and ridicule; and yet the time is come when the more remarkable
circumstances and phenomena mentioned by this traveller, verified by
Lord Valentia, Mr. Salt, &c. are received as well accredited facts.
The curious phenomenon mentioned by Cockburn finds an interesting and
beautiful counterpart in two plants--namely, the _C_álla Aethiópica
and Agapánthus umbellàtus, in both of which, after a copious watering,
the water will be seen to drop from the tips of the leaves; a
phenomenon, as far as I know, not hitherto recorded.

The great rivers of the continent of Europe have their source of supply
in the glaciers; but many of the rivers in the New World owe their
origin to the extensive forests of America, and their destruction might
dry up many a rivulet, and thus again convert the luxuriant valley into
an arid and sterile waste; carried farther, the principle extends to the
great features of the globe. What the glaciers effect among the higher
regions of the Alps, the _P_ìnus _Cémbra_. and _L_árix commùnis
accomplish at lower elevations; and many a mountain rivulet owes its
existence to their influence. It rains often in the woodlands when it
rains no where else; and it is thus that trees and woods modify the
hygrometric character of a country; and I doubt not but, by a judicious
disposal of trees of particular kinds, many lands now parched up with
drought--as, for example, in some of the Leeward Islands--might be
reclaimed from that sterility to which they are unhappily doomed.

In Glass' _History of the Canary Islands_ we have the description
of a peculiar tree in the Island of Hierro, which is the means of
supplying the inhabitants, man as well as inferior animals, with water;
an island which, but for this marvellous adjunct, would be uninhabitable
and abandoned. The tree is called _Til_ by the people of the island,
and has attached to it the epithet _garse_, or _sacred_. It is situated