Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/119

 *[Footnote: relations, which are of themselves very complicated, but also on geological causes almost unknown to us, belonging to the original state of the earth, and to catastrophes which have not affected all parts of our planet simultaneously. The large pachydermatous animals are at the present time wanting in the New Continent, while we still find them in analogous climates in Asia and Africa. These differences ought not to deter us from endeavouring to search out the concealed laws of nature, but should rather stimulate us to the study of them through all their intricacies.

The numerical laws of the families of plants, the often striking agreement of the numbers expressing their ratios, where yet the species of which the families consist are for the most part different, conduct us into the mysterious obscurity which envelopes all that is connected with the fixing of organic types in the species of plants and animals, or with their original formation or creation. I will take as examples two adjoining countries which have both been thoroughly explored—France and Germany. In France, many species of Grasses, Umbelliferæ and Cruciferæ, Compositæ, Leguminosæ, and Labiatæ, are wanting which are common in Germany; and yet the numerical ratios of these six great families are almost identical in the two countries, as will be seen by the subjoined comparison.

Families. Germany. France. Gramineæ. 1/13    1/13 Umbelliferæ. 1/22    1/21 Cruciferæ. 1/18    1/19 Compositæ. 1/8     1/7 Leguminosæ. 1/18    1/16 Labiatæ. 1/26    1/24 ]*