Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/117

 *[Footnote: The forms of organic beings are in reciprocal dependence on each other. In the unity of nature these forms limit each other according to laws which are probably attached to periods of long duration. If on any particular part of the globe we know with accuracy the number of species of one of the great families of Glumaceæ, Leguminosæ, or Compositæ, we may with a tolerable degree of probability form approximative inferences, both as to the sum of all the phanerogamæ of the country, and also as to the number of species belonging to the rest of the leading families of plants. The number of Cyperoidæ determines that of Compositæ, and the number of Compositæ that of Leguminosæ; they even enable us to judge in what classes or orders the Floras of countries are still incomplete, and teach us, if we are on our guard against confounding together very different systems of vegetation, what harvest may still remain to be reaped in the several families.

The comparison of the numerical ratios of families in different already well explored zones, has conducted me to the recognition of laws according to which, in proceeding from the equator to the poles, the vegetable forms constituting a natural family decrease or increase as compared with the whole mass of phanerogamæ belonging to each zone. We have here to regard not only the direction of the change (whether an increase or a decrease), but also its rapidity or measure. We see the denominator of the fraction which expresses the ratio increase or decrease: let us take as our example the beautiful family of Leguminosæ, which decreases in going from the equinoctial zone towards the North Pole. If we find its proportion or ratio for the]*