Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/11

 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