ASPECTS OF NATURE
IN
DIFFERENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES.
PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.
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
