"Armed with keen tortures for the unwary tongue;"
  "I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living streams at eve." O Of all the strata composing our planetary mass, the most important, so far as man is concerned, is, at the same time, the most superficial; for it is here that all the phenomena of life transpire. Our vegetable earth is the great laboratory in which are prepared all the solid, liquid, and gaseous aliments necessary for the nourishment of animal life. It is on the surface of the globe that men play their various parts. And why? Can it be for no other purpose than to modify, in some degree, its aspect, that they occupy the terrestrial surface? One would be tempted to think so on consulting what these majestic bimanes pompously designate their "Universal History." Regions formerly But why do men wander so far from the straight way? Why do they their best to ensure each other's unhappiness? They seem, alas! ignorant of the tendency of their actions, while attaching themselves to things transitory, and despising things imperishable. These, indeed, they would utterly ignore; they would live, like the brutes, unconscious of their destiny, if, at the bottom of their indestructible conscience, there did not prevail a glimmer of light, though more or less eclipsed, if they did not all feel themselves attracted, if they did not all irresistibly gravitate, some more quickly, others more slowly, towards the sun of eternal truth and justice. Instead of moving with sidelong sinuous pace, instead of taking ninety-nine steps backward for every one hundred taken in advance, they would all march onward in the way of progress; were it But let us return to the ground which we tread, and where our life-companions are the animals and the plants. The uppermost stratum of our globe undergoes the direct action of the light and heat of the all-vivifying "orb of day." This action, very unequal in its effects, and most important to understand, has scarcely been touched as yet by scientific research. Our geologists, having been more busily engaged with the inside than the outside of the earth, have broached To touch industrial occupations—to meddle with trade, commerce, or agriculture—is unworthy of Science! Such is the silly cry of the many distinguished savants who pride themselves on what they call their "freedom from selfish considerations." Be it so; but then you ought surely to be consistent, and never regard science as a profession or a bread-winner. On the Chemical Action of Light. It is no easy study to investigate the modifications and chemical effects which the terrestrial surface is capable of receiving or undergoing, either from the direct rays of the sun, or from diffused light. It requires new methods of inquiry,—methods frequently of extreme delicacy, as the labours of For the better co-ordination of these phenomena, might we not, as has been done in regard to the distribution of heat over the terrestrial surface, But to realise this magnificent programme, the union and agreement is necessary of scientific men in every region of the globe; an ideal, therefore, as yet, is very far from being attained. The Action of Heat. The earth is subject to the influence of two different sources of heat. One, like the arterial blood, strikes from the centre to the circumference: this internal heat it is which has been stored up since the unknown epoch when our globe was nothing more than an incandescent nucleus, surrounded by condensable vapours. The other, like the The first of these sources lies beyond the domain of experiment. It has been the object of numerous hypotheses and diverse speculations, with which we shall not here concern ourselves. The second source is alone accessible to our investigations, and yet the network of isothermal lines is scarcely defined. Since the year 1817, when Alexander von Humboldt conceived the felicitous idea of representing by lines the same mean temperatures enjoyed, in a given space of time, by the different regions of the globe, researches of this nature have very considerably multiplied. But these researches—do not forget—refer rather to the temperature of the atmosphere than to the heating of the inferior stratum of that gaseous ocean whose bed or foundation is the terrestrial crust. And it is the penetration of the latter by the sun's calorific rays which we would especially desire to understand. Here, then, a sufficient margin is left for our curiosity. "If the king, my father, does not rest from his conquests," cried Alexander of Macedon, while still a child, "he will leave me nothing to do when I shall have reached manhood." To such a complaint, be you sure, dear reader, that the conquests made by science will never give rise. Every step in advance is but a step into the infinite: what we have done only shows us the boundless extent of what we have to do. It is this reflection which must always teach humility to the scientific student, even while he rejoices in the achievements of human patience and genius. He will not despair for he knows that great victories have been won: he will not grow arrogant, for he knows that he is still on the threshold of eternal truth. As Sir J. Herschel has justly said:—"He who has seen obscurities, which appeared impenetrable, in physical and mathematical science, suddenly dispelled, and the most barren and unpromising fields of inquiry converted, as if by inspiration, into rich and inexhaustible springs of knowledge and power, on a simple change of our point of view, or by merely bringing them to bear on some principle which it never occurred before to try, will surely be the very last to acquiesce in any dispiriting prospects of either the present or the future destinies of mankind; while, on the other hand, the boundless views of intellectual and moral, as well as material relations, which open to him on all hands in the course of these pursuits,—the knowledge of the trivial place he occupies in the scale of creation, and the sense continually pressed upon him of his own weakness and incapacity to suspend or modify the slightest movement of the vast machinery he sees in action around him, must effectually convince him that humility of pretension, no less than confidence of hope, is what best becomes his character." The temperature of the terrestrial surface perpetually varies The diurnal thermometrical variations are those which penetrate the least profoundly into the interior of the soil. At a depth of about five feet they cease to be perceptible. The maxima and minima of the year, however, can be detected at a sufficiently considerable depth. The limit descends as low as 80 to 100 feet. Below 100 feet, the terrestrial stratum is found invariable,—that is, inaccessible to the thermometrical changes of the atmosphere. It is remarkable that the temperature of this stratum differs but little from the mean annual temperature of the air, which, in the latitude of London, is 49°. The maxima and minima of the yearly heat are propagated very slowly in the earth, and their difference gradually becomes less and less. Thermometers buried 26 feet deep in the ground, mark, in our latitudes, the maximum of temperature only on the 10th of December, and the minimum on the 15th of June. But there are certain elements which we must take into account. Thus, the depth of the invariable thermometrical curve depends both on the latitude of the place, on the conductibility of the strata, and the difference between the highest and lowest temperature of the year. In the temperate zone, lying between the torrid and the frigid zones, the same phenomena assume, apparently, a more complex character; the isogeothermal lines inflect as diversely as the isothermal, and the former are far from running parallel with the latter. And this is easily understood, even without any experiment, for there is no relation between the ever-varied composition of the terrestrial strata, and the much more uniform composition of the atmosphere. In the frigid zone, the soil remains constantly frozen for an insignificant depth, whatever may be the temperature of the encircling atmosphere. In some regions a stratum of ice and snow eternally reposes on the surface of the soil. Unfortunately the observations, which require to be undertaken on an uniform plan and under well-weighed conditions, at various points over the whole globe, are as yet far too few to assist us in defining any general currents of heat or cold, whether variable or constant, as prevailing in the lower strata of the gaseous ocean of our planet. Arable Land. A more useful picture than that of the isogeothermal lines would be one of all the arable land covering the continents of the Old World and the New,—indicating the composition of this nutritive earth, the nature of the soil on which it reposes, as well as the various kinds of cultivation appropriate in different climates. Here is a work to be achieved,—a work which would benefit the whole human race,—a work differing vastly from the conquests and achievements of too many of those "heroes" the world delights to honour. "Peace hath her victories More renowned than war." In this immense task, of which, as yet, not even the outlines have been sketched, particular attention would require to be paid to the subsoil; for upon this the success of all cultivation literally depends. Fig. 69.—a, Humus, or stratum of arable earth,—the horizontal line shows the depth reached by the labourer; b, subsoil; c, subsoil; d, arable earth; e, humus in an inclined stratum; f, humus mixed with subsoil. Arable land is the most superficial stratum of the cultivable terrestrial crust; it is this which the plough turns up and subdues; it is this which, properly manured, and enriched by the decomposition of organic matter, furnishes to vegetables their principal nourishment. As it varies in thickness, it necessarily presents As for the subsoil, it may, by its composition, completely modify, stimulate, or delay the action of the vegetable mould, however rich this may be in assimilating principles. Thus, where the subsoil is argillaceous, the pluvial waters are arrested by it as by a bed of impervious cement, and render the ground too damp and cold to yield abundant harvests. In such a case subsoil-drainage is the best remedy. But if the earth be porous, the moisture gradually percolates through its various layers, fertilising and warming, communicating to the plants the needful humidity, and assisting in the production of that most glorious of all the scenes of cultivated nature—a corn-field thickly ripe with golden grain. In the poet's "Palace of Art" no finer picture can be seen than this: "The reapers at their sultry toil. In front they bind the sheaves. Behind Are realms of upland, prodigal in oil, And hoary to the wind." Oh! a sight to thank God for, and rejoice in, is the field all aglow with the splendour of the harvest! Fig. 70.—"Behind are realms of upland." Without having recourse to chemical analysis, which is within the reach of a very limited number of persons, clayey soils may be distinguished by the vegetable species that most commonly flourish in them: as—
After these different soils have been brought under cultivation, the characteristic species, which we have just enumerated, disappear, and are replaced by other plants, which grow, to all appearance, spontaneously, under the name of weeds; but, in reality, spring from germs or seeds too frequently mixed up with the different manures, or spread abroad by the agency of birds or the wind. In reference to this latter consideration, the diffusion of plants, we shall transcribe an interesting passage from Balfour's excellent "Manual of Botany." "Some plants," he remarks, "are disseminated generally over "Man has been instrumental in widely distributing culinary vegetables, such as the potato, and the cereal grains, as well as many other plants useful for food and manufacture. Corn plants, such as barley, oats, rye, wheat, spelt, rice, maize, and millet, are so generally cultivated over the globe, that almost all trace is lost of their native country. They can arrive at perfection in a great variety of circumstances, and they have thus probably a wider geographical range than any other kind of plants. "As regards these plants, the globe may be divided into five grand regions—the region of rice, which may be said to support the greatest number of the human race; the region of maize; of wheat; of rye; and lastly, of barley and oats. The first three are the most extensive, and maize has the greatest range of temperature. Fig. 71.—The Rye District. "The grains extending farthest north in Europe are barley and oats. Rye is the next, and is the prevailing grain in Sweden and Norway, and all the lands bordering on the Baltic, the North of Germany, and part of Siberia. Wheat follows rye; it is cultivated in the middle and South of France, England, part of Scotland, part of Germany, Hungary, Crimea, and the Caucasus. We next come to a district where wheat still abounds, but no longer exclusively furnishes bread,—rice and maize becoming frequent. To this zone belong Portugal, Spain, part of France, Italy, and Greece, Persia, Northern Professor Houston furnishes the following table in illustration of the distribution of wheat and barley. It also shows the mean temperature which they require:— BARLEY.
WHEAT.
"Winds, water, and animals, are also instrumental in disseminating plants. Many seeds, with winged and feathery appendages, are easily wafted about; others are carried by rivers and streams, and some can be transported by the ocean currents to a great distance, with their generating powers unimpaired." Mushrooms or Agarics (Order Fungi). Every year—principally in autumn—we are startled by hearing or reading of cases of poisoning by mushrooms. Erudite connoisseurs, however, who have profited by Dr Badham's book on "Esculent Fungi," do not suffer themselves to be intimidated by these sad narratives, though, unfortunately, they are frequently too well founded; because they know how to distinguish the good from the ill, the true from the false, the edible from the poisonous mushroom. But this security ought not to embolden the inexperienced amateur in risking his life for the sake of a delicacy. It is true, nevertheless, that we frequently see men's lives exposed for something less. "Look, what a splendid mushroom I have discovered!" a I ought here to observe that my friend had narrowly escaped death two years before, through regaling herself with a dish of mushrooms of very dubious character. Among the symptoms which she experienced, and which she described with medical exactness, she particularly dwelt upon the cold sweats, accompanied by a sentiment of undefinable terror, which is nothing else than the dread of death: it was the special symptom of poisoning with an unwholesome fungus. Let us endeavour to make ourselves better acquainted with this formidable enemy of epicures. You will have no difficulty in finding it in any warm, close season, but especially in spring and autumn. The toadstool thrives indifferently in the shade of all the forest trees, but seems to prefer the oak and birch to the pine and fir. A patch of soft greensward, at the foot of an old oak, and in the neighbourhood of a "brawling stream" or "tranquil pool," will generally be covered with fungi of this description. The numerous synonyms attaching to it show how greatly it has exercised the classifying spirit of our naturalists. Some call it Agaricus muscarius, as if we should say "kill-fly mushroom;" others, changing only the specific designation, designate it Agaricus pseudo-aurantiacus,—which signifies, literally, "false orange," in allusion to the beautiful yellow colour of the true aurantiacus. What is certain is, that our Fig. 72.—"At the foot of an old oak." But some cryptogamists are unwilling to recognise the orange mushrooms (les oronges), whether true or false, as Agarics. They place them in a separate genus, the genus Amanita, though without informing us where they found the name. Meanwhile, they justify the formation of the new genus by the presence of the white swelling, the volva, or wrapper, of the mycelium, or spawn, which entirely covers both the true and the false mushroom on its emergence from the earth. Each, then, is an Amanita. But now remark their specific difference. The true mushroom, as it develops, ruptures its ovoid wrapper, or volva, leaving the remains entirely at the base of the pedicel; while, in the false mushroom, the dÉbris of the volva are formed, not only at the base of the pedicel, as in the real Agaric, but even upon the red surface of the pileus itself: these are the white irregular warts characteristic of the Amanita, but wholly wanting in the Agaricus. Thus, there are two Amanitas: the Amanita muscaria, or "fly agaric," and the Amanita aurantiaca, or, as the English botanists call it, Agaricus CÆsareus, the imperial mushroom. This fanciful "study" in nomenclature has the advantage of initiating us into the most essential distinctive characters of the two species in question. However, a few additional details are necessary to complete our history. The Fly Agaric, or Amanita muscaria. The species seems to have been expressly created to teach our gourmands the necessity of vigilance; that before enjoying a dainty they must first learn to distinguish, under penalty of Fig. 73.—The Amanita Muscaria. The Amanita, like most falsehoods, is pleasant to the sight. Its round pileus, of a beautiful orange-red colour, spotted with white warts, and lined with white gills, seems to invite your attention. (Fig. 73.) Strike it down with your stick; the lamellÆ or gills underneath resemble the white leaves of a book. Its graceful stalk, ornamented on the upper part by a well-designed necklet, is bulbous in its lower portion; its flesh is dazzlingly white; in short, its entire appearance is attractive. Yet it is a traitor! You little know the depth of its wickedness. Mix a few shreds of its white flesh with a little milk; every fly which drinks of the mixture will, in a few seconds, fall dead, their swollen abdomen bearing testimony to the effect of the poison. And in many districts of Germany, particularly in Thuringia, the peasants make use of it to rid themselves of the swarms of flies which, towards the close of summer, infest their habitations. It is thus that man may frequently turn to his advantage those objects of nature which, at the first glance, appear injurious rather than useful. Various experiments have been essayed to test the intoxicating influence of our Amanita. Bulliard, author of the "Histoire des Champignons de France," made two cats Haller, in his "Histoire des Plantes VÉnÉneuses de la Suisse," says that "the Agaricus muscarius (Amanita muscaria) cannot be eaten with impunity, six Lithuanians having died of it; and in Kamtschatka it has been known to excite deadly attacks of delirium, accompanied by so deep a despondency, that those who have eaten of it would fain fling themselves into the fire, or fall upon their knives or daggers." This, however, we take to be an exaggeration. The truth is, that in Kamtschatka it is used to produce intoxication; and such is its strength, it imparts an intoxicating property to the urine of those who swallow it. When the fungus itself is not at hand, the would-be drunkard frequently resorts to this nauseous potion. The flesh of the Amanita is not yellow. Yet Vicat speaks of poisonings produced by the Yellow Amanita. "I had much difficulty," says this physician, "in saving two families of Lausanne, poisoned through eating a very small quantity of mushrooms, which the father in the one case, and the mother in the other, had mistaken for Agarici CÆsarei, though they were both esteemed great connoisseurs, and especially in this species; nor had they been once deceived for upwards of thirty years, until they indulged themselves in this delicious but deceitful dish." These poisonings could have been occasioned only by the Amanita. Some varieties exist, in which the under surface of the pileus is yellow, but the flesh is white. To one of these varieties Vicat's anecdote probably refers. Thus, the Amanita formosa of Persoon has pedicel, pileus, and warts of the pileus, of a citron yellow. It is but a variety of the Amanita muscaria. The Amanita umbrina of the same botanist (the Agaricus pantherinus of De Candolle) has an olive-coloured pileus; its surface, like that of Amanita muscaria, is covered with white scales. The Amanita solitarius is distinguished by the size of its umbilical cap,—sometimes depressed in the centre,—which is furnished with a great number of white or pale brown scales; when fully developed, it measures from thirty to forty centimetres in diameter. The pedicel is bulbous, with a membranous ring, white as snow, clasped around it; at the base it is clothed in pellicles, the remains of its scaly volva. The flesh is firm, thick, and white. You rarely meet with more than two or three individuals in the same locality; hence its name of solitarius. Bulliard speaks of the flesh as good to eat, when cooked on a gridiron, and seasoned with fresh butter, salt, and pepper. It is possible. But as it is so easily confused with the poisonous species, the author of the "Histoire des Champignons" would have done better to prohibit its consumption, whether eatable or not. We may now turn to the method adopted by Dr Vicat to save the lives of the two families at Lausanne, who, as we have seen, were poisoned by partaking of the Amanita:— I dissolved, he says, six grains of tartar emetic in a litre of water, and from time to time administered a spoonful to my I had much difficulty to get one of the sufferers, who was sixty years old, to swallow the first few spoonfuls. He was plunged into a lethargic insensibility differing in no respect from complete apoplexy; his teeth were closely set. Those whom I had ordered to administer the mixture had given it up, after several useless attempts; and in all probability the old man would have sunk, had I not had the patience to hold, for some hours, against his teeth the back of the blade of a small silver knife, so as to profit by the few moments when the teeth were a little less firmly clenched. I used some force to make the blade act as a wedge, and after a while opened up a passage to the handle, which, serving as a lever, forced the jaws sufficiently apart to admit the introduction of a spoonful of the emetic. It was not, however, until fully two hours had passed that the patient, having undoubtedly swallowed the necessary dose, began to vomit, with strenuous efforts and frightful cries. This was at midnight. Four in the morning arrived before, after numerous alternations of vomiting and profound lethargy, he began to speak, and then like a man in delirium. After the first vomit, which was inconsiderable, the convulsions of his whole body were so very violent as to require four men to hold him, while I continued to make use of my knife as at first. Nor did I desist until I was satisfied that his stomach had been sufficiently cleansed. After this, I applied two strong blisters to the back of his legs. It is evident, from these particulars, that mushroom-poisoning specially affects the encephalic nervous system, and that the best remedies are emetics and antispasmodics. In our present ignorance of what are the poisonous principles in the Amanita, we can adopt no other method than a chemical neutralisation. Agaricus CÆsareus, or Imperial Mushroom. Fig. 74.—The Imperial Mushroom. In this mushroom, for which, as we have seen, the Amanita is too frequently mistaken, the inside as well as the outside is yellow; the upper surface of the pileus, which is equally free from scales and warts, is, however, of a reddish yellow, like that of an orange (whence the popular French name, la vrai oronge); all the other parts are of a beautiful citron hue. This agaric exhales an agreeable odour, combined apparently of the scent of the vanilla and the truffle. It decomposes rapidly, and when in a state of advanced putridity, the fragrance I speak of is succeeded by—well, by a fearful stench! When young, and still completely covered with its wrapper or volva (this, in the Amanita, is imperfect), it is very like a hen's egg which has It would seem that our imperial mushroom was specially appreciated by the ancients, and it is said that Nero pronounced it a dish fit for the gods. In this circumstance originated the scientific name which has now become popular, and which was first applied to it by the cryptogamist Fries, Agaricus CÆsareus. The Boletus of Pliny appears to have been our Agaricus, and not one of our Boleti, which are easily recognised by the numerous tubercular projections covering the under part of the pileus. In proof of this I would point out that the Roman naturalist, after speaking of the Boleti as genuine delicacies, immediately inveighs against them as dangerously poisonous. He relates that it was with one of these, or rather with one of the false mushrooms so easily mistaken for the true, that Agrippina poisoned the Emperor Claudius, to secure the imperial crown for her son Nero. The virtues of the mushrooms have been sung by Juvenal and Martial. The latter accurately distinguishes the true from the false, when reproaching CÆcilianus with his gluttony. "Dic mihi, quis furor est? Turba spectante vocata, Solus boletos, CÆciliane, voras. Quid dignum tanto tibi ventri, gulaque precabor? Boletum, qualem Claudius edit, edas." The best known and most valuable species of Agarici may be briefly enumerated:—
How many Vegetable Species exist over the whole surface of the Globe? I will not do my readers the injustice to suppose that they are unacquainted with the writings of our greatest English poetess, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They will not fail to have been attracted by the prodigal genius, the superabundant power, the exquisite imagery, the profound spirit of tenderness, the high, pure thoughts, which render almost every page such delightful reading. Successful as she was, however, in giving expression to the most subtle emotions and the intensest feeling, I think she was even happier in her descriptions of scenery. These are invariably aglow with life and colour, and have all the fidelity of Creswick with the imaginative insight of Turner. Turning over her "Aurora Leigh," the other day, I lighted on the following beautiful picture:— "I flattered all the beauteous country round, As poets use—the skies, the clouds, the fields, The happy violets, hiding from the roads The primroses run down to, carrying gold— The tangled hedgerows, where the rows push out Their tolerant horns and patient churning mouths 'Twixt dripping ash-boughs—hedgerows all alive With birds, and gnats, and large white butterflies, Which look as if the May-flower had caught life And palpitated forth upon the wind: Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist; Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills, And cattle grazing in the watered vales, And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods, And cottage gardens smelling everywhere, Confused with smell of orchards." Fig. 75.—"And cattle grazing in the watered vales." As I read this fine passage, the thought occurred to me, how many thousands there are who, in such a scene as it so Pursuing this train of thought, I was led to think of the number of genera and species into which the plant world is divided,—a remarkable proof, not only of the power and wisdom, but of the goodness of the Creator, of His desire to furnish man with inexhaustible sources of pleasure and entertainment; and finally, to put to myself the question, How many vegetable species exist over the whole surface of the globe? If this corner of a leafy English lane is so rich in variety, what must be the case with "the wide, wide world?" I was now brought to see that a question so difficult could, like so many others, be usefully approached only by its inferior limit; in other words, that in the actual condition of The number of plants mentioned by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny, whom we take to be the representatives of ancient botany, does not exceed five hundred species. How very few, compared with the presumable total! The Middle Ages added scarcely anything to the botanical researches of antiquity. It is only since the discovery of America that we have seen the domain of Flora extending itself in unexpected proportions. But we must come down to the epoch of LinnÆus (the middle of the eighteenth century) before we can obtain an accurate list of species, scientifically classified. Murray's edition of the "Specilegium" of LinnÆus contains two thousand and forty-two species, including the Cryptogams. Wildmore, in another edition of the same great work, raised the total to twenty thousand. And this was the point at which our botanists had arrived when the nineteenth century opened. But it was not long before they perceived that all these Let us divide, in fancy, the earth into two parts,—one which has been visited by travellers, and one which still remains to be explored. Can you determine which would present the larger area? The latter. Thus we possess but a very imperfect knowledge of the luxuriant, the glowing vegetation of the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the New World, in spite of the labours of Bates, Agassiz, Wallace, and others. To the north of the equator, we know very little of the flora of Yucatan, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the isthmus of Panama, the Chaco of Antioquius, the province of Los Pastos. We are not much better acquainted with the vegetation of the countries south of the equator. What do we know of the manifold species flourishing in Paraguay, in the province of the Missions, in the immense wooded region between the Ucayali, the Rio de la Madeira, and the Tocantin, three affluents of the mighty river Amazon? We know scarcely anything. Our ignorance increases if from America we pass to Africa. Nearly the whole interior of this continent, from 15° N. latitude to 20° S. latitude, is, botanically speaking, a blank to us. The same is the case with the greater portion of Central Asia. The floras of the south and south-east of There are regions, moreover, which we imagine will always lie outside of our sphere of investigation; such, for instance, are the Polar regions, properly so called. Undoubtedly, it is open to us to conjecture that the Poles—those two extremities of our axis of planetary rotation—are not the home of any form of life. But this is only a conjecture; we are even without an analogy for it; since we have found, as shown in an earlier chapter of the present volume, living beings, plants, and animals, among the snows of our loftiest mountains. Moreover, might not the auroras, whose maximum of intensity occurs exactly at the poles, render life possible in regions where we at present suppose it to be impossible? Conjecture for conjecture,—acknowledge that we here touch in both cases upon an element completely beyond our human power. These, then, are the reasons why, at present, we can only venture upon defining the lower limit, the restricted number, above which we are unable to fix the total of vegetable species living on the surface of our planet. The method to be adopted has been indicated by Alexander von Humboldt in his "Ansichten der Natur" ("Pictures of Nature"). His method consists in the comparison of the vegetable families whose numerical relations are known, with the number of species contained in our herbariums, or cultivated in our botanical gardens. But here, at the outset, a difficulty confronts us. Does any relation exist between the classification of plants by natural families and by their geographical distribution? To group plants according to their analogies of structure, we study them from an abstract point of view, and without any regard to the medium in which they flourish. The question grows complicated if we also take into consideration their characteristic conditions and their distribution over the terrestrial surface. Families are then split asunder, and the importance of our scientific classifications disappears. The gathering together of a small number of species, represented by innumerable individuals, confined within the same area, may suffice to communicate to a landscape its characteristic physiognomy: as, for example, is the case with the Asiatic steppes, the landes of Brittany, the moors of Scotland, the palm-groves and the clumps of CactaceÆ of tropical America. By the side of species which impress us by their mass—that is, by the frequent reproduction of the same individuals at an infinitesimal distance from one another—are placed those much more numerous species which are everywhere very thinly sown. But do the plants themselves follow, from the equator to the poles, the same law of decrease as obtains from the base to the summit of the loftiest equatorial mountains? Under identical isothermal lines, is the ratio of families known and identified to the probable aggregate of Phanerogams the same, in the temperate zone, on either side of the equator? What are the vegetable families which preponderate at the two extremes, represented by the torrid and the frigid zones? Under the same geographical latitude, or between the same isothermal lines, are the SynantherÆ, the GramineÆ, the LeguminosÆ, the LabiatÆ, the CruciferÆ, the UmbelliferÆ, more numerous in the Old than in the New World? What families, either through their mass of individuals or their number of species, take precedence of the other Phanerogams? How many species of one and the same family belong to any particular country? What groups or families are characteristic of each zone? Is the present classification of genera and species in all respects what could be desired? These are questions that require to be considered, and to some of them we shall presently attempt replies. Herbariums, though their classification is too frequently imperfect, may furnish us with data of great utility. The great herbarium of Benjamin Delessert was estimated, after his death, to contain 86,000 species,—a total not widely Great in importance are botanic gardens. Loudon, in his Hortus Britannicus (ed. 1832), places at 22,660 the number of Phanerogams cultivated in the gardens of the Bristol amateur botanists. With this number we must not confound the living species exhibited, in other counties, in gardens designed for the instruction of students, nor the grand total reared for a similar purpose at Kew. Kunth's enumeration, in 1861, of the plants at the Botanic Gardens at Berlin, one of the richest in Europe, amounted to upwards of 14,000 species, including 375 heaths. Among the Phanerogams were 1600 SynantherÆ, 1150 LeguminosÆ, 428 LabiatÆ, 370 UmbelliferÆ, 460 OrchidaceÆ, 60 PalmaceÆ, 600 GramineÆ and CyperaceÆ, &c. By comparing these data with the number of species described in the works of De Candolle, Walpers, Bentham, Lindley, Kunth, and others, we find that in the Berlin gardens are cultivated only one-seventh of the known species of the SynantherÆ, one-eighth of the LeguminosÆ, one-ninth of the GramineÆ, and about one-fiftieth of the smaller families, such as the LabiatÆ and UmbelliferÆ. Now, if we admit that, on the one hand, the number of phanerogamous species cultivated in all the great gardens of Europe is about 30,000, and, on the other, that the cultivated Phanerogams form about one-eighth part of the species described in books and preserved in herbariums, we obtain a total of 24,000 species. But the Cryptogams, or Agams, such as heaths, mosses, lichens, mushrooms, fungi, mould, and the like, of which our knowledge, as yet, is very imperfect, are probably much more numerous in species than the Phanerogams; for these vegetables, mostly microscopical, develop themselves wherever life can manifest itself—on the barren and denuded rocks, as well as in the air and in the depths of the ocean. If we suppose that they exceed only by 2000 the estimated number of Phanerogams, we shall obtain a total of just half-a-million! Such, in our opinion, is the number which approximatively represents the lower limit of the aggregate of vegetable species (phanerogamous and cryptogamous) inhabiting our planet. The innumerable individuals of this half-million of species are born, and live, and reproduce their kind, and die, like the twelve hundred millions of individuals of our solitary human species. The former, it is true, remain fixed to the soil which has witnessed their birth, while the latter wander, more or less freely over the terrestrial surface. Do not animals enjoy the same privilege of locomotion? Undoubtedly. But men boast of the reason and the conscience with which they are endowed. Agreed. But with the exception of a small number—the infinite minority of progress—to what advantage have men employed the reason and the conscience of which they boast? But this is a digression. We proceed to place before the reader a few final data in illustration of the subject we have been considering—the number of existing vegetable species. The following is an estimate of the known species of plants on the globe at different dates:—
The advance made of late years in the knowledge of existing species will be apparent from a consideration of Lindley's estimate in 1846:—
According to Hinds, the following families are almost entirely restricted to particular divisions of the globe:—
[A group of plants occurring only in one of the six great divisions of the world is called monomic, (from ???? one, and ????, a region). A group common to two divisions is dinomic; to three, trinomic; to four, quatrinomic; to all the divisions, polynomic.] Natural Families predominant in the Northern Hemisphere.
Natural Families predominant in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Harvest Bug. "I very much wish," said my friend T. to me one day, "to buy a small estate in the vicinity of —— Forest. If there should be one to sell, pray let me know of it." It was not long before an opportunity arose for my friend to satisfy his desire. But after I had made him acquainted with it, he declared himself no longer willing to purchase a property in a district where, as he had learned, one was devoured by red beasts all through the finest months of the year. What a frightful neighbourhood to live in, where you were forbidden to walk in your garden under pain of catching an itch in your legs! Unquestionably, it is only too true that the cultivated ground, whether on the northern or the southern slope of the forest, is infested, from the beginning of summer to the beginning of winter, by Lilliputian horrors, like so many tiny red points, which cling obstinately to the skin, and there deposit, under the epidermis, their microscopic brood. Once planted there, the rougets, as the French call them, or harvest bugs, as we English call them, effect considerable mischief; and if, to relieve one's self, one indulges in "a scratch," the cutaneous surface is quickly covered by small blisters, which on a cursory examination might be taken for a skin affection not generally named in polite hearing. But one does not perceive the galleries excavated by these annoying insects, positive tunnels or covered ways, through which they proceed to pour forth elsewhere the superfluity of At the first glance you would scarcely believe that those red points, apparently immovable, could be living beings,—could be animals belonging to an order of some importance. Let us attempt to isolate one of the animalcules with the point of a pin: it is not an easy thing to do, because they usually adhere to the epidermis in clusters of three or four individuals. There, now we have succeeded, and here is one before us: it is only the fifth of a millimÈtre in diameter, which is, for most people, the very last limit of the visual function (see the small white line in Fig. 76, a). And, in truth, it would be imperceptible to the eye but for its bright red colour. To study it carefully, of course, you must make use of a very strong lens, or, rather, of a microscope. (See Fig. 76, b.) Fig. 76.—a Leptus Autumnalis (nat. size). b Ditto (mag.). To this tiny animal has been given the name of Leptus autumnalis; the first, on account of its extreme delicacy; When examined through a microscope, it produces on the spectator the impression of a spider; but, like all other insects, it has only six legs. Our naturalists, however, have found some difficulty in classifying it; and by way of cutting the Gordian knot of their embarrassments, some have placed it in a separate family of MicrophthirÆ (literally "little lice"), which is made to include all ArachnidÆ with six legs. Others, who regard the wheat worm as an insect, rank it among the parasitical ApterÆ. In effect, it has all the characters of the parasitical insect—its protracted head, distinct from the rest of its body, is sometimes thrust forward in quest of its food, sometimes drawn back or concealed, to protect it from danger. Intended to suck rather than to knead or bruise, it has a sucker, but no mandibles. The head is without antennÆ, and its palpi are very short, barely visible, and of a conical form. The body is ovular and very soft (whence the Grecian name leptus, ?ept??, signifying "soft"). The anterior part, corresponding to the thorax, is broader than it is long, and is marked underneath, on each side of the central line, by a black point: these two points, symmetrically placed, appear to represent the eyes. The posterior portion, corresponding to the abdomen, is longer than it is broad, and covered with hairs. Each leg consists of six joints, easily distinguished by the hairs inserted at each articulation; and each terminates in a couple of strong Thus, then, to judge from the aggregate of its characters, the harvest bug, Leptus autumnalis, belongs to the class ArachnidÆ, while the number of its feet places it in the class Insects. But this is a detail which causes little annoyance to a person being devoured by the "red beasts," and only anxious to rid himself of them. But if such be his desire, let me tell him that the best remedies are bathing the afflicted part with lotions of vinegar, or rubbing it with sulphur ointment. I have been asked whether certain tiny parasites, such as the Ocypete rubra,—which is also red, and has six feet like the Leptus autumnalis, but which, instead of attacking man and his domestic companions, attaches itself to flies,—I have been asked whether these insectiform ArachnidÆ may not be species of larva not yet arrived at their matured condition. For my part, I must acknowledge that, whether the Ocypete rubra is or is not the transitory state of a more perfect animal, I do not know. But I am sure that the Leptus autumnalis lives and dies on the skin where it has selected its dwelling-place,—a living dwelling-place. It is impossible to be too circumspect in the determination of certain genera and species, whose different phases of existence are little known, and which seem, so far as their characteristics are concerned, to participate of several orders or Thus, the red, oval, six-legged animalcules, whose mobile heads are furnished with a proboscis shaped like an angular beak, and whose two palpi are large and semi-transparent,—the singular animalcules which, in June or July, are hatched in the spongy stems of certain aquatic vegetables,—notably the Potamogeton natans,—have been described The Cheese Mite. From the crust of a dry old cheese,—such a kind of cheese as a bon-vivant likes with a glass of "good old ale,"—a very fine powder often crumbles off, like the dust made by wood-eating worms. Examine this powder with your lens, or if you have good eyes, you may make use of them. You will quickly detect something moving in it, and by degrees you will see that this movement pervades the whole mass; that there is a general stir and commotion in all directions. But you find it impossible to distinguish clearly the form of the animals which are thus agitated. You are certain, however, that they are not maggots, for they affect moist cheeses; besides, they are visible enough to everybody, and at need can make themselves felt upon your hands, and even upon your face, for they have a faculty of launching themselves to a distance by a little manoeuvre familiar enough to serpents: bringing the head round towards the tail, they curve themselves like the spring of a watch, then abruptly uncoiling themselves with the help of some solid appui, they fling forth into the air, and are thus launched to very considerable distances. It is a curious species of locomotion, not unworthy the attention of the mechanician. To clear up the mystery of a movement whose cause is not apparent at the first glance, let us sprinkle with this impalpable dÉbris,—with this kind of sawdust, or cheese-dust,—a little strip of glass, and place it beneath the focus of a microscope. Fig. 77.—The Acarus domesticus. Ah! you exclaim, what a frightful creature! These long sharp ciliÆ seem to be so many lancets covering the whole body, and especially the legs; its head, like that of the harvest-bug, protrudes and recedes under a transparent carapace; thus communicating to the animal something of the aspect of a turtle. In all other respects its form exactly resembles the harvest-bug; only its body is more elongated towards the anterior extremity than that of the latter. While the harvest-bug makes us think of a spider, the body of the Acarus has a greater likeness to an insect's. (Fig. 77.) Yet the Acarus has eight legs, like a spider, and the harvest-bug six, like an insect. Attempt, then, to establish your absolute rules! Let us continue our observation of this cheese-worm. The well-defined thorax forms nearly one-third of the fore-part of the body, which is of a shining whitish-red or reddish-white. The proboscis, shaped like a conical tube, is armed with two projecting mandibles, which, like true pincers, can be brought close together, or moved wide apart, thrust forward singly or Let us resume. Our cheese-dust, which to all appearance walks alone, encloses legions of mites; the old you may detect by their eight feet, the young by having six. The germs, or eggs, whence they spring, are found mixed among the excrements of the living, and the dÉbris of the dead. It is in this way that a crust of cheese offers us a true, a vivid image of the terrestrial crust. So may we learn to compare small things with great. How many Animal Species are there Distributed over the Surface of the Globe? In the present condition of scientific knowledge, no satisfactory answer can be given to this important and most interesting question. The truth is, that what we may call Geographical Zoology is as yet in its very infancy. The few works which have been published on the subject have been published within the last eighty or ninety years; and they embrace only the vertebrate animals, notably the mammals, birds, and reptiles, or amphibia. We shall attempt to place before the reader an outline of the results that have so far been obtained. Of all the Vertebrata, we are best acquainted with the mammals. And yet our zoologists differ very widely in respect to the number of their species, though the calculations Nothing is more curious than the distribution of these 1500 species of mammals, according to the different regions and climates of the globe. Man, according to the best-considered data of science, forms a single family, a single genus, a single species. He alone possesses the power of adapting himself to every climate, and of taking possession of countries the most widely opposite in character. We find him among the snows of the North Pole; we find him under the blazing sun of the Tropics. We find him in the palm-fringed islands of Southern Seas, and in the barren burning waste of the inhospitable Sahara. Considered as an animal who feeds and reproduces himself, he forms alone the order of Bimana; so named in opposition to the Quadrumana, or apes, who make use of their fore-feet as we do of our two hands. Deprive man of his progressive and transmissible intellect—of those mysterious powers which we call the mind and the soul—and he would become at once the most useless and the most wretched member of the animal world. The warm regions of the old and new continents are the true home and haunt of the apes. They are not sufficiently developed to be able to frequent the temperate or frigid zone. In our European menageries the specimens nearly all die of
The majority of the Raptores, or birds of prey (vulture, falcon, eagle), as well as nearly all the Waders (stork, crane, heron), and Palmipedes (duck, goose, water-hen), are cosmopolitan birds. The other orders, such as the Scansores (parrot, parroquet, magpie), the Passeres (comprising nearly all the singing birds), and the GallinaceÆ (pheasant, pintado), prefer, as a general rule, the warm temperate regions. They are not found in the extreme north, nor in the equatorial climes, except in limited numbers. Summary of the Mammalia. Assumed total, 1600 species.
[Of course, the foregoing is but an approximative estimate, but it will provide the reader with a tolerably accurate notion of the proportion borne by the different classes of Mammalia.] About 5000 species of birds have been classified. By Cuvier's system they are divided into six orders:—
It has been proposed to separate the Brevipennes, or short-winged birds, from the Grallatores, and erect them into a separate order. The Reptiles, of which the majority possess the faculty of living upon land and in water,—whence their name of Amphibia,—never pass beyond the limits of warm and temperate climates: their blood, which has the same temperature as the medium wherein they live—whence their name of "cold-blooded animals"—does not circulate where the mean annual temperature descends below freezing-point. Yet frogs and salamanders have been met with in Greenland, and on the banks of the Mackenzie River, in North America, under 67° latitude. LinnÆus was not acquainted with more than 215 species of Amphibia, divided into four orders:—the Chelonians, or tortoises; the Saurians (as the lizard and crocodile); the Ophidians (serpents); and the Batrachians (frogs). In 1789, LacÉpÈde raised the total to 303; in 1820, Merrem estimated it at 677. At present, the number of species of Reptilia classified and described amounts to 2000, and the four orders into which they are distributed are—
According to Sching, there are 7 tortoises, 33 serpents, and 35 lizards. Fishes are the least known of those superior animals whose skeleton and vertebral column are situated in the interior of the body, and which are thence named Vertebrata. The richest collections, such as those of the British Museum, and those of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, which contain about 3000 species, do not represent probably more than a fourth of the existing total, including fresh-water and salt-water fish. How many rivers and streams in both hemispheres still remain to be explored! How far we are from a knowledge of the fishes which people the different strata of the great ocean. Agassiz divides this great class of vertebrated animals into the four orders of Cycloid, Ctenoid, Placoid, and Ganoid, according to the character of their scales. Cuvier, into Osseous fishes (with true bones), and Cartilaginous; subdividing the former into Acanthopterygii and Malacopterygii. The difficulty of the problem we are here considering increases when we come to the inferior animals. Who would pretend to determine the number of species of Mollusca which inhabit the earth, the fresh waters and the salt? This much is certain, that it cannot be less than that of the Vertebrates. In the vast aggregate of the Articulata, the inquirer finds himself utterly astray and bewildered. This great division The first subdivision includes Insects, Arachnida, Crustacea, and Myriapoda; the second, Annelida and Entozoa. Some naturalists, be it said, rank the Cirrhopoda as intermediate between the two; others place them among the Mollusca. Others, again, include the Rotifera in the second subdivision. We shall in this place confine our remarks to the Insects. According to the most distinguished entomologists, the average number of species at present, described or not described, and preserved in entomological collections, is between 150,000 and 170,000. This estimate is obviously below the truth. Take only the Coleoptera, which forms but one, though, it is true, the most numerous order of insects. Thirty years ago the most complete collections contained about 7000 species. In 1850, the museum at Berlin, according to Alexander von Humboldt, contained nearly 32,000. We would here call the reader's attention to the just remarks of the author of the "Natural History of the Coleoptera," an entomologist of great authority, whom a long residence in America had peculiarly qualified to pronounce an opinion on the subject before us:— "If we remember," says the Count de Castelnau, "that there are immense regions in Asia and the two Americas of which we do not possess a single coleoptera; if we reflect that the interior of the vast continent of New Holland is, from this standpoint, entirely unknown, and that most of the archipelagoes If we admit that the other orders of insects, the Lepidoptera, the Hemiptera, the Hymenoptera, the Neuroptera, the Orthoptera, the Diptera, the Strepsiptera, comprise, taken altogether, at least the same number of species as the Coleoptera alone, we shall gain, for the class of insects, a total of 200,000. And we shall certainly keep within the truth if we assign the same number of species to the Annelida, the Crustacea, the Arachnida, the Myriapoda, and the Monomorpha, to which, with some modification, we may apply the remarks already called forth by the Coleoptera. Let us recapitulate. The four classes of Vertebrate Animals include approximatively:—
If we add to these 20,600 species of Vertebrate Animals, 200,000 species of Articulata, and 22,000 Mollusca (a minimum), we shall have a total of 242,600. But to complete the grand whole of beings "who grow, and live, and feel" (the definition of animals laid down by LinnÆus), we must add the Intestinal Worms, the Echinodermata, the AcalephÆ (or Sea-nettles), and the Polypes. The history of these singular creatures, which apparently form the transition between the animal and vegetable kingdom, and have thence been designated Zoophytes, leaves much, very much, to be desired before it will be possible to indicate, even approximatively, the number of their species. And, finally, what shall we say of the Infusoria? These microscopic forms of life seem, by their extreme multiplicity, to animate all nature. It is in studying these that the inquirer needs to be constantly on his guard, that he may not mistake transitory conditions—or larvÆ—for actual species, and it behoves him to understand thoroughly the difficult delimitation of specific characters. It would be far easier to ascertain the exact number of human beings who at present people the terrestrial surface, than to fix the total of the species of Infusoria now in existence; assuredly it exceeds 250,000. What an infinite variety of design is here! What a picture it presents of the inexhaustibility of the Creative Mind! Add, then,—let us say, in conclusion,—to this last great total the aggregate of the Vertebrates, the Articulates, and We leave the reader to meditate—as meditate he surely must—on the sublime thoughts, the overpowering ideas of Power and Wisdom which these considerations suggest. What is Chlorophyll? We are drawing towards the close of autumn; we shall soon be in sight of the "melancholy days of the year;" when, for a while, the "voice of the turtle" will cease in the leafless groves, and the banks and braes will be sadly bare of their floral garniture. As yet, however, the trees retain their glorious vesture, though streaked and varied with the gorgeous colours of decay; and in the sheltered corners of the woods, on the sunny southern slope of the grassy hill, and beneath the covert of the still fragrant hedgerow, many a blossom appeals to our souls with its promptings of sweet images and tender fancies. The arum still raises its clusters of deep-scarlet berries, and spreads its spotted leaf— the blue-bells hang their delicate cups among the thick herbage; and the wild marigold contrasts its yellow splendour with all this crimson and azure magnificence. The daisy, Fig. 78.—"As yet, the trees retain their glorious vesture." "The rose has but a summer reign, The daisy never dies;" and though it first makes its appearance in the merry spring-time, and is truly a child of the early year, it lingers on to become a precious ornament of our scanty autumn wreaths. Sweet flower of song!—dearer to the poet than even lily or violet!—who does not remember, and remembering feel, all the pathos of the dying exclamation of poor Keats,—"I feel the daisies already growing over me!" They heighten the commonest and cheer the saddest corners of the earth, and are ever ready, in their simple loveliness, to awaken thoughts of grateful tenderness and love— "So glad am I when in the daisy's presence, That I am fain to do it reverence." To what do the leaves, now changing their hues so rapidly, and varying through all the tints of purple, brown, and yellow,—to what do they owe their normal colour, the fresh, vivid, beautiful green? To a substance called chlorophyll—(??????, green, and f?????, a leaf). Well, what is chlorophyll? The colouring matter of plants, which, accompanied by grains of starch, floats like very minute seeds in the fluid of their cells. In some respects it is analogous to wax; it will not dissolve in water, but is easily affected by ether or alcohol. Chlorophyll is dependent upon the action of light, if not for its formation, at all events for its development. Keep a plant in a dark room or cellar, and it will become blanched It should be observed that young leaves are always of a lighter green than old; simply because the latter have been exposed for a longer time to the light. And so the leaf goes on deepening and deepening in colour, until the sad days of autumn come, and the green gives way to yellow and brown and red, owing to the influence of the changing season on the chlorophyll of the plant. In reference to this interesting subject,—which deserves to be more closely investigated,—we may place before the reader the results of certain recent experiments. MM. Prillieux, Brongniart, and Roze (Comptes Rendus, Jan. 3 and 17) have made some important observations on the apparently spontaneous movements of the grains of chlorophyll within the leaves of plants. These had been observed by BÖhm to congregate under the direct action of the sun; Carnations and Pinks. Among the latest flowers of the autumnal garden are those old favourites, the "July-flowers," or Carnations, which, because they were "fair and sweet and medicinal," Jeremy Taylor preferred to "the prettiest tulips, that are good for nothing." I remember a time when they were among the best-prized ornaments of our parterres, and very delicious it was to inhale the balmy breath that rose into the warm air of an autumn evening from rich masses of carnations and pinks. The carnations were also called—sub consule Planco—in the merry days when I haunted the green lanes of a pretty Devonshire village, carnations, and clove July-flowers or gilliflowers; and an ancient name for the pink was that of sops-in-wine, because they were infused in the wine-cups of our much-drinking ancestors. So Drayton says:— "Bring hither the pink and purple columbine, With gilliflowers; Bring coronations, and sops-in-wine, Worn of paramours." The same poet alludes to them under their more modern appellations:— "The brave carnation, then, of sweet and sovereign power (So of his colour called, although a July flower), With the other of his kind, the speckled and the pale;— Then the odoriferous pink, that sends forth such a gale Of sweetness, yet in scents as various as in sorts." The scientific name of this beautiful family of plants, whose rich dyes are not less conspicuous than their SabÆan odours, is Dianthus, or "Flower of God." They form a genus of the natural order CarophyllaceÆ; the calyx is tubular, and five-toothed; there are five petals, which at the throat of the Fig. 79.—"When I haunted the green lanes of a Devonshire village." I am quite prepared to agree with a sympathetic writer on flowers that, during summer, and far into the autumn months, the greatest beauty of our gardens is the varied tribe of Carnations, while their exquisite, subtle, yet potent aroma is not to be excelled, I think, or, at all events, is not far surpassed, in strength and sweetness, by the much-lauded rose. A carnation seems, to my humble taste, the very embodiment, as it were, of the favourite qualities so insisted upon by Mr Matthew Arnold, "sweetness and light." And even in winter, when its radiant petals have disappeared, there is something graceful to the eye in the long slender leaves of the pink, covered with their sea-green powdery bloom. The two species commonly grown in gardens are, the garden pink (Dianthus hortensis) and the carnation proper (Dianthus caryophyllus); both of which are generally referred to one original, the castle-pink, July-flower, or clove-gilliflower. The carnation, as a garden flower, was originally brought into England from Germany, where it has always been a favourite object of cultivation. There are several hundred varieties of it, which are arranged into three principal divisions: flakes, which are diversified by broad stripes of two colours only; bizarres, which are of several colours, and very irregularly streaked; and picotees (from piquettÉ, spotted), whose flowers are besprinkled with different colours, and their petals fringed or serrated. In England, the native species of pink are five in number, but they are mostly rare, or, when abundant, are found in very limited habitats. The commonest kind is the little Deptford Pink (Dianthus Armeria), which sometimes grows in thick clusters among the meadow grass. In shape, its blossom resembles that of the garden pink; in size, it is about equal to that of the sweet william; and its flowers grow in a very similar manner. It is a scentless pink, however, with serrated or notched petals, and its rose-coloured petals curiously besprinkled with tiny spots of white. A very pretty species is the Maiden Pink (Dianthus deltoides), which some botanists think to have been the original of our garden favourite; and a kind deserving notice for its large and fragrant flowers is the Dianthus superbus. The maiden pink, I should add, has delicate rose-coloured blossoms, daintily touched with silver, and a white eye encircled by a deep purple ring. It is not unworthy of its fanciful and highly suggestive name. A rare British variety is the Clustered Pink, or Childing Pink (Dianthus prolifer), which produces its flowers in plentiful clusters, but is only allowed a season's sunshine. The India or China Pink (Dianthus chinensis) is a native of Eastern Asia, but has now become a frequent denizen in our English gardens. One wild species, the Mountain Pink (Dianthus coesius), it has never been my fortune to gather in its native home. It is described as a large handsome flower, and it loves to breathe "Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." —Wordsworth. Of greater interest, however, because a native species, and more easily attained, is the Castle Pink, to which brief reference has already been made. Its perfume is like that of precious spices, and after a shower of rain, the air, for some distance, is actually interpenetrated with it. As its name indicates, it loves to grow upon the shattered walls of "Chiefless castles breathing stern farewells;" Fig. 80.—"On the time-worn ruins of an ancient minster." and it may be found, unless swept away by barbarous "improvements," adorning the gray old masonry of Sandown Castle, and on ruins in the neighbourhood of Norwich. On the walls of Rochester's stately keep it grows at a height which defies the spoiler's hand; and on the time-worn ruins of an ancient minster, it shines, in the summer-noon, "with a To this dainty and beautiful tribe belongs that common but handsome and most fragrant flower, the Bearded Pink or Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus),—a native of central Europe and southern France, with long lanceolate leaves, bearded petals, ornamental bracts, and dense clusters or tufts of crimson or rose-coloured blossoms. It has long been a favourite with the cottager, for it is so hardy that it will grow in any soil, and will flourish even in the odd corner known as the "children's garden." Its popular name, "long, long ago," was "London tuftes;" and it owes its specific appellation of barbatus, or "bearded," to the nature of its calyx. That quaintest of quaint old botanists, delightful Gerarde, lavishes encomiums upon its beauty, and pronounces it meet "to deck up the bosoms of the beautiful, and garlands and crowns for pleasure." I suspect that now-a-days it seldom figures in a posy. To the same order as the Dianthi—that is, to the CaryophyllaceÆ—belong many wild flowers of lowly growth but abounding interest; as, for example, the corn-cockle, whose lilac-coloured petals, soaring conspicuously among the tall waving corn, have procured for it the right royal appellation of Agrostemma, or "the crown of the field." So, too, the numerous species of campion and catchfly (Silene), with their Then, too, the whole tribe of chickweeds are included in the CaryophyllaceÆ. They are spring flowers, with pearly white blossoms, five-petalled, like a five-rayed star, and long slender drooping leaves. Their resemblance to a star has suggested their scientific name, Stellaria; and they are truly the "stars of the earth," glistering among the thick herbage with a modest beauty. The Stellaria media supplies our song-birds with an abundant and a wholesome provision. A handsome wild plant of this order is the Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis). It is common in Kent, and some of the neighbouring shires, but in many parts of England is never seen. Its full cluster of rose-hued blossoms is rather larger, and more loosely set together, than those of the sweet william; which, however, it much resembles in its leaves, these being opposite to each other, and nearly sheathing or surrounding the stalk at their bases. "The juice of the soapwort," says Miss Pratt, "is one of those vegetable substances which, by making a lather with water, will cleanse linen, and remove grease as effectually as soap. It grows more generally in the neighbourhood of villages than in any other situation, as if providence had placed it there especially for the service of the cottager; yet it is very little used, either from ignorance of its properties, On the Continent, however, the peasantry are wiser, and not only provide themselves with chestnuts for soap, but gather the beech-leaves to stuff their mattresses. Returning to the CaryophyllaceÆ, we may add that some of the plants of this order have poisonous qualities, which are due to the principle called saponine existing in many of the species of Saponaria, Silene, Lychnis, and Dianthus. According to Lindley, the order includes no less than 53 genera, and 1055 species. They inhabit chiefly temperate and cold regions, and are ranked in three sub-orders,—AlsineÆ, SileneÆ, and MollugineÆ. The Eglantine and the Convolvulus. What plant do our poets mean by the eglantine? What by We cannot answer those questions until we have referred to three or four passages in which they are introduced. And, first, let us take an example from Spenser:— And now from Milton:— "Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine." The following is from Sir Walter Scott:— "On the hill Let the white heath-bell flourish still, Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine." From Burns:— "The woodbine I will pu' when the evening star is near, And the diamond draps of dew shall be her een sae clear." From Michael Drayton:— "The azured harebell next with them they neatly mixt: T' allay whose luscious smell they woodbine placed betwixt ... The columbine amongst they sparingly do set, And now and then among, of eglantine a spray." And lastly, from Shakespeare:— "And leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath." There is evidently some confusion here, and the eglantine of one poet is not the eglantine of another. Sir Walter Scott, we take it, is thinking of the wild clematis or virgin's bower, when he wishes the eglantine to remain untrimmed. And Milton undoubtedly refers to the honeysuckle, which, twisting round the framework of a cottage-porch, tempts the neighbouring bees to rifle its calyxes of their honeyed sweets. But the true eglantine of our earlier poets seems to have been the prickly sweetbriar, formerly called Rosa eglantina; now known as Rosa rubiginosa. No plant is of greater value for a garden hedge, owing to the delicious fragrance exhaled not only by its flowers but by its leaves. On the other hand, the "lush woodbine," which so often finds honourable mention in our poets, is none other than the honeysuckle, the "twisted eglantine" of Milton. Its botanical name is Caprifolium. The eglantine and the woodbine, therefore, though occasionally confounded by careless writers, are two entirely distinct plants; the former being the sweetbriar of modern gardens, and the latter the honeysuckle. Fig. 81.—"Our leafy hedgerows." It has been justly said by a writer (whom we have already quoted), that of all the flowers which, towards the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, adorn our pastoral scenery, "filling the air with fragrance, and the earth with In reference to those climbing plants, one curious circumstance deserves to be noted. Some of them follow the sun's apparent course, that is, from east to west,—and always twine around the stem which supports them in the direction of left to right. Such is the case with the common black briony, so common in our woods and groves. Others invariably twine contrary to the sun, or from right to left; as is the case with the convolvulus, or large white bindweed. This singular tendency, be it observed, is always constant in each individual of the species, and if you endeavour to train one of these plants in a different direction, you will infallibly kill it. The convolvulus will not grow from left to right, and the black briony will not grow from right to left. Crede experto. The convolvulus, or white bindweed (Convolvulus sepium, or Calystegia sepium), is one of the most elegant, though one of the commonest climbing plants which festoon our willows, or creep over our grassy banks, or wind in and about our hedges. Its large white bells, which the country people unpoetically call "old men's nightcaps," are remarkable for their purity of The ConvolvulaceÆ form a distinct family or order, containing forty-five genera, and upwards of seven hundred species. They are found in temperate and tropical countries; and include the dodder, sweet potato, scammony, spomoea, and the jalap plant. Metamorphosis.—A Physico-Philosophical Meditation. If we are to understand by the term metamorphosis simply "a change," it is evident that everybody undergoes metamorphosis, is changed or transformed; nothing is, all becomes. The water which flows on for ever, but never twice washes the same pebbly bed, will afford us an apt image of this perpetual "to become." But even the said pebbly bed, like the hardest rock, like the seemingly everlasting granite, must and does change. The compact, chrystalline, azoic rock, without a trace of life in its dense mass, would eventually decompose if constantly assailed and affected by the moving waves of that gaseous ocean whose bed is formed by the terrestrial crust. If the rock is found covered by more or less stratified layers, its presence in the Let us suppose that the centre around which oscillates, on the one part, the moon while drawing near and receding from the earth; on the other, the earth while drawing near and receding from the sun: let us suppose that these centres oscillate in the same manner around other centres as yet undetermined,—and this hypothesis is very rational, since it is based on the principle that everything moves or changes,—it may happen that in these periodical oscillations, one or more of the circulating masses will eventually fall into their focus of attraction, or will start so widely astray that the wheelwork of our world, the various parts of our planetary system, will separate,—not to be annihilated, for nothing in the universe It is thus that in chemistry, which I would call the astronomy of atoms, it is shown that bodies are only so far decomposed as to admit of their recombination in new forms; the end of one is the beginning of another. Now, that which is true of the systems of the elementary bodies composing terrestrial matter, is, in all probability, true also—why should it not be?—of the systems of the celestial bodies. Differences of magnitude, of space, and of time, which overwhelm our feeble imaginations, vanish before the unity of plan of the Creator's thought. A crystalline molecule, which will What shall we now say of the forms and movements of living matter? In the first place, that they are infinitely more varied and But no sooner is matter interpenetrated by that mysterious force which we call life, than our most potent means of investigation suddenly cease to be efficient. Undoubtedly, you may analyse the seed before you sow it, and thus may ascertain that it consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and azote. But with the same elements attempt to recompose your seed, using exactly the same proportions as those you discovered in it; and if you think that your synthesis has been successful, ensure that your grain, once confided to the earth, shall become a focus of divers movements, giving birth below to the ramifications of the root, terminated by the spongioles,—above, to the ramifications of the stem, garnished with leaves, flowers, and fruits; finally, ensure that this aggregate of organs, multiplying millions of times the weight and volume of the seed, shall always and exactly reproduce the same type or the same species. If, with your apparatus,—if, with the means at the disposal of humanity,—you should succeed in achieving all these marvels of nature; then perhaps you might settle the great problem of what life is,—whether an independent force, or a simple modification of an universal force, of which heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, will be but different modes of manifestation. And yet, even in such a case, you must not boast too loudly of your power; for you will find it necessary to turn and return the term you have arrived at, in every direction; nor will it furnish you with the relation or the cause of the formidable progression whose alpha and omega, whose beginning and end, escape us so absolutely. Whence, in all its interminable metamorphoses, whence comes life? Whither goes it? Were our world to perish, its ruins would not cease, in their apparently disordered movements, to obey the law of universal gravitation: they would so group themselves as to form other worlds, resembling the system of which they were anteriorly the framework. But this force in no wise tells you why, when, and how life will make its appearance on these spheroids of revolution, which, in their state of ponderation, are attracted in the direct ratio of their masses and in the inverse ratio of the square of their distances. This is not all. Man justly plumes himself on having arrived, by a process of experiment, at the following irrefragable axiom: that "the matter which serves for the movements Thus it is that the collective integral being which we call humanity, lives and is developed through the removal of the individuals composing it,—ephemeral creatures, each of whom thinks himself a god! Must we stop there? That would be to declare humanity the last term of a progression whose commencement and end, according to our own acknowledgment, completely escape us: it would be at once a contradiction and a flagrant violation of the great law of infinite continuity which reigns everywhere. To suppose that beyond humanity there is only nothingness, would be to enunciate an hypothesis as puerile as that which pretended the earth was not only the centre of our system, but the sole inhabited or inhabitable point in the immensity of space, and that the stars of the firmament were created for the service and pleasure of mortals. Suppose that this absurd belief were true; of what use, I ask you, would be all our agitations, all our flutterings, all our conceptions, all our conquests, all our glories, all our memories, when the end of Let us now resume the thread of our meditations. The end of our system has come at last: the sun, the planets, and their satellites form but one chaotic igneous mass,—a brilliant fugitive luminary, new-born to the inhabitants of worlds which have escaped intact. The dust of our extinguished world will not be scattered hap-hazard; the molecules of matter, indissolubly linked together by universal gravitation, will so arrange themselves as to constitute a new, and perhaps a more perfect world. But in the constitution of this new world, balanced like the old, our human bones, our ashes united with those of our ancestors, may have, as far as they are matter, their due share. As for the Thought which makes the true power of humanity, which gives to man all his value,—Thought, perfectible and transmissible,—it will contribute nothing, because it is absolutely imponderable and impassible. Will it then be lost for ever? If the world is to last for ever, you may justly regard as immortal the indefinite transmission of Thought, and the perpetuity of the memory of certain great men. But will all this avail, if the world must perish? The world will never end, you say; it is eternal. But how do you know this? If it has had a beginning, as geology and astronomy prove, The error, then, which we have been considering, destroys itself through its consequences. Let us admit, in effect, that our world—such as it is, just as it is—will last for ever. In that case what becomes of the power and travail of humanity? All they have accomplished are some slight changes of the terrestrial crust, barely sufficient, here and there, to modify the influences of climate. A limited number of men labour, it is true, for the progress and full development of transmissible thought. But even supposing that, in the course of centuries, humanity succeeds in comprehending, it can only grow through the development of the faculties of all its members, and the due balance of all the social forces by means of liberty. Supposing that reason, united to science and conscience, should finally combine in one family the various tribes and peoples scattered over the earth's broad surface; do you indulge yourself in the hope of crossing the limits of the human Do you cherish the idea of penetrating, through the perfect union of all your intellectual forces, the mysteries of creation? No; you would never dare to form such a hope, to nourish such an idea, at least unless you felt that the earth (which you must first demonstrate) comprehends in itself the whole universe, that the humanity swarming on its surface is eternal, that every other creature is absolutely subordinate to it: in a word, that Man is all! But we know how limited is human power. We are not masters even of the mechanism of the body; the movements of organic life are independent of our will; we can neither command the stomach, the lungs, nor the heart: that marvellous process of absorption and elimination, that perpetual movement hither or thither which constitutes the essence of the assimilative function, goes on in us—as in all living beings, animal or vegetable—completely outside our sphere of activity. Then, without quitting our planet, how numerous are the movements which still escape the human will! It is quite different when we lift up our eyes to examine the face of heaven. We have no grasp whatever of the incommensurable spiraloids of innumerable worlds to which our own belongs; we have no means of communicating with the inhabitants of other planets; we cannot establish any interchange of thought with the men (if there be any) of Mercury, Venus, Is this all? Alas, all this is nothing! The other worlds whose suns appear to us under the form of scintillating points or stars, will, undoubtedly, in like manner, possess their systems of planets and satellites. Why should they divaricate from the general plan of the universe? Now, multiply the number of the stars—who has counted them?—with the probable number of their planets, and you will gain, if this be permitted you, the number of humanities who people yonder star-sown space. And it is not only with these we must be able to correspond, but with the humanities of all the nebulÆ You do not cease to proclaim as an axiom that "there are no abrupt intervals in Nature;" that Nature never ventures upon sudden leaps or bounds ("in natura non datur saltus"), and yet you would make an exception for the world of thought—a world which no more lies outside the laws of nature than does the physical world. The former ought even to secure our preference; it is there only that we are free, that we can become true creators, by creating for ourselves our own happiness; that we can grow great before our own eyes, by following, not the tyrannous will of the brute, but the tender voice of the angel; by listening to conscience—that pure and infallible counsellor—conscience, the foundation of all justice, the latent force of generations passing away and coming, the universal gravitation of our species as of all the ultra-terrestrial humanities. But how can the humanities, with which we suppose the universe to be peopled,—how can they communicate with one another? The law of attraction comprehends not only the celestial bodies, but also their intervals, the intersidereal spaces. Do these spaces present a void to the thinking beings who probably people the stars? Everything, force and matter, testifies to an entire unity of plan or thought, and the mind which is powerful enough to rise above all the attractions and influences of the body, the mind which, by its continuous labour, alone renders life and man of any importance, the mind once detached from the animal nature which it drags behind it like a prisoner to the chariot of his conqueror, shall it be inferior to inert matter? shall it be less than a ship without its compass? Continuous here, shall that continuity be elsewhere broken up? Surely this is impossible. But how are we to recognise this continuity of essence in a spirit which, like man's, appears unavoidably fixed, like a parasite, to the surface of a planet? Here lies the whole difficulty of the question; a question all the more perplexing because, in the search after scientific truth, the mind walks surely and steadily, except when resting upon the senses,—which are the backbone, so to speak, of the experimental method. Answers, indeed, are not wanting, for each religion has its own. Every creed attempts to solve the problem. But then, faith is required to accept the answer or solution, and alas! faith is not implanted in every soul. It is useless, therefore, to wish that it might be the gift of those who, to the authority of tradition and long-established dogmas, prefer the liberty of discussion and the axioms of science. Are our bigots actually aware of what they do when they seek to compel into their circle of belief those minds which tend to escape from it at a Some explanation is necessary here. You believe, we hope, in the majesty, power, wisdom, and mercy of God, in the revelations He has vouchsafed to man, in the immortality of the soul. These are great problems, however; the greatest problems a mortal can venture to discuss. Already I see the bigot frowning; he professes to be shocked by the word "problem," he would fain substitute for it that of "certainty" or "truth." Well, through faith we accept them as truths; but, metaphysically speaking, they may be regarded as problems which the All-wise has submitted to man's earnest consideration. In fact, the God in whom you and we believe, in whom you and we put all our trust, has surrounded them with something of uncertainty, has invested them with so much of doubtfulness as may test our faith. Yes, in doing so, He has had a purpose to fulfil. Let us think of a geometrician—and an ancient writer said that God, by creating the world, created geometry—for the sake of exercising the minds of his pupils, his children, giving them a problem to be solved. If at the same time, he placed before them the solution, he would assuredly fail in his object. No means would remain of distinguishing the capable from the incapable, the studious from the indifferent, the idler from the worker, if they all found the question answered beforehand! True, if the problem is too difficult, if the solution lies beyond But science and conscience stand in need of an equally difficult task; the first, that it may learn to observe clearly, the latter that it may learn to act purely. And it is here, above all, that the two-fold nature of man becomes a perplexity and a stumbling-block. On the one hand, man creates theories, in order to disembarrass himself of the science which calls for the exercise of powerful and laborious observation; on the other, he creates dogmas, which he hopes may lull to sleep that ever active, ever restless conscience, which demands fertile and beneficial actions, and rejects barren or deceitful phrases. It is true that to many minds the discussion of the questions at which we have hinted seems a sorry work, because the time given for their discussion is necessarily so limited. What is life? they say. What can be effected in so short an interval? What can man hope to accomplish in the few short years that intervene between manhood, when the mind is mature, and old age, when the intellect grows enfeebled? These are the men who echo the old poet's mournful cry:— "A good that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April flowers, A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, An honour that more fickle is than wind, A glory at opinion's frown that lowers, A treasury which bankrupt Time devours, A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, A vain delight our equals to command, A style of greatness in effect a dream, A swelling thought of holding sea and land, A servile lot, decked with a pompous name; Are the strange ends we toil for here below, Till wisest death make us our urns know." But the poet, while taking this despondent view of life, forgets—not only that it is an opportunity, but—that it is the first stage of an eternal existence, and that the progress begun now shall be continued hereafter, when the mind, freed from its material clogs, shall enter upon the full fruition of its wondrous powers. And however brief it may be, is it not better it should be devoted to noble work than to ignoble idleness? Is it not better to use it as a time of preparation than to waste it in empty pleasures? To the despairing wail of the poet just quoted we would oppose, as far worthier of a gallant spirit, Ben Jonson's admirable conclusions:— "It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measure life may perfect be." This is the true philosophy; to make our life as perfect as "Oh for the time when in our seraph wings We veil our brows before the Eternal Throne— The day when, drinking knowledge at its springs, We know as we are known." Let us beware, however, when we devote our life to the pursuit of wisdom, that we do not make a false start. Do not let us diverge into the narrow way of bigotry and dogma. It is the property of exclusive and intolerant error to dominate and to reign alone. For this reason we systematically refuse and reject all control; and it is thus men have been fatally led to lay a rash hand upon intellectual liberty,—liberty, which the All-wise Himself has refrained from touching! Such is the early taint of our race, the moral situation of humanity. But retribution has followed close upon this violation of all that is most sacred in our human world. The schools of philosophy, and the infallible creeds, founded upon authority to the exclusion of all mental and spiritual freedom, have never ceased to be at war with one another, and instead of labouring for that union which is strength,—that union so necessary to the happiness and advancement of humanity,—they have everywhere sown irreconcilable antipathies and bloody discords. Such is the religion of those who, under a pretence of worshipping God, worship only themselves! History affords us abundant illustrations of this melancholy truth. Finally, let us return to our metamorphosis. The butterfly, This metamorphosis impresses the observer; principally because its periods are so distinct, and are so plainly marked by stages, which have all the appearance of veritable species. But he would greatly err if he thought it confined to a certain class of insects. All insects,—nay, more, all animals, including man himself,—undergo certain transformations in the course of their lives. Metamorphosis plays an important part in the unity of the general scheme of Creative Thought. If it is not always recognised, the reason is, that its phases are not boldly marked, that the periods blend into one another, that the various stages are effaced in the continuousness of the transformation. But let not this continuity prevent the observer from detecting or discerning in that which is, that which is to come. "Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light; And, where the fields of Paradise unfold, Quaff fragrant nectars from their cups of gold. There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky, Expand and shut with silent ecstasy! Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept. And such is man; soon from his cell of clay To burst a seraph in the blaze of day." To assure ourselves by observation that, in living matter, there are organs irrevocably destined to decay or disappear, while others incline and grow towards perfection, is certainly one of the noblest studies imaginable. If philosophers, instead of employing their time in profitless speculations, devoted themselves to the examination of the great Book of Nature, God's second revelation, they would long ago have discovered what they are still seeking. And we should now know how to distinguish, in man as in the insect, the rudimentary condition of his future life; and the belief in the immortality of the soul would not only be the creed of the Christian, but a scientific truth. |
