AMERICA. Rocky Mountains and the Andes owe their origin -only the directions of the forces are different. The Appalachian fires have long been extinguished; they have, however, left traces of their former violence in the highly metamorphosed Silurian and Carboniferous rocks of New York and Pennsylvania, which were long supposed to be primary granite, &c. The igneous agency, which at first raised the western range, is still active at intervals throughout its course. There seems to have been a rest in the deposition of sedimentary strata at this time. The only activity was that of the earthquake and the volcano. Two whole formations-the Permian and Triassic-have no place in the rock-structure of A. The first renewed signs of life are discovered in the sandstones which occupy the valleys on the eastern side of the Appalachians. In these beds, which belong to the OOLITIC period, occur the tracks of birds and reptiles, discovered and described by Professor Hitchcock. In the CRETACEOUS beds which follow, evidence is given that the Mexican Gulf extended far up the Missouri Valley, and sufficiently deep to cover Texas and Nebraska with the beds which belong to this formation. The TERTIARY formation is developed as a band of about 60 miles, forming the southern extremity of North A., and stretching from North Carolina to the peninsula of Yucatan, leaving the coast-line only at the delta of the Mississippi. This formation occupies a large amount of the surface of South A. From Patagonia to Venezuela it can be traced occupying the space intervening between the base of the Andes and the azoic rocks of Brazil and Guiana. The older Silurian and Carboniferous deposits are not found in the positions they occupy in the northern continent; the gneiss, &c., dip directly under the tertiaries. The valleys of the Amazon and the La Plata, and the mouth of the Mississippi, contain extensive Alluvial deposits. There only remain two post-tertiary beds, which, however, are of considerable importance-viz., the Boulder Clay, and the River Terraces or Loess, containing the remains of the mastodon and of the elephant. The boulder clay occurs in the country north of lat. 40° N., and in Patagonia in South A. Its characteristics are the same as that in the old world-a stiff clay, containing boulders of all sizes, some being as much as one or two thousand tons weight. The origin of this remarkable deposit is ascribed to the former prevalence of vast glaciers over the north and south parts of America. The pampas of Southern A. are covered with a deposit of clay and sand, containing the bones of the megatherium and mylodon, genera allied to the sloths, and of the glyptodon, a huge armadillo. For details, see ANDES, APPALACHIANS, ROCKY MOUNTAINS. Botany. On the discovery of A., Europeans regarded with astonishment its vegetable and animal productions, so different from all that they had ever seen before. The difference between the productions of the old and new worlds is least remarkable in the most northern regions. Around the north pole, a region having a flora and fauna which may properly be designated arctic, includes portions of the three continents of Europe, Asia, and A.; and many productions are common to these three continents throughout this region, whilst those which are peculiar to one, are generally represented in the others by species nearly allied. In A., this region extends to the northern shores of Lake Superior. The polar bear haunts the arctic regions of the old and new worlds alike; and further south, in both, the beaver builds his dam, and is pursued for his skin. Pine and birch are the chief trees of all the most northern forests, and struggle on, dwarfed and stunted, towards the regions of perpetual snow; whilst the berries of different species of Rubus and Vaccinium (bilberry, &c.) are the last fruits which the soil offers to man during the brief summer of the north-alike to the Laplander and the Esquimaux. More to the south, the flora and fauna of A. become more decidedly different from those of the old world; yet the difference consists not so much in the appearance of new families as in new species, replacing, so to speak, those of Europe and of Asia. The forests consist chiefly, as in these continents, of pines, oaks, birches, and willows; but the pines, and oaks, and birches, and willows, are not the same as those which cover the plains and mountains eastward of the Atlantic. The same remark applies to poplars, elms, planes, maples, hazels, and other kinds of trees, and to plants of humbler growth, as roses, brambles, strawberries, bilberries, &c., the pasture grasses, and the common flowers and weeds, although umbelliferous and cruciferous plants are comparatively rare. Not unfrequently, also, forms oocur more completely different from those of the other quarters of the world, and these become more numerous as we proceed southward; although the magnolias, which form so admirable a feature of the flora of the Southern Alleghanies and other southern parts of North A., have recently been found equally to characterise that of the east of Asia and of the Himalaya Mountains, where magnificent species of rhododendron have also been discovered, rivalling or excelling those which are natives of the United States, and very different from the dwarf shrubs which represent the same genus on the mountains of Europe. It is remarkable that no true species of heath is found in A., although many shrubs of the same family occur, but none of them so strongly exhibiting the social character, or covering great tracts, as the heaths do in Europe. Where the climate begins to assume a tropical character, however, A. is distinguished by the abundance of the Cacti (the prickly pear and its allies), which are found on its plains, often forming the greater part of their vegetation. The species of this order, so far as is yet known, are exclusively American, although some of them have been introduced into the warmer parts of the old world, and are now very common in the south of Europe and elsewhere. The mountains of Mexico are, to a large extent, clothed with oaks and pines, most of them, however, different not only from those of the eastern continents, but even from those of the more northern parts of A. The flora of tropical A. resembles that of Asia and Africa in its palms, although these also are with few exceptions different in species; and the species are more abundant than in any other part of the world. It appears, indeed, that palm-forests like those of South A. scarcely exist elsewhere. The forests of the hottest parts of South A. produce also many remarkable trees of other kinds, among which may be mentioned the trees of the order Lecythidacea (q. v.), one of them known as the cannon-ball tree, and all of them producing huge fruits, with thick hard shells, which are often used for domestic purposes; whilst within the shell of a particular species are packed together the well-known Brazil Nuts (q. v.) of our shops. In the waters of the same region has recently been discovered the Victoria Regia, the most magnificent of water-lilies, and for the growth of which, hot-houses containing ponds of water have been erected in our own country. The forests of this part of A. are so dense and full of underwood, and the trees so bound together by lianas or twining plants, that they are in many places impenetrable, and the animals which inhabit them either find their way among the branches, or by narrow AMERICA. paths, which they keep open by constant use. The sion-flower.-The forests of North A. yield much treeless plains of South A., like those of North valuable timber, chiefly consisting of different kinds A., have, in general, much of a grassy vegetation. of oak and pine. The black walnut and hickory of Part of the elevated regions of the Cordillera, the United States are also much esteemed. The within the torrid zone, is remarkably character- West Indies and neighbouring parts of the mainland ised by the presence of Cinchona, which form its yield mahogany; and from the same regions comes principal botanical feature, and yield the celebrated logwood, one of the most useful of dyewoods. The Peruvian bark. In still more elevated regions, tropical forests of South A. produce many valuable Escallonia and Calceolariæ give a novel aspect to a timber-trees, of which perhaps the most deserving vegetation otherwise very similar to that of Europe of notice are the Greenheart (q. v.) or Bibiri, and in its general character, and containing saxifrages, the Mora. Brazil wood and Pernambuco wood are gentians, and many other plants of genera common among their dyewoods. One of the most remarkable in the old world. The flora of Chili presents also productions of this region is the Cow-tree (q. v.), the some interesting points of resemblance to that of juice of which possesses many properties in common New Holland and New Zealand. An Araucaria, with milk, and is used instead of it. The milky now not unfrequent in our pleasure-grounds, appears juice of some other trees of tropical A. thickens into as a representative of the pines; and its seeds caoutchouc.-Different parts of South A. produce afford a large part of the food of the natives of the Maté (q. v.) or Paraguay Tea, a species of holly, the district in which it abounds. Towards the Strait leaves of which possess properties similar to those of of Magellan, vegetation again assumes forms more tea and coffee, and afford a beverage which is extensimilar to those of Europe. The forests consist in sively used, although not yet an article of export to great part of peculiar species of beech. Barberries, other parts of the world; and the Coca (q. v.), a different from those of other parts of the world, but shrub of which the leaf has been, from a remote very nearly resembling them, are particularly abun- period, employed by the Indians as a narcotic. dant; and with them occur brambles, saxifrages, gentians, primroses, &c. There are also vegetable productions very different and peculiar, as the Winter's bark, which has obtained some reputation as a medicine. From this region are derived not a few of the fuchsias now so familiar an ornament of gardens, greenhouses, and cottage windows in Britain, and which are exclusively American. Zoology. In the animal kingdom, as in the vegetable, all seemed strange and new to Europeans when they first set foot in America. Yet here also the difference from the productions of Europe is not so great as in South Africa or Australia. In North A., many of the animals, as of the plants, of Europe are represented by others of the same genera or families. A few are common to the old and the Maize is one of the most important of the botanical new world; and in some which are now regarded productions of A. It is the only cultivated grain of as specifically different, the difference is not so great American origin; it was in cultivation before the as readily to attract the notice of unscientific discovery of A. by Europeans, by whom, however, observers. North A. has its elk and its deers, its its value was soon recognised, and it has now become oxen (the bison, called buffalo in the United States, an important crop in climates suitable for it in all and the musk-ox), its sheep (the Rocky Mountain quarters of the world. The other grains have all sheep), its beavers, hares, squirrels (some of them been introduced into A. by Europeans, with the much sought after for their fur), mice, rats, weasels, sugar-cane, the banana and plantain, coffee, cotton, bats, porcupines, bears, badgers, foxes, wolves, and flax, and many other plants now generally cultivated several species of feline animals, among which are both in the tropical and temperate regions. The the puma and the lynx. The jaguar, more poweryam is regarded as amongst its native productions, ful and dangerous than any other of the feline common to its tropical regions with those of other animals of the new world, and the only very forquarters of the world. Tobacco is a native produc-midable beast of prey which it produces, inhabits tion of A., the cultivation and use of which extended the tropical forests of South A. The warm parts of from it to the old world, and rapidly became pre- South A. produce the great tapir, peccaries, sloths, valent among a great part of mankind. (It is indeed ant-eaters, armadilloes, &c.; but the elephant, supposed by some that there is a species of tobacco rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and boar of the old indigenous to the furthest east; but this, and the world, have no more nearly allied representatives. question of its use there before it was made known The lama and its congeners, among which is the from A., are still involved in uncertainty.) But of all alpaca, are peculiar to South A., inhabiting the the vegetable productions of A., the potato is the Andes of Chili and Peru. Of the animals of the old most important and useful. We owe to it also the world, the most nearly allied to them is the camel, Jerusalem artichoke; and it produces several other which is entirely wanting in the new; as was also plants, valuable for their roots and tubers, as the the horse (with all its congeners), until it was arracacha, the melloco, &c., the use of which has introduced by Europeans-a sight of wonder and scarcely yet extended beyond their native regions. of terror to the Mexicans and Peruvians who first With them may be mentioned the quinoa, which is found themselves opposed to Spanish cavalry, but not a grain (the seed of a grass), but the seed of a now thoroughly naturalised, and roaming in vast species of Chenopodium, or goosefoot, resembling the multitudes on the South American plains. The dog seeds of the cereal grasses in its qualities, and exten- existed in A. before the days of Columbus; it existed sively cultivated on the high table-lands of Chili and in different varieties as a domesticated animal, and Peru. Tapioca, arrow-root, cocoa, vanilla, pimenta the same difficulty arises concerning the origin of or Jamaica pepper, and Cayenne pepper, are among the domesticated varieties as when those of the the native productions of the tropical parts of A. old world alone are considered. The chinchilla, so The Agave (q. v.) or American aloe, valuable both valuable for its fur, is a small quadruped, peculiar to for its fibre and its juice, has now become common the north of Chili. The opossums of North A. were in the warm parts of Europe, and in similar climates the first known of marsupial quadrupeds—i. e., in other quarters of the globe. The pine-apple is a those which have a pouch for their young-and are native of tropical A., although now naturalised, or described as objects of great curiosity by the earlier nearly so, in other tropical regions. Tropical A. writers on the new world and its productions. and the West Indies produce also many other fine Monkeys are numerous in the warm parts of the fruits, among which are the guava, different species new world as well as of the old, and of many of anona or custard-apple, and of granadilla or pas- species; but they are not only of different species |