The flesh of the _Amanita_ is not yellow. Yet Vicat speaks of

poisonings produced by the _Yellow Amanita_. "I had much difficulty,"

says this physician, "in saving two families of Lausanne, poisoned

through eating a very small quantity of mushrooms, which the father

in the one case, and the mother in the other, had mistaken for

_Agarici Cæsarei_, though they were both esteemed great connoisseurs,

and especially in this species; nor had they been once deceived for

upwards of thirty years, until they indulged themselves in this

delicious but deceitful dish."

These poisonings could have been occasioned only by the _Amanita_.

Some varieties exist, in which the under surface of the pileus is

yellow, but the flesh is white. To one of these varieties Vicat's

anecdote probably refers.

Thus, the _Amanita formosa_ of Persoon has pedicel, pileus, and

warts of the pileus, of a citron yellow. It is but a variety of the

_Amanita muscaria_.

The _Amanita umbrina_ of the same botanist (the _Agaricus

pantherinus_ of De Candolle) has an olive-coloured pileus; its

surface, like that of _Amanita muscaria_, is covered with white

scales.

The _Amanita solitarius_ is distinguished by the size of its

umbilical cap,--sometimes depressed in the centre,--which is

furnished with a great number of white or pale brown scales; when

fully developed, it measures from thirty to forty centimetres in

diameter. The pedicel is bulbous, with a membranous ring, white as

snow, clasped around it; at the base it is clothed in pellicles, the

remains of its scaly volva. The flesh is firm, thick, and white.

You rarely meet with more than two or three individuals in the

same locality; hence its name of _solitarius_. Bulliard speaks of

the flesh as good to eat, when cooked on a gridiron, and seasoned

with fresh butter, salt, and pepper. It is possible. But as it is

so easily confused with the poisonous species, the author of the

"Histoire des Champignons" would have done better to prohibit its

consumption, whether eatable or not.

We may now turn to the method adopted by Dr Vicat to save the lives

of the two families at Lausanne, who, as we have seen, were poisoned

by partaking of the _Amanita_:--

* * * * *

I dissolved, he says, six grains of tartar emetic in a litre of

water, and from time to time administered a spoonful to my patients;

moreover, I made them swallow floods of warm water, sweetened with a

little honey,--that is, a large tea-spoonful of honey to a cupful of

water.

I had much difficulty to get one of the sufferers, who was sixty

years old, to swallow the first few spoonfuls. He was plunged into

a lethargic insensibility differing in no respect from complete

apoplexy; his teeth were closely set. Those whom I had ordered

to administer the mixture had given it up, after several useless

attempts; and in all probability the old man would have sunk, had I

not had the patience to hold, for some hours, against his teeth the

back of the blade of a small silver knife, so as to profit by the

few moments when the teeth were a little less firmly clenched. I

used some force to make the blade act as a wedge, and after a while

opened up a passage to the handle, which, serving as a lever, forced

the jaws sufficiently apart to admit the introduction of a spoonful

of the emetic. It was not, however, until fully two hours had passed

that the patient, having undoubtedly swallowed the necessary dose,

began to vomit, with strenuous efforts and frightful cries. This

was at midnight. Four in the morning arrived before, after numerous

alternations of vomiting and profound lethargy, he began to speak,

and then like a man in delirium. After the first vomit, which was

inconsiderable, the convulsions of his whole body were so very

violent as to require four men to hold him, while I continued to make

use of my knife as at first. Nor did I desist until I was satisfied

that his stomach had been sufficiently cleansed. After this, I

applied two strong blisters to the back of his legs. As these acted,

the purging subsided, and at the end of twenty-four hours it had

passed away entirely, the invalid finding himself as well as could

be expected after sustaining so severe a shock. The other patients,

who were not in so much danger, experienced twitchings and tremblings

in the face, which quite disfigured them; the brain seemed a blank;

though awake, they felt as in a dream, and their visions were most

frightful.

It is evident, from these particulars, that mushroom-poisoning

specially affects the encephalic nervous system, and that the best

remedies are emetics and antispasmodics. In our present ignorance of

what are the poisonous principles in the _Amanita_, we can adopt no

other method than a chemical neutralisation.

AGARICUS CÆSAREUS, OR IMPERIAL MUSHROOM.

In this mushroom, for which, as we have seen, the _Amanita_ is too

frequently mistaken, the inside as well as the outside is yellow;

the upper surface of the pileus, which is equally free from scales

and warts, is, however, of a reddish yellow, like that of an orange

(whence the popular French name, _la vrai oronge_); all the other

parts are of a beautiful citron hue. This agaric exhales an agreeable

odour, combined apparently of the scent of the vanilla and the

truffle. It decomposes rapidly, and when in a state of advanced

putridity, the fragrance I speak of is succeeded by--well, by a

fearful stench! When young, and still completely covered with its

wrapper or _volva_ (this, in the _Amanita_, is imperfect), it is very

like a hen's egg which has been partly buried in the ground so as

to expose only the larger end. It seems partial to solitude; more

than four or five are seldom found in the same locality. Moreover,

in autumn it affects the same habitats as the _Amanita_,--which is

unfortunate.

It would seem that our imperial mushroom was specially appreciated by

the ancients, and it is said that Nero pronounced it a dish fit for

the gods. In this circumstance originated the scientific name which

has now become popular, and which was first applied to it by the

cryptogamist Fries, _Agaricus Cæsareus_.

[Illustration: FIG. 74.--The Imperial Mushroom.]

* * * * *

The _Boletus_ of Pliny appears to have been our Agaricus, and not

one of our _Boleti_, which are easily recognised by the numerous

tubercular projections covering the under part of the pileus. In

proof of this I would point out that the Roman naturalist, after

speaking of the _Boleti_ as genuine delicacies, immediately inveighs

against them as dangerously poisonous. He relates that it was with

one of these, or rather with one of the false mushrooms so easily

mistaken for the true, that Agrippina poisoned the Emperor Claudius,

to secure the imperial crown for her son Nero.[81]

The virtues of the mushrooms have been sung by Juvenal and Martial.

The latter accurately distinguishes the true from the false, when

reproaching Cæcilianus with his gluttony.

"Ah, you are used to devour your _Boleti_ alone, in the face of your

invited guests; eat then, the _Boletus_ which Claudius ate!"

"Dic mihi, quis furor est? Turba spectante vocata,

Solus boletos, Cæciliane, voras.

Quid dignum tanto tibi ventri, gulaque precabor?

Boletum, qualem Claudius edit, edas."[82]

The best known and most valuable species of Agarici may be briefly

enumerated:--

_Agaricus campestris_, or _Common Mushroom_, found in nearly all

temperate regions: pileus convex, and white, with a tinge of

brown; thick set on the under side with dark brown gills; stem

firm and fleshy, and surrounded by a white membranous ring.

_Agaricus Cæsareus_, or _Imperial Mushroom_, the _Kaiserling_ of

the Germans, already described.

_Agaricus deliciosus_, or _Orange-milked Agaric_, found in

coverts of fir and juniper; pileus viscid, orange, and upwards of

four inches broad; gills and juice of a fine orange colour.

_Agaricus procerus_, or _Parasol Mushroom_, found in the shade of

trees, on meadows with a sandy soil; stem from eight to twelve

inches high, with a thick spongy ring; pileus bell-shaped, and

covered with brown scales.

_Agaricus Virgineus_, or _White Field Agaric_, found in rich

moist pastures; pileus whitish, and convex; gills of a light

chocolate shade; stem nearly two inches broad.

_Agaricus eburneus_, or _Ivory Mushroom_, found in beech woods;

grayish-yellow pileus; broad gills; stem long and scaly.

_Agaricus Georgii_, _St George's Agaric_, or _Whitecaps_, found

in moist pastures, and in the shelter of old barns, farmhouses,

and churches; flesh yellow; gills yellowish-white; pileus twelve

to eighteen inches broad; the least valuable of British species

of agaric, but useful in ketchup-making.

_Agaricus oreades_, _Fairy-ring Mushroom_, or _Scotch bonnets_,

found in meadows, where it grows in circles known as "fairy

rings;" pileus seldom exceeds an inch in diameter; stem solid,

tough, and fibrous, with a boss or _umbo_ in the centre, of a

light brown colour; the flesh white, and of a pleasant odour.

_Agaricus odorus_, _Anise Mushroom_, or _Sweet-scented Agaric_;

pileus slightly convex, about three inches broad, and with pale

gills; the scent like that of anise; stem strong, fleshy, but not

very tall.

_Agaricus formosus_, or _Smoky Mushroom_; so called from the

colour of the upper surface of the pileus; the stalk and gills of

a pale yellow; grows in fir woods.

_Agaricus primulus_, or _Mousseron_, grows in woods and pastures,

where the soil is sandy; pileus convex, yellow, about three or

four inches in diameter; gills change from white to flesh colour.

_How many Vegetable Species exist over the whole surface of the

Globe?_

I will not do my readers the injustice to suppose that they are

unacquainted with the writings of our greatest English poetess,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They will not fail to have been attracted

by the prodigal genius, the superabundant power, the exquisite

imagery, the profound spirit of tenderness, the high, pure thoughts,

which render almost every page such delightful reading. Successful as

she was, however, in giving expression to the most subtle emotions

and the intensest feeling, I think she was even happier in her

descriptions of scenery. These are invariably aglow with life and

colour, and have all the fidelity of Creswick with the imaginative

insight of Turner. Turning over her "Aurora Leigh," the other day, I

lighted on the following beautiful picture:--

"I flattered all the beauteous country round,

As poets use--the skies, the clouds, the fields,

The happy violets, hiding from the roads

The primroses run down to, carrying gold--

The tangled hedgerows, where the rows push out

Their tolerant horns and patient churning mouths

'Twixt dripping ash-boughs--hedgerows all alive

With birds, and gnats, and large white butterflies,

Which look as if the May-flower had caught life

And palpitated forth upon the wind:

Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist;

Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills,

And cattle grazing in the watered vales,

And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods,

And cottage gardens smelling everywhere,

Confused with smell of orchards."

[Illustration: FIG. 75.--"And cattle grazing in the watered vales."]

As I read this fine passage, the thought occurred to me, how many

thousands there are who, in such a scene as it so vividly depicts,

would see no beauty whatever, whose heart would not respond to

it, whose sympathies would not be aroused by all its variety of

outline and all its rich magnificence of colour! Yet not in so wide

a landscape alone, but in the smallest nook,--in the little clump

of elms by the side of the stream, in yonder grassy knoll rising

straight up from the old churchyard, in the quiet angle of the green

pasture-meadows,--there is a whole world of wonder and beauty for him

who has eyes to see and a heart to feel! Look at the flowery bank

which runs along the side of an English lane. Is it not crowded with

objects of the rarest and purest interest? Count the many varieties

of grasses which clothe it so abundantly, count the many species of

flowers and herbs which adorn it with a grace beyond all human skill,

and acknowledge that in itself it might supply the inquirer with

matter for years of study and meditation.

Pursuing this train of thought, I was led to think of the number

of genera and species into which the plant world is divided,--a

remarkable proof, not only of the power and wisdom, but of the

goodness of the Creator, of His desire to furnish man with

inexhaustible sources of pleasure and entertainment; and finally, to

put to myself the question, How many vegetable species exist over the

whole surface of the globe? If this corner of a leafy English lane is

so rich in variety, what must be the case with "the wide, wide world?"

I was now brought to see that a question so difficult could, like so

many others, be usefully approached only by its _inferior limit_;

in other words, that in the actual condition of botanical science,

we can but affirm the number which certainly _exceeds_ the sum of

the vegetable species scattered over the surface of our earth. To

determine this total with mathematical accuracy, we should need to

have explored the terrestrial crust, liquid and solid, land and

water, from the bed of ocean to the line of perpetual snow, and

from the equator to the poles. And as yet we are very far from

having obtained so complete a possession of the planet which has

been assigned as a dwelling-place to our poor humanity,--alas, more

presumptuous than powerful!

* * * * *

The number of plants mentioned by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and

Pliny, whom we take to be the representatives of ancient botany,

does not exceed five hundred species. How very few, compared with

the presumable total! The Middle Ages added scarcely anything to the

botanical researches of antiquity. It is only since the discovery of

America that we have seen the domain of Flora extending itself in

unexpected proportions. But we must come down to the epoch of Linnæus

(the middle of the eighteenth century) before we can obtain an

accurate list of species, scientifically classified. Murray's edition

of the "_Specilegium_" of Linnæus contains two thousand and forty-two

species, including the Cryptogams. Wildmore, in another edition of

the same great work, raised the total to twenty thousand. And this

was the point at which our botanists had arrived when the nineteenth

century opened.

But it was not long before they perceived that all these estimates,

large as they seemed, fell immeasurably short of the reality. In

attempting to distribute the different species among the then known

regions of the globe, Alexander von Humboldt arrived at a total of

forty-four thousand species, Phanerogams and Cryptogams included. De

Candolle extended the estimate to upwards of fifty-six thousand.

Let us divide, in fancy, the earth into two parts,--one which has

been visited by travellers, and one which still remains to be

explored. Can you determine which would present the larger area? The

latter.

Thus we possess but a very imperfect knowledge of the luxuriant, the

glowing vegetation of the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the

New World, in spite of the labours of Bates, Agassiz, Wallace, and

others. To the north of the equator, we know very little of the flora

of Yucatan, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the isthmus of Panama, the Chaco

of Antioquius, the province of Los Pastos. We are not much better

acquainted with the vegetation of the countries south of the equator.

What do we know of the manifold species flourishing in Paraguay, in

the province of the Missions, in the immense wooded region between

the Ucayali, the Rio de la Madeira, and the Tocantin, three affluents

of the mighty river Amazon? We know scarcely anything.

Our ignorance increases if from America we pass to Africa. Nearly

the whole interior of this continent, from 15° N. latitude to 20°

S. latitude, is, botanically speaking, a blank to us. The same is

the case with the greater portion of Central Asia. The floras of the

south and south-east of Arabia are still sealed letters,--treasuries

to which we have not found the key. As much may be said of the floras

of the countries situated between the Thian-Schan, the Kuenlung, and

the Himalaya, as well as of the floras of western China, and most of

the trans-Gangetic countries. We know still less of the vegetation of

the interior of Madagascar, Borneo, New Guinea, and the greater part

of Australia. To conclude: we are probably not acquainted with more

than one-fifth of the vegetable species which cover the surface of

our globe.

There are regions, moreover, which we imagine will always lie

outside of our sphere of investigation; such, for instance, are

the Polar regions, properly so called. Undoubtedly, it is open to

us to conjecture that the Poles--those two extremities of our axis

of planetary rotation--are not the home of any form of life. But

this is only a conjecture; we are even without an analogy for it;

since we have found, as shown in an earlier chapter of the present

volume, living beings, plants, and animals, among the snows of our

loftiest mountains. Moreover, might not the auroras, whose maximum

of intensity occurs exactly at the poles, render life possible in

regions where we at present suppose it to be _im_possible? Conjecture

for conjecture,--acknowledge that we here touch in both cases upon an

element completely beyond our human power.

* * * * *

These, then, are the reasons why, at present, we can only venture

upon defining the _lower_ limit, the _restricted_ number, above which

we are unable to fix the total of vegetable species living on the

surface of our planet.

The method to be adopted has been indicated by Alexander von Humboldt

in his "Ansichten der Natur" ("Pictures of Nature"). His method

consists in the comparison of the vegetable families whose numerical

relations are _known_, with the number of species contained in our

herbariums, or cultivated in our botanical gardens.

But here, at the outset, a difficulty confronts us. Does any relation

exist between the classification of plants by natural families and by

their geographical distribution?

To group plants according to their analogies of structure, we study

them from an abstract point of view, and without any regard to the

medium in which they flourish. The question grows complicated if we

also take into consideration their characteristic conditions and

their distribution over the terrestrial surface. Families are then

split asunder, and the importance of our scientific classifications

disappears.

The gathering together of a small number of species, represented by

innumerable individuals, confined within the same area, may suffice

to communicate to a landscape its characteristic physiognomy: as,

for example, is the case with the Asiatic steppes, the _landes_ of

Brittany, the moors of Scotland, the palm-groves and the clumps of

Cactaceæ of tropical America. By the side of species which impress us

by their _mass_--that is, by the frequent reproduction of the same

individuals at an infinitesimal distance from one another--are placed

those much more numerous species which are everywhere very thinly

sown.

But do the plants themselves follow, from the equator to the poles,

the same law of _decrease_ as obtains from the base to the summit of

the loftiest equatorial mountains?

Under identical isothermal lines, is the ratio of families known and

identified to the probable aggregate of Phanerogams the same, in the

temperate zone, on either side of the equator?

What are the vegetable families which preponderate at the two

extremes, represented by the torrid and the frigid zones?

Under the same geographical latitude, or between the same isothermal

lines, are the Synantheræ, the Gramineæ, the Leguminosæ, the Labiatæ,

the Cruciferæ, the Umbelliferæ, more numerous in the Old than in the

New World?

What families, either through their mass of individuals or their

number of species, take precedence of the other Phanerogams?

How many species of one and the same family belong to any particular

country?

What groups or families are characteristic of each zone?

Is the present classification of genera and species in all respects

what could be desired?

* * * * *

These are questions that require to be considered, and to some of

them we shall presently attempt replies.

Herbariums, though their classification is too frequently imperfect,

may furnish us with data of great utility. The great herbarium of

Benjamin Delessert was estimated, after his death, to contain 86,000

species,--a total not widely differing from that which Lindley, in

1835, estimated as the probable aggregate of the vegetable species of

the world.

Great in importance are botanic gardens. Loudon, in his _Hortus

Britannicus_ (ed. 1832), places at 22,660 the number of Phanerogams

cultivated in the gardens of the Bristol amateur botanists. With

this number we must not confound the living species exhibited, in

other counties, in gardens designed for the instruction of students,

nor the grand total reared for a similar purpose at Kew. Kunth's

enumeration, in 1861, of the plants at the Botanic Gardens at Berlin,

one of the richest in Europe, amounted to upwards of 14,000 species,

including 375 heaths. Among the Phanerogams were 1600 Synantheræ,

1150 Leguminosæ, 428 Labiatæ, 370 Umbelliferæ, 460 Orchidaceæ, 60

Palmaceæ, 600 Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ, &c. By comparing these data

with the number of species described in the works of De Candolle,

Walpers, Bentham, Lindley, Kunth, and others, we find that in the

Berlin gardens are cultivated only one-seventh of the known species

of the Synantheræ, one-eighth of the Leguminosæ, one-ninth of the

Gramineæ, and about one-fiftieth of the smaller families, such as the

Labiatæ and Umbelliferæ.

* * * * *

Now, if we admit that, on the one hand, the number of phanerogamous

species cultivated in all the great gardens of Europe is about

30,000, and, on the other, that the cultivated Phanerogams form about

one-eighth part of the species described in books and preserved in

herbariums, we obtain a total of 24,000 species.

But the Cryptogams, or Agams, such as heaths, mosses, lichens,

mushrooms, fungi, mould, and the like, of which our knowledge, as

yet, is very imperfect, are probably much more numerous in species

than the Phanerogams; for these vegetables, mostly microscopical,

develop themselves wherever life can manifest itself--on the barren

and denuded rocks, as well as in the air and in the depths of the

ocean. If we suppose that they exceed only by 2000 the estimated

number of Phanerogams, we shall obtain a total of just half-a-million!

Such, in our opinion, is the number which approximatively represents

the lower limit of the aggregate of vegetable species (phanerogamous

and cryptogamous) inhabiting our planet. The innumerable individuals

of this half-million of species are born, and live, and reproduce

their kind, and die, like the twelve hundred millions of individuals

of our solitary human species. The former, it is true, remain fixed

to the soil which has witnessed their birth, while the latter wander,

more or less freely over the terrestrial surface. Do not animals

enjoy the same privilege of locomotion? Undoubtedly. But men boast of

the reason and the conscience with which they are endowed. Agreed.

But with the exception of a small number--the infinite minority of

progress--to what advantage have men employed the reason and the

conscience of which they boast?

* * * * *

But this is a digression. We proceed to place before the reader

a few final data in illustration of the subject we have been

considering--the number of existing vegetable species.

The following is an estimate of the known species of plants on the

globe at different dates:--

Phanerogams. Cryptogams. Total.

According to Linnæus, 1753, 5,323 615 5,938

Pusoon, 1807, 19,949 6,000 25,949

Stendel, 1824, 39,684 10,765 50,649

Stendel, 1841, 78,000 13,000 91,000

Stendel, 1844, 80,000 15,000 95,000

The advance made of late years in the knowledge of existing species

will be apparent from a consideration of Lindley's estimate in 1846:--

Genera. Species.

Thallogens, 939 8,394

Acrogens, 310 4,086

Rhizogens, 21 53

Endogens, 1,420 13,684

Dictyogens, 17 268

Gymnogens, 37 210

Exogens, 6,191 16,225

------ -------

Total, 8,935 92,920

According to Hinds, the following families are almost entirely

restricted to particular divisions of the globe:--

_To Europe_--Globulariaceæ, Ceratophyllaceæ.

_To Asia_--Dipterocarpaceæ, Aquilariaceæ, Camelliaceæ,

Moringaceæ, Stilaginaceæ.

_To Africa_--Bruniaceæ, Brexiaceæ, Belvisiaceæ, Penæaceæ.

_To North America_--Sarraceniaceæ.

_To South America_--Rhizobolaceæ, Gillesiaceæ, Calyceraceæ,

Vochysiaceæ, Simarubaceæ, Monimiaceæ, Humiriaceæ, Papayaceæ,

Gesneraceæ, Lacistemaceæ.

_To Australasia_--Goodeniaceæ, Epacridaceæ, Stackhousiaceæ,

Brunoniaceæ, Tremandraceæ.

[A group of plants occurring only in one of the six great divisions

of the world is called _monomic_, (from μονος _one_, and νομὸς,

a _region_).

A group common to two divisions is _dinomic_; to three, _trinomic_;

to four, _quatrinomic_; to all the divisions, _polynomic_.]

NATURAL FAMILIES PREDOMINANT IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.

Aceraceæ,

Alismaceæ,

Amentaceæ,

Artocarpeæ

(_fam._ Articaceæ),

Aurantiaceæ,

Berberaceæ,

Boraginaceæ,

Campanulaceæ,

Caprifoliaceæ,

Caryophyllaceæ,

Cistaceæ,

Coniferæ,

Cruciferæ,

Dipsacaceæ,

Elæagnaceæ,

Fumariaceæ,

Grossulariaceæ,

Hamamelidaceæ,

Hippocastaneæ

(_fam._ Sapindaceæ),

Hypericaceæ,

Magnoliaceæ,

Onagraceæ,

Orobanchaceæ,

Papaveraceæ,

Ranunculaceæ,

Residaceæ,

Rosaceæ,

Rutaceæ,

Saxifragaceæ,

Umbelliferæ,

Vacciniaceæ.

NATURAL FAMILIES PREDOMINANT IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

Amaryllidaceæ,

Atherospermaceæ,

Cactaceæ,

Capparidaceæ,

Crassulaceæ,

Dilleniaceæ,

Diosmeæ

(_fam._ Rutaceæ),

Geraniaceæ,

Hæmodoraceæ,

Heliotropeæ

(_fam._ Ehretiaceæ),

Iridaceæ,

Malpighiaceæ,

Melastomaceæ,

Mesembryaceæ,

Myoporineæ

(_fam._ Verbenaceæ),

Myrtaceæ,

Oxalidaceæ,

Pittosporaceæ,

Polygalaceæ,

Proteaceæ,

Restiaceæ,

Scævoleæ

(_fam._ Goodeniaceæ),

Spigeleæ

(_fam._ Loganiaceæ),

Stylidiaceæ.

THE HARVEST BUG.

"I very much wish," said my friend T. to me one day, "to buy a small

estate in the vicinity of ---- Forest. If there should be one to

sell, pray let me know of it."

It was not long before an opportunity arose for my friend to satisfy

his desire. But after I had made him acquainted with it, he declared

himself no longer willing to purchase a property in a district where,

as he had learned, one was devoured by _red beasts_ all through the

finest months of the year. What a frightful neighbourhood to live

in, where you were forbidden to walk in your garden under pain of

catching an itch in your legs!

Unquestionably, it is only too true that the cultivated ground,

whether on the northern or the southern slope of the forest, is

infested, from the beginning of summer to the beginning of winter,

by Lilliputian horrors, like so many tiny red points, which cling

obstinately to the skin, and there deposit, under the epidermis,

their microscopic brood. Once planted there, the _rougets_, as the

French call them, or _harvest bugs_, as we English call them, effect

considerable mischief; and if, to relieve one's self, one indulges

in "a scratch," the cutaneous surface is quickly covered by small

blisters, which on a cursory examination might be taken for a skin

affection not generally named in polite hearing.

But one does not perceive the galleries excavated by these annoying

insects, positive tunnels or covered ways, through which they proceed

to pour forth elsewhere the superfluity of their numerous progeny.

Less prolific than the _Acari_, which create upon the skin immense

patches of irritation, the harvest bugs confine themselves to a few

circumscribed localities: their favourite choice being the legs, the

arms, and the corners of the eyes, especially among young children.

They are not above domestic animals; cats and dogs frequently suffer

from them,--not, indeed, over the whole surface of the body, for they

are not so wandering as the _Acari_,--but particularly inside the

shell of the ear.

At the first glance you would scarcely believe that those red points,

apparently immovable, could be living beings,--could be animals

belonging to an order of some importance.

* * * * *

Let us attempt to isolate one of the animalcules with the point of a

pin: it is not an easy thing to do, because they usually adhere to

the epidermis in clusters of three or four individuals. There, now we

have succeeded, and here is one before us: it is only the fifth of

a millimètre in diameter, which is, for most people, the very last

limit of the visual function (see the small white line in Fig. 76,

_a_). And, in truth, it _would_ be imperceptible to the eye but for

its bright red colour. To study it carefully, of course, you must

make use of a very strong lens, or, rather, of a microscope. (See

Fig. 76, _b_.)

[Illustration: FIG. 76.--_a Leptus Autumnalis_ (nat. size). _b_ Ditto

(mag.).]

To this tiny animal has been given the name of _Leptus autumnalis_;

the first, on account of its extreme delicacy; the second, because

it is visible up to the end of autumn.

When examined through a microscope, it produces on the spectator the

impression of a spider; but, like all other insects, it has only six

legs.

Our naturalists, however, have found some difficulty in classifying

it; and by way of cutting the Gordian knot of their embarrassments,

some have placed it in a separate family of _Microphthiræ_ (literally

"little lice"), which is made to include all Arachnidæ with six legs.

Others, who regard the wheat worm as an insect, rank it among the

parasitical Apteræ.

In effect, it has all the characters of the parasitical insect--its

protracted head, distinct from the rest of its body, is sometimes

thrust forward in quest of its food, sometimes drawn back or

concealed, to protect it from danger. Intended to suck rather than

to knead or bruise, it has a sucker, but no mandibles. The head is

without antennæ, and its palpi are very short, barely visible, and

of a conical form. The body is ovular and very soft (whence the

Grecian name _leptus_, λεπτός, signifying "soft"). The anterior

part, corresponding to the thorax, is broader than it is long, and

is marked underneath, on each side of the central line, by a black

point: these two points, symmetrically placed, appear to represent

the eyes.

The posterior portion, corresponding to the abdomen, is longer than

it is broad, and covered with hairs. Each leg consists of six joints,

easily distinguished by the hairs inserted at each articulation; and

each terminates in a couple of strong crooked _claws_, which enable

the animal to obtain a firm hold on the skin.

* * * * *

Thus, then, to judge from the aggregate of its characters, the

harvest bug, _Leptus autumnalis_, belongs to the class Arachnidæ,

while the number of its feet places it in the class Insects. But this

is a detail which causes little annoyance to a person being devoured

by the "red beasts," and only anxious to rid himself of them.

But if such be his desire, let me tell him that the best remedies are

bathing the afflicted part with lotions of vinegar, or rubbing it

with sulphur ointment.

I have been asked whether certain tiny parasites, such as the

_Ocypete rubra_,--which is also red, and has six feet like the

_Leptus autumnalis_, but which, instead of attacking man and his

domestic companions, attaches itself to flies,--I have been asked

whether these insectiform Arachnidæ may not be species of larva not

yet arrived at their matured condition.

For my part, I must acknowledge that, whether the _Ocypete rubra_

is or is not the transitory state of a more perfect animal, I do

not know. But I am sure that the _Leptus autumnalis_ lives and dies

on the skin where it has selected its dwelling-place,--a _living_

dwelling-place.

* * * * *

It is impossible to be too circumspect in the determination of

certain genera and species, whose different phases of existence

are little known, and which seem, so far as their characteristics

are concerned, to participate of several orders or classes of

articulated animals. The errors which have been committed in this

respect ought at least to teach us caution.

Thus, the red, oval, six-legged animalcules, whose mobile heads are

furnished with a proboscis shaped like an angular beak, and whose

two palpi are large and semi-transparent,--the singular animalcules

which, in June or July, are hatched in the spongy stems of certain

aquatic vegetables,--notably the _Potamogeton natans_,--have been

described[83] as forming a peculiar genus of Arachnidæ, the genus

_Achlysia_; and this genus, created by Audouin, was ranked along

with the _Leptus_ and _Ocypete_ in the family of Microphthiræ. Yet

nothing is less exact. These Achlysia are simply the larvæ of a kind

of _Hydrachna_ or water-acarus. To be convinced of this, you have

but to watch their development. At first very small and pear-shaped,

these larvæ, deprived, like all larvæ, of the reproductive organs,

rapidly increase in size. At the end of a few weeks you will see

them adhering to a leaf of potamogeton; they thrust their proboscis

into the stem, and cling to it with their palpi. Little by little,

the legs, the proboscis, and the palpi, are drawn back towards the

body, abandoning the skin which has hitherto formed for each of these

organs a kind of horny sheath. From the larva state, the animal

passes into that of the nymph. But this nymph continues to feed and

enlarge; proboscis, legs, and palpi grow thinner and harder; claws,

ciliæ, and hairs are developed; and, finally, through a fissure in

the skin emerges the perfect animal, red as wine, with eight feet,

and about two millimetres in length. This animal, placed in the

family of the _Hydrachnellæ_, has been described by De Geer under

the name of _Acarus aquaticus globosus_, and by Dugès under that of

_Hydrachna globosa_, on account of its globular form.

THE CHEESE MITE.

From the crust of a dry old cheese,--such a kind of cheese as a

_bon-vivant_ likes with a glass of "good old ale,"--a very fine

powder often crumbles off, like the dust made by wood-eating worms.

Examine this powder with your lens, or if you have good eyes, you may

make use of _them_. You will quickly detect something moving in it,

and by degrees you will see that this movement pervades the whole

mass; that there is a general stir and commotion in all directions.

But you find it impossible to distinguish clearly the form of the

animals which are thus agitated. You are certain, however, that they

are not maggots, for _they_ affect moist cheeses; besides, they are

visible enough to everybody, and at need can make themselves _felt_

upon your hands, and even upon your face, for they have a faculty of

launching themselves to a distance by a little manœuvre familiar

enough to serpents: bringing the head round towards the tail, they

curve themselves like the spring of a watch, then abruptly uncoiling

themselves with the help of some solid _appui_, they fling forth into

the air, and are thus launched to very considerable distances. It is

a curious species of locomotion, not unworthy the attention of the

mechanician.

To clear up the mystery of a movement whose cause is not apparent at

the first glance, let us sprinkle with this impalpable débris,--with

this kind of sawdust, or _cheese_-dust,--a little strip of glass, and

place it beneath the focus of a microscope.

Ah! you exclaim, what a frightful creature! These long sharp ciliæ

seem to be so many lancets covering the whole body, and especially

the legs; its head, like that of the harvest-bug, protrudes and

recedes under a transparent carapace; thus communicating to the

animal something of the aspect of a turtle. In all other respects

its form exactly resembles the harvest-bug; only its body is more

elongated towards the anterior extremity than that of the latter.

While the harvest-bug makes us think of a spider, the body of the

Acarus has a greater likeness to an insect's. (Fig. 77.) Yet the

Acarus has eight legs, like a spider, and the harvest-bug six, like

an insect. Attempt, then, to establish your absolute rules!

[Illustration: FIG. 77.--The _Acarus domesticus_.]

Let us continue our observation of this cheese-worm. The well-defined

thorax forms nearly one-third of the fore-part of the body, which is

of a shining whitish-red or reddish-white. The proboscis, shaped like

a conical tube, is armed with two projecting mandibles, which, like

true pincers, can be brought close together, or moved wide apart,

thrust forward singly or simultaneously. Our animal, which a small

lens makes very distinct, has been more than once confounded with the

_Sarcoptes scabiei_.

Let us resume. Our cheese-dust, which to all appearance walks alone,

encloses legions of mites; the old you may detect by their eight

feet, the young by having six. The germs, or eggs, whence they

spring, are found mixed among the excrements of the living, and the

débris of the dead.

It is in this way that a crust of cheese offers us a true, a vivid

image of the terrestrial crust. So may we learn to compare small

things with great.

HOW MANY ANIMAL SPECIES ARE THERE DISTRIBUTED OVER THE SURFACE OF THE

GLOBE?

In the present condition of scientific knowledge, no satisfactory

answer can be given to this important and most interesting question.

The truth is, that what we may call Geographical Zoology is as yet

in its very infancy. The few works which have been published on the

subject have been published within the last eighty or ninety years;

and they embrace only the vertebrate animals, notably the mammals,

birds, and reptiles, or amphibia. We shall attempt to place before

the reader an outline of the results that have so far been obtained.

* * * * *

Of all the Vertebrata, we are best acquainted with the mammals. And

yet our zoologists differ very widely in respect to the number of

their species, though the calculations have been made at very short

intervals. For instance, in 1829, Minding computed that the globe

contained 1230 species of mammals. In 1832, Charles Bonaparte reduced

the total to 1149. Oken estimates it at 1500; and this last figure

would seem to be the most probable.

Nothing is more curious than the distribution of these 1500 species

of mammals, according to the different regions and climates of the

globe.

Man, according to the best-considered data of science, forms a single

family, a single genus, a single species. He alone possesses the

power of adapting himself to every climate, and of taking possession

of countries the most widely opposite in character. We find him

among the snows of the North Pole; we find him under the blazing

sun of the Tropics. We find him in the palm-fringed islands of

Southern Seas, and in the barren burning waste of the inhospitable

Sahara. Considered as an animal who feeds and reproduces himself,

he forms alone the order of _Bimana_; so named in opposition to the

_Quadrumana_, or apes, who make use of their fore-feet as we do of

our two hands. Deprive man of his progressive and transmissible

intellect--of those mysterious powers which we call the mind and

the soul--and he would become at once the most useless and the most

wretched member of the animal world.

The warm regions of the old and new continents are the true home and

haunt of the apes. They are not sufficiently developed to be able to

frequent the temperate or frigid zone. In our European menageries the

specimens nearly all die of consumption. The Quadrumana form about

one-fourteenth of the whole number of species of Mammalia.

The _Carnivora_, characterised by the development of their canine

teeth, are spread over the whole globe. They are found in greater

numbers in the torrid, however, than in the frigid zone. Their

species compose at least one-third of the Mammalia.

The _Rodentia_, characterised by the development of the incisors,

are wanting in Polynesia, and are rare in Australia. They are

found in their maximum number in the torrid zone. Like the

Carnivora, they form about one-third of the Mammalia.

The _Ruminantia_, remarkable for the development of their

digestive apparatus, are distributed into 165 species,

representing something less than one-ninth of the Mammalia.

Africa, of all the continents, is richest in the Ruminants.

The _Marsupialia_, so strangely distinguished by the membranous

pouch in which they enclose their young, belong to America, and

especially Australia. At present about 123 species are known, or

a little more than one-thirteenth of the Mammalia.

The _Edentata_, so named on account of their incomplete

dentition, inhabit the tropical regions of the Old and New

World. They are distributed into 32 species, 19 of which belong

to America. The Edentata, therefore, do not form more than

one-fiftieth of the Mammalia.

The _Pachydermata_, which owe their name to the thickness of

their skin or hide, almost exclusively belong to the Old World.

None are found in Australia. The number of their species is 38,

of which 5 only belong to Southern and Central America. The

Pachyderms form, therefore, nearly one-thirty-seventh of the

Mammalia.

The _Cetaceæ_,--which the naturalists of antiquity ranked among

the fishes, though the females bear their young alive, and

are furnished with a mammary apparatus,--chiefly frequent the

Northern waters, but some of their species are found in the South

Pacific. They represent, it may be assumed, about a one-hundredth

part of the Mammalia.

The _Birds_, by their feather-clad bodies, and by the

transformation of their two fore-limbs into wings, form the

best-characterised class in the whole animal kingdom. But

naturalists can no more agree as to the number of their species

than as to the number of species composing the Mammalia. Some,

taking as a foundation the rich ornithological collection in the

Berlin Museum, allow for 6000 species being distributed over the

surface of the globe; others, like Lessen, increase the total to

6266; while Dr Gray, no mean authority, raises it to at least

8000.

The majority of the _Raptores_, or birds of prey (vulture, falcon,

eagle), as well as nearly all the _Waders_ (stork, crane, heron), and

_Palmipedes_ (duck, goose, water-hen), are cosmopolitan birds. The

other orders, such as the _Scansores_ (parrot, parroquet, magpie),

the _Passeres_ (comprising nearly all the singing birds), and the

_Gallinaceæ_ (pheasant, pintado), prefer, as a general rule, the warm

temperate regions. They are not found in the extreme north, nor in

the equatorial climes, except in limited numbers.

SUMMARY OF THE MAMMALIA.

_Assumed total, 1600 species._

Bimana form 1 species.

Quadrumana " 105 (?) "

Carnivora " 510 (?) "

Rodentia " 508 (?) "

Ruminantia " 165 "

Marsupialia " 123 "

Edentata " 152 "

Pachydermata " 38 "

Cetaceæ " 18 (?) "

----

1600

[Of course, the foregoing is but an approximative estimate, but it

will provide the reader with a tolerably accurate notion of the

proportion borne by the different classes of Mammalia.]

* * * * *

About 5000 species of birds have been classified. By Cuvier's system

they are divided into six orders:--

1. _Raptores_, or birds of prey.

2. _Passerine birds_, now generally called _Insessores_, or

Perching-birds.

3. _Scansores_, or Climbing, frequently called _Zygodactyli_ or

_Zygodactylous_ birds.

4. _Gallinaceæ_, now more frequently known as _Rasores_.

5. _Grallatores_, Waders, or Stilt birds.

6. _Palmipedes_, or Web-footed birds, now more generally

recognised as _Natatores_, or Swimmers.

It has been proposed to separate the _Brevipennes_, or short-winged

birds, from the Grallatores, and erect them into a separate order.

* * * * *

The _Reptiles_, of which the majority possess the faculty of living

upon land and in water,--whence their name of Amphibia,--never pass

beyond the limits of warm and temperate climates: their blood, which

has the same temperature as the medium wherein they live--whence

their name of "cold-blooded animals"--does not circulate where the

mean annual temperature descends below freezing-point. Yet frogs and

salamanders have been met with in Greenland, and on the banks of the

Mackenzie River, in North America, under 67° latitude.

* * * * *

Linnæus was not acquainted with more than 215 species of _Amphibia_,

divided into four orders:--the Chelonians, or tortoises; the Saurians

(as the lizard and crocodile); the Ophidians (serpents); and the

Batrachians (frogs). In 1789, Lacépède raised the total to 303; in

1820, Merrem estimated it at 677. At present, the number of species

of Reptilia classified and described amounts to 2000, and the four

orders into which they are distributed are--

1. _Ophidia_, or Serpents.

2. _Sauria_, or Lizards.

3. _Loricata_, or Crocodiles.

4. _Chelonia_, or Tortoises.

According to Sching, there are 7 tortoises, 33 serpents, and 35

lizards.

* * * * *

_Fishes_ are the least known of those superior animals whose skeleton

and vertebral column are situated in the interior of the body, and

which are thence named _Vertebrata_. The richest collections, such

as those of the British Museum, and those of the Museum of Natural

History in Paris, which contain about 3000 species, do not represent

probably more than a fourth of the existing total, including

fresh-water and salt-water fish. How many rivers and streams in

both hemispheres still remain to be explored! How far we are from

a knowledge of the fishes which people the different strata of the

great ocean.

Agassiz divides this great class of vertebrated animals into the

four orders of _Cycloid, Ctenoid, Placoid, and Ganoid_, according

to the character of their scales. Cuvier, into _Osseous_ fishes

(with true bones), and _Cartilaginous_; subdividing the former into

_Acanthopterygii_ and _Malacopterygii_.

* * * * *

The difficulty of the problem we are here considering increases when

we come to the inferior animals. Who would pretend to determine the

number of species of _Mollusca_ which inhabit the earth, the fresh

waters and the salt? This much is certain, that it cannot be less

than that of the Vertebrates.

* * * * *

In the vast aggregate of the _Articulata_, the inquirer finds himself

utterly astray and bewildered. This great division is not divided

into those which have, and those which have not, articulated members.

The first subdivision includes _Insects_, _Arachnida_, _Crustacea_,

and _Myriapoda_; the second, _Annelida_ and _Entozoa_.

Some naturalists, be it said, rank the _Cirrhopoda_ as intermediate

between the two; others place them among the Mollusca. Others, again,

include the _Rotifera_ in the second subdivision.

We shall in this place confine our remarks to the _Insects_.

According to the most distinguished entomologists, the average number

of species at present, described or not described, and preserved in

entomological collections, is between 150,000 and 170,000.

This estimate is obviously below the truth. Take only the Coleoptera,

which forms but one, though, it is true, the most numerous order of

insects. Thirty years ago the most complete collections contained

about 7000 species. In 1850, the museum at Berlin, according to

Alexander von Humboldt, contained nearly 32,000. We would here

call the reader's attention to the just remarks of the author of

the "Natural History of the Coleoptera," an entomologist of great

authority, whom a long residence in America had peculiarly qualified

to pronounce an opinion on the subject before us:--

"If we remember," says the Count de Castelnau, "that there are

immense regions in Asia and the two Americas of which we do not

possess a single coleoptera; if we reflect that the interior of the

vast continent of New Holland is, from this standpoint, entirely

unknown, and that most of the archipelagoes of the great ocean have

never been entomologically explored, we may conclude, without any

fear of mistake, that the number of existing coleopteras exceeds

_one hundred thousand_. However frightful this number may appear, it

will seem less so if we examine only the species discovered in the

neighbourhood of Paris, within a radius of twelve to fifteen leagues;

and we do not hesitate to say, that in a few years the Parisian fauna

alone will present material for a considerable work, which shall not

treat of less than 3000 to 4000 species of Coleoptera."[84]

* * * * *

If we admit that the other orders of insects, the Lepidoptera, the

Hemiptera, the Hymenoptera, the Neuroptera, the Orthoptera, the

Diptera, the Strepsiptera, comprise, taken altogether, at least the

same number of species as the Coleoptera alone, we shall gain, for

the class of insects, a total of 200,000. And we shall certainly

keep within the truth if we assign the same number of species to

the Annelida, the Crustacea, the Arachnida, the Myriapoda, and the

Monomorpha, to which, with some modification, we may apply the

remarks already called forth by the Coleoptera.

Let us recapitulate. The four classes of _Vertebrate Animals_ include

approximatively:--

1,600 species Mammals.

5,000 " Birds.

2,000 " Reptiles.

12,000 " Fishes.

------

20,600

If we add to these 20,600 species of Vertebrate Animals, 200,000

species of Articulata, and 22,000 Mollusca (a minimum), we shall have

a total of 242,600.

But to complete the grand whole of beings "who grow, and live,

and feel" (the definition of animals laid down by Linnæus), we

must add the Intestinal Worms, the Echinodermata, the Acalephæ

(or Sea-nettles), and the Polypes. The history of these singular

creatures, which apparently form the transition between the animal

and vegetable kingdom, and have thence been designated _Zoophytes_,

leaves much, very much, to be desired before it will be possible to

indicate, even approximatively, the number of their species.

* * * * *

And, finally, what shall we say of the Infusoria? These microscopic

forms of life seem, by their extreme multiplicity, to animate

all nature. It is in studying these that the inquirer needs to

be constantly on his guard, that he may not mistake transitory

conditions--or larvæ--for actual species, and it behoves him to

understand thoroughly the difficult delimitation of specific

characters. It would be far easier to ascertain the exact number of

human beings who at present people the terrestrial surface, than to

fix the total of the species of Infusoria now in existence; assuredly

it exceeds 250,000. What an infinite variety of design is here! What

a picture it presents of the inexhaustibility of the Creative Mind!

* * * * *

Add, then,--let us say, in conclusion,--to this last great total the

aggregate of the Vertebrates, the Articulates, and the Molluscs, and

for our grand whole we have a minimum of _half a million_ of ANIMAL

SPECIES! This is the very figure, observe, at which we arrived as

representing the lowest limit of the totality of VEGETABLE SPECIES,

living and moving, flourishing, and dying, and reproducing, on the

surface of the globe.

We leave the reader to meditate--as meditate he surely must--on the

sublime thoughts, the overpowering ideas of Power and Wisdom which

these considerations suggest.

WHAT IS CHLOROPHYLL?

We are drawing towards the close of autumn; we shall soon be in sight

of the "melancholy days of the year;" when, for a while, the "voice

of the turtle" will cease in the leafless groves, and the banks and

braes will be sadly bare of their floral garniture. As yet, however,

the trees retain their glorious vesture, though streaked and varied

with the gorgeous colours of decay; and in the sheltered corners

of the woods, on the sunny southern slope of the grassy hill, and

beneath the covert of the still fragrant hedgerow, many a blossom

appeals to our souls with its promptings of sweet images and tender

fancies. The arum still raises its clusters of deep-scarlet berries,

and spreads its spotted leaf--

"Armed with keen tortures for the unwary tongue;"

the blue-bells hang their delicate cups among the thick herbage;

and the wild marigold contrasts its yellow splendour with all this

crimson and azure magnificence. The daisy, too, has not forsaken

us--sweet shield of silver, embossed with gold!--but brightens still

the pleasant meadow and the sloping bank.

[Illustration: FIG. 78.--"As yet, the trees retain their glorious

vesture."]

"The rose has but a summer reign,

The daisy never dies;"

and though it first makes its appearance in the merry spring-time,

and is truly a child of the early year, it lingers on to become

a precious ornament of our scanty autumn wreaths. Sweet flower

of song!--dearer to the poet than even lily or violet!--who does

not remember, and remembering feel, all the pathos of the dying

exclamation of poor Keats,--"I feel the daisies already growing over

me!" They heighten the commonest and cheer the saddest corners of

the earth, and are ever ready, in their simple loveliness, to awaken

thoughts of grateful tenderness and love--

"So glad am I when in the daisy's presence,

That I am fain to do it reverence."

To what do the leaves, now changing their hues so rapidly, and

varying through all the tints of purple, brown, and yellow,--to what

do they owe their normal colour, the fresh, vivid, beautiful green?

To a substance called _chlorophyll_--(χλωρὸς, green, and

φυλλον, a leaf).

Well, what _is_ chlorophyll?

The colouring matter of plants, which, accompanied by grains of

starch, floats like very minute seeds in the fluid of their cells. In

some respects it is analogous to wax; it will not dissolve in water,

but is easily affected by ether or alcohol.

Chlorophyll is dependent upon the action of light, if not for its

formation, at all events for its development. Keep a plant in a

dark room or cellar, and it will become blanched and sickly; the

colouring matter dries up, and the white, wan tissue of the leaf is

all that survives. The more a plant is exposed to the light, the

deeper will be its green. In a shrubbery you may notice that the

brown leaves of any particular ever-green or bush, if so situated as

to lose the direct action of the sun's rays, will soon change colour.

Instead of their natural brightness of tint, they assume a sickly

greenish-yellow hue, and are said to be suffering from _chlorosis_.

The formation of the chlorophyll is obstructed, or takes place too

slowly. Of course, this peculiar condition will frequently arise from

bad soil, or a long continuance of damp weather; but it is also the

result of a want of light.

It should be observed that young leaves are always of a lighter green

than old; simply because the latter have been exposed for a longer

time to the light. And so the leaf goes on deepening and deepening in

colour, until the sad days of autumn come, and the green gives way

to yellow and brown and red, owing to the influence of the changing

season on the chlorophyll of the plant.

In reference to this interesting subject,--which deserves to be more

closely investigated,--we may place before the reader the results of

certain recent experiments.[85]

MM. Prillieux, Brongniart, and Roze (_Comptes Rendus_, Jan. 3 and 17)

have made some important observations on the apparently spontaneous

movements of the grains of chlorophyll within the leaves of plants.

These had been observed by Böhm to congregate under the direct action

of the sun; Famitzin, confirmed by Borodine, had also recorded

very marked movements in the leaves of a moss under the influence

of light. This class of plants offer great facilities for these

observations, inasmuch as the movements can be observed in them under

the microscope without dissection. M. Prillieux kept a moss in the

dark for several days, when the cells presented the appearance of a

green network, between the meshes of which was a clear transparent

ground. All the grains of chlorophyll were applied to the walls which

separate the cells from one another; there were none on the upper or

under walls which form the surfaces of the leaf. Under the influence

of light the grains change their position from the lateral to the

superficial walls; under favourable circumstances this change takes

place in about a quarter of an hour. On attaining their new position,

the grains do not remain absolutely immovable, but continually

approach and separate from one another. If again darkened, they

leave their new position and return to the lateral walls. Artificial

light produces the same effect as daylight. M. Brongniart further

observed that this movement of the chlorophyll, under the influence

of light, does not consist in the change of position of isolated

grains, but of masses of network, each containing a certain number

of grains. In addition, M. E. Roze states that, besides the grains

of chlorophyll which coat the walls of the cell, each cell is lined

with a transparent mucous plasma formed of very fine threads, the

extremities of which unite together the grains of chlorophyll. This

protoplasm exhibits, under a high magnifying power, a very slow

motion, and carries the grains of chlorophyll along with it. M. Roze

believes, therefore, that the motion is a plasmic one, the protoplasm

being the vital and animating part of the cell.

CARNATIONS AND PINKS.

Among the latest flowers of the autumnal garden are those old

favourites, the "July-flowers," or _Carnations_, which, because they

were "fair and sweet and medicinal," Jeremy Taylor preferred to "the

prettiest tulips, that are good for nothing." I remember a time when

they were among the best-prized ornaments of our parterres, and very

delicious it was to inhale the balmy breath that rose into the warm

air of an autumn evening from rich masses of carnations and pinks.

The carnations were also called--_sub consule Planco_--in the merry

days when I haunted the green lanes of a pretty Devonshire village,

carnations, and clove July-flowers or gilliflowers; and an ancient

name for the pink was that of sops-in-wine, because they were infused

in the wine-cups of our much-drinking ancestors. So Drayton says:--

"Bring hither the pink and purple columbine,

With gilliflowers;

Bring coronations, and sops-in-wine,

Worn of paramours."

The same poet alludes to them under their more modern appellations:--

"The brave carnation, then, of sweet and sovereign power

(So of his colour called, although a July flower),

With the other of his kind, the speckled and the pale;--

Then the odoriferous pink, that sends forth such a gale

Of sweetness, yet in scents as various as in sorts."

The scientific name of this beautiful family of plants, whose

rich dyes are not less conspicuous than their Sabæan odours, is

_Dianthus_, or "Flower of God." They form a genus of the natural

order Carophyllaceæ; the calyx is tubular, and five-toothed; there

are five petals, which at the throat of the corolla are lightened

(as it were) into a linear "claw." The stamens are double the

number of the petals; the capsule is of a cylindrical outline, and

one-celled.

[Illustration: FIG. 79.--"When I haunted the green lanes of a

Devonshire village."]

I am quite prepared to agree with a sympathetic writer on flowers

that, during summer, and far into the autumn months, the greatest

beauty of our gardens is the varied tribe of Carnations, while their

exquisite, subtle, yet potent aroma is not to be excelled, I think,

or, at all events, is not far surpassed, in strength and sweetness,

by the much-lauded rose. A carnation seems, to my humble taste, the

very embodiment, as it were, of the favourite qualities so insisted

upon by Mr Matthew Arnold, "sweetness and light." And even in winter,

when its radiant petals have disappeared, there is something graceful

to the eye in the long slender leaves of the pink, covered with their

sea-green powdery bloom.

The two species commonly grown in gardens are, the garden pink

(_Dianthus hortensis_) and the carnation proper (_Dianthus

caryophyllus_); both of which are generally referred to one original,

the castle-pink, July-flower, or clove-gilliflower. The carnation, as

a garden flower, was originally brought into England from Germany,

where it has always been a favourite object of cultivation.

There are several hundred varieties of it, which are arranged

into three principal divisions: _flakes_, which are diversified

by broad stripes of two colours only; _bizarres_, which are of

several colours, and very irregularly streaked; and _picotees_ (from

_piquetté_, spotted), whose flowers are besprinkled with different

colours, and their petals fringed or serrated.

In England, the _native_ species of pink are five in number, but

they are mostly rare, or, when abundant, are found in very limited

habitats.

The commonest kind is the little _Deptford Pink_ (_Dianthus

Armeria_), which sometimes grows in thick clusters among the meadow

grass. In shape, its blossom resembles that of the garden pink; in

size, it is about equal to that of the sweet william; and its flowers

grow in a very similar manner. It is a scentless pink, however, with

serrated or notched petals, and its rose-coloured petals curiously

besprinkled with tiny spots of white.

A very pretty species is the _Maiden Pink_ (_Dianthus deltoides_),

which some botanists think to have been the original of our garden

favourite; and a kind deserving notice for its large and fragrant

flowers is the _Dianthus superbus_.

The maiden pink, I should add, has delicate rose-coloured blossoms,

daintily touched with silver, and a white eye encircled by a deep

purple ring. It is not unworthy of its fanciful and highly suggestive

name.

A rare British variety is the _Clustered Pink_, or _Childing Pink_

(_Dianthus prolifer_), which produces its flowers in plentiful

clusters, but is only allowed a season's sunshine.

The _India_ or _China Pink_ (_Dianthus chinensis_) is a native of

Eastern Asia, but has now become a frequent denizen in our English

gardens.

One wild species, the _Mountain Pink_ (_Dianthus cœsius_), it has

never been my fortune to gather in its native home. It is described

as a large handsome flower, and it loves to breathe the "difficult

air" of the lofty mountain-top. "Never," we are told, "is it found

in plain or valley; but it is one of those blossoms whose beauty

gladdens the mountaineer, or bids the traveller wonder that so lovely

a flower should be blushing on the lone summit, scarcely accessible

to his footstep; or cheering a rock, where only the yellow lichen,

or the verdant or gray moss, reminds him of vegetation. Such a

sight might bid one think of the old motto, which accompanied a

wild flower, 'I trust only in Heaven.' How beautiful is it in its

loneliness! Scarce an eye meets it but that of the towering bird, as

he dashes through the air above it, yet is it as full of lustre as

the flowers we daily see and admire. Surely it should arrest the eye

and the thoughts of the traveller as certainly as would a monument of

human skill on such a spot. Like a lone ruin, it is a page of story,

telling not only of the past, but the present, and reminding us of a

Being who has reared it there, where it stands a memento of power and

goodness."

"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

--WORDSWORTH.

Of greater interest, however, because a native species, and more

easily attained, is the _Castle Pink_, to which brief reference has

already been made. Its perfume is like that of precious spices, and

after a shower of rain, the air, for some distance, is actually

interpenetrated with it. As its name indicates, it loves to grow upon

the shattered walls of

"Chiefless castles breathing stern farewells;"

and it may be found, unless swept away by barbarous "improvements,"

adorning the gray old masonry of Sandown Castle, and on ruins in the

neighbourhood of Norwich. On the walls of Rochester's stately keep

it grows at a height which defies the spoiler's hand; and on the

time-worn ruins of an ancient minster, it shines, in the summer-noon,

"with a flush of flowers." It blossoms in July, and there are not,

it is said, more than half-a-dozen spots in England where it may be

found wild.

[Illustration: FIG. 80.--"On the time-worn ruins of an ancient

minster."]

* * * * *

To this dainty and beautiful tribe belongs that common but handsome

and most fragrant flower, the _Bearded Pink_ or _Sweet William_

(_Dianthus barbatus_),--a native of central Europe and southern

France, with long lanceolate leaves, bearded petals, ornamental

bracts, and dense clusters or tufts of crimson or rose-coloured

blossoms. It has long been a favourite with the cottager, for it is

so hardy that it will grow in any soil, and will flourish even in

the odd corner known as the "children's garden." Its popular name,

"long, long ago," was "London tuftes;" and it owes its specific

appellation of _barbatus_, or "bearded," to the nature of its calyx.

That quaintest of quaint old botanists, delightful Gerarde, lavishes

encomiums upon its beauty, and pronounces it meet "to deck up the

bosoms of the beautiful, and garlands and crowns for pleasure." I

suspect that now-a-days it seldom figures in a posy.

* * * * *

To the same order as the Dianthi--that is, to the

_Caryophyllaceæ_--belong many wild flowers of lowly growth but

abounding interest; as, for example, the corn-cockle, whose

lilac-coloured petals, soaring conspicuously among the tall

waving corn, have procured for it the right royal appellation of

_Agrostemma_, or "the crown of the field." So, too, the numerous

species of campion and catchfly (_Silene_), with their singular

expanded calices; and those handsome flowers, the white and rosy

lychnises, which love to air their charms by the side of running

waters. The cottony down upon these plants was wont to be much used

for the wicks of lamps.

* * * * *

Then, too, the whole tribe of chickweeds are included in the

Caryophyllaceæ. They are spring flowers, with pearly white blossoms,

five-petalled, like a five-rayed star, and long slender drooping

leaves. Their resemblance to a star has suggested their scientific

name, _Stellaria_; and they are truly the "stars of the earth,"

glistering among the thick herbage with a modest beauty. The

_Stellaria media_ supplies our song-birds with an abundant and a

wholesome provision.

A handsome wild plant of this order is the Soapwort (_Saponaria

officinalis_). It is common in Kent, and some of the neighbouring

shires, but in many parts of England is never seen. Its full cluster

of rose-hued blossoms is rather larger, and more loosely set

together, than those of the sweet william; which, however, it much

resembles in its leaves, these being opposite to each other, and

nearly sheathing or surrounding the stalk at their bases.

"The juice of the soapwort," says Miss Pratt, "is one of those

vegetable substances which, by making a lather with water, will

cleanse linen, and remove grease as effectually as soap. It grows

more generally in the neighbourhood of villages than in any other

situation, as if providence had placed it there especially for

the service of the cottager; yet it is very little used, either

from ignorance of its properties, or because it would require

some cultivation to render it sufficiently plentiful for household

purposes. It needs the addition of ashes to make it a good soap

for washing linen; but it is of much service to the shepherds on

the Alps, who wash their flocks, previously to shearing them, with

soapsuds made by boiling this plant in water. The large fruit of the

horse-chestnut has similar cleansing properties, and may be used by

cutting it into small pieces, or scraping it into water. It has even

been suggested that if the nuts were reduced to powder, and made

into balls, with some unctuous substance, they would answer all the

purposes of our manufactured soap; and yet numbers of poor people see

these nuts lying decaying in their neighbourhood, and have no idea of

making them of any service."

On the Continent, however, the peasantry are wiser, and not

only provide themselves with chestnuts for soap, but gather the

beech-leaves to stuff their mattresses.

Returning to the Caryophyllaceæ, we may add that some of the

plants of this order have poisonous qualities, which are due to

the principle called _saponine_ existing in many of the species of

Saponaria, Silene, Lychnis, and Dianthus.

According to Lindley, the order includes no less than 53 genera, and

1055 species. They inhabit chiefly temperate and cold regions, and

are ranked in three sub-orders,--Alsineæ, Sileneæ, and Mollugineæ.

THE EGLANTINE AND THE CONVOLVULUS.

What plant do our poets mean by the eglantine? What by the woodbine?

Are they one and the same, or are they different?

We cannot answer those questions until we have referred to three or

four passages in which they are introduced. And, first, let us take

an example from Spenser:--

"And over him, art striving to compare

With nature, did an arbour green dispread,

Framèd of wanton ivy, flowering fair,

Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread

His pricking arms, entrailed with roses red,

Which dainty odours round about them threw,

And all within with flowers was garnishèd,

That when wild Zephyrus amongst them blew,

Did breathe out bounteous smells, and painted colours shew."

And now from Milton:--

"Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,

Or the twisted eglantine."

The following is from Sir Walter Scott:--

"On the hill

Let the white heath-bell flourish still,

Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,

But freely let the woodbine twine,

And leave untrimmed the eglantine."

From Burns:--

"The woodbine I will pu' when the evening star is near,

And the diamond draps of dew shall be her een sae clear."

From Michael Drayton:--

"The azured harebell next with them they neatly mixt:

T' allay whose luscious smell they woodbine placed betwixt ...

The columbine amongst they sparingly do set,

And now and then among, of eglantine a spray."

And lastly, from Shakespeare:--

"And leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

Out-sweetened not thy breath."

There is evidently some confusion here, and the eglantine of one poet

is not the eglantine of another. Sir Walter Scott, we take it, is

thinking of the wild clematis or virgin's bower, when he wishes the

eglantine to remain untrimmed. And Milton undoubtedly refers to the

honeysuckle, which, twisting round the framework of a cottage-porch,

tempts the neighbouring bees to rifle its calyxes of their honeyed

sweets. But the _true_ eglantine of our earlier poets seems to have

been the prickly sweetbriar, formerly called _Rosa eglantina_; now

known as _Rosa rubiginosa_. No plant is of greater value for a garden

hedge, owing to the delicious fragrance exhaled not only by its

flowers but by its leaves.

On the other hand, the "lush woodbine," which so often finds

honourable mention in our poets, is none other than the honeysuckle,

the "twisted eglantine" of Milton. Its botanical name is

_Caprifolium_.

The eglantine and the woodbine, therefore, though occasionally

confounded by careless writers, are two entirely distinct plants; the

former being the sweetbriar of modern gardens, and the latter the

honeysuckle.

[Illustration: FIG. 81.--"Our leafy hedgerows."]

It has been justly said by a writer (whom we have already quoted),

that of all the flowers which, towards the end of summer and the

beginning of autumn, adorn our pastoral scenery, "filling the air

with fragrance, and the earth with beauty," none are more generally

attractive than the wild climbing plants of our leafy hedgerows.

By interlacing their delicate boughs, covered with foliage and

flowers,--or with berries bright and sparkling,--or, as in the wild

clematis, crowned with the lightest, feathery seeds,--they wind

about the trees and bushes in festoons and wreaths of the utmost

elegance,--and contribute in no slight degree to the aspect of

richness and beauty which the landscape exhibits at this time of the

year. As their stems are so slender and delicate that they would be

crushed by the burthen of their flowery clusters and numerous leaves,

or rent and uprooted by the wind, unless they found support from

other plants, we see them hanging by their tendrils, or by their

pliant arms, about the trunks of aged trees,--the ancestral elms,

or "those green-robed senators of mighty woods, tall oaks,"--like a

frail maiden to the sturdy arm of some strong-shouldered brother, or,

it may be, of some one "nearer and dearer still."

In reference to those climbing plants, one curious circumstance

deserves to be noted.

Some of them follow the sun's apparent course, that is, from east to

west,--and always twine around the stem which supports them in the

direction of left to right. Such is the case with the common black

briony, so common in our woods and groves.

Others invariably twine _contrary_ to the sun, or from right to left;

as is the case with the convolvulus, or large white bindweed.

This singular tendency, be it observed, is always constant in each

individual of the species, and if you endeavour to train one of these

plants in a different direction, you will infallibly kill it.

The convolvulus will not grow from left to right, and the black

briony will not grow from right to left. _Crede experto._

The convolvulus, or white bindweed (_Convolvulus sepium_, or

_Calystegia sepium_), is one of the most elegant, though one of

the commonest climbing plants which festoon our willows, or creep

over our grassy banks, or wind in and about our hedges. Its large

white bells, which the country people unpoetically call "old men's

nightcaps," are remarkable for their purity of hue and exquisite

beauty of outline; and the leaves, which are heart-shaped, equally

claim our admiration. Like the pink field-convolvulus (_Convolvulus

arvensis_), or the rosy-hued seaside bindweed (_Calystegia

soldanella_), it is very tenacious of life, and if it once secures

a footing, is eradicated with difficulty. Hence it is dearer to the

poet and artist than to the farmer and gardener, each of whom pursues

it with a determined hostility.

The Convolvulaceæ form a distinct family or order, containing

forty-five genera, and upwards of seven hundred species. They are

found in temperate and tropical countries; and include the dodder,

sweet potato, scammony, spomœa, and the jalap plant.

METAMORPHOSIS.--A PHYSICO-PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATION.[86]

If we are to understand by the term _metamorphosis_ simply "a

change," it is evident that everybody undergoes metamorphosis, is

changed or transformed; nothing _is_, all _becomes_.

The water which flows on for ever, but never twice washes the same

pebbly bed, will afford us an apt image of this perpetual "to become."

But even the said pebbly bed, like the hardest rock, like the

seemingly everlasting granite, must and does change. The compact,

chrystalline, azoic rock, without a trace of life in its dense mass,

would eventually decompose if constantly assailed and affected by

the moving waves of that gaseous ocean whose bed is formed by the

terrestrial crust. If the rock is found covered by more or less

stratified layers, its presence in the bosom of the earth will

attest to passing generations the primordial incandescence of our

planet at some epoch when life as yet was _not_,--when the liquid

element, hurled far away into space under the form of vapour,

exhibited the aspect of a "bearded meteor," or a comet, with blazing

nucleus and incandescent tail. Many the changes which since that

distant epoch have taken place upon the earth, and many more must

occur before our planet ceases to contribute its strain to the grand

harmony of the spheres. Our world will _end_ as surely as it once

had a beginning: its duration, though it be computed by hundreds of

thousands of years, is nothing, will be nothing, compared with that

of the revolution of yonder sun, circling, with its wondrous train of

planets, around some mysterious centre as yet unknown. And in this

period, hitherto incalculable, what chances of perturbation will

necessarily arise?

Let us suppose that the centre around which oscillates, on the one

part, the moon while drawing near and receding from the earth; on the

other, the earth while drawing near and receding from the sun: let

us suppose that these centres oscillate in the same manner around

other centres as yet undetermined,--and this hypothesis is very

rational, since it is based on the principle that everything moves

or changes,--it may happen that in these periodical oscillations,

one or more of the circulating masses will eventually fall into

their focus of attraction, or will start so widely astray that the

wheelwork of our world, the various parts of our planetary system,

will separate,--not to be annihilated, for nothing in the universe

can be _annihilated_,--but to be metamorphosed, and group themselves

elsewhere in a different order.[87]

It is thus that in chemistry, which I would call the _astronomy of

atoms_, it is shown that bodies are only so far decomposed as to

admit of their recombination in new forms; the end of one is the

beginning of another.

Now, that which is true of the systems of the elementary bodies

composing terrestrial matter, is, in all probability, true also--why

should it not be?--of the systems of the celestial bodies.

Differences of magnitude, of space, and of time, which overwhelm

our feeble imaginations, vanish before the unity of plan of the

Creator's thought. A crystalline molecule, which will not affect

the finest balance, is a world, with an equator and poles of its

own, and its central atom round which atomic satellites gravitate.

Whether these atoms are infinitely small or infinitely great,

whether the time of their revolutions is measured by thousandths

of a second or by myriads of years, is of little importance so far

as their gravitation (_ponderation_, or _poising_) is concerned.

For this ponderation is absolutely identical, whether we call it

_affinity_,--when speaking of the atomic movements of chemically

decomposable matter; or _gravitation_ or _attraction_, when referring

to those atoms of the great whole which we call stars, and whose

metamorphic scale is far beyond the range of beings planted on the

surface of one of the stellar atoms. However profound may be the

researches of our astronomers, they will never attain to a knowledge

of the metamorphoses of worlds. The spectacle of celestial spheres

rising anew from their ashes, like "the Arabian bird" of fable, will

be as impossible for them as the knowledge of the decompositions and

recompositions of our material bodies would be for chemists, planted

on the surface of an atom of carbon. How, from such a standpoint,

could they contemplate the manifold forms of matter, and embrace at

a glance all its changes?... Well, we are relatively as powerless as

these imaginary denizens of an atom of matter, rooted as we are to

the crust of a planet,--a molecule suspended in the eternal ocean.

What shall we now say of the forms and movements of _living matter_?

In the first place, that they are infinitely more varied and more

changeful than those of inanimate nature. Next, that the difference

between their metamorphoses is very wide. The eye can follow the

transformations of a rock exposed to the decomposing action of the

agents which surround us on every side. This action is calculable,

and the elements which it has dissociated may be determined and

weighed. The effects of the force, called either affinity or

attraction, which maintains these elements united, are not beyond the

range of our observation; tables of affinity, and of atomic weights,

have been constructed, which enable the chemist to dominate over

matter, just as the astronomer embraces the stars, the atoms of the

world, by the law of universal gravitation.

But no sooner is matter interpenetrated by that mysterious force

which we call life, than our most potent means of investigation

suddenly cease to be efficient. Undoubtedly, you may analyse the

seed before you sow it, and thus may ascertain that it consists

of _carbon_, _hydrogen_, _oxygen_, and _azote_. But with the same

elements attempt to recompose your seed, using exactly the same

proportions as those you discovered in it; and if you think that

your synthesis has been successful, ensure that your grain, once

confided to the earth, shall become a focus of divers movements,

giving birth below to the ramifications of the root, terminated by

the spongioles,--above, to the ramifications of the stem, garnished

with leaves, flowers, and fruits; finally, ensure that this aggregate

of organs, multiplying millions of times the weight and volume of the

seed, shall always and exactly reproduce the same type or the same

species.

If, with your apparatus,--if, with the means at the disposal of

humanity,--you should succeed in achieving all these marvels of

nature; then perhaps you might settle the great problem of what life

is,--whether an independent force, or a simple modification of an

universal force, of which heat, light, electricity, and magnetism,

will be but different modes of manifestation.

And yet, even in such a case, you must not boast too loudly of your

power; for you will find it necessary to turn and return the term you

have arrived at, in every direction; nor will it furnish you with the

relation or the cause of the formidable progression whose _alpha_ and

_omega_, whose beginning and end, escape us so absolutely.

Whence, in all its interminable metamorphoses, whence comes life?

Whither goes it? Were our world to perish, its ruins would not

cease, in their apparently disordered movements, to obey the law of

universal gravitation: they would so group themselves as to form

other worlds, resembling the system of which they were anteriorly

the framework. But this force in no wise tells you why, when, and

how life will make its appearance on these spheroids of revolution,

which, in their state of ponderation, are attracted in the direct

ratio of their masses and in the inverse ratio of the square of their

distances.

* * * * *

This is not all. Man justly plumes himself on having arrived, by a

process of experiment, at the following irrefragable axiom: that "the

matter which serves for the movements of life renews itself, while

the mould or form remains." You may even affirm, without appearing

too adventurous, that the innumerable whirling globules which enter

into the composition of the human blood are so many microscopical

individuals, each with its own proper life,--infinitesimal forms

which are born, and move to and fro, and disappear, and are renewed,

without the individual--whose aggregate they perform--having any

consciousness of all this activity.

Thus it is that the collective integral being which we call humanity,

lives and is developed through the removal of the individuals

composing it,--ephemeral creatures, each of whom thinks himself a god!

Must we stop there? That would be to declare humanity the last

term of a progression whose commencement and end, according to our

own acknowledgment, completely escape us: it would be at once a

contradiction and a flagrant violation of the great law of infinite

continuity which reigns everywhere.

* * * * *

To suppose that beyond humanity there is only nothingness, would be

to enunciate an hypothesis as puerile as that which pretended the

earth was not only the centre of our system, but the sole inhabited

or inhabitable point in the immensity of space, and that the stars

of the firmament were created for the service and pleasure of

mortals. Suppose that this absurd belief were true; of what use, I

ask you, would be all our agitations, all our flutterings, all our

conceptions, all our conquests, all our glories, all our memories,

when the end of the world would sweep away and annihilate our race?

It was well worth the trouble, truly, of being born, of living, and

of suffering, to terminate, after all, in so inglorious a fashion!...

Adhere to your hypothesis, materialist, if you have the courage;

surely, no man of sense can accept it!

* * * * *

Let us now resume the thread of our meditations.

The end of our system has come at last: the sun, the planets, and

their satellites form but one chaotic igneous mass,--a brilliant

fugitive luminary, new-born to the inhabitants of worlds which have

escaped intact.

The dust of our extinguished world will not be scattered hap-hazard;

the molecules of matter, indissolubly linked together by universal

gravitation, will so arrange themselves as to constitute a new, and

perhaps a more perfect world. But in the constitution of this new

world, balanced like the old, our human bones, our ashes united

with those of our ancestors, may have, as far as they are matter,

their due share. As for the Thought which makes the true power of

humanity, which gives to man all his value,--Thought, perfectible and

transmissible,--it will contribute nothing, because it is absolutely

imponderable and impassible. Will it then be lost for ever?

If the world is to last for ever, you may justly regard as immortal

the indefinite transmission of Thought, and the perpetuity of the

memory of certain great men. But will all this avail, if the world

must perish?

The world will never end, you say; it is eternal.

But how do you know this? If it has had a beginning, as geology and

astronomy prove,[90] it will also have an end. This end, however,

will not be an annihilation; it will simply be, as we have already

pointed out, a transformation of matter. As for the problems, whether

nature itself was created, and whether it is eternal, let us leave

them to the discussion of heated theoricians, who are too blind to

perceive that some questions it is wisest neither to affirm nor deny,

but _to know how to ignore_.

* * * * *

The error, then, which we have been considering, destroys itself

through its consequences. Let us admit, in effect, that our

world--such as it is, just as it is--will last for ever. In that case

what becomes of the power and travail of humanity? All they have

accomplished are some slight changes of the terrestrial crust, barely

sufficient, here and there, to modify the influences of climate.

A limited number of men labour, it is true, for the progress and

full development of transmissible thought. But even supposing that,

in the course of centuries, humanity succeeds in comprehending, it

can only _grow_ through the development of the faculties of all its

members, and the due balance of all the social forces by means of

liberty. Supposing that reason, united to science and conscience,

should finally combine in one family the various tribes and peoples

scattered over the earth's broad surface; do you indulge yourself

in the hope of crossing the limits of the human organization, and

establishing the royalty of man "through the interpretation and

imitation of Nature?"

Do you cherish the idea of penetrating, through the perfect union of

all your intellectual forces, the mysteries of creation?

No; you would never dare to form such a hope, to nourish such an

idea, at least unless you felt that the earth (which you must

first demonstrate) comprehends in itself the whole universe, that

the humanity swarming on its surface is eternal, that every other

creature is absolutely subordinate to it: in a word, that Man is all!

But we know how limited is human power. We are not masters even

of the mechanism of the body; the movements of organic life are

independent of our will; we can neither command the stomach, the

lungs, nor the heart: that marvellous process of absorption and

elimination, that perpetual movement hither or thither which

constitutes the essence of the assimilative function, goes on in

us--as in all living beings, animal or vegetable--completely outside

our sphere of activity. Then, without quitting our planet, how

numerous are the movements which still escape the human will!

* * * * *

It is quite different when we lift up our eyes to examine the face of

heaven. We have no grasp whatever of the incommensurable spiraloids

of innumerable worlds to which our own belongs; we have no means

of communicating with the inhabitants of other planets; we cannot

establish any interchange of thought with the _men_ (if there be

any) of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,--who form, perhaps,

like the _men_ of the earth, the most elevated circle of material

life, varying under an infinity of forms upon each of their floating

domiciles.... I see you smiling, reader, because you do not believe

that these _other earths_--satellites of the sun, like our own--are

inhabited by beings analagous to our human race. You are at liberty

not to believe it. But then, to be in agreement with yourselves,

you ought to declare in favour of the Science of the Past, though

demonstrated to be false, against the Science of the Present. Will

you do so? Certainly not. But then, of two things, one: either you

will be obliged to make the earth an unique exception, a kind of

monstrosity in the midst of the other mechanism of the universe,

which will be to throw yourself back upon the erroneous science

of the ancients; or you must perforce admit that the earth is not

specially privileged, and that the other planets, its companions,

have also their human inhabitants.

* * * * *

Is this all? Alas, all this is nothing! The other worlds whose suns

appear to us under the form of scintillating points or stars, will,

undoubtedly, in like manner, possess their systems of planets and

satellites. Why should they divaricate from the general plan of the

universe? Now, multiply the number of the stars--who has counted

them?--with the probable number of their planets, and you will gain,

if this be permitted you, the number of _humanities_ who people

yonder star-sown space. And it is not only with _these_ we must be

able to correspond, but with the humanities of all the nebulæ of

all the firmaments--for remember our starry heaven itself is but

a nebula--that we must establish an interchange of ideas, if you

would have your power, and civilisation, and intellectual royalty,

something more than a mere optical illusion of your pride.

* * * * *

You do not cease to proclaim as an axiom that "there are no abrupt

intervals in Nature;" that Nature never ventures upon sudden leaps

or bounds ("in natura non datur saltus"), and yet you would make

an exception for the world of thought--a world which no more lies

outside the laws of nature than does the physical world. The former

ought even to secure our preference; it is there only that we are

free, that we can become true creators, by creating for ourselves

our own happiness; that we can grow great before our own eyes, by

following, not the tyrannous will of the _brute_, but the tender

voice of the _angel_; by listening to conscience--that pure and

infallible counsellor--conscience, the foundation of all justice, the

latent force of generations passing away and coming, the universal

gravitation of our species as of all the ultra-terrestrial humanities.

* * * * *

But how can the humanities, with which we suppose the universe to be

peopled,--how can they communicate with one another?

The law of attraction comprehends not only the celestial bodies,

but also their intervals, the intersidereal spaces. Do these spaces

present a void to the thinking beings who probably people the stars?

Everything, force and matter, testifies to an entire unity of plan

or thought, and the mind which is powerful enough to rise above all

the attractions and influences of the body, the mind which, by its

continuous labour, alone renders life and man of any importance, the

mind once detached from the animal nature which it drags behind it

like a prisoner to the chariot of his conqueror, shall it be inferior

to inert matter? shall it be less than a ship without its compass?

Continuous here, shall that continuity be elsewhere broken up? Surely

this is impossible.

* * * * *

But how are we to recognise this continuity of essence in a spirit

which, like man's, appears unavoidably fixed, like a parasite, to the

surface of a planet?

Here lies the whole difficulty of the question; a question all the

more perplexing because, in the search after scientific truth,

the mind walks surely and steadily, except when resting upon the

senses,--which are the backbone, so to speak, of the experimental

method.

Answers, indeed, are not wanting, for each religion has its own.

Every creed attempts to solve the problem. But then, faith is

required to accept the answer or solution, and alas! faith is not

implanted in every soul. It is useless, therefore, to wish that it

might be the gift of those who, to the authority of tradition and

long-established dogmas, prefer the liberty of discussion and the

axioms of science. Are our bigots actually aware of what they do when

they seek to compel into their circle of belief those minds which

tend to escape from it at a tangent? We assert that in so doing they

are guilty of an act of iniquity, of a veritable blasphemy.

* * * * *

Some explanation is necessary here. You believe, we hope, in the

majesty, power, wisdom, and mercy of God, in the revelations He has

vouchsafed to man, in the immortality of the soul. These are great

problems, however; the greatest problems a mortal can venture to

discuss. Already I see the bigot frowning; he professes to be shocked

by the word "problem," he would fain substitute for it that of

"certainty" or "truth." Well, through faith we accept them as truths;

but, metaphysically speaking, they may be regarded as problems which

the All-wise has submitted to man's earnest consideration. In fact,

the God in whom you and we believe, in whom you and we put all

our trust, has surrounded them with something of uncertainty, has

invested them with so much of doubtfulness as may test our faith.

Yes, in doing so, He has had a purpose to fulfil. Let us think of a

geometrician--and an ancient writer said that God, by creating the

world, created geometry--for the sake of exercising the minds of his

pupils, his children, giving them a problem to be solved.

If at the same time, he placed before them the solution, he would

assuredly fail in his object. No means would remain of distinguishing

the capable from the incapable, the studious from the indifferent,

the idler from the worker, if they all found the question answered

beforehand!

True, if the problem is too difficult, if the solution lies beyond

the faculties of those whom he wishes to test and put to the proof,

the master will not fail to furnish them with all the elements

necessary for their guidance, whether they consider it from without,

or whether they consider it with the help of their own inner

consciousness.

But science and conscience stand in need of an equally difficult

task; the first, that it may learn to observe clearly, the latter

that it may learn to act purely. And it is here, above all, that the

two-fold nature of man becomes a perplexity and a stumbling-block. On

the one hand, man creates theories, in order to disembarrass himself

of the science which calls for the exercise of powerful and laborious

observation; on the other, he creates dogmas, which he hopes may lull

to sleep that ever active, ever restless conscience, which demands

fertile and beneficial actions, and rejects barren or deceitful

phrases.

It is true that to many minds the discussion of the questions at

which we have hinted seems a sorry work, because the time given

for their discussion is necessarily so limited. What is life? they

say. What can be effected in so short an interval? What can man

hope to accomplish in the few short years that intervene between

manhood, when the mind is mature, and old age, when the intellect

grows enfeebled? These are the men who echo the old poet's mournful

cry:--[91]

"A good that never satisfies the mind,

A beauty fading like the April flowers,

A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,

A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,

An honour that more fickle is than wind,

A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,

A treasury which bankrupt Time devours,

A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind,

A vain delight our equals to command,

A style of greatness in effect a dream,

A swelling thought of holding sea and land,

A servile lot, decked with a pompous name;

Are the strange ends we toil for here below,

Till wisest death make us our urns know."

But the poet, while taking this despondent view of life, forgets--not

only that it is an opportunity, but--that it is the first stage of an

eternal existence, and that the progress begun now shall be continued

hereafter, when the mind, freed from its material clogs, shall enter

upon the full fruition of its wondrous powers. And however brief it

may be, is it not better it should be devoted to noble work than to

ignoble idleness? Is it not better to use it as a time of preparation

than to waste it in empty pleasures? To the despairing wail of the

poet just quoted we would oppose, as far worthier of a gallant

spirit, Ben Jonson's admirable conclusions:--

"It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make men better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see,

And in short measure life may perfect be."

This is the true philosophy; to make our life as perfect as our

faculties will permit, and to look upon it as the introduction to

a grander life, where the problems here discussed shall find a

satisfactory solution.

"Oh for the time when in our seraph wings

We veil our brows before the Eternal Throne--

The day when, drinking knowledge at its springs,

We know as we are known."

Let us beware, however, when we devote our life to the pursuit of

wisdom, that we do not make a false start. Do not let us diverge into

the narrow way of bigotry and dogma. It is the property of exclusive

and intolerant error to dominate and to reign alone. For this

reason we systematically refuse and reject all control; and it is

thus men have been fatally led to lay a rash hand upon intellectual

liberty,--liberty, which the All-wise Himself has refrained from

touching! Such is the early taint of our race, the moral situation of

humanity.

But retribution has followed close upon this violation of all that

is most sacred in our human world. The schools of philosophy, and

the infallible creeds, founded upon authority to the exclusion of

all mental and spiritual freedom, have never ceased to be at war

with one another, and instead of labouring for that union which is

strength,--that union so necessary to the happiness and advancement

of humanity,--they have everywhere sown irreconcilable antipathies

and bloody discords. Such is the religion of those who, under a

pretence of worshipping God, worship only themselves! History affords

us abundant illustrations of this melancholy truth.

Finally, let us return to our metamorphosis. The butterfly,

which the Greeks designated by the same word as the soul, ψυχή,

springs, like every living creature, from an egg. But see what a

transformation this egg undergoes! It becomes a caterpillar--a

transitory form of animal life, remarkable for its voracity; this

caterpillar is in its turn transformed; it grows into a chrysalis,--a

temporary tomb, and whence issues the winged insect, alone adapted to

the discharge of all the functions of a perfect animal. Gluttonous

and greedy of enjoyment, the caterpillar lived for itself. So the

caterpillar has no sex; while the butterfly hovers from flower to

flower, has to seek therein its own nourishment, there to find the

companion with whom its being is to be united.

* * * * *

This metamorphosis impresses the observer; principally because its

periods are so distinct, and are so plainly marked by stages, which

have all the appearance of veritable species. But he would greatly

err if he thought it confined to a certain class of insects. All

insects,--nay, more, all animals, including man himself,--undergo

certain transformations in the course of their lives. Metamorphosis

plays an important part in the unity of the general scheme of

Creative Thought. If it is not always recognised, the reason is, that

its phases are not boldly marked, that the periods blend into one

another, that the various stages are effaced in the continuousness of

the transformation.

* * * * *

But let not this continuity prevent the observer from detecting

or discerning _in that which is, that which is to come_. In the

caterpillar he must learn to see the chrysalis; in the chrysalis he

must be ready to recognise the future butterfly. And in all these

changes the thoughtful mind may acknowledge a significant emblem of

that immortality of the soul, that final transformation of humanity,

which the Word of God has promised to us:--

"Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,

Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;

And, where the fields of Paradise unfold,

Quaff fragrant nectars from their cups of gold.

There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky,

Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!

Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept

On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept.

And such is man; soon from his cell of clay

To burst a seraph in the blaze of day."[92]

To assure ourselves by observation that, in living matter, there

are organs irrevocably destined to decay or disappear, while others

incline and grow towards perfection, is certainly one of the noblest

studies imaginable. If philosophers, instead of employing their time

in profitless speculations, devoted themselves to the examination of

the great Book of Nature, God's second revelation, they would long

ago have discovered what they are still seeking.

And we should now know how to distinguish, in man as in the insect,

the rudimentary condition of his future life; and the belief in the

immortality of the soul would not only be the creed of the Christian,

but a scientific truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: Reference is here invited to Humboldt's _thermal_ and

_isothermal_ lines. See Dr A. K. Johnston's "Physical Atlas," and

Humboldt's "Kosmos."]

[Footnote 79: Sir J. Herschel, "Preliminary Discourse on the Study of

Natural Philosophy."]

[Footnote 80: Professor Balfour's "Manual of Botany," pp. 566-568.]

[Footnote 81: Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," xxii. 46.]

[Footnote 82: Martial, "Epigram.," i. 21.]

[Footnote 83: "Annales des Sciences Naturelles," i. 18.]

[Footnote 84: Count de Castelnau, "Histoire Naturelle des

Coléoptères," i. 7.]

[Footnote 85: As recorded, in a condensed form, in _The Academy_

(Feb. 12, 1870), pp. 131, 132.]

[Footnote 86: This section is translated from M. Hoefer, without

addition or alteration.]

[Footnote 87: From these slow movements, which have been designated

the "secular inequalities," we might with some probability infer

the end of the world, which even Newton regarded as certain,--at

least, unless "the Great Architect at times retouched His work."

The inequalities or secular variations affect the elements of the

orbits, such as the inclination of the plane of the orbit,--the

semi-major axis of the ellipse, or the mean distance of the planet

from the sun,--the eccentricity of the ellipse, or the relation

between the distance which separates the forces from the centre

and the semi-major axis assumed to be unity,--and the movements of

the perihelions and the nodes. These elements change with extreme

slowness. Thus, the inclination of Jupiter diminishes by 8" in a

century; and that of Saturn increases by 9"; but the very ecliptic

varies,--it diminishes 33" in a century.

The variations of the eccentricities are scarcely computable by

centuries; their effect is, that the ellipses insensibly approach or

recede from a circular form.

It is demonstrated by mathematical analysis that these variations are

periodical, and confined within narrow limits, in such wise that "the

planetary system can oscillate only round a certain mean, from which

it never departs except by a very small quantity." But may not this

very mean, which we have taken to be constant, oscillate round a more

distant and still more constant mean?

Observation had long ago detected a continual acceleration in the

movement of Jupiter, and a not less certain diminution in the

movement of Saturn. Now, to say of a star that its velocity augments,

is to declare that it draws nearer its centre of movement. To say

that its velocity decreases, is to affirm that it is retiring from

that centre.

It would seem, therefore, that Jupiter,[88] the greatest of our

planets, is destined to be swallowed up, or absorbed, in the

incandescent mass of the Sun, while Saturn,[89] with its belt and

eight satellites, will gradually wander further and further into

the mysterious infinity of space. It is true enough that these

catastrophes are very distant,--distant to a period of time which

the human imagination cannot even grasp,--and the "common herd" will

certainly feel no anxious apprehension about an event which will not

take place until myriads of years have elapsed.

Yet, in the last century, the question excited the curiosity of

certain scientific societies, and they directed the attention of the

geometers to these formidable perturbations. Euler and Lagrange spent

their keen intellects upon them to no profit. Laplace discovered that

between the mean velocities of Jupiter and Saturn the ratios are

simple, and capable of calculation; five times the velocity of Saturn

perceptibly equals ten times the velocity of Jupiter. These terms,

which, in the regularly-decreasing and indefinite series, might have

been neglected, have acquired a value which was worthy of being taken

into consideration. From thence result, in the movements of the two

planets, those perturbations whose complete development necessitates

a period of upwards of nine hundred years.... This will be, then,

another periodic inequality.

But, independently of the centres, which we suppose to be in

themselves variable, may there not exist, in the space traversed by

our planet, some cause of perturbation? Is our system so isolated in

the universe that it neither receives nor loses aught of that which

constitutes its force and matter? Is there no solidarity between

its different worlds? And if this solidarity exists, is not their

transformation a necessity?]

[Footnote 88: The equatorial diameter of Jupiter in English miles is

56,065; its density is ·24 of the Earth's; its distance from the sun,

494,270,000 miles; inclination of its orbit to the ecliptic, 1° 18'

51".]

[Footnote 89: The equatorial diameter of Saturn in English miles is

79,147; its density, ·12, the Earth = 1; its distance from the sun,

906,200,000 miles; and the inclination of its orbit to the ecliptic,

2° 29' 36".]

[Footnote 90: Our author, it must be understood, is considering these

questions apart from the Scriptural standpoint.]

[Footnote 91: William Drummond.]

[Footnote 92: Samuel Rogers.]

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1870.

The total Solar Eclipse, which is to render famous the month of

December in the present year--famous, that is, in astronomical

annals--deserves, we think, some special notice in our pages. In

1860, the _Himalaya_ was fitted out by Government for the use of

the _savants_ desirous of observing the Solar Eclipse visible that

year in Spain, and the results of the expedition were so important

as fully to warrant the liberality of the Government. The eclipse of

the present year will also be visible in Spain, but the path of the

sun's shadow will pass as far north as Cape Spartel, and, crossing

Algeria, will go northwards, _via_ Sicily, and in the direction of

Constantinople. The totality of the eclipse will not last so long

as that of the Indian eclipse in 1868. The sun will be hidden from

sight for no longer period than about two minutes twelve seconds, and

whatever observations our astronomers are anxious to make must be

made in that brief interval. It may not unreasonably be suggested

that, in so short a time, no data can be ascertained worth the

cost and trouble the proposed expedition will necessitate; but the

reader requires to be informed that the most valuable acquisitions

lately won in the region of solar physics have been the result of

observations which may almost be described as momentary.

What, then, is the important point on which our astronomers hope to

gain information from a close examination of the approaching eclipse?

This question has been ably answered by a well-informed writer in

the _Daily News_. The great problem to be solved is that of the

strange appearance of the solar corona; of that glory of light which

rings round the great luminary when totally eclipsed, to it, as some

astronomers assert, a purely optical phenomenon, or, as others more

reasonably declare, "one of the most imposing of all the features

of the solar system." It is true that the former opinion is held by

such men as Faye, Lockyer, and Professor Airy; but if it be founded

on fact, the phenomenon loses all its importance, and nearly all

its interest. If the other opinion prove correct, and the corona is

discovered to be in reality an appendage of the orb of day, then

the mind must at once acknowledge its unsurpassed splendour, its

magnificent proportions. As its glow and ethereal radiancy often

extends several degrees from the eclipsed sun, its diameter cannot be

less than 2,800,000 miles.

Assume, then, that it is shaped like a globe, that it is the globular

envelope (so to speak) of the sun, and we may conclude that its outer

boundary would at most enclose a volume twenty-seven times as large

as the sun's, or, in other words, _twenty-seven million times_ larger

than our terrestrial world.

It is in reference to this magnificent phenomenon that we hope to

obtain some satisfactory information in December 1870. The results

ascertained from the eclipse of 1868 proved to be almost directly

contradictory to those obtained last year in the United States,

and the problem now is, to discover _why_ these results were

contradictory.

In the meantime,--observes the writer already quoted,--some

astronomers say that the observations already made suffice to show

the real nature of the solar corona. "It has frequently happened

that, with the means of solving a problem ready at their hands,

astronomers have been content rather to wait till new observations

removed their doubts, than to undertake the work of carefully

analysing the facts already discovered. It is urged that the

atmospheric explanation (Faye's and Lockyer's) is opposed by simple

optical considerations; that the blackness of the moon's disc, in

the very heart of the corona, affords the most unmistakable evidence

that the moon lies nearer to us than the corona." The solar glare

which, according to Faye's theory, illuminates our atmosphere,

ought, according to this view--and ordinary reasoners will think

this argument irrefragable--to cover the lunar disc as well as the

surrounding heavens.

It is also argued, very forcibly, that the active atmosphere above

the horizon of the observer is partially obscured during total

eclipse, while all that part lying in the direction in which the

corona is seen is wholly shielded from the direct rays of the sun,

and cannot, therefore, furnish the "atmospheric glare" on which M.

Faye relies.

M. Faye's theory is powerfully combated in a paper read by Mr Proctor

before the Royal Astronomical Society, and a summary of which

appeared in "Nature."[93]