The Botanic Garden Volume I Part 9

"Onward YOU pa.s.s, the pine-capt hills divide, Or feed the golden harvests on their side; The wide-ribb'd arch with hurrying torrents fill, 40 Shove the slow barge, or whirl the foaming mill.

OR lead with beckoning hand the sparkling train Of refluent water to its parent main, And pleased revisit in their sea-moss vales Blue Nereid-forms array'd in shining scales, 45 Shapes, whose broad oar the torpid wave impels, And Tritons bellowing through their twisted sh.e.l.ls.

"So from the heart the sanguine stream distils, O'er Beauty's radiant shrine in vermil rills, Feeds each fine nerve, each slender hair pervades, 50 The skins bright snow with living purple shades, Each dimpling cheek with warmer blushes dyes, Laughs on the lips, and lightens in the eyes.

--Erewhile absorb'd, the vagrant globules swim From each fair feature, and proportion'd limb, 55 Join'd in one trunk with deeper tint return To the warm concave of the vital urn.

II. 1."AQUATIC MAIDS! YOU sway the mighty realms Of scale and sh.e.l.l, which Ocean overwhelms; As Night's pale Queen her rising orb reveals, 60 And climbs the zenith with refulgent wheels, Car'd on the foam your glimmering legion rides, Your little tridents heave the dashing tides, Urge on the sounding sh.o.r.es their crystal course, Restrain their fury, or direct their force.

[_Car'd on the foam_. l. 61. The phenomena of the tides have been well investigated and satisfactorily explained by Sir Isaac Newton and Dr.

Halley from the reciprocal gravitations of the earth, moon, and sun. As the earth and moon move round a centre of motion near the earth's surface, at the same time that they are proceeding in their annual orbit round the sun, it follows that the water on the side of the earth nearest this centre of motion between the earth and moon will be more attracted by the moon, and the waters on the opposite side of the earth will be less attracted by the moon, than the central parts of the earth.

Add to this that the centrifugal force of the water on the side of the earth furthest from the centre of the motion, round which the earth and moon move, (which, as was said before, is near the surface of the earth) is greater than that on the opposite side of the earth. From both these causes it is easy to comprehend that the water will rise on two sides of the earth, viz. on that nearest to the moon, and its opposite side, and that it will be flattened in consequence at the quadratures, and thus produce two tides in every lunar day, which consists of about twenty- four hours and forty-eight minutes.

These tides will be also affected by the solar attraction when it coincides with the lunar one, or opposes it, as at new and full moon, and will also be much influenced by the opposing sh.o.r.es in every part of the earth.

Now as the moon in moving round the centre of gravity between itself and the earth describes a much larger orbit than the earth describes round the same centre, it follows that the centrifugal motion on the side of the moon opposite to the earth must be much greater than the centrifugal motion of the side of the earth opposite to the moon round the same centre. And secondly, as the attraction of the earth exerted on the moon's surface next to the earth is much greater than the attraction of the moon exerted on the earth's surface, the tides on the lunar sea, (if such there be,) should be much greater than those of our ocean. Add to this that as the same face of the moon always is turned to the earth, the lunar tides must be permanent, and if the solid parts of the moon be spherical, must always cover the phasis next to us. But as there are evidently hills and vales and volcanos on this side of the moon, the consequence is that the moon has no ocean, or that it is frozen.]

65 2."NYMPHS! YOU adorn, in glossy volumes roll'd, The gaudy conch with azure, green, and gold.

You round Echinus ray his arrowy mail, Give the keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail; Firm to his rock with silver cords suspend 70 The anchor'd Pinna, and his Cancer-friend; With worm-like beard his toothless lips array, And teach the unwieldy Sturgeon to betray.-- Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulcher'd in sands, In dread repose He waits the scaly bands, 75 Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws, Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset, And clasps the quick inextricable net.

You chase the warrior Shark, and c.u.mberous Whale, 80 And guard the Mermaid in her briny vale; Feed the live petals of her insect-flowers, Her sh.e.l.l-wrack gardens, and her sea-fan bowers; With ores and gems adorn her coral cell, And drop a pearl in every gaping sh.e.l.l.

[_The gaudy conch_. l. 66. The spiral form of many sh.e.l.ls seem to have afforded a more frugal manner of covering the long tail of the fish with calcareous armour; since a single thin part.i.tion between the adjoining circles of the fish was sufficient to defend both surfaces, and thus much cretaceous matter is saved; and it is probable that from this spiral form they are better enabled to feel the vibrations of the element in which they exist. See note on Canto IV. l. 162. This cretaceous matter is formed by a mucous secretion from the skin of the fish, as is seen in crab-fish, and others which annually cast their sh.e.l.ls, and is at first a soft mucous covering, (like that of a hen's egg, when it is laid a day or two too soon,) and which gradually hardens. This may also be seen in common sh.e.l.l snails, if a part of their sh.e.l.l be broken it becomes repaired in a similar manner with mucus, which by degrees hardens into sh.e.l.l.

It is probable the calculi or stones found in other animals may have a similar origin, as they are formed on mucous membranes, as those of the kidney and bladder, chalk-stones in the gout, and gall-stones; and are probably owing to the inflammation of the membrane where they are produced, and vary according to the degree of inflammation of the membrane which forms them, and the kind of mucous which it naturally produces. Thus the sh.e.l.ly matter of different sh.e.l.l-fish differs, from the courser kinds which form the sh.e.l.ls of crabs, to the finer kinds which produces the mother-pearl.

The beautiful colours of some sh.e.l.ls originate from the thinness of the laminae of which they consist, rather than to any colouring matter, as is seen in mother-pearl, which reflects different colours according to the obliquity of the light which falls on it. The beautiful prismatic colours seen on the Labrodore stone are owing to a similar cause, viz.

the thinness of the laminae of which it consists, and has probably been formed from mother-pearl sh.e.l.ls.

It is curious that some of the most common fossil sh.e.l.ls are not now known in their recent state, as the cornua ammonis; and on the contrary, many sh.e.l.ls which are very plentiful in their recent state, as limpets, sea-ears, volutes, cowries, are very rarely found fossil. Da Costa's Conchology, p. 163. Were all the ammoniae destroyed when the continents were raised? Or do some genera of animals perish by the increasing power of their enemies? Or do they still reside at inaccessible depths in the sea? Or do some animals change their forms gradually and become new genera?]

[_Echinus. Nautilus_. l. 67, 68. See additional notes, No. XXVII.]

[_Pinna. Cancer_. l. 70. See additional notes, No. XXVII.]

[_With worm-like beard_. l. 71. See additional notes, No. XXVIII.]

[_Feed the live petals_. l. 82. There is a sea-insect described by Mr.

Huges whose claws or tentacles being disposed in regular circles and tinged with variety of bright lively colours represent the petals of some most elegantly fringed and radiated flowers as the carnation, marigold, and anemone. Philos. Trans. Abridg. Vol. IX. p. 110. The Abbe Dicquemarre has further elucidated the history of the actinia; and observed their manner of taking their prey by inclosing it in these beautiful rays like a net. Phil. Trans. Vol. LXIII. and LXV. and LXVII.]

[_And drop a pearl_. l. 84. Many are the opinions both of antient and modern concerning the production of pearls. Mr. Reaumur thinks they are formed like the hard concretions in many land animals as stones of the bladder, gallstones, and bezoar, and hence concludes them to be a disease of the fish, but there seems to be a stricter a.n.a.logy between these and the calcareous productions found in crab-fish called crab's eyes, which are formed near the stomach of the animal, and const.i.tute a reservoir of calcareous matter against the renovation of the sh.e.l.l, at which time they are re-dissolved and deposited for that purpose. As the internal part of the sh.e.l.l of the pearl oyster or muscle consists of mother-pearl which is a similar material to the pearl and as the animal has annually occasion to enlarge his sh.e.l.l there is reason to suspect the loose pearls are similar reservoirs of the pearly matter for that purpose.]

85 3. "YOUR myriad trains o'er stagnant ocean's tow, Harness'd with gossamer, the loitering prow; Or with fine films, suspended o'er the deep, Of oil effusive lull the waves to sleep.

You stay the flying bark, conceal'd beneath, 90 Where living rocks of worm-built coral breathe; Meet fell TEREDO, as he mines the keel With beaked head, and break his lips of steel; Turn the broad helm, the fluttering canvas urge From MAELSTROME'S fierce innavigable surge.

95 --'Mid the lorn isles of Norway's stormy main, As sweeps o'er many a league his eddying train, Vast watery walls in rapid circles spin, And deep-ingulph'd the Demon dwells within; Springs o'er the fear-froze crew with Harpy-claws, 100 Down his deep den the whirling vessel draws; Churns with his b.l.o.o.d.y mouth the dread repast, The booming waters murmuring o'er the mast.

[_Or with fine films_. l. 87. See additional notes, No. XXIX.]

[_Where living rocks_. l. 90. The immense and dangerous rocks built by the swarms of coral infects which rise almost perpendicularly in the southern ocean like walls are described in Cook's voyages, a point of one of these rocks broke off and stuck in the hole which it had made in the bottom of one of his ships, which would otherwise have perished by the admission of water. The numerous lime-stone rocks which consist of a congeries of the cells of these animals and which const.i.tute a great part of the solid earth shew their prodigious multiplication in all ages of the world. Specimens of these rocks are to be seen in the Lime-works at Linsel near Newport in Shropshire, in Coal-brook Dale, and in many parts of the Peak of Derbyshire. The insect has been well described by M. Peyssonnel, Ellis, and others. Phil. Trans. Vol. XLVII. L. LII. and LVII.]

[_Meet fell Teredo_. l. 91. See additional notes, No. x.x.x.]

[_Turn the broad helm_. l 93. See additional notes, No. x.x.xI.]

III. "Where with chill frown enormous ALPS alarms A thousand realms, horizon'd in his arms; 105 While cloudless suns meridian glories shed From skies of silver round his h.o.a.ry head, Tall rocks of ice refract the coloured rays, And Frost sits throned amid the lambent blaze; NYMPHS! YOUR thin forms pervade his glittering piles, 110 His roofs of chrystal, and his glasy ailes; Where in cold caves imprisoned Naiads sleep, Or chain'd on mossy couches wake and weep; Where round dark crags indignant waters bend Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend, 115 Seek through unfathom'd snows their devious track, Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites crack, Rush into day, in foamy torrents shine, And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine.-- Or feed the murmuring TIBER, as he laves 120 His realms inglorious with diminish'd waves, Hears his lorn Forum sound with Eunuch-strains, Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains; Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower, Time-mouldered bastion, and dismantled tower; 125 By alter'd fanes and nameless villas glides, And cla.s.sic domes, that tremble on his sides; Sighs o'er each broken urn, and yawning tomb, And mourns the fall of LIBERTY and ROME.

[_Where round dark craggs_. l. 113. See additional notes, No. x.x.xII.]

[_Heave the vast spars_. l. 116. Water in descending down elevated situations if the outlet for it below is not sufficient for its emission acts with a force equal to the height of the column, as is seen in an experimental machine called the philosophical bellows, in which a few pints of water are made to raise many hundred pounds. To this cause is to be ascribed many large promontories of ice being occasionally thrown down from the glaciers; rocks have likewise been thrown from the sides of mountains by the same cause, and large portions of earth have been removed many hundred yards from their situations at the foot of mountains. On inspecting the locomotion of about thirty acres of earth with a small house near Bilder's Bridge in Shropshire, about twenty years ago, from the foot of a mountain towards the river, I well remember it bore all the marks of having been thus lifted up, pushed away, and as it were crumpled into ridges, by a column of water contained in the mountain.

From water being thus confined in high columns between the strata of mountainous countries it has often happened that when wells or perforations have been made into the earth, that springs have arisen much above the surface of the new well. When the new bridge was building at Dublin Mr. G. Semple found a spring in the bed of the river where he meant to lay the foundation of a pierre, which, by fixing iron pipes into it, he raised many feet. Treatise on Building in Water, by G.

Semple. From having observed a valley north-west of St. Alkmond's well near Derby, at the head of which that spring of water once probably existed, and by its current formed the valley, (but which in after times found its way out in its present situation,) I suspect that St.

Alkmond's well might by building round it be raised high enough to supply many streets in Derby with spring-water which are now only supplied with river-water. See an account of an artificial spring of water, Phil. Trans. Vol. LXXV. p. 1.

In making a well at Sheerness the water rose 300 feet above its source in the well. Phil. Trans. Vol. LXXIV. And at Hartford in Connecticut there is a well which was dug seventy feet deep before water was found, then in boring an augur-hole through a rock the water rose so fast as to make it difficult to keep it dry by pumps till they could blow the hole larger by gunpowder, which was no sooner accomplished than it filled and run over, and has been a brook for near a century. Travels through America. Lond. 1789. Lane.]

IV. "Sailing in air, when dark MONSOON inshrouds 130 His tropic mountains in a night of clouds; Or drawn by whirlwinds from the Line returns, And showers o'er Afric all his thousand urns; High o'er his head the beams of SIRIUS glow, And, Dog of Nile, ANUBIS barks below.

135 NYMPHS! YOU from cliff to cliff attendant guide In headlong cataracts the impetuous tide; Or lead o'er wastes of Abyssinian sands The bright expanse to EGYPT'S shower-less lands.

--Her long ca.n.a.ls the sacred waters fill, 140 And edge with silver every peopled hill; Gigantic SPHINX in circling waves admire; And MEMNON bending o'er his broken lyre; O'er furrow'd glebes and green savannas sweep, And towns and temples laugh amid the deep.

[_Dark monsoon inshrouds_. l. 129. When from any peculiar situations of land in respect to sea the tropic becomes more heated, when the sun is vertical over it, than the line, the periodical winds called monsoons are produced, and these are attended by rainy seasons; for as the air at the tropic is now more heated than at the line it ascends by decrease of its specific gravity, and floods of air rush in both from the South West and North East, and these being one warmer than the other the rain is precipitated by their mixture as observed by Dr. Hutton. See additional notes, No. XXV. All late travellers have ascribed the rise of the Nile to the monsoons which deluge Nubia and Abyssinia with rain. The whirling of the ascending air was even seen by Mr. Bruce in Abyssinia; he says, "every morning a small cloud began to whirl round, and presently after the whole heavens became covered with clouds," by this vortex of ascending air the N.E. winds and the S.W. winds, which flow in to supply the place of the ascending column, became mixed more rapidly and deposited their rain in greater abundance.

Mr. Volney observes that the time of the rising of the Nile commences about the 19th of June, and that Abyssinia and the adjacent parts of Africa are deluged with rain in May, June, and July, and produce a ma.s.s of water which is three months in draining off. The Abbe Le Pluche observes that as Sirius, or the dog-star, rose at the time of the commencement of the flood its rising was watched by the astronomers, and notice given of the approach of inundation by hanging the figure of Anubis, which was that of a man with a dog's head, upon all their temples. Histoire de Ciel.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fertilization of Egypt.]

[_Egypt's shower-less lands_. l. 138. There seem to be two situations which may be conceived to be exempted from rain falling upon them, one where the constant trade-winds meet beneath the line, for here two regions of warm air are mixed together, and thence do not seem to have any cause to precipitate their vapour; and the other is, where the winds are brought from colder climates and become warmer by their contact with the earth of a warmer one. Thus Lower Egypt is a flat country warmed by the sun more than the higher lands of one side of it, and than the Mediterranean on the other; and hence the winds which blow over it acquire greater warmth, which ever way they come, than they possessed before, and in consequence have a tendency to acquire and not to part with their vapour like the north-east winds of this country. There is said to be a narrow spot upon the coast of Peru where rain seldom occurs, at the same time according to Ulloa on the mountainous regions of the Andes beyond there is almost perpetual rain. For the wind blows uniformly upon this hot part of the coast of Peru, but no cause of devaporation occurs till it begins to ascend the mountainous Andes, and then its own expansion produces cold sufficient to condense its vapour.]

145 V. 1. "High in the frozen North where HECCLA glows, And melts in torrents his coeval snows; O'er isles and oceans sheds a sanguine light, Or shoots red stars amid the ebon night; When, at his base intomb'd, with bellowing sound 150 Fell GIESAR roar'd, and struggling shook the ground; Pour'd from red nostrils, with her scalding breath, A boiling deluge o'er the blasted heath; And, wide in air, in misty volumes hurl'd Contagious atoms o'er the alarmed world; 155 NYMPHS! YOUR bold myriads broke the infernal spell, And crush'd the Sorceress in her flinty cell.

[_Fell Giesar roar'd_. l. 150. The boiling column of water at Giesar in Iceland was nineteen feet in diameter, and sometimes rose to the height of ninety-two feet. On cooling it deposited a siliceous matter or chalcedony forming a bason round its base. The heat of this water before it rose out of the earth could not be ascertained, as water looses all its heat above 212 (as soon as it is at liberty to expand) by the exhalation of a part, but the flinty bason which is deposited from it shews that water with great degrees of heat will dissolve siliceous matter. Van Troil's Letters on Iceland. Since the above account in the year 1780 this part of Iceland has been destroyed by an earthquake or covered with lava, which was probably effected by the force of aqueous steam, a greater quant.i.ty of water falling on the subterraneous fires than could escape by the antient outlets and generating an increased quant.i.ty of vapour. For the dispersion of contagious vapours from volcanos see an account of the Harmattan in the notes on Chunda, Vol. II.]

2. "Where with soft fires in unextinguish'd urns, Cauldron'd in rock, innocuous Lava burns; On the bright lake YOUR gelid hands distil 160 In pearly mowers the parsimonious rill; And, as aloft the curling vapours rise Through the cleft roof, ambitious for the skies, In vaulted hills condense the tepid steams, And pour to HEALTH the medicated streams.

165 --So in green vales amid her mountains bleak BUXTONIA smiles, the G.o.ddess-Nymyh of Peak; Deep in warm waves, and pebbly baths she dwells, And calls HYGEIA to her sainted wells.

[_Buxtonia smiles_. l. 166. Some arguments are mentioned in the note on Fucus Vol. II. to shew that the warm springs of this country do not arise from the decomposition of pyrites near the surface of the earth, but that they are produced by steam rising up the fissures of the mountains from great depths, owing to water falling on subterraneous fires, and that this steam is condensed between the strata of the inc.u.mbent mountains and collected into springs. For further proofs on this subject the reader is referred to a Letter from Dr. Darwin in Mr.

Pilkington's View of Derbyshire, Vol I. p. 256.]

"Hither in sportive bands bright DEVON leads 170 Graces and Loves from Chatsworth's flowery meads.-- Charm'd round the NYMPH, they climb the rifted rocks; And steep in mountain-mist their golden locks; On venturous step her sparry caves explore, And light with radiant eyes her realms of ore; 175 --Oft by her bubbling founts, and shadowy domes, In gay undress the fairy legion roams, Their dripping palms in playful malice fill, Or taste with ruby lip the sparkling rill; Croud round her baths, and, bending o'er the side, 180 Unclasp'd their sandals, and their zones untied, Dip with gay fear the shuddering foot undress'd, And quick retract it to the fringed vest; Or cleave with brandish'd arms the lucid stream, And sob, their blue eyes twinkling in the steam.