Oranges Thrive Better Than Below,
Producing Abundance Of Delicious Fruit; But The Shaddock Or
Pumplemous (Citrus Decumana) Requires The Full Force Of A
Tropical Sun, For It Will Not Thrive Even At Tondano A Thousand
Feet Lower.
On the hilly slopes rice is cultivated largely, and
ripens well, although the temperature rarely or never rises to
80°, so that one would think it might be grown even in England in
fine summers, especially if the young plants were raised under
glass.
The mountains have an unusual quantity of earth and vegetable
mould spread over them. Even on the steepest slopes there is
everywhere a covering of clays and sands, and generally a good
thickness of vegetable soil. It is this which perhaps contributes
to the uniform luxuriance of the forest, and delays the
appearance of that sub-alpine vegetation which depends almost as
much on the abundance of rocky and exposed surfaces as on
difference of climate. At a much lower elevation on Mount Ophir
in Malacca, Dacrydiums and Rhododendrons with abundance of
Nepenthes, ferns, and terrestrial orchids suddenly took the place
of the lofty forest; but this was plainly due to the occurrence
of an extensive slope of bare, granitic rock at an elevation of
less than 3,000 feet. The quantity of vegetable soil, and also of
loose sands and clays, resting on steep slopes, hill-tops and the
sides of ravines, is a curious and important phenomenon. It may
be due in part to constant, slight earthquake shocks facilitating
the disintegration of rock; but, would also seem to indicate that
the country has been long exposed to gentle atmospheric action,
and that its elevation has been exceedingly slow and continuous.
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