The first plant--Seaweeds in hot baths--Breaking of the meres--Gory Dew--Plants driven back to the water--Marsh plants--Fleur-de-lis--Reeds and rushes--Floating islands--Water-lilies--_Victoria regia_--Plants 180 feet deep--Life in a pond, as seen by an inhabitant--Fish-farming--The useful Diatom--Willows and Alders--Polluted streams--The Hornwort--The Florida Hyacinth--Reeds and Grass-reeds--The richest lands in the world--Papyrus of Egypt--Birds and hippopotami--Fever and ague. What was the first green plant? When was the surface of the earth first covered with flowers? Such questions are quite impossible to answer. We cannot even tell how plants ever came to exist on the earth at all. Wonderful as are the stories of the hardihood of bacteria, of spores, and of seeds, it is not possible to imagine that they could have been whirled or drifted through infinite space to this particular planet. Yet it is at least probable that the first real plant on this world was a seaweed or alga. In Germany and Austria there are certain springs in which the water coming from immense depths is at an exceedingly high temperature. These hot springs are used as natural hot baths, and have many interesting peculiarities. Amongst others there is the fact that certain seaweeds or algæ are found luxuriating in the hot water. Some of these can even live in springs with a temperature of 176° F.! Such algæ may have remained living in exceedingly hot water ever since that long distant time, the very first of all the geological periods, when there was no distinct separation betwixt land and water, and when the waters which were below the firmament had not been separated from those which were above it. Then the world seems to have been all fog and mist at a very high temperature. But all theories on the origin of the world might be briefly summarized by the last nine words! At any rate, the first plant was almost certainly a seaweed or alga not unlike those which produce the so-called "breaking of the meres."