Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/21

 *sands of years may elapse ere organic life can pass from the verdant shores to the interior of the sandy sea, and repossess itself of the domain from which it had been banished.

Those, therefore, who can view nature with a comprehensive glance and apart from local phenomena, may see from the poles to the equator organic life and vigour gradually augment with the augmentation of vivifying heat, But, in the course of this progressive increase there are reserved to each zone ifs own peculiar beauties; to the tropics, variety and grandeur of vegetable forms; to the north, the aspect of its meadows and green pastures, and the periodic reawakening of nature at the first breath of the mild air of spring. Each zone, besides its own peculiar advantages, has its own distinctive character. Primeval laws of organisation, notwithstanding a certain degree of freedom in the abnormal development of single parts, bind all animal and vegetable forms to fixed ever-recurring types. As we recognise in distinct organic beings a determinate physiognomy, and as descriptive botany and zoology, in the restricted sense of the terms, consist in a detailed analysis of animal and vegetable forms, so each region of the earth has a natural physiognomy peculiar to itself. The idea indicated by the painter by expressions such as "Swiss nature," "Italian sky," &c., rests on a partial perception of this local character in the aspect of nature. The azure of the sky, the lights and shadows, the haze resting on the distance, the forms of animals, the succulency of the plants and herbage, the brightness of the foliage, the outline