Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/28

 *nomy of nature, and the dimensions and forms of organised beings, must also have been subjected to various alterations. Huge Pachydermata, Mastodons, Owen's Mylodon robustus, and the Colossochelys, a land-tortoise above six feet high, have existed, and in the vegetable kingdom there have been forests composed of gigantic Lepidodendra, cactus-like Stigmarias, and numerous kinds of Cycadeæ. Unable to depict fully according to its present features the physiognomy of our planet in this its later age, I will only venture to attempt to indicate the characters which principally distinguish those vegetable groups which appear to me to be most strongly marked by physiognomic differences. However favoured by the richness and flexibility of our native language, it is still an arduous and hazardous undertaking when we attempt to trace in words that which belongs rather to the imitative art of the painter. I feel also the necessity of avoiding as much as possible the wearisome impression almost inseparable from all lengthened enumerations.

We will begin with palms,[15] the loftiest and noblest of all vegetable forms, that to which the prize of beauty has been assigned by the concurrent voice of nations in all ages; for the earliest civilisation of mankind belonged to countries bordering on the region of palms, and to parts of Asia where they abound. Their lofty, slender, ringed, and, in some cases, prickly stems, terminate in aspiring and shining either fanlike or pinnated foliage. The leaves are frequently curled, like those of some gramineæ. Smooth polished stems of palms carefully measured by me had attained 192 English feet in height. In receding from