The Botanic Garden Volume I Part 4

"So shall my pines, Canadian wilds that shade, Where no bold step has pierc'd the tangled glade, 475 High-towering palms, that part the Southern flood With shadowy isles and continents of wood, Oaks, whose broad antlers crest Britannia's plain, Or bear her thunders o'er the conquer'd main, Shout, as you pa.s.s, inhale the genial skies, 480 And bask and brighten in your beamy eyes; Bow their white heads, admire the changing clime, Shake from their candied trunks the tinkling rime; With bursting buds their wrinkled barks adorn, And wed the timorous floret to her thorn; 485 Deep strike their roots, their lengthening tops revive, And all my world of foliage wave, alive.

"Thus with Hermetic art the ADEPT combines The royal acid with cobaltic mines; Marks with quick pen, in lines unseen portrayed, 490 The blushing mead, green dell, and dusky glade; Shades with pellucid clouds the tintless field, And all the future Group exists conceal'd; Till waked by fire the dawning tablet glows, Green springs the herb, the purple floret blows, 495 Hills vales and woods in bright succession rise, And all the living landscape charms his eyes.

[_Thus with Hermetic art_. l. 487. The sympathetic inks made by Zaffre dissolved in the marine and nitrous acids have this curious property, that being brought to the fire one of them becomes green, and the other red; but what is more wonderful, they again lose these colours, (unless the heat has been too great,) on their being again withdrawn from the fire. Fire-screens have been thus painted, which in the cold have shewn only the trunk and branches of a dead tree, and sandy hills, which on their approach to the fire have put forth green leaves and red flowers, and gra.s.s upon the mountains. The process of making these inks is very easy, take Zaffre, as sold by the druggists, and digest it in aqua regia, and the calx of Cobalt will be dissolved; which solution must be diluted with a little common water to prevent it from making too strong an impression on the paper; the colour when the paper is heated becomes of a fine green-blue. If Zaffre or Regulus of Cobalt be dissolved in the same manner in spirit of nitre, or aqua fortis, a reddish colour is produced on exposing the paper to heat. Chemical Dictionary by Mr. Keir, Art. Ink Sympathetic.]

XI. "With crest of gold should sultry SIRIUS glare, And with his kindling tresses scorch the air; With points of flame the shafts of Summer arm, 500 And burn the beauties he designs to warm;-- --So erst when JOVE his oath extorted mourn'd, And clad in glory to the Fair return'd; While Loves at forky bolts their torches light, And resting lightnings gild the car of Night; 505 His blazing form the dazzled Maid admir'd, Met with fond lips, and in his arms expir'd;-- NYMPHS! on light pinion lead your banner'd hosts High o'er the cliffs of ORKNEY'S gulphy coasts; Leave on your left the red volcanic light, 510 Which HECCLA lifts amid the dusky night; Mark on the right the DOFRINE'S snow-capt brow, Where whirling MAELSTROME roars and foams below; Watch with unmoving eye, where CEPHEUS bends His triple crown, his scepter'd hand extends; 515 Where studs Ca.s.sIOPE with stars unknown Her golden chair, and gems her sapphire zone; Where with vast convolution DRACO holds The ecliptic axis in his scaly folds, O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears, 520 And with immense meanders parts the BEARS; Onward, the kindred BEARS with footstep rude Dance round the Pole, pursuing and pursued.

[_With stars unknown_. l. 515. Alluding to the star which appeared in the chair of Ca.s.siopea in the year 1572, which at first surpa.s.sed Jupiter in magnitude and brightness, diminished by degrees and disappeared in 18 months; it alarmed all the astronomers of the age, and was esteemed a comet by some.--Could this have been the Georgium sidus?]

"There in her azure coif and starry stole, Grey TWILIGHT sits, and rules the slumbering Pole; 525 Bends the pale moon-beams round the sparkling coast, And strews with livid hands eternal frost.

There, NYMPHS! alight, array your dazzling powers, With sudden march alarm the torpid Hours; On ice-built isles expand a thousand sails, 530 Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales; The winged rocks to feverish climates guide, Where fainting Zephyrs pant upon the tide; Pa.s.s, where to CEUTA CALPE'S thunder roars, And answering echoes shake the kindred sh.o.r.es; 535 Pa.s.s, where with palmy plumes CANARY smiles, And in her silver girdle binds her isles; Onward, where NIGER'S dusky Naiad laves A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves, Or leads o'er golden sands her threefold train 540 In steamy channels to the fervid main, While swarthy nations croud the sultry coast, Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating Frost, NYMPHS! veil'd in mist, the melting treasures steer, And cool with arctic snows the tropic year.

545 So from the burning Line by Monsoons driven Clouds sail in squadrons o'er the darken'd heaven; Wide wastes of sand the gelid gales pervade, And ocean cools beneath the moving shade.

[_On ice-built isles_. l. 529. There are many reasons to believe from the accounts of travellers and navigators, that the islands of ice in the higher northern lat.i.tudes as well as the Glaciers on the Alps continue perpetually to increase in bulk. At certain times in the ice- mountains of Switzerland there happen cracks which have shewn the great thickness of the ice, as some of these cracks have measured three or four hundred ells deep. The great islands of ice in the northern seas near Hudson's bay have been observed to have been immersed above one hundred fathoms beneath the surface of the sea, and to have risen a fifth or sixth part above the surface, and to have measured between three and four miles in circ.u.mference. Phil. Trans. No. 465. Sect. 2.

Dr. Lister endeavoured to shew that the ice of sea-water contains some salt and perhaps less air than common ice, and that it is therefore much more difficult of solution; whence he accounts for the perpetual and great increase of these floating islands of ice. Philos. Trans. No. 169.

As by a famous experiment of Mr. Boyles it appears that ice evaporates very fast in severe frosty weather when the wind blows upon it; and as ice in a thawing state is known to contain six times more cold than water at the same degree of sensible coldness, it is easy to understand that winds blowing over islands and continents of ice perhaps much below nothing on Farenheit's scale, and coming from thence into our lat.i.tude must bring great degrees of cold along with them. If we add to this the quant.i.ty of cold produced by the evaporation of the water as well as by the solution of the ice, we cannot doubt but that the northern ice is the principle source of the coldness of our winters, and that it is brought hither by the regions of air blowing from the north, and which take an apparent easterly direction by their coming to a part of the surface of the earth which moves faster than the lat.i.tude they come from. Hence the increase of the ice in the polar regions by increasing the cold of our climate adds at the same time to the bulk of the Glaciers of Italy and Switzerland.

If the nations who inhabit this hemisphere of the globe, instead of destroying their sea-men and exhausting their wealth in unnecessary wars, could be induced to unite their labours to navigate these immense ma.s.ses of ice into the more southern oceans, two great advantages would result to mankind, the tropic countries would be much cooled by their solution, and our winters in this lat.i.tude would be rendered much milder for perhaps a century or two, till the ma.s.ses of ice became again enormous.

Mr. Bradley describes the cold winds and wet weather which sometimes happen in May and June to the solution of ice-islands accidentally floating from the north. Treatise on Husbandry and Gardening, Vol. II.

p. 437. And adds, that Mr. Barham about the year 1718, in his voyage from Jamaica to England in the beginning of June, met with ice-islands coming from the north, which were surrounded with so great a fog that the ship was in danger of striking upon them, and that one of them measured fifty miles in length.

We have lately experienced an instance of ice-islands brought from the Southern polar regions, on which the Guardian struck at the beginning of her pa.s.sage from the Cape of Good Hope towards Botany Bay, on December 22, 1789. These islands were involved in mist, were about one hundred and fifty fathoms long, and about fifty fathoms above the surface of the water. A part from the top of one of them broke off and fell into the sea, causing an extraordinary commotion in the water and a thick smoke all round it.]

[_Threefold train_. l. 539. The river Niger after traversing an immense tract of populous country is supposed to divide itself into three other great rivers. The Rio Grande, the Gambia, and the Senegal. Gold-dust is obtained from the sands of these rivers.]

[_Wide wastes of sand_. l. 547. When the sun is in the Southern tropic 36 deg. distant from the zenith, the thermometer is seldom lower than 72 deg. at Gondar in Abyssinia, but it falls to 60 or 53 deg. when the sun is immediately vertical; so much does the approach of rain counteract the heat of the sun. Bruce's Travels, Vol. 3. p. 670.]

XII. Should SOLSTICE, stalking through the sickening bowers, 550 Suck the warm dew-drops, lap the falling showers; Kneel with parch'd lip, and bending from it's brink From dripping palm the scanty river drink; NYMPHS! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect, And high in air the electric flame collect.

555 Soon shall dark mists with self-attraction shroud The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud; Each silvery Flower the streams aerial quaff, Bow her sweet head, and infant Harvest laugh.

[_Ten thousand points erect_. l. 553. The solution of water in air or in calorique, seems to acquire electric matter at the same time, as appears from an experiment of Mr. Bennet. He put some live coals into an insulated funnel of metal, and throwing on them a little water observed that the ascending steam was electrised plus, and the water which descended through the funnel was electrised minus. Hence it appears that though clouds by their change of form may sometimes become electrised minus yet they have in general an acc.u.mulation of electricity. This acc.u.mulation of electric matter also evidently contributes to support the atmospheric vapour when it is condensed into the form of clouds, because it is seen to descend rapidly after the flashes of lightning have diminished its quant.i.ty; whence there is reason to conclude that very numerous metallic rods with fine points erected high in the air might induce it at any time to part with some of its water.

If we may trust the theory of Mr. Lavoisier concerning the composition and decomposition of water, there would seem another source of thunder- showers; and that is, that the two ga.s.ses termed oxygene gas or vital air, and hydrogene gas or inflammable air, may exist in the summer atmosphere in a state of mixture but not of combination, and that the electric spark or flash of lightning may combine them and produce water instantaneously.]

"Thus when ELIJA mark'd from Carmel's brow 560 In bright expanse the briny flood below; Roll'd his red eyes amid the scorching air, Smote his firm breast, and breathed his ardent prayer; High in the midst a ma.s.sy altar stood, And slaughter'd offerings press'd the piles of wood; 565 While ISRAEL'S chiefs the sacred hill surround, And famish'd armies crowd the dusty ground; While proud Idolatry was leagued with dearth, And wither'd famine swept the desert earth.-- "OH, MIGHTY LORD! thy woe-worn servant hear, 570 "Who calls thy name in agony of prayer; "Thy fanes dishonour'd, and thy prophets slain, "Lo! I alone survive of all thy train!-- "Oh send from heaven thy sacred fire,--and pour "O'er the parch'd land the salutary shower,-- 575 "So shall thy Priest thy erring flock recal,-- "And speak in thunder, "THOU ART LORD OF ALL."-- He cried, and kneeling on the mountain-sands, Stretch'd high in air his supplicating hands.

--Descending flames the dusky shrine illume; 580 Fire the wet wood, the sacred bull consume; Wing'd from the sea the gathering mists arise, And floating waters darken all the skies; The King with shifted reins his chariot bends, And wide o'er earth the airy flood descends; 585 With mingling cries dispersing hosts applaud, And shouting nations own THE LIVING G.o.d."

The G.o.dDESS ceased,--the exulting tribes obey, Start from the soil, and win their airy way; The vaulted skies with streams of transient rays 590 Shine, as they pa.s.s, and earth and ocean blaze.

So from fierce wars when lawless Monarch's cease, Or Liberty returns with laurel'd Peace; Bright fly the sparks, the colour'd l.u.s.tres burn, Flash follows f 595 Blue serpents sweep along the dusky air, Imp'd by long trains of scintillating hair; Red rockets rise, loud cracks are heard on high, And showers of stars rush headlong from the sky, Burst, as in silver lines they hiss along, 600 And the quick flash unfolds the gazing throng.

_Argument of the Second Canto._

Address to the Gnomes. I. The Earth thrown from a volcano of the Sun; it's atmosphere and ocean; it's journey through the zodiac; vicissitude of day-light, and of seasons, 11. II. Primeval islands. Paradise, or the golden Age. Venus rising from the sea, 33. III. The first great earthquakes; continents raised from the sea; the Moon thrown from a volcano, has no atmosphere, and is frozen; the earth's diurnal motion r.e.t.a.r.ded; it's axis more inclined; whirls with the moon round a new centre. 67. IV. Formation of lime-stone by aqueous solution; calcareous spar; white marble; antient statue of Hercules resting from his labours.

Antinous. Apollo of Belvidere. Venus de Medici. Lady Elizabeth Foster, and Lady Melbourn by Mrs. Damer. 93. V. 1. Of mora.s.ses. Whence the production of Salt by elutriation. Salt-mines at Cracow, 115. 2.

Production of nitre. Mars and Venus caught by Vulcan, 143. 3. Production of iron. Mr. Michel's improvement of artificial magnets. Uses of Steel in agriculture, navigation, war, 183. 4. Production of acids, whence Flint. Sea-sand. Selenite. Asbestus. Fluor. Onyx, Agate, Mocho, Opal, Sapphire, Ruby, Diamond. Jupiter and Europa, 215. VI. 1. New subterraneous fires from fermentation. Production of Clays; manufacture of Porcelain in China; in Italy; in England. Mr. Wedgwood's works at Etruria in Staffordshire. Cameo of a Slave in Chains; of Hope. Figures on the Portland or Barberini vase explained, 271. 2. Coal; Pyrite; Naphtha; Jet; Amber. Dr. Franklin's discovery of disarming the Tempest of it's lightning. Liberty of America; of Ireland; of France, 349. VII.

Antient central subterraneous fires. Production of Tin, Copper, Zink, Lead, Mercury, Platina, Gold and Silver. Destruction of Mexico. Slavery of Africa, 395. VIII. Destruction of the armies of Cambyses, 431. IX.

Gnomes like stars of an Orrery. Inroads of the Sea stopped. Rocks cultivated. Hannibal pa.s.ses the Alps, 499. X. Matter circulates. Manures to Vegetables like Chyle to Animals. Plants rising from the Earth. St.

Peter delivered from Prison, 537. XI. Transmigration of matter, 565.

Death and resuscitation of Adonis, 575. Departure of the Gnomes, 601.

THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION.

CANTO II.

AND NOW THE G.o.dDESS with attention sweet Turns to the GNOMES, that circle round her feet; Orb within orb approach the marshal'd trains, And pigmy legions darken all the plains; 5 Thrice shout with silver tones the applauding bands, Bow, ere She speaks, and clap their fairy hands.

So the tall gra.s.s, when noon-tide zephyr blows, Bends it's green blades in undulating rows; Wide o'er the fields the billowy tumult spreads, 10 And rustling harvests bow their golden heads.

I. "GNOMES! YOUR bright forms, presiding at her birth, Clung in fond squadrons round the new-born EARTH; When high in ether, with explosion dire, From the deep craters of his realms of fire, 15 The whirling Sun this ponderous planet hurl'd, And gave the astonish'd void another world.

When from it's vaporous air, condensed by cold, Descending torrents into oceans roll'd; And fierce attraction with relentless force 20 Bent the reluctant wanderer to it's course.

[_From the deep craters_. l. 14. The existence of solar volcanos is countenanced by their a.n.a.logy to terrestrial, and lunar volcanos; and by the spots on the sun's disk, which have been shewn by Dr. Wilson to be excavations through its luminous surface, and may be supposed to be the cavities from whence the planets and comets were ejected by explosions.

See additional notes, No. XV. on solar volcanos.]

[_When from its vaporous air_. l. 17. If the nucleus of the earth was thrown out from the sun by an explosion along with as large a quant.i.ty of surrounding hot vapour as its attraction would occasion to accompany it, the ponderous semi-fluid nucleus would take a spherical form from the attraction of its own parts, which would become an oblate spheroid from its diurnal revolution. As the vapour cooled the water would be precipitated, and an ocean would surround the spherical nucleus with a superinc.u.mbent atmosphere. The nucleus of solar lava would likewise become harder as it became cooler. To understand how the strata of the earth were afterwards formed from the sediments of this circ.u.mfluent ocean the reader is referred to an ingenious Treatise on the Theory of the Earth by Mr. Whitehurst, who was many years a watch-maker and engineer at Derby, but whose ingenuity, integrity, and humanity, were rarely equalled in any station of life.]

"Where yet the Bull with diamond-eye adorns The Spring's fair forehead, and with golden horns; Where yet the Lion climbs the ethereal plain, And shakes the Summer from his radiant mane; 25 Where Libra lifts her airy arm, and weighs, Poised in her silver ballance, nights and days; With paler l.u.s.tres where Aquarius burns, And showers the still snow from his h.o.a.ry urns; YOUR ardent troops pursued the flying sphere, 30 Circling the starry girdle of the year; While sweet vicissitudes of day and clime Mark'd the new annals of enascent Time.

II. "You trod with printless step Earth's tender globe, While Ocean wrap'd it in his azure robe; 35 Beneath his waves her hardening strata spread, Raised her PRIMEVAL ISLANDS from his bed, Stretch'd her wide lawns, and sunk her winding dells, And deck'd her sh.o.r.es with corals, pearls, and sh.e.l.ls.

[_While ocean wrap'd_. l. 34. See additional notes, No. XVI. on the production of calcareous earth.]

[_Her hardening srata spread_. l. 35. The granite, or moor-stone, or porphory, const.i.tute the oldest part of the globe, since the limestone, sh.e.l.ls, coralloids, and other sea-productions rest upon them; and upon these sea-productions are found clay, iron, coal, salt, and siliceous sand or grit-stone. Thus there seem to be three divisions of the globe distinctly marked; the first I suppose to have been the original nucleus of the earth, or lava projected from the sun; 2. over this lie the recrements of animal and vegetable matter produced in the ocean; and, 3.

over these the recrements of animal and vegetable matter produced upon the land. Besides these there are bodies which owe their origin to a combination of those already mentioned, as siliceous sand, fluor, alabaster; which seem to have derived their acids originally from the vegetable kingdom, and their earthy bases from sea-productions. See additional notes, No. XVI. on calcareous earth.]

[_Raised her primeval islands_. l. 36. The nucleus of the earth, still covered with water, received perpetual increase by the immense quant.i.ties of sh.e.l.ls and coralloids either annually produced and relinquishied, or left after the death of the animals. These would gradually by their different degrees of cohesion be some of them more and others less removable by the influence of solar tides, and gentle tropical breezes, which then must have probably extended from one pole to the other; for it is supposed the moon was not yet produced, and that no storms or unequal winds had yet existence.