We would here only consider phenomena in
their mutual connection, and in their relations to different zones of our
planet, and to its physical constitution generally. The specialties both of
inorganic and organized matter, classed according to analogy of form and
composition, undoubtedly constitute a most interesting branch of study, but
they appertain to a sphere of ideas having no affinity with the subject of
this work.
The description of different countries certainly furnishes us with the most
important materials for the composition of a physical geography; but the
combination of these different descriptions, ranged in series, would as
little give us a true image of the general conformation of the irregular
surface of our globe, as a succession of all the floras of different regions
would constitute that which I designate as a 'Geography of Plants.' It is
by subjecting isolated observations to the process of thought, and by
combining and comparing them, that we are enabled to discover the relations
existing in common between the climatic distribution of beings and the
individuality of organic forms (in the morphology or descriptive natural
history of plants and animals); and it is by induction that we are led to
comprehend numerical laws, the proportion of natural families to the whole
number of species, and to designate the latitude or geographical position of
the zones in whose
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plains each organic form attains the maximum of its development.
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