Read Ebook: Views of nature: or Contemplations on the sublime phenomena of creation with scientific illustrations by Humboldt Alexander Von Bohn Henry G Henry George Translator Ott E C Elise C Translator

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HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA pp. 204-209.

Pentland's measurements in the eastern mountain-chain of Bolivia. Volcano of Aconcagua, according to Fitz-Roy and Darwin. Western mountain-chain of Bolivia--pp. 204-205. Mountain systems of North America. Rocky Mountains and snowy chain of California. Laguna de Timpanogos--pp. 205-207. Hypsometric profile of the Highland of Mexico as far as Santa F?--pp. 207-209.

IDEAS FOR A PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS pp. 210-231.

Universal profusion of life on the slopes of the highest mountain summits, in the ocean and in the atmosphere. Subterranean Flora. Siliceous-shelled polygastrica in masses of ice at the pole. Podurellae in the ice tubules of the glaciers of the Alps; the glacier-flea . Minute organisms of the dust fogs--pp. 210-213.

History of the vegetable covering. Gradual extension of vegetation over the naked crust of rock. Lichens, mosses, oleaginous plants. Cause of the present absence of vegetation in certain districts.--pp. 213-220.

Each zone has its peculiar character. All animal and vegetable conformation is bound to fixed and ever-recurring types. Physiognomy of Nature. Analysis of the combined effect produced by a region. The individual elements of this impression. Outline of the mountain ranges; azure of the sky; shape of the clouds. That which chiefly determines the character is the vegetable covering. Animal organizations are deficient in mass; the mobility of individual species, and often their diminutiveness, conceals them from view--pp. 220-223.

Enumeration of the forms of Plants which principally determine the physiognomy of Nature, and which increase or diminish from the equator towards the Pole, in obedience to established laws--

Enjoyment resulting from the natural grouping and contrasts of these plant-forms. Importance of the physiognomical study of plants to the landscape-painter--pp. 229-231.

Organisms, both animal and vegetable, in the highest Alpine regions, near the line of eternal snow, in the Andes chain, and the Alps; insects are carried up involuntarily by the ascending current of air. The small field-mouse of the Swiss Alps. On the real height to which the Chinchilla laniger mounts in Chili--pp. 232-233.

Lecideae, Parmeliae on rocks not entirely covered with snow; but certain phanerogamic plants also stray in the Cordilleras beyond the boundary of perpetual snow, thus Saxifraga Boussingaulti to 15,773 feet above the level of the sea. Groups of phanerogamic Alpine plants in the Andes chain at from 13,700 to nearly 15,000 feet high. Species of Culcitium, Espeletia, Ranunculus, and small moss-like umbellifera, Myrrhis andicola, and Fragosa arctioides--pp. 233-234. Measurement of Chimborazo, and etymology of the name--pp. 234-236. On the greatest absolute height to which men in both continents, in the Cordilleras and the Himalaya,--on the Chimborazo and Tarhigang--have as yet ascended--p. 236.

Economy, habitat, and singular mode of capturing the Condor by means of palisades--pp. 237-239. Use of the Gallinazos in the economy of nature, for purifying of the air in the neighbourhood of human dwellings; their domestication--pp. 239-240.

On the so-called revivification of the rotifera, according to Ehrenberg and Doy?re; according to Payen, germs of Cryptogamia retain their power of reproduction in the highest temperature--pp. 240-241.

Diminution, if not total suspension, of organic functions in the winter-sleep of the higher classes of animals--p. 242. Summer-sleep of animals in the tropics. Drought acts like the cold of winter. Tenrecs, Crocodiles, Tortoises, and East-African Lepidosirens--pp. 242-244.

Pollen, Fructification of Plants. The experience of many years concerning the Coelebogyne; it brings forth mature seeds in England without a trace of male organs--pp. 244-245.

The phosphorescence of the Ocean through luminous animals as well as organic fibres and membranes of the decomposing animalculae. Acalephae and siliceous-shelled luminous infusoria. Influence of nervous irritability on the coruscation--pp. 245-250.

Pentastoma, inhabiting the lungs of the rattle-snake of Cumana--p. 251.

Probable depth of the coralline structures--pp. 258-260. Besides a great quantity of carbonate of lime and magnesia, the madrepores and Astreae contain also some fluoric and phosphoric acid--pp. 260-261. Oscillating state of the sea-bottom according to Darwin--pp. 261-262.

Irruptions of the sea. Mediterranean Sea. Sluice-theory of Strato. Samothracian legends. The Myth of Lyctonia and the submerged Atlantis--pp. 262-266. Concerning the precipitation of clouds--p. 266. The indurating crust of the earth while giving out caloric. Heated currents of air, which in the primordial period, during the frequent corrugations of the mountainous strata, and the upheaval of lands, have poured into the atmosphere through temporary fissures and chasms--pp. 266-268.

According to an estimate based on the number of the annual rings, there are yews of from 2600 to 3000 years old. Whether in the temperate northern zone that part of a tree which faces the north has narrower rings, as Michael Montaigne asserted in 1581? Gigantic trees, of which some individuals attain a diameter of above 20 feet and an age of several centuries, belong to the most opposite natural families--pp. 273-274.

Diameter of the Mexican Schubertia disticha of Santa Maria del Tule 43, of the oak near Saintes 30 feet. The age of this oak considered by its annual rings to be from 1800 to 2000 years. The main stem of the rose-tree at the crypt of the church of Hildesheim is 800 years old. A species of fucus, Macrocystis pyrifera, attains a length of more than 350 feet, and therefore exceeds all the conifera in length, not excepting the Sequoia gigantea itself--pp. 274-276.

Investigations into the supposed number of the phanerogamic species of plants, which have hitherto been described or are preserved in herbariums. Numerical ratios of plant-forms. Discovered laws of the geographical distribution of the families. Ratios of the great divisions: of the Cryptogamia to the Cotyledons, and of the Monocotyledons to the Dicotyledons, in the torrid, temperate, and frigid zones. Outlines of arithmetical botany. Number of the individuals, predominance of social plants. The forms of organic beings stand in mutual dependence on each other. If once the number of species in one of the great families of the Glumaceae, Leguminosae, or Compositae, on any one point of the earth, be known, an approximative conclusion may be arrived at not only as to the number of all the phanerogamia, but also of the species of all remaining plant-families growing there. Connection of the numerical ratios here treated on in the geographical distribution of the families, with the direction of the isothermal lines. Primitive mystery in the distribution of types. Absence of Roses in the southern, and of Calceolarias in the northern zone. Why has our heath , and why have our Oaks not progressed eastwards across the Ural into Asia? The vegetation-cycle of each species requires a certain minimum heat for its due organic development--pp. 273-287.

Analogy with the numeric laws in the distribution of animal forms. If more than 35,000 species of phanerogamia are now cultivated in Europe, and if from 160,000 to 212,000 phanerogamia are now contained, described and undescribed, in our herbariums; it is probable that the number of collected insects scarcely equals that number of phanerogamia; whereas in individual European districts the insects collected preponderate in a threefold ratio over the phanerogamia--pp. 287-291.

Considerations on the proportion borne by the number of the phanerogamia actually ascertained, to the entire number existing on the globe--pp. 291-295.

Influence of the pressure of atmospheric strata on the form and life of plants, with reference to Alpine vegetation--pp. 295-296.

Specialities on the plant-forms already enumerated. Physiognomy of plants discussed from three different points of view: the absolute difference of the forms, their local preponderance in the sum total of the phanerogamic Floras, and their geographical as well as climatic dispersion--pp. 296-346. Greatest height of arboral plants; examples of 223 to 246 feet in Pinus Lambertiana and P. Douglasii, of 266 in P. Strobus, of 300 feet in Sequoia gigantea and Pinus trigona. All these examples are from the north-western part of the New Continent. The Araucaria excelsa of Norfolk Island, accurately measured, rises only from 182 to 223 feet; the Alpine palms of the Cordilleras , only 190 feet--pp. 322-324. A contrast to these gigantic vegetable forms, presented not merely by the stem of the arctic willow stunted by cold and exposure on the mountains, but also in the tropical plains by the Tristicha hypnoides, a phanerogamic plant which is hardly three French lines in height, when fully developed--pp. 324-325.

Bursting forth of blossoms from the rough bark of the Crescentia Cujete, of the Gustavia augusta, from the roots of the Cacao tree. The largest blossoms borne by the Rafflesia Arnoldi, Aristolochia cordata, Magnolia, Helianthus annuus--p. 348.

The different forms of plants determine the scenic character of vegetation in the different zones. Physiognomic classification, or distribution of the groups according to external facies, is from its basis of arrangement entirely different from the classification according to the system of natural families. The physiognomy of plants is based principally on the so-called organs of vegetation, on which the preservation of the individual depends; systematic botany bases the classification of the natural families on the consideration of the organs of reproduction, on which the preservation of the species depends--pp. 348-352.

ON THE STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION OF VOLCANOS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE EARTH-- pp. 353-375.

Influence of travels in distant lands on the generalization of our ideas and on the progress of physical orology. Influence of the conformation of the Mediterranean on the earliest ideas respecting volcanic phenomena.--COMPARATIVE GEOLOGY OF VOLCANOS. Periodical return of certain revolutions in nature, the cause of which lies deep in the interior of the globe. Proportion of the height of volcanos to that of their cone of ashes in the Pichincha, Peak of Teneriffe, and Vesuvius. Changes in the height of volcanic mountain summits. Measurements of the margins of the crater of Vesuvius from 1773 to 1822; the author's measurements embrace the period from 1805 to 1822--pp. 353-365. Circumstantial description of the eruption in the night between the 24th and 25th of October, 1822. Falling in of a cone of ashes more than 400 feet high, which stood in the interior of the crater. The eruption of ashes from the 24th to the 28th of October, was the most memorable among those, of which authentic accounts are possessed, since the time of the elder Pliny--pp. 365-371.

Difference between volcanos that are of very diverse forms, with permanent craters, and the phenomena more rarely observed in historic times, in which trachytic mountains suddenly open, eject lava and ashes, and reclose, perhaps for ever. The latter phenomena are peculiarly instructive for geognosy, because they remind us of the earliest revolutions that occurred in the oscillating, upheaved, fissured surface of the earth. In ancient times they led to the notion of the Pyriphlegethon. Volcanos are intermittent earth-springs, the result of a permanent or transitory connection between the interior and exterior of our planet, the result of a reaction of the still fluid interior against the crust of the earth; hence the question is useless, as to what chemical substance burns in the volcanos, and furnishes the material for combustion--pp. 371-373. The primary cause of subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the formative process itself, the separation of the conglomerating mass from a cosmic vaporous fluid. Power and influence of the calorific radiation from numerous deep fissures, unfilled veins in the primordial world. Great independence, at that period, of the climate in respect to geographical latitude, the position of the planet towards the central body, the sun. Organisms of the present tropical world buried in the icy north--pp. 373-375.

Barometric measurements on Vesuvius, comparison of the two crater-margins and the Rocca del Palo--pp. 376-379. Increase of temperature with depth, being 1? of Fahrenheit for every 54 feet. Temperature of the Artesian well in Oeynhausen's Bath , at the greatest depth yet reached below the level of the sea. As early as the third century the thermal springs near Carthage led Patricius, Bishop of Pertusa, to form correct suppositions respecting the cause of calorific increase in the interior of the earth--p. 379.

THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA, AND FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC FROM THE RIDGE OF THE ANDES. pp. 390-420.

Cinchona, or Quina-woods in the valleys of Loxa. First use of the fever-bark in Europe; the Vice-Queen Countess of Chinchon--pp. 390-392.

Alpine vegetation of the Paramos. Ruins of ancient Peruvian causeways; they rise in the Paramo del Assuay almost to the height of Mont Blanc--p. 394. Singular mode of communication, by a swimming courier--p. 399.

Descent to the Amazon River. Vegetation around Chamaya and Tomependa; red groves of Bougainvillaea. Rocky ridges which cross the Amazon River. Cataracts. Narrows of the Pongo de Manseriche, in which the mighty stream, measured by La Condamine, is hardly 160 feet broad. Fall of the rocky dam of Rentema, which for several hours, laid bare the bed of the river, to the terror of the inhabitants on its banks--p. 401.

Passage across the Andes chain, where it is intersected by the magnetic equator. Ammonites of nearly 15 inches, Echini and Isocardia of the chalk-formation, collected between Guambos and Montan, nearly 12,800 feet above the sea. Rich silver-mines of Chota. The picturesque, tower-like Cerro de Gualgayoc. An enormous mass of filamentous virgin silver in the Pampa de Navar. A treasure of virgin gold, twined round with filamentous silver, in the shell-field , so named on account of the numerous fossils. Outbursts of silver and gold ores in the chalk-formations. The little mountain-town of Micuipampa lies 11,873 feet above the sea--pp. 402-405.

Across the mountain wilderness of the Paramo de Yanaguanga the traveller descends into the beautiful embosomed valley or rather Plateau of Caxamarca . Warm baths of the Inca. Ruins of Atahuallpa's palace, inhabited by his indigent descendants, the family of Astorpilca. Belief entertained there, in the existence of subterranean golden gardens of the Inca; said to be situated in the lovely valley of Yucay, under the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and at many other points. Conversation with the son of the Curaca Astorpilca. The room is still shown in which the unfortunate Atahuallpa was kept prisoner for nine months, from the November of 1532; also the wall on which he made a mark to indicate the height to which he would cause the room to be filled with gold, if his persecutors would set him free. Account of the prince's execution on the 29th of August, 1533, and remarks on the so-called "indelible blood stain" on a stone slab before the altar in the chapel of the city prison--pp. 406-414. How the hope in a restoration of the Inca empire, also indulged in by Raleigh, has been maintained among the natives. Causes of this fanciful belief--p. 414.

Journey from Caxamarca to the sea-coast. Passage across the Cordilleras through the Altos de Guangamarca. The often disappointed hope of enjoying the sight of the Pacific from the crest of the Andes, at last gratified, at a height of 9380 feet--pp. 415-420.

On the origin of the name borne by the Andes Chain p. 421.

Epoch of the introduction of Cinchona bark into Europe--p. 422.

Ruins of the Inca's causeways and fortified dwellings; Aposentos de Mulalo, Fortaleza del Ca?ar, Inti-Guaycu--p. 423.

On the ancient civilization of the Chibchas or Muyscas of New Granada--p. 425. Age of the culture of the potato and banana--p. 427. Etymology of the word Cundinamarca, corrupted from Cundirumarca, and which, in the first years of republican independence, designated the whole country of New Granada--p. 427.

Chronometric connection of the city of Quito with Tomependa, on the upper course of the Amazon River, and the Callao de Lima, the position of which was accurately determined by the transit of Mercury on the 9th of November, 1802--p. 428.

On the tedious court ceremonies. of the Incas. Atahuallpa's imprisonment and unavailing ransom--p. 429.

Free-thinking of the Inca Huayna Capac. Philosophical doubts on the official worship of the sun, and obstacles to the diffusion of knowledge among the lower and poorer classes of people, according to the testimony of Padre Blas Valera--p. 431.

Raleigh's project for the restoration of the Inca dynasty under English protection, which should be granted for an annual tribute of several hundred thousand pounds--p. 432.

Columbus' earliest evidence of the existence of the Pacific. It was first seen on the 25th of September, 1513, by Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and first navigated by Alonso Martin de Don Benito--p. 432.

On the possibility of constructing an Oceanic canal through the isthmus of Panama . Points, the exploration of which has been hitherto totally neglected--p. 435.

Determination of the longitude of Lima--p. 435.

ON STEPPES AND DESERTS.

At the foot of the lofty granitic range which, in the early age of our planet, resisted the irruption of the waters on the formation of the Caribbean Gulf, extends a vast and boundless plain. When the traveller turns from the Alpine valleys of Caracas, and the island-studded lake of Tacarigua, whose waters reflect the forms of the neighbouring bananas,--when he leaves the fields verdant with the light and tender green of the Tahitian sugar-cane, or the sombre shade of the cacoa groves,--his eye rests in the south on Steppes, whose seeming elevations disappear in the distant horizon.

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