the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy."

The ecstasy of Murillo's conceptions, the calm, solemn maternity of Raphael's madonuas, the sterling wealth of beauty in Titian's Magdalens, and the appealing and teaching heart of woman, in all these, come crowding before us, as we rise with Hester to this holy exaltation.

The wisdom and power which came to this woman from the scarlet letter, which society imprinted on her breast, may come to every one who will honestly affix this token to his own. As who of us may not? It is only an open confession of our weakness which brings us strength. The flattering self-assurance that we pursue virtue with conscientious diligence, never enables us to reach what we are striving for. We may perchance escape the dangers which beset our path, but never, through ignorance, shall we overcome the obstacles. There is no more fatal error than moral ignorance and hypocrisy. Bigotry, and superstition, and dogmatism may coil around the mind, until intellectual imperiousness springs up, more pitiful than the most abject ignorance, and the instincts of the heart will almost always be found to protest against them. Moral obliquity may misguide the senses, and the effect is temporary and superficial. Social influences may produce the grossest misconceptions, and, as the circle enlarges, the magic may vanish. But that cowardice which prompts to the denial of error to one's own soul; which refuses to receive the impres sion that all experience brings, with honesty and intelligence, and, intrenched behind good intentions, feels safe from attacks of sin, is the most hopeless of all mortal defects. There is a false delicacy which avoids the contemplation of evil, and which severe experience may destroy. There is a sweeping belief that vice stands at one pole and virtue at the other, which the deep trials of life may eradicate. There is a want of sympathy for the erring, and an ignorant closing of the heart against those whose entrance would enlarge and beautify and warm our souls, which the knowledge of our own temptations may remove. But no experience, no knowledge, no power, short of miracle, will bring the needed relief to that spirit which will not confess its guilt either to itself, or to its God. The heroic power which comes through avowal, is like the soft and vernal earth, giving life to a sweet

and flowery growth of virtues. It gives self-knowledge, and the deepest and most startling wisdom, by which to test our fellow-men. But is it not most sad and most instructive that Love, the great parent of all power and virtue and wisdom and faith, the guardian of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the effulgence of all that is rich and generous and luxuriant in nature, should rise up in society to be typified by the strange features of The Scarlet Letter?"

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ART. IV.-Lake Superior: its Physical Character, Vegeta tion, and Animals, compared with those of other and similar Regions, with a Narrative of the Tour, by J. ELIOT CABOT, and Contributions by other scientific gentlemen. Elegantly illustrated. By LOUIS AGASSIZ, &c., &c. Boston: Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln. 1850.

OUR present concern is with that portion of the work furnished by M. Lesquereux, comprised in fifty-three pages, and constituting a valuable addition to our knowledge of the North American flora. A large proportion of this is taken up by catalogues of the plants observed, accompanied also by many interesting foot-notes. We consider all such local catalogues of either the flora or the fauna of any particular section of any country as far more useful than a hasty reader would be apt to regard them. It is true that they are often, so far as names are concerned, merely a repetition of scientific names; still, there are other considerations connected with them which claim attention such as ascertaining with precision, not so much, perhaps, in every instance, the limits of vegetation, as the soils, or the habitats, in which such vegetation is found to thrive. Every aspect of nature points to some other connecting phenomenon, and nothing, therefore, in which science. employs itself can be looked upon as valueless. We have presented to us, in these pages, to which we have alluded, what we have reason to think a faithful record of the phanogamous and cryptogamous plants, noticed on a tour to some of the most peculiar and romantic regions of this continent; a record based on a scrutinizing examination of facts presented, and on a plan which also exhibits both strict minuteness and generalization.

Every region of the earth has been found to possess its own peculiar animals and plants. So remarkable is this fact that, in portions of continents, and even in narrower areas, the physical character of those regions seems to determine the structure of such organized beings. Before these natural productions were carefully and even anatomically studied, the fauna and flora of distinct and even widely separated regions, were thought to be really identical. Plants, the most familiar to our eyes, blooming, on the return of spring, near our dwellings, but in native localities - the bold Hepatica, with its blue petals expanding under the few genial, sunny days of April; the roseate Windflower, timidly raising itself above the dead and dry leaves of a former summer's glory, which, scattered on the ground beneath the proud trees that bore them with honor, have protected it in their sheltering bosoms during a long and silent winter, and many such floral gems beside,are so similar in aspect and exterior guise to their co-species in European floras, as to have been considered identical, until more careful inspection indicated a distinction. As we rise, or as we descend the series of vegetation, we find stronger or less strong proofs of this assertion. Of the cryptogames, their habits are more cosmopolitan, and, as yet, so far as we can perceive, many of them seem identical, all the world over. Some of these are, indeed, almost ubiquitous; and, sustained mostly by atmospheric conditions, are aërial in their mode of nutriment, and, like the winged denizens of the atmosphere, seem to ask for no fixed habitation, but have the widest range, affecting no particular zone.

Various causes have been assigned to account for this peculiarity and this diversity, and among these, many natural phenomena, all comprised under the general term of climate. A review of these is made by the author, and many interesting facts adduced. He considers the influence of temperature; the power of heat upon vegetation; the periodical opening, upon its approach, of myriads of forms of flowers and plants. Yet increase of temperature is affected by other agents; and in countries where the summer temperature may be very great, but following very long and severe winters, the character of the flora is altogether dissimilar to that of those countries in which the mean heat is the same, but under different conditions of the atmosphere. Heat, however, is not the only essential to vegetation, for we shall find, under excessive degrees of a heated atmosphere, a cessation of all vegetable

vigor, a condition from which not even the trees and plants of temperate regions artificially introduced can escape, and while such heat continues they remain as leafless and dormant, and as much in a periodical rest, as the native plants around them. At the Cape of Good Hope, according to the observations of Sir John Herschel and others, the earth, some inches beneath the surface, becomes heated to the extraordinary degree of 159° Fahr., and baked to a like extraordinary hardness; yet, immersed in this indurated and heated soil, are to be found forms of vegetable life full of vigor, and prepared for renewed energy when a more moderate condition of the atmosphere shall succeed. The other essential requisite then is moisture; when, on its occurrence, new changes in the tissue and internal organization of plants take place; and, wherever we find these two elements most happily combined, nothing, it is said, can exceed the luxuriance of vegetation.

The adaptation of plants to the variety of modifications of these two all-important conditions is singularly marked and beautiful, as seen in the changes which take place in the scanty flora of arctic regions, on the approach of vernal heats, at those extreme boundaries of phanogamous vegetation. And on the return of moisture, after long periods of intense solar heat, on the other extreme limits. Every form of plant, from lichen to lily, from moss to tree and shrub, greets with its pleasantest aspect this refreshing stimulus to life and activity. During our occasional mild and rainy winters, we can notice, in every rock-crevice, and over our barren pastures, the native musci, protruding their delicate points, destined to ripen into seed-vessels, or else suddenly reviving in ever-renewed yet perennial beauty; a denial, meanwhile, that "winter shuts the scene." At low conditions of temperature, the cryptogames of temperate zones, in many families of these plants, seem to thrive best; a rule which probably obtains wherever such tribes of plants may be found.

Nor do heat and moisture, alone, modify the character of the flora of a region, but particular species affect particular districts of the earth, in the ratio that such heat or such moisture is distributed. We have noticed in what manner the periodical return of rains, and their equally periodical absence, influence vegetation, as at Cape Good Hope; in like manner, frequent falls of rain, or great quantities of moisture in the form of snow, each indicates the style of vegetation in regions where these elements obtain. Nor do we find that it requires

any remarkable strength of constitution, nor a certain robustness in particular plants to adapt themselves to climates which are for months together under the dominion of cold; on the contrary, protected by deep snows, it is the most delicate forms which enliven the Alpine regions during the brief summers that follow such intensity of frost as must reign there supreme. Heat and moisture being essential to vegetation, the influence of light is to be considered as somewhat secondary, though its presence, in the majority of cases, is also essential. Some fungi, representing, on the one hand, the highest forms of cryptogamic life, and, on the other, certain algæ, which are not the lowest in the scale of vegetation, are capable of perfect development, even to the acquiring of brilliant tints and colors, under conditions unfavorable to the presence of light. And many plants of a higher grade will not endure the direct light in which most vegetables grow, and which they even require. So that, while climate may have a wide signification, and may embrace a variety of natural phenomena, the presence and variation of heat and moisture principally regulate the conditions of the vegetable kingdom.

In order, however, as it were, to do ample justice to all the agencies which produce peculiarities of organized life, M. Lesquereux elaborates several other conditions; of which he considers atmospheric pressure as having only a very subordinate influence on vegetation. He thinks, however, that he discovers a difference between Alpine plants, for instance, under a less degree of pressure, and those of high northern latitudes, which, although not identical, yet are similar; it appears "in the volatile fragrance of the Alpine species, which adds so much to the sweet and soothing influence of mountain rambles." This reduced atmospheric pressure, can not, he thinks, account for the peculiarities of their forms; for their woolly and warm covering, their thickened juice, or coriaceous juices, indicate the power of deriving much of their sustenance from the atmosphere; but,

"The fact that many plants, of the highest summits, live very well at the foot of the glaciers which descend into the lower valleys, would seem to show that atmospheric pressure has only a limited influence upon Alpine plants; but the moment we have satisfied ourselves that the most fragrant of these species never prosper below, we must admit that the relation between fragrance and atmospheric pressure, to which I have alluded above, is well sustained."- P. 139, note.