of this animal. The only mode in which it can begin is by a sudden
sovereign act of power, an irruption into the circle. You may choose
_where_ the irruption shall occur; there must be a bursting-in at some
point. Suppose it is at "calf;" or suppose it is at "embr. vesicle." Put
a wafer at the point you choose, say the latter. This then is the real,
actual commencement of a circle, to be henceforth ceaseless. But the
embryonic vesicle necessarily implies a germinal vesicle, and this
necessitates an ovum, and the ovum necessitates an ovary, and the ovary
necessitates an entire animal,--and thus we have got a quarter round the
circle in back development; we are irresistibly carried along the
prochronic stages,--the stages of existence which were before existence
commenced,--as if they had been diachronic, actually occurring within
our personal experience.
If I know, as a _historic fact_, that the circle was commenced where I
have put my wafer, I may begin it there; but there is, and can be,
nothing in the _phenomena_ to indicate a commencement there, any more
than anywhere else, or, indeed, anywhere at all. The commencement, as a
fact, I must learn from testimony; I have no means whatever of inferring
it from phenomena.
* * * * *
Permit me, therefore, to repeat, as having been proved, these two
propositions:--
ALL ORGANIC NATURE MOVES IN A CIRCLE.
<sc>Creation is a violent irruption into the circle of nature.</sc>
VII.
PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS.
(_Plants._)
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
declare, if thou hast understanding."--JOB xxxviii. 4.
Since every organism, considering it, throughout its generations, as an
unit, has been created, or made to commence existence, it is manifest
that it was created or made to commence existence at some moment of
time. I will ask some kind geological reader to imagine that moment, and
to accompany me in an ideal tour of inspection among the creatures,
taking up each for examination at the instant that it has been called
into existence. Do not be alarmed! I am not about to assume that the
moment in question was six thousand years ago, and no more; I will not
rule the actual date at all; you, my geological friend, shall settle the
chronology just as you please, or, if you like it better, we will leave
the chronological date out of the inquiry, as an element not relevant to
it. It may have been six hundred years ago, or six thousand, or sixty
times six millions; let it for the present remain an indeterminate
quantity. Only please to remember that the date _was_ a reality, whether
we can fix it or not; it _was_ as precise a moment as the moment in
which I write this word.
Well then, like two of those "morning stars" who, when "the foundations
were fastened," "shouted for joy," we will, in imagination, take our
stand on this round world at exactly ---- minutes past ---- o'clock, on
the morning of the ----th of ----, in the year B.C. ----. The noble
Tree-fern before us (_Alsophila aculeata_) has this instant been called
into being by the creating voice of God. Here it stands, lifting up its
columnar stem, and spreading its minutely fretted fronds all around, in
a vaulted canopy above our heads, through the filagree work of whose
expanse the sunbeams play in a soft green radiance. It has this instant
been created.
But I will suppose, further, that we have the power to call into our
council some experienced botanist; who is not acquainted, as we are,
with the fact of this just recent creation, and whom we will ask to
give us his opinion on the age of this beautiful plant.
_The Botanist._--"You wish to ascertain the age of this _Alsophila_. I
know of no data by which this can be determined with precision, but I
can indicate it approximately. Let us take it in order. The most recent
development is the growing point in the centre of the arching crown of
leaves. Around this you would see, if your eyes were above the plane,
close ring-like bodies, or, perhaps, more like snail-shells, protruding
from the growing bud; then young leaves, partially opened in various
degrees, but coiled up scroll-wise at their tips, and around these the
elegant fretted fronds, which expand broadly outwards in a radiating
manner, and arch downwards.
"Now every one of these broad fronds was at first a compactly coiled
ring; but it has, in the course of development, uncoiled itself, growing
at the same time from its extremity, and from the extremity of each of
its formerly wrapped-up pinnae and pinnules, until at length it has
attained the expanse you behold. This process has certainly occupied
several days.
"But let us look farther. The outermost fronds that compose this
exquisite cupola, you see, are nearly naked; indeed, the extreme
outermost are quite naked, being stripped of their verdant honours,
their pinnae and pinnules, and left mere dry and sapless sticks,--the
long and taper midribs of what were once green fronds, as graceful as
those that now surmount them. Some of them, you see, are hanging
downward, almost detached from the stem, and ready to drop at the first
breath of wind. Now remember, each of these brown unsightly sticks was
once a frond, that had passed through all the steps of uncoiling from
its circinate condition. This whole process has certainly occupied
several months.
"Look, now, below these withered midribs, lifting up the most drooping
of them. The stem is marked with great oval scars; and see, this old
frond-rib has come off in my hand, leaving just such a scar, and adding
one more to the number that were there before. And look down the stem;
it is studded all over with these oval scars. There are a hundred and
fifty at least; but I cannot count them nearly all, for towards the
lower part they become more undefined, and the growth of the stem has
thrown them further apart; and besides, there is, as you observe, a
matted mass of tangled rootlets, like tarred twine, which, springing
from between the lower scars, increases downwards, till the whole
inferior extremity of the stem is encased in the dank and reeking mass.
"You can have no doubt that every one of these scars indicates where a
leaf has grown, where it has waved its time, and whence, after death and
decay, it at length sloughed away. The form of the uppermost, which are
not distorted by age, agrees exactly with the outline of the bulging
base of the candelabrum-like frond; the arrangement of the scars is that
of the fronds; and you may notice in every scar marks where the
horseshoe-shaped plates of woody fibre have been broken off, which once
passed into the interior of the stem from the midrib of the frond.
"These scars, then, are ocular demonstrations of former fronds; we may
no more doubt that fronds were once growing from these spots, than we
may that the green and leafy arches were once coiled up in a circinate
vernation. They are the record of the past history of this organism, and
they evidently reach far back into time. The periodic ratio of
development of new fronds may be, perhaps, roughly estimated at six in
the course of a year. Now there are about a dozen unfolded or unfolding,
as many withering midribs, and about a hundred and fifty leaf-scars
that we can count with ease, not reckoning such as are indistinct, nor
such as are concealed beneath the tangled drapery of roots.
[Illustration: LEAF-SCARS OF TREE-FERN.]
"I have no hesitation, then, in pronouncing this plant to be thirty
years old; it is probably much older, but it is, at least, as old as
this."
Such is the report of our botanical adviser; such is his argument; and
we cannot but admit that it is invulnerable; his conclusion is
inevitable, but for one fact, which he is not aware of. There is one
objection, however, to which it is open--a fatal one; you and I know
that the Tree-fern is not five minutes old, _for it was created but this
moment_.
Here is another act of creation. It may be the same day as that of the
Tree-fern, or one as remote as you please from it, before or after. A
few moments ago this was a great mass of rough, naked limestone, but by
creative energy it has been suddenly clothed with a luxuriant mantle of
_Selaginella_. How exquisitely beautiful the aggregation of flattened
branching stems, studded with their tiny imbricated leaflets of tender
green, bloomed with blue! and how thick and soft the carpet that thus
conceals the angles and points and crevices of the unsightly stone!
Broad as is this expanse of verdure, covering many square yards without
a flaw, and rooted as it is at ten thousand points of its creeping stem,
we shall yet find that it is one unbroken structure. Our friend the
botanist would infer unhesitatingly that every part of this widespread
ramification has originally proceeded from one central shoot, and that
several years' growth must have concurred to form this compact mass.
Yet _we_ know that such an inference would be false. The plant has been
this instant called into being.
On the summit of this rounded hill is a very different plant from the
last. Beautiful it also is, but grandeur and majesty are its leading
attributes. It is a dense and massive clump of the Tulda Bamboo. How
noble these straight-jointed stems, cylinders of polished green,
shooting their points right upwards, and towering to a height of eighty
feet! The numerous panicles of tufty blossom are gracefully bending from
the summits, and from the tip of every branch, nodding in the breeze.
There are scores of the tall stems, as straight as an arrow, beset at
every joint with diverging horizontal branches, crossing and recrossing
in inextricable confusion. And see, amidst the crowd, there are others
as thick and tall, but without a single side-shoot, clothed, however, to
atone for the deficiency, in swaddling-clothes peculiarly their own.
These swathed stems are infant shoots,--vigorous and promising children,
indeed; these brown triangular sheaths, covered with down, are the
clothing of infancy; they increase in number, and are closer together
towards the summit of the shoot, where the growing point is rapidly
extending. When the stems have attained their full height, these
sheaths will fall off, the polished shafts will stand revealed in their
glossy beauty, and the lateral pointed branches will at once start forth
from every joint, and pierce horizontally through the dense tangled
bush.
Now these young shoots do not bear testimony to so great an age as you
would suppose. The whole seventy feet of their altitude have been
attained within thirty days! But then their massive size and vigour
indicate a mature age in the clump. For all the hundred stems that are
crowded together in this dense Bamboo-clump are organically united; they
are parts of one and the same plant, the root-stock of which has been
creeping to and fro year after year, sending up in constant succession
its arrowy stems, until it has attained the present magnificence. Many
years must have elapsed between the present condition of the grove, and
that of the slender blade that shot up from the tiny seed in this spot.
Yes, so you may think. But it is not so, for the great Bamboo-clump has
been created in its pride and glory this very hour!
Yonder is a considerable area of land covered with the green blades of
young wheat, and very healthy and strong it looks. No, it is
Couch-grass! The whole green sward which we see is a single plant; the
creeping stem of which has spread its ramifications in all directions
beneath the surface of the soil; and still the long succulent shoots are
extending in every direction, as shewn by the green leaf-blades. This is
a rapidly growing plant, it is true; yet still there must be an
accumulated growth of many months here, if not years! No, it was created
this morning.
Contrasting with this humble grass, observe that luxuriant Screw-pine.
See its singular crown of foliage at the summit of its equally singular
stem. Its great prickle-edged stiff leaves grow in long diagonal rows,
each sheathing its successor, and alternating with those of the next
row. How rich and fragrant an odour is diffused from its crowded
blossoms!
Every one of those sword-like leaves is, of course, the record of a
period of time. A tree of this size makes a "screw," or imperfect spire,
of leaves in about three years; and there are about sixteen pairs of
leaves in each screw, which will give us nearly eleven leaves for the
development of each season. Now, on the trunk, there are numerous waved
lines quite covering its surface, which are the traces of old leaves
that have in succession been produced and decayed away;--the trunk is,
in fact, composed of these leaf-bases. By counting these, we may obtain
then an approximate notion of the age of this plant;--an _approximate_
notion only, because in its young stages the development of leaves
probably took place more rapidly than it does now. There are then on
this trunk about one hundred and fifty horizontal rows of scars, and
each row numbers four leaf-bases, so that the trunk is inscribed with an
autographic record of six hundred leaves. If then we reckon eleven
leaves as the produce of a single season, and add the four screws which
are still flourishing, we shall obtain a result of about fifty-five
years as the age of this _Pandanus_. This, for the reason just assigned,
would probably be considerably too much; perhaps, forty years would be
nearer the truth.
There are, however, other marks of age here, though they are less
definite. The great hardness of the surface-wood, which we perceive on
trying to indent it, is an indication of age, as it is produced by the
successive bundles of woody fibre, which, year after year, have passed
down from each leaf, curving, in their descent, towards the
circumference of the stem, and, therefore, constantly augmenting the
density of the outer portions.
Another very curious proof of age is seen in the number of aerial roots
which descend from various points of the trunk towards the soil. You
would at first be inclined to think them posts, which a carpenter had
set to "shore up" the tree, as props to prevent its being blown down.
And truly this is their purpose; but they are natural adjuncts, not
artificial. These thick rods, some of which have not yet reached the
ground, have been shot forth in turn from the stem, in order to afford
it additional support in the loose sandy soil. And mark, by the way, a
beautiful contrivance here. Because the growing tender extremity of the
root has to pass through the sun-parched air in its progress towards the
earth, there is a curious exfoliation of its extremity, forming a sort
of cup, which, collecting the scanty dews, retains sufficient moisture
for the refreshment of the spongy rootlet. Now, I say, these supporting
roots, since they must have originated from the trunk, after the latter
had attained a considerable height, are so many evidences--and
cumulative evidences--of age, though their testimony cannot be so well
made to bear on a known period as that of the leaf-bases.
Should we not then be amply warranted in asserting this Screw-pine to be
many years old, if we were not assured that, as a fact, it has been
this instant created?
[Illustration: ROOTS OF IRIARTEA.]
A phenomenon analogous to that which we have just observed is presented
by yonder Pashiuba Palm (_Iriartea exorhiza_). Its straight arrowy stem
has shot up to the height of fifty feet, like a slender iron column. On
the summit there is the usual divergent crown of leaves that
distinguishes this most graceful and queenly tribe; and at the foot, a
tall open cone of roots, strangely supporting the column on its apex.
"But what most strikes attention in this tree, and renders it so
peculiar, is, that the roots are almost entirely above ground. They
spring out from the stem, _each one at a higher point than the last_,
and extend diagonally downwards till they approach the ground, when they
often divide into many rootlets, each of which secures itself in the
soil. As fresh ones spring out from the stem, _those below become rotten
and die off_; and it is not an uncommon thing to see a lofty tree
supported entirely by three or four roots, so that a person may walk
erect beneath them, or stand with a tree seventy feet high growing
immediately over his head."
"In the forests where these trees grow, numbers of young plants of every
age may be seen, all miniature copies of their parents, except that they
seldom possess more than three legs, which gives them a strange and
almost ludicrous appearance."[53]
This tall Pashiuba before us, however, is supported on several scores
of roots, in various stages of development, some descending through the
air, some already fixed in the soil. As the presence of these, moreover,
implies the decay and disappearance of earlier ones, their number and
height may be accepted as a fair testimony to the age of the tree;
independent of what we might have deduced from the trunk and other
sources. (My reader will bear in mind, that, throughout this chapter, I
am supposing that we have the opportunity of seeing each organism at the
moment following that of its creation.) The _Iriartea_ before us, then,
notwithstanding its marks of maturity, is but--a new-born infant, I was
about to say, rather--a new-made adult.
Another and more massive Palm appears, where a moment ago there was
nothing but smooth ground and empty air. It is the Sugar Palm (_Saguerus
saccharifer_), remarkable in its appearance for the swathes of what
looks to be _sackcloth of hair_, in which its stem is enveloped. Each of
its great pinnate leaves forms with the dilated base of its midrib a
broad sheath, which springs out of a loose fold of this coarse cloth
that is wrapped around it. And not only the bases of the still
flourishing leaves are swathed in this natural textile fabric, but the
dead and dry leaf-bases of the former leaves, which may be traced all
down the stem. But let us look at this strange cloth: what is it? It is
composed of the exterior fibres of the leaf-bases themselves, which in
process of growth have partially separated themselves, and from which
the parenchyma and the lamina have decayed away. The appearance of a
woven fabric is deceptive; there is no interlacing; but its semblance is
produced by the fibres lying in layers one over the other, and by some
of them having a direction at right angles to the others. Originally all
the fibres were parallel and longitudinal, but as they have been, in the
growth of the leaf, pulled out laterally, the main fibres, which are
indefinitely divisible, have adhered to each other at various parts, and
the result has been that innumerable constituent fibrillae have been
stretched across from fibre to fibre.
Every square inch, then, of this sackcloth tells of the lapse of time;
these horse-hair-like fibres were once green and vascular, enclosing a
soft pulp; in short, they were a part of a verdant leaf; the reduction
of each congeries of veins to this condition was a work of time, and
this has been effected by many leaf-bases in succession.
An examination of this _gomuti_, as it is called, does not indeed help
us to identify the actual interval lapsed in the history of the plant;
but we may arrive at this from other considerations. The great sheathing
bases themselves remain in numbers attached to the upper portion of the
stem, though the greater portion of the midrib with the pinnae has
decayed and fallen; and in the lower part, where even the bases have
disappeared, still broad lateral scars are left, marking off the stipe
into horizontal rings, which are not less conclusively certain evidences
of the former existence of similar bases, and therefore, still earlier,
of leaves.
The Sugar Palm developes and matures on an average six leaves every
year.[54] On counting the dry leaf-bases, and the scars, I find on this
trunk, a hundred and twenty: besides which there are about a dozen
expanded leaves, and two visible, which are not unfolded. A hundred and
thirty-four leaves then have left proofs of their existence here; which
divided by six, gives about twenty-two years as the age of this Palm.
This is the age of this tree, however, since it began to form a stem;
but several years of infancy must be added to the sum, during which its
fronds sprang in succession from the surface of the soil.
Look at this _Areca_. By-and-by it will grow to the loftiest stature
attained by any of its tribe, and its noble crown of leaves will wave on
the summit of a slender pillar a hundred and fifty feet in height. But
at present it has no stem at all; the widely arching leaves diverge from
a central point which is below the surface of the soil. Here, then, are
no dead leaf-bases; here are no old historical scars:--have we any
evidence of past time here? Yes, surely. See this fully developed leaf.
It is composed of a stout midrib, along the two opposite edges of which
grow, like the beards of a feather, narrow sword-like leaflets,
separated from each other by intervals of about two inches. But this
pinnate condition,--which is so inseparable from the developed leaf of a
great division of the Palm tribe, that our idea of a palm-leaf almost
always is that of an enormous feather,--is by no means the original
state. Observe this young leaf which is not yet thoroughly expanded; the
leaflets are, indeed, separated everywhere, except that the tips of all
are connected by a very narrow ribbon of the common green lamina, which
runs from one to another. In the fully opened leaves, this has been torn
apart and is not distinguishable.
But, let us carefully open this still younger leaf, which is protruding
like a thin green rod, or rather like a closed fan, from the centre of
the crown. We must handle it delicately, for it is very tender. Now you
see it is not pinnate at all; the leaf is as entire as a _Musa_ leaf,
which, indeed, it much resembles, except that each half is folded
transversely, and then these transverse folds are packed one on another
longitudinally, fan-fashion. Each of the transverse folds answers to a
future leaflet. It is the development of the midrib in length that tears
asunder the divisions of the lamina, and converts them into separate,
and by-and-by remote, pinnae.
It is manifest then that every leaflet on the midrib of a pinnate-leaved
Palm is a record of past time, as real as the leaf-bases on the trunk,
inasmuch as, in each case, there is ocular proof that the conditions of
existence are different from what they have been. And yet in this case,
the evidences are fallacious, since the _Areca_ before us has even now
been created.
Here is an extraordinary plant. Though no thicker than your little
finger, it will be found almost a quarter of a mile in length.[55] This
is a kind of Cane (_Calamus_); its slender jointed and polished stem is
encased in the closely-sheathing and tubular bases of the leaves, which
are spiny on their midribs, spiny on their pinnae, and horridly spiny on
the long and tough whip-lash in which the point of each leaf terminates.
This lengthened cord is studded, at intervals of a few inches, with
whorls of stout and acute prickles which are hooked backwards, and
performs an important part in the economy of the plant. We see how it
sprawls along the ground a few yards, then climbs up a tall tree, runs
over the summit, descends on the opposite side to the ground, mounts
over another tree, and thus pursues its wormlike course. Now as the
pinnate leaves are put forth at every joint, the formidably armed
flagellum affords a secure holdfast to the climbing stem, which
otherwise would be liable to be blown prostrate by the first gust of
wind; the recurved hooks, however, catch in the leaves and twigs of the
trees, and effectually maintain the domination of the prickly intruder.
It is obvious that every inch sprawled over by this trailing stem
supposes all the previous inches of its lengthening course; that every
successive joint implies the existence of all the earlier joints; that
every whorl of spines involves the development of every former whorl.
Yet our reasoning is at fault; there has been as yet no succession; the
development has been simultaneous, for it is the development, not of
growth, but of creation.
Enough of Palms. Look at this _Agave_. Its thick, fleshy, glaucous
leaves, with spinous margins and pointed ends, are arranged in many
whorls on the summit of a stem, which is scarcely visible, as it barely
rises above the soil. From the centre of the crown springs the stately
flower-stalk, itself a tree of forty feet in stature, having a cluster
of yellow blossoms at the extremities of its candelabra-like branches.