ASPECTS OF NATURE
IN DIFFERENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES.
When the active curiosity of man is engaged in interrogating
Nature, or when his imagination dwells on the wide fields of
organic creation, among the multifarious impressions which
his mind receives, perhaps none is so strong and profound as
that of the universal profusion with which life is everywhere
distributed. Even on the polar ice the air resounds with
the cries or songs of birds, and with the hum of insects.
Nor is it only the lower dense and vaporous strata of the
atmosphere which are thus filled with life, but also the higher
and more ethereal regions. Whenever Mont Blanc or the
summits of the Cordilleras have been ascended, living
creatures have been found there. On the Chimborazo,[1]
eight thousand feet higher than Etna, we found butterflies
and other winged insects, borne by ascending currents of air
to those almost unapproachable solitudes, which man, led by
a restless curiosity or unappeasable thirst of knowledge,
treads with adventurous but cautious steps: like him
strangers in those elevated regions, their presence shows us
that the more flexible organization of animal creation can
subsist far beyond the limits at which vegetation ceases.
The condor,[2] the giant of the Vulture tribe, often soared
over our heads above all the summits of the Andes, at an
altitude higher than would be the Peak of Teneriffe if piled
on the snow-covered crests of the Pyrenees. The rapacity
of this powerful bird attracts him to these regions, whence
his far-seeing eye may discern the objects of his pursuit, the
soft-wooled Vicunas, which, wandering in herds, frequent,
like the Chamois, the mountain pastures adjacent to the
regions of perpetual snow.
But if the unassisted eye sees life distributed throughout
the atmosphere, when armed with the microscope we discover
far other marvels. Rotiferæ, Brachionæ, and a multitude
of microscopic animalculæ, are carried up by the winds from
the surface of evaporating waters. These minute creatures,
motionless and apparently dead, are borne to and fro in the
air until the falling dews bring them back to the surface of
the earth, dissolve the film or envelope which encloses their
transparent rotating bodies,[3] and, probably by means of
the oxygen which all waters contain, breathe new irritability
into their dormant organs.
According to Ehrenberg’s brilliant discovery, the yellow
sand or dust which falls like rain on the Atlantic near the
Cape de Verde Islands, and is occasionally carried even to
Italy and Middle Europe, consists of a multitude of siliceous-shelled
microscopic animals. Perhaps many of them float
for years in the upper strata of the atmosphere, until they are
brought down by vertical currents or in accompaniment with
the superior current of the trade-winds, still susceptible of
revivification, and multiplying their species by spontaneous
division in conformity with the particular laws of their
organisation.
But, besides creatures fully formed, the atmosphere contains
innumerable germs of future life, such as the eggs of
insects and the seeds of plants, the latter provided with light
hairy or feathery appendages, by means of which they are
wafted through the air during long autumnal wanderings.
Even the fertilizing dust or pollen from the anthers of the
male flowers, in species in which the sexes are separated, is
carried over land and sea, by winds and by the agency of
winged insects,[4] to the solitary female plant on other shores.
Thus wherever the glance of the inquirer into Nature penetrates,
he sees the continual dissemination of life, either
fully formed or in the germ.
If the aereal ocean in which we are submerged, and above
the surface of which we cannot rise, be indispensable to the
existence of organised beings, they also require a more substantial
aliment, which they can find only at the bottom of
this gaseous ocean. This bottom is of two kinds; the
smaller portion consisting of dry land in immediate contact
with the external atmosphere, and the larger portion consisting
of water, which may perhaps have been formed
thousands of years ago by electric agencies from gaseous
substances, and which is now incessantly undergoing decomposition
in the laboratories of Nature, in the clouds and in
the pulsating vessels of animals and plants. Organic forms
also descend deep below the surface of the earth, wherever
rain or surface water can percolate either by natural cavities
or by mines or other excavations made by man: the subterranean
cryptogamic Flora was an object of my scientific
research in the early part of my life. Thermal springs of
very high temperature nourish small Hydropores, Confervæ,
and Oscillatoria. At Bear Lake, near the Arctic Circle,
Richardson saw the ground, which continues frozen throughout
the summer at a depth of twenty inches, covered with
flowering plants.
We do not yet know where life is most abundant,—whether
on continents or in the unfathomed depths of the
ocean. Through the excellent work of Ehrenberg, “Über
das Verhalten des kleinsten Lebens,” we have seen the sphere
of organic life extend, and its horizon widen before our eyes,
both in the tropical parts of the ocean and in the fixed or
floating masses of ice of the Antarctic seas. Siliceous-shelled
Polygastrica, and even Coscinodiscæ, with their green
ovaries, have been found alive enveloped in masses of
ice only twelve degrees from the Pole; the small black
Glacier flea (Desoria glacialis) and Podurellæ inhabit the
narrow tubular holes examined by Agassiz in the Swiss
glaciers. Ehrenberg has shown that on several microscopic
Infusoria (Synedra, Cocconeis) others live as parasites, and
that in the Gallionellæ such is their prodigious power of
development, or capability of division, that in the space of
four days an animalcule invisible to the naked eye can form
two cubic feet of the Bilin polishing slate. In the sea, gelatinous
worms, living or dead, shine like stars,[5] and by
their phosphoric light change the surface of the wide ocean
into a sea of fire. Ineffaceable is the impression made on
my mind by the calm nights of the torrid zone, on the waters
of the Pacific. I still see the dark azure of the firmament,
the constellation of the Ship near the zenith, and that of the
Cross declining towards the horizon, shedding through the
perfumed air their soft and planetary lustre; while bright
furrows of flashing light marked the track of the dolphins
through the midst of the foaming waves.
Not only the ocean, but also the waters of our marshes,
hide from us an innumerable multitude of strange forms.
The naked eye can with difficulty distinguish the Cyclidias,
the Euglenes, and the host of Naids divisible by branches
like the Lemna or Duckweed, of which they seek the shade.
Other creatures inhabit receptacles where the light cannot
penetrate, and an atmosphere variously composed, but differing
from that which we breathe: such are the spotted
Ascaris, which lives beneath the skin of the earthworm; the
Leucophra, of a bright silvery colour, in the interior of the
shore Naid; and a Pentastoma, which inhabits the large
pulmonary cells of the rattlesnake of the tropics.[6] There
are animalculæ in the blood of frogs and of salmon, and even,
according to Nordmann, in the fluids of the eyes of fishes
and in the gills of the Bleak. Thus the most hidden recesses
of creation teem with life. We propose in these pages to
direct our attention to the vegetable world, on the existence
of which that of animals is dependent. Plants are incessantly
engaged in disposing into order towards subsequent
organization the raw materials of which the earth is composed:
it is their office, by their vital forces or powers, to
prepare those substances which, after undergoing a thousand
modifications, are gradually converted to nobler purposes in
the formation of nervous tissues. In directing our consideration
towards the various families of plants, we shall at the
same time glance at the multitude of animated beings to
which they afford nutriment and protection.
The carpet of flowers and of verdure spread over the
naked crust of our planet is unequally woven; it is thicker
where the sun rises high in the ever cloudless heavens,
and thinner towards the poles, in the less happy climes
where returning frosts often destroy the opening buds
of spring, or the ripening fruits of autumn. Everywhere,
however, man finds some plants to minister to his support
and enjoyment. If new lands are formed, the
organic forces are ever ready to cover the naked rock with
life. Sometimes, as at an early period among the Greek
Islands, volcanic forces suddenly elevate above the surface
of the boiling waves a rock covered with Scoriæ: sometimes,
by a long-continued and more tranquil series of phenomena,
the collective labours of united Lithophytes[7]
raise their cellular dwellings on the crests of submarine
mountains, until, after thousands of years, the structure
reaches the level of the ocean, when the creatures which
have formed it die, leaving a low flat coral island. How
are the seeds of plants brought so immediately to these new
shores? by wandering birds, or by the winds and waves of
the ocean? The distance from other coasts makes it difficult
to determine this question; but, no sooner is the rock
of the newly raised islands in direct contact with the
atmosphere, than there is formed on its surface, in our northern
countries, a soft silky net-work, appearing to the
naked eye as coloured spots and patches. Some of these
patches are bordered by single or double raised lines running
round their margins; other patches are crossed by
similar lines traversing them in various directions. Gradually
the light colour of the patches becomes darker, the
bright yellow which was visible at a distance changes to
brown, and the bluish gray of the Leprarias becomes a dusty
black. The edges of neighbouring patches approach and
run into each other; and on the dark ground thus formed
there appear other lichens, of a circular shape and dazzling
whiteness. Thus an organic film or covering establishes
itself by successive layers; and as mankind, in forming
settled communities, pass through different stages of civilisation,
so is the gradual propagation and extension of plants
connected with determinate physical laws. Lichens form
the first covering of the naked rock, where afterwards lofty
forest trees rear their airy summits. The successive growth
of mosses, grasses, herbaceous plants, and shrubs or bushes,
occupies the intervening period of long but undetermined
duration. The part which lichens and mosses perform in
the northern countries is effected within the tropics by
Portulacas, Gomphrenas, and other low and succulent shore
plants. The history of the vegetable covering of our planet,
and its gradual propagation over the desert crust of the
earth, has its epochs, as well as that of the migrations of
the animal world.
Yet although organic life is everywhere diffused, and the
organic powers are incessantly at work in reconnecting with
each other the elements set free by death or dissolution,
the abundance and variety of organised beings, and the
rapidity with which they are renewed, differ in different
climates. In the cold zones, the activity of organic life
undergoes a temporary suspension during a portion of the
year by frost; fluidity is an essential condition of life or vital
action, and animals and plants, with the exception of mosses
and other cryptogamia, are in those regions buried for several
months of each year in winter sleep. Over a large part of
the earth, therefore, there could only be developed organic
forms capable of supporting either a considerable diminution
of heat, or, being without leaves, a long interruption of the
vital functions. Thus we see variety and grace of form,
mixture of colours, and generally the perpetually youthful
energy and vigour of organic life, increase as we approach
the tropics. This increase can be denied only by those who
have never quitted Europe, or who have neglected the study
of physical geography. When, leaving our oak forests, we
traverse the Alps or the Pyrenees, and enter Italy or Spain,
or when we direct our attention to some of the African
shores of the Mediterranean, we might easily be led to draw
the erroneous inference that hot countries are marked by
the absence of trees. But those who do so, forget that the
South of Europe wore a different aspect on the first arrival
of Pelasgian or Carthaginian colonies; they forget that an
ancient civilisation causes the forests to recede more and
more, and that the wants and restless activity of large communities
of men gradually despoil the face of the earth of
the refreshing shades which still rejoice the eye in Northern
and Middle Europe, and which, even more than any historic
documents, prove the recent date and youthful age of our
civilization. The great catastrophe which occasioned the
formation of the Mediterranean, when the swollen waters
of what was previously an immense lake burst through
the barriers of the Dardanelles and of the Pillars of
Hercules, appears to have stripped the adjacent countries of
a large portion of their coating of vegetable mould. The
traditions of Samothrace,[8] handed down to us by Grecian
writers, appear to indicate the recentness of the epoch of the
ravages caused by this great change. In all the countries
which surround the Mediterranean, and which are characterised
by beds of the tertiary and cretaceous periods
(nummulitic limestone and neocomian rocks), great part
of the surface of the earth consists of naked rock. One
especial cause of the picturesque beauty of Italian scenery
is the contrast thus afforded between the bare rock, and
the islands if I may so call them of luxuriant vegetation
scattered over its surface. Wherever the rock is
less intersected with fissures, so that it retains water at
the surface, and where it is covered with vegetable mould,
there, as on the enchanting shores of the Lake of Albano,
Italy has her oak forests, with glades as deeply embowered
and verdure as fresh as those which we admire in the North
of Europe.
The deserts to the south of the Atlas, and the immense
plains or steppes of South America, must be regarded as
only local phenomena. The latter, the South American
steppes, are clothed, in the rainy season at least, with grass,
and with low-growing almost herbaceous mimosas. The
African deserts are, indeed, at all seasons devoid of vegetation;
seas of sand, surrounded by forest shores clothed with
perpetual verdure. A few scattered fan-palms alone recall
to the wanderer’s recollection that these awful solitudes belong
to the domain of the same animated terrestrial creation
which is elsewhere so rich and so varied. The fantastic
play of the mirage, occasioned by the effects of radiant heat,
sometimes causes these palm trees to appear divided from
the ground and hovering above its surface, and sometimes
shews their inverted image reflected in strata of air undulating
like the waves of the sea. On the west of the great
Peruvian chain of the Andes, on the coasts of the Pacific, I
have passed entire weeks in traversing similar deserts
destitute of water.
The origin of extensive arid tracts destitute of plants, in
the midst of countries rich in luxuriant vegetation, is a
geognostical problem which has hitherto been but little
considered, but which has doubtless depended on ancient
revolutions of nature, such as inundations or great volcanic
changes. When once a region has lost the covering of
plants with which it was invested, if the sands are
loose and mobile and are destitute of springs, and if the
heated atmosphere, forming constantly ascending currents,
prevents precipitation taking place from clouds[9], thousands
of years may elapse ere organic life can pass from
the verdant shores to the interior of the sandy sea, and
repossess itself of the domain from which it had been
banished.
Those, therefore, who can view nature with a comprehensive
glance and apart from local phenomena, may see from
the poles to the equator organic life and vigour gradually
augment with the augmentation of vivifying heat. But, in
the course of this progressive increase there are reserved to
each zone its own peculiar beauties; to the tropics, variety
and grandeur of vegetable forms; to the north, the aspect
of its meadows and green pastures, and the periodic reawakening
of nature at the first breath of the mild air of
spring. Each zone, besides its own peculiar advantages,
has its own distinctive character. Primeval laws of organisation,
notwithstanding a certain degree of freedom in the
abnormal development of single parts, bind all animal and
vegetable forms to fixed ever-recurring types. As we recognise
in distinct organic beings a determinate physiognomy,
and as descriptive botany and zoology, in the
restricted sense of the terms, consist in a detailed analysis
of animal and vegetable forms, so each region of the earth
has a natural physiognomy peculiar to itself. The idea
indicated by the painter by expressions such as “Swiss
nature,” “Italian sky,” &c., rests on a partial perception
of this local character in the aspect of nature. The
azure of the sky, the lights and shadows, the haze resting
on the distance, the forms of animals, the succulency of the
plants and herbage, the brightness of the foliage, the outline
of the mountains, are all elements which determine the
total impression characteristic of each district or region.
It is true that in every zone the same kinds of rocks,
trachyte, basalt, porphyritic schists, and dolomite, form
groups having the same physiognomy and aspect. The
greenstone precipices of South America and Mexico resemble
those of the Fichtel-Gebirge of Germany, just as among
animals the form of the Allco, or native race of dogs of the
New Continent, corresponds perfectly with that of the European
race. For the inorganic crust of the globe shews
itself independent of climatic influences; whether it be that
differences of climate depending on differences of latitude
were more recent than the formation of the rocks, or that the
mass of the earth in solidifying and parting with its heat
regulated its own temperature,[10] instead of receiving it
from without. Thus all the kinds of rock with which we
are acquainted may be met with in all parts of the globe,
and everywhere affect the same characteristic forms. Everywhere
basalt rises in twin mountains and truncated cones;
everywhere the porphyritic trap appears in grotesquely arranged
masses, and granite in rounded summits. Also similar
forms of trees—pines and oaks—adorn the declivities
of the mountains of Sweden, and those of the most
southern part of Mexico.[11] Yet, notwithstanding these
correspondences of form, and this similarity of outline in
the component parts of the picture, their grouping gives to
the whole the greatest difference of character.
Mineralogy is not more distinct from geology than is the
individual description of natural objects from a general
description of the physiognomy of nature. George Forster,
in the narrative of his voyages, and in his other
publications,—Goethe, in the descriptions of nature which so many of his
immortal works contain,—Buffon, Bernardin de St. Pierre,
and Chateaubriand, have traced with inimitable truth of
description the character of some of the zones into which
the earth is divided. Not only do such descriptions afford us
mental enjoyment of a high order, but the knowledge of
the character which nature assumes in different regions is
moreover intimately connected with the history of man, and
of his civilisation. For although the commencement of this
civilisation is not solely determined by physical relations,
yet the direction which it takes, the national character, and
the more grave or gay dispositions of men, are dependent in
a very high degree on climatic influences. How powerfully
have the skies of Greece acted on its inhabitants! The
nations settled in the fair and happy regions bounded by
the Euphrates, the Halys, and the Egean Sea, also early
attained amenity of manners and delicacy of sentiment.
When in the middle ages religious enthusiasm suddenly
re-opened the sacred East to the nations of Europe who were
sinking back into barbarism, our ancestors in returning to
their homes brought with them gentler manners, acquired
in those delightful valleys. The poetry of the Greeks, and
the ruder songs of the primitive northern nations, owe
great part of their peculiar character to the aspect of the
plants and animals seen by the bard, to the mountains and
valleys which surrounded him, and to the air which he
breathed. And to recall more familiar objects, who does not
feel himself differently affected in the dark shade of the
beech, on hills crowned with scattered fir-trees, or on the
turfy pasture, where the wind rustles in the trembling foliage
of the birch? These trees of our native land have often
suggested or recalled to our minds images and thoughts,
either of a melancholy, of a grave and elevating, or of a
cheerful character. The influence of the physical on the
moral world,—that reciprocal and mysterious action and
reaction of the material and the immaterial,—gives to the
study of nature, when regarded from higher points of view,
a peculiar charm, still too little recognised.
But if the characteristic aspect of different portions of
the earth’s surface depends conjointly on all external phenomena,—if
the contours of the mountains, the physiognomy
of plants and animals, the azure of the sky, the form of the
clouds, and the transparency of the atmosphere, all combine
in forming that general impression which is the result of the
whole, yet it cannot be denied that the vegetable covering
with which the whole earth is adorned is the principal element
in the impression. Animal forms are deficient in
mass, and the individual power of motion which animals
possess, as well as often the smallness of their size, withdraw
them from our sight. The vegetable forms, on the
contrary, produce a greater effect by their magnitude and by
their constant presence. The age of trees is marked by
their size, and the union of age with the manifestation of
constantly renewed vigour is a charm peculiar to the vegetable
kingdom. The gigantic Dragon-tree of Orotava,[12]
(as sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants of the Canaries as
the olive-tree in the Citadel of Athens, or the Elm of Ephesus),
the diameter of which I found, when I visited those
Islands, to be more than 16 feet, had the same colossal size,
when the French adventurers, the Béthencourts, conquered
these gardens of the Hesperides in the beginning of the
fifteenth century; yet it still flourishes, as if in perpetual
youth, bearing flowers and fruit. A tropical forest of Hymenæas
and Cæsalpinieæ may perhaps present to us a monument
of more than a thousand years’ standing.
If we embrace in one general view the different species of
phænogamous plants at present contained in herbariums,
the number of which may now be estimated at considerably
above 80000,[13] we shall recognise in this prodigious
multitude certain leading forms to which many others may
be referred. In determining these leading forms or types,
on the individual beauty, the distribution, and the grouping
of which the physiognomy of the vegetation of a country
depends, we must not follow the march of systems of botany,
in which from other motives the parts chiefly regarded are
the smaller organs of propagation, the flowers and the fruit;
we must, on the contrary, consider solely that which by its
mass stamps a peculiar character on the total impression
produced, or on the aspect of the country. Among the
leading forms of vegetation to which I allude, there are,
indeed, some which coincide with families belonging to
the “natural systems” of botanists. Such are the forms of
Bananas, Palms, Casuarineæ, and Coniferæ. But the botanic
systematist divides many groups which the physiognomist
is obliged to unite. When plants or trees present themselves
in masses, the outlines and distribution of the leaves
and the form of the stems and of the branches are blended
together. The painter (and here the artist’s delicate tact
and appreciation of nature are demanded) can distinguish in
the middle distance and background of a landscape groves of
palms or pines from beech woods, but he cannot distinguish
the latter from woods consisting of other deciduous forest
trees.
Above sixteen different forms of vegetation are principally
concerned in determining the aspect or physiognomy
of Nature. I mention only those which I have observed
in the course of my travels both in the New and Old
Continents, where during many years I have attentively
examined the vegetation of the regions comprised between
the 60th degree of North and the 12th degree of South
latitude. The number of these forms will no doubt be
considerably augmented when travellers shall have penetrated
farther into the interior of Continents, and discovered new
genera of plants. In the South-eastern part of Asia, the
interior of Africa and of New Holland, and in South America
from the river of the Amazons to the province of Chiquitos,
the vegetation is still entirely unknown to us. How if at
some future time a country should be discovered in which
ligneous fungi, Cenomyce rangiferina, or mosses, should
form tall trees? The Neckera dendroides, a German species
of moss, is in fact arborescent; and bamboos (which are
arborescent grasses) and the tree ferns of the tropics, which
are often higher than our lime-trees and alders, now present
to the European a sight as surprising as would be that
of a forest of tree mosses to its discoverer. The absolute
size and the degree of development attained by organic
forms of the same family (whether plants or animals), depend
on laws which are still unknown to us. In each of
the great divisions of the animal kingdom, insects, crustacea,
reptiles, birds, fishes, or mammalia, the size of the body
oscillates between certain extreme limits. But these limits,
which have been established by observation as far as it has
yet gone, may be corrected by the discovery of species with
which we are still unacquainted.
In land animals the higher temperatures of the low
latitudes appear to have favoured organic development.
The small and slender form of our lizards is exchanged in
the south for the gigantic, heavy, and cuirassed bodies of
crocodiles. In the formidable tiger, lion, and jaguar, we
see repeated, on a larger scale, the form of the common cat,
one of the smallest of our domestic animals. If we penetrate
into the interior of the earth, and search the cemeteries in
which the plants and animals of the ancient world lie
entombed, the fossil remains which we discover not only
announce a distribution inconsistent with our present
climates,—they also disclose to us gigantic forms that
contrast no less with those which now surround us, than
does the simple heroism of the Greeks with the character of
human greatness in modern times. Has the temperature
of our planet undergone considerable changes,—possibly
of periodical recurrence? If the proportion between land
and sea, and even the height of the aerial ocean and its
pressure,[14] have not always been the same, the physiognomy
of nature, and the dimensions and forms of organised
beings, must also have been subjected to various alterations.
Huge Pachydermata, Mastodons, Owen’s Mylodon robustus,
and the Colossochelys, a land-tortoise above six feet high,
have existed, and in the vegetable kingdom there have been
forests composed of gigantic Lepidodendra, cactus-like Stigmarias,
and numerous kinds of Cycadeæ. Unable to depict
fully according to its present features the physiognomy of our
planet in this its later age, I will only venture to attempt to
indicate the characters which principally distinguish those
vegetable groups which appear to me to be most strongly
marked by physiognomic differences. However favoured
by the richness and flexibility of our native language, it is
still an arduous and hazardous undertaking when we attempt
to trace in words that which belongs rather to the imitative
art of the painter. I feel also the necessity of avoiding
as much as possible the wearisome impression almost inseparable
from all lengthened enumerations.
We will begin with palms,[15] the loftiest and noblest
of all vegetable forms, that to which the prize of beauty
has been assigned by the concurrent voice of nations in
all ages; for the earliest civilisation of mankind belonged
to countries bordering on the region of palms, and to
parts of Asia where they abound. Their lofty, slender,
ringed, and, in some cases, prickly stems, terminate in
aspiring and shining either fanlike or pinnated foliage. The
leaves are frequently curled, like those of some gramineæ.
Smooth polished stems of palms carefully measured by me
had attained 192 English feet in height. In receding from
the equator and approaching the temperate zone, palms
diminish in height and beauty. The indigenous vegetation
of Europe only comprises a single representative of this
form of plants, the sea-coast Dwarf-palm or Chamærops,
which, in Spain and Italy, extends as far north as the
44th parallel of latitude. The true climate of palms
has a mean annual temperature of 20°.5-22° Reaumur
(78°.2-81°.5 Fahr). The Date, which is much inferior in
beauty to several other genera, has been brought from
Africa to the south of Europe, where it lives, but can
scarcely be said to flourish, in a mean temperature not
exceeding 12°-13°.5 Reaumur (59°-62°.4 Fahr). Stems
of palms and fossil bones of elephants are found buried
beneath the surface of the earth in northern countries,
in positions which make it appear probable that their
presence is not to be accounted for by their having been
drifted thither from the tropics, and we are led to infer
that in the course of the great revolutions which our
planet has undergone, great changes of climate, and of the
physiognomy of nature as dependent on climate, have taken
place.
In all parts of the globe the palm form is accompanied
by that of Plantains or Bananas; the Scitamineæ
and Musaceæ of botanists, Heliconia, Amomum,
and Strelitzia. In this form, the stems, which are
low, succulent, and almost herbaceous, are surmounted
by long, silky, delicately-veined leaves of a thin loose
texture, and bright and beautiful verdure. Groves of
plantains and bananas form the ornament of moist places
in the equatorial regions. It is on their fruits that the
subsistence of a large part of the inhabitants of the torrid
zone chiefly depends, and, like the farinaceous cereals of the
north, they have followed man from the infancy of his
civilisation[16]. The aboriginal site of this nutritious plant
is placed by some Asiatic fables or traditions on the banks
of the Euphrates, and by others, with more probability,
at the foot of the Himalaya. Grecian fables named the
fields of Enna as the happy native land of the cereals; and
if in northern climes, where corn is cultivated in immense
unbroken fields, their monotonous aspect adds but little
to the beauty of the landscape, the inhabitant of the
tropics, on the other hand, in rearing groves of plantains
wherever he fixes his habitation, contributes to the adornment
of the earth’s surface by the extension of one of the
most noble and beautiful forms of the vegetable world.
The form of Malvaceæ[17] and Bombaceæ, represented
by Ceiba, Cavanillesia, and the Mexican hand-tree Cheirostemon,
has enormously thick trunks; large, soft, woolly
leaves, either heart-shaped or indented; and superb flowers
frequently of a purple or crimson hue. It is to this group
of plants that the Baobab, or monkey bread-tree, (Adansonia
digitata), belongs, which, with a very moderate elevation,
has a diameter of 32 English feet, and is probably the
largest and most ancient organic monument on our planet.
In Italy the Malvaceæ already begin to impart to the vegetation
a peculiar southern character.
The delicately pinnated foliage of the Mimosa form[18],
of which Acacia, Desmanthus, Gleditschia, Porleria, and
Tamarindus are important members, is entirely wanting in
our temperate zone in the old continent, though found in
the United States, where, in corresponding latitudes, vegetation
is more varied and more vigorous than in Europe.
The umbrella-like arrangement of the branches, resembling
that seen in the stone pine of Italy, is very frequent among
the Mimosas. The deep blue of the tropic sky seen
through their finely divided foliage has an extremely
picturesque effect.
The Heath form[19] belongs more especially to the old
world, and particularly to the African continent and islands:
taking for our guides physiognomic character and general
aspect, we may class under it the Epacrideæ and Diosmeæ,
many Proteaceæ, and those Australian Acacias which have
mere leaf-stalks instead of leaves (phyllodias). This form
has some points of similarity with that of needle trees, and
the partial resemblance enhances the effect of the pleasing
contrast which, when these two are placed together, is
afforded by the abundant bell-shaped blossoms of the heaths.
Arborescent heaths, like some other African plants, extend
to the northern shores of the Mediterranean: they adorn
Italy, and the cistus-covered grounds of the south of Spain.
The declivity of the Peak of Teneriffe is the locality where
I have seen them growing with the greatest luxuriance. In
the countries adjoining the Baltic, and farther to the
north, the aspect of this form of plants is unwelcome, as announcing
sterility. Our heaths, Erica (Calluna) vulgaris,
Erica tetralix, E. carnea, and E. cinerea, are social plants,
and for centuries agricultural nations have combated their
advance with little success. It is remarkable that the
extensive genus which is the leading representative of this
form appears to be almost limited to one side of our planet.
Of the 300 known species of Erica only one has been
discovered across the whole extent of the New Continent,
from Pensylvania and Labrador to Nootka and Alashka.
The Cactus form,[20], on the other hand, is almost exclusively
American. Sometimes spherical, sometimes articulated
or jointed, and sometimes assuming the shape of tall upright
polygonal columns resembling the pipes of an organ, this
group presents the most striking contrast to those of Liliaceæ
and Bananas. It comprises some of the plants to which
Bernardin de St. Pierre has applied the term of “vegetable
fountains in the desert.” In the waterless plains of South
America the animals suffering from thirst seek the melon-cactus,
a spherical plant half buried in the dry sand, and
encased in formidable prickles, but of which the interior
abounds in refreshing juice. The stems of the columnar
cactus rise to a height of 30 or 32 feet; they are often
covered with lichens, and, dividing into candelabra-like
branches, resemble, in physiognomy, some of the Euphorbias
of Africa.
While the above-mentioned plants flourish in deserts
almost devoid of other vegetation, the Orchideæ[21] enliven
the clefts of the wildest rocks, and the trunks of tropical
trees blackened by excess of heat. This form (to which
the Vanilla belongs) is distinguished by its bright green
succulent leaves, and by its flowers of many colours and
strange and curious shape, sometimes resembling that of
winged insects, and sometimes that of the birds which are
attracted by the perfume of the honey vessels. Such is
their number and variety that, to mention only a limited
district, the entire life of a painter would be too short for
the delineation of all the magnificent Orchideæ which adorn
the recesses of the deep valleys of the Andes of Peru.
The Casuarina form[22], leafless, like almost all species
of Cactus, consists of trees with branches resembling the
stalks of our Equisetums. It is found only in the islands of
the Pacific and in India, but traces of the same singular
rather than beautiful type are seen in other parts of the
world. Plumier’s Equisetum altissimum, Forskäl’s Ephedra
aphylla from the north of Africa, the Peruvian Colletias,
and the Siberian Calligonum pallasia, are nearly allied to the
Casuarina form.
As the Banana form shews the greatest expansion, so
the greatest contraction of the leaf-vessels is shewn in
Casuarinas, and in the form of Needle trees[23] (Coniferæ).
Pines, Thuias, and Cypresses, belong to this form, which
prevails in northern regions, and is comparatively rare within
the tropics: in Dammara and Salisburia the leaves, though
they may still be termed needle-shaped, are broader. In
the colder latitudes the never-failing verdure of this form of
trees cheers the desolate winter landscape, and tells to the
inhabitants of those regions that when snow and ice cover
the ground the inward life of plants, like the Promethean
fire, is never extinct upon our planet.
Like mosses and lichens in our latitudes, and like orchideæ
in the tropical zone, plants of the Pothos form[24] clothe
parasitically the trunks of aged and decaying forest trees:
succulent herbaceous stalks support large leaves, sometimes
sagittate, sometimes either digitate or elongate, but always
with thick veins. The flowers of the Aroideæ are cased in
hooded spathes or sheaths, and in some of them when they
expand a sensible increase of vital heat is perceived. Stemless,
they put forth aerial roots. Pothos, Dracontium, Caladium,
and Arum, all belong to this form, which prevails
chiefly in the tropical world. On the Spanish and Italian
shores of the Mediterranean, Arums combine with the succulent
Tussilago, the Acanthus, and Thistles which are almost
arborescent, to indicate the increasing luxuriance of southern
vegetation.
Next to the last-mentioned form of which the Pothos and
Arum are representatives, I place a form with which, in the
hottest parts of South America, it is frequently associated,—that
of the tropical twining rope-plants, or Lianes,[25]
which display in those regions, in Paullinias, Banisterias,
Bignonias, and Passifloras, the utmost vigour of vegetation.
It is represented to us in the temperate latitudes by our
twining hops, and by our grape vines. On the banks of
the Orinoco the leafless branches of the Bauhinias are often
between 40 and 50 feet long: sometimes they hang down
perpendicularly from the high top of the Swietenia, and
sometimes they are stretched obliquely like the cordage of a
ship: the tiger-cats climb up and descend by them with
wonderful agility.
In strong contrast with the extreme flexibility and fresh light-coloured
verdure of the climbing plants, of which we have just
been speaking, are the rigid self-supporting growth and bluish
hue of the form of Aloes,[26] which, instead of pliant stems
and branches of enormous length, are either without stems
altogether, or have branchless stems. The leaves, which
are succulent, thick, and fleshy, and terminate in long points,
radiate from a centre and form a closely crowded tuft. The
tall-stemmed aloes are not found in close clusters or thickets
like other social or gregarious plants or trees; they stand
singly in arid plains, and impart thereby to the tropical
regions in which they are found a peculiar, melancholy, and
I would almost venture to call it, African character. Taking
for our guides resemblance in physiognomy, and influence
on the impression produced by the landscape, we place
together under the head of the Aloe form, (from among the
Bromeliaceæ) the Pitcairnias, which in the chain of the
Andes grow out of clefts in the rocks; the great Pournetia
pyramidata, (the Atschupalla of the elevated plains of New
Granada); the American Aloe, (Agave); Bromelia aranas
and B. karatas; from among the Euphorbiaceæ the rare
species which have thick short candelabra-like divided
stems; from the family of Asphodeleæ the African Aloe
and the Dragon tree, (Dracæna draco); and lastly, from
among the Liliaceæ, the tall flowering Yucca.
If the Aloe form is characterised by an almost mournful
repose and immobility, the form of Gramineæ,[27] especially
the physiognomy of arborescent grasses, is characterised, on
the contrary, by an expression of cheerfulness and of airy
grace and tremulous lightness, combined with lofty stature.
Both in the East and West Indies groves of Bamboo form
shaded over-arching walks or avenues. The smooth polished
and often lightly-waving and bending stems of these tropical
grasses are taller than our alders and oaks. The form of
Gramineæ begins even in Italy, in the Arundo donax, to
rise from the ground, and to determine by height as well as
mass the natural character and aspect of the country.
The form of Ferns,[28] as well as that of Grasses, becomes
ennobled in the hotter parts of the globe. Arborescent ferns,
when they reach a height of above 40 feet, have something
of a palm-like appearance; but their stems are less slender,
shorter, and more rough and scaly than those of palms.
Their foliage is more delicate, of a thinner and more translucent
texture, and the minutely indented margins of the
fronds are finely and sharply cut. Tree ferns belong almost
entirely to the tropical zone, but in that zone they seek by
preference the more tempered heat of a moderate elevation
above the level of the sea, and mountains two or three
thousand feet high may be regarded as their principal seat.
In South America the arborescent ferns are usually found
associated will the tree which has conferred such benefits
on mankind by its fever-healing bark. Both indicate by
their presence the happy region where reigns a soft perpetual
spring.
I will next name the form of Liliaceeous plants,[29]
(Amaryllis, Ixia, Gladiolus, Pancratium) with their flag-like
leaves and superb blossoms, of which Southern Africa is the
principal country; also the Willow form[30], which is indigenous
in all parts of the globe, and is represented in the
elevated plains of Quito, (not in the shape of the leaves but
in that of the ramification), by Schinus Molle; Myrtaceæ[31],
(Metrosideros, Eucalyptus, Escallonia myrtilloides); Melastomaceæ[32],
and the Laurel form[33].
It would be an enterprise worthy of a great artist to study
the aspect and character of all these vegetable groups, not
merely in hot-houses or in the descriptions of botanists,
but in their native grandeur in the tropical zone. How
interesting and instructive to the landscape painter[34] would
be a work which should present to the eye, first separately
and then in combination and contrast, the leading forms
which have been here enumerated! How picturesque is
the aspect of tree-ferns spreading their delicate fronds above
the laurel-oaks of Mexico; or groups of plantains over-shadowed
by arborescent grasses (Guaduas and Bamboos)!
It is the artist’s privilege, having studied these groups, to
analyse them: and thus in his hands the grand and beautiful
form of nature which he would pourtray resolves itself, (if I
may venture on the expression) like the written works of
men, into a few simple elements.
It is under the burning rays of a tropical sun that vegetation
displays its most majestic forms. In the cold north the bark
of trees is covered with lichens and mosses, whilst between
the tropics the Cymbidium and fragrant Vanilla enliven the
trunks of the Anacardias, and of the gigantic fig trees.
The fresh verdure of the Pothos leaves, and of the Dracontias,
contrasts with the many-coloured flowers of the Orchideæ.
Climbing Bauhinias, Passifloras, and yellow flowering Banisterias,
twine round the trunks of the forest trees. Delicate
blossoms spring from the roots of the Theobroma, and from
the thick and rough bark of the Crescentias and the
Gustavia.[35] In the midst of this profusion of flowers
and fruits, and in the luxuriant intertwinings of the climbing
plants, the naturalist often finds it difficult to discover to which
stem the different leaves and flowers really belong. A single
tree adorned with Paullinias, Bignonias, and Dendrobium,
forms a group of plants which, if disentangled and separated
from each other, would cover a considerable space of
ground.
In the tropics vegetation is generally of a fresher verdure,
more luxuriant and succulent, and adorned with larger and
more shining leaves than in our northern climates. The
“social” plants, which often impart so uniform and monotonous
a character to European countries, are almost entirely
absent in the Equatorial regions. Trees almost as lofty as
our oaks are adorned with flowers as large and as beautiful
as our lilies. On the shady banks of the Rio Magdalena in
South America, there grows a climbing Aristolochia bearing
flowers four feet in circumference, which the Indian boys
draw over their heads in sport, and wear as hats or helmets.[36]
In the islands of the Indian Archipelago the flower of the
Rafflesia is nearly three feet in diameter, and weighs above
fourteen pounds.
The great elevation attained in several tropical countries
not only by single mountains but even by extensive districts,
enables the inhabitants of the torrid zone—surrounded by
palms, bananas, and the other beautiful forms proper to
those latitudes—to behold also those vegetable forms which,
demanding a cooler temperature, would seem to belong to
other zones. Elevation above the level of the sea gives
this cooler temperature even in the hottest parts of the
earth; and Cypresses, Pines, Oaks, Berberries and Alders,
(nearly allied to our own) cover the mountainous districts
and elevated plains of Southern Mexico and the chain of the
Andes at the Equator. Thus it is given to man in those
regions to behold without quitting his native land all the
forms of vegetation dispersed over the globe, and all the
shining worlds which stud the heavenly vault from pole to
pole.[37]
These and many other of the enjoyments which Nature
affords are wanting to the nations of the North. Many
constellations, and many vegetable forms,—and of the latter,
those which are most beautiful, (palms, tree ferns, plantains,
arborescent grasses, and the finely-divided feathery foliage
of the Mimosas),—remain for ever unknown to them. Individual
plants languishing in our hot-houses can give but a
very faint idea of the majestic vegetation of the tropical zone.
But the high cultivation of our languages, the glowing fancy
of the poet, and the imitative art of the painter, open to us
sources whence flow abundant compensations, and from
whence our imagination can derive the living image of that
more vigorous nature which other climes display. In the frigid
North, in the midst of the barren heath, the solitary student
can appropriate mentally all that has been discovered in the
most distant regions, and can create within himself a world
free and imperishable as the spirit by which it is conceived.
ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
[1] p. 3.—“On the Chimborazo, eight thousand feet
higher than Etna.”
Small singing birds, and even butterflies, are found at sea
at great distances from the coast, (as I have several
times had opportunities of observing in the Pacific), being
carried there by the force of the wind when storms come
off the land. In the same involuntary manner insects are
transported into the upper regions of the atmosphere,
16000 or 19000 feet above the plains. The heated crust
of the earth occasions an ascending vertical current of air,
by which light bodies are borne upwards. M. Boussingault,
an excellent chemist who, as Professor at the newly instituted
Mining Academy at Santa Fé de Bogota, visited the
Gneiss Mountains of Caraccas, in ascending to the summit
of the Silla witnessed, together with his companion Don
Mariano de Rivero, a phenomenon affording a remarkable
ocular demonstration of the fact of a vertically ascending
current. They saw in the middle of the day, about noon,
whitish shining bodies rise from the valley of Caraccas to
the summit of the Silla, which is 5400 (5755 E.) feet
high, and then sink down towards the neighbouring sea
coast. These movements continued uninterruptedly for the
space of an hour, and the objects, which at first were
mistaken for a flock of small birds, proved to be small
agglomerations of straws or blades of grass. Boussingault
sent me some of the straws, which were immediately recognised
by Professor Kunth for a species of Vilfa, a genus
which, together with Agrostis, is very abundant in the
provinces of Caraccas and Cumana: it was the Vilfa tenacissima
of our Synopsis Plantarum æquinoctialium Orbis
Novi, T. i. p. 205. Saussure found butterflies on Mont
Blanc, as did Ramond in the solitudes which surround the
summit of the Mont Perdu. When Bonpland, Carlos
Montufar, and myself, reached, on the 23d of June, 1802,
on the eastern declivity of the Chimborazo, the height of
18096 (19286 E.) feet—a height at which the barometer
sank to 13 inches 111⁄5 lines (14.850 English inches), we
saw winged insects fluttering around us. We could see
that they were Dipteras, resembling flies, but on a sharp
ridge of rock (cuchilla) often only ten inches wide, between
steeply descending masses of snow, it was impossible to
catch the insects. The height at which we saw them was
nearly the same at which the uncovered trachytic rock,
piercing through the eternal snows, gave to our view, in
Lecidea geographica, the last traces of vegetation. The
insects were flying at a height of about 2850 toises (18225
E. feet), or about 2600 E. feet higher than Mont Blanc.
Somewhat lower down, at about 2600 toises (10626 E.
feet), also therefore within the region of perpetual snow,
Bonpland had seen yellow butterflies flying very near the
ground. According to our present knowledge the Mammalia
which live nearest to the region of perpetual snow
are in the Swiss Alps, the Marmot which sleeps through the
winter, and a very small field-mouse (Hypudæus nivalis),
described by Martins, which on the Faulhorn lays up a
store of the roots of phænogamous alpine plants almost
under the snow. (Actes de la Société Helvétique, 1843,
p. 324.) The beautiful Chinchilla, of which the bright and
silky fur is so much prized, is often supposed by Europeans
to be an inhabitant of the high mountain regions of
Chili: this, however, is an error; the Chinchilla laniger
(Gray) only lives in the mild temperature of the lower zone,
and is not found farther south than the parallel of 35°.
(Claudio Gay, Historia fisica y politica de Chile, Zoologia,
1844, p. 91.)
While on our European Alps, Lecideas, Parmelias, and
Umbilicarias form only a few coloured patches on the rocks
which are not completely covered with snow, in the Andes,
beautiful flowering phænogamous plants, first described by
us, live at elevations of thirteen to fourteen thousand feet
(13700 to nearly 15000 E.) We found there woolly
species of Culcitium and Espeletia (C. nivale, C. rufescens,
and C. reflexum, E. grandiflora, and E. argentea), Sida
pichinchensis, Ranunculus nubigenus, R. Gusmanni with red
or orange-coloured blossoms, the small moss-like umbelliferous
plant Myrrhis andicola, and Fragosa arctioides. On the
declivity of the Chimborazo the Saxifraga boussingaulti,
described by Adolph Brongniart, grows beyond the limit of
perpetual snow on loose boulders of rock, at 14796 (15770
E.) feet above the level of the sea, not at 17000, as stated
in two estimable English journals. (Compare my Asie
Centrale, T. iii. p. 262, with Hooker, Journal of Botany,
vol. i. 1834, p. 327, and Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal, vol. xvii. 1834, p. 380.) The Saxifrage discovered
by Boussingault is certainly, up to the present time, the
highest known phænogamous plant on the surface of the earth.
The perpendicular height of the Chimborazo is, according
to my trigonometrical measurement, 3350 toises (21422 E.
feet.) (Recueil d’Observ. Astron., vol. i., Introd. p. lxxii.)
This result is intermediate between those given by French
and Spanish academicians. The differences depend not on
different assumptions for refraction, but on differences
in the reduction of the measured base lines to the level of
the sea. In the Andes this reduction could only be made
by the barometer, and thus every measurement called a
trigonometric measurement is also a barometric one, of
which the result differs according to the first term in the
formula employed. If in chains of mountains of great
mass, such as the Andes, we insist on determining the
greater part of the whole altitude trigonometrically, measuring
from a low and distant point in the plain or nearly
at the level of the sea, we can only obtain very small angles
of altitude. On the other hand, not only is it difficult to
find a convenient base among mountains, but also every
step increases the portion of the height which must be
determined barometrically. These difficulties have to be
encountered by every traveller who selects, among the elevated
plains which surround the Andes, the station at which
he may execute his geodesical measurements. My measurement
of the Chimborazo was made from the plain of Tapia,
which is covered with pumice. It is situated to the west of
the Rio Chambo, and its elevation, as determined by the
barometer, is 1482 toises (9477 E. feet.) The Llanos de
Luisa, and still more the plain of Sisgun, which is 1900
toises (12150 E. feet) high, would have given greater
angles of altitude; I had prepared everything for making
the measurement at the latter station when thick clouds
concealed the summit of Chimborazo.
Those who are engaged in investigations on languages
may not be unwilling to find here some conjectures respecting
the etymology of the widely celebrated name of
Chimborazo. Chimbo is the name of the Corregimiento or
District in which the mountain of Chimborazo is situated.
La Condamine (Voyage à l’Equateur, 1751, p. 184)
deduces Chimbo from “chimpani,” “to pass over a river.”
Chimbo-raço signifies, according to him, “la neige de l’autre
bord,” because at the village of Chimbo one crosses a stream
in full view of the enormous snow-clad mountain. (In the
Quichua language “chimpa” signifies the “other, or
farther, side;” and chimpani signifies to pass or cross over
a river, a bridge, &c.) Several natives of the province of
Quito have assured me that Chimborazo signifies merely
“the snow of Chimbo.” We find the same termination in
Carguai-razo. But razo appears to be a provincial word.
The Jesuit Holguin, (whose excellent “Vocabulario de la
Lengua general de todo el Peru llamada Lengua Qquichua
ó del Inca,” printed at Lima in 1608, is in my possession,)
knows nothing of the word “razo.” The genuine word
for snow is “ritti.” On the other hand, my learned friend
Professor Buschmann remarks that in the Chinchaysuyo
dialect (spoken north of Cuzco up to Quito and Pasto,)
raju (the j apparently guttural) signifies snow; see the
word in Juan de Figueredo’s notice of Chinchaysuyo
words appended to Diego de Torres Rubio, Arte, y Vocabulario
de la Lengua Quichua, reimpr. en Lima, 1754;
fol. 222, b. For the two first syllables of the name of
the mountain, and for the village of Chimbo, (as chimpa
and chimpani suit badly on account of the a), we may find
a definite signification by means of the Quichua word
chimpu, an expression used for a coloured thread or fringe
(señal de lana, hilo ó borlilla de colores),—for the red of
the sky (arreboles),—and for a halo round the sun or
moon. One may try to derive the name of the mountain
directly from this word, without the intervention of the
village or district. In any case, and whatever the etymology
of Chimborazo may be, it must be written in Peruvian
Chimporazo, as we know that the Peruvians have no b.
But what if the name of this giant mountain should
have nothing in common with the language of the Incas,
but should have descended from a more remote antiquity?
According to the generally received tradition, it was not long
before the arrival of the Spaniards that the Inca or Quichua
language was introduced into the kingdom of Quito, where
the Puruay language, which has now entirely perished, had
previously prevailed. Other names of mountains, Pichincha,
Ilinissa, and Cotopaxi, have no signification at all in the
language of the Incas, and are therefore certainly older
than the introduction of the worship of the sun and the
court language of the rulers of Cuzco. In all parts of
the world the names of mountains and rivers are among
the most ancient and most certain monuments or memorials
of languages; and my brother Wilhelm von Humboldt has
employed these names with great sagacity in his researches
on the former diffusion of Iberian nations. A singular and
unexpected statement has been put forward in recent years
(Velasco Historia de Quito, T. i. p. 185) to the effect that
“the Incas Tupac Yupanqui and Huayna Capac were
astonished to find at their first conquest of Quito a dialect
of the Quichua language already in use among the natives.”
Prescott, however, appears to regard this statement as
doubtful. (Hist. of the Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 115.)
If the Pass of St. Gothard, Mount Athos, or the Rigi,
were placed on the summit of the Chimborazo, it would
form an elevation equal to that now ascribed to the Dhawalagiri
in the Himalaya. The geologist who rises to more
general views connected with the interior of the earth,
regards, not indeed the direction, but the relative height
of the rocky ridges which we term mountain chains, as
a phenomenon of so little import, that he would not be
astonished if there should one day be discovered between
the Himalaya and the Altai, summits which should
surpass the Dhawaligiri and the Djawahir as much as these
surpass the Chimborazo. (See my Vues des Cordillères
et Monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique, T. i.
p. 116; and my Notice on two attempts to ascend the
Chimborazo, in 1802 and 1831, in Schumacher’s Jahrbuch
for 1847, S. 176.) The great height to which the snow line
on the northern side of the Himalaya is raised in summer,
by the influence of the heat returned by radiation from the
high plains of the interior of Asia, renders those mountains,
although situated in 29 to 30½ degrees of latitude, as
accessible as the Peruvian Andes within the tropics.
Captain Gerard has attained on the Tarhigang an elevation
as great, and perhaps (as is maintained in the Critical
Researches on Philosophy and Geography) 117 English
feet greater than that reached by me on the Chimborazo.
Unfortunately, as I have shewn more at large in another
place, these mountain journies beyond the limits of perpetual
snow (however they may engage the curiosity of the
public) are of only very inconsiderable scientific use.
[2] p. 4.—“The Condor, the giant of the Vulture tribe.”
In my Recueil d’Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie
comparée, vol. i. pp. 26-45, I have given the natural
history of the Condor, which, before my journey to the
equatorial regions, had been much misrepresented. (The
name of the bird is properly Cuntur in the Inca language;
in Chili, in the Araucan, Mañque; Sarcoramphus Condor
of Duméril.) I made and had engraved a drawing of the
head from the living bird, and of the size of nature. Next
to the Condor, the Lämmergeier of Switzerland, and the
Falco destructor of Daudin, probably the Falco Harpyia of
Linnæus, are the largest flying birds.
The region which may be regarded as the ordinary haunt
of the Condor begins at the height of Etna, and comprises
atmospheric strata from ten to eighteen thousand (about
10600 to 19000 English) feet above the level of the sea.
Humming birds, which make summer excursions as far as
61° N. latitude on the north-west coast of America on the
one hand, and the Tierra del Fuego on the other, have been
seen by Von Tschudi (Fauna Peruana, Ornithol. p. 12) in
Puna as high as 13700 (14600 English) feet. There is a
pleasure in comparing the largest and the smallest of the
feathered inhabitants of the air. Of the Condors, the largest
individuals found in the chain of the Andes round Quito
measured, with extended wings, 14 (nearly 15 English)
feet, and the smallest 8 (8½ English) feet. From these
dimensions, and from the visual angle at which the bird
often appeared vertically above our heads, we are enabled to
infer the enormous height to which the Condor soars when
the sky is serene. A visual angle of 4´, for example, gives
a perpendicular height above the eye of 6876 (7330 English)
feet. The cave (Machay) of Antisana, which is opposite the
mountain of Chussulongo, and from whence we measured
the height of the soaring bird, is 14958 (15942 English)
feet above the surface of the Pacific. This would give the
absolute height attained by the Condor at fully 21834
(23270 English) feet; an elevation at which the barometer
would hardly reach 12 French inches, but which yet does
not surpass the highest summits of the Himalaya. It is a
remarkable physiological phenomenon, that the same bird,
which can fly round in circles for hours in regions of an
atmosphere so rarified, should sometimes suddenly descend,
as on the western declivity of the Volcano of Pichincha, to
the sea-shore, thus passing rapidly through all gradations of
climate. The membranous air-bags of the Condor, if filled
in the lower regions of the atmosphere, must undergo extraordinary
distension at altitudes of more than 23000 English
feet. Ulloa, more than a century ago, expressed his astonishment
that the vulture of the Andes could soar in regions
where the atmospheric pressure is less than 14 French inches,
(Voyage de l’Amérique meridionale, T. ii. p. 2, 1752;
Observations astronomiques et physiques, p. 110). It was
then believed, in analogy with experiments under the air-pump,
that no animal could live in so low a pressure. I
have myself, as I have already noticed, seen the barometer
sink on the Chimborazo to 13 French inches 11·2 lines
(14.850 English inches). Man, indeed, at such elevations,
if wearied by muscular exertion, finds himself in a state of
very painful exhaustion; but the Condor seems to perform
the functions of respiration with equal facility under pressures
of 30 and 13 English inches. It is apparently of
all living creatures on our planet the one which can remove
at pleasure to the greatest distance from the surface of the
earth; I say at pleasure, for minute insects and siliceous-shelled
infusoria are carried by the ascending current to
possibly still greater elevations. The Condor probably flies
higher than the altitude found as above by computation. I
remember on the Cotopaxi, in the pumice plain of Suniguaicu,
13578 (14470 English) feet above the sea, to have seen the
bird soaring at a height at which he appeared only as a small
black speck. What is the smallest angle under which feebly
illuminated objects can be discerned? Their form, (linear
extension) has a great influence on the minimum of this
angle. The transparency of the mountain atmosphere at
the equator is such that, in the province of Quito, as I have
elsewhere noticed, the white mantle or Poncho of a horseman
was distinguished with the naked eye at a horizontal
distance of 84132 (89665 English) feet; therefore under a
visual angle of 13 seconds. It was my friend Bonpland,
whom, from the pleasant country seat of the Marques de
Selvalegre, we saw moving along the face of a black precipice
on the Volcano of Pichincha. Lightning conductors, being
long thin objects, are seen, as has already been remarked by
Arago, from the greatest distances, and under the smallest
angles.
The accounts of the habits of the Condor in the mountainous
districts of Quito and Peru, given by me in a
monograph on this powerful bird, have been confirmed by a
later traveller, Gay, who has explored the whole of Chili, and
has described that country in an excellent work entitled
Historia fisica y politica de Chile. The Condor, which,
like the Lamas, Vicunas, Alpacas, and Guanacos, does not
extend beyond the equator into New Granada, is found as
far south as the Straits of Magellan. In Chili, as in the
mountain plains of Quito, the Condors, which at other
times live either solitarily or in pairs, assemble in flocks to
attack lambs and calves, or to carry off young Guanacos
(Guanacillos). The ravages annually committed among the
herds of sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as among the wild
Vicunas, Alpacas, and Guanacos of the Andes, are very
considerable. The inhabitants of Chili assert that, in captivity,
the Condor can support forty days’ hunger; when
free, his voracity is excessive, and, vulture-like, is directed
by preference to dead flesh.
The mode of capture of Condors in Peru by means of palisades,
as described by me, is practised with equal success in
Chili. When the bird has gorged himself with flesh, he cannot
rise into the air without first running for some little distance
with his wings half expanded. A dead ox, in which decomposition
is beginning to take place, is strongly fenced round,
leaving within the fence only a small space, in which the
Condors attracted by the prey are crowded together. When
they have gorged themselves with food, the palisades not
permitting them to obtain a start by running, they become,
as remarked above, unable to rise, and are either killed with
clubs by the country people, or taken alive by the lasso.
On the first declaration of the political independence of
Chili, the Condor appeared on the coinage as the symbol of
strength. (Claudio Gay, Historia fisica y politica de Chile,
publicada bajo los auspicios del Supremo Gobierno; Zoologia,
pp. 194-198.)
Far more useful than the Condor in the great economy of
Nature, in the removal of putrefying animal substances and
in thus purifying the air in the neighbourhood of human
habitations, are the different species of Gallinazos, of which
the number of individuals is much greater. In tropical
America I have sometimes seen as many as 70 or 80 assembled
at once round a dead animal; and I am able, as an
eye-witness, to confirm the fact long since stated, but which
has recently been doubted by ornithologists, of the whole
assembly of these birds in such cases taking flight on the
appearance of a single king-vulture, who yet is no larger
than the Gallinazos. No combat ever takes place; but the
Gallinazos (the two species of which, Cathartes urubu and
C. aura, have been confounded with each other by an unfortunately
fluctuating nomenclature) appear to be terrified
by the sudden appearance and courageous demeanour of
the richly coloured Sarcoramphus papa. As the ancient
Egyptians protected the bird which rendered them similar
services towards the purification of their atmosphere, so in
Peru the careless or wanton killing of the Gallinazos is
punished with a fine, which in some towns amounts, according
to Gay, to 300 piastres for each bird. It is a remarkable
circumstance, stated so long ago as by Don Felix de Azara,
that these species of vultures, if taken young and reared,
will so accustom themselves to the person who feeds them,
that they will follow him on a journey for many miles, flying
after the waggon in which he travels over the Pampas.
Fontana, in his excellent work “Über das Viperngift,”
Bd. i. S. 62, relates that he succeeded, in the course of two
hours, by means of a drop of water, in bringing to life a
rotifera which had lain for two years and a half dried up
and motionless. On the action and effect of water, see my
“Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser,” Bd.
ii. S. 250.
What has been called the revivification of Rotiferæ, since
observations have been more exact and have had to undergo
stricter criticism, has been the subject of much animated
discussion. Baker affirmed that he had resuscitated, in
1771, paste-eels which Needham had given him in 1744!
Franz Bauer saw his Vibrio tritici, which had been dried up
for four years, move again on being moistened. An extremely
careful and experienced observer, Doyère, in his
Mémoire sur les Tardigrades, et sur leur propriété de revenir
à la vie (1842), draws from his own fine experiments the
following conclusions:—Rotiferæ come to life, i. e. pass
from a motionless state to a state of motion, after having
been exposed to temperatures of 19°.2 Reaumur below, and
36° Reaumur above, the freezing point; i. e. from 11°.2 to
113°.0 Fah. They preserve the capability of apparent
revivification, in dry sand, up to 56°.4 R. (158°.9 Fah.);
but they lose it, and cannot be excited afresh, if heated in
moist sand to 44° only (131°.0 Fah.) Doyère, p. 119.
The possibility of revivification or reanimation is not prevented
by their being placed for twenty-eight days in barometer
tubes in vacuo, or even by the application of chloride
of lime or sulphuric acid (pp. 130-133). Doyère has
also seen the rotiferæ come to life again very slowly after
being dried without sand (desséchés à nu), which Spallanzani
had denied (pp. 117 and 129). “Toute dessiccation
faite à la température ordinaire pourroit souffrir des objections
auxquelles l’emploi du vide sec n’eût peut-être pas
complètement repondu: mais en voyant les Tardigrades
périr irrévocablement à une température de 44°, si leurs
tissus sont pénétrés d’eau, tandis que desséchés ils supportent
sans périr une chaleur qu’on peut évaluer a 96°
Reaumur, on doit être disposé à admettre que la revivification
n’a dans l’animal d’autre condition que l’intégrité de
composition et de connexions organiques.” In the same
way, in the vegetable kingdom, the sporules of cryptogamia,
which Kunth compares to the propagation of certain phænogamous
plants by buds (bulbillæ), retain their germinating
power in the highest temperatures. According to the
most recent experiments of Payen, the sporules of a minute
fungus (Oïdium aurantiacum), which covers the crumb of
bread with a reddish feathery coating, do not lose their
power of germination by being exposed for half an hour in
closed tubes to a temperature of from 67° to 78° Reaumur
(182°.75 to 207°.5 Fah.), before being strewed on fresh
perfectly unspoilt dough. May not the newly discovered
monad (Monas prodigiosa), which causes blood-like spots on
mealy substances, have been mingled with this fungus?
Ehrenberg, in his great work on Infusoria (S. 492-496),
has given the most complete history of all the investigations
which have taken place on what is called the revivification
of rotiferæ. He believes that, in spite of all the
means of desiccation employed, the organization-fluid still
remains in the apparently dead animal. He contests the
hypothesis of “latent life;” death, he says, is not “life
latent, but the want of life.”
We have evidence of the diminution, if not of the entire
disappearance or suspension of organic functions, in the
hybernation or winter sleep both of warm and cold-blooded
animals, in the dormice, marmots, sand martins (Hirundo
riparia) according to Cuvier (Règne animal, 1829, T. i. p.
396), frogs and toads. Frogs, awakened from winter-sleep
by warmth, can support an eight times’ longer stay under
water without being drowned, than frogs in the breeding
season. It would seem as if the functions of the lungs in
respiration, for some time after their excitability had been
suspended, required a less degree of activity. The circumstance
of the sand-martin sometimes burying itself in a
morass is a phenomenon which, while it seems not to admit
of doubt, is the more surprising, as in birds respiration is
so extremely energetic, that, according to Lavoisier’s
experiments, two small sparrows, in their ordinary state,
decomposed, in the same space of time, as much atmospheric
air as a porpoise. (Lavoisier, Mémoires de Chimie,
T. i. p, 119.) The winter-sleep of the swallow in question
(the Hirundo riparia) is not supposed to belong to the
entire species, but only to have been observed in some individuals.
(Milne Edwards, Elémens de Zoologie, 1834, p.
543.)
As in the cold zone the deprivation of heat causes some
animals to fall into winter-sleep, so the hot tropical countries
afford an analogous phænomenon, which has not been
sufficiently attended to, and to which I have applied the
name of summer-sleep. (Relation historique, T. ii. pp. 192
and 626.) Drought and continuous high temperatures act
like the cold of winter in diminishing excitability. In Madagascar,
(which, with the exception of a very small portion at
its southern extremity, is entirely within the tropical zone,)
as Bruguière had before observed, the hedgehog-like Tenrecs
(Centenes, Illiger), one species of which (C. ecaudatus)
has been introduced into the Isle of France, sleep during
great heat. Desjardins makes, it is true, the objection that
the time of their slumber is the winter season of the southern
hemisphere; but in a country in which the mean temperature
of the coldest month is 3° Reaumur (6°.75 Fah.) above
that of the hottest month in Paris, this circumstance cannot
change the three months’ “summer-sleep” of the Tenrec in
Madagascar and at Port Louis, into what we understand by
a winter-sleep, or state of hybernation.
In the hot and dry season, the crocodile in the Llanos of
Venezuela, the land and water tortoises of the Orinoco, the
huge boa, and several smaller kinds of serpents, become
torpid and motionless, and lie incrusted in the indurated
soil. The missionary Gili relates that the natives, in seeking
for the slumbering Terekai (land tortoises), which they
find lying at a depth of sixteen or seventeen inches in dried
mud, are sometimes bitten by serpents which become suddenly
aroused, and which had buried themselves at the same
time as the tortoise. An excellent observer, Dr. Peters,
who has just returned from the East Coast of Africa, writes
thus to me on the subject:—“During my short stay at
Madagascar I could obtain no certain information respecting
the Tenrec; but, on the other hand, I know that in the
East of Africa, where I lived for several years, different
kinds of tortoises (Pentonyx and Trionchydias) pass months
during the dry season of this tropical country inclosed in the
dry hard earth, and without food. The Lepidosiren also,
in places where the swamps are dried up, remains coiled up
and motionless, encased in indurated earth, from May to
December.”
Thus we find an annual enfeeblement of certain vital
functions in many and very different classes of animals, and,
what is particularly striking, without the same phenomena
being presented by other living creatures nearly allied to
them, and belonging to the same family. The northern
glutton (Gulo), though allied to the badger (Meles), does
not like him sleep during the winter; whereas, according
to Cuvier’s remark, “a Myoxus (dormouse) of Senegal
(Myoxus coupeii), which could never have known winter-sleep
in his tropical home, being brought to Europe fell
asleep the first year on the setting in of winter.” This torpidity
or enfeeblement of the vital functions and vital activity
passes through several gradations, according as it
extends to the processes of nutrition, respiration, and muscular
motion, or to depression of the activity of the brain
and nervous system. The winter-sleep of the solitary bears
and of the badger is not accompanied by any rigidity, and
hence the reawakening of these animals is so easy, and, as
was often related to me in Siberia, so dangerous to the
hunters and country people. The first recognition of the
gradation and connection of these phenomena leads us up
to what has been called the “vita minima” of the microscopic
organisms, which, occasionally with green ovaries and
undergoing the process of spontaneous division, fall from the
clouds in the Atlantic sand-rain. The apparent revivification
of rotiferæ, as well as of the siliceous-shelled infusoria,
is only the renewal of long-enfeebled vital functions,—a
state of vitality which was never entirely extinct, and
which is fanned into a fresh flame, or excited anew, by the
appropriate stimulus. Physiological phenomena can only
be comprehended by being traced throughout the entire
series of analogous modifications.
Formerly the fertilization of flowers in which the sexes
are separated was ascribed principally to the action of the
wind: it has been shown by Kölreuter, and with great ingenuity
by Sprengel, that bees, wasps, and a host of smaller
winged insects, are the chief agents. I say the chief agents,
because to assert that no fertilization is possible without the
intervention of these little animals appears to me not to be
in conformity with nature, as indeed has been shown in
detail by Willdenow. (Grundriss der Kräuterkunde, 4te
Aufl., Berl. 1805, S. 405-412.) On the other hand,
Dichogamy, coloured spots or marks indicating honey-vessels
(maculæ indicantes), and fertilization by insects, are,
in much the greater number of cases, inseparably associated.
(Compare Auguste de St. Hilaire, Leçons de Botanique,
1840, p. 565-571.)
The statement which has been often repeated since
Spallanzani, that the diœcious common hemp (Cannabis
sativa) yields perfect seeds without the neighbourhood of
pollen-bearing vessels, has been refuted by later experiments.
When seeds have been obtained, anthers in a rudimentary
state, capable of furnishing some grains of fertilizing dust,
have been discovered near the ovarium. Such hermaphroditism
is frequent in the entire family of Urticeæ, but a
peculiar and still unexplained phenomenon has been presented
in the forcing-houses at Kew by a small New Holland shrub,
the Cœlebogyne of Smith. This phænogamous plant produces
in England perfect seeds without trace of male organs,
or the hybridising introduction of the pollen of other species.
An ingenious botanist, Adrien de Jussieu, in his “Cours
Elementaire de Botanique,” 1840, p. 463, expresses himself
on the subject as follows:—“Un genre d’Euphorbiacées (?)
assez nouvellement décrit mais cultivé depuis plusieurs
années dans les serres d’Angleterre, le Cœlebogyne, y a plusieurs
fois fructifié, et ses graines étaient évidemment parfaites,
puisque non seulement on y a observé un embryon
bien constitué, mais qu’en le semant cet embryon s’est développé
en une plante semblable. Or les fleurs sont dioïques;
on ne connait et ne possède pas (en Angleterre) de pieds
mâles, et les recherches les plus minutieuses, faites par les
meilleurs observateurs, n’ont pu jusqu’ici faire découvrir la
moindre trace d’anthères ou seulement de pollen. L’embryon
ne venait donc pas de ce pollen, qui manque entièrement: il
a dû se former de toute pièce dans l’ovule.”
In order to obtain a fresh confirmation or elucidation of
this highly important and isolated phenomenon, I addressed
myself not long since to my young friend Dr. Joseph Hooker,
who, after making the Antarctic voyage with Sir James
Ross, has now joined the great Thibeto-Himalayan expedition.
Dr. Hooker wrote to me in reply, on his arrival at Alexandria
near the end of December 1847, before embarking at Suez:
“Our Cœlebogyne still flowers with my father at Kew as well
as in the Gardens of the Horticultural Society. It ripens its
seeds regularly: I have examined it repeatedly very closely
and carefully, and have never been able to discover a
penetration of pollen-tubes either in the style or ovarium.
In my herbarium the male blossoms are in small
catkins.”
The luminosity of the ocean is one of those superb natural
phenomena which continue to excite our admiration even
when we have seen them recur every night for months. The
sea is phosphorescent in every zone; but those who have not
witnessed the phenomenon within the tropics, and especially
in the Pacific, have only an imperfect idea of the grand and
majestic spectacle which it affords. When a man-of-war, impelled
by a fresh breeze, cuts the foaming waves, the voyager
standing at the ship’s side feels as if he could never be satisfied
with gazing on the spectacle which presents itself to his
view. Every time that in the rolling of the vessel her side
emerges from the water, blue or reddish streams of light
appear to dart upwards like flashes of lightning from her keel.
Nor can I describe the splendour of the appearance presented
on a dark night in the tropic seas by the sports of a troop
of porpoises. As they cut through the foaming waves, following
each other in long winding lines, one sees their mazy
track marked by intense and sparkling light. In the Gulf
of Cariaco, between Cumana and the Peninsula of Maniquarez,
I have stood for hours enjoying this spectacle.
Le Gentil and the elder Forster attributed the flashing to
the electric friction excited by the ship in moving through
the water, but the present state of our knowledge does not
permit us to receive this as a valid explanation. (Joh. Reinh.
Forster’s Bemerkungen auf seiner Reise um die Welt, 1783,
S. 57; Le Gentil, Voyage dans les Mers de l’Inde, 1779,
T. i. p. 685-698.)
Perhaps there are few natural subjects of observation which
have been so long and so much debated as the luminosity of
the waters of the sea. What we know with certainty on the
subject may be reduced to the following simple facts. There
are several luminous animals which, when alive, give out
at pleasure a faint phosphoric light: this light is, in most
instances, rather bluish, as in Nereis noctiluca, Medusa
pelagica var. β (Forskäl, Fauna Ægyptiaco-arabica, s. Descriptiones
animalium quæ in itinere orientali observavit,
1775, p. 109), and in the Monophora noctiluca, discovered
in Baudin’s expedition, (Bory de St.-Vincent,
Voyage dans les Iles des Mers d’Afrique, 1804, T. i.
p. 107, pl. vi.) The luminous appearance of the sea is
due partly to living animals, such as are spoken of above,
and partly to organic fibres and membranes derived from the
destruction of these living torch-bearers. The first of these
causes is undoubtedly the most usual and most extensive.
In proportion as travellers engaged in the investigation of
natural phenomena have become more zealous in their
researches, and more experienced in the use of excellent
microscopes, we have seen in our zoological systems the
groups of Mollusca and Infusoria, which become luminous
either at pleasure or when excited by external stimulus, increase
more and more.
The luminosity of the sea, so far as it is produced by
living organic beings, is principally due, in the class of Zoophytes,
to the Acalephæ (the families of Medusa and Cyanea),
to some Mollusca, and to a countless host of Infusoria.
Among the small Acalephæ, the Mammaria scintillans offers
the beautiful spectacle of, as it were, the starry firmament
reflected by the surface of the sea. This little creature, when
full grown, hardly equals in size the head of a pin. Michaelis,
at Kiel, was the first to show that there are luminous siliceous-shelled
infusoria: he observed the flashing light of the
Peridinium (a ciliated animalcule), of the cuirassed Monad
the Prorocentrum micans, and of a rotifera to which he gave
the name of Synchata baltica. (Michaelis über das Leuchten
der Ostsee bei Kiel, 1830, S. 17.) The same Synchata
baltica was subsequently discovered by Focke in the Lagunes
of Venice. My distinguished friend and Siberian travelling
companion, Ehrenberg, has succeeded in keeping luminous
infusoria from the Baltic alive for almost two months in
Berlin. He shewed them to me in 1832 with a microscope
in a drop of sea-water: placed in the dark I saw their
flashes of light. The largest of these little infusoria were
1-8th, and the smallest from 1-48th to 1-96th of a Paris
line in length (a Paris line is about nine-hundredths of an
English inch): after they were exhausted, and had ceased to
send forth sparkles of light, the flashing was renewed on
their being stimulated by the addition of acids or of a little
alcohol to the sea-water.
By repeatedly filtering water taken up fresh from the sea,
Ehrenberg succeeded in obtaining a fluid in which a greater
number of these luminous creatures were concentrated.
(Abhandlungen der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem
J. 1833, S. 307; 1834, S. 537-575; 1838, S. 45 and 258.)
This acute observer has found in the organs of the Photocaris,
which emits flashes of light either at pleasure or when
irritated or stimulated, a cellular structure with large cells
and gelatinous interior resembling the electric organs of the
Gymnotus and the Torpedo. “When the Photocaris is
irritated, one sees in each cirrus a kindling and flickering of
separate sparks, which gradually increase in intensity until
the whole cirrus is illuminated; until at last the living fire
runs also over the back of the small Nereis-like animal, so
that it appears in the microscope like a thread of sulphur
burning with a greenish-yellow light. It is a circumstance
very deserving of attention, that in the Oceania (Thaumantias)
hemisphærica the number and situation of the sparks correspond
exactly with the thickened base of the larger cirri or
organs which alternate with them. The exhibition of this
wreath of fire is a vital act, and the whole development of
light is an organic vital process which in the Infusoria shows
itself as an instantaneous spark of light, and is repeated after
short intervals of repose.” (Ehrenberg über das Leuchten
des Meeres, 1836, S. 110, 158, 160, and 163.)
According to these suppositions, the luminous creatures
of the ocean show the existence of a magneto-electric light-evolving
process in other classes of animals than fishes,
insects, Mollusca, and Acalephæ. Is the secretion of the
luminous fluid which is effused in some luminous creatures,
and which continues to shine for some time without any
farther influence of the living animal (for example, in
Lampyrides and Elaterides, in the German and Italian glow-worms,
and in the South American Cucuyo which lives on
the sugar-cane), only a consequence of the first electric discharge,
or is it simply dependent on chemical mixture?
The shining of insects surrounded by air has doubtless other
physiological causes than those which occasion the luminosity
of inhabitants of the water, fishes, Medusæ, and Infusoria.
The small Infusoria of the ocean, being surrounded by strata
of salt water which is a good conducting fluid, must be
capable of an enormous electric tension of their light-flashing
organs to enable them to shine so intensely in the water.
They strike like Torpedos, Gymnoti, and the Tremola of the
Nile, through the stratum of water; while electric fishes, in
connexion with the galvanic circuit, decompose water and
impart magnetism to steel bars, as I showed more than half
a century ago (Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und
Nervenfaser, Bd. i. S. 438-441, and see also Obs. de Zoologie
et d’Anatomie comparée, vol. i. p. 84); and as John
Davy has since confirmed (Phil. Trans, for 1834, Part ii. p.
545-547), do not pass a flash through the smallest intervening
stratum.
The considerations which have been developed make it
probable that it is one and the same process which operates
in the smallest living organic creatures, so minute that
they are not perceived by the naked eye,—in the combats
of the serpent-like gymnoti,—in flashing luminous
infusoria which raise the phosphorescence of the sea to
such a degree of brilliancy;—as well as in the thunder-cloud,
and in the auroral, terrestrial, or polar light (silent
magnetic lightnings), which, as the result of an increased
tension in the interior of the globe, are announced
for hours beforehand by the suddenly altered movements
of the magnetic needle. (See my letter to the Editor of
the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, Bd. xxxvii. 1836, S.
242-244).
Sometimes one cannot even with high magnifying powers
discern any animalcules in the luminous water; and yet,
whenever the wave strikes and breaks in foam against a
hard body, a light is seen to flash. In such case the cause
of the phenomenon probably consists in the decaying
animal fibres, which are disseminated in immense abundance
throughout the body of water. If this luminous
water is filtered through fine and closely woven cloths,
these little fibres and membranes are separated in the shape
of shining points. When we bathed at Cumana in the waters
of the Gulf of Cariaco, and afterwards lingered awhile on
the solitary beach in the mild evening air without our clothes,
parts of our bodies continued luminous from the shining
organic particles which had adhered to the skin, and the
light only became extinct at the end of some minutes.
Considering the enormous quantity of animal life in all
tropical seas, it is, perhaps, not surprising that the sea
water should be luminous, even where no visible organic
particles can be detached from it. From the almost infinite
subdivision of the masses of dead Dagysæ and Medusæ, the
sea may perhaps be looked on as a gelatinous fluid, which
as such is luminous, distasteful to, and undrinkable by man,
and capable of affording nourishment to many fish. If
one rubs a board with part of a Medusa hysocella, the part
so rubbed regains its luminosity on friction with a dry
finger. On my passage to South America I sometimes
placed a Medusa on a tin plate. When I struck another
metallic substance against the plate, the slightest vibrations
of the tin were sufficient to cause the light. What is the
manner in which in this case the blow and the vibrations
act? Is the temperature momentarily augmented? Are new
surfaces exposed? or does the blow press out a fluid, such
as phosphuretted hydrogen, which may burn on coming into
contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere or of the air
held in solution by the sea-water. This light-exciting
influence of a shock or blow is particularly remarkable in a
“cross sea,” i. e. when waves coming from opposite directions
meet and clash.
I have seen the sea within the tropics appear luminous
in the most different states of weather; but the light was
most brilliant when a storm was near, or with a sultry atmosphere
and a vaporous thickly-clouded sky. Heat and cold
appear to have little influence on the phenomenon, for on the
Banks of Newfoundland the phosphorescence is often very
bright during the coldest winter weather. Sometimes
under apparently similar external circumstances the sea will
be highly luminous one night and not at all so the following
night. Does the atmosphere influence the disengagement
of light, or do all these differences depend on the accident
of the observer sailing through a part of the sea more
or less abundantly impregnated with gelatinous animal
substances? Perhaps it is only in certain states of the
atmosphere that the light-evolving animalculæ come in large
numbers to the surface of the sea. It has been asked why
the fresh water of our marshes, which is filled with polypi,
is never seen to become luminous. Both in animals and
plants, a particular mixture of organic particles appears to
be required in order to favour the production of light.
Willow-wood is oftener found to be luminous than oak-wood.
In England experiments have succeeded in making saltwater
shine by pouring into it the liquor from pickled
herrings. It is easy to shew by galvanic experiments that
in living animals the evolution of light depends on an irritation
of the nerves. I have seen an Elater noctilucus
which was dying emit strong flashes of light when I touched
the ganglion of his fore leg with zinc and silver. Medusæ
sometimes shew increased brightness at the moment of
completing the galvanic circuit. (Humboldt, Relat. Hist.
T. i. p. 79 and 533.)
Respecting the wonderful development of mass and power
of increase in Infusoria, see Ehrenberg, Infus. S. xiii. 291
and 512. He observes that “the galaxy of the minutest
organisms passes through the genera of Vibrio and Bacterium
and that of Monas, (in the latter they are often
only 1⁄3000 of a line,)” S. xix. and 244.
[6] p. 7.—“Which inhabits the large pulmonary cells of
the rattle-snake of the tropics.”
This animal, which I formerly called an Echinorhynchus
or even a Porocephalus, appears on closer investigation, and
according to the better founded judgment of Rudolphi, to
belong to the division of the Pentastomes. (Rudolphi,
Entozoorum Synopsis, p. 124 and 434.) It inhabits the
ventral cavities and wide-celled lungs of a species of Crotalus
which lives in Cumana, sometimes in the interior of
houses, where it pursues the mice. Ascaris lumbrici
(Gözen’s Eingeweidewürmer, Tab. iv. Fig. 10,) lives
under the skin of the common earthworm, and is the
smallest of all the species of Ascaris. Leucophra nodulata,
Gleichen’s pearl-animalcule, has been observed by Otto
Friedrich Müller in the interior of the reddish Nais littoralis.
(Müller, Zoologia danica, Fasc. II. Tab. lxxx. a—e.)
Probably these microscopic animals are again inhabited
by others. All are surrounded by air poor in oxygen and
variously mixed with hydrogen and carbonic acid. Whether
any animal can live in pure nitrogen is very doubtful. It
might formerly have been believed to be the case with
Fischer’s Cistidicola farionis, because according to Fourcroy’s
experiments the swimming bladders of fish appeared to
contain an air entirely deprived of oxygen. Erman’s
experience and my own shew, however, that fresh-water
fishes never contain pure nitrogen in their swimming
bladders. (Humboldt et Provençal, sur la respiration des
Poissons, in the Recueil d’Observ. de Zoologie, Vol. ii. p.
194-216.) In sea-fish as much as 0·80 of oxygen has
been found, and according to Biot the purity of the air
would appear to depend on the depth at which the fish live.
(Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Societé d’Arcueil,
T. i. 1807, p. 252-281.)
[7] p. 8.—“The collected labours of united Lithophytes.”
Following Linnæus and Ellis, the calcareous zoophytes,—among
which Madrepores, Meandrinæ, Astreæ, and Pocilloporæ,
especially, produce wall-like coral-reefs,—are inhabited
by living creatures which were long believed to be allied to
the Nereids belonging to Cuvier’s Annelidæ. The anatomy
of these gelatinous little creatures has been elucidated by
the ingenious and extensive researches of Cavolini, Savigny,
and Ehrenberg. We have learnt that in order to understand
the entire organization of what are called the rock-building
coral animals, the scaffolding which survives them,
i. e., the layers of lime, which in the form of thin delicate
plates or lamellæ are elaborated by vital functions, must not
be regarded as something extraneous to the soft membranes
of the food-receiving animal.
Besides the more extended knowledge of the wonderful
formation of the animated coral stocks, there have been
gradually established more accurate views respecting the
influence exercised by corals on other departments of
Nature,—on the elevation of groups of low islands above
the level of the sea,—on the migrations of land-plants and
the successive extension of the domains of particular Floras,—and,
lastly, in some parts of the ocean, on the diffusion of
races of men, and the spread of particular languages.
As minute organic creatures living in society, corals do
indeed perform an important part in the general economy
of Nature, although they do not, as was begun to be believed
at the time of Cook’s voyages, enlarge continents and build
up islands from fathomless depths of the ocean. They
excite the liveliest interest, whether considered as subjects of
physiology and of the study of the gradation of animal forms,
or whether they are regarded in reference to their influence
on the geography of plants and on the geological relations
of the crust of the Earth. According to the great views of
Leopold von Buch, the whole formation of the Jura consists
of “large raised coral-banks of the ancient world surrounding
the ancient mountain chains at a certain distance.”
In Ehrenberg’s Classification, (Abhandlungen der Akad.
der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem, J. 1882, S. 393-432) Coral-animals,
(often improperly called, in English works, Coral-insects)
are divided into two great classes: the single-mouthed
Anthozoa, which are either free or capable of
detaching themselves, being the animal-corals, Zoocorallia;
and those in which the attachment is permanent and plant-like,
being the Phyto-corals. To the first order, the
Zoocorallia, belong the Hydras or Arm-polypi of Trembley,
the Actiniæ decked with beautiful colours, and the mushroom-corals;
to the second order or Phyto-corals belong the
Madrepores, the Astræids, and the Ocellinæ. The Polypi
of the second order are those which, by the cellular wave-defying
ramparts which they construct, are the principal
subject of the present note. These ramparts consist of an
aggregate of coral trunks, which, however, do not instantly
lose their common vitality as does a forest tree when cut
down.
Every coral-trunk is a whole which has arisen by a formation
of buds taking place according to certain laws, the
parts of which the whole consists forming a number of
organically distinct individuals. In the group of Phyto-corals
these individuals cannot detach themselves at pleasure,
but remain united with each other by thin plates of carbonate
of lime. It is not, therefore, by any means the case that
each trunk of coral has a central point of common vitality or
life. (See Ehrenberg’s Memoir above referred to, S. 419.)
The propagation of coral-animals takes place, in the one
order, by eggs or by spontaneous division; and in the other
order, by the formation of buds. It is the latter mode of
propagation which, in the development of individuals, is the
most rich in variety of form.
Coral-reefs, (according to the definition of Dioscorides,
sea-plants, a forest of stone-trees, Lithodendra), are of three
kinds;—coast reefs, called by the English “shore or fringing
reefs,” which are immediately connected with the coasts
of continents or islands, as almost all the coral banks of
the Red Sea seen during an eighteen months’ examination
by Ehrenberg and Hemprich;—“barrier-reefs,” “encircling-reefs,”
as the great Australian barrier-reef on the
north-east coast of New Holland, extending from Sandy Cape
to the dreaded Torres Strait; and as the encircling-reefs
surrounding the islands of Vanikoro (between the Santa
Cruz group and the New Hebrides) and Poupynete (one
of the Carolinas);—and lastly, coral banks enclosing
lagoons, forming “Atolls” or “Lagoon-islands.” This
highly natural division and nomenclature have been introduced
by Charles Darwin, and are intimately connected
with the explanation which that ingenious and
excellent investigator of nature has given of the gradual
production of these wonderful forms. As on the one
hand Cavolini, Ehrenberg, and Savigny have perfected the
scientific-anatomical knowledge of the organisation of coral-animals,
so on the other hand the geographical and geological
relations of coral-islands have been investigated and
elucidated, first by Reinhold and George Forster in Cook’s
Second Voyage, and subsequently, after a long interval, by
Chamisso, Péron, Quoy and Gaimard, Flinders, Lütke,
Beechey, Darwin, d’Urville, and Lottin.
The coral-animals and their stony cellular structures or
scaffolding belong principally to the warm tropical seas, and
the reefs are found more frequently in the Southern than in
the Northern Hemisphere. The Atolls or Lagoon Islands are
crowded together in what has been called the Coral-Sea, off
the north-east coast of New Holland, including New Caledonia,
the Salomon’s Islands, and the Louisiade Archipelago;
in the group of the Low islands (Low Archipelago),
eighty in number; in the Fidji, Ellice, and Gilbert groups;
and in the Indian Ocean, on the north-east of Madagascar,
under the name of the Atoll-group of Saya de Malha.
The great Chagos bank, of which the structure and rocks
of dead coral have been thoroughly examined by Captain
Moresby and by Powell, is so much the more interesting,
because we may regard it as a continuation of the more
northerly Laccadives and Maldives. I have already called
attention elsewhere (Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 218), to the
importance of the succession of these Atolls, running exactly
in the direction of a meridian and continued as far as 7°
south latitude, to the general system of mountains and
the configuration of the earth’s surface in Central Asia.
They form a kind of continuation to the great rampart-like
mountain elevations of the Ghauts and the more northern
chain of Bolor, to which correspond in the trans-Gangetic
Peninsula the North and South Chains which are intersected
near the great bend of the Thibetian Tzang-bo River by
several transverse mountain systems running east and
west. In this eastern peninsula are situated the chains of
Cochin China, Siam, and Malacca which are parallel with
each other, as well as those of Ava and Arracan which
all, after courses of unequal length, terminate in the Gulfs
or Bays of Siam, Martaban, and Bengal. The Bay of
Bengal appears like an arrested attempt of nature to form
an inland sea. A deep invasion of the ocean, between the
simple western system of the Ghauts, and the eastern very
complex trans-Gangetic system of mountains, has swallowed
up a large portion of the low lands on the eastern side, but
met with an obstacle more difficult to overcome in the
existence of the extensive high plateau of Mysore.
Such an invasion of the ocean has occasioned two almost
pyramidal peninsulas of very different dimensions, and
differently proportioned in breadth and length; and the
continuations of two mountain systems (both running in the
direction of the meridian, i. e., the mountain system of
Malacca on the east, and the Ghauts of Malabar on the
west), shew themselves in submarine chains of mountains
or symmetrical series of islands, on the one side in the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands which are very poor
in corals, and on the other side in the three long-extended
groups or series of Atolls of the Laccadives,
the Maldives, and Chagos. The latter series, called
by navigators the Chagos-bank, forms a lagoon encircled
by a narrow and already much broken, and in great
measure submerged, coral reef. The longer and shorter
diameters of this lagoon, or its length and breadth, are
respectively 90 and 70 geographical miles. Whilst the
enclosed lagoon is only from seventeen to forty fathoms
deep, the depth of water at a small distance from the outer
margin of the coral, (which appears to be gradually sinking),
is such, that at half a mile no bottom was found in sounding
with a line of 190 fathoms, and, at a somewhat greater
distance, none with 210 fathoms. (Darwin, Structure of
Coral Reefs, p. 39, 111, and 183.) At the coral lagoon
called Keeling-Atoll, Captain Fitz-Roy, at a distance of only
two thousand yards from the reef, found no soundings
with 1200 fathoms.
“The corals which, in the Red Sea, form thick wall-like
masses, are species of Meandrina, Astræa, Favia, Madrepora
(Porites), Pocillopora (hemprichii), Millepora, and Heteropora.
The latter are among the most massive, although they are
somewhat branched. The corals which lie deepest below the
surface of the water in this locality, and which, being magnified
by the refraction of the rays of light, appear to the
eye like the domes or cupolas of a cathedral or other large
building, belong, so far as we were enabled to judge, to
Meandrina and Astræa.” (Ehrenberg, manuscript notices.)
It is necessary to distinguish between separate and in part
free and detached polypifers, and those which form wall-like
structures and rocks.
If we are struck with the great accumulation of building
polypifers in some regions of the globe, it is not less surprising
to remark the entire absence of their structures in
other and often nearly adjoining regions. These differences
must be determined by causes which have not yet been thoroughly
investigated; such as currents, local temperature of
the water, and abundance or deficiency of appropriate food.
That certain thin-branched corals, with less deposit of lime
on the side opposite to the opening of the mouth, prefer the
repose of the interior of the lagoon, is not to be denied;
but this preference for the unagitated water must not, as
has too often been done (Annales des Sciences Naturelles,
1825, T. vi. p. 277), be regarded as a property belonging
to the entire class. According to Ehrenberg’s experience
in the Red Sea, that of Chamisso in the Atolls of the Marshall
Islands east of the Caroline group, the observations of
Captain Bird Allen in the West Indies, and those of Capt.
Moresby in the Maldives, living Madrepores, Millepores,
and species of Astræa and of Meandrina, can support the
most violent action of the waves,—“a tremendous surf,”—(Darwin,
Coral Reefs, pp. 63-65), and even appear to
prefer the most stormy exposure. The living organic
forces or powers regulating the cellular structure, which
with age acquires the hardness of rock, resist with wonderful
success the mechanical forces acting in the shock of the
agitated water.
In the Pacific, the Galapagos Islands, and the whole
Western Coast of America, are entirely without coral reefs,
although so near to the many Atolls of the Low Islands,
and the Archipelago of the Marquesas. This absence of
corals might perhaps be ascribed to the presence of colder
water, since we know that the coasts of Chili and Peru
are washed by a cold current coming from the south and
turning to the westward off Punta Parina, the temperature
of which I found, in 1802, to be only 12°.5 Reaumur
(60°.2 Fah.), while the undisturbed adjacent masses of
water were from 22° to 23° Reaumur (81°.5 to 83°.8 Fah.);
and there are also among the Galapagos small currents running
between the islands, having a temperature of only
11°.7 Reaumur (58°.2 Fah.) But these lower temperatures
do not extend farther to the north along the shores of the
Pacific, and are not found upon the coasts of Guayaquil,
Guatimala, and Mexico; nor does a low temperature prevail
at the Cape de Verd Islands on the West Coast of
Africa, or at the small islands of St. Paul (St. Paul’s rocks),
or at St. Helena, Ascension, or San Fernando Noronha,—which
yet are all without coral reefs.
While this absence of coral reefs appears to characterise
the western coasts of Africa, America, and Australia, on
the other hand such reefs abound on the eastern coasts of
tropical America, of Africa, on the coasts of Zanzibar and
Australia, and on that of New South Wales. The coral
banks which I have chiefly had opportunities of observing
are those of the interior of the Gulf of Mexico, and those to
the south of the Island of Cuba, in what are called the
“Gardens of the King and Queen” (Jardines y Jardinillos
del Rey y de la Reyna). It was Columbus himself who, on
his second voyage, in May 1494, gave that name to this
little group of islands, because the agreeable mixture of the
silver-leaved arborescent Tournefortia gnapholoides, flowering
species of Dolichos, Avicennia nitida, and mangrove
hedges, gave to the coral islands the appearance of a group
of floating gardens. “Son Cayos verdes y graciosos llenos
de arboledas,” says the Admiral. On the passage from Batabano
to Trinidad de Cuba, I remained several days in
these gardens, situated to the east of the larger island, called
the Isla de Pinos, which is rich in mahogany trees: my
stay was for the purpose of determining the longitude of the
different keys (Cayos). The Cayo Flamenco, Cayo Bonito,
Cayo de Diego Perez, and Cayo de piedras, are coral islands
rising only from eight to fourteen inches above the level of
the sea. The upper edge of the reef does not consist simply
of blocks of dead coral; it is rather a true conglomerate, in
which angular pieces of coral, cemented together with grains
of quartz, are embedded. In the Cayo de piedras I saw
such embedded pieces of coral measuring as much as three
cubic feet. Several of the small West Indian coral islands
have fresh water, a phenomenon which, wherever it presents
itself, (for example, at Radak in the Pacific; see Chamisso
in Kotzebue’s Entdeckungs-Reise, Bd. iii. S. 108), is deserving
of examination, as it has sometimes been ascribed
to hydrostatic pressure operating from a distant coast, (as
at Venice, and in the Bay of Xagua east of Batabano), and
sometimes to the filtration of rain water. (See my Essai
politique sur l’Ile de Cuba, T. ii. p. 137.)
The living gelatinous investment of the stony calcareous
part of the coral attracts fish, and even turtles, who seek it as
food. In the time of Columbus the now unfrequented locality
of the Jardines del Rey was enlivened by a singular kind of
fishery, in which the inhabitants of the coasts of the Island
of Cuba engaged, and in which they availed themselves of
the services of a small fish. They employed in the capture
of turtle the Remora, once said to detain ships (probably
the Echeneis Naucrates), called in Spanish “Reves,” or
reversed, because at first sight his back and abdomen are
mistaken for each other. The remora attaches itself to the
turtle by suction through the interstices of the indented and
moveable cartilaginous plates which cover the head of the
latter, and “would rather,” says Columbus, “allow itself
to be cut in pieces than lose its hold.” The natives; therefore,
attach a line, formed of palm fibres, to the tail of the
little fish, and after it has fastened itself to the turtle draw
both out of the water together. Martin Anghiera, the
learned secretary of Charles V., says, “Nostrates piscem
reversum appellant, quod versus venatur. Non aliter ac
nos canibus gallicis per æquora campi lepores insectamur,
illi (incolæ Cubæ insulæ) venatorio pisce pisces alios capiebant.”
(Petr. Martyr, Oceanica, 1532, Dec. I. p. 9; Gomara,
Hist. de las Indias, 1553, fol. xiv.) We learn by
Dampier and Commerson that this piscatorial artifice, the
employing a sucking-fish to catch other inhabitants of the
water, is much practised on the East Coast of Africa, at
Cape Natal and on the Mozambique Channel, and also in
the Island of Madagascar. (Lacépède, Hist. nat. des Poissons,
T. i. p. 55.) The same necessities combine with a
knowledge of the habits of animals to induce the same
artifices and modes of capture among nations who are entirely
unconnected with each other.
Although, as we have already remarked, the zone included
between 22 or 24 degrees of latitude on either side
of the equator, appears to be the true region of the calcareous
saxigenous lithophytes which raise wall-like structures,
yet coral reefs are also found, favoured it is supposed
by the warm current of the Gulf-stream, in lat. 32° 23´, at
the Bermudas, where they have been extremely well described
by Lieutenant Nelson. (Transactions of the Geological
Society, 2d Series, 1837, Vol. V. Pt. i. p. 103.) In
the southern hemisphere, corals, (Millepores and Cellepores),
are found singly as far south as Chiloe, the Archipelago of
Chonos, and Tierra de Fuego, in 53° lat.; and Retepores
are even found in lat. 72½°.
Since the second voyage of Captain Cook there have
been many defenders of the hypothesis put forward by him
as well as by Reinhold and George Forster, according to
which the low coral islands of the Pacific have been built
up by living creatures from the depths of the bottom of the
sea. The distinguished investigators of nature, Quoy and
Gaimard, who accompanied Captain Freycinet in his voyage
round the world in the frigate Uranie, were the first who
ventured, in 1823, to express themselves with great boldness
and freedom in opposition to the views of the two
Forsters (father and son), of Flinders, and of Péron.
(Annales des Sciences Naturelles, T. vi., 1825, p. 273.)
“En appelant l’attention des naturalistes sur les animalcules
des coraux, nous espérons démontrer que tout ce qu’on a
dit ou cru observer jusqu’à ce jour relativement aux immenses
travaux qu’il sont susceptibles d’exécuter, est le plus
souvent inexact et toujours excessivement exagéré. Nous
pensons que les coraux, loin d’élever des profondeurs de
l’océan des murs perpendiculaires, ne forment que des
couches ou des encroûtemens de quelques toises d’èpaisseur.”
Quoy and Gaimard also propounded (p. 289) the conjecture
that the Atolls, (coral walls enclosing a lagoon), probably
owed their origin to submarine volcanic craters.
Their estimate of the depth below the surface of the sea
at which the animals which form the coral reefs (the species
of Astræa, for example) could live, was doubtless too small,
being at the utmost from 25 to 30 feet (26½ to 32 E.) An
investigator and lover of nature who has added to his own
many and valuable observations a comparison with those of
others in all parts of the globe, Charles Darwin, places with
greater certainty the depth of the region of living corals at
20 to 30 fathoms. (Darwin, Journal, 1845, p. 467; and
the same writer’s Structure of Coral Reefs, p. 84-87; and
Sir Robert Schomburgk, Hist. of Barbadoes, 1848, p. 636.)
This is also the depth at which Professor Edward Forbes
found the greatest number of corals in the Egean Sea: it is
his “fourth region” of marine animals in his very ingenious
memoir on the “Provinces of Depth” and the geographical
distribution of Mollusca at vertical distances from the
surface. (Report on Ægean Invertebrata in the Report of
the 13th Meeting of the British Association, held at Cork
in 1843, pp. 151 and 161.) The depths at which corals
live would seem, however, to be very different in different
species, and especially in the more delicate ones which do
not form such large masses.
Sir James Ross, in his Antarctic Expedition, brought
up corals with the sounding lead from great depths, and
entrusted them to Mr. Stokes and Professor Forbes for
more thorough examination. On the west of Victoria
Land, near Coulman Island, in S. lat. 72° 31´, at a depth
of 270 fathoms, Retepora cellulosa, a species of Hornera,
and Prymnoa Rossii, were found quite fresh and living.
Prymnoa Rossii is very analogous to a species found on the
coast of Norway. (See Ross, Voyage of Discovery in the
Southern and Antarctic Regions, vol. i. pp. 334 and 337.)
In a similar manner in the high northern regions the whalers
have brought up Umbellaria grænlandica, living, from depths
of 236 fathoms. (Ehrenberg, in the Abhandl. der Berl.
Akad. aus dem J. 1832, S. 430.) We find similar relations
of species and situation among sponges, which, indeed, are
now considered to belong rather to plants than to zoophytes.
On the coasts of Asia Minor the common sponge is
found by those engaged in the fishery at depths varying
from 5 to 30 fathoms; whereas a very small species of
the same genus is not found at a less depth than 180
fathoms. (Forbes and Spratt, Travels in Lycia, 1847,
Vol. ii. p. 124.) It is difficult to divine the reason which
prevents Madrepores, Meandrina, Astræa, and the entire
group of tropical Phyto-corals which raise large cellular
calcareous structures, from living in strata of water at a
considerable depth below the surface of the sea. The diminution
of temperature in descending takes place but slowly;
that of light almost equally so; and the existence of numerous
Infusoria at great depths shews that the polypifers would
not want for food.
In opposition to the hitherto generally received opinion of
the entire absence of organic life in the Dead Sea, it is
deserving of notice that my friend and fellow labourer, M.
Valenciennes, has received through the Marquis Charles de
l’Escalopier, and also the French consul Botta, fine specimens
of Porites elongata from the Dead Sea. This fact is the
more interesting because this species is not found in the
Mediterranean, but belongs to the Red Sea, which, according
to Valenciennes, has but few organic forms in common
with the Mediterranean. I have before remarked that in
France a sea fish, a species of Pleuronectes, advances far up
the rivers into the interior of the country, thus becoming
accustomed to gill-respiration in fresh water; so we find
that the coral-animal above spoken of, the Porites elongata
of Lamarck, has a not less remarkable flexibility of organisation,
since it lives in the Dead Sea, which is over-saturated
with salt, and in the open ocean near the Seychelle Islands.
(See my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 517.)
According to the most recent chemical analyses made by
the younger Silliman, the genus Porites, as well as many other
cellular polypifers, (Madrepores, Andræas, and Meandrinas
of Ceylon and the Bermudas), contain, besides 92-95 per
cent. of carbonate of lime and magnesia, some fluoric and
phosphoric acids. (See p. 124-131 of “Structure and
Classification of Zoophytes,” by James Dana, Geologist of
the United States’ Exploring Expedition, under the command
of Captain Wilkes.) The presence of fluorine in the solid
parts of polypifers reminds us of the fluorate of lime in the
bones of fishes, according to the experiments of Morechini
and Gay Lussac at Rome. Silex is only found mixed in very
small quantity with fluorate and phosphate of lime in coral
stocks; but a coral-animal allied to the Horn-coral, Gray’s
Hyalonema, has an axis of pure fibres of silex resembling
a queue or braided tress of hair. Professor Forchhammer,
who has been lately engaged in a thorough analysis of the
sea-water from the most different parts of the globe, finds
the quantity of lime in the Caribbean Sea remarkably small,
being only 247 parts in ten thousand, while in the Categat
it amounts to 371 parts in ten thousand. He is disposed
to attribute this difference to the many coral-banks among
the West Indian Islands, which appropriate the lime, and
lower the per centage remaining in the sea-water. (Report
of the 16th Meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, held in 1846, p. 91.)
Charles Darwin has developed in a very ingenious manner
the probable genetic connection between fringing or shore-reefs,
island-encircling reefs, and lagoon-islands, i. e., narrow
ring-shaped reefs enclosing interior lagoons. According to
his views these three varieties of form are dependent on the
oscillating condition of the bottom of the sea, or on periodic
elevations and subsidences. The hypothesis which has
been several times put forward, according to which the
closed ring or annular form of the coral-reefs in Atolls or
Lagoon Islands marks the configuration of a submarine
volcano, the structure having been raised on the margin of the
crater, is opposed by their great dimensions, the diameters
of many of them being 30, 40, and sometimes even 60
geographical miles. Our fire-emitting mountains have no
such craters; and if we would compare the lagoon, with its
submerged interior and narrow enclosing reef, to one of the
annular mountains of the moon, we must not forget that
those lunar mountains are not volcanoes, but wall-surrounded
districts. According to Darwin, the process of formation
is the following:—He supposes a mountainous island surrounded
by a coral-reef, (a “fringing reef” attached to the
shore), to undergo subsidence: the “fringing reef” which
subsides with the island is continually restored to its level
by the tendency of the coral-animals to regain the surface
of the sea, and becomes thus, as the island gradually sinks
and is reduced in size, first an “encircling reef” at some
distance from the included islet, and subsequently, when
the latter has entirely disappeared, an atoll. According to
this view, in which islands are regarded as the culminating
points of a submerged land, the relative positions of the
different coral islands would disclose to us that which we
could hardly learn by the sounding line, concerning the configuration
of the land which was above the surface of the sea
at an earlier epoch. The entire elucidation of this attractive
subject, (to the connection of which with the migrations of
plants and the diffusion of races of men attention was
called at the commencement of the present note), can only
be hoped for when inquirers shall have succeeded in obtaining
greater knowledge than is now possessed of the
depth and the nature of the rocks on which the lowest
strata of the dead corals rest.
Diodorus has preserved to us this remarkable tradition,
the probability of which renders it in the eyes of the
geologist almost equivalent to a historical certainty. The
Island of Samothrace, formerly called also Æthiopea, Dardania,
Leucania or Leucosia in the Scholiast to Apollonius
Rhodius, and which was a seat of the ancient mysteries of
the Cabiri, was inhabited by the remains of an ancient nation,
several words of whose language were preserved to a later
period in the ceremonies accompanying sacrifices. The situation
of this island, opposite to the Thracian Hebrus and near
the Dardanelles, renders it not surprising that a more
detailed tradition of the catastrophe of the breaking forth
of the waters of the Euxine should have been preserved
there. Rites were performed at altars supposed to mark
the limits of the irruption of the waves; and in Samothrace
as well as in Bœotia, a belief in the periodically
recurring destruction of mankind, (a belief which was also
found among the Mexicans in the form of a myth of four
destructions of the world), was connected with historical
recollections of particular inundations. (Otfr. Müller
Geschichten Hellenischer Stämme und Städte, Bd. i. S. 65
and 119.) According to Diodorus, the Samothracians related
that the Black Sea had once been an inland lake, but
that, being swollen by the rivers which flow into it, it had
broken through, first the strait of the Bosphorus, and
afterwards that of the Hellespont; and this long before the
inundations spoken of by other nations. (Diod. Sicul. lib.
v. cap. 47, p. 369, Wesseling.) These ancient revolutions
of nature have been treated of in a special work by Dureau
de la Malle, and all the information possessed on the subject
has been collected in Carl von Hoff’s important work, entitled
Geschichte der natürlichen Veränderungen der Erdoberfläche,
Th. i. 1822, S. 105-162; and in Creuzer’s
Symbolik, 2te Aufl. Th. ii. S. 285, 318, and 361. A
reflex, as it were, of the traditions of Samothrace appears
in the “Sluice theory” of Strato of Lampsacus, according
to which the swelling of the waters of the Euxine first
opened the passage of the Dardanelles, and afterwards caused
the outlet through the pillars of Hercules. Strabo has
preserved to us in the first book of his Geography, among
critical extracts from the works of Eratosthenes, a remarkable
fragment of the lost writings of Strato, presenting
views which extend to almost the entire circumference of
the Mediterranean.
“Strato of Lampsacus,” says Strabo (Lib. i. p. 49 and
50, Casaub.), “is even more disposed than the Lydian Xanthus,”
(who had described impressions of shells at a
distance from the sea) “to expound the causes of the things
which we see. He asserts that the Euxine had formerly
no outlet at Byzantium, but the sea becoming swollen by
the rivers which ran into it, had by its pressure opened the
passage through which the waters flow into the Propontis
and the Hellespont. He also says that the same thing has
happened to our Sea (the Mediterranean);” “for here, too,
when the sea had become swollen by the rivers, (which in
flowing into it had left dry their marshy banks), it forced for
itself a passage through the isthmus of land connecting the
Pillars. The proofs which Strato gives of this are, first
that there is still a bank under water running from
Europe to Libya, shewing that the outer and inner seas
were formerly divided; and next that the Euxine is the
shallowest, the Cretan, Sicilian, and Sardoic Seas being on
the contrary very deep; the reason being that the Euxine
has been filled with mud by the many and large rivers flowing
into it from the North, while the other seas continued
deep. The Euxine is also the freshest, and the waters
flow towards the parts where the bottom of the sea is
lowest. Hence he inferred that the whole of the Euxine
would finally be choked with mud if the rivers were to
continue to flow into it: and this is already in some
degree the case on the west side of the Euxine towards
Salmydessus (the Thracian Apollonia), and at what are
called by mariners the “Breasts” off the mouth of the
Ister and along the shore of the Scythian Desert. Perhaps
the Temple of Ammon (in Lybia) may once have stood on
the sea-shore, and causes such as these may explain why it
is now far inland. This Strato thought might account for
the celebrity of the Oracle, which would be less surprising
if it had been on the sea-shore; whereas its great distance
from the coast made its present renown inexplicable.
Egypt, too, had been formerly overflowed by the sea as far
as the marshes of Pelusium, Mount Casius, and Lake Serbonis;
for, on digging beneath the surface, beds of sea-sand
and shells are found; shewing that the country was
formerly overflowed, and the whole district round Mount
Casius and Gerrha was a marshy sea which joined the gulf
of the Red Sea. When our Sea (the Mediterranean)
retreated, the land was uncovered; still, however, leaving
the Lake of Serbonis: subsequently this lake also broke
through its bounds and the water flowed off, so that the
lake became a swamp. The banks of Lake Mœris are also
more like sea than river banks.” An erroneously corrected
reading introduced by Grosskurd on account of a passage
in Strabo, Lib. xvii. p. 809, Cas., gives instead of Mœris
“the Lake Halmyris:” but this latter lake was situated
not far from the mouth of the Danube.
The sluice-theory of Strato led Eratosthenes of Cyrene
(the most celebrated of the series of librarians of Alexandria,
but less happy than Archimedes in writing on floating
bodies), to examine the problem of the equality of level of
all external seas, i. e., seas surrounding the Continents.
(Strabo, Lib. i. p. 51-56; Lib. ii. p. 104, Casaub). The
varied outlines of the northern shores of the Mediterranean,
and the articulated form of the peninsulas and islands, had
given occasion to the geognostical myth of the ancient land
of Lyctonia. The supposed mode of origin of the smaller
Syrtis and of the Triton Lake (Diod. iii. 53-55) as well
as that of the whole Western Atlas (Maximus Tyrius, viii.
7) were drawn in to form part of an imaginary scheme of
igneous eruptions and earthquakes. (See my Examen crit.
de l’hist. de la Géographie, Vol. i. p. 179; T. iii. p. 136.)
I have recently touched more in detail on this subject
(Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 153; Engl. ed. p. 118-119) in a
passage which I permit myself to subjoin:—
A more richly varied and broken outline gives to the
northern shore of the Mediterranean an advantage over the
southern or Lybian shore, which according to Strabo was
remarked by Eratosthenes. The three great peninsulas, the
Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, with their sinuous
and deeply indented shores, form, in combination with the
neighbouring islands and opposite coasts, many straits and
isthmuses. The configuration of the continent and the
islands, the latter either severed from the main or volcanically
elevated in lines, as if over long fissures, early led to
geognostical views respecting eruptions, terrestrial revolutions,
and overpourings of the swollen higher seas into
those which were lower. The Euxine, the Dardanelles, the
Straits of Gades, and the Mediterranean with its many
islands, were well fitted to give rise to the view of such a
system of sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably
wrote in Christian times, wove antique legends into his
song; he describes the breaking up of the ancient Lyktonia
into several islands, when ‘the dark-haired Poseidon, being
wroth with Father Kronion, smote Lyktonia with the golden
trident.’ Similar phantasies, which indeed may often
have arisen from imperfect knowledge of geographical
circumstances, proceeded from the Alexandrian school,
where erudition abounded, and a strong predilection
was felt for antique legends. It is not necessary to determine
here whether the myth of the Atlantis broken into
fragments should be regarded as a distant and western
reflex of that of Lyktonia (as I think I have elsewhere
shewn to be probable), or whether, as Otfried Müller considers,
“the destruction of Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to
the Samothracian tradition of a great flood which had
changed the form of that district.”
[9] p. 12.—“Prevents precipitation taking place from
clouds.”
The vertically-ascending current of the atmosphere is a
principal cause of many most important meteorological
phenomena. When a desert or a sandy plain partly or
entirely destitute of plants is bounded by a chain of high
mountains, we see the sea breeze drive the dense clouds
over the desert without any precipitation taking place before
they have reached the mountain-ridge. This phenomenon
was formerly explained in a very inappropriate manner
by a supposed superior attraction exercised by the mountains
on the clouds. The true reason of the phenomenon appears
to consist in the ascending column of warm air which rises
from the sandy plain, and prevents the vesicles of vapour
from being dissolved. The more complete the absence of
vegetation, and the more the sand is heated, the greater is
the height of the clouds, and the less can any fall of rain take
place. When the clouds reach the mountains these causes
cease to operate; the play of the vertically-ascending atmospheric
current is feebler, the clouds sink lower, and dissolve
in rain in a cooler stratum of air. Thus, in deserts, the
want of rain, and the absence of vegetation, act and react
upon each other. It does not rain, because the naked sandy
surface having no vegetable covering, becomes more powerfully
heated by the solar rays, and thus radiates more heat;
and the absence of rain forbids the desert being converted
into a steppe or grassy plain, because without water no
organic development is possible.
[10] p. 14.—“The mass of the earth in solidifying and
parting with its heat.”
If, according to the hypothesis of the Neptunists, now long
since obsolete, the so-called primitive rocks were precipitated
from a fluid, the transition of the crust of the earth from a
fluid to a solid state must have been accompanied by an
enormous disengagement of heat, which would in turn have
caused fresh evaporation and fresh precipitations. The later
these precipitations, the more rapid, tumultuous, and uncrystalline
they would have been. Such a sudden disengagement
of heat might cause local augmentations of temperature
independent of the height of the pole or the latitude of the
place, and independent of the position of the earth’s axis;
and the temperatures thus caused would influence the distribution
of plants. The same sudden disengagement of
heat might also occasion a species of porosity, of which there
seem to be indications in many enigmatical geological phenomena
in sedimentary rocks. I have developed these conjectures
in detail in a small memoir “über ursprungliche
Porosität.” (See my work entitled Versuche über die chemische
Zersetzung des Luftkreises, 1799, S. 177; and
Moll’s Jahrbücher der Berg- und Hüttenkunde, 1797, S.
234.) According to the newer views which I now entertain,
the shattered and fissured earth, with her molten interior,
may long have maintained a high temperature on her oxydised
surface, independently of position in respect to the sun
and of latitude. Would not the climate of Germany be
wonderfully altered, and that perhaps for centuries, if there
were opened a fissure a thousand fathoms in depth, reaching
from the shores of the Adriatic to the Baltic? If in
the present condition of our planet, the stable equilibrium of
temperature, first calculated by Fourier in his Théorie analytique
de la chaleur, has been almost completely restored by
radiation from the earth into space; and if the external atmosphere
now only communicates with the molten interior through
the inconsiderable openings of a few volcanoes,—in the earlier
state of things numerous clefts and fissures, produced by the
frequently recurring corrugations of the rocky strata of the
globe, emitted streams of heated air which mingled with the
atmosphere and were entirely independent of latitude. Every
planet must thus in its earliest condition have for a time
determined its own temperature, which afterwards becomes
dependent on the position relatively to the central body, the
Sun. The surface of the Moon also shows traces of this
reaction of the interior upon the crust.
[11] p. 14.—“The mountain declivities of the southern
part of Mexico.”
The greenstone in globular concretions of the mountain
district of Guanaxuato is quite similar to that of the Franconian
Fichtel-Gebirge. Both form grotesquely shaped summits,
which pierce through and cover the transition argillaceous
schists. In the same manner, pearl stone, porphyritic
schists, trachyte, and pitch-stone porphyry, constitute rocks
similar in form in the Mexican mountains near Cinapecuaro
and Moran, in Hungary, in Bohemia, and in Northern Asia.
This colossal dragon-tree, Dracæna draco, stands in the
garden of Dr. Franqui in the small town of Oratava, the
ancient Taoro, one of the most delightful spots in the world.
In June 1799, when we ascended the Peak of Teneriffe, we
measured the circumference of the tree, and found it nearly
48 English feet. Our measurement was taken several feet
above the root. Lower down, and nearer to the ground,
Le Dru made it nearly 79 English feet. Sir George
Staunton found the diameter still as much as 12 feet at the
height of 10 feet above the ground. The height of the tree
is not much above 69 English feet. According to tradition,
this tree was venerated by the Guanches (as was the ash-tree
of Ephesus by the Greeks, or as the Lydian plane-tree which
Xerxes decked with ornaments, and the sacred Banyan-tree
of Ceylon), and at the time of the first expedition of the
Béthencourts in 1402, it was already as thick and as hollow
as it now is. Remembering that the Dracæna grows
extremely slowly, we are led to infer the high antiquity of
the tree of Orotava. Bertholet, in his description of Teneriffe,
says, “En comparant les jeunes Dragonniers, voisins de
l’arbre gigantesque, les calculs qu’on fait sur l’age de ce
dernier effraient l’imagination.” (Nova Acta Acad. Leop.
Carol. Naturæ Curiosorum, T. xiii. 1827, p. 781.) The
dragon-tree has been cultivated in the Canaries, and in
Madeira and Porto Santo, from the earliest times; and an
accurate observer, Leopold von Buch, has even found it wild
in Teneriffe, near Igueste. Its original country, therefore,
is not India, as had long been believed; nor does its appearance
in the Canaries contradict the opinion of those who
regard the Guanches as having been an isolated Atlantic
nation without intercourse with African or Asiatic nations.
The form of the Dracænas is repeated at the southern extremity
of Africa, in the Isle of Bourbon, and in New Zealand.
In all these distant regions species of the genus in question
are found, but none have been met with in the New Continent,
where its form is replaced by that of the Yucca. Dracæna
borealis of Aiton is a true Convallaria, and has all the
“habitus” of that genus. (Humboldt, Rel. hist. T. i. p. 118
and 639.) I have given a representation of the dragon-tree
of Orotava, taken from a drawing made by F. d’Ozonne in
1776, in the last plate of the Picturesque Atlas of my
American journey. (Vues des Cordillères et Monumens
des Peuples indigènes de l’Amérique, Pl. lxix.) I found
d’Ozonne’s drawing among the manuscripts left by the celebrated
Borda, in the still unprinted travelling journal
entrusted to me by the Dépôt de la Marine, and from which I
borrowed important astronomically-determined geographical,
as well as barometric and trigonometric notices. (Rel. hist.
T. i. p. 282.) The measurement of the dragon-tree of the
Villa Franqui was made on Borda’s first voyage with Pingré,
in 1771; not in his second voyage, in 1776, with Varela.
It is affirmed that in the early times of the Norman and
Spanish Conquests, in the 15th century, Mass was said at a
small altar erected in the hollow trunk of the tree. Unfortunately
the dragon-tree of Orotava lost one side of its top
in the storm of the 21st of July, 1819. There is a fine and
large English copperplate engraving which represents the
present state of the tree with remarkable truth to nature.
The monumental character of these colossal living vegetable
forms, and the kind of reverence which has been felt
for them among all nations, have occasioned in modern
times the bestowal of greater care in the numerical determination
of their age and the size of their trunks. The results
of these inquiries have led the author of the important
treatise, “De la longévité des Arbres,” the elder Decandolle,
Endlicher, Unger, and other able botanists, to consider
it not improbable that the age of several individual trees
which are still alive goes back to the earliest historical
periods, if not of Egypt, at least of Greece and Italy. It is
said in the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève, 1831,
T. lxvii. p. 50:—“Plusieurs exemples semblent confirmer
l’idée qu’il existe encore sur le globe des arbres d’une antiquité
prodigieuse, et peut-être témoins de ses dernières
révolutions physiques. Lorsqu’on regarde un arbre comme
un agrégat d’autant d’individus soudés ensemble qu’il s’est
développé de bourgeons à sa surface, on ne peut pas
s’étonner si, de nouveaux bourgeons s’ajoutant sans cesse
aux anciens, l’agrégat qui en résulte n’a point de terme
nécessaire à son existence.” In the same manner Agardh
says:—“If in trees there are produced in each solar year
new parts, so that the older hardened parts are replaced by
new ones capable of conducting sap, we see herein a type
of growth limited only by external causes.” He ascribes
the shortness of the life of herbs, or of such plants as are
not trees, “to the preponderance of the production of
flowers and fruit over the formation of leaves.” Unfruitfulness
is to a plant a prolongation of life. Endlicher cites
the example of a plant of Medicago sativa, var. β versicolor,
which, bearing no fruit, lived eighty years. (Grundzüge
der Botanik, 1843, S. 1003).
With the dragon trees, which, notwithstanding the gigantic
development of their closed vascular bundles, must
by reason of their floral parts be placed in the same natural
family with asparagus and garden onions, we must associate
the Adansonia (monkey bread-tree, Baobab,) as being
certainly among the largest and oldest inhabitants of our
planet. In the very first voyages of discovery of the Catalans
and Portuguese, the navigators were accustomed to cut
their names on these two species of trees, not merely to
gratify the desire of handing down their names, but also to
serve as marks or signs of possession, and of whatever rights
nations claim on the ground of being the first discoverers.
The Portuguese navigators often used as their “marco” or
token of possession the French motto of the Infant Don
Henrique the Discoverer. Manuel de Faria y Sousa says in
his Asia Portuguesa (T. i. cap. 2, pp. 14 and 18):—“Era
uso de los primeros Navegantes de dexar inscrito el Motto
del Infante, talent de bien faire, en la corteza de los
arboles.” (Compare also Barros, Asia, Dec. I. liv. ii. cap. 2,
T. i. p. 148; Lisboa, 1778.)
The above-named motto cut on the bark of two trees by
Portuguese navigators in 1435, twenty-eight years therefore
before the death of the Infante, is curiously connected
in the history of discoveries with the elucidations to
which the comparison of Vespucci’s fourth voyage with that
of Gonzalo Coelho, in 1503, has given rise. Vespucci relates
that Coelho’s admiral’s ship was wrecked on an island
which has been sometimes supposed to be San Fernando
Noronha, sometimes the Peñedo de San Pedro, and sometimes
the problematical Island of St. Matthew. This last-named
island was discovered by Garcia Jofre de Loaysa on
the 15th of October, 1525, in 2½° S. lat., in the meridian
of Cape Palmas, almost in the Gulf of Guinea. He remained
there eighteen days at anchor, found crosses, as well as orange
trees which had been planted and had become wild, and on
two trunks of trees inscriptions dating back ninety years.
(Navarrete, T. v. pp. 8, 247, and 401.) I have examined the
questions presented by this account more in detail in my inquiries
into the trustworthiness of Amerigo Vespucci. (Examen
critique de l’hist. de la Geographie, T. v. pp. 129-132.)
The oldest description of the Baobab (Adansonia digitata),
is that given by the Venetian Aloysius Cadamosto (the real
name was Alvise da Ca da Mosto), in 1454. He found at
the mouth of the Senegal, trunks of which he estimated the
circumference at seventeen fathoms, or 102 feet, (Ramusio,
Vol. i. p. 109): he might have compared them with Dragon
trees which he had seen before. Perrottet says in his
“Flore de Sénégambie” (p. 76), that he had seen monkey
bread-trees which, with a height of only about 70 or 80 feet,
had a diameter of 32 English feet. The same dimensions
had been given by Adanson, in the account of his voyage in
1748; the largest trunks which he himself saw (in 1749)
in one of the small Magdalena islands near Cape de Verd,
and in the vicinity of the mouth of the Senegal River, were
from 26 to 28½ English feet in diameter, with a height of
little more than 70 feet, and a top about 180 feet broad;
but he adds at the same time, that other travellers had
found trunks of nearly 32 English feet diameter. French
and Dutch sailors had cut their names on the trees seen by
Adanson in letters half a foot long; the dates added to the
names shewed these inscriptions to be all of the 16th century,
except one which belonged to the 15th. (In Adanson’s
“Familles des Plantes,” 1763, P. I. pp. ccxv.-ccxviii.,
it stands as the 14th century, but this is doubtless
an error of inadvertence.) From the depth of the inscriptions,
which were covered with new layers of wood, and
from the comparison of the thickness of different trunks of
the same species in which the relative age of the trees was
known, Adanson computed the probable age of the larger
trees, and found for a diameter of 32 English feet 5150 years.
(Voyage au Sènegal, 1757, p. 66.) He prudently adds (I do
not alter his curious orthography):—“Le calcul de l’aje de
chake couche n’a pas d’exactitude géometrike.” In the
village of Grand Galarques, also in Senegambia, the negroes
have ornamented the entrance of a hollow Baobab tree with
sculptures cut out of the still fresh wood; the interior serves for
holding meetings in which their interests are debated. Such a
hall of assembly reminds one of the hollow or cave (specus)
of the plane tree in Lycia, in which Lucinius Mutianus, who
had previously been consul, feasted with twenty-one guests.
Plino (xii. 8) assigns to such a cavity in a hollow tree the
somewhat large allowance of a breadth of eighty Roman
feet. The Baobab was seen by Réné Caillié in the Valley
of the Niger near Jenne, by Caillaud in Nubia, and by
Wilhelm Peters along the whole eastern coast of Africa (where
it is called Mulapa, i. e. Nlapa-tree, more properly Muti-nlapa)
as far as Lourenzo Marques, almost to 26° of S. lat.
Although Cadamosto said in the 15th century “eminentia
non quadrat magnitudini,” and although Golberry (Fragmens
d’un Voyage en Afrique, T. ii. p. 92) found in the
“Vallée des deux Gagnacks” trunks which, with 36 English
feet diameter near the roots, were only 64 English feet high,
yet this great disproportion between height and thickness
must not be regarded as general. The learned traveller
Peters remarks that “very old trees lose height by the gradual
decay of the top, while they continue to increase in
girth. On the East Coast of Africa one sees not unfrequently
trunks of little more than ten feet diameter reach a
height of 69 English feet.”
If, according to what has been said, the bold estimations
of Adanson and Perottet assign to the Adansonias measured
by them an age of from 5150 to 6000 years, which would
make them contemporaneous with the epoch of the building
of the Pyramids or even with that of Menes, a period when
the constellation of the Southern Cross was still visible in
Northern Germany (Kosmos, Bd. iii. S. 402 and 487;
Eng. ed. p. 293, and note 146), on the other hand, the
more secure estimations made from the annual rings of trees
in our northern temperate zone, and from the ratio which
has been found to subsist between the thickness of the
layer of wood and the time of growth, give us shorter periods.
Decandolle finds as the result of his inquiries, that
of all European species of trees the yew is that which attains
the greatest age. He assigns to the yew (Taxus baccata) of
Braborne, in the county of Kent, thirty centuries; to the
Scotch yew of Fortingal, from twenty-five to twenty-six;
and to those of Crowhurst in Surrey, and Ripon in Yorkshire,
respectively, fourteen and a half and twelve centuries.
(Decandolle, de la longévité des arbres, p. 65.) Endlicher
remarks that the age of another yew tree, in the Churchyard
of Grasford, in North Wales, which measures 52 English
feet in circumference below the branches, is estimated at
1400 years, and that of a yew in Derbyshire at 2096 years.
In Lithuania lime trees have been cut down which were
87 English feet in circumference, and in which 815 annual
rings have been counted. (Endlicher, Grundzüge der Botanik,
S. 399.) In the temperate zone of the southern
hemisphere some species of Eucalyptus attain an enormous
girth, and as they also reach to a great stature (above 230
Paris, 245 English, feet), they are singularly contrasted
with our yew trees, whose great dimension is in thickness
only. Mr. Backhouse found in Emu Bay, on the coast of
Van Diemen Land, trunks of Eucalyptus which measured
70 English feet round the trunk near the ground, and five
feet higher up 50 English feet. (Gould, Birds of Australia,
Vol. I. Introd. p. xv.)
It is not, as is commonly stated, Malpighi, but the
ingenious Michel Montaigne, who has the merit of having
been the first, in 1581, in his Voyage en Italie, to notice
the relation of the annual rings to the age of the tree.
(Adrien de Jussieu, Cours élémentaire de Botanique, 1840,
p. 61.) A skilful artist, engaged in the preparation of
astronomical instruments, had called the attention of Montaigne
to the annual rings; and he also maintained that the
rings were narrower on the north side of the tree. Jean
Jacques Rousseau had the same belief; and his Emile, if he
loses himself in a forest, is to direct himself by the indications
afforded by the relative thickness of the layers of wood.
More recent observations on the anatomy of plants teach us,
however, that both the acceleration and also the retardation
or intermission of growth, or the varying production of
circles of ligneous fascicles (annual deposits) from the Cambium
cells, depend on influences which are wholly distinct
from the quarter of the heavens towards which one side of
the annual rings is turned. (Kunth, Lehrbuch der Botanik,
1847, T. i. S. 146 and 164; Lindley, Introduction to Botany,
2d edition, p. 75.)
Trees which in individual cases attain a diameter of more
than twenty feet, and an age extending to many centuries,
belong to the most different natural families. I may name
here Baobabs, Dragon-trees, some species of Eucalyptus,
Taxodium disticum (Rich.), Pinus Lambertiana (Douglas),
Hymenæa courbaril, Cæsalpinieæ, Bombax, Swietenia mahagoni,
the Banyan tree (Ficus religiosa), Liriodendron
tulipifera? Platanus orientalis, and our Limes, Oaks, and
Yews. The celebrated Taxodium distichon, the Ahuahuete
of the Mexicans, (Cupressus disticha Linn., Schubertia
disticha Mirbel); at Santa Maria del Tule, in the state of
Oaxaca, has not a diameter of 57, as Decandolle says, but of
exactly 38 French (40½ English) feet. (Mühlenpfordt,
Versuch einer getreuen Schilderung der Republik Mexico,
Bd. i. S. 153.) The two fine Ahuahuetes near Chapoltepec,
which I have often seen, and which are probably the
surviving remnants of an ancient garden or pleasure-ground
of Montezuma, measure, (according to Burkart’s account
of his travels, Bd. i. S. 268, a work which otherwise contains
much information), only 36 and 38 English feet in
circumference; not in diameter, as has often been erroneously
asserted. The Buddhists in Ceylon venerate the
gigantic trunk of the sacred fig-tree of Anourahdepoura.
The Indian fig-tree or Banyan, of which the branches take
root round the parent stem, forming, as Onesicritus well
described, a leafy canopy resembling a many-pillared tent,
often attain a thickness of 28 (29½ English) feet diameter.
(Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 260.) On
the Bombax ceiba, see early notices of the time of Columbus,
in Bembo’s Historiæ Venetæ, 1551, fol. 83.
Among oak-trees, of those which have been accurately
measured, the largest in Europe is no doubt that near the
town of Saintes, in the Departement de la Charente Inférieure,
on the road to Cozes. This tree, which is 60 (64
English) feet high, has a diameter of 27 feet 8½ inches
(29½ English feet) near the ground; 21½ (almost 23 English)
feet five feet higher up; and where the great boughs
commence 6 Parisian feet (6 feet 5 inches English.) In
the dead part of the trunk a little chamber has been
arranged, from 10 feet 8 inches to 12 feet 9 inches wide,
and 9 feet 8 inches high (all English measure), with a
semi-circular bench cut out of the fresh wood. A window
gives light to the interior, so that the sides of the chamber
(which is closed with a door) are clothed with ferns and
lichens, giving it a pleasing appearance. Judging by the
size of a small piece of wood which has been cut out above
the door, and in which the marks of 200 annular rings
have been counted, the oak of Saintes would be between
1800 and 2000 years old. (Annales de la Société d’Agriculture
de la Rochelle, 1843, p. 380.)
In the wild rose-tree of the crypt of the Cathedral of
Hildesheim, said to be a thousand years old, it is the root
only, and not the stem, which is eight centuries old, according
to accurate information derived from ancient and
trustworthy original documents, for the knowledge of which
I am indebted to the kindness of Stadtgerichts-Assessor
Römer. A legend connects the rose-tree with a vow made
by the first founder of the cathedral, Ludwig the Pious;
and an original document of the 11th century says, “that
when Bishop Hezilo rebuilt the cathedral which had been
burnt down, he enclosed the roots of the rose-tree with a
vault which still exists, raised upon this vault the crypt,
which was re-consecrated in 1061, and spread out the
branches of the rose-tree upon the walls.” The stem
now living is 26½ feet high and about two inches thick,
and the outspread branches cover about 32 feet of the
external wall of the eastern crypt; it is doubtless of considerable
antiquity, and well deserving of the celebrity which
it has gained throughout Germany.
If extraordinary development in point of size is to be
regarded as a proof of long continued organic life, particular
attention is due to one of the thalassophytes of the
sub-marine vegetable world, i. e., to the Fucus giganteus,
or Macrocystis pyrifera of Agardh. According to Captain
Cook and George Forster, this sea-plant attains a length of
360 English feet; surpassing, therefore, the height of the
loftiest Coniferæ, even that of the Sequoia gigantea, Endl.,
or Taxodium sempervirens, Hook and Arnott, which grows in
California. (Darwin, Journal of Researches into Natural
History, 1845, p. 239; and Captain Fitz-Roy in the Narrative
of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. ii.
p. 363.) Macrocystis pyrifera is found from 64° south to
45° north latitude, as far as San Francisco on the north-west
coast of America; and Joseph Hooker believes it to
extend as far as Kamtschatka. In the Antarctic seas it is
even seen floating among the pack-ice. (Joseph Hooker,
Botany of the Antarctic Voyage under the command of Sir
James Ross, 1844, pp. 7, 1, and 178; Camille Montagne,
Botanique cryptogame du Voyage de la Bonite, 1846,
p. 36.) The immense length to which the bands or ribbands
and the cords or lines of the cellular tissue of the
Macrocystis attain, appears to be limited only by accidental
injuries.
[13] p. 17.—“Species of phænogamous plants already
contained in herbariums.”
We must carefully distinguish between three different
questions: How many species of plants are described in
printed works? how many have been discovered, i. e. are
contained in herbariums, though without being described?
how many are probably existing on the globe? Murray’s
edition of the Linnean system contains, including cryptogamia,
only 10042 species. Willdenow, in his edition of
the Species Plantarum, between the years 1797 and 1807,
had already described 17457 phænogamous species, (from
Monandria to Polygamia diœcia.) If we add 3000 cryptogamous
species, we obtain the number which Willdenow mentions,
viz. 20000 species. More recent researches have shown
how much this estimation of the number of species described
and contained in herbariums falls short of the truth. Robert
Brown counted above 37000 phænogamous plants.
(General Remarks on the Botany of Terra Australis, p. 4.)
I afterwards attempted to give the geographical distribution
(in different parts of the earth already explored), of 44000
phænogamous and cryptogamous plants. (Humboldt, de
distributione geographica Plantarum, p. 23.) Decandolle
found, in comparing Persoon’s Enchiridium with his Universal
System in 12 several families, that the writings of
botanists and European herbariums taken together might
be assumed to contain upwards of 56000 species of plants.
(Essai élementaire de Géographie botanique, p. 62.) If
we consider how many species have since that period been
described by travellers,—(my expedition alone furnished
3600 of the 5800 collected species of the equinoctial
zone),—and if we remember that in all the botanical
gardens taken together there are certainly above 25000
phænogamous plants cultivated, we shall easily perceive
how much Decandolle’s number falls short of the truth.
Completely unacquainted as we still are with the larger
portions of the interior of South America,—(Mato-Grosso,
Paraguay, the eastern declivity of the Andes, Santa Cruz
de la Sierra, and all the countries between the Orinoco, the
Rio Negro, the Amazons, and Puruz),—of Africa, Madagascar,
Borneo, and Central and Eastern Asia,—the thought
rises involuntarily in the mind that we may not yet
know the third, or probably even the fifth part of the
plants existing on the earth! Drège has collected 7092
species of phænogamous plants in South Africa alone.
(See Meyer’s pflanzen geographische Documente, S. 5 and
12.) He believes that the Flora of that district consists
of more than 11000 phænogamous species, while on a
surface of equal area (12000 German, or 192000 English
square geographical miles) von Koch has described in
Germany or Switzerland 3300, and Decandolle in France
3645 species of phænogamous plants. I would also recall
that even now new Genera, (some even consisting of tall
forest trees), are being discovered in the small West Indian
Islands which have been visited by Europeans for three
centuries, and in the vicinity of large commercial towns.
These considerations, which I propose to develop in further
detail at the close of the present annotation, make it
probable that the actual number of species exceeds that
spoken of in the old myth of the Zend-Avesta, which says
that “the Primeval Creating Power called forth from the
blood of the sacred bull 120000 different forms of plants!”
If, then, we cannot look for any direct scientific solution
of the question of how many forms of the vegetable kingdom,—including
leafless Cryptogamia (water Algæ, funguses, and
lichens), Characeæ, liver-worts, mosses, Marsilaceæ, Lycopodiaceæ,
and ferns,—exist on the dry land and in the ocean
in the present state of the organic life of our globe, we may
yet attempt an approximate method by which we may find
some probable “lowest limits” or numerical minima. Since
1815, I have sought, in arithmetical considerations relating
to the geography of plants, to examine first the ratios which
the number of species in the different natural families bear
to the entire mass of the phænogamous vegetation in countries
where the latter is sufficiently well known. Robert
Brown, the greatest botanist among our cotemporaries, had
previously determined the numerical proportions of the
leading divisions of the vegetable kingdom; of Acotyledons
(Agamæ, Cryptogamic or cellular plants) to Cotyledons
(Phanerogamic or vascular plants), and of Monocotyledonous
(Endogenous) to Dicotyledonous (Exogenous) plants. He
finds the ratio of Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons in the tropical
zone as 1 : 5, and in the cold zones of the parallels of
60° N. and 55° S. latitude, as 1 : 2½. (Robert Brown, General
Remarks on the Botany of Terra Australis, in Flinders’
Voyage, vol. ii. p. 338.) The absolute number of species in
the three leading divisions of the vegetable kingdom are
compared together in that work according to the method
there laid down. I was the first to pass from these leading
divisions to the divisions of the several families, and to consider
the ratio which the number of species of each family
bears to the entire mass of phænogamous plants belonging
to a zone of the earth’s surface. (Compare my memoir
entitled De distributione geographica Plantarum secundum
cœli temperiem et altitudinem montium, 1817, p. 24-44;
and the farther development of the subject of these numerical
relations given by me in the Dictionnaire des Sciences
naturelles, T. xviii. 1820, p. 422-436; and in the Annales
de Chimie et de Physique, T. xvi. 1821, p. 267-292.)
The numerical relations of the forms of plants, and the
laws observed in their geographical distribution, may be considered
in two very different ways. If plants are studied in
their arrangement according to natural families, without
regard to their geographical distribution, it is asked, What
are the fundamental forms or types of organisation to which
the greatest number of species correspond? Are there on
the entire surface of the earth more Glumaceæ than Compositæ?
Do these two orders make up between them one-fourth
part of the whole number of phænogamous plants?
What is the proportion of Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons?
These are questions of General Phytology, or of the science
which investigates the organisation of plants and their
mutual connection, or the present state of the entire vegetable
world.
If, on the other hand, the species of plants which have
been grouped according to the analogy of their structure are
considered, not abstractedly, but according to their climatic
relations, or according to their distribution over the surface
of the earth, we have questions offering quite another and
distinct interest. We then examine what are the families
which prevail more in proportion to other Phanerogamæ in
the torrid zone than towards the polar circle? Are Compositæ
more numerous, either in the same geographical latitudes
or on the same isothermal lines, in the New than in
the Old Continent? Do the forms which gradually lose
their predominance in advancing from the equator towards
the poles follow a similar law of decrease in ascending mountains
situated in the equatorial regions? Do the proportions
of particular families to the whole mass of Phanerogamæ
differ in the temperate zones, and on equal isothermal lines,
north and south of the equator? These questions belong
properly to the Geography of Plants, and connect themselves
with the most important problems of meteorology and
terrestrial physics. The character of a landscape or country
is also in a high degree dependent on the predominance of
particular families of plants, which render it either desolate
or adorned, smiling or majestic. Grasses forming extensive
savannahs, Palms and other trees affording food, or social
Coniferæ forming forests, have powerfully influenced nations
in respect to their material condition, to their manners,
to their mental dispositions, and to the more or less rapid
development of their prosperity.
In studying the geographical distribution of forms, we
may consider species, genera, and natural families, separately.
In social plants, a single species often covers extensive tracts
of country; as in northern regions forests of Pines or
Firs and extensive heaths (ericeta), in Spain cistus-covered
grounds, and in tropical America assemblages of the same
species of Cactus, Croton, Brathys, or Bambusa Guadua.
It is interesting to examine these relations more closely,
and to view in one case the great multiplicity of individuals,
and in another the variety of organic development.
We may inquire what species produces the greatest
number of individuals in a particular zone, or we may ask
which are the families to which, in different climates, the
greatest number of species belong. In a high northern
region, where the Compositæ and the Ferns are to the sum
of all the phænogamous plants in the ratio of 1 : 13 and
1 : 25 (i. e. where these ratios are found by dividing the
sum total of all the Phanerogamæ by the number of species
belonging to the family of Compositæ or to that of Filices
or Ferns), it may nevertheless happen that a single species
of fern covers ten times more ground than do all the species
of Compositæ taken together. In this case Ferns predominate
over Compositæ by their mass, or by the number
of individuals belonging to the same species of Pteris or
Polypodium; but they do not so predominate if we only
compare the number of the different specific forms of Filices
and Compositæ with the sum of all the phænogamous plants.
Since, then, multiplication of plants does not follow the
same law in all species,—that is to say, all species do not
produce the same number of individuals,—therefore the
quotients given by dividing the sum of the phænogamous
plants by the number of species belonging to one family, do
not suffice by themselves to determine the character of the
landscape, or the physiognomy which Nature assumes in
different regions of the earth. If the attention of the
travelling botanist is engaged by the frequent repetition of
the same species, their mass, and the uniformity of vegetation
thus produced, it is even more arrested by the rarity or infrequency
of several other species which are valuable to
mankind. In tropical regions, where the Rubiaceæ, Myrtaceæ,
Leguminosæ, or Terebinthaceæ, form forests, one is
astonished to find the trees of Cinchona, particular species
of Swietenia (Mahogany), Hæmatoxylon, Styrax, and balsamic
Myroxylum, so sparingly distributed. We had occasion,
on the declivities of the high plains of Bogota and Popayan,
and in the country round Loxa, in descending towards the
unhealthy valley of the Catamayo and to the Amazons
River, to remark the manner in which the trees which
furnish the precious fever-bark (species of Cinchona) are
found singly and at considerable distances from each other.
The China Hunters, Cazadores de Cascarilla (the name given
at Loxa to the Indians and Mestizoes who collect each year
the most efficacious of all fever-barks, that of the Cinchona
Condaminea, among the lonely mountains of Caxanuma,
Uritusinga, and Rumisitana), climb, not without peril, to
the summits of the loftiest forest trees in order to gain a
wide prospect, and to discern the solitarily scattered slender
aspiring trunks of the trees of which they are in search, and
which they recognise by the shining reddish tint of their
large leaves. The mean temperature of this important
forest region, situated in 4° to 4½° S. lat. and at an elevation
of about 6400 to 8000 English feet, is from 12½° to 16°
Réaumur (60°·2 to 68° Fahr.) (Humboldt and Bonpland,
Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 88, tab. 10.)
In considering the distribution of species, we may also
proceed, without regard to the multiplication of individuals, to
the masses which they form or the space which they occupy,
and may simply compare together the absolute number of
species belonging to a particular family in each country.
This is the mode of comparison which Decandolle has
employed in the work entitled Regni vegetabilis Systema
naturale (T. i. p. 128, 396, 439, 464, and 510), and
Kunth has carried it out in regard to the whole number of
species of Compositæ at present known (above 3300). It
does not show which is the predominant family either in
the number of species or in the quantity of individuals as
compared with other families; it merely tells how many of the
species of one and the same family are indigenous in each
country or each quarter of the world. The results of this
method are on the whole more exact, because they are
obtained by the careful study of single families without
the necessity of being acquainted with the whole number of
the phanerogamæ belonging to each country. The most
varied forms of Ferns, for example, are found between the
tropics; it is there, in the tempered heat of moist and
shaded places in mountainous islands, that each genus
presents the largest number of species: this variety of
species in each genus diminishes in passing from the
tropical to the temperate zone, and decreases still farther
in approaching nearer to the pole. Nevertheless, as in the
cold zone—in Lapland, for example—those plants succeed
best which can best resist the cold, so the species of Ferns,
although the absolute number is less than in France or
Germany, are yet relatively more numerous than in those
countries; i. e. their number bears a greater proportion to
the sum total of all the phanerogamous plants of the
country. These proportions or ratios, given as above-mentioned
by quotients, are in France and Germany 1⁄73 and
1⁄71, and in Lapland 1⁄25. I published numerical ratios of
this kind,—(i. e. the entire quantity of phænogamous
plants in each of the different Floras divided by the number
of species in each family)—in my Prolegomenis de distributione
geographica Plantarum, in 1817; and in the
Memoir on the distribution of plants over the Earth’s
surface, subsequently published in the French language, I
corrected my previously published numbers by Robert
Brown’s great works. In advancing from the Equator
to the Poles, the ratios taken in this manner vary considerably
from the numbers which would be obtained from a
comparison of the absolute number of species belonging to
each family. We often find the value of the fraction increase
by the decrease of the denominator, while yet the absolute
number of species has diminished. In the method
by fractions, which I have followed as more instructive in
reference to the geography of plants, there are two variables;
for in proceeding from one isothermal line, or one
zone of equal temperature, to another, we do not see the
sum total of all the phanerogamæ change in the same proportion
as does the number of species belonging to a particular
family.
We may, if we please, pass from the consideration of
species to that of divisions formed in the natural system of
botany according to an ideal series of abstractions, and
direct our attention to Genera, to Families, and even to the
still higher, i. e. more comprehensive, Classes. There are
some genera, and even some entire families, which belong
exclusively to particular zones of the Earth’s surface; and
this not only because they can only flourish under a particular
combination of climatic conditions, but also because both
the localities in which they originated, and their migrations,
have been limited. It is otherwise with the greater number
of genera and of families, which have their representatives
in all regions of the globe, and at all latitudes of elevation.
The earliest investigations into the distribution of vegetable
forms related solely to genera; we find them in a valuable
work of Treviranus, in his Biology (Bd. ii. S. 47, 63, 83, and
129). This method is, however, less fitted to afford general
results than that which compares either the number of species
of each family, or the great leading divisions (of Acotyledons,
Monocotyledons, and Dicotyledons) with the sum of all the
phanerogamæ. We find that in the cold zones the variety
of forms does not decrease so much if estimated by genera
as if estimated by species; in other words, we find relatively
more genera and fewer species. (Decandolle, Théorie élémentaire
de la Botanique, p. 190; Humboldt, Nova genera
et species Plantarum, T. i pp. xvi. and 1.) It is almost
the same in the case of high mountains whose summits
support single members of a large number of genera, which
we should have been à priori inclined to regard as belonging
exclusively to the vegetation of the plains.
I have thought it desirable to indicate the different points
of view from which the laws of the geographical distribution
of plants may be considered. It is by confounding these
different points of view that apparent contradictions are
found; which are unjustly attributed to uncertainties of
observation. (Jahrbücher der Gewächskunde, Bd. i
Berlin, 1818, S. 18, 21, 30.) When such expressions as
the following are made use of—“This form, or this
family, diminishes as the cold zones are approached;—it
has its true home in such or such a latitude;—it is a
southern form;—it predominates in the temperate zone;”
care should always be taken to state expressly whether the
writer is speaking of the absolute number of species, and
its increase or decrease with the change of latitude; or
whether he means that the family in question prevails
over other families of plants as compared with the entire
number of phanerogamæ of which a Flora consists. The
impression of prevalence as conveyed by the eye depends
on relative quantity.
Terrestrial physics have their numerical elements, as has
the System of the Universe, or Celestial Physics, and by
the united labours of botanical travellers we may expect to
arrive gradually at a true knowledge of the laws which
determine the geographical and climatic distribution of
vegetable forms. I have already remarked that in the
temperate zone the Compositæ (Synanthereæ), and the Glumaceæ
(including under this latter name the three families
of Grasses, Cyperoidæ and Juncaceæ), make up the fourth
part of all phænogamous plants. The following numerical
ratios are the results of my investigations for 7 great families
of the vegetable kingdom in the same temperate zone.
The forms of organic beings are in reciprocal dependence
on each other. In the unity of nature these forms limit
each other according to laws which are probably attached
to periods of long duration. If on any particular part of
the globe we know with accuracy the number of species of
one of the great families of Glumaceæ, Leguminosæ, or
Compositæ, we may with a tolerable degree of probability
form approximative inferences, both as to the sum of all the
phanerogamæ of the country, and also as to the number
of species belonging to the rest of the leading families of
plants. The number of Cyperoidæ determines that of
Compositæ, and the number of Compositæ that of Leguminosæ;
they even enable us to judge in what classes or
orders the Floras of countries are still incomplete, and
teach us, if we are on our guard against confounding
together very different systems of vegetation, what harvest
may still remain to be reaped in the several families.
The comparison of the numerical ratios of families in
different already well explored zones, has conducted me to
the recognition of laws according to which, in proceeding
from the equator to the poles, the vegetable forms constituting
a natural family decrease or increase as compared
with the whole mass of phanerogamæ belonging to each
zone. We have here to regard not only the direction of
the change (whether an increase or a decrease), but also its
rapidity or measure. We see the denominator of the
fraction which expresses the ratio increase or decrease: let
us take as our example the beautiful family of Leguminosæ,
which decreases in going from the equinoctial zone towards
the North Pole. If we find its proportion or ratio for the
torrid zone (from 0° to 10° of latitude) at 1⁄10, we obtain
for the part of the temperate zone which is between 45°
and 52° latitude 1⁄18, and for the frigid zone (lat. 67° to
70°) only 1⁄35. The direction followed by the great family
of Leguminosæ (increase on approaching the equator), is
also that of the Rubiaceæ, the Euphorbiaceæ, and especially
the Malvaceæ. On the contrary, the Grasses and Juncaceæ
(the latter still more than the former), diminish in approaching
the equator, as do also the Ericeæ and Amentaceæ.
The Compositæ, Labiatæ, Umbelliferæ, and Cruciferæ, decrease
in proceeding from the temperate zone, either towards
the pole or towards the equator, the Umbelliferæ and Cruciferæ
decreasing most rapidly in the last-named direction;
while at the same time in the temperate zone the Cruciferæ
are three times more numerous in Europe than in the United
States of North America. On reaching Greenland the
Labiatæ have entirely disappeared with the exception of
one, and the Umbelliferæ with the exception of two species;
the entire number of phænogamous species, still amounting,
according to Hornemann, to 315 species.
It must be remarked at the same time that the development
of plants of different families, and the distribution of
vegetable forms, does not depend exclusively on geographical,
or even on isothermal latitude; the quotients are not always
on the same isothermal line in the temperate zone, for
example, in the plains of North America and those of the
Old Continent. Within the tropics there is a very sensible
difference between America, India, and the West Coast of
Africa. The distribution of organic beings over the surface
of the earth does not depend wholly on thermic or climatic
relations, which are of themselves very complicated, but also
on geological causes almost unknown to us, belonging to the
original state of the earth, and to catastrophes which have
not affected all parts of our planet simultaneously. The
large pachydermatous animals are at the present time wanting
in the New Continent, while we still find them in
analogous climates in Asia and Africa. These differences
ought not to deter us from endeavouring to search out the
concealed laws of nature, but should rather stimulate us to
the study of them through all their intricacies.
The numerical laws of the families of plants, the often
striking agreement of the numbers expressing their ratios,
where yet the species of which the families consist are for
the most part different, conduct us into the mysterious
obscurity which envelopes all that is connected with the fixing
of organic types in the species of plants and animals, or
with their original formation or creation. I will take as
examples two adjoining countries which have both been
thoroughly explored—France and Germany. In France,
many species of Grasses, Umbelliferæ and Cruciferæ, Compositæ,
Leguminosæ, and Labiatæ, are wanting which are
common in Germany; and yet the numerical ratios of these
six great families are almost identical in the two countries,
as will be seen by the subjoined comparison.
Families.
Germany.
France.
Gramineæ.
1⁄13
1⁄13
Umbelliferæ.
1⁄22
1⁄21
Cruciferæ.
1⁄18
1⁄19
Compositæ.
1⁄8
1⁄7
Leguminosæ.
1⁄18
1⁄16
Labiatæ.
1⁄26
1⁄24
This agreement in the number of species in each family
compared to the whole number of phenogamous species in
the Floras of France and Germany, would not by any means
exist if the German species which are missing in France
were not replaced there by other types belonging to the
same families. Those who are fond of imagining gradual
transformations of species, and suppose the different kinds
of parrots proper to two islands not far removed from each
other to present examples of such a change, will be inclined
to attribute the remarkable similarity between the two columns
of figures which have just been given, to a migration of
species, which, having been the same at first, have been altered
gradually by the long-continued action of climatic causes
during thousands of years, so that their identity being lost
they appear to replace each other. But why is it that our
common heather (Calluna vulgaris), why is it that our oaks
have never advanced to the eastward of the Ural Mountains,
and so passed from Europe to Northern Asia? Why is there
no species of the genus Rosa in the Southern Hemisphere,
and why are there scarcely any Calceolarias in the Northern
Hemisphere? The necessary conditions of temperature are
insufficient to explain this. Thermic relations alone cannot,
any more than the hypothesis of migrations of plants
radiating from certain central points, explain the present
distribution of fixed organic forms. Thermic relations
are hardly sufficient to explain the limits beyond which
individual species do not pass, either in latitude towards
the pole at the level of the sea, or in vertical elevation
towards the summits of mountains. The cycle of vegetation
in each species, however different its duration may be,
requires, in order to be successfully passed through, a certain
minimum of temperature. (Playfair, in the Transactions
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. v. 1805, p.
202; Humboldt, on the sum of the degrees of temperature
required for the cycle of vegetation in the Cerealia, in Mem.
sur les lignes isothermes, p. 96; Boussingault, Economie
rurale, T, ii. p. 659, 663, and 667; Alphonse Decandolle
sur les causes qui limitent les espèces végétales, 1847, p. 8.)
But all the conditions necessary for the existence of a plant,
either as diffused naturally or by cultivation,—conditions of
latitude or minimum distance from the pole, and of
elevation or maximum height above the level of the sea,—are
farther complicated by the difficulty of determining
the commencement of the thermic cycle of vegetation,
and by the influence which the unequal distribution of
the same quantity of heat into groups of successive days
and nights exercises on the excitability, the progressive
development, and the whole vital process; to all this
must be farther added hygrometric influences and those of
atmospheric electricity.
My investigations respecting the numerical laws of the
distribution of forms may possibly be applied at some future
day with advantage to the different classes of Rotiferæ in
the animal creation. The rich collections at the Museum
d’Histoire Naturelle in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris,
already contained, in 1820, (according to approximate estimations)
above 56000 phænogamous and cryptogamous
plants in herbariums, 44000 insects (a number doubtless
too small, though given me by Latreille), 2500 species of
fish, 700 reptiles, 4000 birds, and 500 mammalia. Europe
has about 80 species of indigenous mammalia, 400 birds,
and 30 reptiles. In the Northern temperate zone, therefore,
the species of birds are five times more numerous than
those of mammalia, as there are in Europe five times as many
Compositæ as there are Amentaceæ and Coniferæ, and five
times as many Leguminosæ as there are Orchideæ and Euphorbiaceæ.
In the southern hemisphere the ratio of mammalia
is in tolerably striking agreement, being as 1 to 4·3. Birds,
and still more reptiles, increase in the number of species
in approaching the torrid zone more than the mammalia.
Cuvier’s researches might lead us to believe that the proportion
was different in the earlier state of things, and that
many more mammalia had perished by revolutions of Nature
than birds. Latreille has shewn what groups of insects
increase towards the pole, and what towards the equator.
Illiger has given the countries of 3800 species of birds
according to the quarters of the globe: it would have been
much more instructive if the same thing had been done
according to zones. We should find little difficulty in
comprehending how on a given space of the earth’s surface
the individuals of a class of plants or animals limit each
other’s numbers, or how, after long continued contest and
many fluctuations caused by the requirements of nourishment
and mode of life, a state of equilibrium should be at
last established; but the causes which have limited not the
number of individuals of a form, but the forms themselves,
in a particular space, and founded their typical diversity, are
placed beneath the impenetrable veil which still conceals
from our eyes all that relates to the manner of the first
creation and commencement of organic beings.
If, then, we would attempt to solve the question spoken
of in the early part of this dissertation, by giving in
an approximate manner the numerical limit, (le nombre
limite of French mathematicians), which the whole phanerogamæ
now existing on the surface of the earth cannot
be supposed to fall short of, we may perhaps find our safest
guide in a comparison of the numerical ratios (which, as
we have seen, may be assumed to exist between the different
families of plants), with the number of species contained in
herbariums and cultivated in our great botanic gardens. I
have said that in 1820 the number of species contained in
the herbariums of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris was
already estimated at 56000. I do not permit myself to
conjecture the amount which the herbariums of England
may contain; but the great Paris herbarium, which was
formed with much personal sacrifice by Benjamin Delessert,
and given by him for free and general use, was stated at
his death to contain 86000 species; a number almost equal
to that which, as late as 1835, was conjecturally assigned
by Lindley as that of all the species existing on the whole
earth. (Lindley, Introduction to Botany, 2d edit. p. 504.)
Few herbariums have been reckoned with care, after a complete
and strict separation and withdrawal of all mere varieties.
Not a few plants contained in smaller collections are
still wanting in the greater herbariums which are supposed
to be general or complete. Dr. Klotzsch estimates the
present entire number of phænogamous plants in the great
Royal Herbarium at Schöneberg, near Berlin, of which he
is the curator, at 74000 species.
Loudon’s useful work, Hortus Britannicus, gives an approximate
view of all the species which are, or at no remote
time have been, cultivated in British gardens: the edition
of 1832 enumerates, including indigenous plants, exactly
26660 phænogamous species. We must not confound with
this large number of plants which have grown or been cultivated
at any time and in any part of the whole British
Islands, the number of living plants which can be shewn at
any single moment of time in any single botanic garden.
In this last-named respect the Botanic Garden of Berlin has
long been regarded as one of the richest in Europe. The
fame of its extraordinary riches rested formerly only on
uncertain and approximate estimations, and, as my fellow-labourer
and friend of many years’ standing, Professor
Kunth, has justly remarked (in manuscript notices communicated
to the Gartenbau-Verein in December 1846),
“no real enumeration or computation could be made until
a systematic catalogue, based on a rigorous examination of
species, had been prepared. Such an enumeration has
given rather above 14060 species: if we deduct from this
number 375 cultivated Ferns, we have remaining 13685
phænogamous species; among which we find 1600 Compositæ,
1150 Leguminosæ, 428 Labiatæ, 370 Umbelliferæ,
460 Orchideæ, 60 Palms, and 600 Grasses and Cyperaceæ.
If we compare with these numbers those of the species
already described in recent works,—Compositæ (Decandolle
and Walpers) about 10000; Leguminosæ, 8070; Labiatæ
(Bentham), 2190; Umbelliferæ, 1620; Grasses, 3544;
and Cyperaceæ (Kunth, Enumeratio Plantarum), 2000;—we
shall perceive that the Berlin Botanic Garden cultivates,
of the very large families (Compositæ, Leguminosæ, and
Grasses), only 1-7th, 1-8th, and 1-9th;—and of the small
families (Labiatæ and Umbelliferæ), about 1-5th, or 1-4th,
of described species. If, then, we estimate the number of all
the different phænogamous plants cultivated at one time in all
the botanic gardens of Europe at 20000, we find that the cultivated
species appear to be about the eighth part of those which
are already either described or preserved in herbariums, and
that these must nearly amount to 160000. This estimate
need not be thought excessive, since of many of the
larger families, (for example, Guttiferæ, Malpighiaceæ, Melastomeæ,
Myrtaceæ, and Rubiaceæ), hardly a hundredth
part are found in our garden.” If we take the number
given by Loudon in his Hortus Britannicus (26660 species)
as a basis, we shall find, (according to the justly drawn
succession of inferences of Professor Kunth, in the manuscript
notices from which I have borrowed the above), the
estimate of 160000 species rise to 213000; and even this
is still very moderate, for Heynhold’s Nomenclator botanicus
hortensis (1846) even rates the phænogamous species then
cultivated at 35600; whereas I have employed Loudon’s number
for 1832, viz. 26660. On the whole it would appear from
what has been said,—and the conclusion is at first sight a
sufficiently striking one,—that at present there are almost
more known species of phænogamous plants (with which we are
acquainted by gardens, descriptions, or herbariums), than there
are known insects. According to the average of the statements
which I have received from several of our most distinguished
entomologists whom I have had the opportunity of
consulting, the number of insects at present described, or
contained in collections without being described, may be
taken at between 150000 and 170000 species. The rich
Berlin collection does not contain less than 90000 species,
among which are about 82000 Coleoptera. A very large
number of plants have been collected in distant parts of
the globe, without the insects which live on them or near
them being brought at the same time. If, however, we
limit the estimates of numbers to a single part of the world,
and that the one which has been the best explored in respect
to both plants and insects, viz. Europe, we find a very
different proportion; for while we can hardly enumerate
between seven and eight thousand European phænogamous
plants, more than three times that number of European
insects are already known. According to the interesting
communications of my friend Dohrn at Stettin, 8700 insects
have already been collected from the rich Fauna of that
vicinity, (and many micro-Lepidopteræ are still wanting),
while the phænogamous plants of the same district scarcely
exceed 1000. The Insect Fauna of Great Britain is estimated
at 11600 species. Such a preponderance of animal
forms need the less surprise us, since large classes of insects
subsist solely on animal substances, and others on agamous
vegetation (funguses, and even those which are subterranean).
Bombyx pini alone (the spider which infests the
Scotch fir, and is the most destructive of all forest insects),
is visited, according to Ratzeburg, by thirty-five parasitical
Ichneumonides.
If these considerations have led us to the proportion
borne by the species of plants cultivated in gardens to the
entire amount of those which are already either described or
preserved in herbariums, we have still to consider the proportion
borne by the latter to what we conjecture to be the
whole number of forms existing upon the earth at the present
time; i. e. to test the assumed minimum of such forms by the
relative numbers of species in the different families, therefore,
by uncertain multipliers. Such a test, however, gives
for the lowest limit or minimum number results so low as
to lead us to perceive that even in the great families,—our
knowledge of which has been of late most strikingly enriched
by the descriptions of botanists,—we are still
acquainted with only a small part of existing plants.
The Repertorium of Walpers completes Decandolle’s Prodromus
of 1825, up to 1846: we find in it, in the family
of Leguminosæ, 8068 species. We may assume the ratio,
or relative numerical proportion of this family to all phænogamous
plants, to be 1⁄21—as we find it 1⁄10 within
the tropics, 1⁄18 in the middle temperate, and 1⁄33 in the
cold northern zone. The described Leguminosæ would
thus lead us to assume only 169400 existing phænogamous
species on the whole surface of the earth, whereas, as we
have shewn, the Compositæ indicate more than 160000
already known species. The discordance is instructive, and
may be further elucidated and illustrated by the following
analogous considerations.
The major part of the Compositæ, of which Linnæus knew
only 785 species and which has now grown to 12000,
appear to belong to the Old Continent: at least Decandolle
described only 3590 American, whilst the European, Asiatic,
and African species amounted to 5093. This apparent
richness in Compositæ is, however, illusive, and considerable
only in appearance; the ratio or quotient of the family,
(1⁄15 between the tropics, 1⁄7 in the temperate zone, and 1⁄13 in
the cold zone), shews that even more species of Compositæ
than Leguminosæ must hitherto have escaped the researches
of travellers; for a multiplication by 12 would give us only
the improbably low number of 144000 Phænogamous
species. The families of Grasses and Cyperaceæ give still
lower results, because comparatively still fewer of their
species have been described and collected. We have only
to cast our eyes on the map of South America, remembering
the wide extent of territory occupied by grassy plains, not
only in Venezuela and on the banks of the Apure and the
Meta, but also to the south of the forest-covered regions of
the Amazons, in Chaco, Eastern Tucuman, and the Pampas
of Buenos Ayres and Patagonia, bearing in mind that of
all these extensive regions the greater part have never been
explored by botanists, and the remainder only imperfectly
and incompletely so. Northern and Central Asia offer an
almost equal extent of Steppes, but in which, however,
dicotyledonous herbaceous plants are more largely mingled
with the Gramineæ. If we had sufficient grounds for believing
that we are now acquainted with half the phænogamous
plants on the globe, and if we took the number of
known species only at one or other of the before-mentioned
numbers of 160000 or 213000, we should still have to
take the number of grasses (the general proportion of which
appears to be 1⁄12), in the first case at least at 26000, and
in the second case at 35000 different species, which would
give respectively in the two cases only either 1⁄8 or 1⁄10 part
as known.
The assumption that we already know half the existing
species of phænogamous plants is farther opposed by
the following considerations. Several thousand species
of Monocotyledons and Dycotyledons, and among them
tall trees,—(I refer here to my own Expedition),—have
been discovered in regions, considerable portions of which
had been previously examined by distinguished botanists.
The portions of the great continents which have never
even been trodden by botanical observers considerably exceed
in area those which have been traversed by such travellers,
even in a superficial manner. The greatest variety
of phænogamous vegetation, i. e. the greatest number of
species on a given area, is found between the tropics, and
in the sub-tropical zones. This last-mentioned consideration
renders it so much the more important to remember
how almost entirely unacquainted we are, on the
New Continent, north of the equator, with the Floras of
Oaxaca, Yucatan, Guatimala, Nicaragua, the Isthmus of
Panama, Choco, Antioquia, and the Provincia de los Pastos;—and
south of the equator, with the Floras of the vast
forest region: between the Ucayale, the Rio de la Madera,
and the Tocantin (three great tributaries of the Amazons),
and with those of Paraguay and the Provincia de los Missiones.
In Africa, except in respect to the coasts, we know
nothing of the vegetation from 15° north to 20° south latitude;
in Asia we are unacquainted with the Floras of the
south and south-east of Arabia, where the highlands rise to
about 6400 English feet above the level of the sea,—of the
countries between the Thian-schan, the Kuenlün, and the
Himalaya, all the west part of China, and the greater part of
the countries beyond the Ganges. Still more unknown to
the botanist are the interior of Borneo, New Guinea,
and part of Australia. Farther to the south the number
of species undergoes a wonderful diminution, as Joseph
Hooker has well and ably shewn from his own observation in
his Antarctic Flora. The three islands of which New Zealand
consists extend from 34½° to 47¼° S. latitude, and as they
contain, moreover, snowy mountains of above 8850 English
feet elevation, they must include considerable diversity of
climate. The Northern Island has been examined with
tolerable completeness from the voyage of Banks and Solander
to Lesson and the Brothers Cunningham and Colenso,
and yet in more than 70 years we have only become acquainted
with less than 700 phænogamous species. (Dieffenbach,
Travels in New Zealand, 1843, vol. i. p. 419.)
The paucity of vegetable corresponds to the paucity of
animal species. Joseph Hooker, in his Flora Antarctica,
p. 73-75, remarks that the “botany of the densely wooded
regions of the Southern Islands of the New Zealand groups
and of Fuegia is much more meagre not only than that of
similarly clothed regions of Europe, but of islands many
degrees nearer to the Northern pole than these are to the
Southern one. Iceland, for instance, which is from 8 to 10
degrees farther from the equator than the Auckland and
the Campbell Islands, contains certainly five times as many
flowering plants. In the Antarctic Flora, under the influence
of a cool and moist, but singularly equable climate,
great uniformity, arising from paucity of species, is associated
with great luxuriance of vegetation. This striking
uniformity prevails both at different levels, (the species found
on the plains appearing also on the slopes of the mountains),
and over vast extents of country, from the south of
Chili to Patagonia, and even to Tierra del Fuego, or from
lat. 45° to 56°. Compare, on the other hand, in the northern
temperate region, the Flora of the South of France,
in the latitude of the Chonos Archipelago on the coast of
Chili, with the Flora of Argyleshire in Scotland in the
latitude of Cape Horn, and how great a difference of species
is found; while in the Southern Hemisphere the same types
of vegetation pass through many degrees of latitude.
Lastly, on Walden Island, in lat. 80½° N., or not ten
degrees from the North Pole of the earth, ten species of
flowering plants have been collected, while in the southernmost
islet of the South Shetlands, though only in lat.
63° S., only a solitary grass was found.” These considerations
on the distribution of plants confirm the belief that
the great mass of still unobserved, uncollected, and undescribed
flowering plants must be sought for in tropical
countries, and in the latitudes from 12° to 15° distant from
the tropics.
It has appeared to me not unimportant to show the imperfect
state of our knowledge in this still little cultivated
department of arithmetical botany, and to propound numerical
questions in a more distinct and determinate manner
than could have been previously done. In all conjectures
respecting numerical relations we must seek first for the
possibility of deducing the lower or minimum limits; as in
a question treated of by me elsewhere, on the proportion of
coined gold and silver to the quantity of the precious metal
fabricated in other ways; or as in the questions of how
many stars, from the 10th to the 12th magnitude, are
dispersed over the sky, and how many of the smallest
telescopic stars the Milky Way may contain. (John
Herschel, Results of Astron. Observ. at the Cape of Good
Hope, 1847, p. 381.) We may consider it as established,
that if it were possible to know completely and thoroughly
by observation all the species belonging to one of the great
families of phanerogamous or flowering plants, we should
learn thereby at the same time, approximatively, the entire
sum of all such plants (including all the families). As, therefore,
by the progressive exploration of new countries we
progressively and gradually exhaust the remaining unknown
species of any of the great families, the previously assigned
lowest limit rises gradually higher, and since the forms reciprocally
limit each other in conformity with still undiscovered
laws of universal organisation, we approach continually
nearer to the solution of the great numerical problem of
organic life. But is the number of organic forms itself a
constant number? Do new vegetable forms spring from
the ground after long periods of time, while others become
more and more rare, and at last disappear? Geology, by
means of her historical monuments of ancient terrestrial
life, answers to the latter portion of this question affirmatively.
“In the Ancient World,” to use the remark of an
eminent naturalist, Link (Abhandl. der Akad. der Wiss.
zu Berlin aus dem Jahr 1846, S. 322), “we see characters,
now apparently remote and widely separated from each
other, associated or crowded together in wondrous forms, as
if a greater development and separation awaited a later age
in the history of our planet.”
[14] p. 19.—“If the height of the aerial ocean and
its pressure have not always been the same.”
The pressure of the atmosphere has a decided influence
on the form and life of plants. From the abundance and
importance of their leafy organs provided with porous
openings, plants live principally in and through their
surfaces; and hence their dependence on the surrounding
medium. Animals are dependent rather on internal
impulses and stimuli; they originate and maintain
their own temperature, and, by means of muscular
movement, their own electric currents, and the chemical
vital processes which depend on and react upon those
currents. A species of skin-respiration is an active and
important vital function in plants, and this respiration, in
so far as it consists in evaporation, inhalation, and exhalation
of fluids, is dependent on the pressure of the atmosphere.
Therefore it is that alpine plants are more aromatic,
and are hairy and covered with numerous pores. (See my
work über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser, Bd. ii.
S. 142-145.) For according to Zoonomic experience, organs
become more abundant and more perfect in proportion to
the facility with which the conditions necessary for the
exercise of their functions are fulfilled,—as I have elsewhere
shown. In alpine plants the disturbance of their skin-respiration
occasioned by increased atmospheric pressure
makes it very difficult for such plants to flourish in the low
grounds.
The question whether the mean pressure of the aerial
ocean which surrounds our globe has always been the same
is quite undecided: we do not even know accurately
whether the mean height of the barometer has continued
the same at the same place for a century past. According
to Poleni’s and Toaldo’s observations, the pressure would
have seemed to vary. The correctness of these observations
has long been doubted, but the recent researches of Carlini
render it almost probable that the mean height of the barometer
is diminishing in Milan. Perhaps the phenomenon is
a very local one, and dependent on variations in descending
atmospheric currents.
It is remarkable that of this majestic form of plants,—(some
of which rise to more than twice the height of
the Royal Palace at Berlin, and to which the Indian
Amarasinha gave the characteristic appellation of “Kings
among the Grasses”),—up to the time of the death of
Linnæus only 15 species were described. The Peruvian
travellers Ruiz and Pavon added to these 8 more species.
Bonpland and I, in passing over a more extensive range of
country from 12° S. lat. to 21° N. lat., described 20 new
species of palms, and distinguished as many more, but
without being able to obtain complete specimens of their
flowers. (Humboldt de distrib. geogr. Plantarum, p. 225-233.)
At the present time, 44 years after my return from
Mexico, there are from the Old and New World, including
the East Indian species brought by Griffith, above 440 regularly
described species. The Enumeratio Plantarum of my
friend Kunth, published in 1841, had already 356 species.
A few, but only a few species of palms, are, like our
Coniferæ, Quercineæ, and Betulineæ, social plants: such
are the Mauritia flexuosa, and two species of Chamærops,
one of which, the Chamærops humilis, occupies extensive
tracts of ground near the Mouth of the Ebro and in
Valencia; and the other, C. mocini, discovered by us on
the Mexican shore of the Pacific and entirely without
prickles, is also a social plant. While some kinds of palms,
including Chamærops and Cocos, are littoral or shore-loving
trees, there is in the tropics a peculiar group of mountain
palms, which if I am not mistaken was entirely unknown
previous to my South American travels. Almost all species
of the family of palms grow on the plains or low grounds
in a mean temperature of between 22° and 24° Reaumur
(81°.5 and 86°, Fahr.); rarely ascending so high as 1900
English feet on the declivities of the Andes: but in the
mountain palms to which I have alluded, the beautiful
Wax-palm (Ceroxylon andicola), the Palmeto of Azufral
at the Pass of Quindiu (Oreodoxa frigida), and the reed-like
Kunthia montana (Caña de la Vibora) of Pasto, attain
elevations between 6400 and 9600 English feet above the
level of the sea, where the thermometer often sinks at night as
low as 4°.8 and 6° of Reaumur (42°.8 and 45.°5, Fahr.), and
the mean temperature scarcely amounts to 11° Reaumur, or
56°.8 Fahrenheit. These Alpine Palms grow among Nut trees,
yew-leaved species of Podocarpus and Oaks (Quercus granatensis).
I have determined by exact barometrical measurement
the upper and lower limits of the range of the Wax-Palm.
We first began to find it on the eastern declivity of
Andes of Quindiu, at the height of 7440 (about 7930
English) feet above the level of the sea, and it extended
upwards as far as the Garita del Paramo and los Volcancitos,
or to 9100 (almost 9700 English) feet: several years after
my departure from the country the distinguished botanist
Don Jose Caldas, who had been long our companion amidst
the mountains of New Granada, and who afterwards fell a
victim to Spanish party hatred, found three species of palms
growing in the Paramo de Guanacos very near the limits of
perpetual snow; therefore probably at an elevation of more
than 13000 (13855 English) feet. (Semanario de Santa
Fé de Bogotá, 1809, No. 21, p, 163.) Even beyond the
tropics, in the latitude of 28° North, the Chamærops martiana
reaches on the sub-Himalayan mountains a height of
5000 English feet. (Wallich, Plantæ Asiaticæ, Vol. iii.
Tab. 211.)
If we look for the extreme geographical limits of palms,
(which are also the extreme climatic limits in all the species
which inhabit localities but little raised above the
level of the sea), we see some, as the date-palm, the Chamærops
humilis, C. palmetto, and the Areca sapida of
New Zealand, advance far into the temperate zones of
either hemisphere, into regions where the mean temperature
of the year hardly equals 11°.2 and 12°.5 Reaumur
(57°.2, and 60°.2 Fahrenheit). If we form a series of cultivated
plants or trees, placed in order of succession according
to the degree of heat they require, and beginning with
the maximum, we have Cacao, Indigo, Plantains, Coffee,
Cotton, Date-palms, Orange and Lemon Trees, Olives,
Sweet Chestnuts, and Vines. In Europe, date-palms (introduced,
not indigenous) grow mingled with Chamærops
humilis in the parallels of 43½° and 44°, as on the Genoese
Rivera del Ponente, near Bordighera, between Monaco and
San Stefano, where there is an assemblage of more than
4000 palm-stems; and in Dalmatia round Spalatro. It is
remarkable that Chamærops humilis is abundant both at
Nice and in Sardinia, and yet is not found in the island of
Corsica which lies between those localities. In the New
Continent, the Chamærops palmetto, which is sometimes
above 40 English feet high, only advances as far North as
34° latitude, a difference sufficiently explained by the inflexions
of the isothermal lines. In the Southern hemisphere,
in New Holland, palms, of which there are very few,
(six or seven species) only advance to 34° of latitude (see
Robert Brown’s general remarks on the Botany of Terra
Australis, p. 45); and in New Zealand, where Sir Joseph
Banks first saw an Areca palm, they reach the 38th parallel.
In Africa, which, quite contrary to the ancient and still
widely prevailing belief, is poor in species of palms,
only one palm, the Hyphæne coriacea, advances to Port
Natal in 30° latitude. The continent of South America
presents almost the same limits in respect to latitude. On
the eastern side of the Andes, in the Pampas of Buenos
Ayres and in the Cis-Plata province, palms extend, according
to Auguste de St.-Hilaire, to 34° and 35° S. latitude. This
is also the latitude to which on the western side of the
Andes the Coco de Chile (our Jubæa spectabilis?), the only
Chilian palm, extends, according to Claude Gay, being as
far as the banks of the Rio Maule. (See also Darwin’s
Journal, edition of 1845, p. 244 and 256).
I will here introduce some detached remarks which I
wrote in March, 1801, on board the ship in which we
were sailing from the palmy shores of the mouth of the Rio
Sinu, west of Darien, to Cartagena de las Indias.
“We have now, in the course of the two years which we
have spent in South America, seen 27 different species of
palms. How many must Commerson, Thunberg, Banks,
Solander, the two Forsters, Adanson, and Sonnerat, have
observed in their distant voyages! Yet, at the present
moment, when I write these lines, our systems of botany
do not include more than from 14 to 18 systematically
described species. In truth, the difficulty of procuring the
flowers of palms is greater than can readily be imagined.
We have felt it so much the more from having especially
directed our attention to Palms, Grasses, Cyperaceæ, Juncaceæ,
Cryptogamous Plants, and such other objects as have
been least studied hitherto. Most species of palms flower
only once a year, in the neighbourhood of the Equator in
the months of January and February. But how often is it
impossible for travellers to be precisely at that season in
places where palms are principally found. In many species
of palms the flowers last only so few days that one almost
always arrives too late, and finds the fertilization completed
and the male blossoms gone. Frequently only three or four
species of palms are found in areas of 2000 square German
geographical miles (3200 English geographical square
miles). How is it possible during the short flowering
season to visit the different places where palms abound: the
Missions on the Rio Caroni, the Morichales at the mouth of
the Orinoco, the valley of Caura and Erevato, the banks of
the Atabapo and the Rio Negro, and the side of the Duida
Mountain? Add to this the difficulty of reaching the
flowers, when, in the dense forests, or on the swampy river
banks, (as on the Temi and Tuamini), one sees them hanging
from stems above 60 feet high, and armed with formidable
spines. A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an
expedition in which natural history is one of his leading
objects, flatters himself with the thoughts of shears or curved
blades fastened to long poles, with which he imagines he
will be able to reach and cut down whatever he desires; he
dreams, too, of native boys, who, with a cord fastened to
their two feet, are to climb up the highest trees at his
bidding. But, alas! very few of these fancies are ever
realised; the great height of the blossoms renders the poles
useless; and in the missions established on the banks of
the rivers of Guiana, the traveller finds himself among Indians
whose poverty, stoicism, and uncultivated state, renders
them so rich, and so free from wants of every kind, that
neither money nor other presents that can be made to them
will induce them to turn three steps out of their path.
This insurmountable apathy is the more provoking to a
European, because he sees the same people climb with inconceivable
agility wherever their own fancies lead them; for
example, when they wish to catch a parrot, or an iguana,
or a monkey, which having been wounded by their arrows
saves himself from falling by holding on to the branches
with his prehensile tail. Even at the Havannah we met
with a similar disappointment. We were there in the
month of January, and saw all the trees of the Palma Real
(our Oreodoxa Regia), in the immediate vicinity of the
city and on the public walks, adorned with snow-white
blossoms. For several days we offered the negro boys whom
we met in the streets of Regla and Guanavacoa two piastres
for a single bunch of the blossoms which we wanted, but in
vain! Between the tropics men are indisposed to laborious
exertion, unless compelled by constraint or by extreme
destitution. The botanists and artists of the Royal Spanish
Commission for researches in Natural History, under the
direction of Count Jaruco y Mopor (Estevez, Boldo, Guio,
and Echeveria),—acknowledged to us that during several
years they had not been able to obtain these flowers for
examination. These difficulties sufficiently explain what
would have been incomprehensible to me before my voyage,
namely, that although during our two years’ stay up to the
present time, we have, indeed, discovered more than 20 different
species of palms, we have as yet been only able to
describe systematically 12. How interesting a work might
be produced by a traveller in South America who should
occupy himself exclusively with the study of palms, and
should make drawings of the spathe, spadix, inflorescence,
and fruit, all of the size of nature!” (I wrote this many
years before the Brazilian travels of Martius and Spix, and
the admirable and excellent work of Martius on Palms.)
“There is considerable uniformity in the shape of the leaves
of palms; they are generally either pinnate (feathery, or
divided like the plume of a feather);—or else palmate or
palmo-digitate (of a fan-like form); the leaf-stalk (petiolus),
is in some species without spines, in others sharply toothed
(serrato-spinosus). The form of the leaf in Caryota urens
and Martinezia caryotifolia, (which we saw on the banks of
the Orinoco and Atabapo, and again in the Andes, at the
pass of Quindiu, 3000 Fr. (3197 English) feet above the
level of the sea), is exceptional and almost unique among
palms, as is the form of the leaf of the Gingko among
trees. The port and physiognomy of palms have a grandeur
of character very difficult to convey by words. The stem,
shaft, or caudex, is generally simple and undivided, but in
extremely rare exceptions divides into branches in the
manner of the Dracænas, as in Cucifera thebaica (the Doum-palm),
and Hyphæne coriacea. It is sometimes disproportionately
thick (as in Corozo del Sinu, our Alfonsia oleifera);
sometimes feeble as a reed (as in Piritu, Kunthia montana,
and the Mexican Corypha nana); sometimes swelling towards
the base (as in Cocos); sometimes smooth, and sometimes
scaly (Palma de covija o de sombrero, in the Llanos);
sometimes armed with spines (as Corozo de Cumana and
Macanilla de Caripe), the long spines being distributed with
much regularity in concentric rings.
“Characteristic differences are also furnished in some species
by roots which, springing from the stem at about a foot
or a foot and a half above the ground, either raise the stem as it
were upon a scaffolding, or surround it with thick buttresses.
I have seen Viverras, and even very small monkeys, pass
underneath this kind of scaffolding formed by the roots of
the Caryota. Often the shaft or stem is swollen only in the
middle, being more slender above and below, as in the
Palma Real of the Island of Cuba. The leaves are sometimes
of a dark and shining green (as in the Mauritia and the
Cocoa nut palm); sometimes of a silvery white on the under
side (as in the slender Fan-palm, Corypha miraguama, which
we found in the Harbour of Trinidad de Cuba). Sometimes
the middle of the fan or palmate leaf is ornamented with
concentric yellowish or bluish stripes like a peacock’s tail;
as in the thorny Mauritia which Bonpland discovered on
the banks of the Rio Atabapo.
“The direction of the leaves is a character not less important
than their form and colour. The leaflets (foliola), are
sometimes arranged like the teeth of a comb, set on in the
same plane, and close to each other, and having a very rigid
parenchyma (as in Cocos, and in Phœnix the genus to
which the Date belongs); whence the fine play of light
from the sun-beams falling on the upper surface of the
leaves (which is of a fresher verdure in Cocos, and of
a more dead and ashy hue in the date palm); sometimes
the leaves are flag-like, of a thinner and more flexible
texture, and curl towards the extremities (as in Jagua,
Palma Real del Sinu, Palma Real de Cuba, and Piritu dell’
Orinoco). The peculiarly majestic character of palms is
given not only by their lofty stems, but also in a very high
degree by the direction of their leaves. It is part of the
beauty of any particular species of palms that its leaves
should possess this aspiring character; and not only in
youth, as is the case in the Date-palm, but also throughout
the duration of the life of the tree. The more upright the
direction of the leaves, or, in other words, the more acute
the angles which they form with the upper part or continuation
of the stem, the grander and more imposing is the
general character and physiognomy of the tree. How
different are the character and aspect given by the drooping
leaves of the Palma de covija del Orinoco y de los
Llanos de Calabozo (Corypha tectorum); the more nearly
horizontal or at least less upright leaves of the Date and
Cocoa-nut palms; and the aspiring heavenward pointing
branches of the Jagua, the Cucurito, and the Pirijao!
“Nature has lavished every beauty of form on the Jagua
palm, which, intermingled with the Cucurito or Vadgihai,
(85 to 106 English feet high), adorns the cataracts of Atures
and Maypures, and is occasionally found also on the lonely
banks of the Cassiquiare. The smooth slender stems of the
Jagua, rising to between 64 and 75 English feet, appear
above the dense mass of foliage of other kinds of trees from
amidst which they spring like raised colonnades, their airy
summits contrasting beautifully with the thickly-leaved
species of Ceiba, and with the forest of Laurineæ, Calophyllum,
and different species of Amyris which surround them.
The leaves of the Jagua, which are few in number (scarcely
so many as seven or eight), are sixteen or seventeen feet
long, and rise almost vertically into the air; their extremities
are curled like plumes; the ultimate divisions or leaflets,
having only a thin grass-like parenchyma, flutter lightly
and airily round the slowly balancing central leaf-stalks.
In all palms the inflorescence springs from the trunk itself,
and below the place where the leaves originate; but the
manner in which this takes place modifies the physiognomic
character. In a few species only (as the Corozo del Sinu),
the spathe (or sheath enclosing the flowers and fruits), rises
vertically, and the fruits stand erect, forming a kind of
thyrsus, like the fruits of the Bromelia: in most species of
palms the spathes (which are sometimes smooth and sometimes
rough and armed with formidable spines) are pendent;
in a few species the male flowers are of a dazzling whiteness,
and in such cases the flower-covered spadix, when fully
developed, shines from afar. In most species of palms the
male flowers are yellowish, closely crowded, and appear almost
withered when they disengage themselves from the spathe.
“In Palms with pinnate foliage, the leaf-stalks either
proceed (as in the Cocoa-nut, the Date, and the Palma Real
del Sinu) from the dry, rough, woody part of the stem;
or, as in the Palma Real de la Havana (Oreodoxa regia)
seen and admired by Columbus, there rises upon the rough
part of the stem a grass-green, smooth, thinner shaft, like
a column placed upon a column, and from this the leaf-stalks
spring. In fan-palms, “foliis palmatis,” the leafy
crown (as in the Moriche and the Palma sombrero de la
Havana) often rests on a previous bed of dry leaves, a circumstance
which gives to the tree a sombre and melancholy
appearance. In some umbrella-palms the crown consists
of very few leaves, which rise upwards, carried on very
slender petioles or foot-stalks (as in Miraguama).
“The form and colour of the fruits of Palms also offer
much more variety than is commonly believed in Europe.
Mauritia flexuosa bears egg-shaped fruits, whose scaly,
brown, and shining surface, gives them something of the
appearance of young fir-cones. What a difference between
the enormous triangular cocoa-nut, the soft fleshy berries of
the date, and the small hard fruits of the Corozo! But
among the fruits of palms none equal in beauty those of the
Pirijao (Pihiguao of S. Fernando de Atabapo and S. Balthasar);
they are egg-shaped, mealy, and usually without
seeds, two or three inches thick, and of a golden colour,
which on one side is overspread with crimson; and these
richly coloured fruits, crowded together in a bunch, like
grapes, are pendent from the summits of majestic palm
trees.” I have already spoken in the first volume of the
present work, p. 216, of these beautiful fruits, of which
there are seventy or eighty in a bunch, and which can be
prepared as food in a variety of ways, like plantains and
potatoes.
In some species of Palms the flower sheath, or spathe
surrounding the spadix and the flowers, opens suddenly
with an audible sound. Richard Schomburgk (Reisen in
Britisch Guiana, Th. i. S. 55) has like myself observed this
phenomenon in the flowering of the Oreodoxa oleracea.
This first opening of the flowers of Palms accompanied by
sound recalls the vernal Dithyrambus of Pindar, and the
moment when, in Argive Nemea, “the first opening shoot
of the date-palm proclaims the arrival of balmy spring.”
(Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 10; Eng. ed. p. 10.)
Three vegetable forms of peculiar beauty are proper to the
tropical zone in all parts of the globe; Palms, Plantains or
Bananas, and Arborescent Ferns. It is where heat and
moisture are combined that vegetation is most vigorous, and
its forms most varied; and hence South America excels the
rest of the tropical world in the number and beauty of her
species of Palms. In Asia this form of vegetation is more
rare, perhaps because a considerable part of the Indian
continent which was situated immediately under the equinoctial
line has been broken up and covered by the sea in
the course of former geological revolutions. We know
scarcely anything of the palm trees of Africa between the
Bight of Benin and the Coast of Ajan; and, generally
speaking, we are only acquainted, as has been already remarked,
with a very small number of species of Palms belonging
to that quarter of the globe.
Palms afford, next to Coniferæ and species of Eucalyptus
belonging to the family of Myrtaceæ, examples of the greatest
loftiness of stature attained by any of the members of the
vegetable kingdom. Of the Cabbage Palm (Areca oleracea),
stems have been seen from 150 to 160 French (160 to 170
English) feet high. (Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, Morphologie
végétale, 1840, p. 176.) The Wax-palm, our Ceroxylon
andicola, discovered by us on the Andes between Ibague
and Carthago, on the Montaña de Quindiu, attains the
immense height of 160 to 180 French (170 to 192 English)
feet. I was able to measure with exactness the prostrate
trunks which had been cut down and were lying in the
forest. Next to the Wax-palm, Oreodoxa Sancona, which
we found in flower near Roldanilla in the Cauca Valley, and
which affords a very hard and excellent building wood,
appeared to me to be the tallest of American palms. The
circumstance that notwithstanding the enormous quantity of
fruits produced by a single Palm tree, the number of individuals
of each species which are found in a wild state is
not very considerable, can only be explained by the frequently
abortive development of the fruits (and consequent
absence of seeds), and by the voracity of their numerous
assailants, belonging to all classes of the animal world. Yet
although I have said that the wild individuals are not very
numerous, there are in the basin of the Orinoco entire tribes
of men who live for several months of the year on the fruits
of palms. “In palmetis, Pihiguao consitis, singuli trunci
quotannis fere 400 fructus ferunt pomiformes, tritumque est
verbum inter Fratres S. Francisci, ad ripas Orinoci et
Gauiniæ degentes, mire pinguescere Indorum corpora, quoties
uberem Palmæ fructum fundant.” (Humboldt, de Distrib.
geogr. Plant. p. 240.)
[16] p. 22.—“Since the earliest infancy of human
civilisation.”
In all tropical countries we find the cultivation of the
Banana or Plantain established from the earliest times with
which tradition or history make us acquainted. It is certain
that in the course of the last few centuries African
slaves have brought new varieties to America, but it is
equally certain that Plantains were cultivated in the new
world before its discovery by Columbus. The Guaikeri
Indians at Cumana assured us that on the Coast of Paria,
near the Golfo Triste, when the fruits were allowed to remain
on the tree till ripe, the plantain sometimes produced seeds
which would germinate; and in this manner plantains are
occasionally found growing wild in the recesses of the forest,
from ripe seeds conveyed thither by birds. Perfectly formed
seeds have also sometimes been found in plantain fruits at
Bordones, near Cumana. (Compare my Essai sur la Géographie
des Plantes, p. 29; and my Relat. hist. T. i. pp.
104 and 587, T. ii. pp. 355 and 367.)
I have already remarked elsewhere (Kosmos, Bd. ii.
S. 191; English edition, p. 156), that Onesicritus and
the other companions of Alexander, while they make no
allusion to the tall arborescent ferns, speak of the fan-leaved
umbrella palm, and of the delicate and always fresh
verdure of the cultivated plantains or bananas. Among the
Sanscrit names given by Amarasinha for the plantain or
banana (the Musa of botanists) there are bhanu-phala (sun-fruit),
varana-buscha, and moko. Phala signifies fruit in
general. Lassen explains the words of Pliny (xii. 6),
“arbori nomen palæ, pomo arienæ” thus: “The Roman
mistook the word pala, fruit, for the name of the tree; and
varana (in the mouth of a Greek ouarana) became transformed
into ariena. The Arabic mauza may have been
formed from moko, and hence our Musa. Bhanu-fruit is
not far from banana-fruit.” (Compare Lassen, Indische
Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 262, with my Essai politique sur
la Nouvelle Espagne, T. ii. p. 382, and Rel. hist. T. i. p. 491.)
Larger malvaceous forms begin to appear as soon as we
have crossed the Alps; at Nice and in Dalmatia, Lavatera
arborea; and in Liguria, Lavatera olbia. The dimensions of
the Baobab, monkey-bread tree, have been mentioned above,
(Vol. ii. p. 90.) To this form are attached the also botanically
allied families of the Byttneriaceæ (Sterculia, Hermannia,
and the large-leaved Theobroma Cacao, in which
the flowers spring from the bark both of the trunk and
the roots); the Bombaceæ (Adansonia, Helicteres, and
Cheirostemon); and lastly the Tiliaceæ (Sparmannia Africana.)
I may name more particularly as superb representatives
of the Mallow-form, our Cavanillesia platanifolia, of
Turbaco near Carthagena in South America, and the celebrated
Ochroma-like Hand-tree, the Macpalxochiquahuitl of
the Mexicans, (from macpalli, the flat hand), Arbol de las
Manitas of the Spaniards, our Cheirostemon platanoides; in
which the long curved anthers project beyond the fine purple
blossom, causing it to resemble a hand or claw. Throughout
the Mexican States this one highly ancient tree is the only
existing individual of this extraordinary race: it is supposed
to be a stranger, planted about five centuries ago by the
kings of Toluca. I found the height above the sea where
the Arbol de las Manitas stands to be 8280 French (8824
English) feet. Why is there only a single individual, and
from whence did the kings of Toluca procure either the
young tree or the seed? It seems no less difficult to account
for Montezuma not having possessed it in his botanical
gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and Iztapalapan, of
which Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip II., was still able
to avail himself, and of which some traces remain even to
the present day; and it seems strange that it should not
have found a place among the representations of objects of
natural history which Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco,
caused to be drawn half a century before the arrival of the
Spaniards. It is asserted that the Hand-tree exists in a wild
state in the forests of Guatimala. (Humboldt and Bonpland,
Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 82, pl. 24; Essai polit.
sur la Nouv. Esp., T. i. p. 98.) At the equator we have
seen two Malvaceæ, Sida Phyllanthos (Cavan), and Sida pichinchensis,
ascend, on the mountain of Antisana and the
Volcano Rucu-Pichincha, to the great elevations of 12600
and 14136 French (13430 and 15066 English) feet. (See
our Plantes équin., T. ii. p. 113, pl. 116.) Only the Saxifraga
boussingaulti (Brongn.) reaches, on the slope of the
Chimborazo, an altitude six or seven hundred feet higher.
The finely feathered or pinnated leaves of Mimosas, Acacias,
Schrankias, and species of Desmanthus, are most truly
forms of tropical vegetation. Yet there are some representations
of this form beyond the tropics; in the northern
hemisphere in the Old Continent I can indeed cite but one,
and that only in Asia, and a low-growing shrub, the Acacia
Stephaniana, according to Kunth’s more recent investigations
a species of the genus Prosopis. It is a social
plant, covering the arid plains of the province of Shirwan,
on the Kur (Cyrus), as far as the ancient Araxes. Olivier
also found it near Bagdad. It is the Acacia foliis bipinnatis
mentioned by Buxbaum, and extends as far north as 42° of
latitude. (Tableau des Provinces situées sur la Côte occidentale
de la Mer Caspienne, entre les fleuves Terek et Kour,
1798, pp. 58 and 120.) In Africa the Acacia gummifera
of Willdenow advances as far as Mogador, or to 32° north
latitude.
On the New Continent, the banks of the Mississipi
and the Tennessee, as well as the savannahs of Illinois, are
adorned with Acacia glandulosa (Michaux), and A. brachyloba
(Willd). Michaux found the Schrankia uncinata extend
northwards from Florida into Virginia, or to 37° N. latitude.
Gleditschia tricanthos is found, according to Barton, on the
east side of the Alleghany mountains, as far north as the
38th parallel, and on the west side even as far as the 41st
parallel. Gleditschia monosperma ceases two degrees farther
to the south. These are the limits of the Mimosa form in
the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere we
find beyond the tropic of Capricorn simple leaved Acacias as
far as Van Diemen Island; and even the Acacia cavenia,
described by Claude Gay, grows in Chili between the 30th
and 37th degrees of south latitude. (Molina, Storia Naturale
del Chili, 1782, p. 174.) Chili has no true Mimosa,
but it has three species of Acacia. Even in the north part
of Chili the Acacia cavenia only grows to a height of twelve
or thirteen feet; and in the south, near the sea coast, it
hardly rises a foot above the ground. In South America,
north of the equator, the most excitable Mimosas were
(next to Mimosa pudica), M. dormiens, M. somnians,
and M. somniculosa. Theophrastus (iv. 3) and Pliny
(xii. 10) mention the irritability of the African sensitive
plant; but I find the first description of the South American
sensitive plants (Dormideras) in Herrera, Decad. II. lib.
iii. cap. 4. The plant first attracted the attention of the
Spaniards in 1518, in the savannahs on the isthmus near
Nombre de Dios: “parece como cosa sensible;” and it was
said that the leaves (“de echura de una pluma de pajaros”)
only contracted on being touched with the finger, and not
if touched with a piece of wood. In the small swamps
which surround the town of Mompox on the Magdalena,
we discovered a beautiful aquatic Mimosacea (Desmanthus
lacustris). It is figured in our Plantes équinoxiales, T. i.
p. 55, pl. 16. In the Andes of Caxamarca we found two
Alpine Mimoseæ (Mimosa montana and Acacia revoluta),
8500 and 9000 French (about 9060 and 9590 English)
feet above the surface of the Pacific.
Hitherto no true Mimosa (in the sense established by
Willdenow), or even Inga, has been found in the temperate
zone. Of all Acacias, the Oriental Acacia julibrissin, which
Forskål has confounded with Mimosa arborea, is that which
supports the greatest degree of cold. In the botanic garden
of Padua there is in the open air a tree of this species with
a stem of considerable thickness, although the mean temperature
of Padua is below 10.°5 Reaumur (55°.6 Fahr.)
In these physiognomic considerations we by no means
comprise under the name of Heaths the whole of the natural
family of Ericaceæ, which on account of the similarity
and analogy of the floral parts includes Rhododendron,
Befaria, Gaultheria, Escallonia, &c. We confine ourselves
to the highly accordant and characteristic form of the species
of Erica, including Calluna (Erica) Vulgaris, L., the common
heather.
While, in Europe, Erica carnea, E. tetralix, E. cinerea,
and Calluna vulgaris, cover large tracts of ground from the
plains of Germany, France, and England to the extremity of
Norway, South Africa offers the most varied assemblage of
species. Only one species which is indigenous in the
southern hemisphere at the Cape of Good Hope, Erica umbellata,
is found in the northern hemisphere, i. e. in the
North of Africa, in Spain, and Portugal. Erica vagans
and E. arborea also belong to the two opposite coasts of the
Mediterranean: the first is found in North Africa, near
Marseilles, in Sicily, Dalmatia, and even in England; the
second in Spain, Italy, Istria, and in the Canaries. (Klotsch
on the Geographical Distribution of species of Erica with
persistent corollas, MSS.) The common heather, Calluna
vulgaris, is a social plant covering large tracts from the
mouth of the Scheldt to the western declivity of the Ural.
Beyond the Ural, oaks and heaths cease together: both
are entirely wanting in the whole of Northern Asia, and
throughout Siberia to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Gmelin (Flora Sibirica, T. iv. p. 129) and Pallas (Flora
Rossica, T. i. Pars 2, p. 58) have expressed their astonishment
at this disappearance of the Calluna vulgaris,—a disappearance
which, on the eastern declivity of the Ural Mountains,
is even more sudden and decided than might be
inferred from the expressions of the last-named great naturalist.
Pallas says merely: “ultra Uralense jugum sensim
deficit, vix in Isetensibus campis rarissime apparet, et ulteriori
Sibiriæ plane deest.” Chamisso, Adolph Erman, and
Heinrich Kittlitz, have found Andromedas indeed in Kamtschatka,
and on the North West coast of America, but no
Calluna. The accurate knowledge which we now possess of
the mean temperature of several parts of Northern Asia, as
well as of the distribution of the annual temperature into
the different seasons of the year, affords no sort of explanation
of the cessation of heather to the east of the Ural
Mountains. Joseph Hooker, in a note to his Flora Antarctica,
has treated and contrasted with great sagacity and
clearness two very different phenomena which the distribution
of plants presents to us: on the one hand, “uniformity
of surface accompanied by a similarity of vegetation;”
and on the other hand, “instances of a sudden change in
the vegetation unaccompanied by any diversity of geological
or other features.” (Joseph Hooker, Botany of the Antarctic
Voyage of the Erebus and Terror, 1844, p. 210.)
Is there any species of Erica in Central Asia? The plant
spoken of by Saunders in Turner’s Travels to Thibet (Phil.
Trans. Vol. lxxix. p. 86), as having been found in the
Highlands of Nepaul (together with other European plants,
Vaccinium myrtillus and V. oxycoccus) and described by
him as Erica vulgaris, is believed by Robert Brown to have
been an Andromeda, probably Andromeda fastigiata of Wallich.
No less striking is the absence of Calluna vulgaris,
and of all the species of Erica throughout all parts of the
Continent of America, while the Calluna is found in the
Azores and in Iceland. It has not hitherto been seen in
Greenland, but was discovered a few years ago in Newfoundland.
The natural family of the Ericaceæ is also almost
entirely wanting in Australia, where it is replaced by Epacrideæ.
Linnæus described only 102 species of the genus
Erica; according to Klotzsch’s examination, this genus
really contains, after a careful exclusion of all mere varieties,
440 true species.
If we take the natural family of the Opuntiaceæ separated
from the Grossulariaceæ (the species of Ribes), and, viewed
as it is by Kunth (Handbuch der Botanik, S. 609), we may
well regard it as belonging exclusively to America. I am
aware that Roxburgh, in the Flora Indica (inedita), cites
two species of Cactus as belonging to South Eastern Asia;—Cactus
indicus and C. chinensis. Both are widely disseminated,
and are found in a wild state (whether they were
originally wild or have become so), and are distinct from
Cactus opuntia and C. coccinellifer; but it is remarkable
that the Indian plant (Cactus indicus) has no ancient
Sanscrit name. Cactus chinensis has been introduced
in St. Helena as a cultivated plant. Now that a more
general interest has at length been awakened on the subject
of the original distribution of plants, future investigation
will dispel the doubts which have been felt in several quarters
respecting the existence of true Asiatic Opuntiaceæ.
In the animal kingdom particular forms are found to occur
singly. Tapirs were long regarded as a form exclusively
characteristic of the New Continent; and yet the American
tapir has been found as it were repeated in that of Malacca
(Tapirus indicus, Cuv.)
Although the species of Cactus belong, generally speaking,
more properly to the tropical regions, yet some are indigenous
in the temperate zone, as on the Missouri and in
Louisiana, Cactus missuriensis and C. vivipara; and Back
saw with astonishment the shores of Rainy Lake, in north
lat. 48° 40´, covered with C. opuntia. South of the equator
the species of Cactus do not extend beyond the Rio Itata,
in lat. 36°, and the Rio Biobio, in lat. 37° 15´. In the
part of the Andes which is situated between the tropics, I
have seen species of Cactus (C. sepium, C. chlorocarpus,
C. bonplandii) growing on elevated plains nine or ten
thousand (French) feet (about 9590 and 10660 English)
above the level of the sea; but a still more alpine character
is shewn in latitudes belonging to the temperate zone, in
Chili, by the Opuntia ovallei, which has yellow flowers and
a creeping stem. The upper and lower limits beyond which
this plant does not extend have been accurately determined
by barometric measurement by the learned botanist Claude
Gay: it has never been found lower than 6330 French
(6746 English) feet, and it reaches and even passes the
limits of perpetual snow, having been found on uncovered
masses of rock rising from amongst the snows. The last
small plants were collected on spots situated 12820 French
(13663 English) feet above the level of the sea. (Claudio
Gay, Flora Chilensis, 1848, p. 30.) Some species of
Echino-cactus are also true alpine plants in Chili. A
counterpart to the fine-haired Cactus senilis is found in
the thick-wooled Cereus lanatus, called by the natives Piscol,
which has handsome red fruit. We found it in Peru, near
Guancabamba, when on our journey to the Amazons river.
The dimensions of the different kinds of Cactaceæ (a group
on which the Prince of Salm-Dyck has been the first to
throw great light) offer great variety and contrasts.
Echinocactus wislizeni, which is 4 feet high and 7 feet in
circumference (4 feet 3 inches and 7 feet 5 inches English),
is still only the third in size, being surpassed by E. ingens
(Zucc.) and by E. platyceras (Lem.) (Wislizenus, Tour to
Northern Mexico, 1848, p. 97.) The Echinocactus stainesii
reaches from 2 to 2½ feet diameter; E. visnago, from
Mexico, upwards of 4 English feet high, is above 3 English
feet diameter, and weighs from 700 to 2000 lbs.: while
Cactus nanus, which we found near Sondorillo, in the province
of Jaen, is so small that, being only slightly rooted in
the sand, it gets between the toes of dogs. The Melocactuses,
which are full of juice in the dryest seasons like
the Ravenala of Madagascar (forest-leaf in the language of
the country, from rave, raven, a leaf, and ala, the Javanese
halas, a forest), are vegetable fountains; and the manner in
which the horses and mules stamp them open with their
hoofs, at the risk of injury from the spines, has been already
mentioned (Vol. I p. 19). Since the last quarter of a
century Cactus opuntia has extended itself in a remarkable
manner into Northern Africa, Syria, Greece, and the whole
of the South of Europe; even penetrating, in Africa, from
the coasts far into the interior of the country, and associating
itself with the indigenous plants.
When one has been accustomed to see Cactuses only in
our hothouses, one is astonished at the degree of density
and hardness which the ligneous fibres attain in old
cactus stems. The Indians know that cactus wood is incorruptible,
and excellent for oars and for the thresholds of
doors. There is hardly anything in vegetable physiognomy
which makes so singular and ineffaceable an impression on
a newly arrived person, as the sight of an arid plain thickly
covered, like those near Cumana, New Barcelona, and Coro,
and in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, with columnar
and candelabra-like divided cactus stems.
The almost animal shape of blossoms of Orchideæ is particularly
striking in the celebrated Torito of South America
(our Anguloa grandiflora); in the Mosquito (our Restrepia
antennifera); in the Flor del Espiritu Santo (also an Anguloa,
according to Floræ Peruvianæ Prodrom. p. 118, tab.
26); in the ant-like flower of the Chiloglottis cornuta
(Hooker, Flora antarctica, p. 69); in the Mexican Bletia
speciosa; and in the highly curious host of our European
species of Ophrys: O. muscifera, O. apifera, O. aranifera,
O. arachnites, &c. A predilection for this superbly flowering
group of plants has so increased, that the number cultivated
in Europe by the brothers Loddiges in 1848 has been
estimated at 2360 species; while in 1843 it was rather more
than 1650, and in 1813 only 115. What a rich mine of
still unknown superb flowering Orchideæ the interior of
Africa must contain, if it is well watered! Lindley, in his
fine work entitled “The Genera and Species of Orchideous
Plants,” described in 1840 precisely 1980 species; at the
end of the year 1848 Klotzsch reckoned 3545 species.
While in the temperate and cold zones there are only “terrestrial”
Orchideæ, i. e. growing on and close to the ground,
tropical countries possess both forms, i. e. the “terrestrial”
and the “parasitic,” which grow on trunks of trees. To the
first-named of these two divisions belong the tropical genera
Neottia, Cranichis, and most of the Habenarias. We have
also found both forms growing as alpine plants on the slopes
of the chain of the Andes of New Granada and Quito: of
the parasitical Orchideæ (Epidendreæ), Masdevallia uniflora
(at 9600 French, or about 10230 English feet); Cyrtochilum
flexuosum (at 9480 French, or about 10100 English
feet); and Dendrobium aggregatum (8900 French, or about
9480 English feet): and of the terrestrial Orchideæ, the
Altensteinia paleacea, near Lloa Chiquito, at the foot of the
Volcano of Pichincha. Claude Gay thinks that the Orchideæ
said to have been seen growing on trees in the Island
of Juan Fernandez, and even in Chiloe, were probably in
reality only parasitical Pourretias, which extend at least as
far south as 40° S. lat. In New Zealand we find that the
tropical form of Orchideæ hanging from trees extends even
to 45° S. lat. The Orchideæ of Auckland’s and Campbell’s
Islands, however (Chiloglottis, Thelymitra, and Acianthus),
grow on the ground in moss. In the animal kingdom,
one tropical form at least advances much farther to
the south. In Macquarie Island, in lat. 54° 39´, nearer to
the South Pole therefore than Dantsic is to the North Pole,
there is a native parrot. (See also the section Orchideæ in
my work de Distrib. geogr. Plant., pp. 241-247.)
Acacias which have phyllodias instead of leaves, some
Myrtacesæ (Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, Melaleuca, and Leptospermum),
and Casuarinas, give a uniform character to the
vegetation of Australia and Tasmania (Van Diemen Island).
Casuarinas with their leafless, thin, string-like, articulated
branches, having the joints provided with membranous denticulated
sheaths, have been compared by travellers, according
to the particular species which fell under their observation,
either to arborescent Equisetaceæ (Horsetails) or to
our Scotch firs. (See Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 449.)
Near the coast of Peru the aspect of small thickets of Colletia
and Ephedra also produced on my mind a singular
impression of leaflessness. Casuarina quadrivalvis advances,
according to Labillardière, to 48° S. lat. in Tasmania. The
sad-looking Casuarina form is not unknown in India and on
the east coast of Africa.
The family of Coniferæ holds so important a place by the
number of individuals, by their geographical distribution,
and by the vast tracts of country in the northern temperate
zone covered with trees of the same species living in society,
that we are almost surprised at the small number of species
of which it consists,—even including members which belong
to it in essential respects, but deviate from it in a degree by
the shape of their leaves and their manner of growth (Dammara,
Ephedra, and Gnetum, of Java and New Guinea). The
number of known Coniferæ is not quite equal to three-fourths
of the number of described species of palms; and there are
more known Aroideæ than Coniferæ. Zuccarini, in his
Beiträgen zur Morphologie der Coniferen (Abhandl. der
mathem. physikal. Classe der Akademie der Wiss. zu München,
Bd. iii. S. 752, 1837-1843), reckons 216 species,
of which 165 belong to the northern and 51 to the
southern hemisphere. Since my researches these proportionate
numbers must be modified, as, including the
species of Pinus, Cupressus, Ephedra, and Podocarpus,
found by Bonpland and myself in the tropical parts of Peru,
Quito, New Granada, and Mexico, the number of species
between the tropics rises to 42. The most recent and excellent
work of Endlicher, Synopsis Coniferarum, 1847,
contains 312 species now living, and 178 fossil species found
in the coal measures, the bunter-sandstone, the keuper, and
the Jurassic formations. The vegetation of the ancient world
offers to us more particularly forms which, by their simultaneous
affinity with several different families of the present
vegetable world, remind us that many intermediate links
have perished. Coniferæ abounded in the ancient world:
their remains, belonging to an early epoch, are found especially
in association with Palms and Cycadeæ; but in the
latest beds of lignite we also find pines and firs associated
as now with Cupuliferæ, maples, and poplars. (Kosmos,
Bd. i. S. 295-298, and 468-470; Engl. edit. p. 271-274,
and lxxxix.)
If the earth’s surface did not rise to considerable elevations
within the tropics, the highly characteristic form of
needle-leaved trees would be almost unknown to the inhabitants
of the equatorial zone. In common with Bonpland
I have laboured much in the determination of the exact
lower and upper limits of the region of Coniferæ and of
oaks in the Mexican highlands. The heights at which both
begin to grow (los Pinales y Encinales, Pineta et Querceta)
are hailed with joy by those who come from the sea-coast,
as indicating a climate where, so far as experience has
hitherto shewn, the deadly malady of the black vomit (Vomito
prieto, a form of yellow fever) does not reach. The
lower limit of oaks, and more particularly of the Quercus
xalapensis (one of the 22 Mexican species of oak first described
by us), is on the road from Vera Cruz to the city of
Mexico, a little below the Venta del Encero, 2860 (3048
E.) feet above the sea. On the western side of the highlands
between the city of Mexico and the Pacific, the limit
is rather lower down, for oaks begin to be found near a hut
called Venta de la Moxonera, between Acapulco and Chilpanzingo,
at an absolute elevation of 2328 (2480 E.) feet.
I found a similar difference in the height of the lower limit
of pine woods on the two-sides of the continent. On the
Pacific side, in the Alto de los Caxones north of Quaxiniquilapa,
we found this limit for Pinus Montezumæ (Lamb.),
which we at first took for Pinus occidentalis (Swartz), at an
elevation of 3480 (3709 E.) feet; while towards Vera Cruz,
on the Cuesta del Soldado, pines are first met with at a
height of 5610 (5950 E.) feet. Therefore both the kinds
of trees spoken of above, oaks and pines, descend lower
on the side of the Pacific than they do on the side of
the Antillean sea. In ascending the Cofre di Perote, I
found the upper limit of the oaks 9715 (10354 E.) feet,
and that of the Pinus Montezumæ at 12138 (12936 E.) feet
above the sea, or almost 2000 (2132 E.) feet higher than
the summit of Etna. Considerable quantities of snow had
fallen at this elevation in the month of February.
The more considerable the heights at which the Mexican
Conifers are first met with, the more striking it appears to
find in the Island of Cuba (where, indeed, on the borders of
the torrid zone, northern breezes sometimes cool the atmosphere
down to 6½° Reaumur, 46°.6 Fah.), another species
of pine (P. occidentalis of Swartz), growing in the plains or
on the low hills of the Isla de Pinos, intermixed with palms
and mahogany trees (Swietenias). Columbus mentions a
small pine wood (Pinal) in the journal of his first voyage
(Diario del 25 de Nov. 1492), near Cayo de Moya, on the
north-east of the Island of Cuba. In Hayti also, Pinus
occidentalis descends from the mountains to the sea-shore,
near Cape Samana. The trunks of these Pines, carried by
the Gulf-stream to the Islands of Graciosa and Fayal in the
Azores, were among the chief indications from which the
great discoverer inferred the existence of unknown lands to
the west. (See my Examen crit., T. ii. p. 246-259.) Is
it true that in Jamaica, notwithstanding the height of its
mountains, Pinus occidentalis is entirely wanting? We
may also ask what is the species of Pinus found on the
eastern coast of Guatimala, as P. tenuifolia (Benth.) probably
belongs only to the mountains near Chinanta?
If we cast a general glance on the species which form the
upper limits of arborescent vegetation in the northern
hemisphere, from the frigid zone to the equator, we find, beginning
with Lapland, that according to Wahlenberg, on the
Sulitelma Mountain (lat. 68°) it is not needle-trees which
form the upper limit, but that birches (Betula alba) extend
much higher up than Pinus sylvestris;—whilst in the temperate
zone, in the Alps (lat. 45¾°), Pinus picea (Du Roi)
advances highest, leaving the birches behind; and in the
Pyrenees (lat. 42½°), Pinus uncinata (Ram.) and P. sylvestris
var. rubra: within the tropics, in lat. 19°-20° in
Mexico, Pinus Montezumæ leaves far behind Alnus toluccensis,
Quercus spicata, and Q. crassipes; while in the snow
mountains of Quito at the equator, Escallonia myrtilloides,
Aralia avicennifolia, and Drymis winteri, take the lead. The
last-named tree, which is identical with Drymis granatensis
(Mut.) and Wintera aromatica (Murray), presents, as Joseph
Hooker has shewn (Flora Antarctica, p. 229), the striking
example of the uninterrupted extension of the same species
of tree from the most southern part of Tierra del Fuego and
Hermit Island, where it was discovered by Drake’s Expedition
in 1577, to the northern highlands of Mexico; or
through a range of 86 degrees of latitude, or 5160 geographical
miles. Where it is not birches (as in the far north),
but needle trees (as in the Swiss Alps and the Pyrenees),
which form the limit of arborescent vegetation on the
highest mountains, we find above them, still nearer to the
snowy summits which they gracefully enwreath with their
bright garlands, in Europe and Western Asia, the Alp
roses, the Rhododendra,—which are replaced on the Silla de
Caracas and in the Peruvian Paramo de Saraguru by the
purple flowers of another genus of Ericaceæ, the beautiful race
of Befarias. In Lapland the needle-trees are immediately
followed by Rhododendron laponicum; in the Swiss Alps by
Rhododendron ferrugineum and R. hirsutum; in the Pyrenees
by the R. ferrugineum only; and in the Caucasus by
R. caucasicum. Decandolle found the Rhododendron ferrugineum
growing singly in the Jura (in the Creux de Vent)
at the moderate altitude of 3100 to 3500 (3304 to 3730 E.)
feet, 5600 (5968 E.) feet lower down than its proper elevation.
If we desire to trace the last zone of vegetation
nearest to the snow line in the tropics, we must name, from
our own observations, in the Mexican part of the tropical
zone, Cnicus nivalis and Chelone gentianoides; in the cold
mountain regions of New Granada, the woolly Espeletia
grandiflora, E. corymbosa and E. argentea; and in the
Andes of Quito, Culcitium rufescens, C. ledifolium, and
C. nivale,—yellow flowering Compositæ which replace in
the last-named mountains the somewhat more northerly
Espeletias of New Granada, to which they bear a strong
physiognomic resemblance. This replacement, the repetition
of resembling or almost similar forms in countries separated
either by seas or by extensive tracts of land, is a
wonderful law of nature which appears to prevail even in
regard to some of the rarest forms of vegetation. In Robert
Brown’s family of the Rafflesieæ, separated from the Cytineæ,
the two Hydnoras described by Thunberg and Drege
in South Africa (H. africana and H. triceps) have their
counterpart in South America in Hydnora americana
(Hooker).
Far above the region of alpine plants, grasses, and lichens,
and even above the limit of perpetual snow, the botanist
sees with astonishment, both in the temperate and tropical
zones, isolated phænogamous plants occur now and then
sporadically on rocks which remain free from the general
surrounding snowy covering, and which may possibly be
warmed by heat ascending through open fissures. I have
already spoken of the Saxifraga boussingaulti, which is found
on the Chimborazo at an elevation of 14800 (15773 E.)
feet; in the Swiss Alps, Silene acaulis has been seen at a
height of 10680 (11380 E.) feet, being in the first-named
case 600 (640 E.) feet, and in the second 2460 (2620 E.)
feet above the limit of the snows, that limit being taken as
it was in the two cases respectively at the time when the
plants were found.
In our European Coniferæ, the Red and White Pine shew
great and remarkable differences in respect to their distribution.
While in the Swiss Alps the Red Pine (Pinus
picea, Du Roi, foliis compresso—tetragonis; unfortunately
called by Linnæus, and by most of the botanists of the
present day, Pinus abies!) forms the upper limit of arborescent
vegetation at a mean height of 5520 (5883 English)
feet, only an occasional low growing mountain-alder (Alnus
viridis, Dec., Betula viridis, Vill.) advancing now and
then still nearer to the snow-line; the White Pine (Pinus
abies, Du Roi, Pinus picea, Linn., foliis planis, pectinatodistichis,
emarginatis) ceases, according to Wahlenberg, more
than a thousand feet lower down. The Red Pine does not
appear at all in the South of Europe, in Spain, the Appennines,
and Greece; even on the northern slope of the Pyrenees
it is seen only, as Ramond remarks, at great elevations,
and is entirely wanting in the Caucasus. The Red Pine
advances in Scandinavia farther to the north than the
White Pine, of which last-named tree there is in Greece
(on Mounts Parnassus, Taygetus, and Œta) a long needled
variety (foliis apice integris, breviter mucronatis), the Abies
Apollinis of Link. (Linnæa, Bd. xv. 1841, S. 529; and
Endlicher, Synopsis Coniferarum, p. 96.)
On the Himalaya the Coniferæ are distinguished by the
great thickness and height of their trunks, and by the
length of their leaves. The Deodwara Cedar, Pinus deodara
(Roxb.),—(properly, in Sanscrit, dêwa-dâru, timber of
the Gods),—which is from 12 to 13½ feet thick, is the great
ornament of the mountains. It grows in Nepaul to 11000
(11720 E.) feet above the level of the sea. More than
2000 years ago the Deodara supplied the materials for the
fleet of Nearchus on the Hydaspes (the present Behut).
In the valley of Dudegaon, north of the copper mines of
Dhunpour in Nepaul, Dr. Hoffmeister, so early lost to
science, found the Pinus longifolia of Royle (the Tschelu
Pine) growing among tall stems of the Chamærops martiana
of Wallich. (Hoffmeister’s Briefe aus Indien während der
Expedition des Prinzen Waldemar von Preussen, 1847, S.
351.) Such an intermixture of pineta and palmata had
excited the surprise of the companions of Columbus in the
New Continent, as a friend and cotemporary of the Admiral,
Petrus Martyr Anghiera, has informed us. (Dec. iii. lib.
10, p. 68.) I saw myself this intermixture of pines and
palms for the first time on the road from Acapulco to Chilpanzingo.
The Himalaya, like the Mexican highlands, has,
besides Pines and Cedars, also the forms of Cypresses (Cupressus
torulosa, Don), of Yews (Taxus wallichiana, Zuccar.),
of Podocarpus (P. nereifolia, Robert Brown), and of
Juniper (Juniperus squamata, Don., and J. excelsa, Bieberst;
Juniperus excelsa is also found at Schipke in Thibet, in
Asia Minor, in Syria, and in the Greek Islands). Thuja,
Taxodium, Larix, and Araucaria, are forms found in the New
Continent, but wanting in the Himalaya.
Besides the 20 species of Pines which we already know
from Mexico, the United States of North America, which
in their present extent reach to the Shores of the Pacific,
have 45 described species, while Europe has only 15. There
is a similar difference in respect to Oaks: i. e. greater variety
of forms in the New Continent which extends continuously
through a greater extent of latitude. The recent very exact
researches of Siebold and Zuccarini have, however, completely
refuted the previous belief, that many European species of
Pines extend also across the whole of Northern Asia to the
Islands of Japan, and even grow there, interspersed, as Thunberg
has stated, with genuine Mexican species, the Weymouth
Pine, Pinus Strobus of Linnæus. What Thunberg
took for European Pines are wholly different and distinct
species. Thunberg’s Red Pine (Pinus abies, Linn.) is
P. polita, (Sieb.) and is often planted near Buddhistic
temples; his common Scotch Fir (Pinus sylvestris) is P.
Massoniana (Lamb.); his P. cembra (the German and Siberian
pine with eatable seeds) is P. parviflora (Sieb.); his
common Larch (P. larix) is P. leptolepis (Sieb.); and his
supposed Taxus baccata, the fruits of which are eaten by
Japanese courtiers in case of long-protracted court ceremonials,
(Thunberg, Flora Japonica, p. 275), constitutes a
distinct genus, and is the Cephalotaxus drupacea of Siebold.
The Islands of Japan, notwithstanding the vicinity of the
Continent of Asia, have a very distinct character of vegetation.
Thunberg’s supposed Japanese Weymouth Pine,
(Pinus Strobus) which would offer an important phenomenon,
is only a planted tree, and is besides quite distinct from the
American species of Pine. It is Pinus korajensis (Sieb.),
and has been brought to Nipon from the peninsula of Corea,
and from Kamtschatka.
Of the 114 species of the Genus Pinus with which we
are at present acquainted, not one belongs to the Southern
Hemisphere, for the Pinus merkusii described by Junghuhn
and De Vriese belongs to the part of the Island of Sumatra
which is north of the Equator, to the district of the Battas;
and Pinus insularis (Endl.) although it was at first given
in Loudon’s Arboretum as P. timoriensis, really belongs to
the Philippines. Besides the Genus Pinus, the Southern
hemisphere, according to the present state of our now
happily advancing knowledge of the geography of plants, is
entirely without species of Cupressus, Salisburia (Gingko),
Cunninghamia (Pinus lanceolota, Lamb.) Thuja, (one of
the species of which, Th. gigantea, Nutt., found on the
banks of the Columbia, has a height of above 180 Eng. feet),
Juniperus, and Taxodium (Mirbel’s Schubertia). I include
the last-named genus with the less hesitation, as a Cape of
Good Hope plant (Sprengel’s Schubertia capensis) is no
Taxodium, but constitutes a genus of itself, Widringtonia,
(Endl.) in quite a different division of the family of Coniferæ.
This absence, from the Southern Hemisphere, of true Abietineæ,
Juniperineæ, Cupressineæ, and all the Taxodineæ, as
well as of Torreya, Salisburia adiantifolia, and Cephalotaxus
from among the Taxineæ, recalls forcibly the obscurity
which still prevails in the conditions which have determined
the original distribution of vegetable forms, a distribution
which cannot be sufficiently and satisfactorily explained solely
by similarity or diversity of soil, thermic relations, or meteorological
phenomena. I remarked long ago that the
Southern Hemisphere for example has many plants belonging
to the natural family of Rosaceæ, but not a single species
of the genus Rosa. We learn from Claude Gay that the
Rosa chilensis described by Meyen is only a wild variety
of the Rosa centifolia (Linn.), which has been for thousands
of years a European plant. Such wild varieties, (i. e. varieties
which have become wild) occupy large tracts of ground
in Chili, near Valdivia and Osorno. (Gay, Flora Chilensis,
p. 340.)
In the tropical region of the Northern hemisphere we
also found only one single native rose, our Rosa montezumæ,
in the Mexican highlands near Moran, at an elevation of
8760 (9336 Engl.) feet. It is one of the singular phenomena
in the distribution of plants, that Chili, which has
Palms, Pourretias, and many species of Cactus, has no
Agave; although A. americana grows luxuriantly in
Roussillon, near Nice, near Botzen and in Istria, having
probably been introduced from the New Continent since the
end of the 16th century, and in America itself forms a continuous
tract of vegetation from Northern Mexico across the
isthmus of Panama to the Southern part of Peru. I have long
believed that Calceolarias were limited like Roses exclusively
to one side of the Equator; of the 22 species which we
brought back with us, not one was collected to the north of
Quito and the Volcano of Pichincha; but my friend Professor
Kunth remarks that Calceolaria perfoliata, which
Boussingault and Captain Hall found at Quito, advances to
New Granada, and that this species, as well as C. integrifolia
of Santa Fé de Bogotá, were given by Mutis to the
great Linnæus.
The species of Pinus which are so frequent in the tropical
Antilles and in the tropical mountains of Mexico do not
pass the isthmus of Panama, and are not found in the
equally mountainous parts of the tropical portion of South
America, and in the high plains of New Granada, Pasto,
and Quito. I have been both in the plains and on the
mountains from the Rio Sinu, near the isthmus of Panama,
to 12° S. lat.; and in this tract of almost 1600 geographical
miles the only forms of needle-trees which I saw were a
Taxus-like species of Podocarpus with stems 60 (64 Eng.)
feet high (Podocarpus taxifolia), growing in the Pass of
Quindiu and in the Paramo de Saraguru, in 4° 26´ north,
and 3° 40´ south latitude; and an Ephedra (E. americana)
near Guallabamba, north of Quito.
Among the Coniferæ there are common to the northern
and southern hemispheres the genera Taxus, Gnetum,
Ephedra, and Podocarpus. The last-named genus was
distinguished from Pinus long before L’Heritier by Columbus
himself, who wrote on the 25th of November, 1492: “Pinales
en la Serrania de Haiti que no llevan piñas, pero frutos
que parecen azeytunos del Axarafe de Sevilla.” (See my
Examen crit. T. iii. p. 24.) There are species of Taxus
from the Cape of Good Hope to 61° N. lat. in Scandinavia,
or through more than 95 degrees of latitude; Podocarpus
and Ephedra extend almost as far. In Cupuliferæ, the
species of oak which we are accustomed to regard as a
northern form do not indeed pass beyond the equator in
South America, but in the Indian Archipelago they re-appear
in the southern hemisphere in the Island of Java. To the
southern hemisphere belong exclusively ten genera of Coniferæ,
of which I will name here only the principal: Araucaria,
Dammara (Agathis Sal.), Frenela (with eighteen New
Holland species), Dacrydium and Lybocedrus, which is
found both in New Zealand and at the Straits of Magellan.
New Zealand has one species of the genus Dammara (D.
australis) and no Araucaria. In New Holland in singular
contrast the case is opposite.
Among tree vegetation, it is in the form of needle-trees
that Nature presents to us the greatest extension in length
(longitudinal axis): I say among tree vegetation, because,
as we have already remarked, among oceanic Algæ,
Macrocystis pyrifera, which is found between the coast of
California and 68° S. lat., often attains from 370 to 400
(about 400 to 430 Eng.) feet in length. Of Coniferæ,
(setting aside the six Araucarias of Brazil, Chili, New Holland,
Norfolk Island, and New Caledonia), the loftiest are those
which belong to the northern temperate zone. As in the
family of Palms we found the most gigantic, the Ceroxylon
andicola, above 180 French (192 English) feet high, in the
temperate mountain climate of the Andes, so the loftiest
Coniferæ belong, in the northern hemisphere, to the temperate
north-west coast of America and to the Rocky Mountains
(lat. 40°-52°); and in the southern hemisphere to New
Zealand, Tasmania or Van Diemen Island, the south of
Chili and Patagonia (between 43° and 50° latitude). The
most gigantic forms belong to the genera of Pinus, Sequoia
(Endl.), Araucaria, and Dacrydium. I propose to name
only those species which not only attain but often exceed
200 French feet (213 Eng.) In order to afford a standard
of comparison, it should be remarked that in Europe the
tallest Red and White Pines, the latter especially, attain
about 150 or 160 (160-170 Eng.) feet; that, for example,
in Silesia the Pine of the Lampersdorf Forest near Frankenstein
enjoys great celebrity, although, with a circumference
of 17 English feet, its height is only 153 Prussian, or 148
French, or 158 English feet. (Compare Ratzeburg, Forstreisen,
1844, S. 287.)
Pinus grandis (Douglas) in New California attains 224
English feet.
Pinus frémontiana (Endl.), also in New California, probably
attains the same stature as the preceding. (Torrey
and Frémont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains in 1844, p. 319.)
Dacrydium cupressinum (Solander), from New Zealand,
213 English feet.
Pinus lambertiana (Dougl.), in North-west America,
224-235 English feet.
Araucaria excelsa (R. Brown), the Cupressus columnaris
of Forster, in Norfolk Island and the surrounding rocky
islets, 181-224 English feet. The six species of Araucaria
which have become known to us hitherto, fall, according to
Endlicher, into two groups:
a. The American group (Brazil and Chili): A. brasiliensis
(Rich.), between 15° and 25° 8. lat.; and A. imbricata
(Pavon), between 35° and 50° S. lat., the latter growing to
234-260 English feet.
b. The Australian group: A. bidwilli (Hook.) and A.
cunninghami (Ait.) on the east side of New Holland; A.
excelsa on Norfolk Island, and A. cookii (R. Brown) in New
Caledonia. Corda, Presl. Göppert, and Endlicher, have
already discovered five species of Araucarias belonging to the
ancient world in the lias, in chalk, and in beds of lignite
(Endlicher, Coniferæ fossiles, p. 301.).
Pinus Douglasii (Sabine), in the valleys of the Rocky
Mountains and on the banks of the Columbia River (north
lat. 48°-52°). The meritorious Scotch botanist from whom
this tree is named perished in 1833 by a dreadful death in
collecting plants in the Sandwich Islands, where he had
arrived from New California. He fell inadvertently into a
pit in which a fierce bull belonging to the cattle which have
become wild had previously fallen, and was gored and
trampled to death. By exact measurement a stem of
Pinus Douglasii was 57½ English feet in girth at 3 feet
above the ground, and its height was 245 English feet.
(See Journal of the Royal Institution, 1826, p. 325.)
Pinus trigona (Rafinesque), on the western declivity of the
Rocky Mountains, described in Lewis and Clarke’s Travels
to the Source of the Missouri River and across the American
Continent to the Pacific Ocean (1804-1806), 1814, p.
456. This gigantic Fir was measured with great care; the
trunks were often 38 to 45 English feet in girth, 6 feet
above the ground: one tree was 300 English feet high, and
the first 192 feet were without any division into branches.
Pinus Strobus grows in the eastern parts of the United
States of North America, especially on the east of the
Mississipi; but it is found again in the Rocky Mountains
from the sources of the Columbia to Mount Hood, or from
43° to 54° N. lat. It is called in Europe the Weymouth
Pine and in North America the White Pine: its ordinary
height does not exceed 160 to 192 Eng. feet, but
several trees of 250 to 266 Eng. feet have been seen in
New Hampshire. (Dwight, Travels, Vol. i. p. 36; and
Emerson’s Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing naturally
in the Forests of Massachusetts, 1846, p. 60-66.)
Sequoia gigantea (Endl.), Condylocarpus (Sal.) from
New California; like Pinus trigona, about 300 English feet
high.
The nature of the soil, and the circumstances of heat and
moisture on which the nourishment of plants depend, no
doubt influence the degree to which they flourish, and
the increase in the number of individuals in a species;
but the gigantic height attained by the trunks of a few
among the many other nearly allied species of the same
genus, depends not on soil or climate; but, in the vegetable
as well as in the animal kingdom, on a specific organisation
and inherent natural disposition. I will cite as the greatest
contrast to the Araucaria imbricata of Chili, the Pinus
Douglasii of the Columbia River, and the Sequoia gigantea
of New California, which is from 245 to 300 Eng.
feet in height,—not a plant taken from among a vegetation
stunted by cold either of latitude or elevation,
as is the case with the small Willow-tree, two inches in
height, (Salix arctica),—but a small phænogamous plant
belonging to the fine climate of the southern tropic in the
Brazilian province of Goyaz. The moss-like Tristicha
hypnoïdes, from the monocotyledonous family of the Podostemeæ,
hardly reaches the height of 3 lines (27⁄100ths, or
less than three-tenths of an English inch.) “En traversant
le Rio Claro dans la Province de Goyaz,” says an excellent
observer, Auguste de St.-Hilaire, “j’aperçus sur une pierre
une plante dont la tige n’avoit pas plus de trois lignes de
haut et que je pris d’abord pour une mousse. C’étoit
cependant une plante phanérogame, le Tristicha hypnoïdes,
pourvue d’organes sexuels comme nos chênes et les arbres
gigantesques qui à l’entour élevaient leur cimes majestueuses.”
(Auguste de St.-Hilaire, Morphologie Végétale,
1840, p. 98.)
Besides the height of their stems, the length, breadth, and
position of the leaves and fruit, the form of the ramification
aspiring or horizontal, and spreading out like a canopy or
umbrella,—the gradations of colour, from a fresh green or
silvery grey to a blackish-brown, all give to Coniferæ a peculiar
physiognomy and character. The needles of Douglas’s
Pinus lambertiana from North-west America are five French
inches long; those of Pinus excelsa of Wallich, on the
southern declivity of the Himalaya, near Katmandoo, seven
French inches; and those of P. longifolia (Roxb.), from the
mountains of Kashmeer, above a French foot long. In one
and the same species the length of the leaves or needles
varies in the most striking manner from the influence of soil,
air, and elevation above the level of the sea. In travelling
in an east and west direction through eighty degrees of
longitude (above 3040 geographical miles), from the mouth
of the Scheldt through Europe and the north of Asia to
Bogoslowsk in the northern Ural and Barnaul beyond the
Obi, I have found differences in the length of the needles
of our common Fir (Pinus sylvestris) so great, that sometimes
a traveller may be misled by the shortness and rigidity
of the leaves, to think that he has discovered a new species
allied to the Mountain Pine, P. rotundata (Link), P. uncinata
(Ram.) Link has justly remarked (Linnæa, Bd. xv.
1841, S. 489) that such instances may be regarded as transitions
to Ledebour’s P. sibirica of the Altai.
In the Mexican highlands I have looked with particular
pleasure on the delicate cheerful green of the Ahuahuete,
Taxodium distichum (Rich.), Cupressus disticha (Linn.),
which, however, is much given to shedding its leaves. In
this tropical region the above-mentioned tree, (of which
the Aztec name signifies water-drum, from atl, water,
and huehuetl, a drum, the trunk swelling to a great
thickness), flourishes 5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 English)
feet above the level of the sea, while in the United
States of North America it is found in the low grounds
of the cypress swamps of Louisiana, in the 43d parallel.
In the Southern States of North America the Taxodium
distichum (Cyprès chauve) reaches, as in the Mexican
highlands, the height of 120 (128 English) feet, and the
enormous thickness of 30 to 37 (32 to 39 English) feet, in
diameter measured near the ground. (Emerson, Report on
the Forests, pp. 49 and 101). The roots present the striking
phenomenon of woody excrescences which project from
3 to 4½ feet above the earth, and are conical and rounded,
and sometimes tabular. Travellers have compared these
excrescences in places where they are very numerous to the
grave tablets in a Jewish burying-ground. Auguste de St.
Hilaire remarks with much acuteness:—“Ces excroissances
du Cyprès chauve, ressemblant à des bornes, peuvent être
regardées comme des exostoses, et comme elles vivent dans
l’air, il s’en échapperoit sans doute des bourgeons adventifs,
si la nature du tissu des plantes conifères ne s’opposoit au
développement des germes cachés qui donnent naissance à
ces sortes de bourgeons.” (Morphologie végétale, p. 91).
A singularly enduring power of vitality in the roots of trees
of this family is shown by a phenomenon which has excited
the attention of vegetable physiologists, and appears to
be of only very rare occurrence in other dicotyledonous
trees. The remaining stumps of White Pines which have
been cut down continue for several years to make fresh layers
of wood, and to increase in thickness, without putting forth
new shoots, leaves, or branches. Göppert believes that this
only takes place by means of root nourishment received by
the stump from a neighbouring living tree of the same
species; the roots of the living individual which has
branches and leaves having become organically united with
those of the cut tree by their having grown together.
(Göppert, Beobachtungen über das sogenannte Umwallen
der Tannenstöcke, 1842, S. 12). Kunth, in his excellent
new “Lehrbuch der Botanik,” objects to this explanation
of a phenomenon which was known, imperfectly, so early as
Theophrastus. (Hist. Plant. lib. iii. cap. 7, pp. 59 and 60,
Schneider.) He considers the case to be analogous to what
takes place when metal-plates, nails, carved letters, and
even the antlers of stags, become enclosed in the wood
of a growing tree. “The cambium, i. e. the viscid secretion
out of which new elementary organs are constructed
either of woody or cellular tissue, continues, without reference
to the buds (and quite apart from them), to deposit
new layers of wood on the outermost layer of the ligneous
substance.” (Th. i. S. 143 and 166.)
The relations which have been alluded to, between elevation
above the level of the sea and geographical and thermal latitude,
manifest themselves often when we compare the tree vegetation
of the tropical part of the chain of the Andes with the vegetation
of the north-west coast of America, or with that of the
shores of the Canadian Lakes. Darwin and Claude Gay
have made the same remark in the Southern Hemisphere,
in advancing from the high plains of Chili to Eastern Patagonia
and Tierra del Fuego, where they found Drymis
winteri and forests of Fagus antarctica and Fagus forsteri
forming a uniform covering throughout long continuous lines
running from north to south and descending to the low
grounds. We find even in Europe small deviations (dependent
on local causes which have not yet been sufficiently
examined), from the law of constant ratio as regards stations
or habitat of plants between elevation above the sea and
geographical latitude. I would recall the limits, in respect
to elevation, of the birch and the common fir in a part of
the Swiss Alps, on the Grimsel. The fir (Pinus sylvestris)
extends to 5940, and the birch (Betula alba) to 6480 French
(6330 and 6906 English) feet; above the birches there is
a higher line of Pinus cembra, whose upper limit is 6890
(7343 English) feet. Here, therefore, we have the birch
intervening between two zones of Coniferæ. According to
the excellent observations of Leopold Von Buch, and the
recent ones of Martins, who also visited Spitzbergen, the
following geographical limits were found in Lapland:—Pinus
sylvestris extends to 70°; Betula alba to 70° 40´;
and Betula nana quite up to 71°; Pinus cembra is altogether
wanting in Lapland. (Compare Unger über den Einfluss
des Bodens auf die Vertheilung der Gewächse, S. 200;
Lindblom, Adnot. in geographicam plantarum intra Sueciam
distributionem, p. 89; Martins, in the Annales des Sciences
naturelles, T. xviii. 1842, p. 195).
If the length and arrangement of the needle-shaped
leaves go far to determine the physiognomic character of
Coniferæ, this character is still more influenced by the
specific differences in the breadth of the needles, and the
degree of development of the parenchyma of the appendicular
organs. Several species of Ephedra may be called
almost leafless; but in Taxus, Araucaria, Dammara (Agathis),
and the Salisburia adiantifolia of Smith (Gingko
biloba, Linn.), the surfaces of the leaves become gradually
broader. I have here placed the genera in morphological
succession. The specific names first chosen by botanists
testify in favour of such a succession. The Dammara
orientalis of Borneo and Java, often above ten feet in
diameter, was first called loranthifolia; and Dammara
australis (Lamb.) of New Zealand, which is 140 (149 English)
feet high, was first called zamæfolia. In both these
species of trees the leaves are not needles, but “folia alterna
oblongo-lanceolata, opposita, in arbore adultiore sæpe alterna,
enervia, striata.” The under surface of the leaves is thickly
set with porous openings. This passage or transition of the
appendicular system from the greatest contraction to a broad-leaved
surface, like all progression from simple to compound,
has at once a morphological and a physiognomic interest
(Link, Urwelt, Th. I. 1834, S. 201-211). The short-stalked,
broad, cleft leaf of the Salisburia (Kämpfer’s
Gingko) has also its breathing pores only on the under side
of the leaf. The original native country of this tree is
unknown to us. By the connection and intercourse of
Buddhistic communities it early passed from the temple-gardens
of China to those of Japan.
In travelling from a port on the Pacific to Mexico, on
our way to Europe, I witnessed the singular and painful
impression which the first sight of a pine forest near Chilpanzingo
made on one of our companions, who, born at
Quito under the equinoctial line, had never seen needle
trees, or trees with “folia acerosa.” It seemed to him as
if the trees were leafless; and he thought that as we were
travelling towards the cold North, he already recognised in
this extreme contraction of the vegetable organs the chilling
and impoverishing influence of the pole. The traveller
whose impressions I here describe, whose name neither my
friend Bonpland or myself can pronounce without regret,
was Don Carlos Montufar (son of the Marquis of Selvalegre),
an excellent young man, whose noble and ardent
love of freedom led him a few years later, in the war of
independence of the Spanish Colonies, to meet courageously
a violent death, of which the dishonour did not fall on
him.
Caladium and Pothos are exclusively forms of the tropical
world; the species of Arum belong more to the temperate
zone. Arum italicum, A. dracunculus, and A. tenuifolium,
extend to Istria and Friuli. No Pothos has yet been discovered
in Africa. India has some species of this genus
(Pothos scandens and P. pinnata) which are less beautiful
in their physiognomy, and less luxuriant in their growth,
than the American species. We discovered a beautiful and
truly arborescent member of the group of Aroideæ (Caladium
arboreum) having stems from 16 to 21 English feet high,
not far from the convent of Caripe, to the East of Cumanas.
A very curious Caladium (Culcasia scandens) has been
discovered by Beauvois in the kingdom of Benin. (Palisot
de Beauvois, Flore d’Oware et de Benin, T. i. 1804, p. 4,
pl. iii.) In the Pothos-form the parenchyma is sometimes
so much extended that the surface of the leaf is interrupted
by holes as in Calla pertusa (Kunth), and Dracontium pertusum
(Jacquin), which we collected in the woods round
Cumana. The Aroideæ first led attention to the remarkable
phenomenon of the fever-heat, which in certain plants is
sensible by the thermometer during the development of their
inflorescence, and which is connected with a great and temporary
increase of the absorption of oxygen from the atmosphere.
Lamarck remarked in 1789 this increase of temperature at the
time of flowering in Arum italicum. According to Hubert
and Bory de St. Vincent the vital heat of Arum cordifolium
in the Isle of France was found to rise to 35°and 39° Reaumur,
(110°.6 and 119°.6 Fahr.) while the temperature of
the surrounding air was only 15°.2 R. (66°.2 F.) Even
in Europe, Becquerel and Breschet found as much as 17½°
difference, Reaumur (39°.4 Fahr.) Dutrochet remarked a
paroxysm, an alternate decrease and increase of vital heat,
which appeared to reach a double maximum in the day.
Théodore de Saussure observed analogous augmentations of
temperature, though to a less amount, only from 0°.5 to
0°.8 of Reaumur’s scale (1°.15 to 1°.8 Fahr.), in plants belonging
to other families; for example, in Bignonia radicans
and Cucurbita pepo. In the latter plant the use of a very
sensitive thermoscope shews that the increase of temperature
is greater in the male than in the female plant. Dutrochet,
who previous to his early death made such meritorious researches
in physics and in vegetable physiology, found by
means of thermo-magnetic multiplicators (Comptes rendus
de l’Institut, T. viii. 1839, p. 454, T. ix. p. 614 and 781)
an increase of vital heat from 0°.1 to 0°.3 Reaumur, (0°.25
to 0°.67 Fahr.) in several young plants (Euphorbia lathyris,
Lilium candidum, Papaver somniferum), and even among
funguses in several species of Agaricus and Lycoperdon.
This vital heat disappeared at night, but was not prevented
by placing the plants in the dark during the day-time.
A yet more striking physiognomic contrast than that
of Casuarineæ, Needle trees, and the almost leafless Peruvian
Colletias, with Aroideæ, is presented by the comparison
of those types of the greatest contraction of the leafy
organs with the Nymphæaceæ and Nelumboneæ. We find
in these as in the Aroideæ, leaves, in which the cellular
tissue forming their surface is extended to an extreme degree,
supported on long fleshy succulent leaf-stalks; as in Nymphæa
alba; N. lutea; N. thermalis (once called N. lotus,
from the hot spring of Pezce near Groswardein, in Hungary);
the species of Nelumbo; Euryale amazonica of Pöppig;
and the Victoria Regina discovered in 1837 by Sir Robert
Schomburgk in the River Berbice in British Guiana, and
which is allied to the prickly Euryale, although, according
to Lindley, a very different genus. The round leaves of
this magnificent water plant are six feet in diameter, and
are surrounded by turned up margins 3 to 5 inches high,
light green inside, and bright crimson outside. The agreeably
perfumed flowers, twenty or thirty blossoms of which
may be seen at the same time within a small space, are
white and rose coloured, 15 inches in diameter, and have
many hundred petals. (Rob. Schomburgk, Reisen in Guiana
und am Orinoko, 1841, S. 233.) Pöppig also gives to the
leaves of his Euryale amazonica which he found near Tefe,
as much as 5 feet 8 inches French, or 6 English feet,
diameter. (Pöppig, Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem
Amazonenstrome, Bd. ii. 1836, S. 432.) If Euryale and
Victoria are the genera which present the greatest extension
in all dimensions of the parenchyma of the leaves, the greatest
known dimensions of a flower belong to a parasitical
Cytinea, the Rafflesia Arnoldi (R. Brown), discovered by
Dr. Arnold in Sumatra, in 1818: it has a stemless flower of
three English feet diameter, surrounded by large leaf-like
scales. Fungus-like, it has an animal smell, resembling beef.
[25] p. 26.—“Lianes, rope-plants, (‘Bush ropes;’
in Spanish, Vejuccos.”)
According to Kunth’s division of the Bauhinieæ, the
true genus Bauhinia belongs to the New Continent: the
African Bauhinia, B. rufescens, (Lam.) is a Pauletia (Cav.)
a genus of which we found some new species in South
America. So also the Banisterias, from among the Malpighiaceæ,
are properly an American form; although two
species are natives of India, and one species, Banisteria
leona, described by Cavanilles, is a native of Western
Africa. Within the tropics and in the Southern Hemisphere
we find among the most different families of plants the
twining rope-like climbers which in those regions render the
forests at once so impenetrable to man, and on the other
hand so accessible and habitable to the Quadrumanæ (or
Monkeys) and to the Cercoleptes and the small tiger-cats.
The rapid ascent to the tops of lofty trees, the passage from
tree to tree, and even the crossing of streams by whole herds
or troops of gregarious animals, are all greatly facilitated by
these twining plants or Lianes.
In the South of Europe and in North America, Hops
from among the Urticeæ, and the species of Vitis from
among the Ampelideæ, belong to the class of twining
climbers, and between the tropics we find climbing Grasses
or Gramineæ. We have seen in the plains of Bogota, in
the pass of Quindiu, in the Andes, and in the Quina-producing
forests of Loxa, a Bambusacea allied to Nastus, our Chusquea
scandens, twine round massive and lofty trunks of trees adorned
at the same time with flowering Orchideæ. The Bambusa
scandens (Tjankorreh), which Blume found in Java, belongs
probably either to the genus Nastus or to that of Chusquea,
the Carrizo of the Spanish settlers. Twining plants appear
to me to be entirely absent in the Pine-woods of Mexico,
but in New Zealand, besides the Ripogonum parviflorum of
Robert Brown, (a climber belonging to the Smilaceæ which
renders the forests almost impenetrable), the sweet-smelling
Freycinetia Banksii, which belongs to the Pandaneæ, twines
round a gigantic Podocarpus 220 English feet high, the P.
dacryoides (Rich), called in the native language Kakikatea.
(Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, 1843, Vol. i. p. 426.)
With climbing Gramineæ and Pandaneæ are contrasted
by their beautiful and many-coloured blossoms the Passifloras
(among which, however, we even found an arborescent self-supporting
species, Passiflora glauca, growing in the Andes
of Popayan, at an elevation of 9840 French (10487 English)
feet);—the Bignoniaceæ, Mutisias, Alströmerias, Urvilleæ,
and Aristolochias. Among the latter our Aristolochia cordata
has a crimson-coloured flower of 17 English inches diameter!
“flores gigantei, pueris mitræ instar inservientes.” Many
of these twining plants have a peculiar physiognomy and
appearance produced by the square shape of their stems, by
flattenings not caused by any external pressure, and by
riband-like wavings to and fro. Cross sections of Bignonias
and Banisterias shew cruciform or mosaic figures produced
by the mutual pressure and interpenetration of the stems
which twine around each other. (See very accurate drawings
in Adrien de Jussieu’s Cours de Botanique, p. 77-79,
fig. 105-108.)
To this group of plants, characterised by so great a similarity
of physiognomy, belong; Yucca aloifolia, which extends
as far north as Florida and South Carolina; Y. angustifolia
(Nutt.) which advances as far as the banks of the Missouri;
Aletris arborea; the Dragon-tree of the Canaries and two
other Dræcænas from New Zealand; arborescent Euphorbias;
Aloë dichotoma (Linn.) (formerly the genus Rhipidodendrum
of Willdenow); and the celebrated Koker-boom
of Southern Africa with a trunk twenty-one feet high and
above four feet thick, and a top of 400 (426 Engl.) feet in
circumference. (Patterson, Reisen in das Land der Hottentotten
und der Kaffern, 1790, S. 55.) The forms which
I have thus brought together belong to very different
families: to the Liliaceæ, Asphodeleæ, Pandaneæ, Amaryllideæ,
and Euphorbiaceæ; all, however, with the
exception of the last, belonging to the great division
of the Monocotyledones. A Pandanea, Phytelephas macrocarpa
(Ruiz,) which we found in New Granada on
the banks of the Magdalena, with its pinnated leaves,
quite resembles in appearance a small palm-tree. This
Phytelephas, of which the Indian name is Tagua, is besides,
as Kunth remarks, the only one of the Pandaneæ
found (according to our present knowledge) in the New
Continent. The singular Agave-like and at the same time
very tall-stemmed Doryanthes excelsa of New South Wales,
which was first described by the acutely observing Correa
de Serra, is an Amaryllidea, like our low-growing Narcissuses
and Jonquils.
In the Candelabra shape of plants of the Aloë form, we
must not confound the branches of an arborescent stem with
flower-stalks. It is the latter which in the American Aloë
(Agave Americana, Maguey de Cocuyza, which is entirely
wanting in Chili) as well as in the Yucca acaulis, (Maguey de
Cocuy) presents in the rapid and gigantic development of the
inflorescence a candelabrum-like arrangement of the flowers
which, as is well known, is but too transient a phenomenon.
In some arborescent Euphorbias, on the other hand, the physiognomic
effect is given by the branches and their division,
or by ramification properly so called. Lichtenstein, in his
“Reisen im südlichen Africa” (Th. i. S. 370), gives a vivid
description of the impression made upon him by the appearance
of a Euphorbia officinarum which he found in the
“Chamtoos Rivier,” in the Colony of the Cape of Good
Hope; the form of the tree was so symmetrical that the
candelabrum-like arrangement was regularly repeated on a
smaller scale in each of the subdivisions of the larger
branches up to 32 English feet high. All the branches were
armed with sharp spines.
Palms, Yuccas, Aloes, tall-stemmed Ferns, some Aralias,
and the Theophrasta where I have seen it growing luxuriantly,
different as they are in the structure of their
flowers, yet offer to the eye in the nakedness (absence of
branches) of their stems, and in the ornamental character of
their tops or crowns, a certain degree of physiognomic
resemblance.
The Melanoselinum decipiens (Hofm.), which is sometimes
upwards of 10 or 12 feet high, and which has been introduced
into our gardens from Madeira, belongs to a peculiar
group of arborescent umbelliferous plants to which Araliaceæ
are otherwise allied, and with which other plants which
will doubtless be discovered in course of time will be associated.
Ferula, Heracleum, and Thapsia, do indeed attain a
considerable height, but they are still herbaceous plants.
Melanoselinum is still almost entirely alone as an umbelliferous
tree; Bupleurum (Tenonia) fruticosum (Linn.) of the shores
of the Mediterranean; Bubon galbanum of the Cape, and
Crithmum maritimum of our sea-shores, are only shrubs.
On the other hand, the tropical zone, in which, according to
the old and very just remark of Adanson, Umbelliferæ and
Cruciferæ are almost entirely wanting in the plains, presented
to us on the high ridges of the American Andes the smallest
and most dwarf-like of all umbelliferous plants. Among
38 species of plants which we collected at elevations where
the mean temperature is below 10° Reaumur (54°.5 Fah.),
there vegetate almost like mosses, and as if they made part
of the rock and of the often frozen earth, at an elevation
of 12600 (13430 English) feet above the level of the
sea, Myrrhis andicola, Fragosa arctioïdes, and Pectophytum
pedunculare, intermingled with which there is an equally
dwarfed Alpine Draba. The only umbelliferous plants
growing in the low grounds within the tropics observed by
us in the New Continent were two species of Hydrocotyle
(H. umbellata and H. leptostachya) between Havannah and
Batabano; therefore at the extreme limits of the torrid Zone.
The group of arborescent grasses which Kunth, in his
able treatise on the plants collected by Bonpland and myself,
has combined under the name of Bambusaceæ, is among
the most beautiful adornments of the tropical world.
(Bambu, also called Mambu, is a word in the Malay
language, but appears according to Buschmann to be of
doubtful origin, as the usual Malay expression is buluh, in
Java and Madagascar wuluh, voulu.) The number of genera
and species which form this group has been extraordinarily
augmented by the zeal of botanists. It is now recognised
that the genus Bambusa is entirely wanting in the New
Continent, to which on the other hand Guadua, from 50 to
60 French or about 53 to 64 English feet high, discovered
by us, and Chusquea, exclusively belong; that Arundinaria
(Rich) is common to both continents, although the species
are different; that Bambusa and Beesha (Rheed.) are
found in India and the Indian Archipelago, and Nastus in
the Island of Bourbon, and in Madagascar. With the exception
of the tall-climbing Chusquea the forms which have
been named may be said to replace each other morphologically
in the different parts of the world. In the northern
hemisphere, in the valley of the Mississipi, the traveller is
gratified, long before reaching the tropics, with the sight of
a form of bamboo, the Arundinaria macrosperma, formerly
called also Miegia, and Ludolfia. In the Southern Hemisphere
Gay has discovered a Bambusacea, (a still undescribed
species of Chusquea, 21 English feet high, which does not
climb, but is arborescent and self-supporting) growing in
southern Chili between the parallels of 37° and 42° S. latitude;
where, intermixed with Drymis chilensis, a uniform
forest covering of Fagus obliqua prevails.
While in India the Bambusa flowers so abundantly that
in Mysore and Orissa the seeds are mixed with honey and
eaten like rice, (Buchanan, Journey through Mysore, Vol.
ii. p. 341, and Stirling in the Asiat. Res. Vol. xv, p. 205)
in South America the Guadua flowers so rarely, that in
four years we were only twice able to procure blossoms;
once on the unfrequented banks of the Cassiquiare, (the arm
which connects the Orinoco with the Rio Negro and the
Amazons River,) and once in the province of Popayan
between Buga and Quilichao. It is striking to see plants
in particular localities grow with the greatest vigour without
producing flowers: it is thus with European olive trees
which have been planted for centuries between the tropics
near Quito, 9000 (about 9590 English) feet above the
level of the sea, and also in the Isle of France with
Walnut-trees, Hazel-nuts, and, as at Quito, olive trees
(Olea europea): see Bojer, Hortus Mauritianus, 1837,
p. 291.
As some of the Bambusaceæ (arborescent grasses) advance
into the temperate zone, so within the tropics they do not
suffer from the temperate climate of the mountains. They
certainly grow more luxuriantly as social plants from the
sea coast to the height of about 2560 English feet; for
example, in the province de las Esmeraldas, west of the
Volcano of Pichincha, where Guadua angustifolia (Bambusa
Guadua in our Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. Tab. xx.) produces
in its interior much of the siliceous Tabaschir (Sanscrit
tvakkschira, ox-milk). In the pass of Quindiu we saw
the Guadua growing at an elevation which we found by
barometric measurement to be 5400 (5755 English) feet
above the level of the Pacific. Nastus borbonicus is called
by Bory de St. Vincent a true Alpine plant; he states that
it does not descend lower on the declivity of the Volcano
in the Island of Bourbon than 3600 (3837 English) feet.
This recurrence or repetition as it were at great elevations
of the forms characteristic of the hot plains, recalls the
mountain group of palms before pointed out by me (Kunthia
Montana, Ceroxylon andicola, and Oreodoxa frigida), and a
grove or thicket of Musaceæ sixteen English feet high
(Heliconia, perhaps Maranta), which I found growing isolated
at an elevation of 6600 (7034 English) feet, on the Silla
de Caraccas. (Rélation hist. T. i. p. 605-606.) As,
with the exception of a few isolated herbaceous dicotyledones,
grasses form the highest zone of phænogamous vegetation
round the snowy summits of lofty mountains, so also, in
advancing in a horizontal direction towards either pole of the
Earth, the phænogamous vegetation terminates with grasses.
To my young friend Joseph Hooker, who, but just
returned with Sir James Ross from the frozen antarctic
regions, is now exploring the Thibetian portion of the Himalaya,
the geography of plants is indebted not only for a
great mass of important materials, but also for excellent
general deductions. He calls attention to the circumstance
that phænogamous flowering plants (grasses) approach 17½°
nearer to the Northern than to the Southern pole. In the
Falkland Islands near the thick masses of Tussack grass
(Dactylis cæspitosa, Forster, according to Kunth a Festuca),
and in Tierra del Fuego or Fuegia, under the shade
of the birch-leaved Fagus antarctica, there grows the same
Trisetum subspicatum which extends over the whole range
of the Peruvian Cordilleras, and over the Rocky Mountains
to Melville Island, Greenland, and Iceland, and which is also
found in the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, in the Altai mountains,
in Kamtschatka, and in Campbell Island, south of New
Zealand; therefore, from 54° South to 74½° North latitude,
or through 128½° of latitude. “Few grasses,” says
Joseph Hooker, in his Flora Antarctica, p. 97, “have so
wide a range as Trisetum subspicatum, (Beauv.) nor am I
acquainted with any other Arctic species which is equally an
inhabitant of the opposite polar regions.” The South
Shetland Islands, which are divided by Bransfield Strait
from D’Urville’s Terre de Louis Philippe and the Volcano
of Haddington Peak, situated in 64° 12´ South latitude
and 7046 English feet high, have been very recently
visited by a Botanist from the United States of North
America, Dr. Eights. He found there (probably in 62° or
62¼°, S. latitude) a small grass, Aira antarctica (Hooker,
Icon. Plant. Vol. ii. Tab. 150) which is “the most antarctic
flowering plant hitherto discovered.”
In Deception Island, of the same group, S. lat. 62° 50´,
lichens only are found, and not a single species of grass; and
so also farther to the south-east, in Cockburn Island (lat.
64° 12´), near Palmer’s Land, there were only found Lecanoras,
Lecideas, and five Mosses, among which was our
German Bryum argenteum: “this seems to be the ultima
Thule of antarctic vegetation.” Farther to the south, land-cryptogamic,
as well as phænogamic, vegetation is entirely
wanting. In the great bay formed by Victoria Land, on a
small island which lies opposite to Mount Herschel (S. lat.
71° 49´), and in Franklin Island, 92 geographical miles
North of the great volcano Mount Erebus, 12400 English
feet high (latitude 76° 7´ South), Hooker found not a
single trace of vegetable life. It is quite different in respect
to the extension even of the forms of higher vegetable
organisation in the high northern latitudes. Phænogamous
plants there approach 18½° nearer to the pole than in the
southern hemisphere: Walden Island (N. lat. 80½°) has
still ten species. The antarctic phænogamous vegetation is
also poorer in species at corresponding distances from the
pole (Iceland has five times as many flowering plants as the
southern group of Auckland and Campbell Islands), but
this less varied antarctic vegetation is from climatic reasons
more luxuriant and succulent. (Compare Hooker, Flora
antarctica, p. vii., 74, and 215, with Sir James Ross, Voyage
in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, 1839-1843, Vol. ii.
p. 335-342.)
If, with a naturalist deeply versed in the knowledge of the
Agamæ, Dr. Klotzsch, we estimate the whole number of
cryptogamic species hitherto described at 19000, this gives
to Fungi 8000 (of which the Agarici constitute 1-8th);
Lichens, according to J. von Flotow of Hirschberg, and
Hampe of Blankenburg, at least 1400; Algæ 2580; Mosses
and Liver-worts, according to Carl Müller of Halle, and Dr.
Gottsche of Hamburgh, 3800; and Ferns 3250. We are
indebted for this last important result to the thorough investigation
of all that is known concerning this group of
plants by Professor Kunze of Leipsic. It is remarkable
that of the entire number of described Filices the family of
Polypodiaceæ, alone, comprises 2165 species; while other
forms, even Lycopodiaceæ and Hymenophyllaceæ, only count
350 and 200. There are, therefore, almost as many described
ferns as described grasses.
It is remarkable that in the ancient classic writers,
Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny, no notice occurs of
the beautiful form of arborescent ferns; while from information
derived from the companions of Alexander, Aristobulus,
Megasthenes, and Nearchus, mention is made of Bamboos
“quæ fissis internodiis lembi vice vectitabant navigantes;”
of the Indian trees “quarum folia non minora clypeo sunt;”
of the fig-tree of which the branches take root round the
parent stem; and of Palms “tantæ proceritatis, ut sagittis
superjici nequeant.” (Humboldt, de Distributione geogr.
Plantarum, p. 178 and 213.) I find the first description of
tree-ferns in Oviedo’s Historia de las Indias, 1535, fol. xc.
This experienced traveller, who had been placed by Ferdinand
the Catholic as director of the gold-washings in Hayti, says:
“Among the many ferns there are some which I reckon
among trees, for they are as thick and as tall as pines
(Helechos que yo cuento por arboles, tan gruesos como
grandes pinos y muy altos). They grow chiefly in the
mountains and where there is much water.” The height is
exaggerated. In the dense forests round Caripe even our
Cyathea speciosa only attains a height of 30 to 35 (32 to
37 English) feet; and an excellent observer, Ernst Dieffenbach,
in the northernmost of the three islands of New
Zealand saw no stems of Cyathea dealbata of more than 40
(42½ English) feet in height. In the Cyathea speciosa and
the Meniscium of the Chaymas missions we observed, in the
midst of the shadiest primeval forest, in very luxuriantly
growing individuals, the scaly stems covered with a shining
carbonaceous powder. It seemed like a singular decomposition
of the fibrous parts of the old frond stalks. (Humboldt,
Rel. hist. T. i. p. 437.)
Between the tropics, where, on the declivities of the
Cordilleras, climates are placed successively in stages one
above another, the proper zone of the tree-ferns is between
three and five thousand feet (about 3200 and 5330 English)
above the level of the sea. In South America and in the
Mexican highlands they seldom descend lower towards the
plains than 1200 (about 1280 Eng.) feet. The mean
temperature of this happy zone falls between 17° and 14°.5
Reaumur (70°.2 and 64°.6 Fahr.) This region enters the
lowest stratum of clouds, or that which floats next above the
sea and the plains; and hence, besides great equality of temperature,
it also enjoys uninterruptedly a high degree of
humidity. (Robert Brown, in Appendix to Expedition to
Congo, p. 423.) The inhabitants, who are of Spanish descent,
call this zone “tierra templada de los helechos.” The
Arabic word for fern is feledschun, f being changed into h
in helechos according to Spanish custom: perhaps the Arabic
feledschun is connected with “faladscha,” “it divides;” in
allusion to the finely divided margins of fern leaves or fronds.
(Abu Zacaria Ebn el Awam, Libro de Agricultura, traducido
por J. A. Banqueri, T. ii. Madr. 1802, p. 736.)
The conditions of mild temperature and an atmosphere
nearly saturated with vapour, together with great equability
of climate in respect to both temperature and moisture, are
fulfilled on the declivities of the mountains, in the valleys of
the Andes, and above all in the mild and humid atmosphere
of the southern hemisphere, where arborescent ferns extend
not only to New Zealand and Van Diemen Island (Tasmania),
but even to the Straits of Magellan and to Campbell Islands,
or to a latitude almost corresponding to that of Berlin in the
northern hemisphere. Of tree-ferns, Dicksonia squarrosa
grows vigorously in 46° South latitude, in Dusky Bay (New
Zealand); D. antarctica of Labillardière in Tasmania; a
Thyrsopteris in Juan Fernandez; an undescribed Dicksonia
with stems from 12 to 15 (nearly 13 to 16 English) feet in
the south of Chili, not far from Valdivia; and a Lomaria
of rather less height in the Straits of Magellan. Campbell
Island is still nearer to the south pole, in 52½° lat., and
even there the stem of the Aspidium venustum rises to
4 feet (4 feet 3 inches, English) before the fronds branch
off.
The climatic relations under which Ferns in general flourish,
are manifested in the numerical laws of their quotients of
distribution taken in the manner alluded to in an earlier
part of the present volume. In the low plains of the great
continents within the tropics, the quotient for ferns is,
according to Robert Brown, and according to late researches,
1-20th of all the species of phænogamous plants growing in
the same region; in the mountainous parts of the great
continents in the same latitudes it is from 1-8th to 1-6th.
But a very different ratio is found in the small islands dispersed
over the wide ocean. The proportion of ferns to the
whole number of Phanerogamæ increases there in such a
manner that in the groups of islands between the tropics in
the Pacific the ferns equal a fourth,—and in the solitary far
detached islands in the Atlantic Ocean, St. Helena, and
Ascension,—almost equal the half of the entire phænogamous
vegetation. (See an excellent memoir of D’Urville entitled
Distribution géographique des Fougères sur la surface du
Globe, in the Annales des Sciences Nat. T. vi. 1825, p. 51,
66, and 73). From the tropics (where in the great continents
D’Urville estimates the ratio generally at 1:20) we
see the relative frequency of ferns decrease rapidly in the
temperate zone. The quotients are: for North America and
for the British Islands 1⁄33, for France 1⁄58, for Germany 1⁄52,
for the dry parts of the south of Italy 1⁄74, and for Greece 1⁄84.
Towards the colder regions of the north we see the relative
frequency increase again rapidly; that is to say, the number
of species of ferns decreases much more slowly than does the
number of species of phænogamous plants. At the same time,
the luxuriance, abundance, and mass of individuals in each
species augments the illusive impression of absolute numbers.
According to Wahlenberg’s and Hornemann’s Catalogues
the relative numbers of Filices are, for Lapland 1⁄25, for
Iceland 1⁄18, and for Greenland 1⁄12.
Such, according to the present state of our knowledge, are
the natural laws manifested in the distribution of the pleasing
form of Ferns. But it would seem as if in the family of
Ferns, which has so long been regarded as a cryptogamic
family, we had quite recently arrived on the traces of another
natural law, a morphological one of propagation. Count
Leszczyc-Suminski, who happily unites the gift of microscopic
examination with distinguished artistic talent, has discovered
in the prothallium of ferns an organisation by which fructification
is effected. He distinguishes a bisexual arrangement
in the ovule-like cell on the middle of the theca, and in the
ciliated antheridia or spiral threads before examined by
Nägeli. The fertilisation is supposed to take place not by
pollen tubes but by the moveable ciliated spiral threads.
(Suminski zur Entwickelungs-geschichte der Farrnkräuter,
1848, S. 10-14.) According to this view, Ferns, as Ehrenberg
expresses it (Monatl. Berichte der Akad. zu Berlin, Januar
1848, S. 20), would be produced by a microscopic fertilisation
taking place on the prothallium as a receptacle; and
throughout the whole remainder of their often arborescent
development they would be flowerless and fruitless plants,
forming buds or bulbs; the spores or sori on the under
side of the frond not being seeds but flower buds.
The principal seat of this form is Africa, where it is both
most varied and most abundant, and where these beautifully
flowering plants are assembled in masses and determine the
aspect and character of the country. The New Continent
does, indeed, also possess superb Alstromeriæ and species of
Pancratium, Hæmanthus, and Crinum (we augmented the
first-named of these genera by nine, and the second by three
species); but these American Liliaceæ grow dispersed, and
are less social than our European Irideæ.
Of the leading representative of this form, the Willow
itself, 150 different species are already known. They are
spread over the northern hemisphere from the Equator to
Lapland. They appear to increase in number and diversity
of form between the 46th and 70th degrees of north latitude,
and especially in the part of north of Europe where the configuration
of the land has been so strikingly indented by
early geological changes. Of Willows as tropical plants I am
acquainted with ten or twelve species, which, like the willows
of the southern hemisphere, are deserving of particular
attention. As Nature seems as it were to take pleasure in
multiplying certain forms of animals, for example Anatidæ
(Lamellirostres) and Columbæ, in all the zones of the earth;
so are Willows, the different species of Pines, and Oaks, no
less widely disseminated: the latter (oaks) being always
alike in their fruit, though much diversified in the forms of
their leaves. In Willows, the similarity of the foliage, of the
ramification, and of the whole physiognomic appearance, in
the most different climates, is unusually great,—almost greater
than even in Coniferæ. In the southern part of the temperate
zone of the northern hemisphere the number of species
of willows decreases considerably, yet (according to the Flora
atlantica of Desfontaines) Tunis has still a species of its own
resembling Salix caprea; and Egypt reckons, according to
Forskäl, five species, from the catkins of whose male flowers
a medicine much employed in the East, Moie chalaf (aqua
salicis) is obtained by distillation. The Willow which I saw
in the Canaries is also, according to Leopold von Buch and
Christian Smith, a peculiar species, common however to that
group and to the Island of Madeira,—S. canariensis.
Wallich’s Catalogue of the plants of Nepaul and of the
Himalaya cites from the Indian sub-tropical zone thirteen
species, partly described by Don, Roxburgh, and Lindley.
Japan has its indigenous willows, one of which, S. japonica
(Thunb.) is also found as a mountain plant in Nepaul.
Previous to my expedition, the Indian Salix tetrasperma
was the only known intertropical species, so far as I am
aware. We collected seven new species, three of which
were from the elevated plains of Mexico, and were found to
extend to an elevation of 8000 (about 8500 English) feet
above the level of the sea. At still greater elevations,—for
example, on the mountain plains situated between 12000
and 14000 feet, (about 12790 and 14920 English,) which
we often visited,—we did not find, either in the Andes of
Mexico or in those of Quito and Peru, anything which could
recall the small creeping alpine willows of the Pyrenees, the
Alps, and Lapland (S. herbacea, S. lanata, and S. reticulata).
In Spitzbergen, where the meteorological conditions have
much analogy with those of the Swiss and Scandinavian
snow-mountains, Martins described two dwarf willows, of
which the small woody stems and branches creep on the ground,
and which lie so concealed in the turf-bogs that their small
leaves are only discovered with difficulty under the moss.
The species found by me in Peru in 4° 12´ S. latitude, near
Loxa, at the entrance of the forests where the best Cinchona
bark is collected, and described by Willdenow as Salix
humboldtiana, is the one which is most widely distributed
in the western part of South America. A sea-shore species,
S. falcata, which we found on the sandy coast of the
Pacific, near Truxillo, is, according to Kunth, probably only
a variety of the above; and possibly the fine and often
pyramidal willow which accompanied us along the banks of
the Magdalena, from Mahates to Bojorque, and which,
according to the report of the natives, had only extended so
far within a few years, may also be identical with Salix
humboldtiana. At the confluence of the Rio Opon with the
Magdalena, we found all the islands covered with willows,
many of which had stems 64 English feet high, but only
8 to 10 inches in diameter. (Humboldt and Kunth, Nova
Gen. Plant. T. ii. p. 22, tab. 99.) Lindley has made us
acquainted with a species of Salix from Senegal, and therefore
in the African equinoctial zone. (Lindley, Introduction
to the Natural System of Botany, p. 99.) Blume also
found two species of Salix near the equator, in Java: one
wild and indigenous, S. tetrasperma; and another cultivated,
S. sieboldiana. From the southern temperate zone I know
only two willows described by Thunberg, (S. hirsuta and
S. mucronata); they grow by the side of Protea argentea
(which has itself very much the physiognomy of a willow),
on the banks of the Orange River, and their leaves and
young shoots form the food of the hippopotamus. Willows
are entirely wanting in Australia and the neighbouring
islands.
An elegant form, with stiff, shining, thickly set,
generally unindented, small leaves, studded with pellucid
dots. Myrtaceæ give a peculiar character to three districts
of the earth’s surface,—the South of Europe, particularly
the calcareous and trachytic islands which rise above the
surface of the Mediterranean;—the continent of New Holland,
adorned with Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, and Leptospermum;—and
an intertropical region, part of which is
low, and part from nine to ten thousand feet high (about
9590 to 10660 English), in the Andes of South America.
This mountain district, called in Quito the district of the
Paramos, is entirely covered with trees which have a myrtle-like
aspect and character, even though they may not all
belong to the natural family of Myrtaceæ. Here, at the
above-named elevation, grow the Escallonia myrtilloides,
E. tubar, Simplocos alstonia, some species of Myrica, and
the beautiful Myrtus microphylla which we have figured in
the Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 21, Pl. iv. We found it
growing on mica slate, and extending to an elevation of
more than ten thousand English feet, on the Paramo de
Saraguru, near Vinayacu and Alto de Pulla, which is
adorned with so many lovely alpine flowering plants.
Myrtus myrsinoides even extends in the Paramo de Guamani
up to 10500 (11190 English) feet. Of the 40
species of the Genus Myrtus which we collected in the
equinoctial zone, and of which 37 were undescribed, much
the greater part belonged, however, to the plains and lower
mountains. From the mild tropical mountain climate of
Mexico we brought back only a single species (Myrtus
xalapensis); but the Tierra templada, towards the Volcano
of Orizaba, must no doubt contain several more. We
found M. maritima near Acapulco, quite on the sea-coast
of the Pacific.
The Escallonias,—among which E. myrtilloides, E. tubar,
and E. floribunda, are the ornament of the Paramos, and
by their physiognomy remind the beholder strongly of
the myrtle-form,—once constituted, in combination with
the European and South American Alp-roses (Rhododendrum
and Befaria), and with Clethra, Andromeda, and
Gaylussaccia buxifolia, the family of Ericeæ. Robert
Brown (see the Appendix to Franklin’s Narrative of a
Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1823, p. 765),
has raised them to the rank of a separate family, which
Kunth places between Philadelpheæ and Hamamelideæ.
The Escallonia floribunda offers in its geographical distribution
one of the most striking examples, in the habitat of
the plant, of proportion between distance from the equator
and vertical elevation above the level of the sea. In making
this statement I again support myself on the authority of
my acute and judicious friend Auguste de St.-Hilaire
(Morphologie végétale, 1840, p. 52):—“Messieurs de
Humboldt et Bonpland ont découvert dans leur expédition
l’Escallonia floribunda à 1400 toises par les 4° de latitude
australe. Je l’ai retrouvé par les 21° au Brésil dans un
pays élevé, mais pourtant infiniment plus bas que les Andes
du Pérou: il est commun entre les 24°.50´ et les 25°.55´
dans les Campos Geræs, enfin je le revois au Rio de la Plata
vers les 35°, au niveau même l’ocean.”
Trees belonging the group of Myrtaceæ,—to which
Melaleuca, Metrosideros, and Eucalyptus belong in the
sub-division of Leptospermeæ,—produce partially, either
where the leaves are replaced by phyllodias (leaf-stalk leaves),
or by the peculiar disposition or direction of the leaves
relatively to the unswollen leaf-stalk, a distribution of stripes
of light and shade unknown in our forests of round-leaved
trees. The first botanical travellers who visited New Holland
were struck with the singularity of the effect thus
produced. Robert Brown was the first to show that this
strange appearance arose from the leaf-stalks (the phyllodias
of the Acacia longifolia and A. suaveolens) being expanded
in a vertical direction, and from the circumstance that the
light instead of falling on horizontal surfaces, falls on and
passes between vertical ones. (Adrien de Jussieu, Cours de
Botanique, p. 106, 120, and 700; Darwin, Journal of
Researches, 1845, p. 433). Morphological laws in the
development of the leafy organs determine the peculiar character
of the effects produced, the outlines of light and
shade. “Phyllodias,” says Kunth, “can, according to my
view, only occur in families which have compound pinnated
leaves; and in point of fact they have as yet only been
found in Leguminosæ, (in Acacias). In Eucalyptus, Metrosideros,
and Melaleuca, the leaves are simple (simplicia),
and their edgewise position arises from a half turn or twist of
the leaf-stalk (petiolus); it should be remarked at the same
time that the two surfaces of the leaves are similar.” In
the comparatively shadeless forests of New Holland the
optical effects here alluded to are the more frequent, as two
groups of Myrtaceæ and Leguminosæ, species of Eucalyptus
and of Acacia, constitute almost the half of all the greyish
green trees of which those forests consist. In addition to
this, in Melaleuca there are formed between the layers of
the inner bark easily detached portions of epidermis which
press outwards, and by their whiteness remind the European
of our birch bark.
The distribution of Myrtaceæ is very different in the
two continents. In the New Continent, and especially in
its western portion, it scarcely extends beyond the 26th
parallel of north latitude, according to Joseph Hooker
(Flora antarctica, p. 12); while in the Southern Hemisphere,
according to Claude Gay, there are in Chili 10 species of
Myrtus and 22 species of Eugenia, which, intermixed with
Proteaceæ (Embothrium and Lomatia), and with Fagus
obliqua, form forests. The Myrtaceæ become more abundant
beyond 38° S. lat.,—in the Island of Chiloe, where a
Metrosideros-like species of Myrtus (Myrtus stipularis)
forms almost impenetrable thickets under the name of
Tepuales; in Patagonia; and in Fuegia to its extremity in
56½° S. lat. In the Old Continent they prevail in Europe
as far as the 46th parallel of North latitude: in Australia,
Tasmania, New Zealand, and the Auckland Islands, they
advance to 50½° South latitude.
This group comprises the genera Melastoma (Fothergilla
and Tococa Aubl.) and Rhexia (Meriana and Osbeckia), of
which we found, on either side of the equator in tropical
America alone, 60 new species. Bonpland has published
a superb work on Melastomaceæ, in two volumes, with
coloured drawings. Some species of Rhexia and Melastoma
ascend in the Andes, as alpine or Paramos shrubs, as
high as nine and ten thousand five hundred (about 9600
and 11190 English) feet: among these are Rhexia cernua,
R. stricta, Melastoma obscurum, M. aspergillare, and
M. lutescens.
To this form belong the genera of Laurus and Persea, the
Ocoteæ so numerous in South America, and (on account
of physiognomic resemblance), Calophyllum and the superb
aspiring Mammea, from among the Guttiferæ.
[34] p. 29.—“How interesting and instructive to the
landscape painter would be a work which should
present to the eye the leading forms of vegetation!”
In order to define somewhat more distinctly what is here
only briefly alluded to, I permit myself to introduce some
considerations taken from a sketch of the history of landscape
painting, and of a graphical representation of the
physiognomy of plants, which I have given in the second
volume of Kosmos (Bd. ii. S. 88-90; English edit. vol. ii.
p. 86-87).
“All that belongs to the expression of human emotion
and to the beauty of the human form, has attained perhaps
its highest perfection in the northern temperate zone, under
the skies of Italy and Greece. By the combined exercise
of imitative art and of creative imagination, the artist has
derived the types of historical painting at once from the
depths of his own mind, and from the contemplation of
other beings of his own race. Landscape painting, though
no merely imitative art, has, it may be said, a more material
substratum and a more terrestrial domain: it requires a
greater mass and variety of distinct impressions, which the
mind must receive within itself, fertilize by its own powers,
and reproduce visibly as a free work of art. Hence landscape
painting must be a result at once of a deep and comprehensive
reception of the visible spectacle of external nature,
and of this inward process of the mind.”
“Nature, in every region of the earth, is indeed a reflex
of the whole; the forms of organised beings are repeated
everywhere in fresh combinations; even in the icy north,
herbs covering the earth, large alpine blossoms, and a serene
azure sky, cheer a portion of the year. Hitherto landscape
painting has pursued amongst us her pleasing task, familiar
only with the simpler form of our native floras, but not,
therefore, without depth of feeling, or without the treasures
of creative imagination. Even in this narrower field, highly
gifted painters, the Caracci, Gaspar Poussin, Claude Lorraine,
and Ruysdael, have with magic power, by the selection
of forms of trees and by effects of light, found scope wherein
to call forth some of the most varied and beautiful productions
of creative art. The fame of these master-works can
never be impaired by those which I venture to hope for
hereafter, and to which I could not but point, in order to
recall the ancient but deeply-seated bond which unites
natural knowledge with poetry and with artistic feeling; for
we must ever distinguish in landscape painting, as in every
other branch of art, between productions derived from direct
observation, and those which spring from the depths of
inward feeling and from the power of the idealising mind.
The great and beautiful works which owe their origin to
this creative power of the mind applied to landscape-painting,
belong to the poetry of nature, and like man himself, and
the imagination with which he is gifted, are not rivetted to
the soil, or confined to any single region. I allude here
more particularly to the gradation in the form of trees from
Ruysdael and Everdingen, through Claude Lorraine to Poussin
and Annibal Caracci. In the great masters of the art we
perceive no trace of local limitation; but an enlargement of
the visible horizon, and an increased acquaintance with the
nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the luxuriant
fulness of life in the tropical world, offer the advantage not
only of enriching the material substratum of landscape
painting, but also of affording a more lively stimulus to less
gifted artists, and of thus heightening their powers of
production.”
[35] p. 30.—“From the rough bark of Crescentias
and Gustavia.”
In the Crescentia cujete (the Tutuma or Calabash-tree,
whose large fruit-shells are so useful to the natives for
household purposes),—in the Cynometra, the Theobroma
(the Cacao-tree), and the Perigara (the Gustavia of Linnæus),—the
delicate flowers break through the half carbonized
bark. When children eat the fruit of the Pirigara
speciosa (the Chupo), their whole body becomes tinged with
yellow; it is a jaundice, which lasts from 24 to 36 hours,
and then disappears without the use of medicine.
I have never forgotten the impression which I received of
the luxuriant power of vegetation in the tropical world,
when on entering a Cacao plantation (Caca hual), in the
Valles de Aragua, after a damp night, I saw for the first
time large blossoms springing from a root of the Theobroma
deeply imbedded in black earth. It was one of the most
instantaneous manifestations of the activity of the vegetative
organic forces. Northern nations speak of the “awakening
of Nature at the first breath of the mild air of spring.”
Such an expression is singularly contrasted with the imagination
of the Stagirite, who recognised in plants forms which
“lie buried in a tranquil slumber that knows no waking,
free from the desires which impel to spontaneous motion.”
(Aristot. de generat. Animal. V. i. p. 778, and de somno
et vigil. cap. 1, p. 455, Bekker.)
The flowers of our Aristolochia cordata, to which I have
already referred in Note 25. The largest flowers in the
world, apart from Compositæ (in the Mexican Helianthus
annuus), belong to Rafflesia arnoldi, Aristolochia, Datura,
Barringtonia, Gustavia, Carolinea, Lecythis, Nymphæa,
Nelumbium, Victoria regina, Magnolia, Cactus, and to
Orchideous and Liliaceous plants.
[37] p. 31—“To behold all the shining worlds which
stud the heavenly vault from pole to pole.”
The finest portion of the southern celestial hemisphere,
where shine the constellations of the Centaur, the Ship, and
the southern Cross, and where the soft lustre of the Magellanic
clouds is seen, remains for ever concealed from the
view of the inhabitants of Europe. It is only beneath the
equinoctial line that Man enjoys the peculiar privilege of
beholding at once all the stars both of the Southern and
the Northern heavens. Some of our northern constellations
seen from thence appear from their low altitude of a surprising
and almost awful magnitude: for example, Ursus
major and minor. As the inhabitant of the tropics sees all
the stars of the firmament, so also, in regions where plains
alternate with deep valleys and lofty mountains, Nature
surrounds him with representatives of all the forms of plants.
POSTSCRIPT ON THE PHYSIOGNOMIC CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS.
In the preceding sketch of a “Physiognomy of Plants,” I
have had principally in view three nearly allied subjects:—the
absolute diversity of forms; their numerical proportion, i. e.
their local predominance in the total number of species in
phænogamous floras; and their geographic and climatic distribution.
If we desire to rise to general views respecting
organic forms, the physiognomy of plants, the study of their
numerical proportions (or the arithmetic of botany),—and
their geography (or the study of their zones of distribution),—cannot,
as it appears to me, be separated from each
other. In the study of the physiognomy of plants, we ought
not to dwell exclusively on the striking contrasts presented
by the larger organic forms separately considered, but we
should also seek to discern the laws which determine the
physiognomy of Nature generally, or the picturesque character
of vegetation over the entire surface of the globe, and
the impression produced on the mind of the beholder by the
grouping of contrasted forms in different zones of latitude
and of elevation. It is from this point of view, and with
this concentration or combination of objects, that we become
aware, for the first time, of the close and intimate connection
between the subjects which have been treated of in the
foregoing pages. We are here conducted into a field which has
been as yet but little cultivated. I have ventured to follow
the method first employed with such brilliant results in the
Zoological works of Aristotle, and which is especially suited
to lay the foundation of scientific confidence,—a method
which, whilst it continually aims at generality of conception,
seeks, at the same time, to penetrate the specialities of phenomena
by the consideration of particular instances.
The enumeration of forms according to physiognomic
diversity is, from the nature of the case, not susceptible of
any strict classification. Here, as everywhere else, in the
consideration of external conformation, there are certain
leading forms which present the most striking contrasts:
such are the groups of arborescent grasses, plants of the
aloë form, the different species of cactus, palms, needle-trees,
Mimosaceæ, and Musaceæ. Even a few scattered
individuals of these groups are sufficient to determine the
character of a district, and to produce on a non-scientific
but sensitive beholder a permanent impression. Other
forms, though perhaps much more numerous and preponderating
in mass, may not be calculated either by the outline
and arrangement of the foliage, or by the relation of the stem
to the branches,—by luxuriant vigour of vegetation,—by
cheerful grace,—or, on the other hand, by cheerless contraction
of the appendicular organs, to produce any such
characteristic impressions.
As, therefore, a “physiognomic classification,” or a division
into groups from external aspect or “facies,” does not
admit of being applied to the whole vegetable kingdom, so
also, in such a classification, the grounds on which the
division is made are quite different from those on which our
systems of natural families and of plants (including the
whole of the vegetable kingdom) have been so happily
established. Physiognomic classification grounds her divisions
and the choice of her types on whatever possesses
“mass,”—such as shape, position and arrangement of
leaves, their size, and the character and surfaces (shining or
dull) of the parenchyma,—therefore, on all that are called
more especially the “organs of vegetation,” i. e. those on
which the preservation,—the nourishment and development,—of
the individual depend; while systematic Botany, on
the other hand, grounds the arrangement of natural
families on the consideration of the organs of propagation,—those
on which the continuation or preservation of the
species depends. (Kunth, Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1847,
Th. i. S. 511; Schleiden, die Pflanze und ihr Leben, 1848,
S. 100). It was already taught in the school of Aristotle
(Probl. 20, 7), that the production of seed is the ultimate
object of the existence and life of the plant. Since Caspar
Fried. Wolf (Theoria Generationis, § 5-9), and since our
great (German) Poet, the process of development in the
organs of fructification has become the morphological
foundation of all systematic botany.
That study, and the study of the physiognomy of plants, I
here repeat, proceed from two different points of view: the
first from agreement in the inflorescence or in the delicate
organs of reproduction; the second from the form of the parts
which constitute the axes (i. e. the stems and branches), and
the shape of the leaves, dependent principally on the distribution
of the vascular fascicles. As, then, the axes and appendicular
organs predominate by their volume and mass, they determine
and strengthen the impression which we receive; they
individualise the physiognomic character of the vegetable
form and that of the landscape, or of the region in which
any of the more strongly-marked and distinguished types
severally occur. The law is here given by agreement and
affinity in the marks taken from the vegetative, i. e. the
nutritive organs. In all European colonies, the inhabitants
have taken occasion, from resemblances of physiognomy (of
“habitus,” “facies”), to bestow the names of European
forms upon tropical plants or trees bearing very different
flowers and fruits from those from which the names were
originally taken. Everywhere, in both hemispheres, northern
settlers have thought they found Alders, Poplars, Apple-
and Olive-trees. They have been misled in most cases by
the form of the leaves and the direction of the branches.
The illusion has been favoured by the cherished remembrance
of the trees and plants of home, and thus European names
have been handed down from generation to generation; and
in the slave colonies there have been added to them denominations
derived from Negro languages.
The contrast so often presented between a striking agreement
of physiognomy and the greatest diversity in the inflorescence
and fructification,—between the external aspect
as determined by the appendicular or leaf-system, and the
reproductive organs on which the groups of the natural
systems of botany are founded,—is a remarkable and surprising
phenomenon. We should have been inclined beforehand
to imagine that the shape of what are exclusively
termed the vegetative organs (for example, the leaves) would
have been less independent of the structure of the organs of
reproduction; but in reality such a dependence only shows
itself in a small number of families,—in Ferns, Grasses and
Cyperaceæ, Palms, Coniferæ, Umbelliferæ, and Aroideæ. In
Leguminosæ the agreement in physiognomic character is
scarcely to be recognised until we divide them into the several
groups (Papilionaceæ, Cæsalpinineæ, and Mimoseæ). I may
name, of types which, when compared with each other, shew
considerable accordance in physiognomy with great difference
in the structure of the flowers and fruit, Palms and Cycadeæ,
the latter being more nearly allied to Coniferæ; Cuscuta,
one of the Convolvulacæ, and the leafless Cassytha, a parasitical
Laurinea; Equisetum (belonging to the great division of Cryptogamia),
and Ephedra, closely allied to Coniferæ. On the
other hand, our common gooseberries and currants (Ribes)
are so closely allied by their inflorescence to the Cactus, i. e.
to the family of Opuntiaceæ, that it is only quite recently
that they have been separated from it! One and the same
family (that of Asphodeleæ) comprises the gigantic Dracæna
draco, the common asparagus, and the Aletris with its
coloured flowers. Not only do simple and compound leaves
often belong to the same family, but they even occur in the
same genus. We found in the high plains of Peru and New
Granada, among twelve new species of Weinmannia, five
with “foliis simplicibus,” and the rest with pinnate leaves.
The genus Aralia shews still greater independence in the
form of the leaves: “folia simplicia, integra, vel lobata, digitata
et pinnata.” (Compare Kunth, Synopsis Plantarum
quas in itinere collegerunt, Al. de Humboldt et Am. Bonpland,
T. iii, p. 87 and 360.)
Pinnated leaves appear to me to belong chiefly to families
which are in the highest grade of organic development,
namely, the Polypetalæ; and among these, in the Perigynic
class, to the Leguminosæ, Rosaceæ, Terebinthaceæ, and
Juglandeæ; and in the Hypogynic, to the Aurantiaceæ,
Cedrelaceæ, and Sapindaceæ. The beautiful doubly-pinnated
leaves which form one of the principal ornaments
of the torrid zone, are most frequent among the Leguminosæ,
in Mimoseæ, also in some Cæsalpinieæ, Coulterias, and
Gleditschias; never, as Kunth remarks, in Papilionaceæ.
“Folia pinnata” and “folia composita” are never found in
Gentianeæ, Rubiaceæ, and Myrtaceæ. In the morphological
development presented by the abundance and variety
of form in the appendicular organs of Dicotyledones, we can
at present discern only a small number of general laws.
ON THE STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION OF VOLCANOS, IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE GLOBE.
[This dissertation was read in a public assembly of the Academy at
Berlin, on the 24th of January, 1823.]
When we reflect on the influence which, for some centuries
past, the progress of geography and the multiplication of
distant voyages and travels have exercised on the study of
nature, we are not long in perceiving how different this influence
has been, according as the researches were directed to
organic forms on the one hand, or on the other to the study
of the inanimate substances of which the earth is composed—to
the knowledge of rocks, their relative ages, and their origin.
Different forms of plants and animals enliven the surface of
the earth in every zone, whether the temperature of the
atmosphere varies in accordance with the latitude and with
the many inflections of the isothermal lines on plains but
little raised above the level of the sea, or whether it changes
rapidly in ascending in an almost vertical direction the steep
declivities of mountain-chains. Organic nature gives to
each zone of the earth a peculiar physiognomy; but where
the solid crust of the earth appears unclothed by vegetation,
inorganic nature imparts no such distinctive character. The
same kinds of rocks, associated in groups, appear in either
hemisphere, from the equator to the poles. In a remote
island, surrounded by exotic vegetation, beneath a sky where
his accustomed stars no longer shine, the voyager often recognises
with joy the argillaceous schists of his birth-place,
and the rocks familiar to his eye in his native land.
This absence of any dependence of geological relations on
the present constitution of climates does not preclude or
even diminish the salutary influence of numerous observations
made in distant regions on the advance and progress
of geological science, though it imparts to this progress
something of a peculiar direction. Every expedition enriches
natural history with new species or new genera
of plants and animals: there are thus presented to us sometimes
forms which connect themselves with previously long
known types, and thus permit us to trace and contemplate
in its perfection the really regular though apparently broken
or interrupted network of organic forms: at other times
shapes which appear isolated,—either surviving remnants of
extinct genera or orders, or otherwise members of still undiscovered
groups, stimulating afresh the spirit of research
and expectation. The examination of the solid crust of the
globe does not, indeed, unfold to us such diversity and variety;
it presents to us, on the contrary, an agreement in
the constituent particles, in the superposition of the
different kinds of masses, and in their regular recurrence,
which excites the admiration of the geologist. In the chain
of the Andes, as in the mountains of middle Europe, one
formation appears, as it were, to summon to itself another.
Rocks of the same name exhibit the same outlines; basalt
and dolerite form twin mountains; dolomite, sandstone, and
porphyry, abrupt precipices; and vitreous feldspathic trachyte,
high dome-like elevations. In the most distant zones
large crystals separate themselves in a similar manner from
the compact texture of the primitive mass, as if by an
internal development, form groups in association, and appear
associated in layers, often announcing the vicinity of
new independent formations. Thus in any single system of
mountains of considerable extent we see the whole inorganic
substances of which the crust of the earth is composed represented,
as it were, with more or less distinctness; yet, in
order to become completely acquainted with the important
phenomena of the composition, the relative age, and mode
of origin of rocks, we must compare together observations
from the most varied and remote regions. Problems which
long perplexed the geologist in his native land in these northern
countries, find their solution near the equator. If, as
has been already remarked, new zones do not necessarily present
to us new kinds of rock (i. e. unknown groupings or
associations of simple substances), they, on the other hand,
teach us to discern the great and every where equally prevailing
laws, according to which the strata of the crust of
the earth are superposed upon each other, penetrate each
other as veins or dykes, or are upheaved or elevated by
elastic forces.
If, then, our geological knowledge is thus promoted by
researches embracing extensive parts of the earth’s surface,
it is not surprising that the particular class of phenomena
which form the subject of the present discussion should long
have been regarded from a point of view the more restricted
as the points of comparison were of difficult, I might almost
say arduous and painful, attainment and access. Until the
close of the last century all real or supposed knowledge
of the structure or form of volcanos, and of the mode of
operation of subterranean forces, was taken from two mountains
of the South of Europe, Vesuvius and Etna. The
former of these being the easiest of access, and its eruptions,
as is generally the case in volcanos of small elevation, being
most frequent in their occurrence, a hill of minor elevation
became the type which regulated all the ideas formed respecting
phænomena exhibited on a far larger scale in many
vast and distant regions, as in the mighty volcanos arranged
in linear series in Mexico, South America, and the Asiatic
Islands. Such a proceeding might not unnaturally recall
Virgil’s shepherd, who thought he beheld in his humble
cottage the type of the eternal City, Imperial Rome.
A more careful examination of the whole of the Mediterranean,
and especially of those islands and coasts where men
awoke to the noblest intellectual culture, might, however,
have dispelled views formed from so limited a consideration
of nature. Among the Sporades, trachytic rocks have been
upraised from the deep bottom of the sea, forming islands
resembling that which, in the vicinity of the Azores, appeared
thrice periodically, at nearly equal intervals, in three
centuries. The Peloponnesus has, between Epidaurus and
Trœzene, near Methone, a Monte Nuovo described by Strabo
and seen again by Dodwell, which is higher than the Monte
Nuovo of the Phlegræan Fields near Baiæ, and perhaps even
higher than the new volcano of Jorullo in the plains of
Mexico, which I found surrounded by several thousand
small basaltic cones which had been protruded from the
earth and were still smoking. In the Mediterranean and
its shores, it is not only from the permanent craters of isolated
mountains having a constant communication with the
interior, as Stromboli, Vesuvius, and Etna, that volcanic
fires break forth: at Ischia, on the Monte Epomeo, and
also, as it would appear by the accounts of the ancients, in
the Lelantine plain near Chalcis, lavas have flowed from
fissures which have suddenly opened at the surface of the
earth. Besides these phænomena, which fall within the
historic period, or within the restricted domain of well-assured
tradition, and which Carl Ritter will collect and
elucidate in his masterly work on Geography,—the shores
of the Mediterranean exhibit numerous remains of more
ancient volcanic action. In the south part of France, in
Auvergne, we see a separate complete system of volcanos
arranged in lines, trachytic domes alternating with cones of
eruption, from which streams of lava have flowed in narrow
bands. The plain of Lombardy, as level as the surface of
the sea, and forming an inner Gulf of the Adriatic, surrounds
the trachyte of the Euganean Hills, where rise domes of
granular trachyte, obsidian, and pearl-stone, masses connected
by a common origin, which break through the lower
cretaceous rock and nummulitic lime-stone, but have never
flowed in narrow streams. Similar evidences of ancient revolutions
of nature are found in several parts of the mainland
of Greece and in Asia Minor, countries which will
one day offer a rich field for geological investigation, when
intellectual light shall revisit the seats from which it has
radiated to the western world, and when oppressed humanity
shall no longer be subject to the barbarism of Turkish rule.
I recall the geographical proximity of these various phænomena,
in order to shew that the basin of the Mediterranean,
with its series of islands, might have offered to an
attentive observer much that has been recently discovered,
under various forms, in South America, Teneriffe, and the
Aleutian Islands near the polar circle. The objects to be
observed were assembled within a moderate distance; yet
distant voyages, and the comparison of extensive regions in
and out of Europe, have been required for the clear perception
and recognition of the resemblance between volcanic
phænomena and their dependence on each other.
Our ordinary language, which often gives permanency and apparent
authority to the first-formed erroneous views of natural
phænomena, but which also often points instinctively to the
truth,—our ordinary language, I repeat, applies the term
“volcanic” to all eruptions of subterranean fires or molten
substances; to columns of smoke and vapour rising from
rocks, as at Colares after the great earthquake of Lisbon;
to “Salses” or mud volcanos, argillaceous cones emitting
mud, asphalte, and hydrogen, as at Girgenti in Sicily, and
at Turbaco in South America; to the Geysers, hot springs
in which, as in those of Iceland, the waters, pressed by
elastic vapours, rise in jets to a considerable altitude; and,
in general, to all operations of natural forces having their
seat in the interior of our planet. In Central America
(Guatimala), and in the Philippine Islands, the natives even
distinguish formally between water- and fire-volcanos, Volcanes
de agua y de fuego, giving the former name to those
mountains from which subterranean waters issue from time
to time with violent earthquake shocks and a hollow noise.
Not denying the connexion of the different phenomena
which have been referred to, it yet appears desirable to give
greater precision to the terms employed in the physical as
well as in the mineralogical part of geology, and not to
apply the word “volcano” at one moment to a mountain
terminating in a permanent igneous opening or fiery crater,
and at another to every subterranean cause of volcanic
phenomena. In the present state of our planet the most
ordinary form of volcanos is indeed in all parts of the globe
that of an isolated conical mountain, such as Vesuvius,
Etna, the Peak of Teneriffe, Tunguragua, and Cotapaxi. I
have myself seen such volcanos varying in size from the
smallest hill to an elevation of 18000 (19184 English) feet
above the sea. But besides these isolated cones there are
also permanent openings or craters, having established
channels of communication with the interior of the earth,
which are situated on long chains of mountains with serrated
crests, and not even always on the middle of the ridge, but
sometimes at its extremity: such is Pichincha, situated
between the Pacific and the city of Quito, and which
acquired celebrity in connection with Bouguer’s earliest
barometric formulæ, and such are the volcanos which rise
in the elevated Steppe de los Pastos, itself ten thousand
(10657 English) feet high. All these summits, which are
of various shapes, consist of trachyte, formerly called Trap-porphyry:
a granular vesicular rock composed of different
kinds of feldspar (Labradorite, Oligoklase, and Albite),
augite, hornblende, and sometimes interspersed mica, and
even quartz. In cases where the evidence of the first
outburst or eruption, or I might say where the ancient structure
or scaffolding remain entire, the isolated conical mount is
surrounded by an amphitheatre or lofty circular rampart of
rocky strata superimposed upon each other. Such walls or
ring-formed ramparts are called “craters of elevation,” a
great and important phenomenon, concerning which a memorable
treatise was presented to our Academy five years
ago (i. e. in 1818), by the first geologist of our time,
Leopold von Buch, from whose writings I have borrowed
several of the views contained in the present discussion.
Volcanos which communicate with the atmosphere through
permanent openings, conical basaltic hills, and craterless
trachytic domes, sometimes as low as Sarcouy, sometimes as
lofty as the Chimborazo, form various groups. Comparative
geography shows us sometimes small clusters or distinct
systems of mountains, with craters and lava-currents in the
Canaries and the Azores, and without craters and without
lava-currents, properly so-called, in the Euganean hills and
the Siebengebirge near Bonn;—and at other times the same
study describes to us volcanos arranged in single or double
lines extending through many hundred leagues in length,
these lines being either parallel to the direction of a great
chain of mountains, as in Guatimala, in Peru, and in Java,
or cutting it transversely or at right angles, as in tropical
Mexico. In this land of the Aztecs the fire-emitting
trachytic mountains are the only ones which attain the
elevation of the lofty region of perpetual snow; they are
ranged in the direction of a parallel of latitude, and have
probably been raised from a fissure 420 English geographical
miles long, traversing the continent from the Pacific to the
Atlantic Ocean.
These assemblages of volcanos, whether in rounded
groups or in double lines, show in the most conclusive
manner that the volcanic agencies do not depend on small
or restricted causes, in near proximity to the surface of the
earth, but that they are great phænomena of deep-seated
origin. The whole of the eastern part of the American
continent, which is poor in metals, is, in its present state,
without fire-emitting mountains, without masses of trachyte,
and perhaps even without basalt containing olivine. All the
American volcanos are on the side of the continent which
is opposite to Asia, in the chain of the Andes which runs
nearly in the direction of a meridian, and extends over a
length of 7200 geographical miles.
The whole plateau or high-land of Quito, of which
Pichincha, Cotopaxi, and Tunguragua form the summits,
is to be viewed as a single volcanic furnace. The subterranean
fire breaks forth sometimes through one and sometimes
through another of these openings, which it has been
customary to regard as separate and distinct volcanos. The
progressive march of the subterranean fire has been here
directed for three centuries from North to South. Even the
earthquakes which occasion such dreadful ravages in this
part of the world afford remarkable proofs of the existence
of subterranean communications, not only between countries
where there are no volcanos (a fact which had long been
known), but also between fire-emitting openings situated
at great distances asunder. Thus in 1797 the volcano
of Pasto, east of the Guaytara River, emitted uninterruptedly
for three months a lofty column of smoke, which column
disappeared at the instant when, at a distance of 240
geographical miles, the great earthquake of Riobamba and
the immense eruption of mud called “Moya” took place,
causing the death of between thirty and forty thousand
persons.
The sudden appearance of the Island of Sabrina near the
Azores, on the 80th of January, 1811, was the precursor
of the terrible earthquake movements which, much farther
to the west, shook almost incessantly, from the month of
May 1811 to June 1813, first the West Indian Islands,
then the plain of the Ohio and Mississipi, and lastly, the
opposite coast of Venezuela or Caraccas. Thirty days after
the destruction of the principal city of that province, the
long tranquil volcano of the Island of St. Vincent burst
forth in an eruption. A remarkable phenomenon accompanied
this eruption: at the same moment when the explosion
took place, on the 30th of April, 1811, a loud
subterranean noise was heard in South America, which
spread terror and dismay over a district of 2200 (German)
geographical square miles (35200 English geographical
square miles). The dwellers on the banks of the Apure
near the confluence of the Rio Nula, and the most distant
inhabitants of the sea coast of Venezuela, alike compared
the sound to that of the discharge of great pieces of ordnance.
Now from the confluence of the Nula with the
Apure (by which latter river I arrived on the Orinoco) to
the volcano of St. Vincent is a distance in a straight line of
628 English geographical miles. The sound, which certainly
was not propagated through the air, must have
proceeded from a deep-seated subterranean cause; for its
intensity was scarcely greater on the sea coast nearest to the
volcano where the eruption was taking place, than in the
interior of the country, in the basin of the Apure and the
Orinoco.
It would be unnecessary to multiply examples by citing
other instances which I have collected, but, to recall a phenomenon
of European historical importance, I will only
farther mention the celebrated earthquake of Lisbon.
Simultaneously with that event, on the 1st of November,
1755, not only were the Swiss lakes and the sea near the
coast of Sweden violently agitated, but even among the
eastern West Indian Islands, Martinique, Antigua, and
Barbadoes, where the tide never exceeds thirty inches, the
sea suddenly rose more than twenty feet. All these phenomena
show the operation of subterranean forces, acting
either dynamically in earthquakes, in the tension and agitation
of the crust; or in volcanos, in the production and
chemical alteration of substances. They also show that
these forces do not act superficially, in the thin outermost crust
of the globe, but from great depths in the interior of our
planet, through crevices or unfilled veins, affecting simultaneously
widely distant points of the earth’s surface.
The greater the variety of structure in volcanos, or in the
elevations which surround the channel through which the
molten masses of the interior of the earth reach its surface,
the greater the importance of submitting this structure to
strict investigation and measurement. The interest attaching
to these measurements, which formed a particular object of
my researches in another quarter of the globe, is enhanced
by the consideration that at many points the magnitude to
be measured is found to be a variable quantity. The philosophical
study of nature endeavours, in the vicissitudes of
phenomena, to connect the present with the past.
If we desire to investigate either the fact of a periodical
return, or the law of progressive variations or changes in
phenomena, it is essential to obtain, by means of observations
carefully made and connected with determinate epochs,
certain fixed points which may afford a base for future
numerical comparisons. If we only possessed determinations
made once in each period of a thousand years, of the
mean temperature of the atmosphere and of the earth in
different latitudes, or of the mean height of the barometer at
the level of the sea, we should know whether, and in what
ratio, the temperature of different climates had increased
or decreased, or whether the height of the atmosphere had
undergone changes. Such points of comparison are also
needed for the inclination and declination of the magnetic
needle, as well as for the intensity of the magneto-electric
forces, on which, within the circle of this Academy, two excellent
physicists, Seebeck and Erman, have thrown so much
light. As it is an honourable object for the exertions of
scientific societies to trace out perseveringly the cosmical
variations of temperature, atmospheric pressure, and magnetic
direction and intensity, so it is the duty of the geological
traveller, in determining the inequalities of the earth’s
surface, to attend more particularly to the variable height of
volcanos. The endeavours made by me for this object in
the Mexican mountains, in respect to the Volcan de Toluca,
the Popocatepetl, the Cofre de Perote or Nauhcampatepetl,
and the Jorullo, and also the volcano of Pichincha in the
Andes of Quito, have been continued since my return to
Europe at different epochs on Vesuvius. Where complete
trigonometric or barometric measurements are wanting,
accurate angles of altitude, taken at points which are exactly
determined, may be substituted for them; and for a comparison
of determinations made at different epochs, angles
of altitude so measured may even be often preferable to
the complication of circumstances which more complete
operations may involve.
Saussure had measured Mount Vesuvius, in 1773, when the
two margins of the crater, the north-western and the south-eastern,
appeared to him be of equal height. He found their
height above the level of the sea 609 toises, 3894 English
feet. The eruption of 1794 occasioned a breaking down of
the margin of the crater on the southern side, and a consequent
inequality between the height of the two edges which
the most unpractised eye does not fail to distinguish even at a
considerable distance. In 1805, Leopold von Buch, Gay-Lussac,
and myself, measured the height of Vesuvius three
times, and found the northern margin opposite to La Somma,
(the Rocca del Palo), exactly as given by Saussure, but the
southern margin 75 toises, or 450 French or 479 English
feet, lower than he had found it in 1773. The whole elevation
of the volcano on the side of Torre del Greco (the side
towards which, for the last thirty years, the igneous action
has, as it were, been principally directed,) had at that time
diminished one-eighth. The height of the cone of ashes, as
compared with the whole height of the mountain, is in
Vesuvius as 1 to 3; in Pichincha, as 1 to 10; and in the
Peak of Teneriffe, as 1 to 22. In these three volcanic
mountains, the cone of ashes is therefore, relatively speaking,
highest in Vesuvius; probably because, being a low volcano,
the action has been principally by the summit.
A few months ago (in 1822) I was enabled not only to
repeat my former barometric measurements of the height of
Vesuvius, but also, during the course of three visits to the
summit, to make a more complete determination of all the
edges of the crater[38]. These determinations may not be
without interest, since they include the long period of great
eruptions between 1805 and 1822, and constitute perhaps
the only known examination and measurement of a volcano
at different epochs, in which the different parts of the examination
are all truly comparable with each other. We
learn from it that the margins of craters are a phenomenon
of far more permanent character than had been previously
inferred from passing observations, and this not only where
(as in the Peak of Teneriffe, and in all the volcanos of the
chain of the Andes,) they are visibly composed of trachyte,
but also elsewhere. According to my last determinations,
the north-west edge of Vesuvius has, perhaps, not altered
at all since the time of Saussure, an interval of 49 years;
and the south-eastern side, on the side towards Bosche Tre
Case, which, in 1794, had become 400 French (426 English)
feet lower, has since then hardly altered 10 toises (60 French
or 64 English feet).
If the public journals, in describing great eruptions, often
state the shape of Vesuvius to have undergone an entire
change, and if these assertions appear to be confirmed by
picturesque views sketched at Naples, the cause of the error
consists in the outlines of the margin of the crater having
been confounded with those of the cones of eruption accidentally
formed in the middle of the crater on its floor or
bottom which has been upheaved by vapours. Such a cone
of eruption, consisting of loosely heaped-up rapilli and
scoriæ, had in the course of the years 1816-1818 gradually
risen so as to be seen above the south-eastern margin of the
crater; and the eruption of the month of February 1822
augmented it so much, that it even became from 100 to 110
(about 107 to 117 English) feet higher than the north-western
margin of the crater (the Rocca del Palo). This
remarkable cone, which it had become customary in Naples
to regard as the true summit of the mountain, fell in, with a
dreadful noise, in the last eruption, on the night of the
22d of October (1822): so that the floor of the crater,
which had been constantly accessible since 1811, is now
750 (almost 800 English) feet lower than the northern, and
200 (213 English) feet lower than the southern edge of the
volcano. Variations in the form and relative position of
the cones of eruption,—the openings of which ought not to
be confounded, as they often are, with the crater of the volcano
itself,—give to Vesuvius at different epochs a different
appearance, which would enable a person well acquainted
with the history of the volcano, on a mere inspection of
Hackert’s paintings in the palace of Portici, to tell from
the outlines of the summit, according as the northern or the
southern side of the mountain is represented as the highest,
in what year the artist had taken the sketch from which the
picture was made.
In the last eruption, in the night of the 23d to the 24th
of October, twenty-four hours after the falling in of the
great cone of scoriæ which has been mentioned, and when
the small but numerous currents of lava had already flowed
off, the fiery eruption of ashes and rapilli commenced: it
continued without intermission for twelve days, but was
greatest in the first four days. During this period the
detonations in the interior of the volcano were so violent
that the mere concussion of the air, (for no earthquake
movement was perceived), rent the ceilings of the rooms
in the palace of Portici. In the neighbouring villages of
Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre del Annunziata, and Bosche
Tre Case, a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed.
Throughout the whole of that part of the country the air
was so filled with ashes as to cause in the middle of the
day profound darkness, lasting for several hours: lanterns
were carried in the streets, as has so often been done at
Quito during the eruptions of Pichincha. The flight of the
inhabitants had never been more general: lava currents are
regarded by those who dwell near Vesuvius with less dread
than an eruption of ashes, a phenomenon which had never
been known to such a degree in modern times; and the
obscure tradition of the manner in which the destruction of
Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiæ took place, filled the
imaginations of men with appalling images.
The hot aqueous vapours which rose from the crater
during the eruption and spread themselves in the atmosphere,
formed, in cooling, a dense cloud, surrounding the
column of fire and ashes, which rose to a height of between
nine and ten thousand feet. So sudden a condensation of
vapour, and even, as Gay-Lussac has shewn, the formation
of the cloud itself, augmented the electric tension. Flashes
of forked lightning, issuing from the column of ashes, darted
in every direction; and the rolling thunders were distinctly
heard, and distinguished from the sounds which proceeded
from the interior of the volcano. In no other eruption had
the play of the electric forces formed so striking a feature.
On the morning of the 26th of October, a surprising
rumour prevailed, to the effect that a torrent of boiling
water was gushing from the crater, and pouring down the
slope of the cone of ashes. The learned and zealous observer
of the volcano, Monticelli, soon discovered that this
erroneous rumour had arisen from an optical illusion. The
supposed torrent of water was in reality a flow of dry ashes,
which, being as loose and moveable as shifting sands, issued
in large quantities from a crevice in the upper margin of
the crater. The cultivated fields had suffered much from a
long-continued drought which had preceded the eruption;
towards its close the “volcanic thunder-storm” which has
been described produced an exceedingly violent and abundant
fall of rain. This phenomenon is associated in all
climates with the close of a volcanic eruption. As during
the eruption the cone of ashes is generally enveloped in
cloud, and as it is in its immediate vicinity that the rain
is most violent, torrents of mud are seen to descend
from it in all directions, which the terrified husbandman
imagines to consist of waters which have risen from the
interior of the volcano and overflowed the crater; while
geologists have erroneously thought they recognised in them
either sea-water or muddy products of the volcano, “Eruptions
boueuses,” or, in the language of some old French
systematists, products of an igneo-aqueous liquefaction.
Where, as is generally the case in the Andes, the summit
of the volcano rises into the region of perpetual snow, (even
attaining, in some cases, an elevation twice as great as
that of Etna), the melting of the snows renders such inundations
as have been described far more abundant and disastrous.
The phenomena in question are meteorologically connected
with the eruptions of volcanos, and are variously modified
by the height of the mountain, the dimensions of that part
of it which is always covered with snow, and the extent and
degree to which the sides of the cone of cinders become
heated; but they are not to be regarded as volcanic phenomena
properly so called. Vast cavities also often exist on
the slope or at the foot of volcanos which, communicating
through many channels with the mountain torrents, form
large subterranean lakes or reservoirs of water. When
earthquake shocks, which, in the Andes, usually precede all
igneous eruptions, convulse the entire mass of the volcano,
these subterranean reservoirs are opened, and there issue
from them water, fishes, and tufaceous mud. This is the
singular phenomenon which brings to light an otherwise
unknown fish, the Pimelodes Cyclopum, called by the inhabitants
of the highlands of Quito “Preñadilla,” and which
I described soon after my return. When, on the night of
the 19th of June, 1698, the summit of a mountain situated
to the north of Chimborazo, the Carguairazo, above 19000
English feet high, fell in, the country for nearly thirty
English geographical square miles round was covered with
mud and fishes; and seven years earlier a putrid fever, in
the town of Ibarra, was ascribed to a similar eruption of
fish from the volcano of Imbaburu.
I recall these facts, because they throw some light on the
difference between the eruption of dry ashes and miry inundations
of tufa and trass, carrying with them wood, charcoal,
and shells. The quantity of ashes emitted by Vesuvius in
the recent eruption, like every thing connected with volcanos
and other great natural phenomena of a character to excite
terror, has been exceedingly exaggerated in the public papers;
and two Neapolitan chemists, Vicenzo Pepe and Giuseppe di
Nobili, notwithstanding the statements of Monticelli and
Covelli to the contrary, even describe the ashes as containing
silver and gold. According to the results of my researches
and inquiries, the thickness of the bed of ashes formed by
the twelve days’ shower was but little above three feet,
towards Bosche Tre Case, on the slope of the cone where
rapilli were mingled with them; and in the plain, from
15½ to 19 inches at the utmost. Such measurements
ought not to be taken in places where the ashes have been
heaped up by the action of wind, like drifted snow or sand,
or have accumulated from being carried thither by water.
The times are passed for seeking only the marvellous in
volcanic phenomena, in the manner of the ancients among
whom Ctesias made the ashes of Etna to be conveyed as far
as the Indian peninsula. There are in Mexico veins of
gold and silver in trachytic porphyry; but in the ashes of
Vesuvius which I brought back with me, and which an
excellent chemist, Heinrich Rose, has examined at my request,
no traces of either gold or silver have been discovered.
Although the above mentioned results, which are quite in
accordance with the exact observations of Monticelli, differ
much from the accounts which have been current during the
short interval which has elapsed, it is nevertheless true that
the eruption of ashes from Vesuvius from the 24th to the
28th of last October (1822) is the most memorable of any
of which we possess an authentic account, since that which
occasioned the death of the elder Pliny. The quantity of
ashes is, perhaps, three times as great as has ever been seen
to fall since volcanic phenomena have been attentively observed
in Italy. A stratum of ashes, from 16 to 19 inches
thick, appears at first sight insignificant compared with the
mass which we find covering Pompeii; but, not to speak of
the increase which that mass has probably received by the
effects of heavy rains and other causes during the centuries
which have since elapsed, and without renewing the animated
debate respecting the causes of the destruction of the Campanian
towns, and which, on the other side of the Alps, has
been carried on with a considerable degree of scepticism, it
should here be recalled to recollection that the eruptions of
a volcano, at widely separated epochs, do not well admit of
comparison, as respects their intensity. All inferences derived
from analogy are inadequate where quantitative relations
are concerned; as the quantity of lava and ashes,
the height of the column of smoke, and the loudness or
intensity of the detonations.
From the geographical description of Strabo, and from an
opinion given by Vitruvius respecting the volcanic origin of
pumice, we perceive that, up to the year of the death of
Vespasian, i. e. previous to the eruption which overwhelmed
Pompeii, Vesuvius had more the appearance of an extinct
volcano than of a Solfatara. When, after long repose, the
subterranean forces suddenly opened for themselves new
channels, and again broke through the beds of primitive and
trachytic rocks, effects must have been produced for which
subsequent ones do not furnish a standard. From the well-known
letter in which the younger Pliny informs Tacitus of
his uncle’s death, it may be clearly seen that the renewal of
volcanic outbursts, or what might be called the revival of
the slumbering volcano, began with an eruption of ashes.
The same thing was observed at Jorullo when, in September
1759, the new volcano, breaking through beds of syenite
and trachyte, rose suddenly in the plain. The country-people
took flight on finding their huts strewed with ashes
which had been emitted from the everywhere opening
ground. In the ordinary periodical manifestations of volcanic
activity, on the contrary, the shower of ashes marks
the termination of each particular eruption. There is a
passage in the letter of the younger Pliny which shews
clearly that, at a very early stage of the eruption, the dry
ashes which had fallen had reached a thickness of four or
five feet, without accumulation from drift or other extraneous
cause. He writes, in the course of his narrative, “the
court which had to be crossed to reach the room in which
Pliny was taking his noon-day repose was so filled with
ashes and pumice, that, if he had longer delayed coming
forth, he would have found the passage stopped.” In an
enclosed space like a court, the action of wind in drifting
the ashes can scarcely have been very considerable.
I have interrupted my general comparative view of volcanos
by a notice of particular observations made on
Vesuvius, partly on account of the great interest excited
by the recent eruption, and partly on account of those
recollections of the catastrophes of Pompeii and Herculaneum,
which are almost involuntarily recalled to our minds by the
occurrence of any considerable shower of ashes. I have
recorded in a note the measurements of height made by
myself and others on Vesuvius and in its vicinity.
We have hitherto been considering the structure and
mode of action of those volcanos which have a permanent communication
with the interior of the Earth by craters. The
summits of such volcanos consist of masses of trachyte and
lava upheaved by elastic forces and traversed by veins. The
permanency of their action gives us reason to infer great
complexity of structure. They have, so to speak, an individual
character which remains unaltered for long periods
of time. Neighbouring mountains often present the greatest
differences in their products: leucitic and feldspathic
lavas, obsidian with pumice, and masses of basalt containing
olivine. They belong to the most recent terrestrial phænomena,
breaking through almost all the sedimentary strata,
and their products and lava currents are of later origin than
our valleys. Their life, if I may permit myself to employ
this figurative mode of expression, depends on the manner
and permanence of their communications with the interior
of the Earth. They often continue for centuries in a state
of repose, are then suddenly rekindled, and end by becoming
Solfataras, emitting aqueous vapours, gases, and acids;
sometimes, however, as in the case of the Peak of Teneriffe,
we find that their summit has already become a laboratory
of regenerated sulphur; while from the sides of the mountain
there still issue large torrents of lava, basaltic in the lower
part, but towards the upper part, where the pressure is
less,[39] presenting the form of obsidian with pumice.
Distinct from these volcanos provided with permanent
craters, there is another class of volcanic phenomena
more rarely observed, but particularly instructive to the
geologist, as they recall the ancient world or the earliest
geological revolutions of our planet. Trachytic mountains
open suddenly, emit lava and ashes, and close again,
perhaps never to reopen. Thus it was with the gigantic
mountain of Antisana in the chain of the Andes, and
with the Monte Epomeo in Ischia in 1302. Sometimes
such an outbreak has even taken place in plains: as
in the high plateau of Quito, in Iceland at a distance from
Mount Hecla, and in Eubœa in the Lelantine Fields. Many
of the upheaved islands belong to this class of transitory
phænomena. In all these cases the communication with the
interior of the earth is not permanent, and the action ceases
as soon as the cleft or fissure forming a temporary channel
closes again. Veins or dykes of basalt, dolerite, and porphyry,
which in different parts of the earth traverse almost
all formations, and masses of syenite, augitic porphyry, and
amygdaloid, which characterise the recent transition and
oldest sedimentary rocks, have probably been formed in
a similar manner. In the youth of our planet, the substances
of the interior being still fluid, penetrated through
the everywhere fissured crust of the globe, sometimes
becoming solidified in the form of rocky veins or dykes of
granular texture, and sometimes spreading out in broad
sheets, and resembling superimposed strata. The volcanic
products or rocks transmitted to us from the earlier ages of
our planet have not flowed in narrow bands like the lavas of
the isolated conical volcanos of the present time. The
mixtures of augite, titaniferous iron, feldspar, and hornblende,
may have been the same at different epochs, sometimes
approximating more to basalt and sometimes to trachyte;
and, (as we learn from the important researches of Mitscherlich,
and the analogy of artificial igneous products)
chemical substances may have united in definite proportions
in a crystalline form: in all cases we recognise that substances
similar in composition have arrived at the surface of
the earth by very different ways; either simply upheaved,
or penetrating through temporary fissures; and that breaking
through the older rocks, (i. e. the earlier oxydized crust of
the globe), they have finally issued as lava currents from
conical mountains having a permanent crater. To confound
together phenomena so different is to throw the geological
study of volcanos and volcanic action back into the obscurity
from which, by the aid of numerous comparative observations
and researches, it has gradually began to emerge.
The question has often been propounded: What is it
that burns in volcanos,—What produces the heat which
melts and fuses together earths and metals? Modern
chemical science has essayed to answer, that what burns are
the earths, the metals, the alkalies themselves; viz. the metalloids
of those substances. The solid and already-oxydised
crust of the globe separates the surrounding atmosphere, with
the oxygen which it contains, from the inflammable unoxydised
substances in the interior of our planet: when those
metalloids come in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere
there arises disengagement of heat. The great and
celebrated chemist who propounded this explanation of volcanic
phenomena soon himself relinquished it. Observations
made in mines and caverns in all climates, and which in
concert with M. Arago I have collected in a separate
memoir, shew that, even at what may be considered a very
small depth, the temperature of the Earth is much above
the mean temperature of the atmosphere at the same place.
A fact so remarkable, and so generally confirmed, connects
itself with that which we learn from volcanic phenomena.
The depth at which the globe may be regarded as a molten
mass has been calculated. The primitive cause of this
subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the process of formation
itself, the separation of the spherically condensing mass from
a cosmical gaseous fluid, and the cooling of the terrestrial
strata at different depths by the loss of heat parted with by
radiation. All volcanic phenomena are probably the result
of a communication either permanent or transient between
the interior and exterior of the globe. Elastic vapours
press the molten oxydising substances upwards through
deep fissures. Volcanos might thus be termed intermitting
springs or fountains of earthy substances; i. e. of the fluid
mixture of metals, alkalis, and earths which solidify into
lava currents and flow softly and tranquilly, when being
upheaved they find a passage by which to escape. In a
similar manner the Ancients represented (according to Plato’s
Phædon) all volcanic fiery currents as streams flowing from
the Pyriphlegethon.
To these considerations and views let me be permitted to
add another more bold. May we not find in this internal
heat of our globe,—(a heat indicated by thermometric
experiments on the waters of springs rising from different
depths,[40] as well by our observations on volcanos),—a
cause which may explain one of the most wonderful phænomena
with which the study of fossils has made us acquainted?
Tropical forms of animals, and, in the vegetable
kingdom, arborescent ferns, palms, and bambusaceæ, are
found buried in the cold regions of the North. Everywhere
the ancient world shews a distribution of organic forms at
variance with our present climates. To resolve so important
a problem, recourse has been had to several hypotheses; such
as the approach of a comet, a change in the obliquity of the
Ecliptic, and a different degree of intensity in the solar light.
None of these explanations are satisfactory at once to the
astronomer, the physicist, and the geologist. For my part
I willingly leave the axis of the Earth in its place, and
suppose no change in the light of the solar disk (from
whose spots a celebrated astronomer was inclined to explain
the favourable or unfavourable harvests of particular years);
I am disposed to recognise that in each planet there exist,
independently of its relations to the central body of the
system to which it belongs, and independently of its astronomical
position, various causes for the development of
heat;—processes of oxydation, precipitations and chemical
changes in the capacity of bodies, by increase of electro-magnetic
intensity, and communications opened between the
internal and external portions of the planet.
It may be that in the Ancient World, exhalations of heat
issuing forth through the many openings of the deeply
fissured crust of the globe may have favoured, perhaps for
centuries, the growth of palms and tree-ferns and the existence
of animals requiring a high temperature, over entire
countries where now a very different climate prevails.
According to this view of things (a view already indicated
by me in a work entitled “Geological Essay on
the Superposition of Rocks in both Hemispheres”) the
temperature of volcanos would be that of the interior of the
earth, and the same cause which, operating through volcanic
eruptions, now produces devastating effects, might in primeval
ages have clothed the deeply fissured rocks of the newly
oxydised earth in every zone with the most luxuriant
vegetation.
If, with a view to explain the distribution of tropical
forms whose remains are now discovered buried in northern
regions, it should be assumed that the long-haired species
of Elephant now found enclosed in ice was originally indigenous
in cold climates, and that forms resembling the same
leading type may, as in the case of lions and lynxes, have
been able to live in wholly different climates, still this
manner of solving the difficulty presented by fossil remains
cannot be extended so as to apply to vegetable productions.
From reasons with which the study of vegetable physiology
makes us acquainted, Palms, Musaceæ, and arborescent
Monocotyledones, are incapable of supporting the deprivation
of their appendicular organs which would be caused by the
present temperature of our northern regions; and in the
geological problem which we have to examine, it appears to
me difficult to separate vegetable and animal remains from
each other. The same mode of explanation ought to comprehend
both.
I have permitted myself at the conclusion of the present
discussion to connect with facts collected in different and
widely separated countries some uncertain and hypothetical
conjectures. The philosophical study of Nature rises beyond
the requirements of a simple description of Nature: it does
not consist in a sterile accumulation of isolated facts. It may
sometimes be permitted to the active and curious mind of
man to stretch forward from the present to the still obscure
future; to divine that which cannot yet be clearly known;
and thus to take pleasure in the ancient myths of geology
reproduced in our own days in new and varied forms.
ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
[38] p. 226.—“A more complete determination of the
height of all parts of the margin of the crater.”
Oltmanns, my astronomical fellow labourer, of whom,
alas! science has been early deprived, re-calculated the
barometric measurements of Vesuvius referred to in the preceding
memoir (of the 22d and 25th of November and of
the 1st of December, 1822), and has compared the results
with the measurements which have been communicated to
me in manuscript by Lord Minto, Visconti, Monticelli,
Brioschi, and Poulett Scrope.
A. Rocca del Palo, the highest and northern margin of the Crater
of Vesuvius.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
Saussure, barometric measurement computed in 1773, probably by Deluc’s formula
609
3894
Poli, 1794, barometric
606
3875
Breislak, 1794, barometric (but, like Poli, the formula employed uncertain)
613
3920
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, barometric, computed by Laplace’s formula, as are also all the barometric results which follow
603
3856
Brioschi, 1810, trigonometric
638
4080
Visconti, 1816, trigonometric
622
3977
Lord Minto, 1822, barometric, often repeated
621
3971
Poulett Scrope, 1822, barometric, somewhat uncertain from the proportion between the diameters of the tube and cistern being unknown
604
3862
Monticelli and Covelli, 1822
624
3990
Humboldt, 1822
629
4022
Most probable result 317 toises, or 2027 English feet, above the
Hermitage; or 625 toises, or 3996 English feet, above the level of
the sea.
B. The lowest and southern margin of the crater opposite to
Bosche Tre Case.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
After the eruption of 1794 this edge became 400 (426 Eng.) feet lower than the Rocca del Palo; therefore if we estimate the latter at 625 toises (3996 English feet)
559
3574
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, barometric
534
3414
Humboldt, 1822, barometric
546
3491
C. Height of the cone of scoriæ inside the crater, which fell in on
the 22d of October, 1822.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
Lord Minto, barometric
650
4156
Brioschi, trigonometric, according to different combinations either
636
4066
Or
641
4098
Probable final result for the height of the above-mentioned cone
of scoriæ 646 toises, or 4130 English feet.
D. Punta Nasone, highest summit of the Somma.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
Schuckburgh, 1794, barometric, probably computed by his own formula
584
3734
Humboldt, 1822, barometric, Laplace’s formula
586
3747
E. Plain of the Atrio del Cavallo.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
Humboldt, 1822, barometric
403
2577
F. Foot of the cone of ashes.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, barometric
370
2366
Humboldt, 1822, barometric
388
2481
G. Hermitage del Salvatore.
Toises.
Eng. ft.
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt, 1805, barometric
300
1918
Lord Minto, 1822, barometric
307.9
1969
Humboldt, 1822, barometric repeated
308.7
1974
Part of my measurements have been printed in Monticelli’s
Storia de’ fenomeni del Vesuvio, avvenuti negli anni 1821-1823,
p. 115; but the neglected correction for the height
of the mercury in the cistern has somewhat disfigured the
results as there published. When it is remembered that
the results given in the above table were obtained with
barometers of very different constructions, at various hours
of the day, with winds from very different quarters, and on
the unequally heated declivity of a volcano, in a locality in
which the decrease of atmospheric temperature differs
greatly from that which is supposed in our barometric
formulæ,—the agreement will be found to be as great as
could be expected, and quite satisfactory.
My measurements in 1822, at the time of the Congress
of Verona, when I accompanied the late King of Prussia to
Naples, were made with more care and under more favourable
circumstances than those of 1805. Differences of height
are besides always to be preferred to absolute heights, and
these show that since 1794 the difference between the heights
of the edges of the crater at the Rocca del Palo and on the
side towards Bosco Tre Case has continued almost the same.
I found it in 1805 exactly 69 toises (441 English feet), and
in 1822 almost 82 toises (524 English feet). A distinguished
geologist, Mr Poulett Scrope, found 74 toises (473 English
feet), although the absolute heights which he assigns to the
two sides of the crater appear to be rather too small. So
little variation in a period of twenty-eight years, in which
there were such violent commotions in the interior of the
crater, is certainly a striking phænomenon.
The height attained by cones of scoriæ rising from the
floor of the crater of Vesuvius is also deserving of particular
attention. In 1776 Schuckburgh found such a cone 615
toises, or 3932 English feet, above the surface of the Mediterranean:
according to the measurements of Lord Minto, (a
very accurate observer,) the cone of scoriæ which fell in on
the 22d of October, 1822, even attained the height of 650
toises, or 4156 English feet. On both occasions, therefore,
the height of the cones of scoriæ in the crater surpassed
that of the highest part of the margin of the crater. When
we compare together the measurements of the Rocca del
Palo from 1773 to 1822, we are almost involuntarily led to
entertain the bold conjecture that the north margin of the
crater has been gradually upraised by subterranean forces.
The accordance of the three measurements between 1773
and 1805 is almost as striking as that of those taken from
1816 to 1822. In the latter period we cannot doubt the
height being from about 621 to 629 toises (3970 to 4022
English feet). Are the measurements made from thirty to
forty years earlier, which gave only 606 to 609 toises (3875
to 3894 English feet), less certain? At some future day,
after longer periods shall have elapsed, it will be possible to
decide what is due to errors of measurement, and what to an
actual rise in the margin of the crater. There cannot be in
this case any accumulation of loose materials from above.
If the solid trachyte-like lava beds of the Rocca del Palo
really become higher, we must assume them to be upheaved
from below by volcanic forces.
My learned and indefatigable friend Oltmanns has placed
all the details of the above measurements before the public,
accompanied by a careful critical examination of them, in
the Abhandl. der königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Berlin, 1822-1823, S. 3-20. May this investigation be the
means of inducing geologists frequently to examine hypsometrically
this low and most easily accessible (except Stromboli)
of the European volcanos, so that in the course of
centuries there may be obtained a frequently checked and
accurate account of its periods of development!
Compare Leopold von Buch on the Peak of Teneriffe in
his Physikalische Beschreibung der canarischen Inseln, 1825,
S. 213; and in the Abhandlungen der königl. Akademie zu
Berlin, 1820-1821, S. 99.
[40] p. 289—“Waters of springs rising from different
depths.”
Compare Arago in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes
pour 1835, p. 234. The increase of temperature is in our
latitudes 1° of Reaumur (2°.25 of a degree of Fahrenheit)
for every 113 Parisian feet (120.5 English feet), or 1° Fah.
to 53.5 English feet nearly. In the Artesian boring at
New Salzwerk (Oeynhausen’s Bad), not far from Minden,
which is the greatest known depth below the level of the
sea, the temperature of the water at 2094½ Parisian feet
(2232¼ Eng.) is fully 26°.2 Reaumur, or 91° Fahr.; while
the mean temperature of the air above may be taken at 7°.7
Reaumur, or 49°.2 Fahr. It is very remarkable that in the
third century Saint Patricius, Bishop of Pertusa, was led
by seeing the hot springs near Carthage to a very just
view respecting the cause of such an increase of heat.
(Acta S. Patricii, p. 555, ed. Ruinart; Kosmos, Bd. i. S.
231,—English Edition, Vol. i. p. 211.)
THE VITAL FORCE; OR, THE RHODIAN GENIUS.
[FIRST PRINTED IN 1795.]
The Syracusans, like the Athenians, had their Pœcile, in
which representations of gods and heroes, the works of Grecian
and Italian art, adorned the halls, glowing with varied
colours. The people resorted thither continually; the young
warriors to contemplate the exploits of their ancestors, the
artists to study the works of the great masters. Among the
numerous paintings which the active zeal of the Syracusans
had collected from the mother country, there was one which,
for a century past, had particularly attracted the attention
of spectators. Sometimes the Olympian Jove, Cecrops the
founder of cities, and the heroic courage of Harmodius and
Aristogiton, would want admirers, while men pressed in
crowded ranks around the picture of which we speak.
Whence this preference? Was it a rescued work of
Apelles, or of the school of Callimachus? No; it possessed
indeed grace and beauty; but yet neither in the
blending of the colours, nor in the character and style of the
entire picture, could it be compared with many other paintings
in the Pœcile.
The multitude (comprehending therein many classes of
society), often regard with astonishment and admiration
what they do not comprehend: this picture had occupied its
place for a hundred years; but though Syracuse contained
within the narrow limits enclosed by its walls more of the
genius of art than the whole of the remainder of sea-surrounded
Sicily, no one had yet divined the hidden meaning
of the design. It was even uncertain to what temple the
painting had originally belonged, for it had been rescued
from a shipwrecked vessel, which was only conjectured from
the merchandise it contained to have come from Rhodes.
On the foreground of the picture youths and maidens
formed a closely crowded group. They were without
clothing and well formed, but at the same time did not
exhibit the more noble and graceful proportions admired in
the statues of Praxiteles and Alcamenes. Their robust
limbs, shewing the traces of laborious efforts, and the purely
terrestrial expression of their desires and sorrows, seemed to
take from them every thing of a diviner character, and to
chain them exclusively to their earthly habitation. Their
hair was simply ornamented with leaves and field-flowers.
Their arms were outstretched towards each other, as if to
indicate their desire of union, but their troubled looks were
turned towards a Genius who, surrounded by bright light,
hovered in the midst. A butterfly was placed on his
shoulder, and in his hand he held on high a lighted torch.
The contours of his form were soft and child-like, but his
glance was animated by celestial fire: he looked down as a
master upon the youths and maidens at his feet. Nothing
else that was characteristic could be discovered in the picture.
Some persons thought they could make out at its
foot the letters ζ and ς, from whence (as antiquaries were
then no less bold in their conjectures than they now are),
they took occasion to infer, in a somewhat forced manner,
the name of Zenodorus; thus attributing the work to a
painter of the same name as the artist who at a later period
cast the Colossus of Rhodes.
The “Rhodian Genius,” however,—for such was the
name given to the picture,—did not want for commentators
and interpreters in Syracuse. Amateurs of the arts, and
especially the younger amongst them, on returning from a
short visit to Corinth or Athens, would have thought it
equivalent to renouncing all pretensions to connoisseurship
if they had not been provided with some new explanation.
Some regarded the Genius as the personification of Spiritual
Love, forbidding the enjoyment of sensual pleasures; others
said it was the assertion of the empire of Reason over Desire:
the wiser among the critics were silent, and presuming some
high though yet undiscovered meaning, examined meanwhile
with pleasure the simple composition of the picture.
Still, however, the question remained unsolved. The
picture had been copied with various additions and sent to
Greece, but not the least light had been thrown on its origin;
when at length, at the season of the early rising of the
Pleiades, and soon after the reopening of the navigation of
the Egean Sea, ships from Rhodes entered the port of Syracuse,
bearing a precious collection of statues, altars, candelabras,
and paintings, which Dionysius’s love of art had
caused to be brought together from different parts of Greece.
Among the paintings was one which was immediately recognised
as the companion or pendent of the Rhodian Genius:
the dimensions were the same, and the colouring
similar, but in a better state of preservation: the Genius
was still the central figure, but the butterfly was no longer
on his shoulder; his head was drooping, and his torch extinguished
and inverted. The youths and maidens pressing
around him had met and embraced; their glance, no longer
subdued or sad, announced, on the contrary, emancipation
from restraint, and the fulfilment of long-cherished desires.
The Syracusan antiquaries were already seeking to modify
the explanations they had previously proposed, so as to
adapt them to the newly-arrived picture, when Dionysius
commanded the latter to be carried to the house of Epicharmus,
a philosopher of the Pythagorean school, who dwelt in
a remote part of Syracuse called Tyche. Epicharmus rarely
presented himself at the court of Dionysius, for although
the latter was fond of calling around him the most distinguished
men from all the Greek colonial cities, yet the philosopher
found that the proximity of princes takes even
from men of the greatest intellectual power part of their
spirit and their freedom. He devoted himself unceasingly
to the study of natural things, their forces or powers, the
origin of animals and plants, and the harmonious laws in
accordance with which the heavenly bodies, as well as the
grains of hail and the flakes of snow, assume their distinctive
forms. Oppressed with age, and unable to proceed far
without assistance, he caused himself to be conducted daily
to the Pœcile, and thence to the entrance of the port, where,
as he said, his eyes received the image of the boundless and
the infinite which his spirit ever strove in vain to apprehend.
He lived honoured alike by the tyrant, whose presence he
avoided, and by the lower classes of the people, whom he
met gladly, and often with friendly help.
Exhausted with fatigue, he was reposing on his couch,
when the newly-arrived picture was brought to him by the
command of Dionysius. Care had been taken to bring, at
the same time, a faithful copy of the “Rhodian Genius,”
and the philosopher desired the two paintings to be placed
side by side before him. After having remained for some
time with his eyes fixed upon them, and absorbed in thought,
he called his scholars together, and spoke to them in the
following terms, in a voice which was not without emotion:—
“Withdraw the curtain from the window, that I may
enjoy once more the view of the fair earth animated with
living beings. During sixty years I have reflected on the
internal motive powers of nature, and on the differences of
substances: to-day for the first time the picture of the
Rhodian Genius leads me to see more clearly that which I
had before only obscurely divined. As living beings are impelled
by natural desires to salutary and fruitful union, so
the raw materials of inorganic nature are moved by similar
impulses. Even in the reign of primeval night, in the
darkness of chaos, elementary principles or substances
sought or shunned each other in obedience to indwelling
dispositions of amity or enmity. Thus the fire of heaven
follows metal, iron obeys the attraction of the loadstone,
amber rubbed takes up light substances, earth mixes with
earth, salt collects together from the water of the sea, and
the acid moisture of the Stypteria (στυπτηρια υγρα), as well
as the flocculent salt Trichitis, love the clay of Melos. In
inanimate nature all things hasten to unite with each other
according to their particular laws. Hence no terrestrial
element (and who would dare to include light among the
number of such elements?) is to be found anywhere in its
pure and primitive simple state. Each as soon as formed
tends to enter into new combinations, and the art of man is
needed to disjoin and present in a separated state substances
which you would seek in vain in the interior of the earth,
and in the fluid oceans of air or water. In dead inorganic
matter, entire inactivity and repose reign so long as the
bonds of affinity continue undissolved, so long as no third
substance comes to join itself to the others. But even then,
the action and disturbance produced are soon again succeeded
by unfruitful repose.
“It is otherwise, however, when the same substances are
brought together in the bodies of plants and animals. In
these the vital force or power reigns supreme, and regardless
of the mutual amity or enmity of the atoms recognised by
Democritus, commands the union of substances which in
inanimate nature shun each other, and separates those which
are ever seeking to enter into combination.
“Now come nearer to me, my friends; look with me on the
first of the pictures before us, and recognise in the Rhodian
Genius, in the expression of youthful energy, in the
butterfly on his shoulder, and in the commanding glance of
his eye, the symbol of vital force animating each individual
germ of the organic creation. At his feet are the earthy
elements desiring to mix and unite, conformably to their
particular tendencies. The Genius, holding aloft his lighted
torch with commanding gesture, controls and constrains
them, without regard to their ancient rights, to obey his
laws.
“Now view with me the new picture which the tyrant has
sent to me for explanation: turn your eyes from the image
of life to that of death. The butterfly has left its former
place and soars upwards; the extinguished torch is reversed,
the head of the youth has sunk: the spirit has fled to other
spheres, and the vital force is dead. Now the youths and
maidens joyfully join hands, the earthy substances resume
their ancient rights: they are freed from the chains that
bound them, and follow impetuously after long restraint the
impulse to union.—Thus inert matter, animated awhile by
vital force, passes through an innumerable diversity of forms,
and perhaps in the same substance which once enshrined the
spirit of Pythagoras, a poor worm may have enjoyed a
momentary existence.
“Go, Polycles, and tell Dionysius what thou hast heard;—and
you my friends, Euryphamos, Lysis, and Scopas, come
nearer to me and support me; I feel that in my weakened
frame the enfeebled vital power will not long hold in subjection
the earthly substances which reclaim their ancient
liberty. Lead me once again to the Pœcile, and thence to
the sea shore; soon you will collect my ashes.”
NOTE.
I have noticed in the Preface to the Second and Third
Editions (S. xiii., p. xii. English Trans.) the subject of the
republication here of the preceding pages, which were
first printed in Schiller’s Horen (Jahrg. 1795, St. 5, S.
90-96). They contain the development of a physiological
idea clothed in a semi-mythical garb. In the Latin “Aphorisms
from the Chemical Physiology of Plants” appended to
my “Subterranean Flora,” in 1793,—I had defined the
“vital force” as “the unknown cause which prevents the
elements from following their original affinities.” The
first of my aphorisms were as follows:—Rerum naturam
si totam consideres, magnum atque durabile, quod inter
elementa intercedit, discrimen perspicies, quorum altera
affinitatum legibus obtemperantia, altera, vinculis solutis,
varie juncta apparent. Quod quidem discrimen in elementis
ipsis eorumque indole neutiquam positum, quum ex sola
distributione singulorum petendum esse videatur. Materiam
segnem, brutam, inanimam eam vocamus, cujus stamina
secundum leges chymicæ affinitatis mixta sunt. Animata
atque organica ea potissimum corpora appellamus, quæ, licet
in novas mutari formas perpetuo tendant, vi interna quadam
continentur, quominus priscam sibique insitam formam relinquant.
“Vim internam, quæ chymicæ affinitatis vincula resolvit,
atque obstat, quominus elementa corporum libere conjungantur,
vitalem vocamus. Itaque nullum certius mortis
criterium putredine datur, qua primæ partes vel stamina
rerum, antiquis juribus revocatis, affinitatum legibus parent.
Corporum inanimorum nulla putredo esse potest.” (Vide
Aphorismi ex doctrina Physiologiæ chemicæ Plantarum, in
Humboldt, Flora Fribergensis subterranea, 1793, p. 133-136).
I have placed in the mouth of Epicharmus the above
propositions, which were disapproved by the acute Vicq
d’Azyr, in his Traité d’Anatomie et de Physiologie, T. i. p. 5,
but are now entertained by many distinguished persons
among my friends. Reflection and continued study in the
domains of physiology and chemistry have deeply shaken my
earlier belief in a peculiar so-called vital force. In 1797,
at the close of my work entitled “Versuche über die
gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, nebst Vermuthungen
über den chemischen Process des Lebens in der Thier und
Pflanzenwelt” (Bd. ii. S. 430-436), I already declared that
I by no means regarded the existence of such peculiar vital
forces as demonstrated. Since that time I have no longer
called peculiar forces what may possibly only be the operation
of the concurrent action of the several long-known
substances and their material forces. We may, however
deduce from the chemical relations of the elements a safer
definition of animate and inanimate substances, than the
criteria which are taken from voluntary motion, from the
circulation of fluids within solids, from internal appropriation,
and from the fibrous arrangements of the elements. I
term that an animated substance “of which the parts being
separated by external agency alter their state of composition
after the separation, all other and external relations continuing
the same.” This definition is merely the enunciation
of a fact. The equilibrium of the elements in animated or
organic matter is preserved by their being parts of a whole.
One organ determines another, one gives to another its
temperature and tone or disposition, in all which, these, and
no other, affinities are operative. Thus in organised beings
all is reciprocally means and end. The rapidity with which
organic parts, separated from a complete living organism,
change their slate of combination, differs greatly, according
to the degree of their original dependence, and to the
nature of the substance. Blood of animals, which varies
much in the different classes, suffers change sooner than
the juices of plants. Funguses generally decay sooner than
leaves of trees, and muscle more easily than the cutis.
Bones, the elementary structure of which has been
very recently recognised, hair of animals, wood in plants
or trees, the feathery appendages of seeds of plants
(Pappus), are not inorganic or without life; but even in life
they approximate to the state in which they are found after
their separation from the rest of the organism. The higher
the degree of vitality or susceptibility of an animated substance,
the more rapidly does organic change in its composition
ensue after separation. “The aggregate total of the
cells is an organism, and the organism lives so long as the
parts are active in subservience to the whole. In opposition
to lifeless or inorganic, organic nature appears to
be self-determining.” (Henle, Allgemeine Anatomie, 1841,
S. 216-219). The difficulty of satisfactorily referring the
vital phenomena of organic life to physical and chemical
laws, consists chiefly (almost as in the question of predicting
meteorological processes in the atmosphere), in the
complication of the phænomena, and in the multiplicity of
simultaneously acting forces and of the conditions of their
activity.
I have remained faithful in “Kosmos” to the same
mode of viewing and representing what are called “Lebenskräfte,”
vital forces, and vital affinities, (Pulteney, in the
Transact. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xvi. p. 305),
the formation-impulse, and the active principle in organisation.
I have said, in Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 67, (English Ed.
vol. i. p. 62), “The myths of imponderable matter and of
vital forces peculiar to each organism have complicated and
perplexed the view of nature. Under different conditions
and forms of recognition the prodigious mass of our experimental
knowledge has progressively accumulated, and is
now enlarging with increased rapidity. Investigating reason
essays from time to time with varying success to break
through ancient forms and symbols, invented to effect the
subjection of rebellious matter, as it were, to mechanical
constructions.” Farther on in the same volume, (p. 339
English, and 367 of the original,) I have said, “In a physical
description of the universe, it should still be noticed
that the same substances which compose the organic forms
of plants and animals are also found in the inorganic crust
of the globe; and that the same forces or powers which
govern inorganic matter are seen to prevail in organic beings
likewise, combining and decomposing the various substances,
regulating the forms and properties of organic tissues, but
acting in these cases under complicated conditions yet
unexplained, to which the very vague terms of ‘vital phænomena,’
‘operations of vital forces,’ have been assigned,
and which have been systematically grouped, according to
analogies more or less happily imagined.” (Compare also
the critical notices on the assumption of proper or peculiar
vital forces in Schleiden’s Botanik als inductive Wissenchaft
(Botany as an Inductive Science), Th. i. S. 60, and in the
recently published excellent Untersuchungen über thierische
Elektricität (Researches on Animal Electricity), by Emil du
Bois-Reymond, Bd. i. S. xxxiv.-l.)
THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA: AND THE FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN, FROM THE CREST OF THE ANDES.
After a residence of an entire year on the crest of the chain
of the Andes or Antis[41], between 4° North and 4° South
Latitude, in the high plains of New Granada, Pastos, and
Quito, whose mean elevations range between 8500 and 12800
English feet, we rejoiced in descending gradually through
the milder climate of the Quina-yielding forests of Loxa to
the plains of the upper part of the course of the Amazons,
a terra incognita rich in magnificent vegetation. The small
town of Loxa has given its name to the most efficacious of
all the species of medicinal Fever-Bark: Quina, or Cascarilla
fina de Loxa. It is the precious production of the tree which
we have described botanically as Cinchona condaminea, but
which, under the erroneous impression that all the kinds
of the Quina or fever bark of commerce were furnished by
the same species of tree, had previously been called Cinchona
officinalis. The Fever Bark was first brought to
Europe towards the middle of the seventeenth century,
either, as Sebastian Badus asserts, to Alcala de Henares in
1632, or to Madrid in 1640, on the arrival of the wife of
the Viceroy, the Countess of Chinchon[42], who had been
cured of intermittent fever at Lima, accompanied by her
physician, Juan del Vego. The trees which yield the finest
quality of Quina de Loxa are found from 8 to 12 miles
to the south east of the town, in the mountains of Uritusinga,
Villonaco, and Rumisitana, growing on mica-slate and gneiss,
at very moderate elevations above the level of the sea, being
between 5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 English) feet,
heights about equal respectively to those of the Hospice on
the Grimsel and the Pass of the great St. Bernard. The
proper boundaries of the Quina-woods in this quarter are
the small rivers Zamora and Cachiyacu.
The tree is cut down in its first flowering season, or in
the fourth or seventh year of its age, according as it has
sprung from a vigorous root-shoot, or from a seed: we
heard with astonishment that at the period of my journey,
according to official computations, the collectors of Quina
(Cascarilleros and Cazadores de Quina, Quina Hunters),—only
brought in 110 hundred weight of the Bark of the
Cinchona condaminea annually. None of this precious
store found its way at that time into commerce; the whole
was sent from the port of Payta on the Pacific, round Cape
Horn to Cadiz, for the use of the Spanish Court. In order
to furnish this small quantity of 11000 Spanish pounds,
eight or nine hundred trees were cut down every year. The
older and thicker stems have become more and more scarce;
but the luxuriance of vegetation is such that the younger
trees which are now resorted to, though only 6 inches in
diameter, often attain from 53 to 64 English feet in height.
This beautiful tree, which is adorned with leaves above
5 English inches long and 2 broad, growing in dense
woods, seems always to aspire to rise above its neighbours.
As its upper branches wave to and fro in the wind, their
red and shining foliage produces a strange and peculiar
effect recognisable from a great distance. The mean temperature
in the woods where the Cinchona condaminea is
found, ranges between 12½° and 15° Reaumur (60°.2 and
65°.8 Fahrenheit), which are about the mean annual temperatures
of Florence and the Island of Madeira; but the
extremes of heat and cold observed at these two stations of
the temperate zone are never felt around Loxa. Comparisons
between the climates of places, one of which is situated in an
elevated tropical plain, and the other in a higher parallel of
latitude, can be from their nature but little satisfactory.
In order to descend South-South-East from the mountain
knot of Loxa to the hot Valley of the Amazons, it is first
necessary to pass over the Paramos of Chulucanas, Guamani
and Yamoca,—mountain wildernesses of a peculiar character
of which we have already spoken, and to which, in the
southern parts of the Andes, the name of Puna (a word
belonging to the Quichua language) is given. They mostly
rise above 9500 (10125 English) feet; they are stormy,
often enveloped for days in dense mist, or visited by
violent and formidable showers of hail,—consisting not
merely of hailstones of different spherical forms, usually a
good deal flattened by rotation, but also sometimes of less
regular forms, the hail having run together into thin plates of
ice (papa-cara) which cut the face and hands. At such times
I have occasionally seen the thermometer sink to 7° or 5°
Reaumur, (47°.8 and 43°.2 Fahr.) and the electric tension of
the atmosphere, measured by Volta’s electrometer, pass in a
few minutes from positive to negative. When the temperature
sinks below 5° Reaumur, (43°.2 Fahrenheit) snow falls in large
and thinly scattered flakes. The vegetation of the Paramos
has a peculiar physiognomy and character, from the absence
of trees, the short close branches of the small-leaved myrtle-like
shrubs, the large sized and numerous blossoms, and the
perpetual freshness of the whole from the constant and
abundant supply of moisture. No zone of Alpine vegetation
in the temperate or cold parts of the globe can well be
compared with that of the Paramos in the tropical Andes.
The impressions produced on the mind by the natural
characters of these wildernesses of the Cordilleras are heightened
in a remarkable and unexpected manner, from its
being in those very regions that we still see admirable
remains of the gigantic work, the artificial road of the
Incas, which formed a line of communication through all
the provinces of the Empire, extending over a length of
more than a thousand English geographical miles. We
find, placed at nearly equal distances apart, stations consisting
of dwelling houses built of well-cut stone; they are
a kind of Caravanserai, and are called Tambos and sometimes
Inca-pilca (from pircca, the wall?). Some of
them are surrounded by a kind of fortification; others were
constructed for baths with arrangements for conducting hot
water; the larger were designed for the use of the family
of the Monarch himself. I had previously seen, measured,
and drawn with care, buildings of the same kind in a
good state of preservation at the foot of the volcano of Cotopaxi,
near Callo. Pedro de Cieça, writing in the 16th
century, called them “Aposentos de Mulalo.”[43] In the
pass between Alausi and Loxa, called the Paramo del Assuay,—(a
much frequented route across the Ladera de Cadlud,
14568 French or 15526 English feet above the level of the
sea, or almost equal to the height of Mont Blanc),—as we
were leading our heavily laden mules with great difficulty
through the marshy ground on the elevated plain del Pullal,
our eyes meanwhile were continually dwelling on the grand
remains of the Inca’s road, which with a breadth of twenty-one
English feet ran by our side for above a German mile.
It had a deep under-structure, and was paved with well-cut
blocks of blackish trap-porphyry. Nothing that I had seen
of the remains of Roman roads in Italy, in the South of
France, and in Spain, was more imposing than these works
of the ancient Peruvians, which are moreover situated,
according to my barometric measurements, at an elevation
of 12440 (13258 English) feet above the sea, or more than a
thousand feet higher than the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe.
The ruins of what is called the Palace of the Inca Tupac
Yupanqui, and which are known by the name of the “Paredones
del Inca,” are situated at the same elevation on the
Assuay. Proceeding from thence to the southward towards
Cuenca, the road leads to the small but well preserved
fortress of Cañar[44], belonging probably to the same period,
that of Tupac Yupanqui, or to that of his warlike son,
Huayna Capac.
We saw still finer remains of the old Peruvian artificial
roads on the way between Loxa and the Amazons, at the
Baths of the Incas on the Paramo de Chulucanas, not far
from Guancabamba, and in the neighbourhood of Ingatambo,
at Pomahuaca. These last named remains are at a so much
lower elevation, that I found the difference of level between
the Inca’s Road at Pomahuaca and that on the Paramo del
Assuay upwards of 9100 (about 9700 English) feet. The
distance in a straight line is by astronomically determined
latitudes exactly 184 English geographical miles, and the
ascent of the road is 3500 (3730 English) feet greater than
the height of the Pass of Mount Cenis above the Lake of
Como. There are two great artificial Peruvian paved roads
or systems of roads, covered with flat stones, or sometimes
even with cemented gravel[45] (Macadamised); one passes
through the wide and arid plain between the Pacific Ocean
and the chain of the Andes, and the other over the ridges
of the Cordilleras. Mile-stones, or stones marking the
distances, are often found placed at equal intervals. The
road was conducted across rivers and deep ravines by three
kinds of bridges, stone, wood, and rope bridges (Puentes
de Hamaca or de Maroma), and there were also aqueducts,
or arrangements for bringing water to the Tambos, (hostelries
or caravanserais) and to the fortresses. Both systems
of roads were directed to the central point, Cuzco, the seat
of government of the great empire, in 13° 31´ South latitude,
and which is placed, according to Pentland’s map of
Bolivia, 10676 Paris or 11378 English feet above the level
of the sea. As the Peruvians employed no wheel carriages,
and the roads were consequently only designed for the
march of troops, for men carrying burdens, and for lightly
laden lamas, we find them occasionally interrupted, on
account of the steepness of the mountains, by long flights
of steps, provided with resting places at suitable intervals.
Francisco Pizarro and Diego Almagro, who on their distant
expeditions used the military roads of the Incas with so
much advantage, found great difficulties for the Spanish
Cavalry at the places where these steps occurred[46]. The
impediment presented to their march on these occasions was
so much the greater, because in the early times of the Conquista,
the Spaniards used only horses instead of the carefully
treading mule, who in the difficult parts of the mountains
seems to deliberate on every step he takes. It was
not until a later period that mules were employed.
Sarmiento, who saw the Roads of the Incas whilst they
were still in a perfect state of preservation, asks in a “Relacion”
which long lay unread, buried in the Library of the
Escorial, “how a nation unacquainted with the use of
iron could have completed such grand works in so high and
rocky a region (“Caminos tan grandes y tan sovervios”),
extending from Cuzco to Quito on the one hand, and to
the coast of Chili on the other? The Emperor Charles,”
he adds, “with all his power could not accomplish even a
part of what the well-ordered Government of the Incas
effected through the obedient people over whom they ruled.”
Hernando Pizarro, the most educated and civilised of the
three brothers, who for his misdeeds suffered a twenty years’
imprisonment at Medina del Campo, and died at last at a
hundred years of age “in the odour of sanctity,” “en olor
de Santidad,” exclaims: “in the whole of Christendom
there are nowhere such fine roads as those which we here
admire.” The two important capitals and seats of government
of the Incas, Cuzco and Quito, are 1000 English geographical
miles apart in a straight line (SS.E., NN.W.),
without reckoning the many windings of the way; and including
the windings, the distance is estimated by Garcilaso
de la Vega and other Conquistadores at “500 leguas.”
Notwithstanding the great distance, we learn from the well-confirmed
testimony of the Licentiate Polo de Ondegardo,
that Huayna Capac, whose father had conquered Quito,
caused some of the building materials for the “princely
buildings,” (the houses of the Incas) in the latter city, to
be brought from Cuzco.
When enterprising races inhabit a land where the
form of the ground presents to them difficulties on a
grand scale which they may encounter and overcome, this
contest with nature becomes a means of increasing their
strength and power as well as their courage. Under the
despotic centralizing system of the Inca-rule, security and
rapidity of communication, especially in the movement of
troops, became an important necessity of government.
Hence the construction of artificial roads on so grand a scale,
and hence also the establishment of a highly improved postal
system. Among nations in very different stages of cultivation
we see the national activity display itself with peculiar
predilection in some particular directions, but we can by no
means determine the general state of culture of a people
from the striking development of such particular and partial
activity. Egyptians, Greeks[47], Etruscans, and Romans,
Chinese, Japanese, and Hindoos, shew many interesting
contrasts in these respects. It is difficult to pronounce what
length of time may have been required for the execution of
the Peruvian roads. The great works in the northern
part of the Empire of the Incas, in the highlands of Quito,
must at all events have been completed in less than 30 or
35 years; i. e. within the short period intervening between
the defeat of the Ruler of “Quitu” and the death of Huayna
Capac, but entire obscurity prevails as to the period of the
formation of the Southern, and more properly speaking
Peruvian, roads.
The mysterious appearance of Manco Capac is usually
placed 400 years before the landing of Pizarro in the Island
of Puna (1532), therefore towards the middle of the 12th
century, almost 200 years before the foundation of the city
of Mexico (Tenochtitlan); some Spanish writers even
reckon, instead of 400, 500 and 550 years between Manco
Capac and Pizarro. But the history of the empire of Peru
only recognises thirteen ruling princes of the Inca-dynasty,
a number which, as Prescott very justly remarks, is not sufficient
to occupy so long an interval as 550 or even 400 years.
Quetzalcoatl, Botschica, and Manco Capac, are the three
mythical forms with which the commencements of civilisation
among the Aztecs, the Muyscas (more properly Chibchas),
and the Peruvians, are connected. Quetzalcoatl,
bearded, clothed in black, a high priest of Tula, subsequently
a penance-performing anchorite on a mountain near
Tlaxapuchicalco, comes to the highlands of Mexico from the
coast of Panuco; therefore from the eastern coast of Anahuac.
Botschica, or rather Nemterequeteba[48] (a Buddha
of the Muyscas), a messenger sent by the Deity, bearded and
wearing long garments, arrives in the high plains of Bogota
from the grassy steppes east of the chain of the Andes.
Before Manco Capac a degree of civilisation already prevailed
on the picturesque shores of the Lake of Titicaca.
The strong fort of Cuzco, on the hill of Sacsahuaman, was
formed on the pattern of the older constructions of Tiahuanaco.
In the same manner the Aztecs imitated the pyramidal
structures of the Toltecs, and these, those of the
Olmecs (Hulmecs); and gradually ascending, we arrive, still
on historic ground in Mexico, as far back as the sixth century
of our Era. According to Siguenza, the Toltec step-pyramid
(or Teocalli) of Cholula is a repetition of the form
of the Hulmec step-pyramid of Teotihuacan. Thus as we
penetrate through each successive stratum of civilisation we
arrive at an earlier one; and national self-consciousness not
having awoke simultaneously in the two continents, we find
in each nation the imaginative mythical domain always immediately
preceding the period of historic knowledge.
Notwithstanding the tribute of admiration which the first
Conquistadores paid to the roads and aqueducts of the Peruvians,
not only did they neglect the repair and preservation of
both these classes of useful works, but they even wantonly
destroyed them; and this still more towards the sea-coast, (for
the sake of obtaining fine cut stones for new buildings; and
where the want of water consequent on the destruction of the
aqueducts has rendered the soil barren), than on the ridges of
the Andes, or in the deep-cleft valleys by which the mountain
chain is intersected. In the long day’s journey from the
syenitic rocks of Zaulaca to the Valley of San Felipe (rich
in fossils, and situated at the foot of the icy Paramo de Yamoca),
we were obliged to wade through the Rio de Guancabamba
(which flows into the Amazons), no less than
twenty-seven times, on account of the windings of the
stream; while we continually saw near us, running in a
straight line along the side of a steep precipice, the remains
of the high built road of the Incas with its Tambos.
The mountain torrent, though only from 120 to 150 English
feet broad, was so strong and rapid that, in fording it,
our heavily laden mules were often in danger of being swept
away by the flood. They carried our manuscripts, our dried
plants, and all that we had been collecting for a year past.
Under such circumstances one watches from the other side
of the stream with very anxious suspense until the long
train of eighteen or twenty beasts of burden have passed in
safety.
The same Rio de Guancabamba, in the lower part of its
course, where it has many falls and rapids, is made to serve
in a very singular manner for the conveyance of correspondence
with the coast of the Pacific. In order to expedite
more quickly the few letters from Truxillo which are intended
for the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, a “swimming
courier,” “el correo que nada,” as he is called in the country,
is employed. This post messenger, who is usually a young
Indian, swims in two days from Pomahuaca to Tomependa,
first by the Rio de Chamaya (the name given to the lower
part of the Rio de Guancabamba), and then by the Amazons.
He carefully places the few letters entrusted to him in a
large cotton handkerchief, which he winds round his head
in the manner of a turban. When he comes to waterfalls
he leaves the river, and makes a circuit through the woods.
In order to lessen the fatigue of swimming for so long a
time, he sometimes throws one arm round a piece of a very
light kind of wood (Ceiba, Palo de balsa), of a tree belonging
to the family of Bombaceæ. Sometimes also a
friend goes with him to bear him company. The pair have
no concern about provisions, as they are always sure of a
hospitable reception in any of the scattered huts, which are
abundantly surrounded with fruit trees, in the beautiful
Huertas de Pucara and Cavico.
Happily the river is free from crocodiles, which, in the
upper part of the Amazons, are first met with below the
cataracts of Mayasi. These unwieldy and slothful monsters
generally prefer the more tranquil waters. According to
my measurements the Rio de Chamaya, from the Ford (Paso)
de Pucara to the place where it enters the Amazons River
below the village of Choros, has a fall[49] of 1668 (1778
English) feet in the short space of 52 English geographical
miles. The Governor of the province of Jaen de Bracamoros
assured me that letters carried by this singular water-post
were rarely either wetted or lost. Soon after my return
to Europe from Mexico, I received, in Paris, letters from
Tomependa, which had been sent in the manner above
described. Several tribes of wild Indians, living on the
banks of the Upper Amazons, make their journeys in a
similar manner, swimming down the stream sociably in
parties. I had the opportunity of seeing in this manner, in
the bed of the river, the heads of thirty or forty persons
(men, women, and children), of the tribe of the Xibaros, on
their arrival at Tomependa. The “Correo que nada”
returns by land by the difficult route of the Paramo del
Paredon.
On approaching the hot climate of the basin of the
Amazons, the eye is cheered by the aspect of a beautiful,
and occasionally very luxuriant vegetation. We had never
before, not even in the Canaries or on the hot sea coast of
Cumana and Caraccas, seen finer orange trees than those of
the Huertas de Pucara. They were principally the sweet
orange (Citrus aurantium, Risso), and less frequently the
bitter or Seville orange (C. vulgaris, Risso). Laden with
many thousands of their golden fruits, they attain a height
of sixty or sixty-four English feet; and, instead of rounded
tops or crowns, have aspiring branches, almost like a laurel
or bay tree. Not far from thence, near the Ford of Cavico,
we were surprised by a very unexpected sight. We saw a
grove of small trees, only about eighteen or nineteen English
feet high, which, instead of green, had apparently perfectly
red or rose-coloured leaves. It was a new species of Bougainvillæa,
a genus first established by the elder Jussieu, from a
Brazilian specimen in Commerson’s herbarium. The trees
were almost entirely without true leaves, as what we took
for leaves at a distance, proved to be thickly crowded bracteas.
The appearance was altogether different, in the
purity and freshness of the colour, from the autumnal
tints which, in many of our forest trees, adorn the woods
of the temperate zone at the season of the fall of the leaf.
A single species of the South African family of Proteaceæ,
Rhopala ferruginea, descends here from the cold heights
of the Paramo de Yamoca to the hot plain of Chamaya.
We often found here the Porlieria hygrometrica (belonging
to the Zygophylleæ), which, by the closing of the leaflets of
its finely pinnated foliage, foretels an impending change of
weather, and especially the approach of rain, much better
than any of the Mimosaceæ. It very rarely deceived us.
We found at Chamaya rafts (balsas) in readiness to convey
us to Tomependa, which we desired to visit for the purpose
of determining the difference of longitude between Quito
and the mouth of the Chinchipe (a determination of some
importance to the geography of South America on account
of an old observation of La Condamine).[50] We slept as
usual under the open sky on the sandy shore (Playa de
Guayanchi) at the confluence of the Rio de Chamaya with
the Amazons. The next day we embarked on the latter
river, and descended it to the Cataracts and Narrows (Pongo
in the Quichua language, from puncu, door or gate) of
Rentema, where rocks of coarse-grained sandstone (conglomerate)
rise like towers, and form a rocky dam across the
river. I measured a base line on the flat and sandy shore,
and found that at Tomependa the afterwards mighty River of
the Amazons is only a little above 1386 English feet across.
In the celebrated River Narrow or Pongo of Manseritche,
between Santiago and San Borja, in a mountain ravine where
at some points the overhanging rocks and the canopy of
foliage forbid more than a very feeble light to penetrate, and
where all the drift wood, consisting of a countless number
of trunks of trees, is broken and dashed in pieces, the
breadth of the stream is under 160 English feet. The rocks
by which all these Pongos or Narrows are formed undergo
many changes in the course of centuries. Thus a part of
the rocks forming the Pongo de Rentema, spoken of above,
had been broken up by a high flood a year before my journey;
and there has even been preserved among the inhabitants,
by tradition, a lively recollection of the precipitous
fall of the then towering masses of rock along the whole of
the Pongo,—an event which took place in the early part of
the eighteenth century. This fall, and the consequent
blocking up of the channel, arrested the flow of the stream;
and the inhabitants of the village of Puyaya, situated below
the Pongo de Rentema, saw with alarm the wide river-bed
entirely dry: but after a few hours the waters again forced
their way. Earthquake movements are not supposed to
have occasioned this remarkable occurrence. The powerful
stream appears to be as it were incessantly engaged in improving
its bed, and some idea of the force which it exerts
may be formed from the circumstance, that notwithstanding
its breadth it is sometimes so swollen as to rise more than
26 English feet in the course of twenty or thirty hours.
We remained for seventeen days in the hot valley of the
Upper Marañon or Amazons. In order to pass from thence
to the shores of the Pacific, the Andes have to be crossed at
the point where, between Micuipampa and Caxamarca (in
6° 57´ S. lat. and 78° 34´ W. long. from Greenwich), they
are intersected, according to my observations, by the magnetic
equator. Ascending to a still higher elevation among the
mountains, the celebrated silver mines of Chota are reached,
and from thence with a few interruptions the route descends
until the low grounds of Peru are gained; passing intermediately
over the ancient Caxamarca, where 316 years ago
the most sanguinary drama in the annals of the Spanish
Conquista took place, and also over Aroma and Gangamarca.
Here, as almost everywhere in the Chain of the Andes and
in the Mexican Mountains, the most elevated parts are
picturesquely marked by tower-like outbreaks of porphyry
(often columnar), and trachyte. Masses of this kind give to
the crest of the mountains sometimes a cliff-like and precipitous,
and sometimes a dome-shaped character. They have
here broken through calcareous rocks, which, both on this
and on the northern side of the equator, are largely developed;
and which, according to Leopold von Buch’s researches,
belong to the cretaceous group. Between Guambos and
Montan, 12000 French (12790 English) feet above the sea,
we found marine fossils[51] (Ammonites nearly fifteen English
inches in diameter, the large Pecten alatus, oyster shells,
Echini, Isocardias, and Exogyra polygona). A species of
Cidaris, which, according to Leopold von Buch, cannot be
distinguished from that which Brongniart found in the
lower part of the chalk series at the Perte du Rhone, was
collected by us, both at Tomependa in the basin of the
Amazons and at Micuipampa,—stations of which the elevations
differ 9900 (10551 English) feet. In a similar
manner, in the Amuich Chain of the Caucasian Daghestan,
the cretaceous beds rise from the banks of the Sulak, which
are hardly 530 English feet above the sea, to a height of fully
9000 (9592 English) feet on the Tschunum; while on the
summit of the Schadagh Mountain, 13090 (13950 English)
feet high, the Ostrea diluviana (Goldf.) and the same cretaceous
beds are again found. Abich’s excellent observations
in the Caucasus would thus appear to have confirmed in the
most brilliant manner Leopold von Buch’s geological views
on the mountain development of the cretaceous group.
From the lonely grazing farm of Montan surrounded by
herds of lamas, we ascended more to the south the eastern
declivity of the Cordilleras, and arrived as night was closing
in at an elevated plain where the argentiferous mountain of
Gualgayoc, the principal site of the celebrated silver mines
of Chota, afforded us a remarkable spectacle. The Cerro
de Gualgayoc, separated by a deep-cleft ravine or valley
(Quebrada) from the limestone mountain of Cormolatsche,
is an isolated mass of siliceous rock traversed by a multitude
of veins of silver which often meet or intersect, and terminated
to the north and west by a deep and almost perpendicular
precipice. The highest workings are 1445 (1540 English)
feet above the floor of the gallery, the Socabon de Espinachi.
The outline of the mountain is broken by numerous tower-like
and pyramidal points; the summit bears indeed the
name of “Las Puntas,” and offers the most decided contrast
to the “rounded outlines” which the miners are accustomed
to attribute to metalliferous districts generally. “Our mountain,”
said a rich possessor of mines with whom we had
arrived, “stands there like an enchanted castle (como si
fuese un castillo encantado).” The Gualgayoc reminds the
beholder in some degree of a cone of dolomite, but still more
of the serrated crest of the Monserrat Mountains in Catalonia,
which I have also visited, and which were subsequently
described in so pleasing a manner by my brother. The
silver mountain Gualgayoc, besides being perforated to its
summit by many hundred galleries driven in every direction,
presents also natural openings in the mass of the siliceous
rock, through which the intensely dark blue sky of these
elevated regions is visible to a spectator standing at the foot
of the mountain. These openings are popularly called
“windows,” “las ventanillas de Gualgayoc.” Similar
“windows” were pointed out to us in the trachytic walls of
the volcano of Pichincha, and called by a similar name,—“ventanillas
de Pichincha.” The strangeness of the view
presented to us was still farther increased by the numerous
small sheds and dwelling-houses, which nestled on the side
of the fortress-like mountain wherever a flat surface permitted
their erection. The miners carry down the ore in baskets
by very steep and dangerous paths to the places where the
process of amalgamation is performed.
The value of the silver furnished by the mines in the first
thirty years (from 1771 to 1802) amounted probably to
considerably above thirty-two millions of piastres. Notwithstanding
the hardness of the quartzose rock, the Peruvians,
before the arrival of the Spaniards (as ancient galleries and
excavations testify), extracted rich argentiferous galena on
the Cerro de la Lin and on the Chupiquiyacu, and gold in
Curumayo (where native sulphur is also found in the quartz
rock as well as in the Brazilian Itacolumite). We inhabited
near the mines the small mountain town of Micuipampa,
which is 11140 (11873 English) feet above the level of the
sea, and where, though only 6° 43´ from the equator, water
freezes in the house nightly throughout a large portion of
the year. In this desert devoid of vegetation live three or
four thousand persons, who are obliged to have all their
means of subsistence brought from the warm valleys, as they
themselves only rear some kinds of kale and excellent salad.
In this wilderness, as in every town in the high mountains of
Peru, ennui leads the richer class of persons, who are not on
that account more cultivated or more civilised, to pass their
time in deep gambling: thus wealth quickly won is still
more quickly dissipated. There is much that reminds one
of the soldier of Pizarro’s troop, who, after the pillage of the
temple at Cuzco, complained that he had lost in one night
at play “a great piece of the sun” (a gold plate). I
observed the thermometer at Micuipampa at 8 in the morning
1°, and at noon 7° Reaumur (34°.2 and 47°.8 Fahrenheit).
We found among the thin blades of Ichhu-grass (perhaps
our Stipa eriostachya), a beautiful Calceolaria (C. sibthorpioides),
which we should not have expected at such an
elevation.
Not far from the town of Micuipampa, in a high plain
called Llanos or Pampa de Navar, there have been found
throughout an area of above an English geographical square
mile, immediately under the turf, and as it were intertwined
with the roots of the alpine grasses, enormous masses of rich
red silver ore and threads of pure silver (in remolinos, clavos,
and vetas manteadas). Another elevated plain west of the
Purgatorio, near the Quebrada de Chiquera, is called
“Choropampa” or the “Field of Shells” (churu, in the
Quichua language, signifies shells, and particularly small
eatable kinds, hostion, mexillon). The name refers to fossils
which belong to the cretaceous group, and which are found
there in such abundance that they early attracted the attention
of the natives. This is the place where there was
obtained near the surface a mass of pure gold spun round
with threads of silver in the richest manner. Such an
occurrence shows how independent many of the ores thrown
up from the interior of the earth into fissures or veins,
are of the nature of the adjacent rock and of the relative
age of the formations broken through. The rock of the
Cerro de Gualgayoc and of Fuentestiana has a great deal
of water, but in the Purgatorio absolute dryness prevails.
I found to my astonishment that notwithstanding the height
of the strata above the level of the sea, the temperature
of the last named mine was 15°.8 Reaumur (67°.4 Fahr.);
while in the neighbouring Mina de Guadalupe the water in
the mine showed about 9° Reaumur (52°.2 Fahr.) As in
the open air the thermometer only rises to about 4°
Reaumur (41° Fahr.), the miners, whose toil is severe, and
who are almost without clothing, call the subterranean heat
in the Purgatorio stifling.
The narrow path from Micuipampa to the ancient city of
the Incas, Caxamarca, is difficult even for mules. The name
of the town was originally Cassamarca or Kazamarca, i. e.
the Frost town; (marca, as signifying a place or locality,
belongs to the northern Chinchaysuyo or Chinchaysuyu dialect,
while the word in the general Quichua language
signifies the stories of houses, and also defences or forts).
Our way lay for five or six hours over a succession of
Paramos, where we were exposed almost incessantly to the
fury of the wind and to the sharp-edged hail so peculiar to
the ridges of the Andes. The height of the route above the
level of the sea is generally between nine and ten thousand
feet (about 9600 and 10660 Eng.) It afforded me, however,
the opportunity of making a magnetic observation of general
interest; i. e. the determination of the point where the
North Inclination of the Needle passes into South Inclination,
or where the traveller’s route crosses the Magnetic
Equator.[52]
On reaching at length the last of these mountain wildernesses,
the Paramo de Yanaguanga, the traveller looks down
with increased pleasure on the fertile valley of Caxamarca.
It affords a charming prospect: a small river winds through
the elevated plain, which is of an oval form and about six or
seven German geographical square miles in extent (96 or
112 English geographical square miles). The plain resembles
that of Bogota: both are probably the bottoms of
ancient lakes; but at Caxamarca there is wanting the myth
of the wonder-working Botschica or Idacanzas, the high
priest of Iraca, who opened for the waters a passage
through the rock of Tequendama. Caxamarca is situated
600 (640 Eng.) feet higher than Santa Fé de Bogota,
therefore almost as high as the city of Quito; but being
sheltered by surrounding mountains it enjoys a far milder
and more agreeable climate. The soil is extremely fertile,
and the plain full of cultivated fields and gardens traversed
by avenues of Willows, large flowered red, white,
and yellow varieties of Datura, Mimosas, and the beautiful
Quinuar-trees (our Polylepsis villosa, a Rosacea allied to
Alchemilla and Sanguisorba). Wheat yields on an average
in the Pampa de Caxamarca fifteen to twentyfold, but the
hopes of a plentiful harvest are sometimes disappointed by
night frosts, occasioned by the great radiation of heat towards
the unclouded sky through the dry and rarefied mountain
air: the frosts are not felt in the roofed houses.
In the northern part of the plain, small porphyritic domes
break through the widely extended sandstone strata, and
probably once formed islands in the ancient lake before its
waters had flowed off. On the summit of one of these
domes, the Cerro de Santa Polonia, we enjoyed a pleasing
prospect. The ancient residence of Atuhuallpa is surrounded
on this side by fruit gardens and by irrigated fields of
lucerne (Medicago sativa, “campos de alfalfa”). Columns of
smoke are seen at a distance rising from the warm baths
of Pultamarca, which are still called Baños del Inca. I
found the temperature of these sulphur-springs 55°.2
Reaumur (156°.2 Fahrenheit). Atahuallpa spent a part of
the year at these baths, where some slight remains of his
palace still survive the devastating rage of the Conquistadores.
The large and deep basin or reservoir in which, according to
tradition, one of the golden chairs in which the Inca was
carried had been sunk and has ever since been sought in vain,
appeared to me, from the regularity of its circular shape, to
have been artificially excavated in the sandstone rock above
one of the fissures through which the springs issue.
Of the fort and palace of Atahuallpa there are also only
very slight remains in the town, which is now adorned
with some fine churches. The destruction of the ancient
buildings has been accelerated by the devouring thirst of
gold which led men, before the close of the sixteenth century,
in digging for supposed hidden treasures, to overturn walls
and carelessly to undermine or weaken the foundations of
all the houses. The palace of the Inca was situated on a
hill of porphyry which had originally been hollowed at the
surface, so that it surrounds the principal dwelling almost
like a wall or rampart. A state prison and a municipal
building (la Casa del Cabildo) have been erected on a part
of the ruins. The most considerable ruins still visible, but
which are only from 13 to 16 feet high, are opposite the
convent of San Francisco; they consist, as may be observed
in the house of the Cacique, of fine cut blocks of stone two
or three feet long, and placed upon each other without
cement, as in the Inca-Pilca or strong fortress of Cañar in
the high land of Quito.
There is a shaft sunk in the porphyritic rock which once
led into subterranean chambers, and a gallery said to extend
to the other porphyritic dome before spoken of, that of Santa
Polonia. Such arrangements shew an apprehension of the
uncertainties of war, and the desire to secure the means of
escape. The burying of treasures was an old and very generally
prevailing Peruvian custom. There may still be found
subterranean chambers below many of the private dwellings
of Caxamarca.
We were shown steps cut in the rock, and also what
is called the Inca’s foot-bath (el lavatorio de los pies).
The washing of the monarch’s feet was accompanied by
some inconvenient usages of court etiquette.[53] Minor
buildings, designed according to tradition for the servants,
are constructed partly like the others of cut stones, and
provided with sloped roofs, and partly with well formed
bricks alternating with siliceous cement (muros y obra de
tapia). In the latter class of constructions there are
vaulted recesses, the antiquity of which I long doubted,
but, as I now believe, without sufficient grounds.
In the principal building the room is still shown in which
the unhappy Atahuallpa was kept a prisoner for nine months[54]
from November 1532, and there is pointed out to the
traveller the wall on which the captive signified to what
height he would fill the room with gold if set free. This
height is given very variously, by Xerez in his “Conquista
del Peru” which Barcia has preserved for us, by Hernando
Pizarro in his letters, and by other writers of the period.
The prince said that “gold in bars, plates, and vessels,
should be heaped up as high as he could reach with his
hand.” Xerez assigns to the room a length of 23, and a
breadth of 18 English feet. Garcilaso de la Vega, who
quitted Peru in his 20th year, in 1560, estimates the value
of the treasure collected from the temples of the sun at
Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco, and Pachacamac, up to the
fateful 29th of August 1553, on which day the Inca was
put to death, at 3,838,000 Ducados de Oro[55].
In the chapel of the state prison, to which I have before
alluded as built upon the ruins of the Inca’s palace, the stone
still marked by the indelible stains of blood is shown to the
credulous. It is a very thin slab, 13 feet long, placed in
front of the altar, and has probably been taken from
the porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity. One is not
permitted to make any more precise examination by striking
off a part of the stone, but the three or four supposed blood
spots appear to be natural collections of hornblende or
pyroxide in the rock. The Licentiate Fernando Montesinos,
who visited Peru scarcely a hundred years after the
taking of Caxamarca, even at that early period gave currency
to the fable that Atahuallpa was beheaded in prison, and
that stains of blood were still visible on the stone on which
the execution had taken place. There is no reason to doubt
the fact, confirmed by many eye-witnesses, that the Inca,
in order to avoid being burnt alive, consented to be
baptised under the name of Juan de Atahuallpa by his
fanatic persecutor, the Dominican monk Vicente de Valverde.
He was put to death by strangulation (el garrote) publicly,
and in the open air. Another tradition relates that a chapel
was raised over the spot where Atahuallpa was strangled,
and that his body rests beneath the stone; in such case,
however, the supposed spots of blood would remain unaccounted
for. In reality, however, the corpse was never
placed beneath the stone in question. After a mass for the
dead, and solemn funereal rites, at which the brothers Pizarro
were present in mourning habits (!), it was conveyed first to
the churchyard of the convent of San Francisco, and afterwards
to Quito, Atahuallpa’s birthplace. This last transfer
was in compliance with the expressed wish of the dying
Inca. His personal enemy, the astute Rumiñavi (“stone-eye,”
a name given from the disfigurement of one eye by a
wart; “rumi,” signifying “stone,” and “ñaui,” “eye,” in
the Quichua language), from political motives caused the
body to be buried at Quito with solemn obsequies.
We found descendants of the monarch, the family of the
Indian Cacique Astorpilco, dwelling in Caxamarca, among
the melancholy ruins of ancient departed splendour, and
living in great poverty and privation; but patient and
uncomplaining. Their descent from Atahuallpa through the
female line has never been doubted in Caxamarca, but traces of
beard may perhaps indicate some admixture of Spanish blood.
Of the sons of the Great (but for a child of the sun somewhat
free thinking),[56] Huayna Capac, neither of the two
who swayed the sceptre before the arrival of the Spaniards,
Huascar and Atahuallpa, left behind them acknowledged
sons. Huascar became the prisoner of Atahuallpa in the
plains of Quipaypan, and was soon afterwards secretly murdered
by his order. Neither were there any surviving male
descendants of the two remaining brothers of Atahuallpa, the
insignificant youth Toparca, who Pizarro caused to be crowned
as Inca in the autumn of 1553, and the enterprising Manco
Capac, similarly crowned, but who afterwards rebelled again.
Atahuallpa left indeed a son, whose christian name was Don
Francisco, (but who died very young), and a daughter,
Doña Angelina, by whom Francisco Pizarro (with whom
she led a wild and warlike life), had a son whom he loved
fondly, grandchild of the slaughtered monarch. Besides
the family of the Cacique Astorpilco, with whom I was
acquainted at Caxamarca, the Carguraicos and Titu Buscamayta
were pointed out at the period of my visit as
belonging to the Inca dynasty; but the Buscamayta family
has since become extinct.
The son of the Cacique Astorpilco, a pleasing and friendly
youth of seventeen, who accompanied me over the ruins of
the palace of his ancestor, while living in extreme poverty,
had filled his imagination with images of buried splendour
and golden treasures hidden beneath the masses of rubbish
upon which we trod. He related to me that one of his
more immediate forefathers had bound his wife’s eyes, and
then conducted her through many labyrinths cut in the rock
into the subterranean garden of the Incas. There she saw,
skilfully and elaborately imitated, and formed of the purest
gold, artificial trees, with leaves and fruit, and birds sitting
on the branches; and there too was the much sought for
golden travelling chair (una de las andas) of Atahuallpa.
The man commanded his wife not to touch any of these
enchanted riches, because the long foretold period of the
restoration of the empire had not yet arrived, and that
whoever should attempt before that time to appropriate
aught of them would die that very night. These golden
dreams and fancies of the youth were founded on recollections
and traditions of former days. These artificial
“golden gardens” (Jardines o Huertas de oro) were often
described by actual eye-witnesses, Cieza de Leon Sarmiento,
Garcilaso, and other early historians of the Conquest. They
were found beneath the temple of the sun at Cuzco, in Caxamarca,
and in the pleasant valley of Yucay, a favourite residence
of the monarch’s family. Where the golden Huertas
were not below ground, living plants grew by the side of the
artificial ones: among the latter, tall plants and ears of maize
(mazorcas) are mentioned as particularly well executed.
The morbid confidence with which the young Astorpilco
assured me that below our feet, a little to the right
of the spot on which I stood at the moment, there was
an artificial large-flowered Datura tree (Guanto), formed
of gold wire and gold plates, which spread its branches
over the Inca’s chair, impressed me deeply but painfully,
for it seemed as if these illusive and baseless visions were
cherished as consolations in present sufferings. I asked the
lad—“Since you and your parents believe so firmly in the
existence of this garden, are not you sometimes tempted in
your necessities to dig in search of treasures so close at
hand?” The boy’s answer was so simple, and expressed so
fully the quiet resignation characteristic of the aboriginal
inhabitants of the country, that I noted it in Spanish in
my journal. “Such a desire (tal antojo) does not come to
us; father says it would be sinful (que fuese pecado). If
we had the golden branches with all their golden fruits our
white neighbours would hate and injure us. We have a
small field and good wheat (buen trigo).” Few of my
readers, I think, will blame me for recalling here the words
of the young Astorpilco and his golden visions.
The belief, so widely current among the natives, that to
take possession of buried treasures which belonged to the
Incas would be wrong, and would incur punishment and bring
misfortune on the entire race, is connected with another belief
which prevailed, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries,
i. e. the future restoration of a kingdom of the Incas.
Every suppressed nationality looks forward to a day of
change, and to a renewal of the old government. The flight
of Manco Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, into the forests
of Vilcapampa on the declivity of the eastern Cordillera,
and the sojourn of Sayri Tupac and Inca Tupac Amaru
in those wildernesses, have left permanent recollections.
It was believed that the dethroned dynasty had settled
between the rivers Apurimac and Beni, or still farther
to the east in Guiana. The myth of el Dorado and the
golden city of Manoa, travelling from the west to the
east, increased these dreams, and Raleigh’s imagination
was so inflamed by them, that he founded an expedition
on the hope of “conquering ‘the imperial and golden
city,’ placing in it a garrison of three or four thousand
English, and levying from the ‘Emperor of Guiana,’ a
descendant of Huayna Capac, and who holds his court with
the same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000
sterling, as the price of his promised restoration to the
throne in Cuzco and Caxamarca.” Wherever the Peruvian
Quichua language has extended, some traces of such expectations
of the return of the Inca’s sovereignty continue[57] to
exist in the minds of many among those of the natives who are
possessed of some knowledge of the history of their country.
We remained for five days in the town of the Inca Atahuallpa,
which at that time scarcely reckoned seven or eight
thousand inhabitants. Our departure was delayed by the
number of mules which were required for the conveyance of
our collections, and by the necessity of making a careful
choice of the guides who were to conduct us across the
chain of the Andes to the entrance of the long but narrow
Peruvian sandy desert (Desierto de Sechura). The passage
over the Cordillera is from north-east to south-west. Immediately
after quitting the plain of Caxamarca, on ascending
a height of scarcely 9600 (10230 English) feet, the
traveller is struck with the sight of two grotesquely shaped
porphyritic summits, Aroma and Cunturcaga (a favourite
haunt of the powerful vulture which we commonly call
Condor; kacca in the Quichua language signifies “the
rock.”) These summits consisted of five, six, or seven-sided
columns, 37 to 42 English feet high, and some of
them jointed. The Cerro Aroma is particularly picturesque.
By the distribution of its often converging series of columns
placed one above another, it resembles a two-storied building,
which, moreover, is surmounted by a dome or cupola
of non-columnar rock. Such outbursts of porphyry and
trachyte are, as I have before remarked, characteristic of the
high crests of the Cordilleras, to which they impart a physiognomy
quite distinct from that presented by the Swiss
Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Siberian Altai.
From Cunturcaga and Aroma we descended by a zig-zag
course a steep rocky declivity of 6400 English feet into
the deep cleft valley of the Magdalena, the bottom of which
is still 4260 English feet above the level of the sea. A
few wretched huts, surrounded by the same wool or cotton-trees
(Bombax discolor) which we had first seen on the
banks of the Amazons, were called an Indian village.
The scanty vegetation of the valley bears some resemblance
to that of the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, but we
missed the red groves of Bougainvillæa. This valley is one
of the deepest with which I am acquainted in the chain of
the Andes: it is a true transverse valley directed from east
to west, deeply cleft, and hemmed in on the two sides by
the Altos de Aroma and Guangamarca. In this valley
recommences the same quartz formation which we had
observed in the Paramo de Yanaguanga, between Micuipampa
and Caxamarca, at an elevation of 11720 English
feet, and which, on the western declivity of the Cordillera,
attains a thickness of several thousand feet, and was long
an enigma to me. Since von Buch has shown us that the
cretaceous group is also widely extended in the highest chains
of the Andes, on either side of the Isthmus of Panama,
the quartz formation which we are now considering, which
has perhaps been altered in its texture by the action of
volcanic forces, may be considered to belong to the Quadersandstein,
intermediate between the upper part of the chalk
series, and the Gault and Greensand. On quitting the mild
temperature of the Magdalena valley we had to ascend again for
three hours the mountain wall of 5120 English feet, opposite
to the porphyritic group of the Alto de Aroma. The change
of climate in so doing was the more sensible, as we were
often enveloped in the course of the ascent in a cold fog.
The longing desire which we felt to enjoy once more the
open view of the sea after eighteen months’ constant sojourn
in the ever restricted range of the interior of the mountains,
had been heightened by repeated disappointments. In looking
from the summit of the volcano of Pichincha, over the dense
forests of the Provincia de las Esmeraldas, no sea horizon
can be clearly distinguished, by reason of the too great distance
of the coast and height of the station: it is like looking
down from an air-balloon into vacancy. One divines, but one
does not distinguish. Subsequently, when between Loxa
and Guancabamba we reached the Paramo de Guamini,
where there are several ruined buildings of the times of the
Incas, and from whence the mule-drivers had confidently
assured us that we should see beyond the plain, beyond
the low districts of Piura and Lambajeque, the sea itself
which we so much desired to behold, a thick mist
covered both the plain and the distant sea shore. We
saw only variously shaped masses of rock alternately rise
like islands above the waving sea of mist, and again disappear,
as had been the case in our view from the Peak of
Teneriffe. We were exposed to almost the same disappointment
in our subsequent transit over the pass of Guangamarca,
at the time of which I am now speaking. As we
toiled up the mighty mountain side, with our expectations
continually on the stretch, our guides, who were not perfectly
acquainted with the road, repeatedly promised us
that at the end of the hour’s march which was nearly
concluded, our hopes would be realised. The stratum of
mist which enveloped us appeared occasionally to be about
to disperse, but at such moments our field of view was
again restricted by intervening heights.
The desire which we feel to behold certain objects does
not depend solely on their grandeur, their beauty, or their
importance; it is interwoven in each individual with many
accidental impressions of his youth, with early predilection
for particular occupations, with an attachment to the remote
and distant, and with the love of an active and varied life.
The previous improbability of the fulfilment of a wish
gives besides to its realisation a peculiar kind of charm.
The traveller enjoys by anticipation the first sight of the
constellation of the cross, and of the Magellanic clouds
circling round the Southern Pole,—of the snow of the
Chimborazo, and the column of smoke ascending from the
volcano of Quito,—of the first grove of tree-ferns, and of
the Pacific Ocean. The days on which such wishes are
realised form epochs in life, and produce ineffaceable impressions;
exciting feelings of which the vividness seeks
not justification by processes of reasoning. With the longing
which I felt for the first view of the Pacific from the
crests of the Andes, there mingled the interest with which
I had listened as a boy to the narrative of the adventurous
expedition of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,[58] the fortunate
man who (followed by Francisco Pizarro) first among Europeans
beheld from the heights of Quarequa, on the Isthmus
of Panama, the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean,—the
“South Sea.” The reedy shores of the Caspian, at the
place where I first saw them, i. e. from the Delta formed by
the mouths of the Volga, cannot certainly be called picturesque;
yet I viewed them with a gratification heightened
almost into delight by the particular interest and pleasure
with which, in early childhood, I had looked at the shape of
this Asiatic inland sea on maps. That which is thus excited
in us[59] by childish impressions, or by accidental circumstances
in life, takes at a later period a graver direction, and
often becomes a motive for scientific labours and distant
enterprises.
When after many undulations of the ground, on the
summit of the steep mountain ridge, we finally reached the
highest point, the Alto de Guangamarca, the heavens which
had long been veiled became suddenly clear: a sharp west
wind dispersed the mist, and the deep blue of the sky in the
thin mountain air appeared between narrow lines of the
highest cirrous clouds. The whole of the western declivity
of the Cordillera by Chorillos and Cascas, covered with large
blocks of quartz 13 to 15 English feet long, and the plains
of Chala and Molinos as far as the sea shore near Truxillo,
lay beneath our eyes in astonishing apparent proximity.
We now saw for the first time the Pacific Ocean itself; and
we saw it clearly: forming along the line of the shore a
large mass from which the light shone reflected, and rising
in its immensity to the well-defined, no longer merely
conjectured horizon. The joy it inspired, and which was
vividly shared by my companions Bonpland and Carlos
Montufar, made us forget to open the barometer until we
had quitted the Alto de Guangamarca. From our measurement
taken soon after, but somewhat lower down, at
an isolated cattle-farm called the Hato de Guangamarca,
the point from which we first saw the sea would be only
somewhere between 9380 and 9600 English feet above the
level of the sea.
The view of the Pacific was peculiarly impressive to one
who like myself owed a part of the formation of his mind
and character, and many of the directions which his wishes
had assumed, to intercourse with one of the companions of
Cook. My schemes of travel were early made known, in
their leading outlines at least, to George Forster, when I
enjoyed the advantage of making my first visit to England
under his guidance, more than half a century ago. Forster’s
charming descriptions of Otaheite had awakened throughout
Northern Europe a general interest (mixed, I might almost
say, with romantic longings) for the Islands of the Pacific
which had at that time been seen by very few Europeans.
I too cherished at the time of which I am speaking the
hope of soon landing on them; for the object of my visit to
Lima was twofold,—to observe the transit of Mercury over
the solar disk, and to fulfil an engagement made with
Captain Baudin before I left Paris, to join him in a
voyage of circumnavigation which was to take place as
soon as the Government of the French Republic could
furnish the requisite funds.
Whilst we were in the Antilles, North American newspapers
announced that the two Corvettes, Le Géographe and
Le Naturaliste, would sail round Cape Horn and touch at
Callao de Lima. On receiving this intelligence at Havana,
where I then was, after having completed my Orinoco journey,
I relinquished my original plan of going through Mexico to
the Philippines, and hastened to engage a vessel to convey
me from the Island of Cuba to Cartagena de Indias. Baudin’s
Expedition, however, took quite a different route from
that which was announced and expected; instead of sailing
round Cape Horn, as had been designed when it had been
intended that Bonpland and myself should form part of it,
it sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. One of the two
objects of my Peruvian journey and of our last passage over
the Chain of the Andes failed; but on the other hand I
had, at the critical moment, the rare good fortune of a
perfectly clear day, during a very unfavourable season of the
year, on the misty coast of Low Peru. I observed the
passage of Mercury over the Sun at Callao, an observation
which has become of some importance towards the exact
determination of the longitude of Lima[60], and of all the
south-western part of the New Continent. Thus in the
intricate relations and graver circumstances of life, there
may often be found, associated with disappointment, a germ
of compensation.
ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
[41] p. 267.—“On the ridge of the Chain of the Andes
or Antis.”
The Inca Garcilaso, who was well acquainted with the
language of his country and was fond of dwelling on etymologies,
always calls the Chain of the Andes las Montañas
de los Antis. He says positively, that the great Mountain
chain east of Cuzco derived its name from the tribe of the
Antis, and the Province of Anti which is to the east of the
Capital of the Incas. The Quaternary division of the
Peruvian Empire according to the four quarters of the
Heavens, reckoned from Cuzco, borrowed its terminology
not from the very circumstantial words taken which signify
East, West, North, and South in the Quichua language
(intip lluscinanpata, intip yaucunanpata, intip chaututa
chayananpata, intip chaupunchau chayananpata); but
from the names of the Provinces and of the tribes or races,
(Provincias llamadas Anti, Cunti, Chincha y Colla), which
are east, west, north, and south of the Centre of the Empire
(the city of Cuzco). The four parts of the Inca-theocracy
are called accordingly Antisuyu, Cuntisuyu, Chinchasuyu,
and Collasuyu. The word suyu signifies “strip,” and also
“part.” Notwithstanding the great distance, Quito belonged
to Chinchasuyu; and in proportion as by their religious
wars the Incas extended still more widely the prevalence
of their faith, their language, and their absolute form
of government, these Suyus also acquired larger and unequally
increased dimensions. Thus the names of provinces
came to be used to express the different quarters of the
heavens; “Nombrar aquellos Partidos era lo mismo,” says
Garcilaso, “que decir al Oriente, ó al Poniente.” The
Snow Chain of the Antis was thus looked upon as an East
chain. “La Provincia Anti da nombre á las Montañas de los
Antis. Llamaron la parte á del Oriente Antisuyu, por la
qual tambien llaman Anti á toda aquella gran Cordillera de
Sierra Nevada que pasa al Oriente del Peru, por dar á entender,
que está al Oriente.” (Commentarios Reales, P. I.
p. 47 and 122.) Later writers have tried to deduce the
name of the Chain of the Andes from “anta,” which
signifies “copper” in the Quichua language. This metal
was indeed of the greatest importance to a nation whose
tools and cutting instruments were made not of iron but of
copper mixed with tin; but the name of the “Copper
Mountains” can hardly have been extended to so great a
chain; and besides, as Professor Buschmann very justly
remarks, the word anta retains its terminal a when making
part of a compound word: anta, cobre, y antamarca Provincia
de Cobre. Moreover, the form and composition of
words in the ancient Peruvian language are so simple that
there can be no question of the passage of an a into an i;
and thus “anta” (copper) and “Anti or Ante” (meaning as
dictionaries of the country explain “la tierra de los Andes,
el Indio hombre de los Andes, la Sierra de los Andes,” i. e.
the country of the Andes, an inhabitant of the Andes, or
the chain of mountains themselves), are and must continue
two wholly different and distinct words. There are no means
of interpreting the proper name (Anti) by connecting it
with any signification or idea; if such connection exist it is
buried in the obscurity of the past. Other Composites of
Anti besides the above-mentioned Antisuyu are “Anteruna”
(the native inhabitant of the Andes), and Anteunccuy or
Antionccoy, (sickness of the Andes, mal de los Andes
pestifero).
She was the wife of the Viceroy Don Geronimo Fernandez
de Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, who
administered the government of Peru from 1629 to 1639.
The cure of the Vice-Queen falls in the year 1638. A
tradition which has obtained currency in Spain, but which I
have heard much combated at Loxa, names a Corregidor del
Cabildo de Loxa, Juan Lopez de Cañizares, as the person
by whom the Quina-bark was first brought to Lima and
generally recommended as a remedy. I have heard it
asserted in Loxa that the beneficial virtues of the tree were
known long before in the mountains, though not generally.
Immediately after my return to Europe I expressed the
doubts I felt as to the discovery having been made by the
natives of the country round Loxa, since even at the present
day the Indians of the neighbouring valleys, where intermittent
fevers are very prevalent, shun the use of
bark. (Compare my memoir entitled “über die China-wälder”
in the “Magazin der Gesellschaft naturforschender
Freunde” zu Berlin, Jahrg. I. 1807, S. 59.) The story of
the natives having learnt the virtues of the Cinchona from the
lions who “cure themselves of intermittent fevers by gnawing
the bark of the China (or Quina) trees,”—(Hist. de l’Acad.
des Sciences, année 1738, Paris, 1740, p. 233),—appears
to be entirely of European origin, and nothing but a monkish
fable. Nothing is known in the New Continent of the
“Lion’s fever,” for the large so-called American Lion (Felis
concolor), and the small mountain Lion (Puma) whose foot-marks
I have seen on the snow, are never tamed and made
the subjects of observation; nor are the different species
of Felinæ in either continent accustomed to gnaw the bark
of trees. The name of Countess’s Powder (Pulvis Comitissæ),
occasioned by the remedy having been distributed by
the Countess of Chinchon, was afterwards changed to that
of Cardinal’s or Jesuit’s powder, because Cardinal de Lugo,
Procurator-General of the order of the Jesuits, spread the
knowledge of this valuable remedy during a journey through
France, and recommended it to Cardinal Mazarin the more
urgently, as the brethren of the order were beginning to prosecute
a lucrative trade in South American Quina-bark which
they obtained through their missionaries. It is hardly necessary
to remark, that in the long controversy which ensued
respecting the good or bad effects of the fever bark, the
protestant physicians sometimes permitted themselves to be
influenced by religious intolerance and dislike of the
Jesuits.
Respecting these aposentos (dwellings, inns, in the
Quichua language tampu, whence the Spanish form tambo),
compare Cieça, Chronica del Peru, cap. 41, (ed. de 1554,
p. 108) and my Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xxiv.
Is situated not far from Turche, at an elevation of 9984
(10640 English) feet. I have given a drawing of it in the
Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xvii. (compare also Cieça, cap. 44,
P. i. p. 120). Not far from the Fortaleza del Cañar, in
the celebrated ravine of the Sun, Inti-Guaycu, (in the Quichua
or Qquechhua language, huaycco), is the rock on which
the natives think they see a representation of the sun and of
an enigmatical sort of bank or bench which is called Inga-Chungana
(Incachuncana), the Inca’s play. I have drawn
both. See Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xviii. and xix.
[45] p. 272.—“Artificial roads covered with cemented
gravel.”
Compare Velasco, Historia de Quito, 1844, T. i. p. 126-128,
and Prescott, Hist. of the Conquest of Peru, Vol. i.
p. 157.
[46] p. 273.—“Where the road was interrupted by flights
of steps.”
Compare Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, Vol. iii. fol. 404,
and Extracts from Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro,
employed by the great historical writer now living at Boston;
Prescott, Vol. i. p. 444. “El camino de las sierras es
cosa de ver, porque en verdad en tierra tan fragosa en la
cristiandad no se han visto tan hermosos caminos, toda la
mayor parte de calzada.”
[47] p. 275.—“Greeks and Romans shew these contrasts.”
“If,” says Strabo, (Lib. v. p. 235, Casaub) “the Greeks
in building their cities sought for a happy result by aiming
especially at beauty and solidity, the Romans on the other
hand have regarded particularly, objects which the Greeks left
unthought of;—stone pavements in the streets; aqueducts
bringing to the city abundant supplies of water; and provisions
for drainage so as to wash away and carry to the
Tiber all uncleanliness. They also paved the roads through
the country, so that waggons may transport with ease the
goods brought by trading ships.”
[48] p. 276.—“The messenger of the deity
Nemterequeteba.”
The civilisation of ancient Mexico (the Aztec land of
Anahuac), and that of the Peruvian theocracy or empire of
the Incas, the children of the Sun, have so engrossed attention
in Europe, that a third point of comparative light and
of dawning civilisation, which existed among the nations
inhabiting the mountains of New Granada, was long almost
entirely overlooked. I have touched on this subject in
some detail in the Vue des Cordillères et Monumens des
Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique (ed. in 8vo.) T. ii. p. 220-267.
The form of the government of the Muyscas of New
Granada reminds us of the constitution of Japan and the
relation of the Secular Ruler (Kubo or Seogun at Jeddo) to
the sacred personage the Daïri at Miyako. When Gonzalo
Ximenez de Quesada advanced to the high table land of
Bogota (Bacata, i. e. the extremity of the cultivated fields,
probably from the proximity of the mountain wall), he found
there three powers or authorities respecting whose reciprocal
relations and subordination there remains some uncertainty.
The spiritual chief, who was appointed by election, was the
high priest of Iraca or Sogamoso (Sugamuxi, the place of
the disappearance of Nemterequeteba): the secular rulers
or princes were the Zake (Zaque of Hunsa or Tunja), and
the Zipa of Funza. In the feudal constitution the last-named
prince appears to have been originally subordinate
to the Zake.
The Muyscas had a regular mode of computing time,
with intercalation for amending the lunar year: they used
small circular plates of gold, cast of equal diameter, as
money (any traces of which among the highly civilised
ancient Egyptians have been sought in vain), and they had
temples of the Sun with stone columns, remains of which
have very recently been discovered in the Valley of Leiva.
(Joaquin Acosta, Compendio historico del Descubrimiento
de la Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 188, 196, 206, and 208;
Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, 1847, p. 114.)
The tribe or race of the Muyscas ought properly speaking
to be always denoted by the name of Chibchas; as Muysca
in the Chibcha language signifies merely “men,” “people.”
The origin and elements of the civilisation introduced are
attributed to two mystical forms, Bochica (Botschica) and
Nemterequeteba which are often confounded together. The
first of these is still more mythical than the second; for it
was only Botschica who was regarded as divine, and made
almost equal to the Sun itself. His fair companion Chia or
Huythaca occasioned by her magical arts the overflowing of
the valley of Bogota, and for so doing was banished by Botschica
from the earth, and made to revolve round it for the
first time, as the moon. Botschica struck the rock of Tequendama,
and gave a passage for the waters to flow off
near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes) in which
the bones of elephant-like mastodons lie buried at an elevation
of 8250 (8792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea.
Captain Cochrane (Journal of a Residence in Colombia, 1825,
Vol. ii. p. 390) and Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches
on the Conquest of Peru, 1827, p. 397), state that animals
of this species are still living in the Andes, and shed their
teeth! Nemterequeteba, also called Chinzapogua (enviado
de Dios) is a human person, a bearded man, who came
from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso.
The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes
ascribed to him and sometimes to Botschica, and as the
latter is said to have borne also the name of Nemqueteba,
the confusion between the two, on ground so unhistoric, is
easily accounted for.
My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work
entitled Compendio de la Hist. de la Nueva Granada, p. 185,
endeavours to prove by means of the Chibcha language that
“potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) bear at Usmè the native
non-Peruvian name of Yomi, and were found by Quesada
already cultivated in the province of Velez as early as 1537,
a period when their introduction from Chili, Peru, and
Quito, would seem improbable, and therefore that the plant
may be regarded as a native of New Granada.” I would
remark, however, that the Peruvian invasion and complete
possession of Quito took place before 1525, the year of the
death of the Inca Huayna Capac. The southern provinces
of Quito even fell under the dominion of Tupac Inca
Yupanqui at the conclusion of the 15th century (Prescott,
Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 332.) In the unfortunately
still very obscure history of the first introduction of the
potato into Europe, the merit of its introduction is still
very generally attributed to Sir John Hawkins, who is supposed
to have received it from Santa Fé in 1563 or 1565.
It appears more certain that Sir Walter Raleigh planted
the first potatoes on his Irish estate near Youghal, from
whence they were taken to Lancashire. Before the conquista,
the plantain (Musa), which since the arrival of the
Spaniards has been cultivated in all the warmer parts of
New Granada, was only found, as Colonel Acosta believes,
(p. 205) at Choco. On the name Cundinamarca,—applied
by a false erudition to the young republic of New Granada
in 1811, a name “full of golden dreams” (sueños dorados),
more properly Cundirumarca (not Cunturmarca, Garcilaso,
lib. viii. cap. 2),—see also Joaquin Acosta, p. 189. Luis
Daza, who joined the small invading army of the Conquistador
Sebastian de Belalcazar which came from the south,
had heard of a distant country abounding in gold, called
Cundirumarca, inhabited by the tribe of the Chicas, and
whose prince had solicited Atahuallpa at Caxamarca for
auxiliary troops. These Chicas have been confounded with
the Chibchas or Muyscas of New Granada; and thus the
name of the unknown more southern country has been
unduly transferred to that territory.
Compare my Recueil d’Observ. Astron., vol. i. p. 304;
Nivellement barométrique, No. 236-242. I have given in
the Vues des Cordillères, Pl xxxi. a drawing of the “swimming
post,” as he binds round his head the handkerchief
containing the letters.
[50] p. 280.—“Which, on account of an old observation
of La Condamine, was of some importance to the
geography of South America.”
I desired to connect chronometrically Tomependa, the
point at which La Condamine began his voyage, and other
places geographically determined by him on the Amazons
river, with the town of Quito. La Condamine had been in
June 1743, (59 years before me) at Tomependa, which place
I found, by star observations taken for three nights, to be
in south lat. 5° 81´ 24´´, and west longitude from Paris
80° 56´ 37´´ (from Greenwich 78° 84´ 55´´). Previous to
my return to France the longitude of Quito was in error to
the full amount of 50½ minutes of arc, as Oltmanns has
shown by my observations, and by a laborious recalculation
of all those previously made. (Humboldt, Recueil d’Observations
Astron., vol. ii. p. 309-359). Jupiter’s satellites,
lunar distances, and occultations, give a satisfactory accordance,
and all the elements of the calculation are placed
before the public. The too easterly longitude of Quito was
transferred by La Condamine to Cuenca and the Amazons
river. “Je fis,” says La Condamine, “mon premier essai
de navigation sur un radeau (balsa) en descendant la rivière
de Chinchipe jusqu’à Tomependa. Il fallut me contenter
d’en déterminer la latitude et de conclure la longitude par
les routes. J’y fis mon testament politique en rédigeant
l’extrait de mes observations le plus importantes.” (Journal
du Voyage fait à l’Equateur, 1751, p. 186.)
[51] p. 282.—“At upwards of twelve thousand feet
above the sea we found fossil marine shells.”
See my Essai géognostique sur le Gisement des Roches,
1823, p. 236; and for the first zoological determination
of the fossils contained in the cretaceous group in the
chain of the Andes, see Léop. de Buch, Pétrifications recueillies
en Amérique, par Alex. de. Humboldt et Charles
Degenhardt, 1839 (in fol.), pp. 2-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 18-22.
Pentland found fossil shells of the Silurian formation in
Bolivia, on the Nevado de Antakäua, at the height of
16400 French (17480 English) feet, (Mary Somerville,
Physical Geography, 1849, Vol. i. p. 185).
[52] p. 287.—“Where the chain of the Andes is intersected
by the magnetic equator.”
Compare my Rélation hist. du Voyage aux Régions
équinoxiales, T. iii. p. 622; and Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 191
and 432; where, however, by errors of the press, the longitude
is once 48° 40´, and afterwards 80° 40´, instead of, as
it should be, 80° 54´ from Paris (or 78° 32´ from Greenwich),
(English edit. p. 173, and note 159).
[53] p. 290.—“Accompanied by inconvenient ceremonies
of Court etiquette.”
In conformity with a highly ancient Court ceremonial,
Atahuallpa spat not on the ground, but into the hand of
one of the principal ladies present; “all,” says Garcilaso,
“on account of his majesty.” El Inca nunca escupia en el
suelo, sino en la mano de una Señora mui principal, por
Majestad, (Garcilaso, Comment. Reales, P. ii. p. 46).
A short time before the captive Inca was put to death,
he was taken into the open air, in compliance with his request,
to see a large comet. The “greenish black comet,
nearly as thick as a man,” (Garcilaso says, P. ii. p. 44, una
cometa verdinegra, poco menos gruesa que el cuerpo de un
hombre), seen by Atahuallpa before his death, therefore in
July or August 1533, and which he supposed to be the
same malignant comet which had appeared at the death of
his father, Huayna Capac, is certainly the one observed by
Appian (Pingré, Cométographie, T. i. p. 496; and Galle’s
“Notice of all the Paths of Comets hitherto computed,” in
“Olber’s Leichtester Methode die Bahn eines Cometen zu
berechnen,” 1847, S. 206), and which, on the 21st of July,
standing high in the north, near the constellation of Perseus,
represented the sword which Perseus holds in his right
hand. (Mädler, Astronomie, 1846, S. 307; Schnurrer,
Die Chronik der Seuchen in Verbindung mit gleichzeitigen
Erscheinungen, 1825, Th. ii. S. 82.) Robertson considers
the year of Huayna Capac’s death uncertain; but, from the
researches of Balboa and Velasco, that event appears to have
occurred towards the close of 1525: thus the statements of
Hevelius (Cometographia, p. 844), and of Pingré (T. i.
p. 485), derive confirmation from the testimony of Garcilaso
(P. i. p. 321) and the tradition preserved among the
“amautas, que son los filosofos de aquella Republica.” I
may here introduce the remark, that Oviedo alone, and
certainly erroneously, asserts, in the inedited continuation of
his Historia de las Indias, that the proper name of the Inca
was not Atahuallpa, but Atabaliva (Prescott, Conquest of
Peru, Vol. i. p. 498.)
The sum mentioned in the text is that which is stated by
Garcilaso de la Vega in the Commentarios reales de los
Incas, Parte ii. 1722, pp. 27 and 51. The statements of
Padre Blas Valera and of Gomara, Historia de las Indias,
1553, p. 67, differ, however, considerably. Compare my
Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne (éd. 2), T. iii.
p. 424. It is, moreover, no less difficult to determine the
value of the Ducado, Castellano, or Peso de Oro. (Essai
pol. T. iii. pp. 371 and 377; Joaquin Acosta, Descubrimiento
de la Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 14.) The modern
excellent historical writer, Prescott, has been able to avail
himself of a manuscript bearing the very promising title,
“Acta de Reparticion del Rescate de Atahuallpa.” The
estimate of the whole Peruvian booty which the brothers
Pizarro and Almagro divided amongst themselves at the
(I believe) too large value of three and a half millions of
pounds sterling, includes doubtless the gold of the ransom
and that taken from the different temples of the Sun and
from the enchanted gardens, (Huertas de Oro). (Prescott,
Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. pp. 464-477.)
[56] p. 292.—“The great, but, for a Son of the Sun,
somewhat free-thinking Huayna Capac.”
The nightly absence of the Sun excited in the Inca many
philosophical doubts as to the government of the world by
that luminary. Padre Blas Valera noted down the remarks
of the Inca on the subject of the Sun: “Many maintain
that the Sun lives, and is the Maker and Doer of all things
(el hacedor de todas las cosas); but whoever would complete
any thing must remain by what he is doing. Now
many things take place when the Sun is absent; therefore
he is not the original cause of all things. It seems also
doubtful whether he is living; for though always circling
round, he is never weary (no se cansa). If he was living,
he would become weary, as we do; and if he was free, he
would surely move sometimes into parts of the heavens
where we never see him. The Sun is like an animal
fastened by a cord so as always to move in the same
round, (como una Res atada que siempre hace un mismo
cerco); or as an arrow which only goes where it is sent,
and not where it chooses itself.” (Garcilaso, Comment.
Reales, P. i. lib. viii. cap. 8, p. 276.) The view taken of
the circling round of a heavenly body, as if it was fastened
to a cord, is very striking. As Huayna Capac died at
Quito in 1525, seven years before the arrival of the Spaniards,
he no doubt used, instead of “res atada,” the general expression
of an “animal” fastened to a cord; but indeed,
even in Spanish, “res” is by no means limited to oxen, but
may be applied to any tame cattle. We cannot examine
here how far the Padre may have mingled parts of his own
sermons with the heresies of the Inca, with the view of
weaning the natives from the official and dynastic worship
of the Sun, the religion of the Court. We see in the very
conservative State policy, and in the maxims of State and
proceedings of the Inca Roca, the conqueror of the province
of Charcas, the solicitude which was felt to guard strictly
the lower classes of the people from such doubts. This
Inca founded schools for the upper classes only, and forbade,
under heavy penalties, to teach the common people any
thing, “lest they should become presumptuous, and should
create disturbances in the State!” (No es lecito que
enseñen á los hijos de los Plebeios las Ciencias, porque la
gente baja no se eleve y ensobervezca y menoscabe la Republica;
Garcilaso, P. i. p. 276.) Thus the policy of the
Inca’s theocracy was almost the same as that of the Slave
States in the United Free States of North America.
[57] p. 295.—“The restoration of an empire of the Incas.”
I have treated this subject more fully in another place
(Relation hist. T. iii. p. 703-705 and 713). Raleigh
thought there was in Peru an old prophecy “that from
Inglaterra those Ingas should be againe in time to come
restored and deliuered from the seruitude of the said conquerors.
I am resolued that if there were but a smal army
afoote in Guiana marching towards Manoa, the chiefe citie
of Inga, he would yield Her Majestie by composition so
many hundred thousand pounds yearely, as should both
defend all enemies abroad and defray all expences at home,
and that he woulde besides pay a garrison of 3000 or 4000
soldiers very royally to defend him against other nations.
The Inca wil be brought to tribute with great gladnes.”
(Raleigh, “The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful
Empire of Guiana, performed in 1595,” according to the
edition published by Sir Robert Schomburgk, 1848, p. 119
and 137.) This scheme of a Restoration promised much
that might be very agreeable to both sides, but unfortunately
the dynasty who were to be restored, and who were to pay
the money, were wanting!
[58] p. 299.—“Of the expedition of Vasco Nuñez de
Balboa.”
I have already remarked elsewhere (Examen critique de
l’histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, et des
progrès de l’Astronomie nautique aux 15ème et 16ème
siècles, T. i. p. 349) that Columbus knew fully ten years
before Balboa’s expedition the existence of the South Sea
and its great proximity to the east coast of Veragua. He
was conducted to this knowledge not by theoretical speculations
respecting the configuration of Eastern Asia, but by
the local and positive reports of the natives, which he collected
on his fourth voyage (May 11, 1502, to November 7,
1504). On this fourth voyage the Admiral went from the
coast of Honduras to the Puerto de Mosquitos, the western
end of the Isthmus of Panama. The reports of the natives,
and the comments of Columbus on those reports in the
“Carta rarissima” of the 7th of July, 1503, were to the
effect that “not far from the Rio de Belen the other sea
(the South Sea) turns (boxa) to the mouths of the Ganges,
so that the countries of the Aurea (i. e. the countries of the
Chersonesus aurea of Ptolemy) are situated in relation to the
eastern coasts of Veragus, as Tortosa (at the mouth of the
Ebro) is to Fuentarrabia (on the Bidassoa) in Biscay, or as
Venice in relation to Pisa.” Although Balboa first saw the
South Sea from the heights of the Sierra de Quarequa on
the 25th of September (Petr. Martyr, Epist. dxl. p. 296),
yet it was not until several days later that Alonso Martin de
Don Benito, who found a way from the mountains of
Quarequa to the Gulf of San Miguel, embarked on the South
Sea in a canoe. (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio hist. del
Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, p. 49.)
As the taking possession of a considerable part of the
west coast of the New Continent by the United States of
North America, and the report of the abundance of gold in
New California (now called Upper California) have rendered
more urgent than ever the formation of a communication
between the Atlantic States and the regions of the West
through the Isthmus of Panama, I feel it my duty to call
attention once again to the circumstance that the shortest
way to the shores of the Pacific, which was shown by
the natives to Alonso Martin de Don Benito, is in the
eastern part of the Isthmus, and led to the Golfo de San
Miguel. We know that Columbus (Vida del Almirante por
Don Fernando Colon, cap. 90) sought for an “estrecho de
Tierra firmë”; and in the official documents which we possess
of the years 1505 and 1507, and especially 1514, mention is
made of the desired “opening” (abertura), and of the pass
(passo), which should lead directly to the “Indian Land of
Spices.” Having for more than forty years been occupied
with the subject of the means of communication between the
two seas, I have constantly, both in my printed works and
in the different memoirs which with honourable confidence
the Free States of Spanish America have requested me to
furnish, urged that the Isthmus should be examined hypsometrically
throughout its entire length, and more especially
where, in Darien and the inhospitable former Provincia de
Biruquete, it joins the continent of South America; and
where, between the Atrato and the Bay of Cupica (on the
shore of the Pacific), the mountain chain of the Isthmus
almost entirely disappears. (See in my Atlas géographique
et physique de la Nouvelle Espagne, Pl. iv.; in the Atlas de
la Relation historique, Pl. xxii. and xxiii.; Voyage aux
Régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, T. iii. p. 117-154;
and Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle
Espagne, T. i. 2de édit. 1825, p. 202-248.)
General Bolivar at my request caused an exact levelling of
the Isthmus between Panama and the mouth of the Rio
Chagres to be made in 1828 and 1829 by Lloyd and
Falmarc. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
of London for the year 1830, p. 59-68.) Other measurements
have since been executed by accomplished and experienced
French engineers, and projects have been formed
for canals and railways with locks and tunnels, but always
in the direction of a meridian between Portobello and
Panama,—or more to the west, towards Chagres and
Cruces. Thus the most important points of the eastern
and south-eastern part of the Isthmus have remained unexamined
on both shores! So long as this part is not examined
geographically by means of exact but easily obtained
determinations of latitude and of longitude by chronometers,
as well as hypsometrically in the conformation of the surface
by barometric measurements of elevation,—so long I consider
that the statement I have repeatedly made, and which I now
repeat in 1849, will still be true; viz. “that it is as yet unproved
and quite premature to pronounce that the Isthmus
does not admit of the formation of an Oceanic Canal (i. e.
a canal with fewer locks than the Caledonian Canal) permitting
at all seasons the passage of the same sea-going ships
between New York and Liverpool on the one hand, and
Chili and California on the other.”
On the Atlantic side (according to examinations which
the Direccion of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid have
entered on their maps since 1809) the Ensenada de Mandinga
penetrates so deeply towards the south that it appears
to be only four or five German geographical miles, fifteen
to an equatorial degree, (i. e. 16 or 20 English geographical
miles), from the coast of the Pacific on the east of Panama.
On the Pacific side the isthmus is almost equally indented
by the deep Golfo de San Miguel, into which the Rio
Tuyra falls, with its tributary river the Chuchunque (Chuchunaque).
This last-named stream in the upper part of
its course approaches within 16 English geographical miles
of the Atlantic side of the isthmus to the west of Cape
Tiburon. For more than twenty years I have had inquiries
made from me on the subject of the problem of the Isthmus
of Panama, by associations desirous of employing considerable
pecuniary means: but the simple advice which I have
given has never been followed. Every scientifically educated
engineer knows that between the tropics, (even without
corresponding observations), good barometric measurements
(the horary variations being taken into account) afford
results which are well assured to less than from 70 to 90
French or 75 to 96 English feet. It would besides be
easy to establish for a few months on the two shores two fixed
corresponding barometric stations, and to compare repeatedly
the portable instruments employed in preliminary levelling,
with each other and with those at the fixed stations. Let
that part be particularly examined where, near the continent
of South America, the separating mountain ridge sinks into
hills. Seeing the importance of the subject to the great
commerce of the world, the research ought not, as hitherto,
to be restricted to a limited field. A great and comprehensive
work, which shall include the whole eastern part
of the Isthmus,—and which will be equally useful for every
possible kind of operation or construction,—for canal, or for
railway,—can alone decide the much discussed problem
either affirmatively or negatively. That will be done at
last, which should, and, had my advice been taken, would
have been done in the first instance.
[59] p. 300.—“That which is awakened in us by childish
impressions or by the circumstances of life.”
On the incitements to the study of nature, compare
Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 5, (English edit. vol. ii. p. 5).
[60] p. 302.—“Of importance for the exact determination
of the longitude of Lima.”
At the period of my Expedition, the Longitude of Lima
was given in the maps published in the Deposito hidrografico
de Madrid, from the observations of Malaspina,
which made it 5h. 16m. 53s. from Paris. The transit of
Mercury over the Sun’s disk on the 9th of November, 1802,
which I observed at Callao, the Port of Lima, (in the
northern Torreon del Fuerte de San Felipe) gave for Callao
by the mean of the contact of both limbs 5h. 18m. 16s. 5,
and by the exterior contact only 5h. 18m. 18s. (79° 34´
30´´). This result (obtained from the Transit of Mercury)
is confirmed by those of Lartigue, Duperrey, and Captain
FitzRoy in the Expedition of the Adventure and Beagle.
Lartigue found Callao 5h. 17m. 58s., Duperrey 5h. 18m.
16s., and FitzRoy 5h. 18m. 15s. (all West of Paris). As I
determined the difference of longitude between Callao and
the Convent de San Juan de Dios at Lima by carrying
chronometers between them four times, the observation of
the transit of Mercury gives the longitude of Lima 5h. 17m.
51s. (79° 27´ 45´´ W. from Paris, or 77° 06´ 03´´ W. from
Greenwich). Compare my Recueil d’observations astron.
Vol. ii. p. 397, 419 and 428, with my Relat. hist. T. iii. p.
592.
Potsdam, June 1849.
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
Universal profuse distribution of organic life on the declivities of the
highest mountains, on the ocean, and in the atmosphere. Subterranean
Flora. Siliceous-shelled Polygastrica in masses of polar
ice. Podurellæ in tubular holes in the glaciers of the Alps; the
glacier flea (Desoria glacialis). Small organic creatures in the
dust which falls like rain in the neighbourhood of the African
Desert 3-8
History of the vegetable covering of the surface of the globe. Gradual
extension of vegetation over the bare rocky crust. Lichens,
mosses, and succulent plants. Causes of the present absence of
vegetation in particular districts 8-13
Each zone has its peculiar character. All animal and vegetable forms
attached to fixed and always recurring types. Physiognomy of
Nature. Analysis of the general impression produced by the aspect
of a country or district. The several elements which make up this
impression; outlines of the mountains, azure of the sky, and form
of the clouds: but principally determined by the vegetable covering.
Animal organisation far less influential on the landscape from deficiency
of mass. The power of locomotion of individuals, and
frequently their small size, also contribute to lessen their general
effect on the landscape 13-16
Enumeration of the forms of plants which principally determine the
physiognomy of Nature, and which decrease or increase from the
equator to the poles according to laws which have been made the
subject of investigation 17-20
Enjoyment derived from the sight of the natural grouping and contrasts
of these forms of plants. Importance of the physiognomic
study of plants to the landscape painter 29-31, 200-203
Scientific Elucidations and Additions—p. 33 to p. 210.
Organic forms, animal and vegetable, in the highest mountain regions
adjacent to the limit of perpetual snow in the Andes and the Alps;
insects carried up involuntarily by ascending currents of air. The
Hypudæus nivalis of the Swiss Alps. On the true elevation above
the sea reached by the Chinchilla laniger in Chili 33-35
Lecidias and Parmelias on rocks not entirely covered with snow;
some phænogamous plants also wander in the Cordilleras beyond
the limits of perpetual snow, as the Saxifraga boussingaulti, to
15770 English feet above the level of the sea. Groups of phænogamous
plants extend in the Andes to 13700 and 14920 English
feet above the sea; species of Culcitium, Espeletia, and Ranunculus;
small umbelliferous plants resembling mosses in appearance;
Myrrhis andicola and Fragosa arctioides 35, 36
Measurement of the height of Chimborazo, and etymology of the
name 36-39
On the greatest absolute heights which have yet been reached by any
human beings in either continent; in the Cordilleras and the
Himalaya, on the Chimborazo and the Tarhigang 40
Habits and haunts of the Condor (Cuntur in the Inca language), and
singular mode of capturing these powerful birds in an enclosure
fenced by palisades 40-44
Useful services rendered by the Gallinazos (Cathartes urubu and C.
aura) in purifying the air in the neighbourhood of human habitations;
these birds sometimes tamed 44, 45
On what has been called the revivification of Rotiferæ; views of
Ehrenberg and Doyère. According to Payen, germs of Cryptogamia
preserve their power of germination even after being exposed
to the highest temperatures 45-47
Diminution, if not entire suspension, of organic functions in the
winter sleep of animals belonging to the higher classes 47, 48
Summer sleep of animals in the tropical zone; great dryness acts
like winter cold. Tenrecs, crocodiles, tortoises, and the Lepidosiren
of Eastern Africa 48-51
Anther dust or pollen; fertilization of flowers. The Cœlebogyne
found to produce perfect seeds in England without any traces of
pollen being discovered 51-53
The luminosity of the ocean produced by living luminous animals and
by decaying fibres and membranes of animals. Acalephæ and
siliceous-shelled luminous Infusoria. Influence on the luminosity
of a stimulus applied to the nerves 53-60
Pentastomes inhabiting the pulmonary cells of the rattle-snake of
Cumana 60, 61
Rock-building corals. The scaffolding or solid material which survives
the death of the coral animals. More correct views of recent times.
Shore reefs, encircling reefs, and lagoon islands. Atolls, or coral
walls enclosing a lagoon. The coral islands to the south of Cuba, the
Jardines del Rey of Columbus. The living gelatinous investment
of the calcareous scaffolding of the coral trunks attracts fish and
turtles in search of food. Singular mode of fishing by the aid of
the Remora (the Echeneis naucrates) 62-72
Besides much carbonate of lime and magnesia, Madrepores and
Astræas also contain some fluoric and phosphoric acids 75, 76
Oscillatory state of the bottom of the sea according to Darwin 76-79
Traditions of Samothrace. Irruptions of the sea. Mediterranean.
Sluice theory of Strato. Myth of Lyktonia, and the “Atlantis
broken into fragments” 78-83
On the causes which prevent the sinking down of clouds and precipitation
taking place from them 83-84
Heat disengaged from the crust of the earth while solidifying. Hot
currents of air which in the early ages of the earth, from frequent
corrugations of the strata and elevations of land, may have been
diffused in the atmosphere from temporary fissures 84, 85
Colossal size and great age of some kinds of trees; Dragon tree
of Orotava thirteen, and Adansonia digitata (Baobab) thirty-two
English feet in diameter. Characters cut in the bark of the trees in
the 15th century. Adanson assigns to some of the Baobab trunks
in Senegambia an age of between 5100 and 6000 years 86-92
Judging by the annular rings, there are yew-trees (Taxus baccata)
from 2600 to 3000 years old. Is it true that in the northern
temperate zone the part of the tree turned towards the north has
narrower annular rings, as Michel Montaigne affirmed in 1581?
Species of trees in which individuals attain a size of above twenty-one
or twenty-two English feet diameter, and an age of several
centuries, belong to the most different natural families 92-94
Diameter of the Mexican Schubertia disticha of Santa Maria del Tule
40½ English feet; the sacred Banyan fig-tree of Ceylon almost 30;
and the oak at Saintes (Dep. de la Charente Inférieure) 29½ English
feet. The age of the oak tree estimated from its annular rings at
from 1800 to 2000 years. The root of the rose tree growing
against the crypt of the Cathedral of Hildesheim is 800 years old.
A kind of sea-weed, Macrocystis pyrifera, attains a length of 630
English feet, exceeding therefore the height of the loftiest Coniferæ,
even that of the Sequoia gigantea 94-97
Examination of the probable number of phænogamous plants hitherto
described or preserved in herbariums. Relative numbers. Laws
discovered in the geographical distribution of plants. Relative numbers
of the great divisions of Cryptogamia to Cotyledonous plants,
and of Monocotyledonous to Dicotyledonous plants, in the torrid,
temperate, and frigid zones. Elements of arithmetical botany.
Number of individuals; predominance of social plants. The forms
of organic beings are mutually dependent on and limit each other.
If we know exactly the number of species of one of the great
families of Glumaceæ, Leguminosæ, or Compositæ, at any one
part of the globe, we may infer approximatively both the number
of species in the remaining families, and the entire number of
phænogamous plants in the same district. Application of the
numerical ratios to the direction of the isothermal lines. Mysterious
original distribution of types. Absence of Roses in
the southern, and of Calceolarias in the northern hemisphere.
Why has our heather (Calluna vulgaris), and why have our oaks
never advanced eastward beyond the Ural Mountains into Asia?
The vegetation cycle of each species requires for its successful
organic development a certain minimum amount of temperature. 97-113
Analogy between the numerical laws of the distribution of animal and
of vegetable forms. If there are now cultivated in Europe above
35000 species of phænogamous plants, and if our herbariums probably
contain, described and undescribed, from 160000 to 212000
species of phænogamous plants, it is probable that the number of
collected insects and collected phænogamous plants are nearly
equal; whilst we know that certain well-explored districts in
Europe have more than three times as many insects as phænogamous
plants 113-119
Considerations on the probable proportion which the number of known
phænogamous plants bears to the entire number existing on the
surface of the globe 119-125
The different forms of plants successively noticed. Physiognomy of
plants treated in a threefold manner; viz. as to the absolute diversity
of forms, their local predominance in comparison with the
entire number of species in different phænogamous Floras, and
their geographical climatic distribution 126-200
Greatest extension in height or of the longitudinal axis in arborescent
vegetation: examples of 235 to 245 English feet in Pinus lambertiana
and P. douglasii; of 266 English feet in P. strobus; of 298 and
300 English feet in Sequoia gigantea and Pinus trigona. All these
examples are from the north-west part of the New Continent.
Araucaria excelsa of Norfolk Island only attains, according to
well-assured measurements, 203 to 223 English feet; and the
Mountain Palm of the Cordilleras, Ceroxylon andicola, 192 English
feet 165-168
These gigantic vegetable forms contrasted with the stem of two
inches high of a willow-tree stunted by cold of latitude or of mountain
elevation; and still more remarkably with a phænogamous
plant, Tristicha hypnoides, which, when fully developed in the plains
of a tropical country, is only a quarter of an English inch in
height 169
Bursting forth of blossoms from the rough bark of the Crescentia
cujete, the Gustavia augusta, and the roots of the Cacao tree.
The largest flowers, Rafflesia arnoldi, Aristolochia cordata, Magnolia,
Helianthus annuus, Victoria regina, Euryale amazonica,
&c. 203, 240
The different forms of plants determine the character of the landscape
as dependent on vegetation in different zones. Physiognomic
classification or division into groups according to external “facies”
or aspect, entirely different in its principles from the classification
according to the system of natural families. The study of the
physiognomy of plants is based principally on what are called the
vegetative organs, or those on which the preservation of the
individual depends; systematic botany grounds the arrangement
of natural families on a consideration of the reproductive organs,
or those on which the preservation of the species depends 205-210
On the Structure and Mode of Action of Volcanos in the different Parts
of the Earth—p. 211 to p. 241.
Influence of journeys in distant countries on the generalisation of
ideas, and the progress of physical geology. Influence of the
form of the Mediterranean on the earliest ideas respecting volcanic
phenomena. Comparative geology of volcanos. Periodical recurrence
of certain natural changes or revolutions which have their
origin in the interior of the globe. Relative proportion of the
height of volcanos to that of their cones of ashes in Pichincha,
the Peak of Teneriffe, and Vesuvius. Changes in the height of
the summit of volcanos. Measurements of the height of the
margins of the crater of Vesuvius from 1773 to 1822: the author’s
measurements comprise the period from 1805 to 1822 213-228
Particular description of the eruption in the night of 23-24
October, 1822. Falling in of a cone of cinders 426 English feet in
height, which previously stood in the interior of the crater. The
eruption of ashes from the 24th to the 28th of October is the most
remarkable of which we possess any certain knowledge since the
death of the elder Pliny 228-235
Difference between volcanos with permanent craters; and the
phenomena (very rarely observed within historic times) in which
trachytic mountains open suddenly, emit lava and ashes, and
reclose again perhaps for ever. The latter class of phenomena
are particularly instructive to the geologist, because they recall the
earliest revolutions of the oscillating, upheaved, and fissured
surface of the globe. They led, in classical antiquity, to the view
of the Pyriphlegethon. Volcanos are intermitting earth springs,
indicating a communication (permanent or transient) between the
interior and the exterior of our planet; they are the result of a reaction
of the still fluid interior against the crust of the earth; it is
therefore needless to ask what chemical substance burns, or
supplies materials for combustion, in volcanos 235-238
The primitive cause of subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the process
of formation itself, i. e. the forming of the aggregating mass from a cosmical
gaseous fluid. Power and influence of the radiation of heat from
numerous open fissures and unfilled veins in the ancient world.
Climate (or atmospheric temperature) at that period very independent
of the geographical latitude, or of the position of the planet in
respect to the central body, the sun. Organic forms of the present
tropical world buried in the icy regions of the north 238-241
Scientific Elucidations and Additions—p. 243 to p. 248.
Barometric measurements of Vesuvius. Comparison of the height
of different points of the crater of Vesuvius 243-247
Increase of temperature with depth, 1° Reaumur for every 113
Parisian feet, or 1° of Fahrenheit for every 53·5 English feet.
Temperature of the Artesian well at Oeynhausen’s Bad (New
Salzwerk, near Minden), the greatest depth yet reached below the
level of the sea. The hot springs near Carthage led Patricius,
Bishop of Pertusa, in the 3rd century, to form just conjectures
respecting the cause of the increase of temperature in the interior
of the earth 248
The Vital Force, or the Rhodian Genius—p. 249 to p. 257.
Note to “The Vital Force, or the Rhodian Genius”—p. 259 to p. 263.
The Rhodian Genius, the development of a physiological idea in a
mythical garb. Difference of views respecting the hypothesis of
peculiar vital forces. 259, 260
The difficulty of satisfactorily reducing the vital phenomena of
organisation to physical and chemical laws, is principally founded on
the complication of the phenomena, and on the multiplicity of
simultaneously acting forces, as well as the varying conditions of
the activity of those forces. Definition of the expressions “animate”
and “inanimate” substances. Criteria derived from the
composition of the elements after a substance has been separated
into parts by external agency are the simple enunciation of
facts. 260-263
The Plateau of Caxamarca, the ancient residence of the Inca Atahuallpa,
and the first view of the Pacific from the crest of the Andes—p.
265 to p. 302.
Quina-producing forests in the valleys of Loxa. First use of the
fever-bark in Europe; the Countess of Chinchon, wife of the
Viceroy 267-269
Alpine vegetation of the Paramos. Remains of ancient Peruvian
artificial roads; they rise in the Paramo del Assuay almost to the
height of the summit of Mont Blanc 269-277
Singular mode of communication by a “swimming post” messenger 277-279
Descent to the Amazons river. Vegetation round Chamaya and
Tomependa; Red Groves of Bougainvillæa. Ridges of rock
traverse the Amazons. Its breadth at the Pongo de Manseriche
less than 160 English feet. The falling in of masses of rock at
Rentema left the bed of the river below the falls dry for some hours,
to the great alarm of those who lived on the banks 279-281
Passage across the chain of the Andes at the part where it is intersected
by the magnetic equator. Ammonites nearly 15 English
inches long, Echini, and Isocardias of the cretaceous group,
collected between Guambos and Montan, 12790 English feet above
the level of the sea. Rich silver mines of Chota. The picturesquely
towering Cerro de Gualgayoc. Large mass of pure
native silver in filaments or wire found in the Pampa de Navar.
A fine piece of pure gold, wound round with similar threads of
silver, found in the Choropampa (field of shells), so called from the
numerous fossils. Outbursts of silver and gold ores amongst the
cretaceous rocks. The small mountain town of Micuipampa is
11874 English feet above the level of the sea 282-286
From the mountain wilderness of the Paramo de Yanaguanga the
traveller descends into the beautiful valley, or rather plateau,
of Caxamarca (the elevation of which is nearly equal to that of
the city of Quito). Hot baths of the Incas. Ruins of the
Palace of Atahuallpa inhabited by his descendants, the family of
Astorpilco, who live there in the greatest poverty. Strong belief
of the still remaining subterranean “golden gardens” of the Inca
beneath the ruins; such certainly existed in the valley of Yucay,
beneath the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and at several other points.
Conversation with the youthful son of the Curaca Astorpilco.
The room is still shewn in which (1553) the unhappy Atahuallpa
was imprisoned for nine months, also the wall on which the Inca
indicated the height to which he would fill the room with gold if
he should regain his liberty. Manner in which the Inca was
put to death on the 29th of August, 1533, and remarks on what
are erroneously called “the indelible stains of blood” on a stone
slab in front of the altar of the chapel of the state prison 287-295
Hope of a restoration of the empire of the Incas (which was also
entertained by Raleigh) has been preserved among the natives.
Cause of this expectation 295
Journey from Caxamarca to the sea-coast. Passage over the
Cordillera by the Altos de Guangamarca. Often disappointed
hope of enjoying the first view of the Pacific Ocean from the crest
of the Andes. This hope at last fulfilled at an elevation of 9380
English feet 296-302
Scientific Elucidations and Additions—p. 303 to p. 324.
On the origin of the name borne by the chain of the Andes 303-305
Epoch of the introduction of the Quina-bark in Europe 305, 306
Remains of the roads of the Incas, and of fortified dwellings; Apozentos
de Mulalo, Fortalezar del Cañar, Inti-Guaycu 307, 308
On the ancient civilisation of the Chibchas or Muyscas of New
Granada 308-310
Etymology of the word Cundinamarca, which has been corrupted
from Cundirumarca, and was used in the first years of republican
independence to denote the whole country of New Granada 311, 312
Chronometric connection of the town of Quito with Tomependa on
the upper waters of the Amazons, and with Callao de Lima, the
position of which was accurately determined by observations of
the transit of Mercury on the 9th day of November, 1802 312, 313
Unpleasant etiquette in the Inca’s court. Atahuallpa’s captivity;
his proposed ransom 314
Philosophic doubts of Huayna Capac (according to the report of Padre
Blas Valera) respecting the Deity of the Sun. Objections of the
Inca-government to the extension of knowledge among the poorer
and lower classes of the people 316, 317
Raleigh’s project for restoring the dynasty of the Incas under
English protection, for which a yearly tribute of several hundred
thousand pounds was to be paid 317, 318
Earliest evidence obtained by Columbus of the existence of the
South Sea or Pacific Ocean. The South Sea first beheld by Vasco
Nuñez de Balboa (25th Sept. 1513), and first navigated by Alonso
Martin de Don Benito 318, 319
On the possibility of the formation of an oceanic canal (with fewer
locks than the Caledonian Canal) through the Isthmus of Panama.
Points in which the examination has been neglected 319-323
Climate of the eastern or flat portions of South America widely different from that of Africa in the same latitudes, causes of the difference, i. 8, 123;
the southern hemisphere cooler and moister than the northern, 139.
Climatic effects of extensive forests, i. 126.
Cœlebogyne, produces perfect seeds without any trace of pollen having been discovered, ii. 51.
Condor.—Discussion of the height in the atmosphere to which the condor ascends, ii. 40.
Figured rocks, i. e. figures engraven on rocks in an extensive district of South America, i. 196.
Fresh-water springs in the ocean near Cuba, i. 233.
Fournel, recent contributions to the physical geography of Northern Africa, i. 115.
Frémont, Captain, importance of his geographical memoirs on our knowledge of the geography of North America, i. 37, and generally in Note[5], also i. 280.
Geographical distribution of plants, laws of the, ii. 102.
Sahara (African desert) composed of several detached basins, i. 114.
Sand-spouts a phenomenon characteristic of the Peruvian Sand Desert, i. 183.
Sargasso, Mar de; its geographical position discussed, i. 63;
is the most remarkable assemblage of plants of a single species yet known on the globe, i. 64.
Schomburgk.—Travels of the brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk important in many respects in regard to the physical geography of Guiana and the bordering countries, i. 178, 197, 236, 250.
Sleep, summer and winter, of animals, i. 18, 185; ii. 48.
Snow, limit of perpetual; inequality of this limit on the northern and southern declivities of the Himalaya, i. 98.
Sorata and Illimani; their heights above the sea recently corrected, i. 57, 96, 277.
Steppes and Deserts, Characteristics of the European, i. 2;
African, i. 3;
Asiatic, i. 4;
South American, i. 7;
analogies and contrasts between the steppes and the ocean, i. 2, 35.
Sugar-cane; of Tahiti, of the West Indies, and of Guiana, i. 31.
Tacarigua, Lake of, i. 1;
its scenery and vegetation, i. 27.
Temperature.—Contrast between the temperature of the east coast of America and the west coast of Europe in the same latitudes, i. 129;
general remarks on the temperature of the United States of America, i. 131.
Thian-schan, one of the four parallel mountain chains in Central Asia, i. 72, 82.
Thibet, occupying the valley between the great chains of the Kuen-lün and Himalaya, divided into Upper, Middle, and Little Thibet; its mean elevation and description, i. 81.