Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 10 of 407 - First - Home
EQUINOCTIAL PLANTS COLLECTED IN MEXICO, IN THE ISLAND OF
CUBA, IN THE PROVINCES OF CARACAS, CUMANA, AND BARCELONA, ON THE
ANDES OF NEW GRENADA, QUITO, AND PERU, AND ON THE BANKS OF THE RIO
NEGRO, THE ORINOCO, AND THE RIVER AMAZON.
M. Bonpland has in this work given figures of more than forty new
genera of plants of the torrid zone, classed according to their
natural families. The methodical descriptions of the species are
both in French and Latin, and are accompanied by observations on
the medicinal properties of the plants, their use in the arts, and
the climate of the countries in which they are found.
1.I.3. MONOGRAPHY OF THE MELASTOMA, RHEXIA, AND OTHER GENERA OF
THIS ORDER OF PLANTS.
Comprising upwards of a hundred and fifty species of melastomaceae,
which we collected during the course of our expeditions, and which
form one of the most beautiful ornaments of tropical vegetation. M.
Bonpland has added the plants of the same family, which, among many
other rich stores of natural history, M. Richard collected in his
interesting expedition to the Antilles and French Guiana, and the
descriptions of which he has communicated to us.
1.I.4. ESSAY ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS, ACCOMPANIED BY A PHYSICAL
TABLE OF THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS, FOUNDED ON MEASURES TAKEN FROM
THE TENTH DEGREE OF NORTHERN TO THE TENTH DEGREE OF SOUTHERN
LATITUDE.
I have endeavoured to collect in one point of view the whole of the
physical phenomena of that part of the New Continent comprised
within the limits of the torrid zone from the level of the Pacific
to the highest summit of the Andes; namely, the vegetation, the
animals, the geological relations, the cultivation of the soil, the
temperature of the air, the limit of perpetual snow, the chemical
constitution of the atmosphere, its electrical intensity, its
barometrical pressure, the decrement of gravitation, the intensity
of the azure colour of the sky, the diminution of light during its
passage through the successive strata of the air, the horizontal
refractions, and the heat of boiling water at different heights.
Fourteen scales, disposed side by side with a profile of the Andes,
indicate the modifications to which these phenomena are subject
from the influence of the elevation of the soil above the level of
the sea. Each group of plants is placed at the height which nature
has assigned to it, and we may follow the prodigious variety of
their forms from the region of the palms and arborescent ferns to
those of the johannesia (chuquiraga, Juss.), the gramineous plants,
and lichens. These regions form the natural divisions of the
vegetable empire; and as perpetual snow is found in each climate at
a determinate height, so, in like manner, the febrifuge species of
the quinquina (cinchona) have their fixed limits, which I have
marked in the botanical chart belonging to this essay.
1.I.5. OBSERVATIONS ON ZOOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.
I have comprised in this work the history of the condor;
experiments on the electrical action of the gymnotus; a treatise on
the larynx of the crocodiles, the quadrumani, and birds of the
tropics; the description of several new species of reptiles,
fishes, birds, monkeys, and other mammalia but little known.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 10 of 407
Words from 4687 to 5230
of 211363
