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Show ZGO GERI\IES OF FUNGI. fongi; and they carry on their labours, g:owrng at the tops summer and winter, and decaymg at t~e bottoms, till they form a soil often many feet 1n thickness ' and sometimes rising higher than any of the neighbouring grounds. . Those invisible seeded plants, as well as some .of the animals which are minute in their size, pecuhar in their situations, and widely different in th.eir for~s and habits from those quadrupeds and btrds wtth which we are most familiar, and which have ~ecome, as it were, the types of animals generally, m common lanrruarre, have given occasion, not only to a belief that the~e is organic matter in so neutral a state as that it may of itself become a la~d o~ a water plant, according as it falls. in.th~ one st~uatwn or the other but also that there 1s morgamc matter so nearly approaching to vitality that. it not only ~an but actually does, become alive ?f 1tself. That ts a doctrine which is not only beheved among those who have no pretensions to natu~al knowle~ge, but it is always now and then appeanng under dttferent modifications among those who have; and therefore it is one arrainst which beginners in the .useful study of nature should be particularly .on t~etr guard. It is as much as saying that cm·ta~n kmds ~f matter can without the agency of any thmg else, gtve themsel~ es new qualities-qualities w~ich were n?t merely previously unknown, but whteh actua~ly dtd not exist. Now if that be true of any one ~{m? of matter, be that what it may, there is _no denymg 1t to any and every kind of matter; ai~d 1f that were the case, we should have all the species of ~atter confounded and jumbled together; and that 1~ a conclusion against which we should m~st especmlly be on our guard, because it would unlunge all our natural knowledge. . vVhen we come to examine plants and ammals. and reflect upon the immense vari~ty w~ich they present, in size, in structure, and m hab1ts, we cannot SOURCE OF LIFE. 267 easily avoid putting the question, "Why they should be. thus or thus." But, though a tempting question, tIS a dangerous one, and we must presume no more than we see. From what was formerly said of the germes of the oak, we may form some notion of how impossi?le it is to trace backwards through annual successwns, and often through successions of several races in the year, plants which, in their fullgrown state, are merely or not at all visible to the eY:e, and animals which are equally or even more mmute. _Yet why should we trouble ourselves about those mmute points 1 There is enough to be seen in such a manner as we can understand it, in both kingdoms of living and organized nature. And as the members of tho~e kingd?ms are more susceptible than matter depnved of life, we have them more varied both by place and time. There i.s ~ot a more beautiful study than the cli-m vanatwn of the vegetable tribes, in their gra-dati from the extreme north, where they are few ~o the. luxuriance of the tropical forests and groves: In which they not merely cover the surface of the e~rth, but a~e suspended by thousands in the air Without any Immediate connexion with it. ' We may ~egin our survey at Spitzbergen, where the SUf!lmer IS only a few weeks, and the number of plants 1s of course very limited, or at the extreme north of Baffin's Bay, where it is doubtful if there be one land plant, unless we are to suppose that the "red snow" is a living vegetable. But even there or at l~ast as far in that direction as man can inhabit' there IS some substitute: and where 'the land cease~ ' to. afford any thing but a place to rest on, the sea st!ll abounds with wealth. The seal and whalo tnbes, though warm-~looded animals, and requiring to. breathe the free atr, contrive to summer and to wmter t~ere; and in the extreme north of America, the Esqmmaux, who migrate a little southward in |