffices that we know that these substances are indis-
pensible to the healthy growth of certain plants.

Novel and strange as the assertion may at present appear
to many, that the insignificant quantity of ash in a plant
deserves our chief attention in its life, it will readily be
allowed and become familiar, so long as and because this
circumstance is always regarded as a secondary consideration,
if also in its way a necessary one. But the matter assumes
quite another aspect when, acquainted with the fundamental
principles and the course which science must and will take in
the coming time, we now anticipate the final results, for the
complete establishment of which we have perhaps to labour
for another century. Thus then will run our aphorism: —
The whole wealth and the whole manifoldness of terrestrial
vegetation, its whole variety, as well when we compare zones
of longitude and latitude as wild nature with cultivated
lands, are exclusively dependant on the variety of inorganic
constituents which the plant takes up from the soil. When
we look to the wild vegetation of our own latitudes, we find
two principal classes of soil : one a peat or bog soil, which
consists almost wholly of humus, therefore of decomposed
organic matter, the other of calcareous, sandy, or argil-
laceous soils, in which the inorganic constituents prevail in
so great a degree, that the humus, in the blackest soils, does
not amount to more than 10 per cent, at most, and even
in the most fertile, and those clothed with the richest vege-
tation, often scarcely forms £ per cent. And that peat or
bog soil, so rich in humus, can only afford sustenance to
300 of the 5,000 flowering plants growing in central Europe ;
and there are not perhaps fifty plants, therefore not one per
cent, of which the actual conditions of healthy growth arc

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WIIAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

furnished by the bog soil, which would not also thrive
exceedingly well in other places, if the necessary moisture
were afforded them. Most of the plants belonging to
these soils so rich in humus, are members of the. families
of the Rushes and Sedges, which are wholly useless, and
odious enough to the agriculturalist under the name of
sour pasture. On the other hand, the other class nourishes
the whole vegetation of our latitudes, in a multiplicity
which is varied enough to our eyes, unused to the tropical
world, and we generally find the richest abundance on the
soils which are poorest in humus but richest in inorganic
constituents, on basaltic, granitic, porphyritic and calcareous
soils. All those different plants return to us year after
year in the same form, the circle of their characteristics is
limited within narrow bounds ; and if we search through
the newest geognostic formations, we find the plants of
the present world with exactly the same characters as those
they now7 exhibit, enclosed in the ruins of the last revolu-
tion of the earth’s surface. For instance, all Hamburg, its
harbour, and a broad tract toward the south-east and north-
west of the city, rest upon a sunken forest, which now lies
buried from 30 to 100 feet below7 the surface. This forest
w7as composed of Limes and Oaks, exactly like those we
now meet with in that place ; excavations for very different
purposes have there brought to light, thousands of hazel-
nuts, which differ in no respect from our hazel-nuts of the
present day. Thus the wild vegetation of our latitudes has
retained, during thousands of years, the same character
which it assumed when the climatal conditions were
adjusted, after the last great change upon the globe, in the
way in which we in the present day observe them to exist.
The case is quite different with the soils we have culti-
vated, of which I will here only consider garden-land,

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169

because it exhibits the prominent peculiarities in the most
striking manner.

Our careful culture is confined to a certain relatively
small number of vegetables, and the selection of them, left
to accident in earlier times, but now not unfrequently con-
ducted with knowledge according to definite principles,
becomes especially determined by one primary consi-
deration.

Our cultivated plants collectively exhibit characters which
they do not possess in a wild condition, but which are
exactly those which give them value to us. The sweet,
juicy Altringham Carrot, weighing from five to six pounds,
is in a wild condition, a dry, slender root, unfit for food ;
the delicate, well-flavoured Vienna Glass-kohl -rabi, as large
as a man’s fist, is a slender, woody, dry stem when wild ;
the white, soft, aromatic Cauliflower, is in its natural
locality, in its natural habit, a thin, branched flowering
stem, with little green, bitter flower-buds, and so with the
rest. All these various properties, through which the
plants have become such important attendants of human
economy, have been called forth by a peculiar chemical
process originally foreign to the plant, the necessary con-
ditions of which lie, not in those organic elements which
are the same for all plants, and are almost equally distri-
buted in all, but in the inorganic constituents present in
the soil and taken up by the roots. Wherever the soil is
rich in the various salts occurring most abundantly in
plants, the characters of the latter become altered ; varieties
and monstrosities originate which never occur in the wild
condition, where the plant always keeps to the soil exactly
agreeing to it. Plants, however, exhibit very varied dispo-
sitions to the alteration of their peculiar nature by such
external influence. While some retain exactly even the

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

most minute characteristics, under the most diverse con-
ditions, others run readily into innumerable varieties.
While in some, the varieties exhibit very little stability,
passing readily again into the wild form, or into new
variations, other plants produce manifold aberrant forms,
which, after some years’ culture, may be propagated with
full certainty by then seeds, and thus arise what are called
sub-species. It is exactly this character of plants which
fits them to become advantageous objects of cultivation ;
that they readily produce very different and stable varieties,
out of which Man selects those most profitable for his
purposes, and receives them into the number of his vege-
table subjects.

We have then three opposite conditions here : the com-
mon soil, bog soil and that of gardens. The first nourishes
an abundance of different plants, which, however, remain
the same, in fixed consequence, through thousands of
years. The bog soil is extraordinarily poor in vegetables ;
it only brings forth the most formless and useless plants.
Lastly, the garden soil not only nourishes in luxuriance
every plant that is committed to it, but even continually
multiplies the abundance of vegetable forms to infinity, to
which, however, opposing climate sets a limit so soon as
the favouring influence of culture is withdrawn. Then two
other conditions present themselves, in contrast, to our
consideration. We have on the one side the common
soil, possessing little or no organic remains, and abundance
of plants ; on the other, the bog and garden soils, both rich
to superabundance in the black constituent called humus,
which has been formed by the decomposition of animal
and vegetable organisms. And nevertheless, we find such
a difference of influence on vegetation between the bog and
the garden land. But this is readily explained by the

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171

manner in which they have been formed. The peaty soil
originates from the decomposition of organic substances in
the presence of much water. The consequence of this is,
that the water takes up and carries away all the soluble
salts which were contained in those organisms, so soon as
ever they are set free. In the garden soil, on the contrary,
all those soluble salts remain behind, come immediately into
the possession of the plants, and, under a rich culture
of the soil, accumulate in them to an extraordinary
degree, while the organic constituents, through uninter-
rupted decomposition, are continually diminished in quantity,
and so can never accumulate in the way they do in the
peat or bog soils, where the presence of water, after a
certain time, restrains or very much retards the further
progress of decomposition. A more striking proof of the
correctness of the new views of the nutrition of plants
could not easily be given, than these statements ; views
which were almost simultaneously established and made
known by one of the most distinguished chemists, Liebig,
and one of the most eminent of practical agriculturalists,
Boussingault.

But I must take leave to return once more to the ques-
tion which was first raised : “ What does Man live upon ?”
We have seen that the nutrient fluids contained in his
body, that muscles, skin, and the gelatine which forms the
basis of bones, are essentially produced from substances
containing nitrogen, which the plants furnish to him as
food. But gelatine alone does not complete the bony
structures ; we find in these, besides the gelatine, the
so-called bone-earth, a compound of carbonate aud phos-
phate of lime. This it is to which the bone owes its
solidity, its hardness, through which alone it is fitted to

17-2

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

become the foundation and support of the whole body ; we
know that when this bone-earth is not present in sufficient
quantity, a dreadful disease, the rickets, ensues. Whence
does man obtain this no less essential constituent of his
frame ? We know, moreover, that all the fluids of the body
contain definite amounts of certain salts, that without
these they cannot execute the functions to which they
are appointed. Of these substances also must we render
an account, if we would explain the nutrition of the animal
body. Of the inorganic, as of the nitrogenous portions
of the frame, a certain quantity undergoes continual decom-
position through the activity of the body, is excreted, and
therefore must be renewed. We here involuntarily think
of the earth-eating Ottomacs, of the Negroes swallowing
clay, of the countless instances of men who have eaten, in
the pangs of hunger or from fancy, the Mountain-meal, a
fine siliceous or calcareous earth. But we at once turn
from these ideas when we observe they do not refer to any
universal food, but merely to some few abnormal pheno-
mena, proceeding from diseased conditions of the gastric
nerves, or from necessity. The source from whence the
animal body draws the inorganic constituents, must be
universal, and we find ourselves thus directed back to
plants. If then bone-earth and nitrogenous constituents
build up the animal body, if we know that alkaline salts
always accompany the bile, which, according to Liebig’s
view, plays an important part in the process of respiration
and combustion, through which the animal heat is main-
tained, it must naturally astonish us to find, in plants, the
nitrogenous materials for nutrition constantly accompanied
by phosphate of lime, the materials for respiration, devoid
of nitrogen, constantly associated with alkalies. Thus has

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the wise care of Nature united these matters at once in
plants, which in exactly the same determinate combination,
are afterwards to be applied to the use of animals.

But natural science must not stop at such teleological
considerations ; and it next becomes our object to demon-
strate that those inorganic salts have a perfectly definite
importance to the plant itself. Nav, even if we are not yet
in a position to afford this demonstration, we must still,
from the constant occurrence of determinate mineral con-
stituents in determinate plants, conclude their necessity to
the existence and well-being of the plant, as Theodore de
Saussure was the first to do, in his immortal “ Recherches
sur la Vegetation.” Supported by these views, Liebig now
states : That since the organic nutriment stands every-
where in equal abundance at the service of all plants, the
cause of the great difference of vegetation cannot be sought
therein, consequently it must lie in the inorganic consti-
tuents, and it is essentially indifferent whether we convey
manure to the field, or burn it first and strew the ashes on
the soil, since its efficacy is dependant solely on the consti-
tuents of the ashes.

It is easy to see that this principle, applied to agricul-
ture, suddenly throws a new, bright light over all those
phenomena, to explain which man formerly wearied him-
self in vain. Now, we can easily conceive why an irrigated
meadow can annually yield a large quantity of hay, without
manure, since the necessary quantity of salts arc brought
to it by the spring water. It becomes clear how the
Peruvian may obtain a luxuriant harvest of Maize on the
arid sand-drift, if but a little rill brings it the needful
soluble earth-salts from the snowy peaks of the Andes.
Hundreds of similar phenomena are at once explained by
this ingenious idea of Liebig ; but hundreds of new ideas

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WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

also are suggested, fruitful for the completion and improve-
ment, the simplification and insuring of Agriculture, which
will be the prize of the next following time ; and we now
find it natural that England, where agriculture stood at so
high a pitch, according to the former standard, should
applaud and overwhelm with fetes and demonstrations of
honour of all kinds, him, the founder of a rational, in oppo-
sition to the former purely empirical, culture of plants, in a
manner which scarcely any man, and certainly no foreigner,
has experienced in that country.

When we examine the ashes of plants, we find in par-
ticular the four following constituents, giving them their
characteristics : readily soluble alkaline salts ; earths, espe-
cially lime and magnesia ; phosphoric acid, and silicic acid
or silex. Sometimes one, sometimes two of these sub-
stances predominate in the ashes of the plant.

According to this, Liebig divides the cultivated vege-
tables into :

1 . Alkali plants ; to which belong Potatoes and Beets.

2. Lime plants; Clover, Peas, &c.

3. Silex plants ; the Grasses.

4. Phosphorus plants ; comprehending Rve and Wheat.

But besides these, plants contain many other substances,

the quantity and importance of which we do not under-
stand so well at present. With the progress of science,
however, those divisions of Liebig will assume a much more
complete form.

All those substances are met with in the various rocks
of the firm crust of the earth, but almost all in a perfectly
insoluble and sometimes crystalline condition, therefore
altogether unavailable to the plant. Geognosy alone can
inform us how these substances are rendered soluble,
and how they become gradually converted into soil.

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175

If we transport ourselves, in imagination, into a time
which the grand poetic tradition of the Hebrews describes :
“ And the earth was without form and void : and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters,” we behold the earth
enveloped in dense cloud, in great part covered with water,
from which, forced up by volcanic power, the mountains
arose, coming to light as molten fluids, or in a still
gelatinous condition, and cooling into solid, more or less
crystalline masses — the primeval rocks. Simultaneously,
through the same forces, the bottoms of the neighbouring
seas became upheaved above their glassy surfaces, and the
stratified precipitates of which they consisted, displayed
themselves as the transition rocks. Then came the decom-
posing influence of the atmosphere into action. Into the
flaws and cracks which the cooling process had caused
in the hard rocks, the water of the atmosphere penetrated.
Expanded by frost, it split off the superficial layers, and
the detached blocks rolled down the mountain-sides. This
process was repeated upon these blocks until they and
their successors at last crumbled into dust, which was in
part washed over the level land by torrents of rain, in part
carried by the mighty rivers to the sea, where it was
again precipitated in layers, which, thrust up as before in
subsequent periods by the ever actively ascending molten
masses, now presents itself to us as the secondary and
tertiary strata and diluvium. The larger masses scattered
over the solid land were washed into heaps by the fearful
torrents of rain, and all the naked rocks underwent,
besides the mere mechanical destruction by which they
were reduced into small fragments and dust, unceasing
corrosion by chemical decomposition, whereby wholly new
compounds were formed, which were washed together by

176

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

rain and by the lesser streams, to form what we know as
alluvium.

Thus was the naked crust of our planet formed. But
formative processes, of which we neither have nor can have
any conception now, were in action from the very first ;
where the oceanic deposits lifted themselves, as transition
rocks, into the air, vegetable germs originated, which found
their sustenance in carbonic acid, ammonia and water, and
the products of the atmospheric corrosion of the rocks. A
world of organisms, teeming with life, originated on the
globe, the varied multiplicity of which was not dependant
on those four elements which, in a truer sense, form their
organic constituents, but rather on the infinite variety of
chemical processes which were called forth by the manifold
kinds and quantities of inorganic substances. On the
other hand, the humus, the black substance resulting
from the decay of living beings, rendered possible the
development of the innumerable organisms in greatest
force, since it furnished to them organic nutriment. But
the weathering of rocks, and their chemical decomposition
into soluble constituents, depend upon heat and the
chemical composition of the atmosphere. Conditions like
those which now we find only under the tropics, allow of
rapid weathering and rapid decomposition, and thus cause
the rich and luxuriant vegetation of the tropics. At a
former period, however, our atmosphere must have been
everywhere more moist, denser, and consequently warmer ;
and in this age could unfold itself, without limit, over the
whole earth, that fulness of organic life which we now find
buried in a fossil condition in the stratified rocks, alto-
gether without relation to geographical latitudes.

To return to my subject. The ingenious views esta-
blished by Liebig consequently point out, that those

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constituents, which we are accustomed to despise and over-
look, are exactly those which have the most essential
importance to the vegetable world. All the nitrogenous
components of plants, which we use as food, consist, it is
true, of merely carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
But the presence of these substances alone does not help
the plant in the least ; it cannot form from them a granule
of albumen or gluten, unless it contains, at the same time
and in the proper relative condition, salts of phosphoric
acid. The useful starch, the sweet sugar, the cooling citric
acid, the aromatic oil of oranges, are indeed composed
solely of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen ; but the plant
cannot prepare those gifts for us, out of ever so great an
abundance of these elements, if it does not possess also
alkaline salts. The slender stalk of the wheat could not
lift itself to ripen its grain in the sun’s rays, unless the soil
furnished it with silex, through which it gives its cells that
solidity necessary to enable it to maintain an erect
position.

Supported by these facts, Liebig has recently sought to
revolutionize our whole agricultural system, by the recom-
mendation of a mineral manure he has discovered ; for the
preparation of which he has taken out a patent in England,
and sold it to Messrs. Muspratt and Co. His aim is to
furnish to every kind of soil and plant, a proper com-
post of those mineral substances which the plant requires
and the soil is deficient in, and in such a peculiar state of
combination, that the substances shall be soluble enough
to be taken up by the plants, and yet not so readily
soluble, that the rain can wash away any considerable
quantity. Whether Leibig has attained to this end, can
only be determined after experience has given its evidence.
In theory, it must be affirmed, that the principle is correct

12

178

WIIAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON ?

and the carrying out possible. But vegetable physiology
will, with good right, make an objection to this system of
manuring, and experience will confirm it ; — namely, that
though the humus, as already shown, is by no means a
nutrient substance, yet without it, there can be no healthy
and strong vegetation on such soils, and they are rare, as
are not most propitiously mingled with clay, which may,
to a certain extent, replace humus. Liebig’s chemical one-
sidedness,. in this respect, will probably be mischievous to
those agriculturalists who cannot neutralize this fault by
their own thorough knowledge of Natural Science, just as
on the other side, the absence of a thorough study of
Natural Science, and crude empirical prejudice, have in these
later times prevented many, particularly German agricul-
turalists, from taking part in the improvements called
forth by the progress of science. Perhaps, however, an
event which is sad enough in itself, will give rise to an
earnest observation of the results of science, and will thus,
by producing an essential transformation of our agri-
cultural management, become a blessed moment in the
history of our cultivation. I mean the Potato Disease,
which in the last few years has appeared in such a
threatening form, that it is, indeed, calculated to awaken
the most indolent from their slumber, and in which we
have one of the best proofs of the correctness of Liebig’s
theories.

The phenomenon of these recent times is by no means
an isolated one, for, during more than one hundred years
has the disease shown itself in Potatoes ; and in each recur-
rence of its appearance, has it exhibited greater extension
and activity. That it is not dependant solely or essentially
upon meteorological influences, is shown even by the form
continually becoming worse ; but, in particular, by its

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179

extent in the vear 1845, when it manifested itself with
equal formidahleness in southern Sweden and in South
America, which two countries had been favoured (contrary
to what happened in central Europe) with remarkably fair
wheater. Besides, the Potato was not wholly exempted
from the evil by any position, any method of culture, or
in any variety, and this points out to us, at once, that the
actual cause of the disease must lie in a thorough degene-
ration of the plant, and not in any single, external in-
fluence. If we ask how such a degeneration could have
occurred, the following considerations alone can guide us to
an answer. The wild Potato is a small, greenish, and
bitter-flavoured tuber, containing, however, a great deal of
starch. It is one of those plants which readily produce
varieties in cultivated soils, which exhibit tolerable perma-
nence when the conditions of culture remain exactly the
same. When this is not the case, new varieties arise, they
“ sport” as it is called. The difference of these varieties
consists only in part in the far less essential alteration of
the form of the Potato, in its quicker or slower ripening.
Far more important is the difference in the chemical pro-
cess by which the relative amounts of starch and albumen
in the tuber become altered. Starch, a substance con-
taining no nitrogen, is the peculiarly characteristic consti-
tuent of the Potato, a substance which withstands decom-
position for a long time. The formation of this requires
the presence of a large quantity of potash, and therefore
the Potato belongs especially to the alkali-plants. Albumen,
on the contrary, rich in nitrogen, is particularly prone to
decomposition and rotting, and its presence, in large quan-
tity, renders the other substances also which can, alone,
long withstand decay, e. g. cellulose and starch, much
more liable to this process of solution. The production

12*

180

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

of albumen pre-supposes the presence of a great quantity
of salts of phosphoric acid.

If we examine a healthy normal Potato, we find the
proportion of the nitrogenous to the unnitrogenized con-
stituents to average as 1 : 20 ; the proportion of salts of
phosphoric acid to alkaline salts is as 1:10. On the
other hand, freshly-manured cultivated land — from phy-
siological reasons which it would lead me too far to
unfold here — contains the inorganic constituents mentioned,
almost in the proportions of 1:2. The consequence of
this is, that in such soils the plant is forced to take up the
phosphates in larger quantities, in proportion to the alka-
line salts, than its nature requires, and thence a greater
abundance of nitrogenous matter, of albumen, is formed
in it, than it would contain in a normal condition. This
latter must infallibly render the components of the Potato,
which always contains a great deal of water, still more
prone to processes of decomposition, which then appear
under the most varied forms, sometimes, as in the dry-rot
formerly observed, principally seizing upon the starch, and
sometimes, as in the recent moist-rot, especially attacking
the cellulose. That such a disposition may in a moment
show itself as a ruinous disease, when external influences,
particularly unfavourable weather, come into operation,
is readily conceivable, and it stands to reason that when
the injurious influences which produced the seeds of the
disease continue, the degeneration of the Potato, and its
proneness to disease, must be always increasing. In such
cases, the theory of Liebig and Boussingault again affords
us a certain means of avoiding the evil. A careful con-
sideration of the inorganic substances soon affords us the
law, that it is not alone enough that the different sub-
stances are present in sufficient abundance in the soil, but,

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181

that they must also be present in the proper proportion to
each other ; that regard to these proportions is of the
highest importance in reference to those plants which are
naturally inclined to produce varieties ; above all in refe-
rence to those plants, the chemical composition of which
renders them most liable to essential injury by alteration of
their constituents. All this especially concerns the Potato,
but does not much affect our grain, Rye and Wheat.
When we compare the constituents of the ashes of these
latter with the contents of a freshly manured soil, we find
the proportions of the two almost alike, and what is very
remarkable, when we abstract the constituents of the ash
of Rye from the contents of the soil, almost exactly that
proportion of the particular matters remains, that we find in
the ash of the Potato. The conclusion is therefore simple :
that we must in future never cultivate the Potato as the
first crop, as has generally been hitherto done throughout
the greater part of Europe, but we must begin with Rye,
and allow the Potato to follow it, or perhaps still better,
to come two years later, after Clover, if we would raise a
healthy produce, and in future be rid of the plague to
which we have recently been subject. The fundamental
proposition will henceforward stand firmly established, that
the nutrient matter which the plant itself takes up from
the soil, consists essentially only of the inorganic con-
stituents of the same, and that these, and not the organic
substances, constitute the peculiar richness of a soil.

But the inorganic compounds are inseparably connected
with the organic in the plant, and if we would take pos-
session of the latter, we must receive the former into the
bargain.

Yet they are not merely useless ballast, but substan-
ces essential to our bodies and their maintenance. Let

182

WHAT DOES MAN LIVE UPON?

us see what Man is really composed of. According
to Quetelet, a full-grown man weighs on an average
154 lbs., and if we subtract the great quantity of water
which runs through all parts of our body, keeping them
supple and pliant — some 38 lbs. — 14 lbs. of this comes
from the bones, and 24 lbs. from all the remaining parts.
The former contain about 66 per cent., the latter 3 per
cent, of earthy constituents, which are left behind after
combustion. Man consists, therefore, in more than a
third part, of inorganic substances, which are necessary to
his existence ; and which he must, therefore, receive with
his food. He must, in fact, as the Evil Spirit says, feed
upon dust.

Exactly as the softer organs of the human body, in their
every motion partly worn out and consumed, become
replaced through nutrition, so does man continually lose a
portion of those inorganic substances, and must make good
this loss by food. But during life, a peculiar relation is
maintained between the two kinds of matter which are
received. In the child, still growing, whose organs are
still in the process of development, far more of both classes
of substances, of the organic equally with the inorganic,
is taken up than is worn out ; in the adult, the receipt and
the expenditure are in equilibrium ; in old age, on the
other hand, a peculiar disproportion occurs. The old man
consumes continually more organic matter than he can
replace by food. The strength of his muscles disappears,
the quantity of blood becomes smaller, he grows thinner.
But the inorganic matters are not wasted in the same
quantity as they are received in the food. Man thus goes
back again to the stage of childhood, and we obtain a view
of life and death, almost directly in contrast to that for-
merly unfolded. Ever more and more earthy matter is

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183

added.; organs which formerly were soft and pliant, become
ossified and refuse their office ; ever more heavily does the
dust draw him down to dust, till at last the light-winged
Psyche, weary of the pressure, throws off the chrysalis-
shell — become too gross. She leaves the dust-born body to
the slow combustion which we call decay. A little pile of
ashes remains to the earth from which they were borrowed.
The soul, itself immortal and incorruptible, returns from
the slavery of natural laws to the Disposer of Spiritual
Freedom.

fEigijtfj Urrttue.

ON THE MILK-SAP OF PLANTS.

“ Here is a juice that swift intoxicates.”

FAUST.

The vignette represents an Indian family busied in the preparation
of Cassava from the Mandioc : the wife is dipping one of her hus-
band’s arrows in the poisonous milky juice dropping from the com-
pressed mass of bruised roots.

LECTURE VIII.

In the brilliant arena of the polite world, the entrance to
which is decorated by the celebrated obelisk of Luxor, on
that field where, in bloodless battles, the victories of
fashion are decided,- — albeit, the ground was originally
consecrated to the “ humilite de Notre Dame,” — in Long-
champ, not very long ago resounded the question,
“Paletot, or Mackintosh?” For the moment the Paletot
triumphed, but soon to fall before the Burnous and other
successors, while the Mackintosh, if no longer ruler of the
mode, still survives. It may be worth while to ask, what
it really is that has given the Mackintosh such value that
it will still be long retained in the wardrobe, as indis-
pensible for certain purposes. There are, besides the
champions of fashion, two opposite parties, one of which
asserts the excellence of, the other absolutely rejects, the
Mackintosh. Shall we not hear them ?

The defenders extol the lightness which is combined
with perfect imperviousness to water and great warmth.
These excellences depend wholly upon the peculiar sub-
stance with which the cloth is made into Mackintosh,
the gum elastic, or Caoutchouc. This has recently acquired

188

ON THE MILK-SAP

such extensive application in manufactures, that a closer
acquaintance with it will certainly not be uninteresting.
The English use this peculiar product of the vegetable
world most largely. In 1830, more than twenty-six tons
were imported into England. In the year 1829, nearly
fifty tons. In the customs’-year, ending in 1833, duty
was paid on more than eighty-nine tons. Since that time,
the consumption has been continually increasing. In one
manufactory in Greenwich, alone, eight cwts. are daily
submitted to dry distillation in iron vessels. The residue
is a peculiar greasy substance, which never loses its tenacity
and pliability, bidding defiance to every influence of air or
water; and it is, therefore, made use of in the English
navy for steeping the cordage in, to render it more durable.
The fluid distilled over is a volatile, inflammable oil, which
possesses the property of readily dissolving Caoutchouc, and
leaving it, after evaporation, in its original condition.
Thus it becomes possible readily to give the Caoutchouc
any desired form, and to impart its impenetrability by air
and fluids of almost all kinds, to every other substance.
Thus are produced the many waterproof fabrics, one of
which has been called after its discoverer, Mackintosh. The
great elasticity is also turned to account in the greatest
variety of ways, this property being in the highest degree
valuable for many purposes. For this, the great masses of
Caoutchouc are cut by proper machines, first into thin
plates, and then into very fine filaments. These filaments
are covered with linen, cotton or silk thread, and then
woven with other customary yarn, which serves as the
woof, into bands, &c. Finally, Caoutchouc in an unpre-
pared condition, is applied to many uses, of which I will
only mention the so-called “goloshes,” or India-rubber
shoes.

OF PLANTS.

189

South America is the country which supplies the largest
quantity of Caoutchouc for this great demand ; but a great
deal is also imported from the East Indies, and even
Africa might furnish it, if the social condition of the
natives did not oppose itself to their availing themselves ot
their indigenous resources. All the countries which count
Caoutchouc among their products, belong to the torrid
zone. A. von Humboldt, in his “ Ideas of a Geography of
Plants,” remarked, that the plants yielding milky juices
multiply as we approach the tropics. This milky juice
of plants it is which contains the peculiar elastic substance.
The tropical heat seems to exert a distinct influence in its
perfect formation, for it has been remarked, that the same
plants which, under the equator, yield abundance of
Caoutchouc, contain instead, with us, even in hot-houses, a
substance which resembles the bird-lime obtained from our
native Misletoe.

Who among my readers has not seen our indigenous
Wolfs-milk or Spurge, the white milky juice of which
popular superstition recommends as a remedy against
warts ? Who has not in youth at least become acquainted
with the Celandine, from the broken stalk and leaf of
which, a bright orange-coloured juice runs out ? Who has
not observed that the Lettuce, when it has run up to
flower, ejects a milk-white fluid at the slightest touch?
But the occurrence of milky juices in plants is not limited
to these few. The vegetable world presents to us most
useful as also poisonous matters in this milky sap, and
I will content myself at present with recalling to recollec-
tion Opium, the dried milky juice of our large garden
Poppy.

A great number of plants, which principally belong to
three great families, namely, the Spurges, the Apocynacece

190

ON THE MILK-SAP

(Juss.), and the Nettle plants, are distinguished by a
peculiar anatomical structure. In their bark, and also
partly in their pith, we find a quantity of long, variously
curved and branched tubes, which are not unlike the veins
of animals. Through this similarity, Professor Schultze,
of Berlin, was led to develop a comprehensive theory of
a circulation through these structures of the fluids con-
tained in them, which he called vital juices, which theory,
unhappily, cautious science was compelled immediately upon
its promulgation, which made so great a show, that it
appeared as one of the treatises honoured by the Paris
Academy with the Monthyon prize, to demonstrate to
be a mere brain-spun phantom. In these tubes we find
a thick juice of the consistence of very rich milk, whence
it is called milk-sap. Its colour is usually milk-white, but
yellow, red and, very rarely, blue milk -saps are met with,
but more frequently still they are wholly colourless. Like
animal milk, this juice consists of a colourless fluid and
small globules. The composition displays the most varied
constituents, and upon the variation of quantity and modes
of mixture of these matters, depend the abundant varieties
of this juice. All contain more or less Caoutchouc, which
occurs in the form of little globules. These are prevented
from coalescing by an albuminous substance, in the same
way as are the butter globules in milk. Exactly like the
cream (the butter) in milk, the Caoutchouc globules rise to
the surface of the milk-sap of plants when left to stand,
here form a cream and coalesce, and cannot, any more
than butter, be separated again into their distinct globules.

All those three great families which are distinguished by
their abundance of milk-sap, although differing very widely
botanically, exhibit some most remarkable agreements
through the nature of their milk-sap.

191

*

OF PLANTS.

It will ’ not be uninteresting to give a more detailed
account of these three families, and to mention the more
important plants belonging to them.

The Spurges or Eupliorbiacece constitute the most im-
portant group in reference to the amount of Caoutchouc
contained. From the Port of Para in South America,
from Guiana and the neighbouring States, an incredible
quantity of India-rubber is shipped for Europe, and this
is principally obtained from a large tree growing in those
regions, called the Siphonia elastica. In the year 1736,
the celebrated French savan, La Condamine, first directed
attention to Caoutchouc, and minutely described the mode
of obtaining it. That beautiful tree, the Siphonia, is
about sixty feet high, and has a smooth brownish-grey
bark, in which the Indians make long and deep incisions
down to the wood, from whence the white juice then
abundantly flows forth. Before it has time to dry, it
is spread upon moulds of unburnt clay, usually of the
shape of a small, roundish, short-necked bottle, and then
dried over a smoking fire. The spreading of the Caout-
chouc upon the mould is repeated until the coat has
acquired the desired thickness. By this operation, in
which the foreign matters are not separated from the
juice, which becomes still more contaminated by the
smoke, the Caoutchouc acquires a brown or black colour,
while pure Caoutchouc is white, or of a yellowish colour,
and semi-transparent.

We owe a subsequent more accurate knowledge of the
tree and its distribution, to Fresneau, in the year 1751;
but especially to the indefatigable naturalist, Aublet du
Pctit-Thouars.

Many other plants of this group contain Caoutchouc,
but from none is it so easy to obtain it in large quantity.

192

ON THE MILK-SAP

Though the sap of Siphonia is at least harmless, though
the juice of the Tabayba dolce ( Euphorbia balsamifera,
Ait.) is even similar to sweet milk and, thickened into a
jelly, eaten as a delicacy by the inhabitants of the Canary
Islands, as Leopold von Buch relates in his interesting
description of the Canaries ; yet most of the plants of this
group are to be counted among the suspicious, or even most
actively poisonous, on account of this very juice. And
yet, strangely enough, they also furnish a most wholesome
food, which we have scarcely anything to compare with.
Throughout all the hotter part of America, the culture of
the Mandioc-root ( Jatropha Manihot ) is one of the most
important branches of husbandly. The native savages
and the Europeans, the black slave and free man of colour,
alike substitute for our white bread and rice, the Tapiocca
and the Mandiocca farinha, or Cassava-meal, and the
cakes prepared from it ( pan de tierra caliente of the
Mexicans) ; which are obtained from that most poisonous
plant. The sweet Yucca ( Yuca dulce ), which is the name
applied there to the Mandioc plant, must be distinguished
from the sour or bitter kind ( Yuca amara ). The former,
which is therefore cultivated with great care, may be eaten
at once, without danger ; while the latter, eaten fresh, is an
active poison. They serve the uncivilized son of the
South American tropics for food, and we will watch him
for a moment in his haunt. In a dense forest of Guiana,
the Indian chief has stretched his sloping mat between
two high stems of the Magnolia, he rests indolently
smoking beneath the shade of the broad-leaved Banana,
gazing at the doings of his family around. His wife
pounds the gathered Mandioc-roots with a wooden club, in
the hollowed trunk of a tree, and wraps the thick pulp in
a compact net made from the tough leaves ot the great

OF PLANTS.

193

Lily- plants. The long bundle is hung upon a stick,
which rests on two forks, and a heavy stone is fastened to
the bottom, the weight of which causes the juice to be
pressed out.* This runs into a shell of the Cala-
bash gourd ( Crescentici Cujete), placed beneath. Close
by squats a little boy, and dips his father’s arrows in the
deadly milk, while the wife lights a fire to dry the pressed
roots, and by heat to drive off more completely the volatile
poisonous matter. Next, it is powdered between two
stones, and the Cassava-meal is ready. Meanwhile, the
boy has completed his evil task ; the sap, after standing
some considerable time, has deposited a delicate, white
starch, from which the poisonous fluid is poured off. The
meal is then well washed with water, and is the fine white
Tapioca, resembling, in every respect, Arrow-root. In a
similar, more or less skilful manner, are the Mandioca and
Tapioca, everywhere prepared. The sated savage saunters
round to seek a new sleeping-place, but woe to him ! inad-
vertently he has prepared his couch beneath the dreadful
Manchineel ( Hippomane Mancinella), and in a sudden
shower, the rain drips from its leaves upon him. In
frightful pain he wakes up, covered with blisters and
ulcers, and if he escape with life, he is at least the richer
of a fearful experience of the poisonous properties of the
Euphorbiacece . But this will seldom happen to a native;
the Manchineel is avoided in America with the same
mysterious and almost superstitious awe, as the fabulous
Poison-tree in Java. Happily, the Trumpet-tree ( Bignonia
leucoxylori), the sap of which is the surest antidote
against the Manchineel, usually rears its beautiful purple
blossoms close at hand, the constant companion of that
dangerous Euphorbiacean.

* See the Vignette.

13

194

ON THE MILK-SAP

The planter of the Cape strews over pieces of flesh
the pounded fruit of a plant that grows there {Hya-
nanche globosa, Lam.), and lays them as an infallible
poison for the Hyaena. The wild inhabitants of
southern Africa, according to Bruce, poison their

arrows with a Spurge ( Euphorbia caput Meduscc).
Virey states, that the Ethiopians make a similar ap-
plication of others ( Euphorbia heptagona , E. virosa
W., E. cereiformis) , while the savages of the most

southern part of America use the sap of a third (E. cotini-
folia). Nay, even our seemingly so innocent Box, which
also belongs to this family, is so injurious, that in places in
Persia, where it much abounds, no camels can be kept,
because it is impossible to prevent their feeding on this
plant, which is deadly to them. I cannot take leave of
this family without mentioning a remarkable phenomenon,
reported to us by Martius, in that work so full of infor-
mation, his Travels through Brazil. A Spurge grows there
(E. phosphor ea, Mart.) the milk of which, when it flows
forth from the stem in the dark, hot summer nights, emits
a bright phosphoric light.

While the family just alluded to, the blossoms being
generally insignificant, attract the attention of our horti-
culturists almost solely through their strange forms,
which, in some of them, approach to those of the Cactus
plants — the family of the Apocynacecc is, on the contrary,
a rich ornament of our gardens and hot-houses, on account
of the wonderful beauty of its blossoms, and is often still
more attractive from the remarkable structure of the
flowers, and the aberrant, also Cactus-like form of the plant
itself. What lover of flowers knows not the splendid
blossom of the species of C-arissa , Allamanda, Thevctia,
Cerbera, Plumieria , Vinca, Nerium and Gelscminum —

OF PLANTS.

195

the strange stalk and toad-coloured, ill-smelling flowers of
Stapelia ? But this family is not less interesting in other
respects. The best Caoutchouc at present known, that
from Pulo Penang, comes from a plant of this family
( Cynanchum ovalifolium). Also that from Sumatra,
( Urceola elastica, Roxb.), from Madagascar ( Vahea gummi-
fera , Poir), a part of the Brazilian ( Collophora utilis,
Mart, and Hancornia speciosa, Mart.), and the East Indian
( Willughbeia edulis ), are obtained from plants which
belong to the group of Apocynacete.

Most strangely, this family also, as well as the following
and last, exhibits the peculiar phenomenon which was
described in the first-named, the Euphorbiacete, namely,
that the milk-sap is in some species rich in Indian rubber,
in others, it is tempered into a clear, agreeably smelling,
and wholesome milk, while in certain others, on the con-
trary, this fluid grows, step by step, through successively
increasing quantity of noxious matter, to a most dreadful
poison. In the forests of British Guiana grows a tree
which the natives call Hya-Hya ( Taberncemontana utilis,
Arn.) Its bark and pith are so rich in milk that an only
moderate-sized stem which Arnott and his companions
felled on the bank of a large forest-brook, in the course of
an hour coloured the water quite white and milky. This
milk is perfectly harmless, of a pleasant flavour, and is
taken by the savages as a refreshing drink. Still more
pleasant must be the taste of the milk of the Ceylon Cow-
tree, the Kiriaghuma ( Gymneura lactiferum, Rob. Br.)
which, according to Burmann’s narrative, the Cingalese
use exactly as we do milk.

Dreadful, on the contrary, is the action of the terrible
Wourari poison, which the inhabitants of the banks of the
Orinoco concoct with mystic conjurations, the chief ingre-

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196

ON THE MILK-SAP

dients of which are furnished by the juice of a plant
belonging here ( Echites suberecta), and the hark of another,
likewise an Apocynaceous tree, Strychnos guianensis,
Mart, and Str. toxifera, Schomb.) Schomburgk has
recently given us a highly poetical description of the pre-
paration of this poison in the valuable Reports of his
Travels, which hitherto, unfortunately, have only appeared
in fragments in particular journals.

Poppig during his romantic wanderings in South Ame-
rica, had often an opportunity of becoming acquainted
with the frightful action of the Wourari. A large, long
reed is hollowed out by the Indians, and very carefully
polished. The arrows, about a foot long, are cut out of
very hard wood ; the point is dipped in the poison, and the
other end wrapped round with cotton, so as exactly to fill
the tube. Armed with this fearful weapon, the savage
steals upon the unoffending foe, who is perhaps busy pre-
paring a dainty meal from the newly killed deer. No
rustling nose betrays the practised foot that comes gliding
on ; no eye perceives, through the dense thicket, the deadly
reed from which, impelled by a strong puff alone, the
winged messenger of death noislessly and surely reaches,
even at a distance of thirty paces, the unwarned and
defenceless victim, who, from the slightest wound, in a few
minutes expires in convulsions.

The North Americans also use an Apocynaceous plant
( Gonolobium macrophyllum, Mich.) to poison their arrows;
and Mungo Park related the like of the Mandingoes of the
Niger, (according to him it is a species of Echites ).

Many other allied plants are among the most active
poisons ( Cerbera Thevetia , and C. Ahovai), and the seeds
of this group, in particular, arc almost more remarkable
for their deadliness than those of the foregoing, for two

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197

of the most violent vegetable poisons, Strychnine and
Brucine, occur in them. Some of our most active medi-
cinal substances are especially known on this account ; for
instance, the St. Ignatius’s beans ( Ignatia amara , from
Manilla), and the Nux Vomica ( Strychnos nux vomica ,
distributed throughout the Tropics.)

I must not neglect to mention here a strange custom
of the inhabitants of Madagascar, among whom, in a kind
of divine judgment, the strength of the stomach decides
upon guilt or innocence. When any one is accused of a
crime, he is compelled, in an open assembly, under the
directions of the priests, to swallow a Thangin nut (from
Tanghinia venenifera ) : if his stomach is in a condition
to reject this frightful poison upward, he is pronounced
innocent ; if not, the demonstration of his guilt becomes
at the same time his punishment, and the death of the
unhappy creature concludes the evidence.

It would not be difficult to make some of the more
important characters of the two families I have mentioned,
so clear, even to a person unacquainted with Botany, that
he would be enabled readily to distinguish any plant
belonging to them. Very different is it with the fol-
lowing, the last group, the Jussieuan family of Nettle-plants
or Urticacea. The plants belonging to this vary in the
most striking manner in their external forms, from the
smallest, most insignificent weeds, like our common Pel-
litory of the wall, and our Nettles, to vast and most
stately trees like the Bread-fruits ( Arto carpus integrifolia
and incisa), which, with their wide-stretched branches and
broad beautifully formed leaves, overshadow the huts of
the South Sea islander, who lives upon their savoury
fruit. As in the family of the Spurges, only some few
plants bestow, in their seed, a pleasant, nut-like kernel

198

ON THE MILK-SAP

(as Aleurites triloba in the Moluccas, Conceveiba guva-
nensis in South America) ; as in the Apocynaceous group,
several trees afford cooling, juicy, and therefore, highly-
valued fruits to the inhabitants of hot regions ( Carissa
Carandas in the East Indies, C. edulis in Arabia, &c.),
so the family of the Urticacere includes the strangest
multiplicity of fructifications. The little oil grains of the
Hemp, the green grape- like bunches which gracefully
adorn the slender twining Hop, the aromatic Mulberry,
the sweet Fig, the useful Bread-fruit, all these so various
forms belong to one group of plants, and the Botanist
traces in all the same fundamental structure, however
incongruous these manifold shapes may appear to the
eye of the uninitiated. One peculiarity, alone, extends
without exception throughout all the species of this large-
order, namely, the presence of fine, but strong bass-fibres
in the bark. The German name for muslin, Nessel-tuch
(nettle-cloth), denotes the source from whence the fibre
of which it is made was originally obtained ( Urtica
cannabina), and the skilful industry of the gentle Tahitan
prepares the most delicate stuff, without spinning-wheel or
loom, from the fine white bass of the Aut-e or Paper-
Mulberry, (j Broussonetia papyrifera, Vent.)

An elegant tree, allied to the last, the Holquahuitl of
the Mexicans, or Ule di Papantla of the Spaniards (Cas-
tillo a elastica Deppe ), furnishes the Caoutchouc of New
Spain, and the inconceivable quantities of this substance
which are brought to our ports from the East Indies, are
collected in great part from the venerable Fig-trees in which
that Asiatic tropical world is so rich. On a trunk of giant
girth, but seldom more than fifteen feet high, rests the
enormous crown of the Banyan or Holy Fig ( Ficus reli-
giosa ) ; the branches often run a hundred feet horizontally

OF PLANTS.

199

out from the trunk, sending down to the ground, at various
intervals, long straight roots, which quickly penetrate and
take firm hold, thus becoming props to the long branches.
These wonderful trees, each one resembling a small wood,
are dedicated to the god Fo, and the helpless, lazy Bonze
builds his hut, not unlike a bird-cage, in its branches, in
which he passes the day sometimes asleep, sometimes
dreaming in contemplative indolence in the pleasant cool
shade. These great Fig-trees ( Ficus religiosa, indica,
benjaminea, L., elastica, Roxh.) have sweet fruits, and
then milk-sap contains the interesting Caoutchouc. Some
of these plants also yield a harmless juice. By far the
most remarkable in this respect, is the Palo de Vacca or
Arbol de Leche, the Cow-tree of South America ( Galac -
todendron utile, Kunth), which was first made known to
us by A. von Humboldt. When a tolerably large incision
is made into the trunk of this tree, a white, oily, fragrant
and sweet fluid, very similar to animal milk, flows out in
sufficient quantity to refresh and satisfy the hunger of
several persons.

A striking contrast to this is afforded by the properties
of other Nettle-plants. One is tempted to call them the
serpents of the vegetable kingdom ; and the parallel is not
difficult to carry out. The similarity between the instru-
ments with which both produce and poison their wounds
is very remarkable. The snakes have in the front of the
upper jaw two long, thin, somewhat curved teeth, which
are perforated lengthways by a minute canal, which opens
in front at the sharp point. These teeth are not fixed
firmly in the jaw like the others, but moveable, like, but
in a less degree, the claws of a cat. Beneath each tooth,
in a cavity in the jaw, lies a little gland, in which the

200

ON THE MILK-SAP

poison is prepared, and the excretory duct of this gland
runs through the canal in the tooth, and opens at its apex.
When the animal bites, the resistance of the bitten body
pushes back the tooth, so that it presses upon the gland,
which squeezes out of it the deadly fluid, into the wound.

If we examine, now, the
hairs on the leaf of the
Nettle, we find a won-
derful agreement. The
stinging hair consists of
a single cell, terminating
above in a little knob.
Below, it expands into a
small sac, which contains
the irritating juice.

The slightest touch
breaks off the brittle
point with the little
knob, the canal of the
hair is thus opened,
and it penetrates any
soft substance; in con-
sequence of the pressure
which the resistance to its entry exerts upon the sac, a
portion of the poisonous juice is ejected out into the
wound. The poisons of our native Nettles and Snakes
are not of much consequence, but the nearer we approach
the tropics the more frequent and more deadly they both
become. Where the glowing Indian sun ripens the poison
of the fearful Spectacle-snake, there grow the most
dangerous Nettles. Every one among us has tclt the
slight but irritating sting of the Nettle, which it produces

OF PLANTS.

201

by its slender poisonous hair, but we have no notion of
the torture which its near allies ( Urtica stimulans, U.
crenulata, Roxb.) produce in the East Indies. A gentle
touch suffices to cause the arm to swell up with the most
frightful pain, and the suffering lasts for weeks ; nay, a
species growing in Timor ( Urtica urentissima , Blume), is
called by the natives Daoun Setan (devil’s leaf), because
the pain lasts for years, and often even death can only be
avoided by the amputation of the injured limb.

We do, indeed, find many violent poisons in this
family, and even some species of Fig are included among
the most dangerous plants ( Ficus toxicarici, L.), but it is
not worth while to linger among those of lesser im-
portance. The tales recounted of the Upas and the

Poison-valley mingle almost like a dark and gloomy legend
in our knowledge of the East Indian Islands. The crown
of the Dutch colonies, Java, destined, both from its favour-
able position and inexhaustible wealth of production, to
become, in time, the central point of the great Indian
Archipelago, has at all times attracted the attention of
naturalists in the highest degree. Holland has always had
the glory never to have forgotten, at any time or in any of
her colonies, to note the natural productions of the
countries she has acquired, and to encourage the efforts
of Natural Science, to aid and to reward them Swam-
merdamm, Leuwenhoek, Rhcede tot Drakensteen, Rumph,
and others, not to speak of the living, will ever shine as
immortal names in the annals of Science. For the de-
scriptions we now possess of the Poison-tree, of which we
are speaking, we have to thank the encouragement and
assistance which the Dutch Government granted to natu-
ralists, especially to the yet living Drs. Blume and

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ON TIIE MILK-SAP

Horsfield, the latter of whom, although an Englishman,
began his researches, under the protection of the Dutch
Government, so early as 1802, therefore eight years before
the short occupation of Java by the English.

In the 16th century, stories circulated about the
Macassar Poison-tree of Celebes ; and physicians and
naturalists came gradually to tell of the action of the
poison, the descriptions of which had become so terrible,
that if the smallest quantity entered the blood, not only
immediate death resulted, but its action was so fearfully
destructive, that within half an hour afterwards the flesh
fell from the bones. The first description of the tree was
given by Neuhof, in 1682. Dreadful as the poison is
represented to be by this old author, his accounts are free
from the gloomy fables which subsequent writers promul-
gated. At the end of the 17th century Gervaise asserted,
that merely to touch or smell the tree was fatal ; and in
Camel (1704), we find the story, that the vapour from
the tree destroyed everything living for a considerable
distance around, and that the birds which settled on it
died, unless they immediately eat the seeds of the Nux
Vomica, by which, indeed, their lives were saved, but with
the loss of all their feathers. Before this time, Argensola
( Conquista de las islas Molucas ) had told of a tree, in
the neighbourhood of which every one fell asleep and, it
he approached on the west side, died ; while, it he came to
it on the east side, that very sleep shielded him from the
deadly action. It was now said, also, that the collection
of the poison was committed solely to criminals whose
lives were forfeited, and who escaped their punishment if
they successfully completed their task. From Rumph we
learned that the Poison-tree is also met with in Sumatra,

OF PLANTS.

203

Borneo, and Bali, as well as in Celebes. But the Dutch
surgeon, Forsch, first spread the wild tales of the Poison-
tree of Java about the end of the eighteenth century. His
letter upon it appeared originally in 1781, and, after a
time, was translated into almost every European language,
— its contents being received into all the manuals of
Natural History and Geography. The Commissioners of
the Batavian Society, Van Rhyn and Palm, gave a very
different report in 1789, for they not only declared that all
Forsch’s narratives were false, but wholly denied the exist-
ence of such a Poison-tree in Java. Staunton, Barrow,
and Labillardiere expressed similar opinions ; while, on the
other hand, Deschamp, who sojourned in Java several years,
declared that the Upas occurred pretty frequently in the
district of Palembang, but that there was no more danger in
its vicinity than in that of any other poisonous plant. In
1712 the cautious and sober Kampfer added, in his ample
account of the Poison-tree of Celebes, l' but who could
repeat anything after an Asiatic, without mixing up fables
in his statement?” Nevertheless, the more recent re-
searches of Leschenault (1810), of Dr. Horsfield (1802-18),
and lastly of Blume, have fully confirmed the accuracy of
all the different reports, and shown us how the confounding
and mingling of very distinct things gave rise to all those
certainly partly fabulous narratives.

Two very different trees grow in those little visited
primeval forests of Java. All the paths leading to them
are closed and watched, like those leading to the gates of
the Holy of Holies. With fire and axe must the road
be made through the impenetrably interwoven mass of
Lianes, the Paullinias, with their clusters of great scarlet
blossoms several feet long, the Cissi or wild Vines, on the

204

ON THE MILK-SAP

wide-spread creeping roots of which thrives the giant
flower of the Rajflesia Arnoldi. Palms, with spines and
thorns, Rush-like plants, with cutting leaves, wounding
like knives, warn the intruder back by their attacks, and
in every part of the thicket threaten the fearful Nettles
formerly mentioned. Great black ants, whose painful bite
tortures the wanderer, countless swarms of tormenting
insects pursue him. Are these obstacles overcome? yet
follow the dense bundles of Bamboo stems, as thick as a
man’s arm, and often fifty feet high, the firm glassy bark
of which repels even the axe. At last the way is opened
and the majestic aisles of the true primeval forest now
display themselves. Gigantic trunks of the Bread-fruit, of
the iron-like Teak ( Tectona grandis ), of Leguminostf,
with their beautiful blossoms, of Barringtonias, Figs and
Bays, form the columns which support the massive
green vault. From branch to branch leap lively troops of
apes, provoking the wanderer by throwing fruit upon him.
From a moss-clad rock the melancholy Orang-outang raises
himself gravely on his. staff, and wanders into deeper
thickets. All is full of animal life ; a strong contrast to
the desert and silent character of many of the primeval
forests of America. Here a twining, climbing shrub, with
a trunk as thick as one’s arm, coils round the columns of
the dome, overpassing the loftiest trees, often quite simple
and unbranched for a length of a hundred feet from the
root, but curved and winding in the most varied forms.
The large, shining green leaves alternate with the long and
stout tendrils with which it takes firm hold, and greenish-
white heads of pleasant smelling flowers hang pendant
from it. This plant, belonging to the Apocynacea, is the
Tjettelc of the natives ( Strychnos Tieute, Le.sch.), from

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205

the roots of which the dreadful Upas Radia, or Sovereign
Poison, is concocted. A slight wound from a weapon
poisoned with this, — a little arrow made of hard wood, and
shot from the blow-tube, as by the South Americans, —
makes the tiger tremble, stand motionless a minute, then
fall as though seized with vertigo, and die in brief but
violent convulsions. The shrub itself is harmless, and he
wrhose skin may have been touched with its juice need fear
no consequences. As we go forward, we meet with a
beautiful slender stem, which overtops the neighbouring
plants. Perfectly cylindrical, it rises sixty or eighty feet
smooth and without a branch, and bears an elegant
hemispherical crown, which proudly looks down on the
more humble growths around, and the many climbers
struggling up its stem. Woe to him who heedlessly
should touch the milk-sap that flows abundantly from its
easily wounded bark. Large blisters, painful ulcers, like
those produced by our poisonous Sumach, only more dan-
gerous, are the inevitable consequences. This is the Antiar
of the Javanese, the Pohon Upas (signifying Poison-tree)
of the Malays, the Ipo of Celebes and the Philippines
(Antiaris toxic aria, Lesch.). From it comes the common
Upas ( anglice poison), which is especially employed for
poisoning arrows, a custom which appears to have ex-
tended formerly throughout all the Sunda Islands, but
which is now, since the introduction of fire-arms, only to
be met with among the savages of the rugged and in-
accessible mountains of the interior of the islands. At
once awful and grandly sublime is the character of these
mountains, which, like the whole island, owe their origin
to the most terrible volcanic forces. Everywhere are still
seen the traces of the subterranean fire, even in those

206

ON THE MILK-SAP

forests, especially if the gradual ascent of the mountains is
commenced where the woods clothe their feet. The
highest peaks are the fearful volcanoes, the terrors of which
have long been known. To these succeed the remarkable
mud-volcanoes, which, without fire or light, often break
out suddenly, and without the slightest warning. The
mountain Galungung thus discharged itself on the 8th and
12th of October, 1822, turning forty English square miles
into a desert, filled up valleys forty to fifty feet deep,
dammed rivers, and buried in its filthy flood 11,000 men,
countless draught oxen, 3,000 acres of Rice fields, and
800,000 Coffee trees. Lower down, at the foot of the
mountains, appear springs of all kinds, many of them sour
from the great amount of free sulphuric acid present,
others petrifying the neighbouring trees with the silex
dissolved in them, or displaying a milky whiteness, from
the quantity of fine powder of sulphur diffused through
their waters. In other places are found crowded groups of
cones of gypsum, three to five feet high, from the points
of which hot or cold water unceasingly bubbles, ever in-
creasing the size of the cones by its deposits. Large tracts
are desolated by the action of the great volcanic phe-
nomena. But new, fresh life springs up everywhere, side
by side with destruction, and clothes once more the naked
earth. Only particular regions make exceptions to this
rule. Leaving the thickets of the old forest and climbing
a moderate hill, suddenly, in a narrow flat valley, a horrible
wilderness, a true palace of death, spreads itself out before
the eyes of the shuddering wanderer. No trace of thriving
vegetation screens the naked sun-scorched earth. Skeletons
of all kinds of animals bestrew the ground. T here is it
often seen how the terrible tiger, in the moment when he

OF PLANTS.

207

has seized his prey, is himself overtaken by destruction ;
how the bird of prey, hurrying to feed upon the fresh
carcase, falls into the maw of death. Dead beetles, ants
and other insects, lie in heaps around, and testify still more
how apt the name, “ Valley of Death,” or “ Poison Valley,”
as these places are called by the natives. The formidable
character of these localities arises from the exhalations from
the soil, consisting of carbonic acid gas, which, on account
of its weight, is a long time diffusing itself in the air.
Exactly as in the celebrated Grotto del Cane , at Naples,
in the vapour caves of Pyrmont, this gas causes inevitable
death by asphyxia to all near the surface of the soil. Man
alone, to whom God has given it to walk erect, traverses
usually uninjured these deserted tracts, since the poisonous
exhalations do not reach up to his head. As the natives
of the Himalayas ascribe the difficulty of respiration ex-
perienced in the higher alpine passes, 15,000 and 16,000
feet above the sea, to the exhalations of poisonous plants,
so were the terrible phenomena of the death valleys con-
nected with the action of the Antiar poison and the deadly
touch of the Pohon Upas ; and it is natural that the
legends should have gradually assumed their so frightful
character, since, even up to the present time, no antidote
to those violent and rapidly acting vegetable matters has
been discovered. We will not envy the inhabitant of the
tropics the milk of his Cow-tree — and, content with the
gift of the useful Caoutchouc, we will readily resign the
luxuriant nature of those regions, which have so much
of the terrible mingled with their beauty. No remedy yet
restrains the operations of those poisons; like the destroy-
ing /Enigma, they oppose themselves to the human race,
and make good the proposition, that the bright lights of

208

ON THE MILK-SAP OF PLANTS.

tropical nature necessitate black shades among them, and
that more than one Dragon watches these gardens of the
Hesperides.

But I observe with dismay, that I have strayed far from
my original subject. Paletot and Mackintosh were the
watchwords of the strife; the superiority of the latter was
to be my theme, but I have, indeed, wandered too far away
from it to think of returning to it here.

jfltnt!) Htcturf.

A SKETCH OF THE CACTUS TRIBE.

“ To him who from this lofty space looks down
On that wide realm, it seems some painful dream.
Where shapelessness on shapelessness is piled.
Irregularity holds systematic rule.”

FAUST.

14

Mr

LECTURE IX.

We may, more especially through the progress of recent
times, define the purpose of all investigation in Natural
Science, the lowest equally with the highest, as an attempt
to show that the whole world around us is bound by
exceptionless, mathematical laws, and to deduce from such
laws, every mutation that occurs. Very dissimilar are the
degrees of completion in the different branches of Natural
Science, nay, the degrees even in which they have attained
the conception of their highest aim, or have more or less
advanced toward it. Between astronomy, the most perfect
portion of human science, and the knowledge of organic
existence, yawns a vast gap, to the filling up of which
mankind has yet tens of centuries to labour to carry over
it a firm and solid road. Since it really does not lie in the
industry of the inquirer, we must seek in the matter itself
the reason why our scientific knowledge of organic existence
is yet so far distant from its ideal, that there are even still
Natural Historians who will not for a moment acknowledge
the final conclusion. In Nature, we find manifold sub-
stances which act and react one upon another ; and hence

14*

212

A SKETCH OF

proceeds an incessant play of activity, the clearest and
grandest example of which is afforded by the fixed re-
gularity of the movements in our solar system. Even here
this play of force exhibits a determinate form, for the paths
of the planets do not all, in like manner, circle in one and
the same line drawn around the sun, but each in its own
way deviates from this line ; while the magnitudes of the
planets do not increase or decrease, &c., in a constant ratio,
from the sun. Here, at present, our knowledge is at a
stand, and we are unable to find a regular deduction for
these forms of the solar system. But the peculiar forms
become far more complex in the natural processes upon the
earth ; and here, where they at once present themselves
without our seeking and can readily be reviewed as a
whole, we call them “ shapes.” We might anticipate, in
regard to crystals, on account of their regular mathematical
forms, that they are subject to rigid laws of formation ;
but even here, it always appears to be purely accidental
that common salt and iron pyrites crystallize in true cubes,
and not in eight-sided bodies, like fluor-spar. Lastly, in
plants and animals, the forms become so varied and so
aberrant, that a mathematical basis is out of the question.
All here seems pure accident, or capricious sport of a
blindly-acting force of Nature. Yet there lies in Man an
irrecusable necessity, never, in his contemplations of the
world, to allow of accident , which would leave him com-
fortless and hopeless in the presence of the forces of
Nature, to which he is subject ; and, therefore, where the
understanding of the law is at present denied to him, he
makes the circumstances yield to a conformity according to
the standard of his own modes of action, the final cause of
which he seeks in a mighty and wise Creator and Sustainer
of the World. But how insufficient this is for the scientific

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213

examination of Nature is evident at once, from the fact,
that in such an act of judgment, we do not make one step
toward the accomplishment of our purpose. In reference
to the animals nearest approached to ourselves, we are
readily able to comprehend the relations of form to the
mode of life ; we clearly perceive that a bird’s form is most
perfectly adapted for flight, a fish’s for swimming, and we
admire the intelligence with which Cuvier made use of the
purpose for which the animals were destined, to unfold
with convincing certainty their form and the minutest dis-
tinctions of their anatomical structure. But let us enter
the Grotto of Antiparos, where thousands of crystals refract
the light of the torches with such wonderful brilliancy, and
realize to us the legends of the fairy world ; let us break a
path through the dense forests of Guiana, where the giant
stems of the thousand-yeared Bertholletias stand side by
side with the slender pillars of the Palms, the delicately
feathered frond of the Ferns strangely contrasted with the
broad simple leaf of the Banana, where the bare, thin,
hundred-feet-long stem of the Liane stretches from tree to
tree like the rigging of a ship, up and down which clambers
the slim tiger-cat — while thousands of elegant little Mosses
and Liverworts clothe the trunks ; let us mark how the
most varied colours and most wondrous forms of the
splendid flower-world of the tropics fill up the intervals —
then, indeed, the boldest imagination pauses at the seeking
out and establishing of definite conceptions of conformity
for the manifold forms and fashionings, and Nature leaves
us no other criterion for judgment of her work but the
principal of Beauty ; this alone still speaks to our feelings
and leads us to adore the higher Existence, of which this
immeasurable wealth of varied shape becomes a holy
revelation. But, alas ! we become aware that not even

214

A SKETCH OF

this idea is sufficient to serve us as a guiding star through
the countless forms of Nature. With the feeling that,
where we cannot explain by law, where we cannot decide
from the purpose, yet, at least, the inexplicable existence of
Beauty may suffice to interpret in mysterious fashion the
symbols of Nature — let us leave the forests of Guiana, the
last mat-roof of the Guaranese between the trunks of the
Mauritius Palm, and enter the Pampas of Venezuela, of
which Humboldt has sketched such a clever and vivid
picture. No smiling verdure clothes the gloving rock-soil
here ; here and there in its crevices the Melocactus displays
its round balls, “ horrid ” with threatening thorns. Ascend
we thence the Andes ; instead of tender grass, the earth is
covered with pale, grey-green globes of spiny Mammillarias,
while, intermingled, rises the serious and mournful old-man
Cactus, with its venerable-looking long gray hair. Borne
on the wings of fancy further north, we descend into the
plains of Mexico, where the gigantic fragments of the city
of the Aztecs, a product of a solitary era of civilization
long lost to history, display themselves ; the landscape
spreads out before us as the bare and naked Tierra
caliente, parched by the glowing sun ; of a dull green hue,
without a branch or leaf, the angled columns of the Torch-
thistles rise twenty or thirty feet high, hemmed in with an
impenetrable thicket of irritably pricking Indian Figs,
while round about appear the strangest, ugliest forms, in
the groups of the Echinocacti and little Cerei, between
which creeps snake-like, or as some great poisonous reptile,
the long, dry stem of the great-flowered Cactus ( Cereus
nycticallus ). In short, one family accompanies us through
all our wanderings, that of the Cactus Plants, which seems
in all its wondrous forms to withdraw itself entirely from
the principle of Beauty, and yet at the same time presses

>

r -

THE CACTUS TRIBE. “215

forward so strikingly, so determinately marking the peculiar
character of the landscape, that we are compelled to turn
our attention to it. And in truth, a group which appears
to retreat so far from all the laws of other plants, deserves
our interest in a very high degree. It has received it in
rich measure, and for those whose circumstances do not
permit of their making acquaintance with these children
of a humourous freak of Nature in their own native land,
our gardens, in which the Cactus Plants have come to be
among the most fashionable, will exhibit an abundant
selection of shapes. A somewhat minute examination of
this peculiar family will, therefore, not only be instructive to
the lover of Nature, but may possess also an especial
interest at this particular time.

Linnaeus was acquainted with only about a dozen
species out of the whole family, and these he united
together under the name of Cactus ; at present, more than
four hundred species are known, which are distributed by
Botanists into somewhere about ten genera. Most of these
are under cultivation in Germany. The richest collection
is probably that in the Royal Botanical Garden at Berlin,
which possesses more than three hundred and sixty species;
next follows, undoubtedly, the collection of the Prince
Salm-Dyk Reifferscheide. The Royal Botanical Garden at
Munich, the Garden of the Japanese Palace at Dresden, are
the next in importance. Those most perfect in the neigh-
bourhood of Jena are, the Collection of .1 [aage at Erfurt,
and Breiter’s Garden in Leipsic.

Everything about these plants is wonderful. With the
exception of the genus Peireskia, no plant of the order
possesses leaves. Those parts of Cactus alatus, and the
Indian Fig, which are commonly called leaves, are nothing
but flattened expansions of the stem. On the other hand,

216

A SKETCH OF

they are all distinguished by an extraordinarily fleshy stem,
which, clothed by a greyish-green, leathery cuticle, and
beset, in the places where leaves are situated in regular
plants, with various tufts of hairs, spines and points, gives
by its very varied degrees of development, the varied
character of the plants. The Torch- thistles rise in form
of nine-angled or often round columns, to a height of
thirty or forty feet, mostly branchless, but sometimes rami-
fying in the strangest ways, and looking like candelabra ;
the Indian Figs are more humble ; their oval, flat branches,
arranged upon one another on all sides, produce special
forms. The lowest and thickest Torch-thistles connect
themselves with Hedgehog and Melon-Cactuses, with their
projecting ribs, and thus lead us to the almost perfectly
globular Mammillarias, which are covered very regularly
with fleshy warts of various heights. Finally, there are
forms in which the growth in the longitudinal direction
prevails, which with long, thin, often whip-like stems, like
that of the Serpent-Cactus, so often cultivated here,
hang down from the trees upon which they live as
parasites.*

Few families have so limited a range of distribution upon
the globe. All the species of Cactus, perhaps without a
single exception, are indigenous in America, between the
parallels of 40° S. lat. and 40° N. lat. But some of them
were so rapidly distributed through the Old World directly
after the discovery of America, that they may almost be
looked upon as fully naturalized there. Almost all delight
in a dry situation, exposed to the burning rays of the sun,
which contrasts strangely with their fleshy tissue, tumid

* See the Vignette, in which the principal forms of this group of
plants are represented.

THE CACTUS TRIBE.

217

with watery, and not unpleasantly flavoured acid juice.
This peculiarity gives them inestimable value to the fainting
traveller, and Bernardin de St. Pierre has aptly called
them the “ Springs of the Desert.” The wild Ass of the
Llanos, too, knows well how to avail himself of these
plants. In the dry season, when all animal life flees from
the glowing Pampas, when Cayman and Boa sink into
death-like sleep in the dried-up mud, the wild Ass alone,
traversing the steppe, knows how to guard against thirst ;
cautiously stripping off the dangerous spines of the Melo-
cactus with his hoof, and then in safety sucking the
cooling vegetable juice. In vertical extension, the Cacti
are not confined within such narrow limits, and they
stretch from the lowest tracts along the coast, through the
vast plains, up to the highest ridges of the Andes chain.
On the shore of the Lake Titicaca, 12,700 feet above the
level of the sea, are seen the tall-stemmed Peireskicis with
their splendid deep brown-red blossoms, and on the
plateaux of southern Peru, near the limit of vegetation,
therefore about 14,000 feet high, the wanderer is surprised
by peculiar shapes of a yellowish-red colour, which at a
distance look like reposing savages, but which a closer
inspection reveals to be shapeless heaps of low Cacti, closely
beset with yellowish red spines.

What Nature has withheld, however, in external aspect,
she has, in most, richly replaced in the magnificent
blossom. We are astonished to find the deformed grey-
green mass of the Mammillaria decked with the most
beautiful purple-red flowers. Strange is the contrast
between the wretched and gloomy aspect of the naked,
dry stem of the large-flowered Torch-thistle CGereus
rjrandijlorusj and its large, splendid, Isabel-coloured,
Vanilla-scented flowers, which, unfolding under cover of

218

A SKETCH OF

the silent night, beam like suns, and in the wonderful
sporting of their stamens, seem almost to strive towards a
higher — an animal life.

But it is not the beauty of the blossom alone which
gladdens us, not the refreshing sap alone that revives
the languishing traveller. The economic uses are also
manifold. Almost all the Cacti bear edible fruit, and a
portion of them are among the most delightful refresh-
ments of the hot zones which ripen them. Almost all
the larger Opuntias, known by the name of Indian Figs,
furnish, in the West Indies and Mexico, a favourite
dessert fruit, and even the little rose-red berries of the
Mammillarias, which with us are tasteless, have, beneath
the tropics, a pleasant, acidulated, sweet juice. We may
say, in general terms, that their fruit is a nobler form of
our native Gooseberry and Currant, to which also they are
the nearest allies in a botanical point of view. Succulent
as is the stem of most of the Cacti, yet, in the course of

time, they perfect in it a wood as firm as it is light.

This is especially the case in the tall columnar species
of Cereus, the old dead stems of which, after the decay
of the grey-green rind, remain erect, their white wood
standing ghost-like among the living stems, till a benighted
traveller seizes it in that scantily wooded region, to make a
fire to protect him from the musquitoes, to bake his

Maize-cake, or burns it as a torch to light up the dark

tropical night. It is from the last use that they have
obtained their name of Torch-thistles. These stems, on
account of their lightness, are carried up on mules to
the heights of the Cordilleras, to serve as beams, posts
and door-sills in the houses ; as, for instance, in the
mayoral of Antisana, perhaps the highest inhabited spot
in the world (12,604 feet). Just as their allies, the

THE CACTUS TRIBE.

219

Gooseberry bushes, are used by our country people to form
hedges to their gardens, are the Opuntias in Mexico, on
the west coast of South America and in the southern part
of Europe, and with greater success in the Canaries ; their
firm, shapeless branches soon interweave themselves into
an impenetrable bander, opposing, by their dreadful spines,
an insuperable obstacle to the intruder. Lastly, the
medicine- chest does not go away empty, for the physicians
of America make abundant use of the acid juice for fomen-
tations in inflammations, and give the boiled fruit in affec-
tions of the chest ; not to mention some other prescriptions.

In the same way that grass and clover are not
immediately valuable to man, but serve as food for useful
animals, so is it with a number of Cacti, which support
an insect of extraordinary importance. This is the
Cochineal insect ( Co ecus CactiJ, a little, very insignificant
creature, externally just like the little, white, cottony
parasite, which is so often found upon the plants in
our hot-houses, and yet, through the invaluable colouring
matter it contains, so infinitely different from it. Formerly
the culture of Cochineal was confined to Mexico alone,
and the Government took great care to keep it secret. In
the year 1725, there were animated debates in Europe, as
to whether the Cochineal was an insect or the seed of a plant.
Thierry de Menonville carried it, at the peril of his life, to
the French colony of St. Domingo, in 1785. It was also
introduced into the Canaries, through Bertbelot, in 1827.
In recent times, successful experiments in its culture have
been made even in Corsica and in Spain. But although it
is now abundantly raised in Brazil and the East Indies,
Mexico still produces the greatest quantity and the finest
kind. According to Alexander von Humboldt* the export of

* Essai politique sur la nouvelle Espagne, Vol. m.

220

A SKETCH OF

Cochineal from Oaxaca alone, is now valued at £500,000,
an enormous sum, if we recollect that a pound costs about
thirty shillings, and contains some 70,000 insects. The
provinces in which the culture of Cochineal is most largely
carried on, are Oaxaca, Tlascala and Guanaxuato. The
Tuna Cactus (Opuntia Tuna ) is raised in fields in the
great may orals, which are called No paler os, from the
Spanish name of the Opuntia (Nopal). The Cochineal
Cactus ( Opuntia coccinellifera ) as it is called, is used
only in the West India Islands and Brazil. It is necessary
to renew the plantations frequently, as the insect rapidly
exhausts the juices of the plant, so that it dries up and
dies. The traders distinguish two kinds of Cochineal, the
prana fina and the prana sylvestre ; the former is richer
in colouring matter and its colour is brighter, the substance
which invests the insects is also more pulverulent, while
in the latter it is flocculent. However, it has not yet
been made out whether these differences indicate two
different species of the insect, or depend on a difference in
the mode of culture and the species of plant on which
the animal lives. When the animals are fully developed,
they are swept from the branches of the plant with a
squirrel’s tail, and killed by the heat of the sun or hot
water, dried and brought into the market. We prepare
from them the costly carmine by the addition of a prepa-
ration of tin, and the carmine-lake (Florentine lake) by a
combination with pure alumina.

While the ugly form, the splendour of the blossom, and
the manifold uses of the Cactus plants attract general interest
in a high degree, they arc not less interesting, in a narrower
sphere, to the Botanist. Zoologists have at all times found
in the examination of monstrosities and aberrant forms, rich
material toward the clearing and expanding of their know-

THE CACTUS TRIBE.

221

ledge of the regularly developing organism. It is to be
expected, therefore, that similar conditions will have similar
value in the vegetable world ; and what family could be
better selected for this purpose than the Cactacetf, which
seems to be but a natural museum of monstrosities, where
the forms are, in some cases, so abnormal, that no other
name could be thought of for one species, but that of the
Deformed Cactus ( Cereus monstrosus ) . They have attracted
the attention of Botanists on several accounts, and many
peculiarities, both anatomical and physiological, have been
discovered, through which they are separated from all
other, even the nearest allied plants. The results would,
indeed, be still much more interesting, if it were not so
infinitely difficult to obtain the material for researches,
since gardeners and amateurs are but seldom inclined to
devote then* darlings to the knife of Science.

The Cactacecs have long been compelled, in science, to
serve as the prop of a statement which, altogether false,
has yet been frequently put forward by distinguished
Botanists ; I mean, the assumption that many, or even all,
plants are capable of imbibing their nutriment from the
air. Even in the present day has this idea been again
revived with all the long ago refuted reasons, by Liebig,
whose Organic Chemistry has made so imposing an appear-
ance. It is believed, that from the vast amount of watery
juice in the Cactus tribe, joined to the fact that most of
them, and exactly those richest in sap, vegetate on dry
sand, almost wholly devoid of vegetable mould, where they
are besides exposed often three-fourths of the year to the
parching sun-beams of an eternally serene sky ; from this
combination of circumstances, even, it is thought that we
may the more safely conclude, that these plants draw their
nourishment from the air, since in our own hot-houses also

222

A SKETCH OF

it has been observed, that the branches of Cactus sterns,
cut off and left forgotten in a corner without further
care, far from dying, have frequently grown on and
made shoots three feet long or more. De Candolle
first found the right path, when he weighed such Cactus
shoots which had grown without soil, and found that
the plant, though larger, was always lighter, therefore,
instead of abstracting anything from the atmosphere,
must rather have given up something to it. All the
growth takes place, in such cases, at the expense of the
nutritive matter previously accumulated in the juicy tissue,
and it generally exhausts the plant to such a degree, that
it is no longer worth preserving. It is that succulent
tissue which enables the Cactus plants, — one might com-
pare them with the Camels, — to provide themselves before-
hand with fluid, and thus to brave the rainless season.
Thefr anatomical structure also assists them in this respect,
in a peculiar manner. We know, from the experiments of
Hales, that plants chiefly evaporate the water they contain,
through their leaves, and the Cactus tribe have none.
Their stem, too, unlike that of all other plants, is clothed
with a peculiar leathery membrane, which wholly prevents
evaporation. This membrane is composed of very strange,
almost cartilaginous cells, the walls of which are often
traversed by elegant little canals. Its thickness varies in
different species, and it is thickest, and therefore most
impenetrable in Melocacti, which grow in the dryest
and hottest regions, while it is least remarkable in the
species of Rhipsalis, which are parasites on the trees of
the damp Brazilian forests.

Another striking point about this group, is the formation
of an extraordinary quantity of oxalic acid. It this acid
were collected in large amount in the plant, it must neces-

T11E CACTUS TRIBE.

223

sarily be deadly to it. The plant, therefore, takes up from
the soil on which it grows, a proportionate quantity of
Lime, which combines with the oxalic acid, forming inso-
luble crystals, which occur in abundance in all the Cac-
tacece. In some species, as for instance, in the Peruvian
and old- man Cactus, the plant contains eighty-five per
cent, of oxalate of lime. Oxalic acid might certainly be
obtained with profit from these plants in the tropics.

A third peculiarity is exhibited in the globular forms
of Melocactus and Mamillaria, in the structure of the
wood, which differs entirely from that of the common
ligneous plants. Common wood, for example that of the
Poplar, is composed of long wood-cells , the walls of which
are quite simple and uniform, and of cells containing air,
the so-called vessels, the walls of which are very thickly
beset with little pores. Wholly unlike this, the wood of the
Cactus, above mentioned, exhibits only short, spindle-shaped
cells, inside which wind most elegant spiral bands, looking
like little spiral staircases.

Lastly, the hairs, spines, &c. situated in the places of
leaves, deserve a special mention. Generally speaking,
three forms may be distinguished, all three usually
occurring together on the same spot. The first are very
flexible, simple hairs, which form a little flat, soft cushion ;
among these is found a bunch of longish but thin spines.
These it is chiefly, which, on account of their peculiar
structure, make the careless handling of the Cactus plants
so dangerous. These little spines are very thin and brittle,
so that they readily break off, and are covered with barbed
hooks directed backward from the point. When touched,
a whole bunch at once penetrate the skin ; if an ^empt
is made to draw them out, the separate spines break in
the skin, and the fragments pierce in other places ; when

224

A SKETCH OF THE CACTUS TRIBE.

the hand is drawn over them, they catch in, and an
insufferable itching, terminating in a slight inflammation,
spreads over all the parts which have been touched. The
Opuntia ferox is especially remarkable for these spines,
whence its name, the savage. Among the hairs and
smaller spines arise very long and thick spines, in different
form and number, which give the best characters for the
determination of the species. In some, these are so hard
and strong, that they even lame the wild Asses which
incautiously wound themselves, when kicking off the
spines to reach the means to still their thirst. In Opuntia
Tuna, which is the kind most frequently used for hedges,
they are so large that even the Buffaloes are killed by
the inflammation following from these spines running
into their breasts. It was this species also, which was
planted in a triple row, as a boundary line between the
English and French in the Island of St. Christopher.

This brief review may then suffice to justify- the
interest which this family has now generally awakened.
The closer investigation of it affords rich matter for the
Naturalist, its manifold uses, especially in its native
clime, worthily occupies the attention of State Econo-
mists ; but more significant than this, through the
universal ugliness of form, they become for the phi-
losopher of Nature a subject which reminds him how
inadequate, at present, is all that we have imagined
toward the deeper comprehension of Nature, and how
endless a road still lies before us, which must be traversed
before we may venture to commence the building of a
system of the Philosophy of Nature, if we would not
bring forward, instead of scientific proof, the fair but ever
false dreams of a poetical imagination.

3£etU!j iUrttUC.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS.

“ The spot becomes a Paradise,

The whole world blossoms here.”

GOTHE.

Y'Vg; j j .

Wh

|||

'ii

i

mm

'Wgsma,

&tmkW

5

“ In Rome upon Palm Sunday
They bear true Palms,

The Cardinals bow reverently,

And sing old Psalms ;

Elsewhere, those Psalms are sung
’Mid Olive branches.

The Holly bough supplies their place
Among the avalanches ;

More northern climes must be content
With the sad Willow.”

GOTHE.

15

The following Lecture will especially want the quality of reality,
which no power of language could confer upon it. I must entreat
the friendly reader to take up a good map of the World, and the
excellent plates of Geographical Botany in the Physical Atlas of
Berghaus (and Johnston,) to supply the place of the demonstration
which so conveniently assists oral delivery, and I will readily allow
that perhaps a glance at those plates will convey a livelier impression,
and give rise to as much reflection as this Lecture.

THE

DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS

ON

THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH.

LECTURE X.

If we divide the globe by a great circle into two
halves, so that one half includes as large a surface as
possible of land, strangely enough, London lies exactly in
the centre of this hemisphere. Could we choose a better
starting-point, if we would, for any purpose whatever,
make a survey of the earth ? We enter this metropolis
of trade, we seek a relief from the restless traffic, in St.
James’s Park, and thence we bend our steps, by Carlton
Terrace, into Waterloo Place. A party of somewhat
foreign-looking men induce us to turn with them into
Pall Mall, and to approach a handsome new building
between the Athenaeum and Reform Club Houses. It is
the Travellers’ Club House. In England, every man
freely follows the bent of his own humour. Lord
John Russell makes it his glory to be the leader of
a Whig Parliament, O’Connell to agitate the Irish ;
Colonel Sibthorpc is famous for his moustache, Count
D’Orsay for his whiskers, and Lord Ellenborough

15 *

228

THE GEOGRAPHY

for his curls ; the members of the Travellers’ Club covet
no other honour but to have journeyed far and wide ;
and the waiters of the Club House catch flying, from the
conversation of the guests, more geographical knowledge
than if they had been for years industrious scholars of
Ritter. Wherefore should we not also try to draw some
benefit from this place? We step up to a table, at which
sit three men in lively conversation, whose sunburnt
visages at once betray the eager sportsman, often gathering,
in the pursuit of a day’s whim, impressions which many a
Naturalist would envy.

“ In the middle of October of last year,” related one,

“ I was among the beautiful mountains of Moray. Before .
me lay one of those quiet, mirror-like mountain lakes
which ornament that county, one bank extending out into
the low moorland, covered with Moss and Sedge, and the
white-topped Cotton-grass, while, on the other shore, rose
picturesque precipices of grey, wild rocks, sparingly decked
with Birches and Hazel-bushes, and sometimes rising into
lofty cliffs, around which the cawing crows were circling. The
thick autumn mist gradually began to retreat before the
sun, which made the slight hoar-frost on hush and copse
sparkle like a thousand diamonds. The light vapour
rolled itself up in fantastic shapes through the mountain -
passes, and disclosed the neighbouring hills, red with the
heather, or hurried up higher on the mountains through
the light, vigorous crests of Scotch Firs, which grew more
and more distinct. I had been long tracing the vagaries
of a particular, odd-shaped cloud, when all at once the
light morning breeze whirled it round and threw it off,
leaving a hill-side clear, on which, in quiet majesty,
reclined a stag of sixteen antlers. My first thought was
to place myself out of his sight, so I threw myself down

OF PLANTS.

229

and crept backward till I could only just see the points
of his horns. His position was as disadvantageous as could
be imagined, and my only hope of securing him lay in a
little brook which wound along between us and fell
beyond, over a steep cliff, into the lake. By making a
considerable circuit I succeeded in reaching its bed
unnoticed ; the steep bank concealed me so that I could
steal along, always keeping the points of the horns in view,
to within about a hundred paces. Here I had a full view
of the noble beast, as he lay there stretched out among
the red heather and the pale green rushes, now and then
rubbing his flanks with his horns. At last he rose,
stretched himself and walked leisurely toward a turn in
the brook, from which I was only separated by a smooth,
naiTow hillock, round which the water wound. I grasped
my rifle, providently changed the cap, and crept along the
bank till I caught sight of the brute some fifty paces
before me, standing up to his knees in the water and
drinking in long draughts. I fired at his neck, close to
the head. He fell to his knees, but rose again and sprang
up a hill, but already too far gone for such an attempt, he
staggered, turned back toward the brook, and fell apparently
dead a few steps before me. I threw down my gun, and
rushed with a joyful halloo ! and with drawn hunting-knife
upon, as I thought, my certain booty. But scarcely had I
touched the noble beast when he sprang up and with a
thrust hurled me backwards against the rock, so that I
rose again with pain and aching limbs. I was half
stunned and in an unpleasant position. Behind me was
the steep cliff over which the brook fell into the lake,
before me was the angry animal, dripping with sweat and
water, and, as it seemed, preparing for a fresh attack.
Thus, for some anxious minutes, did we stare one another

230

THE GEOGRAPHY

in the face, till 1 had somewhat recovered myself, and
rapidly executing a sudden resolution, I swung myself up
on to the bank, before my antagonist had time to thrust
again. Then I flung my plaid, from above, over the head
and eyes of the exhausted animal, and again threw myself
upon him. But I did not give him the death-wound
without a despairing struggle on his part, and then I
sank down exhausted on the damp moss beside my prize.”

“ It is not unusual,” began the second, “ for such a
noble and strong animal to bring the hunter into a
dangerous dilemma ; but some years ago I witnessed a
most ridiculous scene, in what, without my interference,
would have been a hopeless combat of a man with one of
the weakest and most cowardly of animals. Early on one
fine Sunday morning, I was rambling on the wide plains
of Gipps’ Land. My thoughts were wholly withdrawn
from my special intention of hunting, by the peculiarities
of Nature by which I was surrounded. First my path led
through those shadeless woods of New Holland, formed by
the leafless Casuarinas and the Eucalyptus and Cajeput
trees, with then’ sparing foliage, the narrow leaves of
which, oddly twisted, turn not their surfaces but their
borders up and down. With amazement I watched the
strange world of insects, among which a kind of locust
which exactly resembled a straw, especially engaged my
attention. Next I entered on a broad sandy plain, in
places decked with the wonderful Grass-tree.* The trunks,
several feet high, bear on their summits a bunch of
gigantic grass, from the middle of which the shaft bearing
the spike of flowers rises from fourteen to twenty feet.
Sometimes the soil was moist, and the vegetation, though
merely low bush, almost impenetrable. Only here and

* Xanthorrluva australis.

OF PLANTS.

231

there arose the sweet smelling Acacias,* with their splendid
golden halls of blossom, often densely wound about with
enormous coils of the wild Yine.f In lighter spots the
harp-pheasant spread its glorious feathers, and pleased itself
bv imitating all the natural sounds of this peculiar land,-,
indefatigably repeating the cry of the wild dog and the
chirp of the cicada. With some trouble had I worked
my way through this dense thicket, and had reached a
marshy district, now however dried up by the glowing
sun, and only exhibiting a few rills and puddles, which
alternating, in strange sport of Nature, with dense bushes
of gigantic Sedges and broad-leaved Rushes, served as
an abode for the ornithorynchus. Among the somewhat
better turf, a pleasant souvenir of the far-distant home attracted
my glance, the only one in this foreign land, and I stooped
gratefully to pluck the solitary little Daisy, when a loud
cry for help, mingled with shrieks and imprecations,
assailed my ears. I hurried towards the spot from whence
this sound, so unexpected in this wilderness, appeared to
come, and was not a little astonished at what I discovered
there. In the middle of a rocky pool stood a fat male
kangaroo, seven feet high, upright on his hind legs, — on
the bank before him lay a dog bleeding from many wounds.
I lifted my gun and levelled, but my attention was
diverted by the countenance of a man which displayed
itself, scratched and bleeding, among the rushes on the
bank. I immediately ran to his assistance ; but while 1
was helping him out of the mud, the ‘ old man ’f sought
safety in flight, and disappeared. The wounds of the
unlucky hunter were fortunately not so dangerous as they
looked, and he soon recovered himself sufficiently to be able

* Acacia mollissima, affinis, &c. f Cissus antartica.

f The settlers call the male kangaroo “ old man.’’

232

THE GEOGRAPHY

to relate his adventure. That morning he had set out on
a kangaroo hunt, without a gun, and only accompanied by
his dogs. The dogs soon traced and pursued a troop, but
only one of them returned to his master. Nevertheless he
had continued his walk through the woods, and soon started
the ‘ old man,’ and set his dog upon him. But the
knowing old creature, instead of flying, posted himself in
that slough, and with his fore-paws kept the dog from
reaching his body. The hunter, not wishing to be idle,
tried an attack from behind, through the water, but the
now irritated animal turned towards him, scratched him
over the face, and threw him backwards into the pool.
Every time he tried to rise, the ‘ old man ’ pushed his
head down again under water, so that if I had not come to
his assistance, he must inevitably have been drowned. In
the meantime, the beast had, probably in some fresh attack,
disabled the dog, and thrown him down upon the bank.
When the hunter had cleansed himself of the mud and
blood, we turned to help the dangerously wounded dog,
and at length parted, each to follow his own road, the
hunter swearing that he would never quarrel with an ‘ old
man ’ again without a gun in his hand.”

“ Such tales may do very well to amuse ladies,” com-
menced the third, “ but a man should not stoop to find
pleasure in such trifles. Only when life is daily and
hourly at stake, when peril shows itself in every form, can
one talk of an excitement which shall be amusement
worthy of a man; and where do you find it in such a
degree as in the Whale-fishery in the North Seas? I
recall with pleasure at this moment a scene which nearly
cost me my life two winters ago. We had been cruising
about the entrance of Baffin’s Bay for fourteen days, in
fearful storms. The rigging was stiff with ice, the sides

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233

of the vessel were covered with great shining masses. The
crew were half frozen, and we could not move a rope
through a block without pouring hot water upon it. We
had but little daylight, on account of the thick fog, and the
long awful nights were still more dreadful, when the ship
rose uphill over the black waves and sank down again into
the abyss, so that every moment we dreaded to be shattered
on the masses of ice which the howling storm drove over
the roaring sea, like palely shining, foaming night-demons
sent for our destruction. One morning, toward the end
of the storm, after a fresh fall of snow, an iceberg, five
hundred feet high, approached us with frightful rapidity ;
already was it awfully close to us, when the terrible cry
arose, ‘It turns !’# On it came, its tottering summit
bowing over toward our bows. Our fate seemed decided ;
the whole of the gigantic mass was sinking over upon our
vessel, and must shatter us to pieces. We all fell on our
knees, silently praying, and expecting the terrible mo-
ment ; even the helmsman knelt, but without letting go the
tiller. The iceberg vras already half-way over, when, from
unequal weight of its lower submerged part, it turned, and
a moment after fell into the sea a cable’s length behind our
stern, hurling the water in masses of foam over the very
tops of the masts, and blinding us from the force with
which the icy drops were splashed over our faces. For a
whole minute the vraves seemed checked in their course,
the sea seemed to boil, the ship trembled and rocked, and

* The loosened masses of Polar ice, driven by storms into lower
latitudes, often project several hundred feet high above the sea, but a
still more considerable portion remains submerged. This latter is
gradually melted by the warmth of the water, and then comes a time
when the whole iceberg falls over, the lower end rising above the
surface, while the previously visible end sinks down.

234

THE GEOGRAPHY

even the storm seemed to be interrupted, for the sails flapped
against the masts, and threw off the ice with which thev
had so long been covered. Then the sun broke suddenly
through the parting clouds, and, with the peculiar rosy tint
of the Red snow,* a broad shore spread out before us, which
promised a short rest to the wearied mariner.”

How contrasting are the pictures presented to us by
these narratives ; how it must make us reflect when we
note, that in each of these three sketches the conditions of
Nature, climate, plants and animals, are such as could not
occur in either of the others. Nay, the single agreement
which strikes even the uninitiated, the occurrence of an
insignificant little plant of our meadows in that most
peculiar and foreign country we have yet discovered, only
serves to increase our astonishment. Parti-coloured,
rich in form and hue, is the tapestry of Nature, hut
certainly not pieced together, without plan, of separate
patches, hut like an embroidery from artistic hands,
worked from a beautiful design. If we imagine a fly,
endowed with powers of sense and comprehension, crawl-
ing about a costly Gobelin, and from the coloured
points, which he could not see all at one time, conceiving
a picture of the whole, of which he could understand and
criticize the drawing and the colouring, we should own him
to be the greatest genius that ever lived. And in what far
less favourable circumstances is man placed upon the whole
earth. Plow many must here combine their observations,
even to teach a provisional review of, and insight into a
very small portion ; how many masters must yet devote their

* On the freshly fallen snow of the Polar Regions and the higher
Alps, a little microscopic Alga, the Protococcus nivalis, is not un-
frequently met with, which, with some little infusorial animalcules,
often linges the whole snow-field of a rosy red colour.

OF PLANTS.

235

whole life thereto, before we shall obtain full knowledge of
the Whole. At present, we can scarcely do more than
multiply the separate pictures of those sportsmen, and
delineate them rather more minutely.

A brewer’s son, of Huntingdon, Oliver Cromwell, raised
himself in a few years to be absolute ruler of Great
Britain, and by the power of his mind gave law to half
Europe. Tradition tells of a speech of his, in early youth :
“ He goes the farthest who knows not where he wants to
come to.” This saying may be thus expressed in less
paradoxical language, a man only attains to something
great, when he, from the beginning, takes the highest
object, the unattainable ideal, for his aim. In this manner,
we may take Cromwell’s maxim as a guide in every
science, and we shall find that its power is here in no way
belied. At the first glance, a man may indeed fancy that
it is easy to satisfy such a demand. It is so difficult not
to bring forward and depict to oneself the ethical, or if
it be preferred, the Christian ideal, but it is, at the same
time, certain that nevertheless very little is attained to by
individual men in this respect. The conclusion drawn
from this is, that far less depends upon the accurate
knowledge of the aim than on the activity with which we
strive towards it. But two essentially different stand-
points are herein confounded, and unfortunately, this error
runs through a large portion of our scientific efforts, and
brings a considerable portion of misconception, obscurity
and error into our judgments. The matter lies thus.
On mankind, living on the earth, a double claim is made,
in mental activity and development. The first concerns
the ethico-religious element ; the second his scientific cul-
ture. The two interpenetrate and mutually support one
another ; but their origin, their inner essence, is wholly

236

THE GEOGRAPHY

distinct, and they have an infinitely different import, con-
sequently an infinitely different value for mankind. The
ethico-religious development relates to the eternal and
incorruptible possession of mankind, his immortal soul,
consequently, to the proper, never-ceasing I. Here an
universal and necessary claim is made on every man, it is
the point where all are alike before God, with equal rights
and equal burdens, and truly equal, because the simplest
self-understanding suffices to the object, to comprehend and
express the ideal perfectly and purely. From the most
ancient down to the present times, have these claims been
in the same manner clearly and definitely set forth, only
under various forms of expression at different times. The
most important of all tilings for the individual , of course
lies here : to answer those claims, and in that he answers
them, to legitimate his position as a man in the nobler
sense of the word, as a being destined to a higher comple-
tion and eternal existence. Without this legitimation he
has no right to respect, to acknowledgment of any kind,
even though he have ascended to ever so high a stage in
reference to the point next to be mentioned.

The second claim made upon mankind, relates, on the
other hand, to his culture for his circumscribed position on
earth. Here the object is to raise every bodily and mental
power of our nature to a state of perfect culture, in order to
facilitate and ensure the attainment of the first-named
aim. To this belong all sciences which order and promote
matters of Church and State, Nature and Art, pleasure
and convenience ; all, together, be they valued highly or
lowly among men in general, stand in one and the same
condition of nothingness, insomuch that their importance
ceases with life, that they have worth and value only here
on this little sun-mote, our earth. A man may have

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237

accomplished great things here, but he has not the lowest
claim to any respect or recognition if he have not obeyed
the higher claims of morally religious culture. Whatever
he has done as Artist, as Scholar, I take it and apply to
my own purposes, but without thanks, as I place the gold-
piece I find, in my pocket, while I throw away with disgust
the muddy paper in which it was wrapped. What is
gained in that field, concludes with the individual, with his
development always begins anew, and gives him, and only
him, a value. What is gradually obtained by toil and
labour here, belongs not to the individual, but to mankind,
and enters upon time there where the other ceases. The
performance of the individual has indeed value for hu-
manity, but it bestows no value on the individual.

On the other hand, I cannot withhold my respect, my
recognition from a noble, spiritual being, who has proved his
right to this recognition by morally religious life, though
he have attained to never so little in any other branch of
human culture. The last claim is, indeed, not necessary
and equal upon all men, but subject to manifold modifica-
tions according to the countless gradations of external
conditions, of restraints and facilities. It is not universally
equal and necessary, for the reason that here, in direct
opposition to the perception of the object, the proposition
of the question to be solved is by far the most important,
and, of course, by him alone is a correct answer to be
expected who correctly puts the question. This holds
good, especially, in all studies of Natural Science; and it
would be but a slight exaggeration to say : ask but correctly,
and Natural Science cannot answer falsely. Its imperfec-
tion, its relatively circumscribed position, lie solely in this,
that it is so difficult to state the question correctly. Series
of facts accumulate, evidently allied in their nature ; if the

238

TIIE GEOGRAPHY

quantity become considerable, they are collected, in sys-
tematic arrangement, into a so-called science, but the
seeker wanders hither and thither without hold or aim ;
material is heaped up, and yet science does not advance
one step. Then comes a man eminently gifted with
genius, or frequently even merely one happily favoured by
accident, and gives definite expression to the problem, for
the solution of which men had been tormenting themselves
without knowing it; and now all the mental powers of
the inquirers are suddenly directed to this one point.
Down fall the barriers in rapid succession, and Science
advances with giant strides, till she comes again to a point
where all progress is obstructed, where everywhere is met a
flat and impenetrable wall, and now the same process of
development must be repeated anew, in a higher stage, till
again a new leader strike on the right place, where the wall
rings hollow, and thus betrays the possibility of a further
advance. In the domain of moral religion we have also
problems, but we seek the Sciences, which ensure their solu-
tion ; on the other hand, we have numerous Sciences, which
ever move round in a circle, till now this man, now that,
through Providence, declares a new object, and so they
become capable of an onward movement.

A striking voucher for these views is afforded us, for
example, in the Geography of Plants. In the earliest days
of Botany, in every description of a plant was noted the
place where it was found, but no one anticipated that these
notices enclosed the germ of a new Science. The clever
Botanist, Tournefort, made a journey to the Levant, and in
the ascent of Ararat it struck him, that in its gradual
elevation above the level of the sea, the vegetation assumed
essentially different characters, and that these changes
corresponded very closely with what was observed in the

OF PLANTS.

239

progress from Asia Minor to Lapland. Here was a
problem stated, and eagerly was the solution sought for.
Adanson, not less distinguished than Tournefort, first
expressed the fact that the Umbelliferous plants seldom
or never occur within the tropics ; and thus was another
question raised, which also awaited its answer. In the
year 1807 appeared Humboldt’s “ Essai sur la Geographic
des Plantes ,” wherein he sought to bring the observed
peculiarities in the distribution of vegetables into connection
with the specialities of climate. But it was ten years later,
after the mass of facts had a second time been heaped up,
without men knowing how to make anything really new
out of them, when Humboldt made the last step ; compre-
hending the whole earth in one intelligent glance, he made
the Geography of Plants part of a theory of the earth, and
showed the dependance of the distribution of plants, on a
great scale as on a small, upon the physical qualities of the
globe. But by this there was no Science perfected, merely
its foundation laid ; it had acquired a determinate point of
departure, but what its final aim shall be is at present
difficult, even where it is possible to unfold. At least, it
is very easy to point out, in certain instances, that fully
half the phenomena give as yet no hint, whence, from
what circle of natural laws, the grounds of their explanation
are to be drawn.

No Oranges grow on this side the Alps. The Grape
does not ripen beyond the latitude of Berlin. In Schoonen,
and in the most southern point of Norway, the Beech attains
its most northern habitation. From Bjornoe, northward of
Drontheim, a line extends across Norway, through Jiimt-
land and Herjedalen, which intersects the east coast of
Sweden at the most northern part of Gefleborg, and is the
boundary beyond which the cultivation of Wheat cannot be

240

THE GEOGRAPHY

extended northward. Higher up, the Fir forms the woody
vegetation ; but where even the easily satisfied Birch will no
longer thrive, a short hut at least occasionally warm sum-
mer, allows of the culture of the quick-growing Barley.
It is not difficult to find the explanation of all this series
of facts ; they are altogether dependant on climatal
influences, and an accurate investigation of the conditions
of temperature quite suffices to afford an explanatory account
of all these circumstances.

Very different is it with the following phenomena.
From the southern point of Africa to the North Cape in
Mageroe, the Heaths extend throughout the Old World,
merely leaping over the proper tropical regions. With the
same latitudes, the same climate and similar conditions of
soil, we find not a single species of true Heath in all
America. Other allied plants replace them, plants which
at least belong to the same family (the Ericaceae ) ; but if
we go to Australia, we find under corresponding conditions,
not one Ericaceous plant, but in their place appears an
allied, but wholly peculiar family of plants, the Epacris
tribe. In a little corner of Asia grows the Tea-shrub,
and it is certainly not the absence of corresponding climatal
influences in all the rest of the world that confines the Tea
to China. In a small girdle on the Andes of the northern
half of South America, grows the race of Peruvian Bark
trees : is there no spot on all the earth in which the like
conditions of temperature and soil coincide? Enough,
even one single example would suffice to call attention to
the fact, that there exists upon the globe a mode of distri-
bution of plants, which is not produced by the conditions
of vegetation at present understood, nor can be explained
by them. We here obtain, side by side, two wholly dis-
tinct groups of known circumstances, which refer to the

OF PLANTS.

241

same plants, for every one of these exhibits in its own way,
both kinds of distribution. Side by side, lie a soluble and
an insoluble problem, the former soluble because the ques-
tion can be stated definitely, and has been stated by A. von
Humboldt, namely — the Dependance of the Distribution
of Plants on the Physical Conditions of the Earth — the
second insoluble, because no definite proposition can be laid
down which the inquirer may apply himself to elucidate.
In regard to the first, therefore, we can bring the collected
facts into explanatory coherence ; from the second point of
view, on the contrary, we obtain nothing but an aggregate
of incoherent facts, at present incapable of any explanation,
but perhaps having even on that account so much the
greater claims on our interest. With permission I shall
slightly sketch the conditions of plants on the earth’s
surface in both relations ; and in conclusion, delineate with
somewhat greater completeness, as it were as a more fully
perfected example, the distribution of the most important
nutrient and economic plants upon the globe.

THE DEPENDANCE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS ON
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS.

We must here take our departure from the smallest,
most limited circle, in the intention to spread ourselves at
last over the whole earth. The origin of the compre-
hensive Geography of Plants was no greater thing than
the daily question : Where does the plant grow ? And
every Botanist treats, more or less superficially, a chapter
of the so-called habitations, the place of growth and
the native country of the plant. Through these small
beginnings of Science have light and order gradually come

16

242

THE GEOGRAPHY

into our conceptions, and much indeed still remains intricate
which the future alone can explain. Two essentially
different points have to be distinguished. The Heath
plants occur on dry, sunny, sandy plains ; they extend
from the Cape of Good Hope, through Africa, Europe,
and northern Asia, to the extreme limits of vegetation in
Scandinavia and Siberia ; these plants are distributed in
this great region in such a manner that South Africa has
innumerable distinct species, of which, however, never more
than a few individuals grow side by side, that then, towards
the north, the number of species suddenly diminishes in
an important degree while the number of individuals
increases, till at last, in the north of Europe, a single
species, the common Heather,* overspreads whole countries
in millions of single individuals. In the first place, we
readily see that only the first determination, that of the
occurrence, relates necessarily to each individual ; while, on
the contrary, the range of extension, and the mode of
distribution indicate causes which have scarcely any
importance in reference to the single individual, but very
great in relation to the larger groups of plants, which we
call species, genus, tribe, &c. From this it follows that
the former only, the occurrence of plants, is related wholly,
while the other two are related but partly to conditions
explicable by physical influence ; yet we must, at first,
keep more to that arrangement, since it is strictly logical,
which will remain fixed for incalculably long time, while, of
course, the last arrangement only holds good for the
existing condition of Science. When namely, we review
the various influences upon which the life and healthy vege-
tation of a plant, are, according to our present physiological

* Calluna vulgaris.

OF PLANTS.

243

knowledge, dependant, we quickly find that only a small
number of physical forces are as yet detected by us, in
their action on the organism, that on the other hand, a
proportionately large number at present altogether baffle
our endeavours after a more accurate comprehension of
their action, although we may safely assert that the life
of the plant is, and must be, as much dependant on them
as upon the others. Merely by way of example, I will
mention fight, electricity, and the pressure of the atmo-
sphere. The two first, as continually in action in every
chemical process ; the last, of essential importance in all the
processes and relations between gases and vapours, must
likewise powerfully affect the fife of the plant, which con-
sists in progressive chemical combinations and separations,
in continual absorption and excretion of vapours and gases.
The how is as yet a complete mystery to us, and many of
the at present wholly incomprehensible conditions in exten-
sion and distribution of species, may sooner or later find
sufficient explanation in these influences.

If from the snow-covered ice-plains of the extreme
North, where the Red-snow Alga alone reminds us of the
existence of vegetable organization, we turn toward the
south, a girdle first expands before us, in which Mosses
and Lichens clothe the soil, and a peculiar vegetation of
low7 plants with subterranean, perennial stems, and generally
large, handsome flowers, the so-called Alpine plants, gives
a special character to Nature. Almost all the plants form
little flattened, separate tufts ; Pyrola, Andromeda, Pedi-
cularis, Cochlearia, Poppies, Crow-foots, and others, are
the characteristic genera of this Flora, in which no tree,
no shrub flourishes. Leaving this region, which Botanists
call the Region of Mosses and Saxifrages, or after one of
the founders of Geographical Botany, Wahlenberg’s region,

16*

244

THE GEOGRAPHY

we go southwards, and at first we see little low bushes of
Birches, then more compacted woods, into which the Pines
and other Coniferous trees assemble, and we at last find
ourselves in a second great zone of vegetation which is
characterized by the woods consisting almost exclusively
of Conifers, which thus impress a peculiar character upon
the Flora; Firs and Pines, Siberian Stone-Pines and
Larches, form great, widely-extended masses of forest ; by
brooks and on damp soil, occur the Willow and the Alder.
On dry hills grow the Reindeer Lichen and Iceland Moss.
In the Cranberry, Cloud-berry,* and the Currant, Nature
gives spontaneously, though sparingly, food ; and a rich
Flora of variegated flowers serves for the decoration of the
zone, which stretches, in Scandinavia, to the already men-
tioned northern limit of the cultivation of Wheat, but in
Russia and Asia, almost to Kasan andYakutzk; we will call
it the zone of the Conifers. Even in the neighbourhood
of Drontheim, the culture of fruits begins, though
sparingly ; soon appears the sturdy Oak, called with rather
too much poetic licence “ the German in Schoonen,
Zealand, Seles wick and Holstein, flourish the first woods of
Beech. In about the latitude of Frankfort-on-the-Maine,
another tree joins company, which, in its bold picturesque
mode of branching, takes its stand beside the Oak —
which in the beauty of its foliage, as well as the utility of
its fruit, it far surpasses — namely, the noble Chest-
nut. The Pyrenees, the Alps and the Caucasus form
the southern limit of the zone, in the more eastern
portion of which the Lime and Elm contribute so abun-
dantly to the composition of the forests, that the former
even withstands the devastation which the Esthonians

* Rubus Chanuemorus.

OF PLANTS.

245

make, in the manufacture of their shoes from its bass.
In the Hop, the Ivy and the Clematis, we find here the
first representatives of the tropical climbers. The smiling
green of the meadows alternates with the gloomy shadows
of the forests ; and Man has taken possession of the earth,
restraining the wild vegetation to that absolutely needful
for wood and hay, and rich crops reward his industry. We
leave this zone of the Deciduous Woods to scale the rocky
barrier of the Alps, with which a wise Providence has con-
fined the German on the south, which he too inquisitively
scaled to fetch from the sensual and corrupted South infinite
misery, and a chronic sickness wasting his people for
centuries. Here suddenly appear quite different plants;
with the great woods of trees, the coriaceous shining
leaves of which last through the mild winter, and round
the mighty stems of which climb the Vine and flame-
coloured Bignonias, unite the similar bushes of Myrtle,
Tinus, Arbutus and Pistachio. Here and there the dwarf
Palm is met with ; Labiate plants and Crucifers, and
fair-flowered Rock-roses replace in summer the spring
Flora of scented Hyacinth and Narcissus ; but rarely, even
in the most favoured spots, is the eye, dazzled by the bril-
liancy of ever-green leaves, or the glaring play of colour of
the naked, jagged mountain chains, gladdened by the mild
radiance of verdant meadows. In recompense, mankind
has, in this zone of Evergreen Woods, seized upon the fruit
of the Hesperides. It is

“ the land where the Citrons blow.

Through the dark-green leaves the gold Oranges glow.”

But onward, ever onward strives the insatiable son of
Iapetus; no legend of African deserts, no death-news of

246

THE GEOGRAPHY

the many adventurous travellers who have gone forth to
seek the source of the Niger, frighten him back. On the
west coast of Africa, in the Canary Isles, is, indeed, no
longer found the gigantic dog, from which, as Pliny told,
the islands derived their name, but Flora gives for booty
richest treasures which she, by aid of the tropical sun, has
succeeded in extracting from the soil, moistened by the
vapours of the ocean. Round Sycamores twine mighty
Cissus stems ; Capers and Bauhinias interlace in the
thickets of balsamic shrubs. The slender Date-palm soars
aloft, and the Baobab grows up into gigantic masses of
wood. The wondrous Cactus-like forms of the leafless
Spurges, distinguished by their poisonous or pleasant-
flavoured, sweet milk, as the case may be, betray a peculiar
formative power in Nature ; and the Dragon-tree in the
garden of Orotava, in Teneriffe, a gigantic arborescent
Lily-plant, recounts to the musing listener the traditions of
thousands of years.

Six zones of vegetation have we thus passed through, in
which the continually increasing temperature of the climate
called forth ever a different, ever a more luxuriant vegeta-
tion, and we conclude our wanderings, after a short rest
under the five-thousand-y eared Dracaenas, by climbing the
Pic of Teyde. Man has taken possession of the soil of the
plain at its foot, and dislodged the original vegetation.
Through vineyards and Maize-fields we ascend, till the
shades of the evergreen Bay-laurel surround us. Trees of
the Lace-bark tribe and similar plants succeed ; we wander
for a time through a zone of evergreen forest trees.
At a height of 4,000 feet we lose the plants which had so
far accompanied us. A very small number of peculiar
plants mark a quickly traversed zone of deciduous trees,
and wc come among the resinous trunks of the Canary

OF PLANTS.

247

Pine. A zone of Conifers shields us from the sun’s rays
up to a height of 6,000 feet, then the vegetation suddenly
becomes low, — from humble bushes it passes into a Flora
which bears all the characters of the Alpine plants, till
finally the naked rock sets a limit to all organic life, and
no snow and ice bedeck the summit of the mountain,
only because its height of 12,236 feet does not, in a
position so near the tropics, extend up to the region of
eternal snow. Counting by the limits of vegetation, we
have re-surveyed in a few hours’ climb, the wide way from
Spitzbergen to the Canaries, an extent of more than fifty
degrees of latitude.

In the whole way, downwards toward the south and
upwards toward the summit of Teyde, vegetation changed
conformably with the climatal conditions, and we can
almost account for the observed distribution of plants by
the mere increase and diminution of heat. If we extend
our researches farther, we can even name particular plants
which are peculiar to particular northern latitudes, and in
lower latitudes again regularly recur at particular heights
on the mountains. Nevertheless, this case is comparatively
of rare occurrence, and we are finally compelled to refer
instead to another influence, less or scarcely at all under-
stood. When we find places in the tropical mountains,
which, in reference to moisture and temperature, as well as
to the constitution of the soil, exactly correspond to certain
places in northern latitudes, and which in spite of this
support a vegetation, which is, indeed, similar in general
character, but wholly distinct in the genera and species,
nay, when we notice that the agreement between northern
latitudes and elevation above the level of the sea in
southern latitudes, can be superficially demonstrated only up
to a height of about 6,000 feet, we are thereby directed to

248

THE GEOGRAPHY

attribute an essential influence to light, pressure of the
atmosphere, &c., even though we may not be able to unfold
the how.

We get the most definite notion of such a future de-
velopment of Science, when we make a close survey of its
past progress, and thus become aware how the gradually
increasing accuracy of the knowledge of determinate
physical conditions, has also rendered explicable here, many
phenomena which previously were very enigmatical. This
is most strikingly shown in the doctrines of the distribution
of warmth on the globe. Originally, as in the cases of
Halley, Euler and others, the attempt was made to refer
this distribution to the position of the earth in relation to
the sun, a proceeding which, for the moment, appeared
very admissible, since the sun is actually, if not the only,
yet certainly the most essential source of heat to the earth.
But in what violent contrast the so-obtained results stand
to the actual phenomena. Under such considerations the
temperature must naturally decrease regularly with the
increasing latitude ; but while the Russian army, on the
march to Chiwa, perished from cold under the 40th
degree of latitude, in the Faroes, under the 62nd degree,
the sheep remain at pasture through the whole winter.
All such calculations have, in fact, only value under the
assumption, that the whole earth is equably and homo-
geneously covered with substances on both sides of the
equator, which substances always have an exactly similar
relation to the heating rays and, finally, are always at
rest. Now not a single one of all these conditions is
fulfilled. We were, therefore, directed to immediate obser-
vation. It was found that even if the heat was differently
distributed, in reference to season, yet the same place had
pretty nearly the same temperature every year. If, for

OF PLANTS.

249

example, the average number of degrees of heat are taken
from a number of daily observations, and these average
numbers collected for every day in the year, and again
another average drawn, this last average varies but few
degrees from that of the preceding or following year.
Taking a greater number of years, for instance, twenty, a
value is obtained, which differs scarcely the tenth part of a
degree from the foregoing or succeeding twenty years.
Humboldt then first arrived at the ingenious idea of con-
necting, by a line upon a map, all the places upon the
globe which have the same mean temperature, obtained by
the mode of estimation just described (Isothermal Lines, or
lines of equal heat) ; and now it was found, that although
the curves of these Isothermal Lines deviate so much from
the parallels of latitude, yet the boundaries of vegetation
cling much closer to them than to the latter. But many
riddles yet remain unsolved. Drontheim, for instance, has
the same mean temperature as the most southern point of
Iceland ; the Hebrides, Orcades and Shetland Islands, have
something like 5° higher mean temperature. Nevertheless,
in Drontheim fruits and Wheat are still cultivated, while the
growing of Wheat first begins at Inverness, in Scotland, and
of fruit still farther south. Thus inquirers were at last led
to draw within the circle of their investigations, the distri-
bution of heat within the Seasons, since it is evident that
the vegetation is often more essentially determined by this,
than by the mean temperature, or sum of the heat which
it receives. The mean summer and winter temperatures
are now estimated in the manner indicated, and the places
which agree in these relations are connected in the same
way by lines — Isotheral (lines of equal summer heat) and
Isochimenal (lines of equal winter cold). Now Drontheim,
for example, has a mean winter cold of 24° 34', while the

250

THE GEOGRAPHY

Faroes have a mean winter temperature of 37° 4', and the
Shetland Islands 39° 12'; but the mean summer heat of
Drontheim amounts to 60° 5', while in the Faroes only to
50°, and in the Shetlands to 52° 4' ; and therefore neither
Wheat or fruits ripen, although the latter will bear a much
more severe winter temperature than 24° 34'. At Moscow,
which has an excellent vegetation, the mean winter tempe-
rature is 13° 51'. The 1 5 degrees more northern Mageroe,
situated quite beyond the limits of cultivation, has a mean
winter temperature of 24°; that of Astracan, 10 degrees
more south than Moscow, and where both the Vine and
Maize flourish, is the same. But the mean summer heat
of Mageroe is 42° 55', that of Moscow 61u 4', and that of
Astracan 7 1° 36' ; and it is altogether the heat which prevails
during the season of vegetation which determines the con-
ditions of the plants. In annual plants, or to speak more
correctly, in summer plants, the matter is self-evident ; and
perennial plants mostly enter in autumn into a condition
of inactivity, an actual hybernation, which allows of their
suffering severe degrees of cold without evil results.

But in spite of all the researches we have not nearly
attained the mark ; it wall be the duty of the next genera-
tion to break up the divisions of mean summer and winter
temperature still further, into the mean temperature of the
single months, since the half-yearly sections are far too
large to admit of an accurate comparison of the vegetative
periods. Very probably the result will be, not merely to
discover what temperature the plant generally requires
during its stage of vegetation, but also, essentially, how this
temperature is distributed over the epochs of germination,
growth, blossoming, and maturation of the fruit. Here,
as everywhere else, the acute Naturalist sees endless labour
before him, and only the ignorant prater thinks that he

OF PLANTS.

251

knows something, just because his weak eyes can reach no
farther than the book, from which he has so laboriously
collected his crumb of wisdom.

In former Lectures have at least been touched upon, the
chief points on which depend the Life of Plants, their variety
on the globe, and consequently the variety of vegetation.
The explicable life of the Plant is, formation of organic
matter out of inorganic compounds. The plant is there-
fore dependant on the condition of the soil, in the widest
sense of the word, on the store of nutriment it contains,
and on all that influences the chemical process of formation,
consequently, above all, upon a determinate temperature.
Now that I have, in the foregoing paragraphs, treated of
the conditions of temperature, I will here briefly consider
more minutely the influence of the soil. Usually two very
different so-called stations of plants have been distinguished,
but they have never been, properly speaking, defined
according to physiological principles. The universal, indis-
pensible nutrient substance of plants, and, at the same
time, the matter by means of which all the rest are con-
veyed into it, is water. Without water there is no vegeta-
tion. This element of the ancients presents itself to the
plant in three different forms, and according to these must
we, above all things, discriminate the stations of plants.
The Orchidaceous plants of the tropical forest let their
peculiarly constructed roots hang down from the branch to
which they cling, in the moist, warm atmosphere, and
absorb water in the form of vapour. Our Water-lilies and
the proper bog-plants will only flourish when surrounded
by liquid water, or, at least, with their roots dipping in it.
The case is quite different with the great majority of
plants ; they have to extract their nutriment from the
earth, which contains the moisture to be absorbed into

252

THE GEOGRAPHY

them in a peculiar condition. If to these three classes of
Air, Water, and Earth-plants, we add one more, namely,
the true Parasites, which, like our Dodder, draw their
organized nutriment from other plants, we have obtained
the principal divisions of stations. Next come the sub-
divisions, which are determined by the matters which the
water holds in solution and thus conveys to the plant. I
have already decided that carbonic acid and salts of
ammonia must always be present among these, to render
vegetation possible. Perhaps even here the more or less
of these two ingredients and their relation to each other,
may make a distinction which we are not yet in a position
to estimate. The relations of the inorganic constituents,
the salts dissolved in water, to the plants, are more evident
to us. Science has in this very point gone astray in the
most varied and opposite directions. So late as the com-
mencement of the present century, there were men who
asserted, that plants could themselves form all their organic
and inorganic constituents out of air and distilled water.
Superficial experiments, which yet were crowned by
academicians devoid of judgment, fantastic prating, instead
of logical accuracy of thought, allowed such distorted views
to obtain a temporary worth among a number of naturalists.
Subsequently, the error was in the other extreme, for there
was an inclination to ascribe a peculiar Flora to each
geognostic formation ; and this last error even yet haunts
the agricultural doctrines which would determine the good-
ness and intrinsic worth of a soil by the plants that grow upon
it. Truth here lies between the two extremes. I have
already had opportunity to demonstrate what very different
amounts and kinds of inorganic matters plants demand in
their vegetation. When we find that the ashes ol Lucerne,
of Tobacco, of Clover, contain more than 20 per cent, of

OF PLANTS.

253

lime and magnesia salts, we cannot be surprised if we do
not meet with them on pure sandy soils containing scarcely
a trace of lime ; but it would be drawing a false conclusion
from this, to say that the Muschelkalk, or the Keuper-lime-
stones, or the Jura-limestone, or any other calcareous
stratum of any given formation, is exactly the proper soil for
these plants. That a plant like the great Sugar-tangle,*
which is so rich in soda, iodine, and bromine, occurs only
in the sea, and not in fresh water, where soda is very
sparingly, and iodine and bromine not at all present, is cer-
tainly easily conceivable. But it is certain, at the same time,
when we decide upon the soils on a large scale according
to geognostic principles, that there are very few plants
characteristic of particular constituents, and this relation
is, indeed, neither very natural nor necessary. In the next
place, it may be asserted that all plants contain the same
constituents in their ashes, but in very different proportions.
On a soil, therefore, composed purely of one kind of earth,
for instance, lime, silex or gypsum, no plant at all could
flourish. Every soil which bears plants contains also in its
composition all the substances required by all plants, only
the proportions differ, and the predominance of silex, lime,
or common salt, must consequently favour especially the
growth of Grasses, Pulses, or Shore-plants, although these
are by no means exclusively confined to the proper sandy
or calcareous soils, or to the sea-side. In reference to this
point, I know really no other plants than the carbonate of
lime plants, the gypsum and salt plants, which I could
bring forward in evidence.

In addition to the chemical conditions, there is yet
another, which modifies the former and, where it brings

* Laminaria saccharina.

254

THE GEOGRAPHY

about the same actions, contributes to chain particular
plants so much the more firmly, exclusively, to particular
soils, or contrarywise, also contributes to conceal or
obliterate the connection between plants and the chemical
nature of the soil, This consists in the mechanical con-
dition and physical peculiarities of the soil. There are
plants which will only settle on unbroken rocks, which
when the other conditions coincide, spring from these rocks
over on to our walls, like the Wall Rue Spleenwort,* a
little Fern, the name of which denotes its station. Others
occur only where weathering has broken up the solid rock
into small fragments, drift plants, which clinging to
mankind, select rubbish heaps, which most resemble their
natural station ; our great Nettle and Henbane may serve
as examples. Lastly, other plants grow only where the
rocks have been reduced to fine powder, in sand or in
the fine grained clay produced by chemical decomposition.
The so-called German Sarsaparilla, the Sea-reed, f is an
example of the first condition, but there is no definite
condition corresponding to it in the vicinity of human
habitations. Clay, on the other hand, stands beside the
black substance, humus, resulting from the decomposition
of organic matter. Both rich in soluble salts, important
to vegetation, both distinguished in regard to their property
of absorbing from the atmosphere, and thus conveying to
the roots of plants, gases and aqueous vapour, they cause,
singly or in combination, the most luxuriant vegetation.
We thus obtain three stages in reference to the qualities
of the soil ; pure earths, wholly devoid of vegetation —
mixed earths, without clay or humus, with an arid but
characteristic vegetation — and lastly, soil rich in clay and

* Asplenium Ruta muraria.

f Ammophila arenaria.

OF PLANTS.

255

humus, with the greatest abundance and variety of plants.
Even in the north, the eye of the uninstructed observer is
struck by the greater richness and stronger development of
the vegetable kingdom, upon the argillaceous, basaltic
and porphyritic soils, and simple quartz sand is, under the
tropical sun, a desert, if water and therein foreign matters
be not furnished to it.

DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS UPON THE GLOBE WITHOUT
DEMONSTRABLE DEPENDANCE UPON PHYSICAL CON-
DITIONS.

In the narratives introductory to the present Essay, I
have already noticed that Australia has, in common with
Europe, a very common plant, the Daisy. The same little
flower is found in northern Asia, in some regions in Africa
and South America, and where it occurs, it climbs the
mountains from the level of the sea up to the snow-limit.
The little Enchanter’s Nightshade, the delicate Linmea, the
Bitter-sweet, the Bird’s Knotgrass, the blue Gentian, the
Dwarf Birch, and the Herbaceous Willow,* * * § and several
ethers, are indigenous both in Europe and North America.
The common Self-heal, the Duckweed, and our Reed,f grow
in New Holland. The Bog-mossJ covers the moors of
Peru and New Granada, as well as those of the Hartz, and
of Dovrefjeld in Norway. The brownish Parmelia § which
clothes all our walls, palings and old trees, is no less

* Circsca alpina, Linnsea borealis, Solanum dulcamara, Polygonum
aviculare, Gentiana Pneumonanthe, Betula nana, Salix herbacea.

t Prunella vulgaris, Lemna minor, Phragmites communis.

+ Sphagnum palustre.

§ Parmelia subfusca.

256

THE GEOGRAPHY

present on the only ninety-years-old Yorullo in Mexico.
The bluish Bristle-grass,* which is one of the commonest
garden and field weeds on sandy soils with us, grows also
in the interior of Brazil on suitable soil. A charac-
teristic plant of our sea-shores, and the vicinity of salt-
springs, Ruppia maritima, grows equally on the northern
coast of Germany, in Brazil, and the East Indies. But it
is needless to accumulate examples, for these so hasten to
present themselves, that the Anew finds some support in
observation, which assumes that every plant must exist in
every part of the globe where the known conditions of its
vegetation are present. But on that account have I plaeed
those three scenes at the very commencement of my dis-
quisition, so as to draw attention before-hand to the point,
that exactly the cases just mentioned, which, at first sight,
appear to be natural and necessary consequences of
vegetable organization, only occur as rare exceptions thereto.
Even the little Daisy exhibits a certain wilfulness. It is
wanting all through North America ; and that which we
tread down as an insignificant weed in our meadows, is
there reared with the most tender care in the Botanical
Gardens. If we pass in review the vegetation of difterent
countries, we see that causes appearing similar in our
present knowledge of them, bring forth, indeed similar, but
by no means the same forms of plants, do the plants ot a
particular northern latitude correspond in the analogous
height of the Alps, situated southward, other species of the
same genera, or other genera of the same family ; or the
plants of America arc represented in the same latitudes in
the Old World by plants which are different, but closely
allied in their development. Nay, even plants which belong

* Setaria Glauca.

OF PLANTS.

257

to totally different families, assume, at least in their outward
appearance, similar shapes. Thus the Cactus plants of the
New World correspond to the leafless fleshy Spurges of the
ton-id Africa.

If, again, we anticipate that a greater variety of condi-
tions of vegetation is the cause why the variety of vegeta-
tion, the number of species of plants, continually augments
from the pole towards the equator, and that on the same
account the number of sociably growing plants, of species
which clothe great tracts in countless individual specimens,
also increases in the same measure, we find that we are still
far from being enabled to give a scientific account of the
matter. It seems to us wholly the result of caprice, that
particular plants are distributed widely over the globe,
while others must live cribbed in the narrowest spot, as,
for instance, the Wulfenia, occurring exclusively on the
Carinthian Alps ; that particular families, like the Composite,
flourish abroad over the whole earth, while others, like the
Peppers and the Palms, only occur between very definite
degrees of latitude on either side of the equator, the
Proteacece only in the southern hemisphere, the Cactus
tribe only in the western half of the earth. Just as inex-
plicable is the mode of distribution of the families of
plants. While the Palms diminish in number from the
equator into higher latitudes, the Composite attain their
highest development in the zones of mean temperature, their
number of species diminishes from these in both directions,
equally toward the equator and towrard the poles; while,
finally, the Grasses increase constantly from the equator
toward the poles.

But there yet remains to be brought forward a peculiar
mode of consideration, according to which the distribution
of the families is usually determined.

17

‘258

THE GEOGRAPHY

The Sedges, for example, appear to the number of 1 34
species in the Flora of France ; in the Flora of Lapland, on
the contrary, only to 55. France is therefore unquestion-
ably richer in species than Lapland. But the matter stands
in a different light when we consider these plants in rela-
tion to the total vegetation of the two countries, and since
by this means we come to comprehend the characteristics
of the region of vegetation, we can only allow this mode of
consideration to be valid. France possesses altogether
about 4,500 Phanerogamous plants, and the Sedges con-
stitute only fVth of these ; the Phanerogamia of Lapland
are confined to some 500 species, and the Sedges form -^th
of these. The Sedges are therefore a much more essential
part of the Lapponic Flora than of the French ; the former
has a relatively larger number of species than the latter.
This it is alone that is understood by the increase of species
in a given direction.

This, to us inexplicable, mode of distribution of plants,
according to species, genera, families, orders and classes,
gives rise to certain peculiar regions on the globe, which are
characterized by the predominance of certain forms of
plants, or by the exclusive occurrence of particular families.
These portions of the earth’s surface, of which we at
present enumerate about 25, are called Geographical
Regions of Plants, and to them have been applied the
names of the men who have made themselves especially
famous by the investigation of these places.

I have already alluded to the region of Saxifrages and
Mosses, or Wahlenberg’s region, which extends from the
eternal snow of the poles, or the summits of the mountains,
down to the limit of the growth of trees, and is distinguished
by the absence of arborescent plants, and even of the taller
shrubs. Adjoining this comes the great Linnoean region,

OF PLANTS.

259

including northern Europe and northern Asia, to the great
chain of mountains which extends from the Pyrenees
to the Alps. Woods of Conifers, or Deciduous trees,
luxuriant meadows and broad heaths, in Asia the peculiar
salt steppes, especially determine the characters of this
region, which, at least in its European portion, is now too
widely taken possession of by cultivation to exhibit its
natural physiognomy. The wide basin from the Alps to
Atlas, the deepest part filled by the Mediterranean Sea,
forms a third region, distinguished by the abundance of
aromatic Labiate plants, fair, but fleeting Lily plants, and
the resinous Rock-roses. The solitary Dwarf-palm and
Balsam-trees denote in this, De Candolle’s region, the transi-
tion to the tropics. Parallel to the two last-named regions,
North America is divided into a northern region named in
honour of Michaux, distinguished by peculiar Conifers,
Oaks and Walnuts, by innumerable Asters and Golden-
rods, from the Linnsean region, and a southern, Pursh’s,
region, in which most strikingly appear the trees with
broad shining leaves and large splendid flowers, like the
Tulip-tree, the Magnolia, and others, defining the character.
Between Kampfer’s region, comprehending China and
Japan, Wallich’s in the highlands of India, and the
Polynesian, or island region of Reinwardt, renowned for its
Poison-tree and its Giant-flower, lies Roxburgh’s region,
which extends through both the Indian peninsulas, which
conceals among the shadows of the monster Fig-trees, the
Scitaminacea; , or Aromatic Lilies, like Ginger, Cardamums
and Turmeric, or in little woods of aromatic Barks, like the
Cinnamon and Cassia, matures in thick shapeless stems
the starch of the Sago. We pass over Blume’s region in
the mountains of Java, Chamisso’s in the Archipelago of
the South Sea, and Forster’s region in New Zealand, and

17*

'260

THE GEOGRAPHY

turn again to Africa, where' the Desert, Delile’s region,
ripens, in the oases, the Date, and in the tender-leaved
Acacias concocts the abundance of Gum Arabic and Senegal,
which commerce brings to the service of our industry. To
this, eastward, adjoins Forskal’s region, where the Balsam-
trees predominate; on the south, Adanson’s, the charac-
teristic plant of which also perpetuates the name of that
enlightened Botanist, the thousand-yeared giant stem of
the Adansonia digitcita, the Baobab, or Monkey’s-bread.
The little-known Africa gives only one more region, at its
southern extremity, Thunberg’s, bedecked with Stapelias,
Mesembryanthemums, brilliant Heaths and evil-scented
Bucku-shrubs, but poor in woods. New Holland and Van
Diemen’s Land bear the name of then first and most pro-
found Botanical investigator, Robert Brown; and Central and
South America distribute their vegetable riches into eight
more regions, which are dedicated to Jacquin, Bonpland,
Humboldt, Ruiz and Pavon, Swartz, Martius, St. Hilaire, and
D’Urville ; among these, Jacquin’s region is remarkable for
its strange Cacti, Humboldt’s on the heights of the South
American Andes for its Quinoa forests, and that of Martius,
in the interior of Brazil, for its abundance of Palms, for its
quantity of climbing plants or Lianes and Parasitic
plants.

These few outlines will suffice, not to sketch a picture of
the Flora of the World, since that would require the know-
ledge of a Robert Brown and the pen of a Humboldt., but
simply to indicate what wealth lies hidden here, of which,
at present, the industry and genius of the most distin-
guished inquirers have only been able to make a part
accessible to us. I turn now to the last section of my
essay, to a

OF PLANTS.

261

SKETCH OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT
OF THE PLANTS YIELDING FOOD.

There is not one region among the foregoing which has
not been compelled to deliver up some of its inhabitants for
the decoration of our pleasure-grounds, or to the service of
Science in our Botanic Gardens; and although we are
obliged to afford artificial warmth in winter to those from
the proper tropical kingdoms of Martius, Jacquin, Adanson,
Reinwardt, and Roxburgh, and even to protect them from
the unpropitious climate in the summer, yet there remains
a great number of plants from all parts of the earth, and
the mountain plants, at least, from the tropics, which when
cultivated by us in the open air, seem to corroborate the
proposition, that Man is, in this respect, lord of Creation,
and that howsoever Nature may have arranged the vege-
table carpet of the earth, he has the power to alter this
arrangement according to his liking, and, above all, for his
service. But it is not so ; and the facts on which the
statement is founded are but illusory when we look, not at
a little spot of earth like a Botanical Garden, but at culti-
vation on a large scale, which alone is really of importance.
Here Man again reassumes his character of a helpless
creature ; his activity in ploughing and manuring is but an
insignificant aid to the prosperity of cultivated plants, to
which climatal variations prescribe as distinct ranges of
distribution as to the wild Flora, and which the favourable
or unfavourable influence of a season brings to luxuriant
development or destroys. All over the globe has Man, for
the supply of necessary food, selected almost solely summer
plants, that is, such plants as complete their whole vegeta-

262

TIIE GEOGRAPHY

tivc processes, or at all events, the development of all the
parts containing nutrient matter, within the course of a few
months. By this means he has rendered himself indepen-
dant, in the half tropical regions of the evil action of the
dry season, and in the higher latitudes of the destructive
influence of cold, and thus ensured the possibility of culti-
vating plants, which there must be killed by the drought of
summer, here by the cold of winter. Setting aside the
cultivation of fruits which serve rather pleasure than
necessity, there remain hut three arborescent vegetables in
the whole world which can be included among the true
food plants, namely, the Bread-fruit, the Cocoa-nut and
the Date, which actually furnish the chief proportion of the
food of great bodies of men, and over widely extended
areas, and thence have become objects of culture ; the
Cycadacecc and Sago-palms, on account of then starchy
parenchyma, can at most perhaps be taken into our
reckoning only in a very limited circle in the East Indies.
All the rest of the food-plants are either such as possess a
subterraneous, usually tuberous stem, which sends up
shoots above the soil, persisting but a fewT months, on
which develop flowers and fruit, while dining the remaining
time, sleeping, as it v7ere, beneath the protecting coverlet
of earth, it sets the disfavour of the climate at defiance,
or such as die at the end of a short period of vegetation,
and ensure the future reproduction, in the slumbering
germ of the seed. To the former belong, for instance, the
Potato, derived from the Cordilleras of Chili, Peru and
Mexico ; to the latter, almost all our corn-plants.

One plant alone distinguishes itself among the cultivated
plants by a peculiar mode of vegetation, a plant which was
perhaps the earliest gift of Nature to Man awakening to life,

OF PLANTS.

263

and thus the object of the earliest culture, I mean the
Banana.* And this plant was not merely the first, but the
most valuable gift of Nature ; its slightly aromatic, sweet
and nutritive fruits are the sole, or at least the chief food
of the major part of the inhabitants of the hotter regions.
A creeping subterraneous root-stock sends out on high, from
lateral buds, a shaft fifteen to twenty feet long, which con-
sists merely of the rolled-up, sheath-like leaf-stalks, bearing
the velvet-like glancing leaves, often ten feet long and two
feet broad ; the midrib of the leaf alone is firm and thick,
but the blade of the leaf on either side so delicate, that it is
readily torn by the wind, whence the leaf acquires a peculiar
feathered aspect.f Among the leaves presses up the rich
cluster of flowers, which within three months after the
shoot has arisen, forms from 150 to 180 ripe fruits, about
the size and form of a Cucumber. The fruits weigh,
altogether, about 70 or 80lbs., and the same space which will
bear l,000lbs. of Potatoes, brings forth, in a much shorter
time, 44,000lbs. of Bananas ; and if we take account of
the nutritious matter which this fruit contains, a surface
which, sown with Wheat, feeds one man, planted with
Bananas affords sustenance to five-and-twenty. Nothing-
strikes the European, landing in a tropical country, so much
as the little spot of cultivated land round a hut, which
shelters a very numerous Indian family.

Not till long after did Man learn to know and cultivate
the gifts of Ceres. It must, in fact, surprise us, at present,
to see that but a few species of a single family of plants
furnish the principal food of the greater proportion of
mankind, namely, the so-called Corn-plants or Cerealia,
of the family of Grasses. This family includes nearly

* Musa sapientum.

t Vide the frontispiece, just below the Cocoa-palm.

264

THE GEOGRAPHY

4,000 species, and yet not twenty of them are cultivated
for the food of Man. In their real nature, these cultivated
Grasses are all summer plants, but varieties have been
obtained from some of the most important of them, which,
in the proper climate, sown in autumn, germinate and
pass the winter under the warm covering of snow, so that
they are in a condition to shoot out strongly in the spring,
while the soil is being prepared for the other summer plants.
Bearing in mind these exceptions, it may be said, that the
prosperity of all the Cerealia is dependant upon the tempe-
rature of the summer, or period of vegetation ; and if we
lay down their distribution on a map of the earth, it
exhibits a girdle which does not deviate so much from
the course of the Isotheral lines as many other conditions of
vegetation.

But the conditions of temperature under which the
Corn-plants vegetate, may perhaps be more accurately
unfolded than is possible through a plan of the Isotheral
lines. In Egypt, on the banks of the Nile, Barley is sown
at the end of November, and harvested at the end of
February, the period of vegetation therefore amounts to
about ninety days, and the mean temperature of this season
is 69° 48'. In Tuqueres, near to Cumbal, under the
equator, the time of sowing in the mountains, for Barley,
is about the 1st of June, the time of harvest, the
middle of November ; the mean temperature of this vege-
tating season of 168 days, is 50° 12'. At Santa le
dc Bogota they number 122 days between seed time
and harvest, with a mean temperature of 57° 24'.
If now the number of days is multiplied by the
figures of the mean temperature, we obtain 6282 for
Egypt, 8433ffr for Tuqueres, for Santa Fe 6489M,
therefore as nearly the same number as the unccr-

OF PLANTS.

265

tainty in the estimate of the days, the accurate mean
temperature and the want of knowledge whether or not
the same kind of Barley is cultivated in all the places, will
allow us to expect. Similar results are obtained for Wheat,
Maize, the Potato and other cultivated plants. We may
express these results thus : — Every cultivated plant requires
a certain quantity of heat for its development, but it is the
same thing whether this heat is distributed over a shorter
or longer space of time, so that certain limits are not
exceeded ; for where the mean temperature sinks below
36° 24', or where it rises above 71° 36', Barley will no
longer ripen. Consequently, to define accurately the con-
ditions of temperature which a plant requires, to maintain
it in a flourishing condition, we must state within what
limits its period of vegetation may vary, and what quantity
of heat it requires. This most remarkable circumstance
was first observed by Boussingault, but unfortunately, we
as yet possess not nearly sufficiently accurate accounts of
the conditions of culture, in the various regions of the
earth, to enable us to follow out this ingenious view in all
its details.

I have chosen the Barley as an example, in the preceding
remarks, because it has the widest range of distribution of
all the Cerealia, and is cultivated from the extreme limits
of culture in Lapland, to the heights immediately beneath
the equator. But it has by no means the same importance
everywhere that it has in the northern region, where, in a
little narrow zone, it appears as the sole bread-corn ; and
in the following observations on the distribution of the
more important Cerealia, it will be considered only in
reference to this last point. In Lapland and northern
Asia, Rye soon appears beside it, but by the inclemency of
the climate confined to favourable years, and therefore not

266

THE GEOGRAPHY

properly to be regarded as the principal food. First in
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia does the Rye become
the peculiar bread-corn ; and Wheat takes its place beside
it in the north of Great Britain and Germany, as the Rve
before joined Barley. In the centre of Germany, in the
south of Great Britain, in France, and in a wide range
toward the East, including the whole of the Caspian Sea,
Wheat is the prevailing cultivated plant, which in the
basin of the Mediterranean and throughout North
America is associated with Maize. Rice takes the place
of the latter in Egypt and in northern India, and holds
undisputed rule in the peninsulas of India, in China, Japan
and the East Indian Islands, shares it in the west coast of
Africa with Maize, which, on the other hand, is the
exclusively cultivated corn-plant of the greatest part of
tropical America, with only some unimportant exceptions.
In southern America, Africa and Australia, Wheat again
enters the field, with the decreasing temperature. The
culture of Tef * and Tocusso,f in Abyssinia, of Milletf
in western Africa and Arabia, as well as of Eleusine § and
Millet|| in the East Indies, are quite of subordinate
importance.

Some other plants bear a far more important share in
the nutrition of mankind than the Grasses last named.
Even in the most northern zone of the Barley and Rye, the
Buckwheat is an object of tolerably extensive culture.
With the already named Banana, the Yarns,** the Mandiocff
and the Batatas contribute largely to the daily food of

* Poa Abyssinica. t Eleusine Tocusso.

J Sorghum vulgare, and others.

§ Eleusine coracana and stricta. || Panic um frumentaceum.

** Dioscorea sativa. ft Manihot utilissima.

++ Batatas edulis.

OF PLANTS.

267

the inhabitants of the tropics, of the Old as of the New
World, added to which, upon the Andes presents itself a
peculiar vegetable, the Quinoa,* a plant which simul-
taneously produces edible tubers and abundance of seeds,
comparable to those of Buckwheat. Lastly, we may
not pass over the bread-fruit , in the proper sense of the
word, which is the principal food of the inhabitants of
the large islands which extend from the East Indies,
through the whole tropical ocean, to the west coast of
America, the gift of a large and beautiful tree of the
family of the Nettle Plants, which from the use it is turned
to is called the Bread-fruit tree.f For the sake of variety,
some also cultivate with it the Tarroo-root,| the Tacca
tubers, § or some Ferns, || the farinaceous leaf-stalks of
which afford a dainty meal. Last of all I will mention
the Potato, which has spread over the whole earth with
such rapidity, from the mountains of the New World, that
in many places it threatens, not exactly to the advantage
of mankind, to supplant every other culture. Only a
portion of its native land itself, Mexico, remains exempt,
and but in recent times has cultivated a few poor
tubers, at points on the coast, to set before the spoiled
European guests what, with a strange perversion of the
conception, one may call their native dish. A land, indeed,
which perhaps thousands of years’ culture of Maize has
so little exhausted, that after a very little labour a bad
Maize harvest yields two hundred-fold profit, which in good
years amounts to six hundred-fold, does not want the
Potato.

* Chenopodium Quinoa, + Artocarpus incisa.

+ Arum esculentum . § Tacca pinnatifida.

II Acrostichum furcatum, Pteris esculcnta, &c.

268

THE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS.

And we, who flatter ourselves that we are great agricul-
turalists, who plough, manure and sow with ingenious
machines, imagine that we have done great things when
we reap a twelve-fold harvest. Even this we do not owe
to our art, to which we might so readily ascribe it. The
worst-tilled soil produces a better harvest in a favourable
year, than we can extort from the best soil with all our
industry in an unfavourable season. Truly, only he who
looks no further than the clod, which his plough has thrown
up, can preserve the feeling of the importance of human
activity in his bosom. He who lets his free glance rove
over the earth’s ball, and looks at large over the play of
active forces, laughs at the digging, dragging, bustling,
panting ant-hill, which we call Humanity, and which with
all its imagined wisdom is not able to alter the slightest
working of the laws which the tyrant giantess, Nature, has
prescribed to her slaves.

ISIcbcntij Hectare.

THE

HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

“ All nature feels the secret power
And through eternal change, obeys ;

Up from the deepest region creeps
The trace of life of former days.”

FAUST.

The Vignette represents a group of fossil plants or impressions of
plants ; in the back-ground the stem of a Calamite ; right and left,
some impressions of Fern leaves, &c,

LECTURE XI.

It may appear strange that mankind from the very
earliest times, have turned their minds so readily to
nothing, nothing so amply developed, and of nothing so
circumstantially taught and written, as of that whereof Man
neither does nor can know anything. However, the
circumstance is very naturally accounted for, by human
indolence on the one hand and vanity on the other. So
soon as the first stage of sensual excitement and mere life
of habit is overpassed, Man in general begins to find
pleasure in intellectual movement ; the ambition, too,
awakens to know more, to look deeper, than others. But
the true road to this point, comprehensive knowledge and
persevering, earnest and definite reflection, is far too
painful, and therefore not everybody’s business ; and instead
of striving along this path toward the actually comprehen-
sible, Man prefers to use his imagination, a power, the
activity of which, on account of its half-sensual nature,
seemingly finds an incomparably greater delight in those
regions, where inconvenient facts and surely-judging logic
cannot interpose, where the imagination, not subject to the

272

THE HISTORY OF

decrees of truth, can make one story as good as another,
and consequently has no contradiction to fear from there ;
and where Man, cunningly leaping clear over the basis of
the dreams he brings forward, at once retreats behind the
impregnable intrenchment : “ Prove me the opposite !”

I will not here enter upon the various religious phantasma-
gorias and the inquiries into what is to take place after
death, and the like, but merely cite the cosmogonies, which
every people, nay among some nations almost every indivi-
dual, delineates, and recall remembrance to the fact, that
the truth of the Mosaic history of the six days’ Creation, has
been contested with more zeal than has ever been applied
to unfold the apophthegm : “ Love thy neighbour as

thyself ,” in all its meanings, and to act according to it.
While the haughty English High-church, much more
despicable than Popery in its most offensive extreme,
fattens on the sweat and blood of millions of poor hungry
Irishmen, she hunts down with all the unworthy means
that stand at her disposal, every scientific inquiry which
appears to contradict her narrow Hew of the literal truth of
the old Jewish poetry. Never is Man more, and indeed
almost only then, intolerant, when a scientific proof or con-
futation is out of the question. He who places himself in
direct opposition to sound human understanding, on the
domain of the demonstrable, subjects himself to the curse
of ridicule which nothing can withstand. But where no
proof in favour, and consequently, in most cases, no proof
against a thing is possible, conceit, when it is united with
power, compels the recognition of its visions, and asserts
indeed with really blasphemous audacity, that the Eternal
Ruler of the world has vouchsafed to it, in preference to
all the rest of mankind, special mysterious communications.
But the worst of the matter is, that while Man gives

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273

himself up to the spinning-out, the attack and defence of
dream-creations concerning incomprehensible things, his
time and opportunities are frequently lost, not merely to
do his duty and to learn to live in the fear of God, but
with calmness and clearness to seize upon the conditions, to
collect the facts, which are necessary to further and
develop possible knowledge.

The naturalist cannot go beyond the simple expression ;
“ God is the Holy Author of all things, and His Wisdom,
His Love, has created the world.” It is to him as
to every thinking man, a truth which may not he touched.
But he does not value this truth in that he carries it over
into what exists in time and space, or in the mere earthly.
He asks not of the Almighty, the Means in the sense of
the narrow human “ How ? ” not of the Eternal, Timeless,
the Consequence of Cause and Effect, which finds its place
only in Time. — He knows that where he pursues the nature
which surrounds him, backwards and forwards, with obser-
vation and thought, he can only find an infinite series of
changes of the Created, never an Origin or a Disappearance.

The simple poetical tradition of the Jews, the so-called
history of the Creation, naturally deals with a point of view,
where the earth alone bounded the vision of mankind, when
the sun, moon and stars were friendly lights, to brighten
day and to adorn the night. Reflections upon Nature as a
whole, and on a sublime Nature not yet broken up by the
confusing mass of separate conceptions, might in early
times have awakened, in the cultivated state of the Egyptian
priests, a fore-shadowing of the idea that prodigious revolu-
tions first brought our earth, by slow degrees, into the
condition in which we now find it. Reflection on the
mighty play of natural forces, may have here given birth
to more definite views of the gradual formation of the

18

274

THE HISTORY OF

solid earth-crust, the previous appearance of vegetable
development to that of animal, and the final entry of
Man upon the scene, as the most perfect organism
that we know upon the earth, before which it is quite
natural to place the less perfect in a preceding, graduated
series. These views of the gradual formation of the earth,
which to the men of those days meant the world, were first
collected by the greatest and most intelligent brain of
antiquity, Moses, and delineated by him in a picture of the
Creation of the World. But the few features of natural
history knowledge which it contains, are not the grandest ;
the feature in which it far surpasses all other national tradi-
tions, is the declaration : “ The earth has not existed from
eternal time, is not a play of blind formative forces, not a
product of inflexible Necessity, a Fate, but the free act of a
Holy Author, an eternal Love.” No other race has risen to
the conception of Creation in this sense, for even the
nearest and evidently allied Brahminic tradition, is, com-
pared with this simple, clear idea, confused in its imagina-
tive portions, and obscure in the sensuous. Ever, till the
end of time, will it, unchanged, re-echo : “ God made the
World !” but we are already far advanced beyond the germs
of natural science mingled with it. They relate, not to the
world, but to one of the smallest of the specks of one
of the innumerable little heaps of dust which dance their
endless circles in the ocean of ether. Of the origin and
development of all those millions of other larger, wondrous
bodies, we know nothing. Of the world, we only know it
is here, and now obeys simple, unvarying laws ; that
Mosaic history of Creation has, on the other hand, dwindled
into One Line in the Giant Book which recounts, in time,
the alterations of the Created ; a line, of which we have now
decyphered some few more letters than were known to

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

275

mankind in the time of Moses, but which we are not yet
able to read perfectly. Let us see how far we can collect
the decyphered letters into a comprehensible whole.

The earliest condition of the earth, to the knowledge of
which something more than mere dreaming, and, at least,
well ordered scientific analogies, at present lead, is that of
a molten, incandescent, fluid mass, surrounded by a dense
atmosphere which contained, as steam, all the water now
flowing over the earth, perhaps a considerably greater
amount of oxygen, but certainly an incomparably greater
proportion of carbonic acid than it now includes among its
constituents. The earth must have gradually cooled down
in space which, according to approximative estimates, has
a cold of — 40 degrees; the fused mass must have solidified
and formed a firm crust, upon which a portion of the
watery vapour, not now repelled by the cooler earth, fell as
rain. Every cooling body contracts, and thus the crust of
the earth must also have contracted ; from this cause
fissures must have been produced, out of which a portion of
the still fluid nucleus would be pressed, rise out over the
fissure and become spread around its margins ; in this way
forming the first inequalities or mountains, and thus also
the distinction between more elevated dry land and the sea
covering the level portions. Through the continuous
process of cooling, through ever-increasing thickening and
contraction of the earth-crust, this process must have been
often, and each time more violently, repeated ; with more
violence because in the thicker crust the cracks would
continually become narrower, and the mass which by cooling
must have become more viscid, would not, in issuing from
the fissures, spread out evenly over the borders, but be
pushed upward to gradually increasing heights. But in
the same proportion as the firm crust became thicker and

18*

276

THE HISTORY OF

more capable of resistance, that process must have become
more confined to particular localities, and have extended its
violently disturbing action over smaller portions of the
earth’s surface. In many places, merely vesicular elevations
were formed, which rose up out of the water, and oftentimes,
when the contents consisted of air, sooner or later sank
down again.

How often such phenomena may have been repeated on
a great scale, we know not. Many geologists assume, from
the conditions observed in our present systems of rocks,
that 12 to 24 such elevations may have taken place, but
the assumption is only valid for the products at present
lying before us, since no one can give us an indication how
many entire systems of rocks may have existed in earlier
times, and again have been totally destroyed or sunk down
to the bottom of the ocean. With that consolidation of
the incandescent fluid mass, in which perhaps the oxygen
of the atmosphere so far bore a share, that it became united
with the metals of lime, silica, potash, soda and the rest,
into the oxygen-compounds or oxides, of which the existing
rock systems are composed — with that immediate forma-
tion of rocks out of the cooling and solidifying mass, I say,
there came another process, of no less important influence.
As soon as the first solid masses of stone became elevated
into the air, forces were also already active to destroy them
again, forces which we for the most part still see, although
perhaps with less violence, restlessly labouring to destroy
and level mountain chains. The alternation of heating and
cooling caused the masses of stone to split up ; into the
cracks penetrated water saturated with carbonic acid,
decomposing the previously formed chemical compounds,
and loosening in this way the internal cohesion of the rocks,
which became broken up and finally reduced to dust. In

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277

this way we see in the present day, upon the Brocken, great
blocks of granite crumbling in the course of a number of
years into a coarse granular sand. Then those masses of
dust and sand, washed together by mighty floods of
rain, which were continually precipitated with increasing
violence during the farther cooling of the earth, —
into the deep, the great basin of the powerful ocean,
and here, when the water was more calm, became deposited
in layers at the bottom, till some new eruption lifted up
this sea-bottom and the strata deposited upon it, above
the surface of the water. It is clear that the masses of
rocks thus elevated must also be subject to the process of
weathering, and that the products of this, washed away
into new accumulations, must give rise to new deposits of
a different kind. Nevertheless, the original differences of
these deposits are not very distinct in subsequent times,
and they may be reduced to sandstone, limestone, and
clay or marl, which re-appear in every period. These pro-
cesses must have lasted for many hundred thousands of
years, until the firm crust of the earth gradually approached
the shape which it at present exhibits, and until the violent
strife between the still incandescent fluid mass and the
atmosphere of vapour had become moderated to a certain
degree of peace. This account of the formation of our
earth leads us to assume the existence of two essentially
different kinds of rocks — namely, those unstratified, as
they cooled down from the molten condition, and the
stratified rocks produced by deposition from water.

In some period of this gradual shaping out of the earth,
the first germs of organic existence originated, through
forces, which may indeed still be in action, but under
conditions and co-operation of those various forces such

278

THE HISTORY OF

as now appear no longer possible upon our earth. The
ocean was probably the birth-place of these organisms,
and their forms as yet very simple. The dead organisms
falling to the bottom of the sea, were buried, and either
wholly or in their more solid parts (shells and bones) pre-
served at least their external form, even though the
organic substance was in great part decomposed and,
frequently, replaced by inorganic matters which penetrated,
causing what is called petrefaction. From what has
already been told of the history of the formation of the
rocks, it follows that such petrefaction can only occur in
the stratified rocks. In subsequent periods, organisms
also originated upon the dry land, and the remains of
these passed as petrefactions into the rocks, and this in
two ways — either the bodies were carried into the ocean
by floods and the larger streams, or the whole surface of
earth on which they lived, sank down in the way above
described, beneath the surface of the sea, and thus they
became buried in vast masses beneath the deposits from
the water.

The careful study of the rock-systems and masses, and
petrefactions (fossils), has enabled us now to divide the
gradual formation of the earth into determinate periods ;
not, indeed, limited according to time, but according to
their products ; and these products are called rock-forma-
tions, which, arranged in definite series, have such relation
to one another, that no formation belonging lower down in
the series is ever found deposited upon one higher up in
the list, so that we can assume with safety, that they have
been formed one after another in this order. Several of
these formations are then collected together, so as to form
greater periods of formation, as it were stages of the

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

279

earth’s age; according to which, therefore, I shall, in the
following pages, briefly sketch the gradual development of
the vegetable kingdom.

But before I pass to this subject, I must once more
re cm- to the original condition of the atmosphere of our
earth, to its climatal condition and gradual alterations.
The temperature of our globe has two sources — namely,
the proper internal heat existing within, and that which
it receives from the rays of the sun. Of the heat, how-
ever, which it possesses and obtains, it continually gives off
a certain quantity to the cold space of the Universe.
Cooling, and warming by the sun, now bear such a relation
to each other, that they maintain a perfect equilibrium, and
that at least for almost 3,000 years, the temperature
of the earth cannot have altered the tenth part of a
degree. We have two proofs of this ; one astronomical,
which is based upon the observations of the moon’s
eclipses by Hipparchus, which I pass by here, and the
other botanical, which was first discovered by the ingenious
Arago. The Vine will no longer ripen its fruit where the
mean temperature of the year is higher than 84°, and, on
the contrary, the Date will not flourish where the tem-
perature sinks below 84°. These conditions exactly meet
in Palestine ; and the Jews, when they took possession of
this country, found the Date and the Grape together.
Now, had the temperature of the earth either risen or fallen
in the least since that time, one of those plants must
either have disappeared from Palestine, or have become
unfruitful there, which, however, is not the case.

If the earth at present derives just so much heat from
the sun as it again loses by cooling into the space of the
universe, this is in other words to say, that the sun is now
the only source of heat, and, therefore, the heat must be

280

THE HISTORY OF

distributed upon the earth in proportion to its position in
relation to the source of heat ; the tropics must he the
hottest, the poles the coldest, as has been already shown in
a former Lecture. But this condition did not always exist.
So long as the earth was yet in an incandescent fluid state,
and was surrounded by a dense atmosphere which would
transmit the sun’s rays but in a slight degree, the amount
of heat which it obtained from the sun remained scarcely
appreciable, compared to that which it lost by cooling, or in
other words, in the first epoch of the earth’s formation, the
source of its heat lay, to all intent, within. Here, there-
fore, there was no distribution of heat over the earth,
depending upon its position in relation to the sun, and the
temperature was pretty nearly equal over the whole earth.
A hot, moist atmosphere, at present characteristic of the
tropics, then prevailed all over the globe, and made the
polar regions to resemble tropical countries. Only by
degrees, as the earth gradually cooled and the atmosphere
precipitated its vapour more and more in the form of rain,
gave up its carbonic acid to the organic world, and thus
became lighter and more transparent, did the sun acquire
higher importance ; and thus the regions of the higher
latitudes and even the polar lands passed, in a series of
stages, through the climates, one after another, which we
now find upon the earth, side by side, in going from the
equator to the poles. This circumstance will prove here-
after very full of consequences in reference to the explana-
tion of the different kinds of vegetation following one
another upon the earth.

As 1 have already said, the first germs of life probably
originated in water, and in agreement with this we find
in the oldest stratified rocks, the Grauwacke, or as the
English call them, the Silurian rocks, merely some few

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281

remains of species of Tangle, accompanied by sea animals,
of which solitary representatives were already exhibited in
the preceding Cambrian formation. The species of Tangle
met with, manifest a great general agreement with those
forms now occurring in the tropics. It must not, of
course, be forgotten, that the Grauwacke has as yet been
carefully examined almost solely in England and Germany,
and that in these very places its layers have been so
enormously disturbed and altered by the subsequently
upheaved rocks, and by the action of the glowing masses
of these, that certainly many of the remains enclosed
within them must have been destroyed in those revolutions.
In Russia, on the other hand, this formation appears to
occur to an extraordinary extent in undisturbed stratified
condition, lifted very slowly and quietly above the
surface of the sea ; and from these we shall, hereafter,
first obtain an accurate knowledge of these oldest marine
deposits.

In the second period, numerous islands were formed, the
soil of which, consisting for the most part of layers of the
former period, supported a rich land vegetation. A part
of England and Scotland, the country of the Rhine, the
Erzgebirge and the Sudeten, central France, the Vosges,
northward, a part of Sweden and Norway, the Alleghanies
in North America, and some other points, may with
certainty be named as such groups of islands, upon which
was developed a vegetation quite tropical in its character,
but wholly strange in its individual forms, and consisting
in great part of races of plants which have now totally
disappeared from the earth. A few Palms and some
Cycadacese, some gigantic Equisetums or Horsetails, twelve
to twenty feet high, are found scattered in thick woods of
arborescent Ferns, which alternate with Lepidodendrons
(Club-mosses, rising up into mighty trunks), Sigillarias

282

THE HISTORY OF

(perhaps plants of the Cactus tribe), with Calamite.s,
Stigmarias, and Conifers. Still we find no trace to show
that animals inhabited these islands, but in the sea Sharks
were already chasing the smaller fish, the shore was
fringed with numerous forms of Coral ; the Trilobites,
strange Crab-like animals, wonderful creatures allied to the
Nautilus, and the elegant, lily-like Encrinites and Penta-
crinites, gave rich variety to the aquatic Fauna. Over the
w7hole globe is that Flora the same, from the now7 frozen
caves of Iceland, to the glowing coast of Malabar. Long
must this vegetation have endured, often must the soil,
covered with a thick layer of humus from the remains of
dead plants, have sunk beneath the surface of the ocean,
been covered with a new layer of deposits and again been
upheaved, affording new soils to successive productions of
the same luxuriant vegetation ; since it is this vegetation
which has left behind the incalculably vast, half-destroyed
vegetable masses which, as Coal, now constitute almost one
of the most essential portions of the natural riches of a
country. We often find from twenty to thirty7 layers of
Coal, one above another, always separated by layers of
calcareous deposits enclosing marine animals. We often
find the upright stems of whole w7oods in such carboniferous
deposits, proving that the whole land sank down slowly and
without any considerable revolutions, beneath the surface
of the sea, as even now occurs on the south-west coast of
North America ; nay, w7e find such stems, with their roots
sunk below in the Coal, that is in the soil so rich in humus
which nourished them, while their upper portions are
enclosed in calcareous layers subsequently deposited upon
the soil. When it is considered, that almost a century is
required to form a layer of humus nine inches thick, by
the most luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, that this
layer, to convert it into Coal, must be compressed into a

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283

twenty-seventh part of its thickness, an approximative
conception may be formed of the duration of that period ;
since the super-imposed layers of Coal, in England for
instance, often have a collective thickness of forty-four feet,
and correspond therefore to a period of time almost
equalling 100,000 years. The character of the vegetable
world of the Carboniferous period, expressed in the pre-
dominance of the great arborescent Cryptogamia, especially
the Ferns, reminds us most of the Flora of the tropical
South Sea Islands, and the vegetation of these organisms
seems to be particularly dependant on a hot atmosphere,
saturated with moisture, such as we are compelled to
assume to have existed in that epoch of the earth’s
history.

In the succeeding period of the Secondary rocks, the
previously existing islands, with their Flora, appear to have
become partly submerged again, while other, more extended
tracts of land rose up, the soil of which consisted prin-
cipally of the lime and sandstone of the Coal period.
However, these tracts of land partly united with the islands
already formed, and thus particular forms of plants of the
previous epoch were preserved and continued over into the
new order of things, while the most peculiar races partly
sank with their soil, and partly died out, in consequence
of the gradual essential alteration of the physical condi-
tions. The arborescent Ferns and the Calamites still
existed but became more rare, while the Cycadacece and
Conifers developed in great abundance, and in numerous
peculiar forms, forming dense forests on the borders of the
great lakes, in which great Sedge and Rush-like plants
vegetated. Grand forms of hiliaceoe rising into trees, the
Bucklandias and Clathrarias, perhaps constituted peculiar
groups on the more elevated grounds. Among these

284

TIIE HISTORY OF

rolled the giant bodies of the Old World, gaviaLs, lizards,
and turtles, fluttered the strange Pterodactyles like colossal
bats, and in the dry places played the wondrous opos-
sums ; while, in the ocean, the monster Plesiosaurians
and Icthyosaurians, half fish, half lizard, fed upon the
countless little inhabitants of the liquid element, which was,
moreover, alive with ammonites and nautili, strange crabs,
and peculiar star-fishes. The conditions of the Carboni-
ferous period were only repeated here on a very small
scale, and the remains of that world of plants are found in
the so-called Keuper formation, as letten coal, here and
there so abundant, that it has been thought worth the
trouble of obtaining by mining operations. The pecu-
liarities of the Coal Flora, consisted in the preponderance of
arborescent Cryptogamia, with which were associated only
solitary Conifers and Cycadacese; in the period of the
secondary formations, on the other hand, the latter are
the plants which especially determine the character, solitary
Monocotyledons occurring among them. But already to-
wards the close of the secondary period, the character of
the vegetation became altered, probably through a fresh,
slow depression beneath the sea, of a great portion of the
existing land, bordered round with coral hanks, while
in other places more mighty continents, partly correspond-
ing to those existing at the present time, became upheaved.
Thence, we find, out of the last formations of the secondary
period, scarcely anything hut a few Algse and Monocoty-
ledonous water-plants, and merely indications that the
Cycadacese and Conifers were not destroyed.

The new arrangement now presenting itself, called by
geologists, Tertiary formations, began still with a widely
extended tropical character ; we find in high latitudes, as
in England, still a rich vegetation of Palms, which now

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generally appeared in a striking manner, and appear to
have determined the character of the landscape, while
the Coniferse and Cycadese, drew back gradually more and
more into particular localities, perhaps the former on to
the cooler heights, the latter to dry, sunny hills. Among
Pandaneae and mighty Bull-rushes grazed gigantic Tapirs,
and the woods, already formed of deciduous Dicotyledons,
were filled with birds and the lesser animals. Whales,
walruses and seals traversed the seas.

While the earth began to cool down gradually from
the poles hitherward, to its present temperature, the plants
and animals became always more and more localized ;
Faunas and Floras of definite zones were formed. Even
towards the end of this period, the mammoth required his
warm, woolly hair to protect him from the piercing cold
in the steppes of Siberia, and used more hardly by Nature
than his younger brother the elephant, was forced to live
upon the Conifers confined to the north and the higher
mountains. The forms of the present world continually
made themselves more evident in the Vegetable Creation.
Alders and Poplars clothed the new low-grounds ; Chest-
nuts and Figs the sunny hills ; and slender Birches con-
tested with the Pines the possession of the drier and cooler
soils. The giant stream of North America, the Missisippi,
annually rolls down to the sea in its flood, immeasurable
masses of dead, floating vegetable bodies, vast trunks of
trees from the woods in the regions of its sources. In the
sea, the currents are too slow to keep these heavy bodies
floating, and they sink at the mouth of the river, the inter-
spaces between them becoming filled up with mud and
drift. From New Orleans, marshy low grounds extend
downwards for many miles, which consist entirely of such
floated-down masses of plants, cemented together by sand

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and clay, and gradually decomposed into a substance
resembling peat, and which is forming a layer of coal for
future ages. In a similar way, did the great streams of
this period float into masses and deposit countless trunks,
especially of Conifers, in estuaries and fresh- water basins,
which perhaps were brought, through later depressions, yet
deeper beneath the surface of the ocean, covered with
deposits of sand, lime or clay, and then upheaved again.
These are the layers of brown coal, often so very extensive,
which are always a valuable gift of the soil, but still a
poor substitute for the true coal withheld.

The new elevation of some important rock systems,
in particular those of the Himalayas, appears to have, in
great part, put an end to all this life, through the alteration
of the level of the ocean which it caused, and since, at the
same time, the earth attained the limit of its possible
cooling, it thus appears to have produced the present
structure of the solid land and its organisms.

All the succeeding changes which now occurred, eleva-
tions and depressions of the land, were dependant merely
on local actions of subordinate importance.

We may abridge the preceding sketch into the following
main points. The gradual development of the vegetable
world commenced with the simplest plants, and advanced
gradually through the succeeding periods to the most
perfect plants of our existing vegetation. The structures
of the first period correspond to a tropical climate contem-
poraneously extended all over the globe, which passed by
degrees from the poles towards the equator into the present
climatal conditions ; and keeping pace with this, appeared
another change, for the plants of the oldest period which
seem to have been equally distributed over the whole
earth, by degrees were confined into regions of dis-

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287

tribution, and so passed into the great geographical
variety of the vegetable world. The gradual conversion
of the universal tropical climate into the present cli-
matal zones, may be shown in another very interesting
manner, in quite a special instance. All ligneous
tnmks of Coniferous trees continually increase in thickness
at all parts of their circumference. In the equatorial regions,
where the climate retains the same character uninterruptedly
throughout the year, this thickening of the trunk proceeds
without interruption and homogeneously ; no mark betrays,
in a smooth transverse section of the stem, the time which
was required for its formation. As we proceed towards the
north, however, as the climatal conditions produce con-
tinually increasing diversity in the particular seasons, the
corresponding growth in thickness shows itself to have been
furthered by the favourable season, and restrained or
altogether interrupted by the unpropitious times. In a
cross section of a stem are seen, the higher the latitude in
which it has grown, the greater differences in the structure
of the successive portions of the wood ; until, finally, in the
latitudes where there is a severe alternation of winter and
summer, so striking becomes the difference between the
wood last formed in summer and that first produced in the
next spring, that we may count in the number of annular
marks thus produced, in a cross section, with great cer-
tainty and accuracy, the number of years which have been
occupied in the formation of the trunk. The circular lines
upon the cross section, well-known to every forester, are
thence called the annual rings. When, fortified with the
knowledge of this fact, we compare with each other, the
trunks of the Conifers which we obtain from the various
epochs of formation, we find that the oldest remains exhibit
no trace whatever of annual rings ; hut in the course of time

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THE HISTORY OF

they become continually more defined, so that lastly, in the
most recent formations, for instance in the upper Brown coal
they appear marked just as distinctly as in the trees now
living in the same localities.

A mere sketch, and imperfect, as is my representation of
the successive vegetations of the earth, our knowledge of
these past times is likewise, on a higher scale, imperfect and
fragmentary. If it be considered, how many accidents
must coincide in order that organisms, only to a certain
extent capable of recognition, should be enclosed in moun-
tain masses in process of formation, what manifold destroy-
ing forces must have rendered their influence felt upon
the organisms preserved, during the hundreds of thousands
of years which lie between the first origin of vegetation
and the existing world, it will not be found surprising that
our knowledge is here, more than anywhere else, mere
patch-work; but we shall not be able to withhold our
admiration from the men whose untiring industry, whose
ingenious combinations, brought to light and gave so high
a degree of certainty to what we know of the ancient
history of the Vegetable World. The names of Sternberg,
Brongniart, Goppert and Unger, are especially to be
mentioned, who have won for themselves immortal credit in
the Knowledge of the Flora of the Ancient World.

I have only given a sketch of what we know, of what
existed in the different epochs of the earth’s endurance ;
yet the question of what we know not, of the how it was,
may appear to many to possess no less interest. Here,
then, we come almost wholly into the region of arbitrary
speculation, we can only here and there draw tottering
analogies to endow our pictures with a weak semblance of
probability ; and, as it naturally occurs that the views of
individual inquirers vary to infinity, it is ridiculous and

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289

useless to contest about this or that opinion, about the
truth or falsehood of a waking dream, as only too often
happens.

That the germ of organic life came forth upon the
earth once, at least, out of the strife of the inorganic
elements, admits of no doubt, but there is another
question : has this process occurred more than once ?
\f\.nd must it have occurred more frequently ? Since
in these matters every one has, and may have, his own
proper fantasies, why should not I too have mine ?
— I hold the assumption of repeated creation, of a totally
new origination of vegetable germs, out of unorganized or
even inorganic matters, to be superfluous, and therefore
not to be admitted, and this opinion I found on the con-
sequences of the following considerations on the gradual
development of the Vegetable world. The simplest element
of the whole vegetable world, is the cell,# a very simply con-
structed organism, the origin of which out of the peculiar
association of carbonic acid and water, on the one hand,
into gum or vegetable jelly, and of carbonic acid and
ammonia on the other hand into protoplasm or albumen, is
not so very widely removed from a possible explanation,
as the sudden origin of a vegetable germ with perfect
definite power of development into a peculiar species of
plant. That the cell can vegetate as an in dependant plant,
we know from the vegetable Creation at present surrounding
us, since many of the simplest plants, especially the Water-
plants, consist of a single cell, and are only distinguished
from one another by the varying forms. The principal
causes producing a luxuriant and varied world of forms in
the tropics, are moisture and warmth, the causes of their

* See the Second, Third and Fourth Lectures.

19

290

THE HISTORY OF

multiformity appear to lie in the richness of the soil in
readily soluble inorganic matters, which in the first place
give rise to a variation in the chemical processes of the plant,
and thus to a greater or less deviation in the form.* These
two conditions meet in the tropics, because they are
dependant one upon the other, since the more luxuriant
vegetation called forth by the moist, warm atmosphere,
prepares by its death and rapid decay, a soil richer in soluble
inorganic matters, for the succeeding generation. Similar con-
ditions, that is to say, greater richness in soluble inorganic
matter, are exhibited on our manured cultivated lands, and
the Alpine regions, which are continually supplied with an
abundance of soluble matter from the naked higher rocks
more exposed to the action of the weather. f We know,
moreover, that varieties once formed, when they have con-
tinued to vegetate under the same conditions for several
generations, pass into sub-species, that is into varieties
which may be propagated with certainty by their seeds, as
for instance, our beds of Peas, our Cabbage plantations
and our Wheat-fields testify. How then if the same

* See the Seventh Lecture.

t No one who casts a glance over an accurately investigated Flora,
can deny that the Alpine plants exhibit a greater richness in form,
and series of most striking varieties. It is not so evident in regard
to the cultivated land, and I will therefore offer the following brief
remarks ; among the German families of plants, the Goosefoots and
Oraches ( Chenopodece and Atriplicece ) most especially grow on
rubbish, heaps of compost, and in gardens, therefore peculiarly
under the inevitable influence of the conditions given by our culti-
vation ; and no collector is ignorant of the abundance of forms and
varieties which most of these plants deviate into. If we select
from the best and most carefully revised Flora of Germany, those
genera which exhibit the most stable species, and at the same time
include some species which vegetate in quite a difterent way under
the influences of our cultivation, it at once becomes evident that

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291

influences which have called forth an aberration from the
original form of the plant continue to act in the same way,
not for centuries or tens of centuries, but for ten or a
hundred thousand years; will not, at last, as the variety
thus becomes a sub-species, so also this become so perma-
nent, that we shall and must describe it as a species.
Then, if the first cell be given, the foregoing points out
how the whole wealth of the vegetable kingdom may have
been formed by a gradual passage from it through
varieties, sub-species and species, and thus onward,
beginning anew from each species — in a space of time, in-
deed, of which we have no conception, for which, however,
since there is nothing real wanting, we may provide at
pleasure in our dreams ; for it may be mentioned here that
all the recent distinguished Geologists come ever more and
more to the opinion, that very much, in the formation of
the crust of our earth, which was formerly ascribed to
violent, convulsive and sudden revolutions, has rather been
the product of forces acting slowly through the course of
enormous periods of time. The Falls of Niagara, for

these latter exclusively, or at all events especially, occur in an
abundance of sportive forms, whereby they deviate more or less from
the primary character of their species. I name as examples, such
species as, Thalictrum minus, Ranunclus arvensis, Viola tricolor,
Silene gallicu and inflata, Spergula arvensis, Medicago falcata,
lupulina, tribuloides, Vicia villosa, sepium, grandiflora, angustifolia,
Knautia hybrida, arvensis, Scabiosa gramuntia, Cirsium arvense,
Taraxacum officinale, Galeopsis ladanum, Agrostis stolonifera, vulgaris,
Aira ccespitosa, Festuca ovina, rubra, Bromus secalinus. Nay, many
species may have originated from such variations, even within his-
torical time, as Thalictrum minus and majus, Veronica prcecox and
triphyllos. But that all true cultivated plants occur in countless
varieties it is scarcely necessary to mention, since Peas, Cabbage and
Potatoes, not to consider fruits, are each sufficient evidence of this
truth.

19*

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THE HISTORY OF

instance, pour down a vast ravine which has been cut into
a terrace of rock ; and Lyell has pointed out, that the
waterfall originally, that is at the close of all the revolutions
and deluges, discharged the water over the edge of that
terrace, and has gradually washed out that ravine since.
This must have required a space of time equal to at least
20,000 years ; and thus long, under any circumstances,
North America must have existed in its present configura-
tion and under the same physical conditions. Another
similar example has already been furnished above, in the
Coal, and it would be easy to multiply the proofs that
the space of time which we, with boastful self-sufficiency,
delight to call the World’s History, is but the last fleeting
moment of the infinitely long lifetime of our little planet.

If now we recall to mind the sketches above given of
the successive epochs of vegetation, we see that the vege-
table world begins in water, under the simplest forms, and
in that very family in which the whole plant is represented
by a single cell, most frequently, in the present time. In
the succeeding periods the other groups are added to this,
making their appearance in a series which corresponds
through a continually higher organization, i. e., continually
more manifold vital processes, to the successively more
manifold and complicated physical conditions which come
into action. Thus the stemless Cryptogamia are followed
by those provided with stems and leaves. Then the
Gymnospores (Conifers and Cycadeae) enter upon the
field; to these succeed the Monocotyledons, and lastly
appear the Dicotyledons. Imperfect as are the documents
we have obtained, and little as we have yet deciphered of
them, yet in no period do we find the appearance of a
wholly new creation, but the organic beings are always
added gradually ; the lowest members of one period sue-

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293

ceeding to the highest members of the foregoing, in such
a manner that they at least repeat its principal type ; nay,
we may even say more than this : if both genera and
species, or even families of plants, have disappeared from
the earth, there does not exist even in the oldest remains,
any peculiar great group, a Form of plants constituting as it
were a stage of development of the vegetable world, which
has not its representative also exhibited in the Flora of the
present world.

This view, that the whole fulness of the vegetable
world has been gradually developed out of a single cell
and its descendants, by gradual formation of varieties,
which became stereotyped into species, and then, in like
manner, became the producers of new forms, is at least
quite as possible as any other, and is perhaps more
probable and correspondent than any other, since it carries
back the Absolutely Inexplicable, namely, the production of
an Organic Being, into the very narrowest limits which can
be imagined.

At the close of all this series of developments, Man first
entered in a way which we cannot explain into the circle of
the earth’s inhabitants, and thus divided the foregoing
series of changes, as the Primeval history of the vegetable
world, from the succeeding, the history in Time. The
boundary line is not very clear, and an error of from 10 to
20,000 years, in the attempt to define the epoch, is very
possible and even probable, yet people have been foolish
enough to devote themselves to such inquiries, even as
there have been madmen who have reckoned the year,
month, day and hour, in which God made the world.

From the hand of Nature, Man received the inheritance
prepared for him, the Vegetable and Animal Worlds, the
Dead matters and their Forces ; and how has he managed

294

T11E HISTORY OF

this inheritance? If he shall have to render an account of
it, it is to be feared that here, as everywhere, it will go hard
with him.

If we inquire for what Purpose is the Vegetable world,
the parti-coloured carpet of the earth, intended, we find a
three-fold answer. The meanest purpose, is undoubtedly,
to serve the common necessities of mankind, their nourish-
ment and handicrafts, in a word their Economy. I call it
the meanest, because Nature here merely satisfies for each
individual, what, be they ever so refined and glossed over
by cultivation, are but animal requirements. The import
of the vegetable world for the regulation of the numerous
and comprehensive physical processes of the earth, appears
indeed more lofty. The glow of the African desert, its
dry rainlessness, and the fulness of life in primeval forests
with their torrents of rain, obtain their peculiar characters
through the vegetable world. Moisture and dryness of the
atmosphere, warmth and cold of the soil, uniformity7 or
rude variability of climate and the like, above all the life of
Animals, and finally of Man in the mass, have their con-
ditions in the luxuriance and the nature of vegetation.
This import of vegetable life does not relate to the solitary,
miserable individual, but to w7hole countries and regions, to
many successive generations, the possibility and facilities
for whose existence are intimately bound up with the
formation of the vegetable world as a Whole. Lastly, there
is a third face, which the w7orld of Plants may turn towards
us, without question the noblest and the most exalted. It
is, like all Nature, the symbol of the Eternal ; behind this
play of dead natural forces and their products, w7e adore a
Holy Author and Sustainer. The Vegetable Creation is
the rich altar-cloth of the temple of God, in which the

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295

recognition of Beauty and Sublimity of forms, constitutes
the worship.

And Man in opposition to the Vegetable world ? Altering
many things, he has laid hands upon it, and the great
phases of his History are also catalogued on the green leaf
of vegetation. But how has he husbanded it? The
history of cultivation would answer us, “ Excellently ; he
has by wise care converted the raw, unyielding material of
Nature into those choice gifts which now appear.” Well,
we will not contest with him the glory, that where interest
and animal necessity have driven him, the individual has
indeed well understood his own profit, but then, shared
the advantage he has gained with fellow-men and those
coming after him, only when forced by the laws of Nature.
On the other hand, where no temporary profit was to be
derived from assisting Nature, or even from leaving it
alone, where the question was merely the misery of a
thousand or two of future fellow-beings, he has, with bar-
barous rudeness, demolished and destroyed, for thousands
of years, often wickedly squandered the seed which God
had vouchsafed, not for himself alone, but also for his
successors. And has he striven to adorn and sanctify the
temple of God to universal worship ? Oh, no ! In his
selfish labours, in the tears of his brother, rendered
miserable by his crimes, in the cry of the scourged slave,
the continual remembrance of God had become disagree-
able and troublesome to him ; he declared the afflatus of
the Divine breath in Nature was but a nursery tale, that
he might no longer be frightened by his conscience.
Beauty, the expression of the Divine in Nature, vanished
before selfish profit from the vegetable world, and at
most, caring, with narrow heart, but for himself alone,
the Individual enclosed a little space in which he used the

296

THE HISTORY OF

Beauty of Nature, not for worship, but as a sensual plea-
sure. This is now the reality ; when thousands of years
have past, let us hope to be able to report better things ;
for we do not despair of Humanity, in it lies the germ of
the Divine, capable, of eternal development and destined to
it. But with derision might we meet the cry of our high
culture ; for all earnest moral reflection upon History would
tell us, that we have yet scarcely struggled out of the
mire of the lowest degradation and barbarism. The
following facts, perhaps, made use of in a better way,
might afford a means to the attainment of a somewhat
better result.

The Cradle of the human race, lying back in a distance
of time we can never explore, probably stood in a warm,
half-tropical climate, shaded by the broad leaves of the
Banana, the Plantain, and the delicate, feathery leaf of the
Date-Palm. What the first food of Man was, we know not,
but he seems to have used these two plants at a very
early period, since neither of them, from the oldest times
of which we have record, appeared in the condition in
which they came from the hands of Nature, but essentially
altered by the interference of human cultivation. The wild
Banana is a small, ill-flavoured fruit, filled with numerous
seeds ; the cultivated plant, on the contrary, contains no
fertile seeds in its nutritious berry; its maintenance, its
multiplication, are dependant wholly on the activity of Man,
who propagates it artificially by cuttings. Very early too
must Man have made the large-seeded Grasses tributaries
to his store-house. We know not the time when any of
the plants now used as Bread-corn, were transplanted from
the Eden of God into the fields of Man. Their use has
passed from one race to another, but when we arrive at the
most ancient sources, the legends tell us, in manifold

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297

vesture and varied adornment, that they are the gift of
the Gods, that these taught men to cultivate corn.

The personification of physical forces and processes, of
light, heat, rain, of the floods of the Nile, may have
become, in many ways, mingled and united with the
worship of the individual personalities which first sought
to turn to account the treasures of Nature, in a wider
circle, for the profit of mankind. A striking phenomenon,
which indicates the enormous antiquity of the culture of
the Cerealia, is, that in spite of many most profound inves-
tigations, we have not yet succeeded in discovering the
proper native country of the more important kinds of Corn.
Not one of the industriously inquiring travellers in America
has ever met there with Maize otherwise than cultivated,
or as evidently an outcast from culture. With regard to
our European kinds of Corn, we have only very inac-
curate indications, that they have been found wild, here
and there, in the south-western countries of Central Asia.
But history proves that those regions formerly supported
so large a population, and that so high a condition of
culture there existed, that the assumption can scarcely be
justified, that those Corn-plants now found there, are
anything but descendants from plants which have escaped
from cultivation. From our knowledge of the great

eastern portion of China, we know that a dense popu-
lation can, by a certain degree of industrial culture, succeed
in extirpating every wild plant, and in clothing the land
exclusively with vegetables intentionally raised. Except
some few water-plants, in the purposely flooded Rice-fields,
the Botanist finds scarcely any plant, in the Chinese
plains, which is not an object of cultivation. So it may
not be at all impossible, that the Cerealia , perhaps
originally, as is the case now with so many Australian

298

THE HISTORY OF

plants, confined to a narrow region of distribution, which
was taken possession of at an early period by a strongly
developing population, have actually wholly disappeared
from our earth in the character of originally wild plants.

The oldest kind of Corn are, without doubt, Wheat and
Spelt, which are mentioned even in Homer as Bread-corn ;
and Barley, with which Homer’s heroes, like the in-
habitants of southern Europe in the present day, foddered
their horses. First in the time of Galen was Rye intro-
duced into Greece by way of Thrace. Various kinds of
Oats were cultivated in Greece, but not for the sake of
their seed, only as green fodder. The proper cultivation
of the Oat is first found at a subsequent period in
Germany, apparently borrowed from Eastern nations, from
whom Germany also obtained its Rye. According to the
usual opinion, the culture of Maize throughout the Old
World is wholly introduced from America ; nevertheless,
testimony exists which makes it at least probable, that so
early even as the time of Theophrastus, Maize was known
by the Indians, and that at all events eastern Europe had
obtained it from the East. An exactly similar uncertainty
as exists in regard to the so-called Turkish Corn,* is found
in the case of the Cactus Opuntia, or Indian Fig. This
plant, at present growing all over the south of Europe,
Africa, and a part of the East, is, according to most
authorities, a native of America run wild here ; while the
researches of others lead us to look upon it as more
probably indigenous in these regions. Such wanderings of
plants, produced by the operations of mankind, are fre-
quently rocks which we can by no means avoid, on which

* This name even, universal in Germany and Italy, and for which
a similar (Arabian Corn) is substituted in Greece, points to an
Oriental origin.

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299

the most accurate geographical investigations are wrecked,
when no definite historical records have been preserved
to us.

What has been said of the Corn-plants, that the origin
of their culture lies far back beyond historical time, holds
good also for most of our kitchen Vegetables and Fruits.
Nay, it may even be asserted that, with the smallest
possible exception, all the important cultivated plants have
been known to Man from time immemorial, and that, with
the exception of the Potato, no plant subsequently re-
claimed from the wild condition plays an important part in
our economy.

Of all the influences of mankind upon the vegetable
world, one of the most beneficial is, without doubt, the con-
version which he has effected of the wild and often almost
inedible plants into the delicious ornaments of our table.
Even if the Apple, Pear and Cherry trees were originally
peculiar species, and have not been produced by gradual
improvement from the Crab and the wild Pear and Cherry,
there are still enough plants remaining to prove what great
power the art of Man has here exercised over Nature.
What resemblance has the Cauliflower, the Savoy, or the
Kohl-rabi, to the dry and nauseous, bitter-flavoured
Cole-wort, which is undoubtedly the parent of our de-
licious vegetables, since wc can readily convert these again
into it by allowing them to run wild. Who, from the
comparison of the saccharine, delicate, orange-coloured
Carrot, with the woody spindle of the root of the wild
Carrot, would believe that they belong to one and the
same species?' — and still it is the case. In short, Man
ean here essentially interfere to alter, in the development of
individual natural bodies, and as he can obtain from the
sanguinary beast of prey, from the Wild dog, the playful

300

THE HISTORY OF

spaniel, the useful hunting companion and the rescuing
St. Bernard’s dog, or from any rugged sheep the precious
Merino-lamb, so in the world of plants he can elevate the
Useless which Nature has given him, into an object worthy
of his cultivation.

The changes which Man has caused in the distribution
of vegetables cannot appear so important as the above
interferences. But it is only what we expect, when we
find that the Economic and Food plants follow Man every-
where, where the climatal conditions of their growth are
met with. These wanderings of plants are arranged and
carried out by Man intentionally. But in the rear of these
armies of plants, like the rabble of marauders and thieves
following a great human army, a number of other plants
are inseparable followers, which Man, when he takes one
wild plant, must, as it were, receive as an addition to his
bargain, I mean the Weeds. It may safely be asserted,
that a portion of our field plants winch are never found
anywhere with us but among certain definite crops, are not
indigenous, but introduced along with the seed among
which they are met with. Among such unbidden guests
may be enumerated the lowly Pheasant’s-eye, the Blue-
bottle, the Corn-cockle, the Field Poppy (P- Argemone),
the Larkspm* (D. Consolida), the Lolium linicola, the
Hemp, and many others.

In a still higher degree, spontaneously, and without the
conscious co-operation of Man, a certain number oi plants
attach themselves to the Lord of Creation, and follow him
whithersoever he goes, wheresoever upon the earth he takes
up his abode ; not in company with the cultivated plants he
has brought with him, but in his immediate vicinity,
settling round his barns, his stables, or on manure and
compost heaps. It is more than probable that the different

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301

great families of Nations may be distinguished through this
circumstance, and from the weeds which have firmly
attached themselves to their train, it may with some
certainty be determined, whether Sclaves or Germans,
Europeans or Orientals, Negroes or Indians, &c., formerly
built their huts on any spot. Thus, even to the present
day, are marked the footsteps of the bands of nations
which in the middle ages emerged from Asia into Central
Europe, by the advance of the Asiatic Steppe-plants, such
as the Kochia* and the Tartar Sea-kale, f the former into
Bohemia and Carniola, the latter into Hungary and
Moravia. The North American savage significantly calls
our Plaintain, or Road-weed, | “ the Footstep of the
Whites and a common species of Vetch § still marks
the former abode of the Norwegian colonists in Greenland.
A more intimate knowledge of these peculiar Floras might
probably afford us many more interesting explanations as
to the wanderings of the primary Races of mankind, and
their alliances, if so many botanical travellers were not
so-called Systematists — that is, dull and ignorant collectors
of hay. I may mention some more of such examples,
vegetables especially accompanying Europeans, the different
kinds of Nettle and Goose-foot. But one of the most
striking instances of the kind is the gradual extension of
the Thorn-apple over the whole of Europe, which has
followed the bands of Gypsies out of Asia; this race
make frequent use of this poisonous plant in their un-
lawful proceedings, and hence much cultivated by them, it
also occurs, uncalled for, near the places where they have
made their habitations. Auguste St. Hilaire says, in the
introduction to his Flora of Brazil, “ In Brazil, as in Europe,

* Kochia scoparia. + Crambe tatarica.

X Plantago major. § Vicia cracca.

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THE HISTORY OF

certain plants appear to follow in the footsteps of Man, and
preserve the traces of his presence ; frequently have they
helped me to discover the situation of a ruined hut, in the
midst of the wastes which extend out beyond Paracuta
Nowhere have the European plants multiplied in such
abundance as in the plains between Theresia and Monte
Video, and from this city to the Rio Negro. Already have
the Violet, the Borage, some Geraniums, the Fennel, and
others, settled in the vicinity of Sta. Theresia. Everywhere
are found our Mallows and Camomiles ; our Milk-thistle,
but above all, our Artichokes, which, introduced into the
plains of the Rio de la Plata and the Uruguay, now clothe
immeasurable tracts, and render them useless for pasture.”
After the War of Deliverance, in many places where the
Cossacks had encamped, was found the Tick-seed, # a plant
allied to the Goose-foots, which is quite exclusively indi-
genous in the steppes on the Dnieper ; and in a similar
manner was the Bunias orientate spread with the Russian
hosts, in 1814, through Germany even to Paris.

But such wanderings of plants also occur altogether
without the co-operation of mankind. The Seychelles
Nutf is driven by the ocean currents on to the shores of
the Maldives, and there germinates in the sand. The
earliest settlers in the Coral Islands, newly arisen in the
silent ocean, are the Cocoa Palm and the Pandaneas or
Screw-pines, the fruit of which, protected by a hard shell,
is found everywhere drifting on those seas. Rivers carry
the seeds from the higher regions down into the lowlands,
and thus, for instance, forms which were originally peculiar
to the higher mountains are distributed on the banks of
the Alpine streams of southern Germany, in Bavaria and

* Corispermum Marschallii.

f Lodoicea sechellarum.

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303

Wurtemberg. Man also unintentionally gives the first
impulse to such wanderings, which the plant then inde-
pendantly continues. Thus has the Sweet- flag spread all
over Europe, which was originally brought from India and
raised in some Botanic Gardens. The Indian Fig and the
American Agave have, in running wild, essentially changed
the physiognomy of the landscape in southern Spain, Italy
and Sicily. In the middle of the 1 7 th century a seed
of Erigeron canadense came to Europe in a stuffed
bird, was sown, and the plant is now distributed
throughout Europe, in places to which it has never been
conveyed by Man. The structure of seeds and fruits
which facilitates their being driven far and wide by the
wind, the voracity of birds, which devour the indigestible
seeds, then afterwards often germinating far distant from
.the mother-plants in the excrement of the bird, and
similar circumstances, explain this free distribution of
plants.

Incomparably more important however than all these
changes in small and individual matters, are the climatal
alterations which Time or the operations of Man, call forth
upon the earth and in the vegetable world. We know
truly, that the sum of the heat which our earth has
received for thousands of years, has not altered in a suf-
ficient degree to produce the smallest change in the
vegetable world, but the distribution of heat over the
globe, and in different seasons, may become essentially
changed in the course of time, and thus transform the
whole physiognomy of a country. The unhappy Iceland,
a few centuries ago still shared the culture of grain, which
now has wholly ceased, or is confined to a sterile, and in
most years failing crop of Barley ; the Birch, in earlier
periods forming dense woods, is now stunted to a low

304

THE HISTORY OF

bush. The essential alteration of the climate which,
beginning with the twelfth century, has converted Greenland
into an almost uninhabited waste of ice, is well known.
Strongly as these processes, in the mass, seem to refuse
obedience to the will of Man, yet is this by no means the
case, and his continued activity, applied to one determinate
point, at length brings about results which surprise even
himself, because he does not at the moment mark the
gradually accumulating consequences of his labours nor,
led by necessary knowledge, foresee the final results. Almost
everywhere in the great characters in which Nature writes
her chronicles, in fossilized woods, layers of peat and the
like, or even in the little notes of men, for instance, in
the records of the Old Testament, occur proof, or at least
indications, that those countries which are now treeless
and arid deserts, part of Egypt, Syria, Persia and so forth,
were formerly thickly wooded, traversed by streams now-
dried up or shrunk within narrow bounds ; while now the
burning glow of the sun and, particularly, the want of
water, allow but a sparing population. In contrast, must
not a jovial toper laugh indeed, who looks from Johannis-
berg out over the Rhine country, and drinks a health in
Rudesheimer to the noblest of the German rivers, if he
recall the statement of Tacitus, that not even a Cherry,
much more a Grape, would ripen on the Rhine And if
we ask the cause of this mighty change, we are directed
to the disappearance of the forests. With the careless
destruction of the growth of trees, Man interferes to alter
greatly the natural conditions of a country. We can
indeed now raise one of the finest wines upon the Rhine
where, two thousands years ago, no Cherry ripened, but on
the other hand, those lands where the dense population of
the Jews was nourished by a fruitful culture, are in the

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305

present day half deserts. The cultivation of Clover,
requiring a moist atmosphere, has passed from Greece to
Italy, from thence to southern Germany, and already is
beginning to fly from the continually drier summers there,
to be confined to the moister North. Rivers which formerly
scattered their blessings with equal fulness throughout the
whole year, now leave the dry and thirsty bed to split and
gape in summer, while in spring they suddenly pour out
the masses of snow accumulated in winter, over the
dwelling-places of affrighted men. If the continued
clearing and destruction of forests is at first followed by
greater warmth, more southern climate and more luxuriant
thriving of the more delicate plants, yet it draws close
behind this desirable condition another, which restrains the
habitability of a region within as narrow, and perhaps even
narrower limits, than before. In Egypt, no Pythagoras
need now forbid his scholars to live upon the Beans long
has that land been incapable of producing them. The
wine of Mendes and Mareotis, which inspired the guests
of Cleopatra, which was celebrated even by Horace — it
grows no more. No assassin now finds the holy Pine-
grove of Poseidon, in which to hide and lie in ambush for
the singers hastening to the feast. The Pine has long
since retired before the invading desert-climate to the
heights of the Arcadian Mountains. Where are the pas-
tures now, where the fields around the holy citadel of
Dardanus, which at the foot of the richly-watered Ida sup-
ported 3000 mares ?f Who can talk now of the “ Xanthus,
with its hurrying waves” Who would understand now
the “ Argos, feeder of horses” ?

* Nelumbium speciosum. + Homer, Iliad, 20.

X Ibid, 12, 310.

20

306

THE HISTORY OF

I close this sketch, if not in the words, yet following the
train of thought of one of the noblest veterans of our
science, the venerable Elias Fries, of Lund.

A broad band of waste land follows gradually in the
steps of cultivation. If it expands, its centre and its
cradle dies, and on the outer borders only do we find green
shoots. But it is not impossible, only difficult, for Man,
without renouncing the advantage of culture itself, one day
to make reparation for the injury which he has inflicted ;
he is appointed Lord of Creation. True it is that Thorns
and Thistles, ill-favoured and poisonous plants, well named
by Botanists rubbish plants , mark the track which Man
has proudly traversed through the earth. Before him lay
original Nature in her wild but sublime beauty. Behind
him he leaves the Desert, a deformed and mined land ; for
childish desire of destruction, or thoughtless squandering
of vegetable treasures have destroyed the character of
Nature, and, terrified, flies Man himself from the arena of
his actions, leaving the impoverished earth to barbarous
races or to animals, so long as yet another spot in virgin
beauty smiles before him. Here again in selfish pursuit
of profit, and, consciously or unconsciously, following the
abominable principle of the great moral Vileness which one
man has expressed, “ apres nous le deluge” he begins
anew the work of destruction. Thus did cultivation,
driven out, leave the East, and perhaps the Deserts formerly-
robbed of their coverings ; like the wild hordes ot old over
beautiful Greece, thus rolls this conquest with fearful
rapidity from east to west through America, and the
Planter now often leaves the already exhausted land, the
eastern climate become infertile through the demolition of
the forests, to introduce a similar revolution into the far
West. But we see, too, that the nobler races, or truly

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307

cultivated men even now raise their warning voices, put
their small hand to the mighty work of restoring to Nature
her strength and fulness, yet in a higher stage than that
of wild Nature ; rather dependant on the law of purpose
given by Man, arranged according to plans which are
copied from the development of manhood itself.* All this
indeed remains at present but a powerless, and for the
Whole, an insignificantly small enterprise, but it preserves
the faith in the vocation of Man and his power to fulfil it.
In future times he will and must, when he rules, leads
and protects the whole, free Nature from the tyrannous
slavery to which he now abases her, and in which he can
only keep her by restless giant-struggles against the
eternally Resisting. We see in the grey, cloudy distance
of the Future, a realm of Peace and Beauty on the Earth
and in Nature, but to reach it must Man long study in the
School of Nature, and, before All, free himself from the
bonds of Egotism.

* See the admirable work of Dr. Prichard, “ The Natural History
of Man comprising Inquiries into the Modifying Influence of
Physical and Moral Agencies on the different Tribes of the Human
Family. Second Edition, enlarged, with 44 coloured and 5 plain
Illustrations, engraved on Steel, and 97 Engravings on Wood.
Royal 8vo. London, 1845.

20*

artoclftlj ll e 1 1 u r r.

THE

/ESTHETICS OE THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

" The import of the Shapes, I wished
In magisterial wise to unfold ;

But what I could not comprehend
Might not of course by me be told,”

FAUST.

“ I recognise the Man of Learning here : —

What you touch not, lies not within your sphere ;
What you grasp not, does not exist for you ;
What you count not, most surely is not true ;
What you weigh not, devoid of weight you call ;
What you coin not, won’t pass with you at all.”

FAUST.

LECTURE XII.

Inexplicable is the nature of Beauty. Only in the
Feeling does the susceptible soul become conscious of it ;
and to the logically arranging, scientifically connecting, and
theoretically deducing Understanding, it remains ever a
foreign, closed territory,

“ Where all the Wisdom of the wise man leaves him blind,

There plays in free Simplicity the child -like mind.”

When with our observations and experiments, with analyses,
conclusions and proofs, we have unravelled Nature into a
plain, intelligible tissue of substances and forces, Beauty and
Sublimity enter upon the field, unite the disjointed once
more into a single Whole, and mock our endeavours to
comprehend the eternally Incomprehensible. We explain
it not, yet it is true ; we comprehend it not, yet there it is.
The pure heart speaks out unhesitatingly what the acutest
intellect never finds :

“ The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the
firmament showeth his handywork. One day telleth
another: and one night certifieth another.”

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THE ^ESTHETICS OF

No matter, that which we cannot comprehend, cannot
explain, may yet perhaps be so far capable of arrangement
and demonstration, that we may come to understand where
and why the Incomprehensible necessarily enters into joint
possession of our spiritual life. Though we cannot de-
velope the nature of Beauty in itself, yet it may be possible,
perhaps, to discover what it signifies for us, Mankind,
under what shape it appears, and what its influencing
elements are.

The Investigator of Nature knows and understands no
other development than the progress from the simpler to
the more complex, from the less to the more Perfect, and
thus to him that other doctrine is without meaning, which
has here and there been attacked and defended, which says
that Man proceeded perfect from the hand of the Creator,
and has, through corruption and running wild, become
what he now is. I spoke of the progress from the less to
the more perfect, but I must observe that this is only a
comparison, a human, clumsy conception, which, in reality,
finds no application in the products of Nature, much more
in the Creation of a Holy Author of Things.

“ Though the creatures themselves seem different, they
are truly of like goodness.”*

We must adopt a very different method in order to
bring this progress nearer to our understandings. The
whole vegetable world is, like a single, individual plant,
developed from one cell. The cell includes in itself the
whole fife of the Plant, in its most manifold phenomena, in
its most complicated combinations ; but in it, all is still
simple and easily to be surveyed. The vegetable cell

* “ ’Ei yap diacpop a tcl yirofitva, n\\« /Jiag limy ayadoTtjros. ” —
Chrysostom, nepl npoyoias.

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313

proceeds toward its perfect formation, and gradually its
separate parts acquire different import. The whole cell is
at first the common organ for absorption of nutriment, for
appropriation, secretion and propagation. At first only
special portions of the more highly developed cell take upon
themselves, exclusively, the function of reproduction, the
formation of new cells. Gradually a greater number of
cells become united within the compass of one plant, and
then the special active forces become distributed into
especial cells, in which, at the least, they are more par-
ticularly prominent. The process of nutrition is at first very
simple ; from the matter taken up, that which is important
to the fife of the plant is directly organized, and the super-
fluity rejected. Subsequently more and more of foreign
matters enter the field, and the simple, immediate process
of preparation of the food is broken up into a large series
of separate processes, the final result alone being the mediate
production of the vegetable substance, while from the
intermediate stages originate a number of subordinate
products essentially indifferent. To trace the comparison
further ; what seems to us a progress, is in fact a develop-
ment in the tiuest sense of the word, an unfolding and
separation of the simple parts which, in a higher numeral,
are combined into one whole. Thus the number 100 is a
simple number, but by development it may be converted
into 99 + 1, or 3 x 33 -t- 1, or 3 x (32 + 1) + 1, or
3 x [(4 x 8) + 1] + 1, and so on; we can, from the
conditions contained in it, set out a most complicated calcu-
lation, instead of the simple mark of 100 units, the final
product of which would still be merely 100. This is the
course which every development takes in Nature.

The suffering Greek applied to the Priest of Hercules or
Aesculapius. A herb which the latter cultivated around

314

THE AESTHETICS OF

the temple, served as medicament, and the sacrifice which
the Priest conducted, gave to the mortal trust in the
assistance of the immortal gods. And what has developed
in the course of time from this simple condition of Nature?
The whole complex co-ordination of our ecclesiastical pro-
fession and the cure of souls, on the one hand, and on the
other, medicine and surgery, with the numerous branches
sent out from them, the whole of the Natural Sciences with
their separate disciplines ; Pharmaceutists and Druggists
are the successors of the Priest of EEsculapius ; the Jardins
des Plantes, Zoological Gardens and Botanical establish-
ments, all the tracts of land in which busily trading Man
cultivates officinal herbs, are all developments of those
gardens of the temples. Many hundreds of men now
co-operate with all their mental and bodily powers, to
attain better, more definitely, and in a more highly de-
veloped condition, what that simple Priest of /Esculapius, if
indeed with somewhat smaller results, united in his own
person. Therefore we must allow that, if not the work of
God, yet certainly Man’s work begins with the imperfect
and progresses to the perfect; that in human ways and
doings the condition least developed is actually the least
perfect. At the same time we also find in human de-
velopment such a separation of distinct elements, which,
originally, combined and undistinguishable, lie mingled as it
were in a chaos. But we will here only look at one con-
dition, and seek to make it clear, namely, the position
which Mankind occupies as opposed to Nature.

In the beginning of development we always find an in-
timate and complete blending of Physics and Religious
institutions, and every original expression of the devout
feelings of mankind is a worship of Nature. Thus the
Egyptian worship of Isis and Osiris, not to mention the

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315

holy animals, expresses, under the immediate form of an
adoration of God, the recognition of the natural forces most
actively operating and most highly blessing among the
Egyptians ; thus shapes itself out of the luxuriant Nature of
India, the figurative History of Nature of Brahminism, and
in the light sunny hills of Iran and Tehran men worshipped
the light-bringing sun and its symbol, fire ; while in the
Northern mythologies we readily recognize the strife of the
icy winter and its storms, with the brief summer. But
most beautiful, most refined and cultivated appears this
religion of Nature in the so highly spiritually gifted Greeks,
in whose, on the whole, dry and serene country, all the
fertility of the organic world was connected with the local
and yearly distribution of moisture, and thus in the deified
personifications of the serene Zeus, the cloud-bringing Here,
the warming Apollo, and the lightening Hephaistos, and so
on, a wonderfully beautiful imagining and blending of re-
ligion, physics and poetry, a Mythus was formed, the rich-
ness and plastic beauty of which will be an inexhaustible
source of delight through all time.

But this condition can only exist in a certain stage of
culture of Humanity. The inquiring curiosity of Man
makes him soon tear the Isis-veil from Nature, and the
more completely he succeeds in raising it, the more do the
gods disappear from his immediate vicinity, from the earth,
and finally from the starry heavens, and all Nature with
her machinery of forces and matters devolves upon “ the
common significance of things,” the unspiritualizing Physics.
There remains no longer any substance, anything essential
in Nature, which requires a God, or contains one; according
to dead, unalterable natural laws runs the clock-work, and
winds itself up, without Wants — but also without Beauty,
without Joy. But strange it is ! the inquirer into Nature

316

THE AESTHETICS OF

proves incontestibly there is no colour in Nature, only
ether-waves of different lengths ; there are no sounds, only
vibrations in the air which succeed each other rapidly or
slowly, and so forth ; and yet the brilliant colours of the
rainbow delight him, the deep song of the nightingale fills
his bosom with longing, he cannot strip from the great pile
of soulless masses which lie spread out before him as a
landscape, the “ golden mist of morning’s blush,” through
which, more lovely, it whispers to his heart, or in its sub-
limity elevates his soul beyond the limits of the world of
space ; whither ? he knows not ; only his feelings strike
upon the barrier. There must be a Beyond, but where
does this lie ?

Not in Space, not in Time. The paradise of Nations, as
of the Individual, is indeed to be discovered in Time, if not
in Space. The Eden of Man is even that first original state,
wherein he yet has taken no account of his condition, his
position in relation to Nature, where God and Nature yet
appear as One to him, because he has false conceptions of
both, which he deduces from the analogies of his own
nature ; conceptions which bring Nature and Divinity nearer
together, because they place that too high and this too low.
But the place of the Beyond, towards which the cultivated
man strives, is defined by no Where and no When. So
long and so far as Nature is inexplicable and incompre-
hensible to Man, he seeks behind this, which he cannot see
through, a spiritual existence like to himself, he endows with
life the “ Nightside of Nature,” he peoples it with Spirits or
Spectres of his own creation, which fleet rapidly before the
light of Science. On the other hand, the wants of his heart
make him seek for a Power, in whose intelligent disposition
of events he endeavours to find protection against the sport
of Accident or the tyranny of Fate, and this Power he

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317

paints after the Highest he has yet learned to know, after
the Best, the Wisest of Men, and delivers into the hands
of this Power, as yet, only the Lordship over the phenomena
in which he first learned to fear Accident and Fate, that is,
over the play of the Forces of Nature. But Man, with his
conceptions of God, ever remains within the circle of the
Human, and therefore he always feels sufficiently allied to
this God of his own creation, to claim, when not for
himself, yet for his happier forefathers, a direct descent
from or immediate intercourse with the gods.

The farther Man now progresses in his perfection and
development, the clearer, the more transparent, more
comprehensible becomes Nature to him, but so much the
farther does he become removed from God, and the more
incomprehensible does He become to him. To the most
highly cultivated man is God the most inconceivable, since
he knows that no conception, be it what it may, which he
attempts to form of the highest Being, can in any way
correspond to Him ; but only few attain this stage of culti-
vation, only few really so truly understand themselves, that
they calmly allow that human knowledge reaches not to
where God and Immortality have their dwelling. Oh ! the
foolish pride of Man, which, that it may not find itself too
little, would drag down the Highest Being into the dust of
human intelligibility !

But how shall we find our way again, and to our proper
subject? I think, in this manner. All Nature shows
itself to us, bound up in Space and Time, and even for that
reason, necessarily appears empty and valueless. In our
very hearts lives the desire, which cannot be repelled, toward
something Complete, Unchangeable ; we feel justified in the
expression : “ only the Perfect actually exists but that
which is in Space, is also, like Space itself, without limits,

318

TIIE ./ESTHETICS OF

nowhere bounded, nowhere finished, endless, i. e. incapable
of being completed ; that which exists in Time, obeys the
laws of change , or the distinct sequence of different con-
ditions. Therefore in Time and Space we may not seek
That which shall satisfy the longing of our hearts, the truly
Existing, Completed ; the only actual world of God Is not
the Nature which encompasses us. What then if all that
intuitively suggests itself to us be but a teazing delirium,
an empty, unreal Appearance ? There have, indeed, been
people who have come to this strange conclusion, which
however, from what we have been discussing seems to have
much Appearance on its side. But Appearance is only
valid to the man who imperfectly understands himself.
For if we seek further, we soon come to the discover}7, that
Space and Time do not at all belong to the Tilings them-
selves, but only to the Manner and Way in which our limited
human capacity comprehends the things, and, so long as we
remain Men, will be obliged to comprehend them. Space
and Time are, as it were, the coloured spectacles, which we
all wear from the cradle to the bier, never able to remove
them ; the power even of the most cultivated being useless
here. But the truly cultivated can indeed go so far as
to see that he does wear spectacles, which do not and
cannot show him the things as they actually exist. Now,
we then conclude farther : it is still the Kingdom of God
which surrounds and harbours us, and only to our humanly
limited stand-point, to our dust-blinded eyes, is it to be
ascribed, that we, with the Semblance of the greatest truth,
that is, with mathematical certainty, perceive this world as
though it were estranged from the eternal and holy Author
of all things. A cloud-veil, which we cannot lift, renders
the intuition of the Divine in Nature impossible, but a
condition will, it must come, where Time and Space, those

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319

barriers of our human mode of perceiving, will fall and we
shall be conscious of that of which we now only have
fore-shadowings.

“ We look now upon a Mirror, an obscure Word ; but
then face to face.”

That seemingly so firm, clear mathematical perception
of Nature, and with it all Science, consequently, is funda-
mentally the poorest, meanest, falsest, because it is merely
the humanly limited one. But as the highest Divine
world is the foundation of the Nature which appears to
Man, so lives in us, in spite of our humanly limited con-
dition, the god-like spark, not extinguished, but only
covered for a time with dust and ashes. This spark, the
longing after the Eternal, Unchangeable, seeks its satisfaction
in its like, and looks upon Appearance as the shadow of
the Existence, the Mechanism ruled by Natural law of
the dead masses, as the fore-shadowing of the free Godlike,
and that which Man never can succeed in expressing in
clear conceptions, lives nevertheless, as his noblest inheri-
tance, in the feelings of his heart. This even it is, which
meets him, inexplicable, incomprehensible, in Nature, which
withdraws itself from all Scientific treatment, and yet as
something Better, Higher, since all Science declares, that
this it is which fills us with infinite rapture as the Beauty
of Nature, or thrills us with unspeakable, holy trembling,
as Sublimity.

And here the Development closes itself into a ring ; at
the highest stage of Culture we again receive with conscious-
ness and refined insight, that, with which the unconscious,
childish understanding set out. Contemplation of Nature
becomes again the worship of God, but only after we have
separated all the Ungodly, Human, all the Scientifically
explicable, Commonly conceivable, out of Nature, and

320

THE AESTHETICS OF

nought is left but the mystery of Beauty. In it buds forth
the fore-shadowing of a higher significance of all pheno-
mena, its recognition is Religion, is the purest and most
elevated worship of God to which Man can raise himself ;
in it is the most immediate Revelation of the Holy which
Man is capable of receiving. Let us, to avoid misconcep-
tion, add, that the Beauty of outward corporeal Nature is
not the highest that is met with in life. There is yet
something more noble than the material world, this is the
soul of Man ; Beauty of Soul and the noblest blossom
of it, pure Love, is a still more perfect reflection of the
Divine, and not out of the world of Matter, but out of the
innermost life of the human Soul do we therefore derive
our highest symbol.

Nature having in this way obtained her proper signifi-
cance for us, we come apparently to the conclusion of our
discourse. Beauty is incapable of any explanatory science.
The decisions in which we recognize it, the criticisms of
Taste, are not to be built upon inductive reasonings. For
each of them stands independant, making its claim to
immediate validity, even the more when it presents itself
in a totally different shape to the souls of different
beholders. Where shall we find matter for a further
account of it ? If we cannot analyze the Nature of Beauty,
yet we may subject the Object which appears Beautiful to
us, to more minute investigation ; we may become
acquainted with its separate parts and characters, their
relations to each other, and, in something like a system,
unfold what elements and what combinations animate in us
the feelings of Beauty and Sublimity. In analogy to the
researches into the Harmony of Colours, Rules of Compo-
sition, and so on, we may seek out more minutely in
the Vegetable World, the peculiarities through which

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321

the aesthetic impression which it makes upon us, is
effected.

First of all we must premise, that no part of Botany has
been so little elaborated with genius and taste, as this, its
very highest subject, and that we shall here consequently
find little more than sadly unconnected fragments. This
may serve as an apology for the slighter even than sketchy
character of the following remarks.

The material which lies at our command, arranges itself
into three groups, according to the Kind and Way in which
plants make their Significance felt. The first is the Sym-
bolization of individual plants. Man, so soon as he is
rescued from the rudest condition of a mere Hunter’s life,
is led by the pastoral vocation of the more softened
Shepherd, and still more by the civilizing recognition of
property in Agriculture, to the observation of particular
plants, their origin and decay, their life and their propaga-
tion ; finally, their dependance on the favouring or
destroying influences of external Nature, referred to the
sun, dew, rain and soil. To the man who first awakens to
the feeling of his own freedom, who has felt that he is
“ the doer of his deeds,” it is almost impossible to avoid
pre-supposing, where he sees Change, Activity ; where he
sees Activity, Freedom, and therefore Spiritual Life. Thus
at first every plant, every tree, every flower, receives a
personifying principle, an indwelling God ; Dryads people
the woods, Fairies dance their light circles in the rustling
grass. Still more definitely does the symbolizing Poetry of
Life subsequently take possession of particular plants, and
in Religion and Poetry rich garlands are entwined from the
peaceful realms of Flora. The longing after a Continuance
beyond the imperfect earthly life, eagerly grasps every
feature in Nature which points to such an immortality.

21

322

THE ./ESTHETICS OF

The solemn and lasting Cypress decked, among the Greeks,
the graves of the beloved, and the meadows of the Homeric
Infernal world were alive with the blue Asphodelos, the
light blossoms of which rising again each Spring from the
bulb buried in the earth, told of an eternal revival, a certain
immortality. On the still waters of the blessing Nile, the
animating influence of the sun-god Osiris called forth from
the all-supporting Isis flood, the luxuriant Lotus flower,
scattering in their great almond-like seeds, ready food for
the oldest races of mankind, and with grateful feelings was
this plant consecrated to that mild Divinity ; it even became
the symbol of Fertility, the Force of development in
Nature, so full of blessings, and after the absolute neces-
sities came to be satisfied in other ways, the use of this
fruit, as holy, was forbidden to dust-born Man ; Pythagoras
also, together with the wisdom of the Egyptian priests,
promulgated among his scholars the prohibition from eating
these beans. Athene, the goddess of the serene air, gave
to the Greeks the Olive, which loves to dwell in sunny
habitations, and the moistener of shores, Poseidon, crowned
his brow with the shoots of the Shore-Pine,* consecrated
to him.

The union between living contemplation of Nature and
dead philological scholarship is, alas ! too new to admit a
possibility of tracing the symbolization of the vegetable
world, through every form of Divine worship that has
existed among the various races of mankind. Those very
sides of the old religious Myths have up to the most recent
times, been most neglected, in which their connection with
the life of Nature is expressed, in which therefore would
have been found the surest means to their explanation and

« «

* Pinus maritima.

Poseidons Pine Grove.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

323

clearing up ; while now the silliest fancies are only too often
substituted.

We of course therefore still find an abundance of rela-
tions between religious Mythus and the Vegetable World,
we are not at present in a position to interpret. The
indication of Love and Marriage, for instance, by the Rose
and Myrtle, current even among the most ancient nations,
certainly does not depend upon a mere aesthetic pleasure,
but on a deeper relation to the Greek religion of Nature,
the decyphering of which would indeed explain to us, why
two of the Graces were characterized with the Rose and
Myrtle, but the third with the Dice. The bow also of the
Indian God of Love, Kamadawa, made from the Sugar-
cane, symbolized something more than the sweetness of
Love, which were but a chilling metaphor, and undoubtedly
a profound contemplation of Nature gave him the rose-red
blossoms of the Amra-tree for arrow-heads.

It will be readily allowed that this symbolization of the
world of Plants did not come to an end with a particular
epoch of humanity, but that the inexhaustible matter is also
progressively shared by the poetic spirit of nations, though
the origin of one such parable may now be lost in the
multitude of races, or have attached itself definitely to one
single genius, which has prophesied to the nations with such
true feeling, that these have adopted the foreign thought as
common property. Thus it may often be difficult to
determine how far up into history reaches the first origin
and perfecting of a subsequently universally used com-
parison, a typical signification of a plant, or a process in
its life. The courteous Lily, the modest Violet, the proud
Crown Imperial and so on, are such natural and intelligible
figures, that we find them alike in almost every cultivated
nation, and yet we know neither of these, nor of countless

21*

324

THE ./ESTHETICS OF

others, what languages directly appropriated the forms, the
original authors. We are even in obscurity where the
peculiarity of the symbol points to wholly definite times
and places in history. The Moslem who returns from
Mecca, brings back the Aloe * as the testimony of his pil-
grimage, and hangs it up, with the point turned towards
Mecca, over his threshold, which then can never more be
approached by evil spirits. This custom, the superstitious
portion of which has extended to the Jews and Christians
in Cairo, has certainly some peculiar connection with the
origin of the pilgrimage to Mecca and with the nature of
the plant, but what, we know not.

Many of the figures and symbols formerly in use have
become transformed in the course of time, others have taken
their places when more accurate observation of Nature has
shown that these express more vividly and pregnantly the
idea to be depicted. Nay, we may often conjecture the
castigating satire of a nation in such changes. The old
German Honesty f is indeed a somewhat substantial, though
rude and thorny plant, but durable in form and inde-
structibly true in colour, while, on the contrary, what is
now called Honesty, | is a little blue flower, falling almost
as soon as plucked, and its certainly fair, entieing colour is
bleached by a few hours’ exposure to the sun.

But why accumulate these particular citations, since
every educated person who has a little acquaintance with
the spirit of his mother-tongue, wifi call to mind these
figures from the life of plants, in thousands, from its tradi-
tions, fairy tales and poems.

It might perhaps be more important and more in-
teresting to seek out more in the mass, the elements of the

* Aloe perfoliata vera. t Eryngium.

I Veronica chain rc dry s.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

325

Vegetable world which arc the means to ^Esthetic im-
pression. Here again we meet with two distinct subjects.
That which delights us in Nature, in the mass, the phe-
nomena of Nature perceived as a Whole, in a word, the
landscape, is a mosaic of separate and independently existing
and significant things. Wood and meadow, in contrast
to each other, and thus producing Beauty, are in themselves,
without reference to the share they take in the composition
of the greater Whole, characteristic formations of the
vegetable world, and each in an especial way composed of
particular kinds of plants into a definite aesthetic im-
pression. We might name such groupings of plants as
Wood, Meadow, Heath, &c., Plant Formations, and
they certainly deserve a far deeper investigation and
more careful representation than has hitherto fallen to their
share.

But as we approach closer, we soon find that their
peculiar character again is conditioned in manifold ways by
the, so to speak, physiognomical expression of the species
of plants of which they are composed. The Botanist dis-
tinguishes by many kinds of characters, but best and most
scientifically by the peculiar differences and resemblances in
the entire course of development of Plants, larger and
smaller groups, which are commonly called Families. The
plants numbered in one family are united naturally by a
a narrow bond of relationship, and he who is accustomed
to refined physiognomical studies will not overlook the
finer family features in which all agree. But as on a large
scale, among men, those characteristics of race and marks
of variation, Calmuc-eyes, Negro-skulls, Roman-noses,
Blonde and Brunette complexions, &c., totally independant
of family relationship, first of all strike us, so also among
plants, it is not the resemblances or differences which are
produced by actual natural relationship, but altogether

326

THE AESTHETICS OP

the more universal, mostly indiscriminately occurring pecu-
liarities of appearance and structure, on which depends
their physiognomical importance to the composition of the
botanical formation and, with this, of the landscape. By
taking note of these peculiarities of plants, we are next able
to conceive for them certain universal Forms, according to
which, without reference to the naturally more intimate
relationship, the plants are merely so arranged together as
they make a similar common Esthetic impression upon us,
and at the same time come forward as defining the
character of the Formations, or the physiognomy of the
landscape in general.

Thus, instead of some 300 families which Botanists
have now established and distinguished according to finer
and more carefully investigated characters, we obtain a
comparatively small number of Vegetable Forms.

Generally grey and withered, scurfily smooth or spiny,
interwoven like gigantic snow-crystals, causing a chilly
shudder, the Lichen-form clothes the barren confines of
vegetation, forming as it were the transition from this to
inorganic Nature ; while the Form of Mosses produces a
mostly silky-lustred layer, like a cushion over soil and rock,
with its densely crowded, delicate, yellowish-green leaflets.
Resembling these, yet attaining not to free shapes but
scarcely more than a mere naked surface, clothing not
the earth but the waters, developes the Form of the Water
Lilies,* of great importance to the Beauty of all landscapes.
Large broad leaves, with rounded outline, floating flat upon
the water, or in a dish-like form, elevating themselves a little
way above it, flowers of splendid colour, beautifully formed
and of great circumference, scarcely dipping into the liquid

* The most splendid of all, the Victoria regina, with leaves fifteen
feet, and white and rosy blossoms four feet in circumference, is re-
presented in the middle of the frontispiece.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

327

element, such are the most characteristic features in the
physiognomy of these plants. The Form of the Grasses is
distinguished above all others particularly by their sociality ;
the humble stems bear flattened, narrow, pliant leaves of a
vivid and pleasing green, and on thin pedicles their delicate
panicles wave in the lightest breeze ; in these the vegetable
world is still bound to the soil, from which they rise but to
a small height, and which they clothe as a soft woolly carpet.
Beside these which call forth the impression of a serene
pleasure, the shepherd’s joy, the luxuriant nourishment of
flocks, stands the more gloomy Form of Sedges ; from
black, marshy earth project dirty, grey-green, stiff and
rugged, roundish stems and leaves, here and there bearing
balls of brown or blackish blossoms, or white, woolly flocks,
the venerable looking hair of the fruits, streaming in the
autumn wind ; sighing, the husbandman names them sour
grasses, and the cattle reject them. On the borders of
running waters, and at the same time under the fertilizing
influence of the warm, moist tropical climate, the Grass
rises to a nobler height, and the broad-leaved Reed-form,*
in Hindostan, even overtops the trees, f and forms a
meadow above the forest. There, in the region of the
Aromatic Lilies, the stem swells with sap, the leaves expand
in length and breadth, but become so thin on either side
the mid-rib, that they are readily split by the wind ; the
plant is of a deep green colour, or the warmest yellowish-
green, shining like velvet, and in pure and intense colours
beam the great flower bunches ; thus originates the
Plantain-form 4 Through the splendour of the blossoms

* On the left side of the frontispiece a Bamboo-bush represents
this Form.

t Panicum arborescens.

} On the right side of the title the bright green leaves of the Banana.

328

THE AESTHETICS OF

of the Plantain and the Banana plants, through the
mode in which the leaves are borne, almost resembling
that of the Reeds, the Form of the Lily-plants stands, as
it were, between these two, — the only one directly included
in this sketch which has found an artistic delineator, in
the French flower-painter, Redoute. In the third place
comes the form of the Aroids. Triangular or arrow-shaped,
green, juicy leaves on long stalks, strange and often brightly-
coloured spathes, which enclose the club-shaped inflores-
cence, form the plants which, dwelling on the mighty stems
of the tropical forest trees, mark the transition to the
Orchidacece.

As the Leaf-formation stands out predominantly in all
these last-named forms, we now oppose to them some
which exhibit an especial development of the stem. In
the first place I may mention the Heath-form ; humble,
branching, woody shrubs, the little, dull-green or grey
leaves of which are so densely crowded, that they look
almost like a mere roughness of the branches, and even
the often beautiful colouring of the dry blossom does not
obliterate the melancholy impression, which the plants always
produce where they determine the character of the land-
scape. The CasuarincB may he defined as a subordinate
group here, and called the arborescent Heaths, forming the
gloomy, leafless and shadeless woods of Australia. Still
more strikingly is the formation of the stem favoured in
the thorny Cactuses, which consist merely of fleshy,
strangely-shaped stems and branches, which Cactus-form
recurs again in many other families, for instance in the
Spurges, the Stapelias, and, though certainly with more
important development of leaves, yet with similar physiog-
nomical expression, in most of the Succulent Plants, Aloes
and Mesembryanthemums. Not indeed in reference to their

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

329

actual organization, but from the considerations regarding
the peculiar kind and mode in which they take part in the
composition of a picture of vegetation, must we here
include among the leafless plants, or rather those influencing
merely by their stem, all those which with the Spanish
colonists in America, we comprehend under the name of
the Llano or Liane-form.* Stretched like strong rigging,
or winding serpent-like in and out, now like cords, now
flat and strap-like, and now alternately, left and right, with
flattened, crest-like protuberances, the Bauhinias, Aristo-
lochias, Convolvuluses, Bignonias and others extend forty,
fifty, nay one hundred, or several hundred feet, leaf-
less and without a branch, from tree to tree, in the
primeval forests of the tropics ; frequently ascending upon
one tree, circling it even to choking, then leaping over on
to another, next falling in a festoon, and then climbing
up again to the topmost summit of a third, where the
plant perhaps waves a bunch of the most splendid flowers
in the lighter air ; while they mockingly leave to the wan-
derer in the forest’s shade nothing but their naked stems,
with which they often interweave an almost impenetrable
thicket. From this reason, in spite of all the industry of
the collectors, there are verv few cases in which we know
how to refer the numerous specimens of the flowers pre-
served in our herbaria, to the equally abundantly collected,
but often most strangely aberrant forms of stems.

The two elements which present themselves as it were
in an isolated condition in the foregoing families are con-
nected into a wholly peculiar design in the next; in the
beautiful bunch of highly developed leaves and the true,

* The Frontispiece exhibits one of the smaller forms, as a fes-
toon of a splendid flowered Ipomceu across the middle of the
picture.

330

THE /ESTHETICS OF

inrlependant, naked stem of the Palm-form, consecrated by
religion, celebrated by antiquity and the theme of the poet’s
song.* But this form splits up into numerous sub-
divisions, in which the physiognomical character becomes
still more individualized by the shape and consistence of
the leaves. In these plants generally, the stem rises from
quite a humble mass, reminding us of the globular Cactus,
up to the slenderest columns several hundred feet high,
and the impressions which the Dwarf and Nipa Palms excite,
are naturally quite different from that of the majestic
altitude of the shaft of the Wax-Palm in the Andes, which
attains a height of one hundred and eighty feet ; but still it
is the arrangement and form of the leaf especially which
most importantly modifies the total impression. In regard
to this point, we distinguish the arborescent Lilies or the
Agave-form, the stem of which is often curved in and out,
and sometimes divided above into a few short, thick
branches, the extremities bearing bunches, equally expanded
in every direction, of liliaceous leaves, often of a dull green
colour, and being solid and hard, they are not readily stirred
by the wind, so that they afford a picture of immoveable
repose. The Thebaic Cocoa-Palms, the gigantic Four-
croyas, the Yuccas of Mexico, the Vellozias and Barbacenias
of Chili, the great African Aloes and the Grass-trees of
Australia, belong here, and Polynesia furnishes another
peculiar form in the Pandanea, with stiff, bifid, shining
green leaves, arranged in very evident spiral lines, whence
they arc called by the English, “ Screw-Pines.” The
contrast to these is furnished by the Fern-form, which with

* The borders of the Frontispiece are formed on the right by the
slender Cocoa Nut, with its feathered leaves, on the left by the stouter
Mauritius Palm with fan-shaped leaves.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

331

the finely divided leaves, spreading in the form of an
umbrella, above all possesses the character of graceful
elegance and, trembling in the slightest breeze, excites the
impression of light, free movement. The medium between
these two extremes is held by the Palm-form, in the
strictest sense of the term, the perfect shapes of which,
pre-figured as it were by Nature in a still crude and half-
abortive attempt in the Cycadea, peculiarly condition the
imposing Beauty of the tropical world. They deserve that
we should spend a few moments among them, and we
can scarcely do better than follow A. von Humboldt
here.

The trunks of the Palms are sometimes misshapenly
thick, sometimes weak and cane-like ; sometimes swelling
out above, sometimes below, and at others in the middle ;
now smooth, as if turned in a lathe, now scaly, now
densely beset with black shining spines a foot long, now
wound about with a delicate net-work of brown fibres.
Strange they look when, lifted from the earth by the
roots which shoot out high up on the stem, they are,
as it were, many-footed, or conceal their origin in a
thick mass of root-fibres which have grown down
round it. The vast leaves are feathery or divided like a
fan; the strong leaf- stalks (that of the Date-Palm formerly
used in Genoa for walking-sticks) are sometimes smooth,
and sometimes sharply toothed. The green colour of
their leaves is sometimes deep and shining, sometimes of a
silvery white upon the under side. Now and then the
middle of the fan-shaped leaf is decorated with concentric
yellow and blue streaks, like the peacock’s tail.

In the carriage and physiognomy of the Palms, alto-
gether, there lies a character of grandeur, difficult to
express in words, produced particularly by the very

332

THE /ESTHETICS OF

direction of the leaves. The parts of these, the leaflets,
are in some arranged close together on a flat surface,
like the teeth of a comb, with rigid cellular tissue, as in
the Cocoas and the Date ; hence the glorious reflection of
the sun from their upper surface, the green of which
in the shore-loving Cocoas is lively, in the Dates which
skirt the confines of the Desert, dull and ashy ; sometimes
the leaf looks like that of the Rushes, woven of more
tender and pliant elements and curled towards the apex.
The direction of the leaves, as well as the stem, gives
an expression of high majesty to the Palms. The more
centripetal, the more acute the angle which they make
with the stem above, the grander and more elevated is
the form. What different aspects afford the pendant
leaves of the Palma de Covija on the Orinoco, nay even
of Cocoas and Date-Palms, and the heavenward striving
shoots of the Jagua and Pirijao ! Nature has heaped
together all the Beauties of Form in the Jagua Palms,
which crown the granite rocks of the Cataracts of Atures
and Maypure. Their smooth slender stems rise from
sixty to seventy feet high, so that they project like a
colonnade above the thicket of deciduous trees. Their
aerial summits contrast strangely with the thickly-leaved
Ceibas, with the woods of Laurinea and Balsam-trees
which surround them. Then* leaves, seldom more than
seven or eight, aspire almost vertically fourteen to sixteen
feet upwards. The points of the leaves are curled up
so as to resemble a bunch of feathers. The leaflets are
of a grass-like, delicate tissue, and flutter lightly and
airily about the slowly-waving leaf-stalk. In Palms with
feathered leaves, the leaf-stalks either spring from the dry,
rough, woody portion of the shaft, or from the rough por-
tion of the trunk projects a grass-green, smooth and more

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

333

slender shaft, like a column upon a column, from which
the leaves proceed. In the fan-leaved Palms, the leafy
crown often rests upon a bed of withered leaves, a
circumstance which gives a solemn, melancholy character
to the plants. In some of the umbrella-Palms, the
crown consists of a few fans elevated on long, slender
stalks.

In all Palms the inflorescence breaks out from the
stem below the origin of the leaves. The way in which
it breaks through equally modifies their shape. In a few,
the great horn-shaped, rolled-up sheath stands upright,
and from it rises the dense bunch of fruit like a Pine-
apple. But in most, the sheath, often several feet long,
now smooth, now rough and hostile, hangs down,
often with dazzling lustre, which glances far in the
distance.

The shape and colour of the fruit, too, are more
varied than is usually imagined. The Lepidocarya, the
Sago Palms, are adorned with egg-shaped fruits, the scaly,
brown, smooth surface giving them the aspect of beautiful
young Fir-cones. What a remove from the enormous
triangular Cocoa-nut, to the berry of the Date and the
little cherry-like stone-fruit of the Corozo ! But no Palm-
fruit approaches the fruit of the Pirijao of St. Fernando
de Atahapo, in beauty ; ovate, golden and scarlet apples,
hang down in crowded Grape-like clusters from the summit
of the majestic stem.

This may serve to convey the characteristics of the
Palms, but a last primary form yet remains to be considered,
in which the leaf and stem formation, most intimately
blended and inseparable, determine the total impression,
not, however, without this receiving peculiar modifications,
sometimes from the stem and its ramifications, and

334

THE ^ESTHETICS OF

sometimes from the leaves and their forms. The form of
Trees again falls, in still greater measure than the Palms,
into special characteristic sub-forms.

Three are so evident to every one, that it is scarcely
necessary to mention them. These are the form of
Deciduous or Leafy Woods, with their stems branching in
every direction, and their abundant short and broad foliage,
forming dense, compact vegetable masses ; the Willow-form
with loose, wand-like shoots, narrow or long-stalked,
fluttering leaves, the lower sides commonly clothed with
white hair, investing them with a peculiar silvery splendour,
which is represented among us by the Willow and Poplar,
in the south by the useful Olive; thirdly, the form of
Conifers or Needle-leaved Woods, distinguished by their
narrow leaves of dusky green colour, and branches sent off
in whorls or expanded like the ribs of an umbrella from
the reddish-brown trunk ; a dwarfish but dense Sedge-
vegetation dwelling on a tree.

In opposition to these range themselves three Forms
from the southern or equinoctial regions, winch with a
totally distinct nature, allow of comparison with them in
many respects. The mass of the Leafy Woods, especially
the underwood of the Bush, is peculiarly characterized in
the tropics by the Mallow-form,* in which the great
palmately-lobed and usually long-stalked leaves, in all
their expanse of surface giving no deep shade, on account
of their loose arrangement, are distributed over a stem
which is generally short and thick, branching into a crown
only at the summit, or, more rarely, sending out long,
crooked branches to a great distance. The giant of the

* At the lower part of the right hand side of the Frontispiece,
is a Hibiscus, which exhibits the broad and yet airy foliage of these
plants.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

335

Vegetable World, the sacred Baobab,* the shapeless mass
of the barrel-like, swollen trunk of the Bombax, and the
purple- blossomed Hibiscus bush belong to this assemblage
of forms.

From the peculiar impression which the plants make
through the texture and colour of their leaves, the Laurel
and Myrtle-form is more allied to the northern Willows,
from which many New Holland Myrtacece are even
physiognomically indistinguishable. As a whole, broad,
rigid and coriaceous leaves, shining as if varnished, and
reflecting the light with dazzling brightness, are certainly
the distinguishing features of the plants, but they are strangely
modified when a dense white felt, as in the Proteacece,
clothes the lower surfaces of the leaves, and mingles a
silvery tint with the shining green. But I should regard the
Acacia-form as the most perfect among plants. The varied,
often simply-umbelled, often airily-reticulated, often Oak-like
gnarled branching of the here slender, there massive stems,
is such a source of Beauty in the so favouring abundance
of variation of form, multiplied in the highest degree by
the light feathery leaves, which now small and elegant are
marked out like the most delicate lace and embroidery
against the clear sky, now stretching wide in picturesque
curves, emulate the Palm leaves. The Robinia, naturalized
here from North America, gives but a weak picture of the
delicacy, splendour and majesty to which this Form
developes beneath the quickening influence of a tropical
sun.

Although we restrict ourselves to this sketchy enume-
ration of the characteristic forms of Plants, Nature

* Adansonia digitata.

336

THE AESTHETICS OP

herself renders it altogether inadequate to paint her wealth ;
but it is here that we feel most the want of accurate and
at the same time artistic delineations. Travellers, only too
often dull collectors, have as yet far too little cultivated this
department of the study of Nature. Even among those
who have taken account of it, there are many whose vision
is not calm and clear enough to separate what appeared to
them, subjectively, striking and interesting, from that which
defined the character of the landscape; many, in the
frivolous desire to say something singular, string together
laboriously sought words, yet give no picture, or deliver
themselves over to the excess of feeling and the flight of
an unbridled imagination. Rarely do we find the classic
objectivity and the plastic subjectivity, which distinguish
the sketches of Nature of the clear Gothe, of the rich and
lively Seatsfield, but above all, of the Master of Science,
Artistic perception and Language, Alexander von Hum-
boldt.

I have arranged these forms according as they merely
clothe the bare earth or rise above it as independant
shapes, and the latter according as they especially by
foliage, or more through the characteristic appearance of
the stem, or, lastly, through a combination and blending
of the two, excite the particular impression which is made
upon the beholder of a landscape determined by them.
But it is possible to establish another, more important
ground of division, one taking up more the artistic stand-
point. As we divide the landscape itself into foreground,
middle distance and distance, so above all must the
characteristic vegetable Forms be comprehended in their
varying importance to these three portions of the picture
of Nature, and be introduced in accurate drawing. The

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

337

little Form of Grasses, only of importance in the total
impression of their mass, loses nothing by greater distance,
while the Plantain and Aroid plants bear to be in the
nearest foreground, on account of the beautiful form of
their large leaves. On the other hand, the delicate out-
lines of the Mimosa leaves become confused into a green
mass in the back-ground, while the more lofty Palms, if
brought too near, are incapable of giving the total impres-
sion, and thus their Beauty actually ceases to exist.

Future travellers will multiply the number of vegetable
Forms, bring forward their importance more determinately,
and teach us to perceive the delicate shades of distinction
which will allow those great groups to be broken up into
smaller; and we shall especially gain in our attempts to form
impressions, when a greater store of such artistic repre-
sentations lie before us, as the Baron von Kittlitz has, with
inimitable truth, furnished in his Views of Vegetation.

Most deserving of study, but as yet almost wholly
unobserved and uninvestigated, is that face of these
vegetable Forms which they turn towards Man, the history
of his culture, his view of Life. Here these types of
Nature first acquire their higher significance, and become
to the psychologist and the ethnographer, almost as
important as to the Botanist. That the Idea of the World
must be different to him who obtains his first impressions
from the solemn, winter-green Pine-woods of Sweden, to
him who grows up among the misty highland moors and
heaths of Scotland, and again to that man who from his
infancy has been surrounded by the glancing leaf of
the Laurel and the Myrtle under the serene sky of Greece,
seems to be so plain that it hardly requires mention, and
yet the Idea of Life arising from this is more easily felt
than clearly and distinctly developed in words. As in

22

338

THE ^ESTHETICS OF

Mythology, so here, the side most fruitful and most full of
life has not yet been at all investigated ; nevertheless we
hold as a general proposition that there is no study, which
in any way soever relates to earthly relations, or is realized
in such, which is or can he more than a dead Word-
learnedness or untrue phantasy, if it have not its founda-
tions in the Science of Nature. Man does not understand
the human Soul without connexion with the Body, and
this not without its dependance on all Nature, and what
there may he besides, whatever can become an object of
Science.

This influence, which gives the vegetable world an
especial value in the development of Mankind, is not
shown by the forms of plants by themselves, hut rather
only in and through their combination into the already
named Plant-formations. Here again, no more can be
expected from me than a slight indication of the infinite
wealth of Nature, the narrow frame in which my pictures
are confined, forbids more. Nay if we intended completely
to exhaust the subject, we must even (draw the Animal
world and Geological elements into the circle of our con-
templations. The natural Man lives not with this or that
natural body, but with All that surrounds him ; the land-
scape with all its inseparate elements acts upon his tone of
mind, and thus imperceptibly upon his entire inward
history ; only gradually, in advanced culture, does it become
possible to extricate the individual components out of the
picture and to analyze the general impression into its
separate influences. Not the Grass, but the Meadow, not
the Tree, but the Wood, not the Mvrtle-busb, but the
whole surface covered with low, bushy, evergreen plants,
which draws itself like a girdle round the Greek mountains,
contrasted on one side with the blooming meadows, on the

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339

other with the aspiring Pines, — these have worked the
mighty influence on the delight or melancholy of men. So
will the considerations of the Plant-formations, as they are
composed of those forms, have unequal import to us, and the
more that herein especially is expressed the peculiar
character of different countries.

No inhabitant of our climes, whom a friendly Genius
has guided to the rich world of the vertical sun, and
happily restored to his home, has found it possible to resist
the impression which the peculiarity of tropical vegeta-
tion made upon him, and never will he forget it. The
common expressions by which men attempt to convey its
characters, richness, fulness, luxuriance, &c., are but dull
and obscure, nay even false, since he who has ever seen a
northern primitive forest, the mighty, spreading trunks, the
mouldering bodies of the dead, the plenitude of Ferns and
Mosses clothing and enveloping all, living and dead —
must come to the next to true belief, that a greater lux-
uriance of vegetable growth is not well conceivable. But
a more accurate conception is awakened by the statement
that the nearer we approach the hot regions, the more the
social plants disappear, and the more the most diverse
forms become intermixed. And yet, true as this pro-
position is, those will be less inclined to admit it who,
depending on the physiognomy more than on botanical
definition, recall to mind particular characteristic forms of
wood, bush, or steppe — for the explanation indeed names
the fundamental cause of the phenomenon, but does
not demonstrate how the same brings about the final
result.

When we have, from the dusky shadows of our thickly
leaved Beech woods, formed an ideal conception of the

22*

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THE ./ESTHETICS OF

incomparably fuller and more crowded vegetation of a
tropical forest, we feel strangely disappointed to find all
there so bright and full of light.

This wealth of vegetation, which descends from the
loftiest summits of the Palms and Bertholletias, from spray
to bough, from bough to trunk, beclothes the earth and
hangs in rich festoons across the airy interspaces, wTould be
totally impossible if the indispensable light had not free
passage down even to the humblest corners. The dense
shade of our woods, which, compared with the tropical
forests, even our needle-leaved Firs produce by their
closely-crowded branches, — through which they are
enabled to resist the autumnal storms, the savage winter,
the burdening weight of the snow-masses — prevents that
rich and varied development of vegetable life immediately
beneath the trees which, under the tropics, fills up and
decorates each nook in length and breadth, in height and
depth. For the character of the tropical forest trees lies
in a peculiar, wide-spreading aerial, ramification, and a foliage
which, imitating in little and particular, the bearing of the
Palms, only makes good its place on the extremest points
of the branchlets. Besides this, there is the great diversity
of the plants which are assembled in a little space, and
shoot up into the air in such varying modes, that even in
the distance, a tropical wTood does not present the simple
rounded outline of a northern Beech or Lime wood.
Lastly, too, comes the predominance, or at least frequent
occurrence of shining leaves which, reflecting the light, send
it down into duskier shade ; or the white surface of the
high upraised Palm-leaves and other foliage which, like
mirrors, throw the sun’s rays into the inmost recesses
of the woods. From these and perhaps from countless

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341

other separate little features is the picture composed, which
meets us with so foreign a character and such attractive
charms.

When we speak of Plant-formations we borrow this
expression from another Science, Geognosy, and think, so far
as a comparison is admissible, to mark a similarity. In the
same way that in the geognostic consideration of the earth’s
surface, we first of all distinguish between level land and
chains of mountains, we may here also in the application of
these considerations to the vegetable world, first divide, as
two primary forms, the Plains from the Woods. Each of
these primary divisions falls again into particular forma-
tions, and these it is, which here and there developed,
appearing prominent or repressed, determine here, as in
Geognosy the geognostic, the vegetative, landscape character
of a country. Especially in the investigation and delinea-
tion of these formations really lies the charm which is
usually, by a confusion of ideas, ascribed to the Geography
of Plants. This can and will pursue scientific aims, set
itself theoretical problems and solve them — and

“ Grey, dear friend, is every Theory.”

But “ green, the golden tree of Life and it has been
pointed out how it is exactly this impassable to rigid
science, aesthetic side of Nature, which, though mysterious
and difficult to trace in its action, yet interferes most
powerfully, determining, restraining or furthering the course
of spiritual development. “ As the Man, so is his God,”
is certainly true, but we must go farther than this and add,
Man in the earliest stages of his culture is as the Nature
amid which he has grown up.

On the other hand, we must not neglect to expose an
essential distinction wherein the Geognostic formation differs

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THE AESTHETICS OF

from the Vegetable. The former stands unalterable and
unchangeable in strongly marked fixity, at least far beyond
Man thinking and reckoning, at the highest, by centuries ;
the latter, on the contrary, with the imprint of organic life,
follows in its way the play of the mighty forces of the
Earth. The design is not fixed and immoveable, but as
the character of Nature in the mass alters, it exhibits other
features and looks upon Man, as it were, with another
countenance, and the same forms which to-day awaken
joyful feelings, may perhaps to-morrow depress the soul
with a picture of melancholy desolation. The farther we
advance up into high latitudes, the more do the Summer
and Winter clothing of Nature differ, and according as the
climatal conditions cause one, two, three or four Seasons,
so is the physiognomy of Nature now fixed and unchanging,
now with characters alternating in manifold ways. But
not on this or that isolated condition, but very especially on
the mode in which the history of Nature, the course of its
changes, determines the time for the accompanying activity
of Man, is founded the mighty influence upon the feelings
and their play, on the train of thought and its improve-
ment. While the dull, faded green of the Fir leaves,
under the load of their covering of snow, renders the im-
pression of Winter still more gloomy and melancholy, the
bright lustre of the evergreen leafy woods of the South,
feigns a Summer in the breast of Man, even though the
frozen body give the lie to that meteorological error.

It is difficult to give the character of the various Wood-
formations in words, with even a small proportion of that
vividness and reality which the landscape Painter so readily
attains by drawing, foliage, colour and effect of light.
Nevertheless, the differences arc striking enough to all who
approach Nature with open senses. Even the Fir and Pine

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343

woods exhibit essential differences in their features ; the
former with straight stems arranged parallel to each other
like columns, with the conical crowns of verticillate branches ;
the latter bearing on the gnarled, curved trunks, the lines
of which cross in all directions in perspective, a flat umbel
of foliage, a bearing which is most purely and nobly ex-
hibited by the Stone Pine. These Pine-woods, which
extend over miles of country in the Mark of Brandenburg,
are repeated in more luxuriant development in the “ Pine
barrens” of North America. Here, as there, loving a sandy
soil, they extend in a broad hand several hundred English
miles long, down to the coast of Virginia and North
Carolina, forming by their mass a very prominent feature
in the physiognomy of the whole country.

Still more striking is the distinction between the par-
ticular formations of the Leafy Woods ; the crowded
arrangement of the social Beeches, Limes or Elms, produces
woods with dusky shades and a soil void of vegetation,
while the proud Oak, repressing the growth of all other
trees in its immediate neighbourhood, stands alone upon a
soil pleasantly clothed with grass and herbs, or unites in
small groups to form those wonderful woodland landscapes,
to which the immortal pencil of Ruysdael so often introduces
us. Differently acts the massive lustre of the Magnolia
woods of the southern part of North America, from the
elegant beauty of the African Acacia groves, or the ghost-
like transparency of the Northern Birch, and the whole
tropical world unfolds a multiformity, the description of
which would be an inexhaustible theme. I will only take
notice here of a strange contrast afforded in some regions
of the hot climate. The rude cold of Winter robs our
woods of their fairest adornments, and leafless stand out
the dark branches from the snow or the moist black soil, in

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THE ^ESTHETICS OF

the grey, gloomy November air ; as a reverse to this, the
Brazilian traveller wanders in the glowing heat through the
Catingas, woods which through the drying influence of the
sun are defoliated in summer, and with their bare branches
contrast strangely with the fresh luxuriant green on the
banks of some little brook, or against the succulent, fleshy
masses of the Cactuses untouched by the burning heat.
But even in the freshest foliage the woods may assume the
character of awful and terrible wildness. When the dense
foliage hinders the action of the sun and the refreshing
breeze, and thus retards the decomposition of the vegetable
masses, where the ground, flat and without any declivity,
allows the accumulation of water, and the more since the
heaped-up bodies of dead plants continually increase the
barriers to the efflux, and the humus formed greedily sucks
up the moisture — there are formed the most extensive
swamps. By the progressive accession of the remains of
vegetation the ground becomes elevated, and such spongy,
semi-fluid masses often lie, at length, far above the level of
the surrounding plain, the sun’s heat never sufficing, even
when storms remove the protecting roof, to dry up the
marsh, or to restrain its increase. Such a swamp rises
twelve feet above the surrounding plains in Virginia, be-
tween the towns of Suffolk and Walden, and is called
by the inhabitants “ the great Dismal,” giving origin to
considerable rivers and supplying them with water. The
North American Cypress* it is, which with its delicate but
dense foliage gives rise to the formation of these structures.
It is the same tree which forms the terrible, evilly-re-
renowned Cypress-swamps of Louisiana, on the banks of
the Red River and the Mississippi. Gigantic trunks of un-

* Cupressus disticha.

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345

precedented mightiness crowd together, interweaving their
branches and spreading an obscure twilight in the brightest
day. The soil consists merely of half-decayed blocks piled
one upon another, alternating with a fathomless mud, in
which the voracious alligators and snapping turtles wallow,
the sole lords of this hell, steaming up almost beneath the
tropical sun, — thus in the height of Summer ; in the Spring
the thick, miry floods of the issuing streams impetuously
overflow this malignant vegetation for many miles. Thus
these Cypress-swamps, of which Seatsfield has given us such
a vivid picture, correspond in inland countries, to the Man-
grove-woods which border the mouths of almost all the
tropical rivers. Composed of a very few species of plants,
among which the Mangrove-tree is the most common, they
are especially striking from the great number of strong
roots, springing out high up the stem, and bearing this
aloft above the surface. The peculiar habitation of this
plant is the brackish water, which consists, at the ebb, of
the fresh water of the river, which is dislodged by the sea-
water at the flood. The numerous roots often form a so
thickly entangled mass that the interspaces may be stopped
up by the falling leaves, collecting thus a soil for a new
vegetation, beneath which, at different hours of the day,
roll the waves of the river and the sea. But more fre-
quently the roots merely operate to retard the flow of the
water and to retain in their interlacements the vegetable
and animal bodies driven down the river, which then decay
here in contact with sea-water and its salts. In these regions
the terrible sulphuretted-hydrogen gas is developed so
abundantly, poisoning the atmosphere, that the natives who
have lived in these abodes from their youth upward, totter
about as it were like spectres, while death almost inevitably
snatches off the Europeans who enter there. These woods

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THE AESTHETICS OF

are especially the foe which, hitherto unconquered, has
opposed almost all the Niger expeditions, and fearfully
thinned the ranks of the hold adventurers. I too had a
friend, the lamented Theodore Vogel, who, too early for
Science, fell a victim to this demon at Fernando Po.

As the hill between mountain and level land, so between
the Wood-formation and the Plain, a link is formed by the
Bush and the plains displaying merely small, isolated groups
of trees.

A portion of the so-called woods on the northern coast
of Australia must be reckoned here, those which clothe the
enormous tract extending southward into the interior from
Raffles Bay and Essington. They exhibit a wholly peculiar
physiognomy, which is repeated almost everywhere through-
out this strange country. The trees and bushes have
leathery leaves, the majority of them being covered with a
white, resinous powder, which gives them the most mono-
tonous, dismal, pallid look possible. The principal trees
are species of Eucalyptus, Acacia, Leptospermum and
Melaleuca (Cajeputs). Many other plants, scarcely to be
reckoned by the side of those named, live beneath the
shelter of these lofty greyish stems, which stand far apart,
and by their meagre, incessantly trembling foliage remind
us of the weeping Willow. Handsome tufts of Grass with
long, slender halm, grow throughout the whole extent of
these Bushes, and in them nestle the kangaroo, with the
ring-doves and other birds. The sun’s rays readily pene-
trate between the narrow leaves, always waving on their
long petioles, and produce an uncertain light mingled with
fleeting shadows. The eye sees far up through the vault
of twigs and leaves, and is arrested, not so much by the
density of the vegetation as by the continually changing
glance of an uncertain mystic light.

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347

Still lighter, still less representative of the closed condi-
tion of woods, is the proper Palm-form where the social
kinds are grouped together. The real Palm-groves on the
northern border of Sahara and on the shores of the
Brazilian rivers, more resemble open columned halls with
perforated roofs ; and on the dry soil of the elevated plains
of Mexico the stems of the Yucca, Fourcroya and other
high-stemmed Liliaceous plants are collected in a very
peculiar way, affording neither shade from the sun nor
shelter from the wind. To these approach the deformed
masses of the Maguey-plants, with their broad, thick, rigid,
dull-green leaves, sharply toothed on their borders, and
then* flowering stalks twenty feet high, rounded off into
strange, fantastic and impenetrable Bush by Cactuses of
manifold forms.

The impenetrable Chappcirals in the extensive plains
between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, formed of
Musquito-shrubs six to seven feet high, entwined with
Lianes ; the Palmetto-fields on the shores of the Sabine,
Natchez and other rivers of Texas, formed of Rush and
Dwarf Palms ; the low Acacia Bush of Australia Felix, and
lastly the wide jungles traversed by the elephants and tigers
in the East Indies, and formed of Bamboos and other lofty
Grasses, are all peculiarly characterized Formations of Bush,
which often not attaining the height of a man, or but little
exceeding it, do not all betray at the first glance the fre-
quently unsuperable obstacle they oppose to the intruder,
and even after Man has settled in the neighbourhood can
only be traversed by paths which the wild animals have
made.

Change, by the movement it produces in sensation or
in the thoughts, is an important means to the awakening of
aesthetic pleasure or interest. The straight line is not

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THE ESTHETICS OF

beautiful, indeed neither beautiful nor ugly, but the curved,
broken line, inviting the eye to divergent motion, makes a
claim to aesthetic criticism and we call it beautiful when
the movement of the eye is gentle and continuous, uglv,
when the eye, frequently and suddenly diverted in its course,
cannot follow the angular lines with one connected move-
ment, but only by immediate change of direction. But
the feeling of Beauty may also be awakened by contrast,
by opposition, when as it were, the phenomena satisfies an
unperceived fundamental law (as in the well-known
assembling of the complementary colours) and the demand
for the completion of an ideal Whole ; and so in contrast
itself a contenting feeling of completion is excited.
These remarks will perhaps make us better understand the
oft-repeated statement that hot regions lose a main charm
of the landscape in the want of our meadows, for grass-
grown, tree-less plains are by no means wanting in the
New World, generally, and especially under the tropics of
both the Old and New7 Continents. But w7hen we speak
of the beauty of our meadows, we do not in reality at all
mean the meadows themselves, that is the grassy level
surfaces, but the varying shapes, and thence agreeable con-
trasts between the velvet-like green carpet and the bushes
rising from them in fair rounded forms up to the majestic
hilly woods; and the gloomy Pine-heaths of the Mark
would not become any more beautiful were their endless
surfaces, which cannot be wholly surveyed from any hill
occurring there, to be overgrown with ever so rich a vege-
tation of Grass, in the absence of all timber.

When we now place beside the Wood-formations, those
of the Plains, we introduce quite a new7 aesthetic element
into the contemplation of Nature. The wToods wre cannot
imagine divested of the element of Beauty, on account of

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349

their wealth of form, the complexity of configuration,
which continually excite the feelings and the mind to
varying activity. But it is wholly different with the great
Plains of Plants, which make quite a peculiar impression
on human nature.

With a kind of feeling of disappointed expectation rides
the traveller in the Prairies of the West, anything but
refreshing appears the monotonous surface uniformly
overgrown with high Grass, the line of the horizon
unbroken even by the smallest elevation. He rides and
rides, but ever boundless space expands before his eyes, in
the same uniformity, in the same calm simplicity. The
idea which he at first avoided, the Infinity lying beyond
little Humanity, will present itself to him, the feeling of
hopeless loneliness creeps gradually into his heart. One
day after another climbs the east, and sinks into the west.
Ever wider and wider extends the Endlessness around him
and grows beyond all his previous conceptions of magni-
tude. Self-consciousness shrinks into narrower bounds,
and ever more paralyzing and oppressive lies the feeling of
Nothingness upon his trembling soul, and before he has
reached the further border, Despair or an infinitely deep
and inward Piety has taken possession of his heart.
Whenever uniform magnitude makes an aesthetic im-
pression, it is that of sublimity, before which Man sinks
in adoration to the dust. One particular modification of
these Prairies, is very characteristically named by the settlers
“ rolling prairie,” a boundless sea of smooth, uniform
waves of earth, twenty to thirty feet high. I do not
venture to describe the other angry glowing visage of these
giant meadows, when, in summer, accident or design has
kindled the dry grass, and the fire rolls forth over the

350

THE ./ESTHETICS OF

plain with wild rapidity ; after Cooper and Seatsfield, this
would be to carry owls to Minerva.

Situated under similar latitudes and climatal conditions,
the Pampas of Buenos Ayres have a character similar to
that of the North American prairies, only Man by his
influence upon Nature has here and there impressed a
peculiar stamp. The Thistle and Artichoke coming with
the Europeans, have quickly made themselves masters of
the free soil, and with incredible rapidity overspread dis-
tricts of many square miles with their spiny vegetation,
which has here developed in a luxuriance unknown in
Europe. These Thistle-wastes have become a terrible
nuisance, themselves robbers, depriving better plants of
the soil, inaccessible hiding-places for the great thievish
and sanguinary Cats, and the still more dangerous human
bandits, the thorny weed of semi-civilization.

One might almost assert that we are less acquainted with
the peculiar Steppes which lie closest to us, than with those
natural forms of distant lands which have become almost
familiar to us from the descriptions of gifted men, for in
fact, one hears only too often in conversation, what mistaken
conceptions people have of those extensive plains which are
commonly known by the name of the North German
Heaths. From the western border of northern France,
through Belgium, North Germany and Russia, almost to
the eastern confines of Siberia, extends a broad plain rarely
interrupted by low chains of hills, and just as rarely affording
fitting soil for extensive growth of wood which, on the
whole, confines itself to the more favourable soil moistened
by the vicinity of rivers. Along the southern border of
this plain extends a chain of hills and mountains, now pro-
jecting forward like capes into the broad surface, now

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351

retreating into broad or narrow creeks, the coast of a sea
formerly covering the whole plain. Over all this endless
expanse has one single species of plant established an
almost exclusive predominance, the Heath, which has
lent its name to these tracts of land. Conditions similar
to those which produce the distinction between the Pine
Barrens and Cypress Swamps in North America, are also
active here to cause an essential difference. The great
flatness of the ground, even geological conditions in many
places, as where slight elevations of the land forming flat
enclosed basins, prevent, in many situations, the free dis-
charge of the water, and the Heath, backed by the special
vegetation produced by the moisture, forms by the annual
accumulation of vegetable matter, which in water only
becomes to a certain degree carbonized or decomposed,
those black masses of the remains of plants, which as peat
bear such an important part in the economy of the in-
habitants. Thus in various modes of distribution alternate
arid, dry Sandy Heaths with moist, spongy Peat Heaths or
Moors. On the margins of the latter, more rarely actually
upon them, a more or less healthy vegetation of Trees
settles, and on the heaths of Luneburg are often found
splendid Oaks, which, over-shadowing one of those pleasant,
straw-thatched houses and thrown out by the back-ground
of the peculiar red tint of the glancing Heather, produce a
picturesque charm which would not have been expected
here. With these great Moors may be associated the Peat
Moors of some of the higher mountain chains of the
Brocken, the Rohn and the Fichtel-Gebirge and so on,
and the so-called Mosses of South Germany and Switzer-
land.

In another climate, in another zone of vegetation, exist
similar conditions, stretching across the extreme north of

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THE ./ESTHETICS OF

Europe. As there the arid Sandy Heaths alternate with
the wet Moors, so here in a more varied manner do the
dry, waterless tracts, with the marshy grounds. But we
are here in Wahlenberg’s region of Lichens and Mosses.
The arid situations are clothed, in expanses over which the
eye cannot reach, with dry, lead-grey Lichens, among which
the reindeer seeks his meagre sustenance, and in the half-
fluid grounds, which will not bear the lightest footstep, a
luxuriant vegetation of Mosses deceives us, in the distance,
with the aspect of a smiling meadow. Here the incautious
wanderer sinks into the water, which is rather concealed
than displaced by the Mosses, while on those Lichen
Heaths, Tundras the Laplanders call them, in summer the
glowing soil makes every step a torture.

The Wood-formations of the South American Cating as
may be opposed to the northern Leafy woods and, in like
manner, the plains of the Llanos of Venezuela to the
Russian Steppes. In the former, of which A. von
Humboldt has given such a vivid sketch, the sleep of
Nature commences with summer, in the hot, dry season ;
the vegetation becomes dried up and falls to dust, leaving
the ground bare ; animal life, in the quadrupeds, flies from
the dead land, while the crocodiles and boas burrow into the
mud of the gradually exhausted rivers of the steppes, and
with this become fixed, till the first torrent of rain, which
conjures up a fresh, youthful vegetation on the barren soil,
again awakens them to life.

It is different in the Steppes which stretch from
southern Russia eastward through central Asia. I will
only mention the strange Salt-steppes, which in summer
often glance like newly fallen snow, from the salt which
effloresces from the soil, and nourish a wholly peculiar
vegetation. Yet I cannot refrain from attempting a brief

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353

description of the sparingly populated but still inhabited
Tartarian Steppes of Pontus. These do not uniformly pre-
sent a level surface, being broken by the Durrinas, low
tracts of Bush of Blackthorns, Hawthorns, Roses and
Brambles. But the remaining part of the vegetation is
also divided by the inhabitants of lesser Russia, according
to its use for pasture, into two essentially distinct groups,
the Truiva, the turf, and the Burian, the rough, branching
plants which, on account of their woody stem, afford no
sustenance to the herds of the Steppes. The Feather
Grass* is the principal among the Graminaceous plants.
Directly after flowering, it expands its long, delicately
feathered awns, not unlike Marabout feathers, from the
spike which rises high above the tuft of narrow, dry
leaves. The older the Steppe, the higher developes the
woody root-stock above the soil, to the annoyance of the
mower. Whoever travels but a few miles into the Steppes,
soon hears the word Burian. Against the Burian inveighs
the herdsman with his oxen and horses ; over the Burian
laments the husbandman ; the Burian is the curse of the
gardener and the hope of the cook. For in the soil of the
Steppe, which is peculiarly fertile for certain plants, which
we call weeds, these shoot up to an incredible height,
wherever cultivation has loosened the solid soil, which they
avoid, and their peculiar use is, that, dried up in the
autumn, they furnish the only fuel of these regions. Above
all, as in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, the Thistles
distinguish themselves, acquiring a size, a development and
ramification, which is really marvellous. Often do they
stand like little trees around the humble earth-hovels of
the country-people ; on favourable soil, they often form

* Scholkowoi Truwa (silk -plant), Stipa pennata.

23

354

THE AESTHETICS OF

extensive Bush, even overtopping the horseman, who is as
helpless in it as in a wood, since they intercept the sight
and yet afford no trunk which might be climbed. Beside
the Thistle rises the Wormwood, intermingled with the
gigantic Mullein or High-taper, the “ Steppe-light” of
lesser Russia. Even the little Milfoil grows several feet
high and is not a little prized, since the inhabitants, who,
from their poor provision, carefully examine the heating
power of the Burian, value it as the best material for fuel.
But the most characteristic of all the plants of the Burian
is that which the Russians call “ Perekatipole,” the “ Leap
in the field,” and the German colonists almost more
happily, the “ Wind Witch.” A poor Thistle-plant, it
divides its strength in the formation of numerous dry,
slender shoots which spread out on all sides and are
entangled with one another. More bitter than Wormwood,
the cattle will not touch it even in times of the utmost
famine. The domes which it forms upon the turf are
often three feet high and sometimes ten to fifteen in circum-
ference, arched over with naked, delicate thin branches. Tn
the Autumn the stem of the plant rots off, and the globe of
branches dries up into a ball, light as a feather, which is then
driven through the air, by the autumnal winds, over the
Steppe. Numbers of such balls often fly at once over the
plain with such rapidity that no horseman can catch them ;
now hopping with short, quick springs along the ground,
now whirling in great circles round each other, rolling
onward in a spirit-like dance over the turf, now, caught
by an eddy, rising suddenly a hundred feet into the air.
Often one Wind Witch hooks on to another, twenty
more join company, and the whole gigantic yet airy
mass rolls away before the piping east-wind. Surely Man
does not need a rocky abyss, a mine, or howling sea-

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355

storms to give him food enough for Superstition. The Steppe
receives a more terrible life when a countryman “ cleans
his farm,” that is, when he has set on fire the Burian
upon it, with the remains of old straw and hay, now
useless on account of the new harvest, and full of mice
and other vermin, and when the dry grass of the Steppe
has caught ; among the common grass it creeps like
a serpent, with measured swiftness ; here it seizes a
Burian hush, and with a tremendous noise the blaze
soars high toward heaven, crackling and hissing, there
reaching a tract of flourishing Feather-grass, rises in a
light white flame, darts with terrible activity over the
waving field, devouring millions of delicate feathers in a
few moments. Sometimes, hemmed in between two
roads bare of vegetation, or between streams of water,
the flame draws itself together and almost disappears,
then, suddenly reaching a new dry surface of grass, gains
new and fearful power, spreads into a wide sea of smoke
and fire, in which the columns of flame whirling up
higher and brighter than the rest, mark the unlucky
situations of human dwellings. Steppe-fires of this kind
often move about over a region for eight or ten days,
crossing and diverging in directions which cannot be
calculated on, following every alteration of the breeze,
bidding defiance to the best considered attempts at
escape.

But the Steppe is barren, robbed of vegetation; what
the flames had spared is but the victim of the icy breath
of the piercing Winter. Ever denser and more gloomy,
the clouds draw together, ever thicker falls the snow,
and ever more cutting drives the cold north wind over
the unprotected surface. The belated traveller urges his
horse with the most pressing haste. Silver streaks rise up

23 *

35G

THE ./ESTHETICS OF

from the plain, and ascend with increasing frequency ;
the wind begins to howl and bluster ; the air glistens
more and more with crystals of snow, and, at last, all
this becomes one dense, dim mass, proceeds in one
direction till, caught by a whirlwind, it rushes round in a
circle or rebounds from the elevated portions of the Steppe.
This is the “ Buran,” the Steppe-storm ; long before this
the frightened driver has perceived its tokens, and with
all the force of desperation lashed his gradually wearying
horse. More violently and rapidly the snow-wreaths
succeed one another, circling round and confounding every-
thing in painful dizziness, every thought of finding the
right path is given up, and all must be trusted to the
instinct of the horse, which now flies as if driven by a
madman, over the plain. Close by the sledge roars a
terrified herd, and the passing glance through the thick
snow dust, just allows the traveller to perceive how,
blinded by anguish, they precipitate themselves over a
precipice, at the foot of which then shattered bones whiten
in the following spring.

Every hope seems lost, and death certain ; then the
night comes on, and the storm begins to flag ; the masses
of driven snow sink down and, as suddenly as it arose,
the Buran subsides after lasting scarcely half a day ; the
atmosphere becomes again brightened by the evening
twilight, and the exhausted traveller sees a human dwelling
before him. If it affords but little compensation for the
toil endured, it at least allows of slumber. A pleasant
dream bears the tired wanderer to the distant home. On
the pleasant banks of the stream that glides along there,
he strays through fertile meadows — evening sinks upon
the warm earth. Moist, misty dews rise, refreshing, from
the soil, sweep through the bordering Alders, and clothe

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

357

them in their veil ; Erl- King* and his daughter glide in
changeful, sportive forms round about the grey old trunks
of the Willows. A gentle sound trembles through the
fragrant evening air. The bell of the native village calls
him home, returned after restless travel over the great
God’s World, after rich impressions, exciting adventures,
pressing hardships and strange delights, back to rest,
to that which, in spite of all intervening things, he never
does nor can forget, the paradise of childhood, the house
of his parents, his mother’s arms.

* Anglice, Alder-King.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

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EXPLANATION OE THE PLATES.

PLATE I.

ALL THE FIGURES ARE GREATLY MAGNIFIED.

Fig. 1. — Two cells from the Snow-berry. In each is perceived a
nucleus a, and, proceeding from or towards this, numerous currents
of a yellowish mucilaginous substance. In some of them the direc-
tion of the currents is indicated by an arrow.

Fig. 2. — Two cells from the leaf of the Pink. In these may be
distinguished the colourless cell-wall, a delicate, yellowish, mucila-
ginous coating, and some large granules coloured by chlorophyll.

Fig. 3. — A cell from the same plant, which has been moistened
with a drop of nitric acid and some tincture of iodine. The green
granules have become brown, the mucilaginous coat is coagulated
and thus has become retracted from the wall of the cell, and forms a
sac lying loosely within it.

Fig. 4. — A reticulated fibrous cell from the leaf of the broad-
leaved Gesneria ( Gesneria latifolia).

Fig. 5. — A spiral fibrous cell from the leaf of a tropical Orchi-
daceous plant ( Maxillaria atropurpurea) .

Fig. 7. — An annular fibrous cell from the stem of the Italian
reed ( Arundo Donax ).

Fig. 8. — A very short bass fibre (elongated cell) from the stem
of the Flax.

Fig. 9. — A little piece of a cotton fibre.

Fig. 10. — A piece of a filament of raw silk from a cocoon.

Fig. 11. — A small portion of a fibre of sheep’s wool.

Fig. 12. — A small piece of the epidermis stripped from a leaf of
the Tulip. It is composed of longish, somewhat six-sided cells, and
this piece exhibits four stomates or breathing pores, a.

Fig. 13. — A delicate section from the stem of the Italian reed, so
cut that it only contains one of the vascular bundles (the tough fibres

362

EXPLANATIONS OF THE PLATES.

running through the stem), a, Cells of the pith ; b, vascular bundle
composed of elongated cells, and these, proceeding from within
outward, having the form of annular, spiral, porous and bass-cells ;
c, cells of the rind, the outermost containing some granules coloured
by chlorophyll.

PLATE II.

ALL THE OBJECTS ARE REPRESENTED GREATLY ENLARGED.

Fig. 1. — Some cells from a Cactus, containing various forms of
crystals ; also some loose crystals of different forms. It must be
observed, that in Nature these various forms are never assembled so
closely together as they have been here, for the sake of occupying
less space.

Fig. 2. — The external portion of a delicate transverse section of
a grain of Rye. a, Some layers of yellowish flattened cells which
form the shell of the grain ; b, the outer layers of cells of the grain ;
these are completely filled with a yellowish, mucilaginous matter
containing granules ; c, the interior cells of the grain which contain
little else but starch granules, and only here and there a little of
that granular mucilaginous matter which is what is called the gluten
of the meal, and is the most nutritious constituent of Grain. The
Bran which is removed in grinding, contains at least all the layers
to c ; all the remaining cells, forming the white or fine meal, resemble
in form and contents those marked c.

Fig. 3. — Starch granules, from the Potato.

Fig. 4. — Ditto, constituting East Indian Arrow-root.

Fig. 5. — Ditto, genuine West Indian Arrow-root.

Fig. 6. — Ditto, very commonly sold for West Indian Arrow-root.
The medicinal properties are exactly similar in both kinds.

Fig. 7. — A small piece of the outer layer of cells from the red-
spotted flower- stalk of the greenish-flowered Veltlieimia. It is at
once seen that the red spots consist of little groups of cells con-
taining red sap, those around being filled with green matter. It also
affords a striking proof of the independance and perfect continuity- of
each cell, since otherwise the different coloured juices must become
mingled.

Fig. 8. — A fine longitudinal section of Oak-wood, consisting

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EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

363

of wood-cells a ; and porous-cells b, the so-called vessels of the
wood.

Fig. 9. — A fine transverse section of the same wood. In this
also, the small but very thick- walled wood- cells a are readily distin-
guished from the large but proportionately thin vascular cells b.
At c are perceived some other rows of peculiar cells, called by
vegetable anatomists medullary rays, by joiners “ silver grain,”
which run through the wood, radiating from the pith to the
bark.

Fig. 10. — A delicate longitudinal section of the wood of the
common Pine, consisting of very long porous wood-cells, which are
distinguished by a peculiarity of the pores. They exhibit two
circles, a large outer one a, and a small inner one b ; a peculiarity
which only occurs in this particular form in the wood of Cone-
bearing trees, and which enables us to distinguish this even in the
condition of coal or fossil wood.

PLATE III.

MOST OF THE OBJECTS IN THIS PLATE ARE MUCH ENLARGED ;

BUT WHEN THIS IS NOT THE CASE, IT IS EXPRESSLY

DENOTED BY THE LETTERS cc N. sT (NATURAL SIZE).

Fig. 1 . — Development of a reproductive cell of a Conferva, which
frequently occurs as a green filamentous slime in stagnant water.
a. The spore (reproductive cell), b. First stage of development;
the spore has sent out a thin, tubular process, c. Second stage ; the
process has become elongated, and a new cell has been formed at the
opposite end of the spore, d. Third stage ; the young plant has
become attached by its elongated process to a fragment of wood, and
is gradually growing out at the other extremity into a perfect filament,
by continually forming fresh cells.

Fig. 2. — Development of the spore of a Fern. a. The spore,
which in this case does not consist of a simple reproductive cell, but
has a peculiar dark- coloured coat. b. First stage ; the cell has
broken through the coat and become elongated in a tubular form.
c. Second stage ; in the protruded end of the tube several cells have
been formed and are already green, but the original cell remains
within the dark-coloured coat. d. Third stage ; the green cells have
become so much multiplied that they form a little roundish leaflet,

364

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

the germ. e. Fourth stage ( n . s .) ; the germ has become two-lobed,
or heart-shaped ; the spore-cell with its coat and the end of the tube
is beginning to decay. /. Fifth stage (n. s.) ; in the notch of the
germ, which has increased in size, a little protuberance has been
formed which begins to grow downward into a root and upward into
the first-leaf. g. Sixth stage (n. s .) ; the germ has reached its full
development and is beginning to decay ; the first leaf of the plant is
perfect, the second has made its appearance and the root is beginning
to branch, h. Seventh stage (n. s.) ; the germ has decayed and
disappeared ; the young plant, now complete, developes without further
peculiar phenomena.

Fig. 3. — ( n . s.). A twig with a leaf, in the axil of which has
been formed a bud, that is a new plant connected with the original
plant.

Fig. 4. — A plant of the garden Strawberry (one-sixth of the natural
size). The parent plant a has sent out slender shoots from the axils of
its leaves ; the shoots, instead of perfect leaves, have scale-like organs
situated at a considerable distance from each other ; these shoots are
called runners. From the axil of each scale is developed a bud which
immediately strikes root and becomes a perfect Strawberry plant c.
In the following year the shoot uniting it with the mother-plant b
decays, and the latter thus becomes surrounded by a numerous
progeny.

Fig. 5. — A leaf of Bryophyllum calycinum (n. s.), which when
placed upon moist earth (damp air has the same influence) gradually
produces little plants in all the indentations of its border.

Fig. 6. — A longitudinal section of the pistil of the Heartsease
( Viola tricolor ). In the hollow head- shaped stigma lie a quantity of
reproductive cells (pollen), which have been thrown upon it by the
bursting of the anthers. These cells have all become elongated into
tubes which creep through the canal of the style b down into the
germen c, and here in part enter the numerous seed-buds (ovules)
d existing here.

Fig. 7. — A single seed-bud (ovule) of the same plant, cut through
lengthways, with the whole of the tube of the reproductive cell.
This, a, is here, as in the Fern, enclosed in a dark coat, which the
tube b has broken through. The free end of the tube having reached
the seed-bud c, passes through its different envelopes till it reaches
the internal cavity, here it swells up and becomes filled with green
cells which are gradually transformed into the embryo, while the
remaining portion, with the reproductive cell, gradually decays and

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

365

disappears. The great and essential similarity of this process to that
described in the Fern is not to be mistaken.

Fig. 8. — The end of the tube drawn out of the seed-bud, at a
later period. The tube c has begun to decay. The little roundish
body of the nascent embryo shoots out to the right and left two little
knobs, the first-leaves a ■ at the upper end is the beginning of the
stem, the opposite extremity becomes the root.

Fig. 9. — The embryo, now almost perfect, extracted from the
seed-bud, which by this time is transformed into the seed. The
two first-leaves, the seed-leaves or cotyledons, are complete, a and b,
and cover the bud which has been formed between them ; this bud
is the foundation of the future stem ; at the other end, the root c is
also perfect. At this period all vegetative power seems to be
exhausted. The ripe seed is thrown off by the plant and lies for
a varying length of time on the ground, the embryo within mani-
festing no trace of the persistence of life. At last, at the time
appointed, germination commences, for an example of which the
Flax-plant may serve.

Fig. 10. — Longitudinal section of a Flax-seed. The embryo cut
through lengthways is seen to be enclosed in a double coat, and
sends out a rootlet (radicle) below, while it ends above in a little
bud (plumule) which is contained between two large seed-leaves or
cotyledons.

Fig. 11. — A germinating Flax-seed (n. s .) The little plant has
burst its coats and is about to throw off its shell.

Fig. 12. — A somewhat later stage («. s.) The young plant has
become perfectly independant and the bud or plumule is beginning to
develope into stem and leaves.

Plate IV. and the Frontispiece are fully explained in the
Fourth and Twelfth Lectures.

THE END.

LONDON :

Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.

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