Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/337

 study of plants to the landscape painter     29-31, 200-203
 * trasts of these forms of plants. Importance of the physiognomic

Scientific Elucidations and Additions—p. 33 to p. 210.

Organic forms, animal and vegetable, in the highest mountain regions adjacent to the limit of perpetual snow in the Andes and the Alps; insects carried up involuntarily by ascending currents of air. The Hypudæus nivalis of the Swiss Alps. On the true elevation above the sea reached by the Chinchilla laniger in Chili     33-35

Lecidias and Parmelias on rocks not entirely covered with snow; some phænogamous plants also wander in the Cordilleras beyond the limits of perpetual snow, as the Saxifraga boussingaulti, to 15770 English feet above the level of the sea. Groups of phænogamous plants extend in the Andes to 13700 and 14920 English feet above the sea; species of Culcitium, Espeletia, and Ranunculus; small umbelliferous plants resembling mosses in appearance; Myrrhis andicola and Fragosa arctioides     35, 36

Measurement of the height of Chimborazo, and etymology of the name     36-39

On the greatest absolute heights which have yet been reached by any human beings in either continent; in the Cordilleras and the Himalaya, on the Chimborazo and the Tarhigang     40

Habits and haunts of the Condor (Cuntur in the Inca language), and singular mode of capturing these powerful birds in an enclosure fenced by palisades     40-44

Useful services rendered by the Gallinazos (Cathartes urubu and C. aura) in purifying the air in the neighbourhood of human habitations; these birds sometimes tamed     44, 45