Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The More We Study The Distribution Of Organized Beings On The
Globe, The More We Are Inclined, If Not To Abandon The Ideas Of
Migration, At Least To Consider Them As Hypotheses Not Entirely
Satisfactory.
The chain of the Andes divides the whole of South
America into two unequal longitudinal parts.
At the foot of this
chain, on the east and west, we found a great number of plants
specifically the same. The various passages of the Cordilleras
nowhere permit the vegetable productions of the warm regions to
proceed from the coasts of the Pacific to the banks of the Amazon.
When a peak attains a great elevation, either in the middle of very
low mountains and plains, or in the centre of an archipelago heaved
up by volcanic fires, its summit is covered with alpine plants,
many of which are again found, at immense distances, on other
mountains having an analogous climate. Such are the general
phenomena of the distribution of plants.
It is now said that a mountain is high enough to enter into the
limits of the rhododendrons and the befarias, as it has long been
said that such a mountain reached the limit of perpetual snow. In
using this expression, it is tacitly admitted, that under the
influence of certain temperatures, certain vegetable forms must
necessarily be developed. Such a supposition, however, taken in all
its generality, is not strictly accurate. The pines of Mexico are
wanting on the Cordilleras of Peru. The Silla of Caracas is not
covered with the oaks which flourish in New Grenada at the same
height.
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