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which the sky clears, and discovers the face of nature changed as by enchantment. Before the storm, the fields were parched up; and, except in the beds of the rivers, scarce a blade of vegetation was to be seen; the clearness of the sky was not interrupted by a single cloud, but the atmosphere was loaded with dust, which was sufficient to render distant objects dim as in a mist, and to make the sun appear dull and discolored till he attained a considerable elevation; a parching wind blew like a blast from a furnace, and heated wood, iron, and every solid material, even in the shade; and immediately before the monsoon, this wind had been succeeded by still more sultry calms. But when the first violence of the storm is over, the whole earth is covered with a sudden but luxuriant verdure; the rivers are full and tranquil; the air is pure and delicious; the sky is varied, and embellished with clouds."

It

This change, from what may be termed a tropical winter, though arising from an excess of heat instead of cold, to all the beauty and luxuriance of spring, proves, without any detail, that a constitution has been given to tropical plants, adapted to their situation and circumstances, and sufficiently marks the peculiar wisdom of the arrangement as regards the vegetable kingdom. Let it be remarked, too, that the monsoon takes place precisely at the very time when, but for this change, the heat would have become excessive and intolerable. occurs at the period when the sun is approaching his zenith in that parallel, and would have darted his vertical rays on the earth with unmitigated fierceness, were not a providential hand to interpose a veil of clouds, and cause them to pour forth their refreshing stores. This change is not the less admirable, that it is produced by the operation of known and uniform laws; and, assuredly, the wise adjustment, and balancing of the great mechanical powers of Nature, is no unequivocal proof of Divine

agency.

On turning to the animal productions within the tropics, we discover similar marks of beneficent design in the adaptation of their natures to the circumstances of the

I.

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VII.

climate. M. Lacordaire, as quoted by Mr. Kirby, [in his Bridgewater Treatise,] gives a striking account of the state of animated nature in Brazil. The great rains begin to fall in that country about the middle of September, when all nature seems to awake from its periodical repose; vegetation resumes a more lively tint ; the greater part of plants renew their leaves; and the insects begin to appear. In October, the rains are rather more frequent, and with them the insects; but it is not till towards the middle of November, when the rainy season is definitely set in, that all the families seem suddenly to develope themselves; and this general impulse, which all nature seems to receive, continues augmenting till the middle of January, when it attains its acme. The forests present, then, an aspect of movement and life, of which our woods in Europe can give no idea. During part of the day, we hear a vast and uninterrupted hum, in which the deafening cry of the treehopper prevails, and you cannot take a step, or touch a leaf, without putting insects to flight. At eleven in the forenoon, the heat has become almost insupportable, and all animated nature becomes torpid; the noise diminishes; the insects and other animals disappear, and are seen no more till the evening. Then, when the atmosphere is again cool, to the morning species succeed others, whose office it is to embellish the nights of the torrid zone. I am speaking of the glowworms and fire-flies; whilst the former, issuing by myriads from their retreats, overspread the plants and shrubs, the latter, crossing each other in all directions, weave in the air, as it were, a luminous web, the light of which they diminish or augment at pleasure. This brilliant illumination only ceases when the night gives place to the day.

These observations as to the effects of climate within the tropics, harmonizing as they do with what occurs in other regions of the earth, tend to show what surprising attention has been paid by the great Creator, in the adaptation of organized existences, both vegetable and animal,

*Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 20 Juin, 1830, p. 193.

and more especially the latter, with its instincts and habits, to their geographical position, and what skill has been employed in diffusing life and enjoyment throughout the world. Facts of a similar kind, will meet us every where in the course of our inquiry.

THIRD WEEK-TUESDAY.

ADAPTATION OF ORGANIZED EXISTENCES TO TEMPERATE AND POLAR CLIMATES.

OUR attention was yesterday directed to those beneficent arrangements, by which organized existences, within the tropics, are adapted to their geographical position. The same observation may be extended to all the other regions of the earth, and the further the subject is investigated, the more shall we find reason to admire and adore the Divine wisdom, so variously, and every where so beneficently, displayed.

Among a vast profusion of instances which might be selected, I will take the history of the camel, which recommends itself to our notice at present, as being peculiarly appropriate, in our descent to climates of a lower temperature, because the range of this animal is extended from the tropical into the temperate regions; and, because, within that range, its conformation and habits are curiously and exclusively suited to a peculiar locality. The camel, including, of course, the dromedary, which is only a variety of the species, is an animal distinctly formed by the Author of Nature, to subsist, and to contribute to the comfort of man, in the parched and sandy wildernesses, which, in the vast regions of the East, stretch from the tropics far into the temperate zone. A description, abridged from Goldsmith, may suffice for our purpose.

The camel is the most temperate of all animals, and

it can continue to travel, for several days, without drinking. In those vast deserts, where the earth is very dry and sandy; where there are neither birds nor beasts, neither insects nor vegetables; where nothing is to be seen but hills of sand, and heaps of stones; there the camel travels, posting forward, without requiring either drink or pasture, and is often found six or seven days without any sustenance whatever. Its feet are formed for travelling on sand, and are utterly unfit for moist or marshy places. In Arabia, and those countries where the camel is turned to useful purposes, it is considered as a sacred animal, without whose help the natives could neither subsist, traffic, nor travel. Its milk makes a part of their nourishment; they feed upon its flesh, particularly when young; they clothe themselves with its hair; and, if they fear an invading enemy, their camels serve them in flight; and, in a single day, they are known to travel a hundred miles. Thus, by means of the camel, an Arabian finds safety in his deserts. All the armies on earth might be lost in pursuit of a flying squadron of this country, mounted on their camels, and taking refuge in solitudes, where nothing interposes to stop their flight, or to force them to await the invader. There are, here and there, in the dreary wastes inhabited by the Arabian, found spots of verdure which, though remote from each other, are, in a manner, approximated by the labor and industry of the camel. Thus the Arab lives independent and tranquil amidst his solitudes; and, instead of considering the vast wilds spread around him as a restraint upon his happiness, he is, by experience, taught to regard them as the ramparts of his freedom. Who does not admire

in this remarkable instance, the beneficent intentions of Providence, in the structure and habits of an animal so exclusively adapted to regions of heat, sterility, and drought?

In the temperate regions, similar adaptations to the season of scarcity are familiar to the student of nature; but, as it is in this zone of moderate climate that we dwell, and from it, therefore, that our illustrations will, in the following pages, be chiefly taken, I shall pass to its ex

treme verge, towards the polar circles, where the countries, although they still bear the geographical title of temperate, have ceased, in reality, to deserve it, and are rapidly tending to an extreme, in which organized beings are no longer to be found. The Laplander, the Greenlander, the inhabitants of Nova Zembla and Labrador, although, in winter, they suffer many privations, greater, than are experienced in our more favored climate, are yet furnished with many alleviations, which prove, that their comfort and enjoyments have not been forgotten by Him, who appointed the bounds of their habitation.

Some inhabitants of these severe regions, have received from a bountiful Providence the gift of the rein-deer; which is not less adapted to their wants than the camel is to those of the Arab. It furnishes them with the means of rapid and easy conveyance from place to place; while its skin supplies them with clothing for their bodies, and covering for their tents, its flesh is their necessary food, and its milk their delicious drink. Their long winter night, for it is one uninterrupted night during several months, is cheered by a bright twilight, and the brilliant and busy coruscations of that wonderful meteor, the aurora borealis ; and, when they retire to their humble dwellings, they find at once, light and heat in the blaze of the oil abundantly extracted from the fish, which their industry has drawn from the neighboring seas.

In Greenland, and the countries bordering on Baffin's Bay, where the rein-deer is but seldom, if at all, domesticated, the inhabitants have other means of supplying, though less comfortably, the necessaries of life which this useful animal provides to the northern inhabitants of Europe. They build their winter huts of snow, within which they light their fires, without danger of its melting, so long as the intensity of the cold prevails; and, within these apparently miserable habitations, they experience more enjoyment than the natives of genial climes can easily conceive possible. The frost preserves from corruption the animal food they have stored; and, so long as their provisions remain, they seem to have no great care for the future. Having few wants, and little

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