Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/112

 *[Footnote: astonished to find the trees of Cinchona, particular species of Swietenia (Mahogany), Hæmatoxylon, Styrax, and balsamic Myroxylum, so sparingly distributed. We had occasion, on the declivities of the high plains of Bogota and Popayan, and in the country round Loxa, in descending towards the unhealthy valley of the Catamayo and to the Amazons River, to remark the manner in which the trees which furnish the precious fever-bark (species of Cinchona) are found singly and at considerable distances from each other. The China Hunters, Cazadores de Cascarilla (the name given at Loxa to the Indians and Mestizoes who collect each year the most efficacious of all fever-barks, that of the Cinchona Condaminea, among the lonely mountains of Caxanuma, Uritusinga, and Rumisitana), climb, not without peril, to the summits of the loftiest forest trees in order to gain a wide prospect, and to discern the solitarily scattered slender aspiring trunks of the trees of which they are in search, and which they recognise by the shining reddish tint of their large leaves. The mean temperature of this important forest region, situated in 4° to 4-1/2° S. lat. and at an elevation of about 6400 to 8000 English feet, is from 12-1/2° to 16° Réaumur (60°·2 to 68° Fahr.) (Humboldt and Bonpland, Plantes équinoxiales, T. i. p. 88, tab. 10.)

In considering the distribution of species, we may also proceed, without regard to the multiplication of individuals, to the masses which they form or the space which they occupy, and may simply compare together the absolute number of species belonging to a particular family in each country. This is the mode of comparison which Decandolle has]*