ally great, being 60 miles at Quito, and 150, or 200 in Mexico, and some districts of the Peruvian ter ritory. This stupendous ridge is intersected, in Peru and New Granada, as we have seen, by frequent clefts or ravines of amazing depth; but, to the north of the isthmus of Panama, it softens down by degrees, and spreads out into the vast elevated plain of Mexico. In the former provinces, accordingly, the inhabitants are obliged to travel on horseback or on foot, or even to be carried on the backs of Indians; whereas carriages drive with ease through the whole extent of New Spain, from Mexico to Santa Fé, along a road of more than 1,500 miles."

"The most important feature of the American Continent is the very general and enormous elevation of its soil. In Europe, the highest tracts of cultivated land seldom rise more than 2,000 feet above the sea; but in the Peruvian territory, extensive plains occur at an altitude of 9,000 feet, and three-fifths of the vice-royalty of Mexico, comprehending the interior provinces, present a surface of half a million of square miles, which runs nearly level, at an elevation from 6,000 to 8,000 feet, equal to that of the celebrated passages of Mount Cenis, of St. Gothard, or of the great St. Bernard. These remarkable facts are deduced chiefly from barometrical observations. But Humboldt has adopted a very ingenious mode, infinitely superior to any description, of representing, at one view, the collective results of his topographical and mineralogical survey. He has given profiles or ver

tical sections of the countries which he visited, across the continent, from Acapulco to Mexico, and thence to Vera Cruz; from Mexico to Guanaxuato, and as far as the volcano of Jorullo; and from Mexico to Valladolid. These beautiful plates are in every way highly interesting.

"The central Andes are rich beyond conception in all the metals, lead only excepted. One of the most curious ores in the bowels of those mountains is the pacos, a compound of clay, oxyd of iron, and the muriate of silver with native silver. The mines of Mexico and Peru, so long the objects of envy and admiration, far from being yet exhausted, promise, under a liberal and improved system, to become more productive than ever. But nature has blended with those hidden treasures the active elements of destruction. The whole chain of the Andes is subject to the most terrible earthquakes. From Catopaxi to the South Sea, no fewer than forty volcanoes are constantly burning, some of them, especially the lower ones, ejecting lava, and others discharging the muriate of ammonia, scorified basalt and porphyry, enormous quantities of water, and especially moya, or clay mixed with sulphur, and carbonaceous matter. Eternal snow invests their sides, and forms a barrier to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Near that confine, the torpor of vegetation is marked by dreary wastes.

"In these wide solitudes, the condor, a fierce and powerful bird of prey, fixes its gloomy abode. Its size, however, has been greatly exaggerated; it is not larger than the

Læmmer

Læmmer Geyer, or Alpine vulture of Europe, its extreme length being only three feet and a half, and its breadth across the wings nine feet. The condor pursues the small deer of the Andes, and commits very considerable havoc among sheep and heifers. It tears out the eyes and the tongue, and leaves the wretched animal to languish and expire. Estimating from very probable data, this bird skims whole hours at the height of four miles; and its power of wing must be prodigious, and its pliancy of organs most astonishing, since in an instant it can dart from the chill region of mid-air to the sultry shores of the ocean.

"The condor is sometimes caught alive, by means of a slip-cord; and this chase, termed correr buitres, is, next to a bull-fight, the most favourite diversion of the Spanish colonists. The dead carcase of a cow or horse soon attracts from a distance crowds of these birds, which have a most acute scent. They fall on with incredible voracity; devour the eyes and the tongue of the animal, and plunging through the anus, gorge themselves with the entrails. In this drowsy plight they are approached by the Indians, who easily throw a noose over them. The condor, thus entangled, looks shy and sullen; it is most tenacious of life, and is therefore made to suffer a variety of protracted tortures."

"In South America we find plains of immense extent. The Llanos (plains), or savannahs, extending to a vast distance from the borders of the Oronooko, resemble the smooth surface of the ocean. Co

vered with a slight layer of earth, moistened by dew, or inundated with periodical rains, though destitute of trees and running water, produce in abundance a species of tall and spongy grass, that nourishes immense herds of cattle, which, since the conquest of America, have become wild, and live in a state of nature. The pampos of Buenos Ayres are of the same description, and still greater extent. Amidst the tufted grass live a kind of dogs that do not bark, that have become wild and live in holes, from whence they dart with fury on the weary traveller. It is under the happy climate of the meridional regions, that nature has multiplied her végetable productions with equal variety and splendor; here reigns a perpetual spring, and fruits succeed fruits, without interruption, on their ever-green bark."

An observation was made by Humboldt, which will, no doubt, attract the attention, and may, perhaps, occasion some embarrassment to geologists. What have been callled secondary formations are of immense thickness, and are found at an immense height. In the neighbourhood of Santa Fé we find beds of coal at the height of 8,500 feet above the level of the sea, and, near Huanooko, in Peru, at the height of 14,700. Fossils which have never been discovered in the Old World at a greater elevation than that of the Pyrenees, that is, 11,700 feet, are found in Peru, at 12,800, and even 14,120 feet above the level of the sea. The basaltes of Pichincha is found at an elevation of 15,500 feet, whilst its greatest elevation in the Old World is 4,225

feet.

feet. On the other hand granite, which in Europe crowns the highest mountains, is not found in the American continent at a greater height than 11,500 feet. The icy summits of Chimborazo, of Cayambé, and of Anitsana, are entirely composed of porphyry, which on he sides of the Andes form a mass 1,000, or 1,200 feet thick.

The planters of New Spain divide the cultivated part of the country into three zones. First, the hot territory, not rising above the elevation of 1,000. This region produces, in abundance, sugar, indigo, cotton, plantains, and bananas. Secondly, the temperate lands, which lie on the acclivity of the great chain, and which, at the height of 5,000 feet, enjoy the temperature of spring, which rarely varies, during the course of the whole year, so much as ten degrees. Thirdly, the cold region, at the height of 8,000 feet, comprehending such elevated plains or platforms as those of Mexico, whose temperature is generally under 63 degrees, and never exceeds 75.

Mr. Humboldt has confirmed former accounts, and thrown some rays of new light on the character, habits, and manners of the native Indians. The natives of the temperate regions of New Spain are of a deeper colour than those that live under a hotter climate. This race of people, and above all the Mexicans, bending under long oppression, in qualities both moral and intellectual, seem inferior even to the Africans. The same apathy of character is common to them and the individuals of the hot climates,

where man is so easily supplied with the necessaries of life. Althoughthey are sometimes governed by caprice, they are never induced to depart for a moment from their habitual listlessness by the love of gain. When our travellers visited the Havannah, they were struck with the singular beauty of the flowers which fell, white as snow, from the tops of the royal-palm, and, being desirous to examine the economy of vegetation in this efflorescence, for every branch or sprig, bearing flowers, they offered the children of the negroes inhabiting the neighbouring villages two piastres, or near eight shillings sterling; but nothing could move them to stir a step.

As the summer advances, the low plains of the American coast begin to be scorched with excessive heat. The herbage is dried up to the very roots, and the hardened soil is of a burning heat. The cattle and other beasts of the field, enveloped in clouds of dust, and tormented with thirst, run wildly from place to place. But the mule, better guided by his natural instinct, scrapes out the water-melon with his foot, and sucks in a refreshing beverage. All of a sudden the piercing cries of apes of the largest kind announce the approach of rain. Incessant torrents inundate the plains. The crocodile and the boa, long concealed in a state of torpor, raise their horrible heads, and come out of their tombs with a terrible noise. By and by the rivers, overflowing their banks, cover the land with their vast inundations. The whole delta of the Oronooko is laid under a sheet of water. In the

midst of these aquatic scenes lives, in peace and liberty, the nation of the Quaranis, on the tops of the maritia, or palm-trees with fantail ed leaves, in hammocks formed of the fibres of the leaves plaited and overlaid with clay. In these frail fabrics do the women light their fires and dress their vegetable food. The tree on which each family is suspended, furnishes it with the whole of its food. The pith of the maritia, which resembles sago, and its shelled fruit, furnishes this singular people, according to their respective ages, with nourishment both salubrious and pleasant. The wine of the palm is refreshing drink, and can even produce that state of inebriation which constitutes the supreme happiness of the savage. But although the members of this aerial republic enjoy a constancy of undisturbed repose, this is by no means the case with other savage tribes. Agitated by the most malignant passions, they are always ready to bathe themselves in blood. Those miserable wretches have no pleasure but in murder and rapine. When a tribe, weaker than its neighbours, ventures to traverse the plains, the individuals use the precaution of defacing their footsteps, to escape being surprised and massacred. Nature seems to have seconded the ferocious propensities of those savages, in producing, in the burning climates of the torrid zone, the most active poisons. The darts and arrows impregnated with these carry with them inevitable death. And when these instruments are wanting to the savages, their ferocious industry finds means of supplying their place. The frightful Ottomaque is in the habit

of dipping the nail of his finger in the curare, a very active poison, extracted from a species of the phyllanthus, and the least laceration produced by that nail is mortal. Thus the visions of primitive innocence vanish before the discoveries of travellers. Men become generous only in proportion to the degree of their civilization.

There have been lately published some numbers or deliveries of the Atlas Pittoresque, which was to accompany the Relation Historique, &c. under the title of Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the People of America, by Alexander de Humboldt.

Travels in the North of Europe, containing Observations on some Parts of the Coasts of the Baltic and the North Sea. By J. A. De Luc, F. R. S. Translated from the French MSS. illustrated with a Map and Drawings.

The investigations of philosophers in the present period, appear to be directed chiefly to two opposite extremes; nature in her grandest operations, and in her most subtle, minute, and secret resources; the kindred studies of astronomy and geology, and the properties of light and heat. It was observed in the last article, that some remarks have been made by Humboldt, in his travels in the equatorial regions, that might perhaps occasion some embarrassment to geologists. Geology is the youngest of the sciences; it is but lately that the exact figure of the earth was ascertained; and later still that men were tolerably acquainted with physical geography. Geology

Geology is, perhaps, yet too young to afford complete satisfaction on the complicated subject of which it treats. But the most probable of its general results or conclusions, as far as it has hitherto advanced, in our opinion, are exhibited in Professor John (not Principal James) Playfair's Illustrations of the Huttonian system; and that in a very perspicuous, pleasing, and masterly manner. How far the observations made by Mr. Humboldt concerning the secondary formations of nature in the equatorial regions, may invalidate, or appear, at first sight, to invalidate the Huttonian system, Professor Playfair will judge, and will conduct himself on his usual maxim of being equally candid to acknowledge, and resolute to defend, the truth. Some of the remarks on this volume of De Luc's too, though not very many, seem to be of a nature to attract the attention of the professor, and to draw a reply; whether in any future edition of his Illustrations of the Huttonian system, or in a separate publication.

The systems of geologists, Mr. Playfair remarks, are usually reduced to two classes, according as they refer the origin of terrestrial bodies to the agency of fire or of water; and that, conformably to this division, their followers have of late been distinguished by the names of Vulcanists and Neptunists. He thinks that the leading facts in zoology are now known; and he remarks that a tendency may be observed in geological systems to approach to one another, and all of them to the Huttonian system. The countenance and support that is given, by this

concurrence, to the Huttonian system, Mr. Playfair judiciously remarks, is the greater as it was extorted by the nature of things, notwithstanding an opposition from theoretical principles. This, he says, ought to be considered as a strong proof that the phænomena known to mineralogists are sufficient to justify the attempts to form a theory of the earth, being such as lead to the same conclusions, where there was not only no previous concert, but even a very marked opposition.

Of the two great systems which at present divide geologists, the Vulcanic and the Neptunian, Dr. Hutton belongs much more to the former than the latter; though, as he employs, in his system, the agency of both fire and water, he cannot, with strict propriety, be classed with either. In his system, water is first employed to deposit and arrange, and then fire to consolidate, mineralize, and, lastly, to elevate the strata. But with respect to unstratified or crystallized substances, he recognizes only the action of fire.

A

Mr. de Luc is altogether a Neptunist, and consequently adverse to the Vulcanic system. The whole of his present volume is a controversy with Mr. Playfair, whom he treats in a very respectful and gentlemanlike manner, about the erroneousness of the Huttonian, and the truth and certainty of his own system. This work (we are told in an advertisement), contains only the latest of his journeys. He has not yet been able to prepare for publication his earlier travels in Switzerland, and in Germany, from the year 1792 to 1799. But he considers the present volume (marked in the title

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