While I was listening, I had scarcely noticed, that within the last

few minutes a light air had begun to play aloft among the higher

canvass, a faint cat's-paw came ruffling here and there a patch of the

water, till by this time the Indiaman was answering her wheel again,

and moving slowly ahead, as the breeze came down and crept out to the

leeches of her sail, with a sluggish lifting of her heavy fore-course.

The men were all below at breakfast, forward, and, of course, at that

hour the poop above me was quite a Babel of idlers' voices; while I

looked into the compass and watched the ship's head falling gradually

off from north-east-by-north, near which it had stuck pretty close

since daybreak. The sun was brought before her opposite beam, and such

a perfect gush of hazy white light shot from that quarter over the

larboard bulwarks, that thereaway, in fact, there might have been a

fleet of ships, or a knot of islands, and we none the wiser, as you

couldn't look into it at all. The chief mate came handing a wonderfully

timid young lady down the poop-ladder with great care, and as soon as

they were safe on the quarterdeck, she asked with a confiding sort of

lisp, "And where are we going _now_ then, Mr Finch?" "Well, Miss,"

simpered he, "wherever _you_ please, I'll be glad to conduct you!"

"Oh, but the ship I mean," replied she, giggling prettily. "Why," said

Finch, stooping down to the binnacle, "she heads due south-east at

present, Miss." "I _am so_ glad you are going on again!" said the young

lady; "but oh! when shall we see dear _land_ once more, Mr Finch?" "Not

for more than a week, I fear," answered the mate, "when we arrive at

the Cape of Good Hope. But there, Miss, your poetic feelings will be

gratified, I assure you! The hills there, I might say, Miss Brodie," he

went on, "not to speak of the woods, are quite dramatic! You mustn't

suppose the rough mariner, rude as he seems, Miss Brodie, is entirely

devoid of romance in his sentiments, I hope!" and he looked down for

the twentieth time that morning at his boots, as he handed her down the

cabin hatchway, longing to see the Cape, no doubt. 'Much romance, as

you call it, there is in ugly Harry yonder!' thought I; and comparing

this sort of stuff, aft, with the matter-of-fact notions before the

mast, made me the more anxious for what might turn up in a few hours,

with this gallant first officer left in full charge, and the captain,

as I understood, unable to leave his cot. A good enough seaman the

fellow was, so far as your regular deep-sea work went, which those

India voyagers had chiefly to do with then; but for aught out of the

way, or a sudden pinch, why, the peace had just newly set them free of

their leading-strings, and here this young mate brought his new-fangled

school navigation, forsooth, to run the Seringapatam into some mess

or other; whereas, in a case of the kind, I had no doubt he would

prove as helpless as a child. By this time, for my part, all my wishes

for some ticklish adventure were almost gone, when I thought of our

feelings at the loss of the boat, as well as the number of innocent

young creatures on board, with Lota Hyde herself amongst them: while

here had I got myself fairly set down for a raw griffin. Yet neither

Westwood nor I, unless it came to the very worst, could, venture to

make himself openly useful! I was puzzled both what to think of our

exact case, and what to do; whereas a pretty short time in these

latitudes, as the foremast-man had said, might finish our business

altogether; indeed, the whole look of things, somehow or other, at

that moment, had a strange unsettled touch about it, out of which

one accustomed to those parts might be sure some change would come.

The air, a little ago, was quite suffocating, the heat got greater;

and the breeze, though it seemed to strengthen aloft, at times sank

quietly out of her lower canvass like a breath drawn in, and caught

it again as quietly ere it fell to the masts. What with the slow huge

heave of the water, as it washed glittering past, and what with the

blue tropical sky overhead, getting paler and paler at the horizon

astern, from fair heat--while the sunlight and the white haze on our

larboard beam, made _it_ a complete puzzle to behold--why, I felt just

like some fellow in one of those stupid dreams after a heavy supper,

with nothing at all in them, when you don't know how long or how often

you've dreamt it before. Deuce the hand or foot you can stir, and yet

you've a notion of something horrid that's sure to come upon you. We

couldn't be much more than a hundred miles or so to south'ard of St

Helena; but we might be two thousand miles off the land, or we might be

fifty. I had only been once in my life near the coast thereaway, and

certainly my recollections of it weren't the most pleasant. As for the

charts, so little was known of it that we couldn't depend upon them;

yet there was no doubt the ship had been all night long in a strong

set of water toward north-east, right across her course. For my own

part, I was as anxious as any one else to reach the Cape, and get rid

of all this cursed nonsense; for since last night, I saw quite well

by her look that Violet Hyde would never favour me, if I kept in her

wake to the day of judgment. There was I, too, every time I came on

deck and saw those roundhouse doors, my heart leapt into my throat,

and I didn't know port from starboard! But what was the odds, that

I'd have kissed the very pitch she walked upon, when _she_ wasn't for

_me_!--being deep in love don't sharpen the faculties, neither, and the

more I thought of matters the stupider I seemed to get. "Green Hand!"

thought I, "as Jacobs and the larboard watch call me, it appears--why,

they're right enough! A green hand I came afloat nine years ago, and by

Jove! though I know the sea and what belongs to it, from sheer liking

to them, as 'twere--it seems a green hand I'm to stick--seeing I know

so blessed little of womankind, not to speak of that whole confounded

world ashore! With all one's schemes and one's weather-eye, something

new always keeps turning up to show one what an ass he is; and hang me,

if I don't begin to suppose I'm only fit for working small traverses

upon slavers and jack-nasty-faces, after all! There's Westwood,

without troubling himself, seems to weather upon me, with her, like a

Baltimore clipper on a Dutch schuyt!" In short, I wanted to leave the

Seringapatam as soon as I could, wish them all a good voyage together

away for Bombay, sit down under Table Mountain, damn my own eyes, and

then perhaps go and travel amongst the Hottentots by way of a change.

The chief officer came aft towards the binnacle again, with a strut

in his gait, and more full of importance than ever, of course. "This

breeze'll hold, I think, Macleod?" said he to the second mate, who was

shuffling about in a lounging, unseamanlike way he had, as if he felt

uncomfortable on the quarterdeck, and both hands in his jacket pockets.

"Well," said the Scotchman, "do ye not think it's too early begun,

sir?" and he looked about like an old owl, winking against the glare

of light past the mainsheet to larboard; "I'll not say but it will,

though," continued he, "but 'odsake, sir, it's terrible warm!" "Can't

be long ere we get into Cape Town, now," said the mate, "so you'll turn

the men on deck as soon as breakfast's over, Mr Macleod, and commence

giving her a coat of paint outside, sir." "Exactly, Mr Finch," said

the other, "all hands it'll be, sir? For any sake, Mr Finch, give thay

lazy scoundrels something ado!" "Yes, all hands," said Finch; and he

was going below, when the second mate sidled up to him again, as if

he had something particular to say. "The captain'll be quite better

by this time, no doubt, Mr Finch?" asked he. "_Well_--d'ye mean?"

inquired the mate, rather shortly; "why no, sir--when the surgeon saw

him in the morning-watch, he said it was a fever, and the sooner we

saw the Cape, the better for him." "No doubt, no doubt, sir," said

the second-mate, thoughtfully, putting his fore-finger up his twisted

nose, which I noticed he did in such cases, as if the twist had to do

with his memory,--"no doubt, sir, that's just it! The doctor's a sharp

Edinbro' lad--did he see aucht bye common about the captain, sir?"

"No," said Finch, "except that he wanted to go on deck this morning,

and the surgeon took away his clothes and left the door locked." "Did

he though?" asked Macleod, shaking his head, and looking a little

anxious; "didna he ask for aucht in particular, sir?" "Not that I

heard of, Mr Macleod," replied the mate; "what do you mean?" "Did he

no ask for a green leaf?" replied the second mate. "Pooh!" said Finch,

"what if he did?" "Well, sir," said Macleod, "neither you nor the

doctor's sailed five voy'ges with the captain, like me. He's a quiet

man, Captain Weelumson, an' well he knows his calling; but sometimes

warm weather doesn't do with him, more especial siccan warm weather

as this, when the moon's full, as it is the night, ye know, Mr Finch.

There's something else besides that, though, when he's taken that way."

"Well, what is it?" asked the mate carelessly. "Oo!" said Macleod,

"it can't be _that_ this time, of course, sir,--it's when he's near

the _land_! The captain knows the smell of it, these times, Mr Finch,

as well's a cockroach does--an' it's then he asks for a green leaf,

and wants to go straight ashore--I mind he did it the voy'ge before

last, sir. He's a quiet man, the captain, as I said, for ord'nar'--but

when he's roused, he's a--" "Why, what was the matter with him?" said

Finch, more attentive than before, "you don't mean to say--? go on, Mr

Macleod." The second mate, however, looked cautious, closed his lips

firmly, and twirled his red whiskers, as he glanced with one eye aloft

again. "Hoo!" said he, carelessly, "hoo, it's nothing, nothing,--they

just, I'm thinking, sir, what they call disgestion ashore--all frae the

stommach, Mr Finch! We used just for to lock the state-room door, an'

never let on we heard--but at any rate, sir, _this_ is no the thing

at all, ye know!" "Mester Semm," continued he to the fat midshipman,

who came slowly up from the steerage, picking his teeth with a

pocket-knife, "go forred and get the bo'sun to turn up all hands."

"Sir," said I, stepping up to the mate next moment, before the

roundhouse, "might I use the freedom of asking whereabouts we are at

present?" Finch gave me a look of cool indifference, without stirring

head or hand; which I saw, however, was put on, as, ever since our

boating affair, the man evidently detested me, with all his pretended

scorn. "Oh certainly, sir!" said he, "of course!--sorry I haven't the

ship's log here to show you--but it's two hundred miles or so below St

Helena, eight hundred miles odd off south-west African coast, with a

light westerly breeze bound for the Cape of Good Hope--so after that

you can look about you, sir!" Are you _sure_ of all that, sir?" asked

I, seriously. "Oh, no, of course not!" said he, still standing as

before, "not in the least, sir! It's nothing but quadrant, sextant,

and chronometer work, after all--which every young gentleman don't

believe in!" Then he muttered aloud, as if to himself, "Well, if the

captain _should_ chance to ask for a _green_ leaf, I know where to

find it for him!" I was just on the point of giving him some angry

answer or other, and perhaps spoiling all, when I felt a tap on my

shoulder, and on turning round saw the Indian judge, who had found me

in the way either of his passage or his prospect, on stepping out of

the starboard door. "Eh!" said he, jocularly, as I begged his pardon,

"eh, young sir--I've nothing to do with pardons--always leave that to

the governor-general and councillors! Been doing anything wrong, then?

Ah, what's this--still calm, or some of your wind again, Mr officer?"

"A fine breeze like to hold, Sir Charles," answered the mate, all bows

and politeness. "So!" said Sir Charles, "but I don't see Captain.

Williamson at all this morning--where is he?" "I am sorry to say he is

very unwell, Sir Charles," said Finch. "Indeed!" exclaimed the Judge,

with whom the captain stood for all the seamanship aboard, and looking

round again rather dissatisfied. "Don't like that, though! I hope he

won't be long unable to attend to things, sir--let me know as soon

as he is recovered, if you please!" "Certainly, Sir Charles," said

the chief officer, touching his cap with some appearance of pique,

"but I hope, sir, I understand my duties in command, Sir Charles."

"Daresay, sir," said the Judge, "_as_ officer, probably. Commander

absent!--horrible accidents already!" he muttered crossly, changing

his usual high sharp key to a harsh croak, like a saw going through

a heavy spar, "something sure to go wrong--wish we'd done with this

deuced tiresome voyage!" "Ha, young gentleman!" exclaimed he, turning

as he went in, "d'ye play chess--suppose not--eh?" "Why yes, sir," said

I, "I do." "Well," continued he, overhauling me more carefully than

he had done before, though latterly I had begun to be somewhat in his

good graces when we met by chance, "after all, you've a _chess_ eye,

if you know the game at all. Come in, then, for godsake, and let's

begin! Ever since the poor brigadier _went_, I've had only myself

or a girl to play against! 'Gad, sir, there is something, I can't

express how horrible to my mind, in being matched against _nobody_--or,

what's worse, damme, a _woman_! But recollect, young gentleman, I call

_not_ bear a tyro!" and he glanced at me as we walked into the large

poop-cabin, as sharply and as cold as a nor'-wester ere it breaks to

windward. Now I happened to know the game, and to be particularly fond

of it, so, restless as I felt otherwise, I gave the old nabob a quiet

nod, laid down my griffin-looking straw hat on the sofa, and in two

minutes there we were, sitting opposite over a splendid China-made

chess-board, with elephants, emperors, mandarins, and china-men, all

square and ataunto, as if they'd been set ready for days. The dark

Kitmagar commenced fanning over his master's head with a bright feather

punka, the other native servant handed him his twisted hookah and

lighted it, after which he folded his arms and stood looking down on

the board like a pundit at some campaign of the Great Mogul--while

the Judge himself waited for my first move, as if it had been some of

our plain English fellows in Hindostan commencing against your whole

big India hubbub and finery, to get hold of it all in the end. For my

part I sat at first all of a tingle and tremble, thinking how near his

lovely daughter might be; and there were the breakfast cups laid out

on a round table at the other side, behind me. However I made my move,

Sir Charles made his, and pitched in to the game in a half impatient,

half long-headed sort of way, anxious to get to the thick of it, as it

were, once more. Not a word was said, and you only heard the suck of

the smoke bubbling through the water-bottle of his pipe, after each

move the Judge made; till I set myself to the play in right earnest,

and, owing to the old gentleman's haste at the beginning, or his

over-sharpness, I hooked him into a mess with which I used to catch the

old hands at chess in the cock-pit, just by fancying what _they_ meant

to be at. The Judge lifted his head, looked at me, and went on again.

"Your queen is in check, Sir Charles!" said I, next time, by way of a

polite hint. "_Check_, though, young gentleman!" said he, chuckling,

as he dropped one of his outlandish knights, which I wasn't yet up to

the looks of, close to windward of my blessed old Turk of a king; so

the skirmish was just getting to be a fair set-to, when I chanced to

lift my eyes, and saw the door from the after-cabin open, with Miss

Hyde coming through. "Now, papa," exclaimed she on the moment, "you

must come to breakfast,"--when all of a sudden, at seeing another man

in the cabin, she stopped short. Being not so loud and griffin-like

in my toggery that morning, and my hat off, the young lady didn't

recognise me at first,--though the next minute, I saw by her colour

and her astonished look, she not only did that, but something else--no

doubt remembering at last where she had seen me ashore. "Well, child,"

said the Judge, "make haste with it, then!--Recollect where we are,

now, young gentleman,--and come to breakfast." She had a pink muslin

morning-dress on, with her brown hair done up like the Virgin Mary

in a picture, and the sea had taken almost all the paleness off her

cheek that it had in the ball-room at Epsom, a month or two ago,--and,

by Jove! when I saw her begin to pour out the tea out of the silver

tea-pot, I didn't know _where_ I was! "Oh, I forgot," said the Judge,

waving his hand from me to her, in a hurry, "Mr Robbins, Violet!--ho,

Kitmagar, curry l'ao!" "Oh," said she, stiffly, with a cold turn of her

pretty lip, "I have met Mr--Mr--" "Collins, ma'am," said I. "I have met

this gentleman by accident _before_." "So you have--so you have," said

her father; "but you play chess well, Mr--a--a--what's his name?--ah!

Colley. Gad you play _well_, sir,--we must have it out!" The young lady

glanced at me again with a sort of astonishment; at last she said, no

doubt for form's sake, though as indifferently as possible,--"You have

known your friend the missionary gentleman long, I believe, sir?--the

Reverend Mr Thomas--I think that is his name?" "Oh no, ma'am!" said I

hastily, for the Judge was the last man I wished should join Westwood

and me together, "only since we crossed the Line, or so." "Why, I

thought he said you were at school together!" said she, in surprise.

"Why--hem--certainly not, ma'am--a--a--I--a--a--I don't remember the

gentleman there," I blundered out. "Eh, what?--check to your queen,

young gentleman, surely?" asked Sir Charles. "What's this, though!

Always like to hear a mystery explained, so"--and he gave me one of his

sharp glances. "Why, why--surely, young man, now I think of it in that

way, I've seen you before in some peculiar circumstances or other--on

land, too. Why, where was it--let me see, now?" putting his finger to

his forehead to think, while, I sat pretty uneasy, like a small pawn

that had been trying to get to the head of the board, and turn into a

knight or a bishop, when it falls foul of a grand figured-out king and

queen. However, the queen is the only piece you need mind at distance,

and blessed hard it is to escape from _her_, of course. Accordingly, I

cared little enough for the old nabob finding out I had gone in chase

of them; but there sat his charming little daughter, with, her eyes on

her teacup; and whether the turn of her face meant coolness, or malice,

or amusement, I didn't know--though she seemed a little anxious too, I

thought, lest her father should recollect me.

"It wasn't _before_ me, young man?" asked he, looking, up of a sudden:

"no, that must have been in India--_must_ have been in England, when

I was last there--let me see." And I couldn't help fancying what a

man's feelings must be, tried for his life, as I caught a side-view

of his temples working, dead in my wake, as it were. The thing was

laughable enough, and for a moment I met Lota's eye as he mentioned

England--'twas too short a glimpse, though, to make out; and, thought

I, "he'll be down on Surrey directly, and then Croydon--last of all,

the back of his garden wall, I suppose!" "Check" it was, and what I

was going to say I couldn't exactly conceive, unless I patched up some

false place or other, with matters to match, and mentioned it to the

old fellow, though small chance of its answering with such a devil

of a lawyer--when all at once I thought I heard a hail from aloft,

then the second-mate's voice roared close outside, "Hullo!--aloft

there!" The next moment I started up, and looked at Miss Hyde, as I

heard plainly enough the cry, "On deck there--land O!" I turned round

at once, and walked out of the roundhouse to the quarterdeck, where,

two minutes after, the whole of the passengers were crowding from

below, the Judge and his daughter already on the poop. Far aloft, upon

the fore-to'gallant-yard, in the hot glare of the sun, a sailor was

standing, with his hand over his eyes, and looking to the horizon, as

the Indiaman stood quietly before the light breeze. "Where-away-ay?"

was the next hail from deck. "Broad on our larboard bow, sir," was the

answer.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Quere--Liberator?

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.[14]

We have here combined the best of all books, and the best of all maps,

for the study of the most interesting description of geography. Mr

Johnston's _Physical Atlas_, now published in a form which renders

it accessible to greater numbers, is without a rival as a companion

and guide in this department of study; and by dwelling on its merits

and utility, we should be only echoing a verdict which has already

been pronounced by almost every journal of scientific or critical

celebrity. And, indeed, the same might be said of our commendation

of Mrs Somerville's book; our praise comes lagging in the rear, and

is well-nigh superfluous. But not only are we desirous to tender our

tribute of respect to one who has done more than any other living

writer to extend amongst us sound, as well as general knowledge of

physical science; we are anxious also to recommend to our youth

the enlarged method of studying geography, which her present work

demonstrates to be as captivating as it is instructive.

Mrs Somerville's _Physical Geography_ does not assume so profound an

aspect, nor has it so lofty an aim, as the _Cosmos_ of Alexander Von

Humboldt; neither can it claim, like that work, to be written by one

who has himself surveyed the greater part of the terraqueous globe he

undertakes to describe. This latter circumstance gives an extraordinary

interest to the _Cosmos_. From time to time the professor of science,

gleaning his knowledge from books, and laboratories, and museums, steps

aside, and we hear, and almost see, the adventurous traveller, the man

Humboldt himself, who seems to speak to us from the distant ocean he

has traversed, or the sublime mountain heights he has ascended. Our

countrywoman can claim no such peculiar prerogative. Who else can?

To few--to none other--has it ever been permitted to combine so wide

a range of knowledge with so wide a range of vision--to have carried

his mind through all science, and his eye over all regions. He is

familiar with all the grandeurs of our earth. He speaks with the air

of the mountain still around him. When he discourses of the Himalaya

or the Andes, it is with the vivid impression of one whose footsteps

are still lying uneffaced amongst their rarely-trodden and precipitous

passes. The phenomena he describes he has seen. He can reveal to us,

and make us feel with him, that strange impression which "the first

earthquake" makes even upon the most educated and reflective man, who

suddenly finds his old faith shaken in the stability of the earth. And

what lecturer upon electricity could ever arrest the attention of his

auditors by so charming a reference to his personal experience as is

contained in the following passage?--

"It was not without surprise that I noticed, on the shores

of the Orinoco, children belonging to tribes in the lowest

stage of barbarism amusing themselves by rubbing the dry,

flat, shining seeds of a leguminous climbing plant (probably a

negretia) for the purpose of causing them to attract fibres of

cotton or bamboo. It was a sight well fitted to leave on the

mind of a thoughtful spectator a deep and serious impression.

How wide is the interval which separates the simple knowledge

of the excitement of electricity by friction, shown in the

sports of these naked, copper-coloured children of the forest,

from the invention of the metallic conductor, which draws the

swift lightning from the storm-cloud--of the voltaic pile,

capable of effecting chemical decomposition--of a magnetic

apparatus, evolving light--and of the magnetic telegraph!"

The writer naturally reflects on the wide interval which separates

the knowledge of electricity shown by these naked children on the

banks of the Orinoco, and the inventions of modern science, which

have taught the lightnings of heaven to do our messages on the earth.

But, to our mind, this wide interval is far more strikingly displayed

by the picture which is here presented to the imagination, of the

profound and meditative European looking down, pleased and surprised,

at the first unconscious steps in experimental philosophy which these

copper-coloured children of the forest are making in their sport.

But if Mrs Somerville's book has none of this extraordinary interest

which the great traveller has thrown over his work, and if it does not

aspire to that philosophic _unity_ of view, (of which a word hereafter,

in passing,) it must take precedence of this, and of all other works,

as a useful compendium of the latest discoveries, and the soundest

knowledge we possess, in the various subjects it embraces. Nowhere,

except in her own previous work, _The Connexion of the Physical

Sciences_, is there to be found so large a store of well-selected

information, so lucidly set forth. In surveying and grouping together

whatever has been seen by the eyes of others, or detected by their

laborious investigations, she is not surpassed by any one; and the

absence of all higher aim, or more original effort, is favourable to

this distinctness of exposition. We have no obscurities other than what

the imperfect state of science itself involves her in; no dissertations

which are felt to interrupt or delay. She strings her beads distinct

and close together. With quiet perspicacity she seizes at once whatever

is most interesting and most captivating in her subject.

The _Cosmos_ of Humboldt has the ambitious aim of presenting to us

the universe, so far as we know it, in that _beauty_ of harmony

which results from _a whole_. Thus, at least, we understand his

intention. He would domineer, as with an eagle's glance, over the

known creation, and embrace it in its unity, displaying to us that

beauty which exists in the harmony of all its parts. The attempt no

one would depreciate or decry, but manifestly the imperfect state of

science forbids its execution. We have attained no point of view from

which we can survey the world as one harmonious whole. Our knowledge

is fragmentary, uncertain, imperfect; and the most philosophic mind

cannot reduce it into any shape in which it shall appear other than

uncertain and fragmentary. We cannot "stand in the sun," as Coleridge

says in his fine verse, and survey creation; we have no such luminous

standing-point. There never, indeed, was a time when the attempt to

harmonise our knowledge, and view the universe of things "in the beauty

of unity," was so hopeless, so desperate. For the old theories, the

old methods of representing to the imagination the more subtle and

invisible agencies of the physical world, are shaken, or exploded, and

nothing new has been able to take their place. What is new, and what is

old, are alike unsettled, unconfirmed. In reality, therefore, the work

of Mrs Somerville is as much a _Cosmos_ as that of Von Humboldt; and,

as a work of instruction, is far better for not aiming higher than it

does. Mrs Somerville presents to us each gospel of science--if we may

give that title to its imperfect revelations--and does not bewilder

or confuse by attempting that "harmony of the gospels" which the

scientific expositor is, as yet, unable to accomplish.

As yet, we have said--but, indeed, will science be ever able to

realise this aspiration of the intellect after unity and completeness

of view? To the reflective mind, human science presents this singular

aspect. Whilst the speculative reason of man continually seeks after

unity, strives to see the many in the one--as the Platonist would

express himself--or, as we should rather say, strives to resolve the

multiplicity of phenomena into a few ultimate causes, so as to create

for itself _a whole_, some rounded system which the intellectual vision

call embrace; the discoveries of science, by which it hopes and strives

to realise this end, do in fact, at every stage, increase the apparent

complexity of the phenomena. The new agencies, or causes, which are

brought to light, if they explain what before was anomalous and

obscure, become themselves the source of innumerable difficulties and

conjectures. Each discovery stirs more questions than it sets at rest.

What, on its first introduction, promised to explain so many things,

is found, on further acquaintance, to have added but one more to the

inexplicable facts around us. With each step, also, in our inquiry,

the physical agents that are revealed to us become more subtle, more

calculated to excite and to elude our curiosity. Already, half our

science is occupied with matter that is invisible. From time to time

some grand generalisation is proposed--electricity is now the evoked

spirit which is to help us through our besetting difficulties--but,

fast as the theory is formed, some new fact emerges that will not range

itself within it; the cautious thinker steps back, and acknowledges

that the effort is as yet premature. It always will be premature.

There is a perpetual antagonism between the intellectual tendency to

reduce all phenomena to a harmonious and complete system, and that

increase of knowledge which, while it seems to favour the attempt,

renders it more and more impracticable. With our limited powers, we

_cannot_ embrace the whole; and therefore it must follow, that it is

only when our knowledge is scanty, that we seem capable of the task.

Every addition to that knowledge, from the time that Thales would

have reduced all things to the one element of water, has rendered the

task more hopeless. And as science was never so far advanced as at

the present time, so this antagonism was never so clearly illustrated

between the effort of reason to generalise, and the influx of broken

knowledge, reducing the overtasked intellect to despair. How much has

lately been revealed to us of the more subtle powers and processes

of nature--of light, of heat, of electricity! How tempting the

generalisations offered to our view! We seem to be, at least, upon the

eve of some great discovery which will explain all: an illusion which

is destined to prompt the researches of the ardent spirits of every

age. They will always be on the eve of some great discovery which is

to place the clue of the labyrinth into their hand. The new discovery,

like its predecessor, will add only another chamber to the interminable

labyrinth.

Let us, for instance, suppose that we have discovered, in electricity,

the cause of that attraction to which we had confided the revolution

of the planets; of that chemical affinity to which we had ascribed the

various combinations of those ultimate atoms of which the material

world is presumed to be composed; of that vital principle which

assimilates in the plant, and grows and feels in the animal. Let us

suppose that this is a sound generalisation; yet, as electricity

cannot be alone both attraction in the mass, and chemical affinity in

the atom, and irritability and susceptibility in the fibre and the

nerve, what has the speculative reason attained but to the knowledge

of a new and necessary agent, producing different effects according

to the different conditions in which, and the different co-agencies

with which it operates? These conditions, these co-agencies, are all

to be discovered. It is one flash of light, revealing a whole world of

ignorance.

To the explanation of the most obstinate of all problems--the nature

of the vital principle--we seem to have made a great step when we

introduce a current of electricity circulating through the nerves. If

this hypothesis be established, we shall probably have made a valuable

and very useful addition to our stock of knowledge; but we shall be as

far as ever from solving the problem of the vital principle. We have

now a current of electricity circulating along the nerves, as we had

before a current of blood, circulating through the veins and arteries;

the one may become as prominent and as important a fact in the science

of the physician as the other; but it will be equally powerless with

the old discovery of Harvey to explain the ultimate cause of vitality.

To the speculative reason it has but complicated the phenomena of

animal life.

Within the memory of a living man, there has been such progress and

revolution in science, that not one of the great generalisations taught

him in his youth can be now received as uncontested propositions. Not

many years ago, how commodiously a few words, such as attraction,

caloric, affinity, rays of light, and others, could be used, and how

much they seemed to explain! Caloric was a fluid, unseen indeed, but

very obedient to the imagination--expanding bodies, and radiating

from one to the other in a quite orderly manner. What is it now?

Perhaps the vibration of a subtle ether interfused through all bodies;

perhaps the vibration of the atomic parts themselves of those bodies.

Who will venture to say? Attraction and affinity are no longer the

clearly defined ultimate facts they seemed to be; we know so much, at

least, that they are intimately connected with electrical phenomena,

though not to what extent. That electricity is implicated with chemical

composition, and recomposition, is clearly recognised; and Sir J.

Herschel has lately expressed his opinion, that it is impossible

any longer to attempt the explanation of the movements of all the

heavenly bodies by simple attraction, as understood in the Newtonian

theory--these comets, with their trains perversely turned _from_ the

sun, deranging sadly our systematic views. The ray of light, which,

with its reflection and its refraction, seemed a quite manageable

substance, has deserted us, and we have an ethereal fluid--the same

as that which constitutes heat, or another--substituted in its stead.

Science has no language, and knows not how to speak. If she lectures

one day upon the "polarisation" of light, she professes the next not

to know what she means by the term; she is driven even to talk of

"invisible rays" of light, or chemical rays. Never was it so difficult

to form any scientific conception on these subjects, or to speak of

them with any consistency. Mrs Somerville is a correct writer; yet

she opens her brief section upon magnetism thus:--"Magnetism is one

of those unseen imponderable existences, which, _like electricity and

heat_, are known only by their effects. It is certainly _identical_

with electricity, for," &c. It is like, and it is identical, in almost

the same sentence.

Even in the fields of astronomy, where we have to deal with large

masses of matter, it is no longer possible for the imagination to form

any embraceable system. We are plunged into hopeless infinitude, and

the little regularities we had painfully delineated on the heavens

are all effaced. The earth had been torn from its moorings and sent

revolving through space, but it revolved round a central stationary

sun. Here, at least, was something stable. The sun was a fixed centre

for our minds, as well as for the planetary system. But the sun

himself has been uprooted, and revolves round some other centre--we

know not what--or else travels on through infinite space--we know

not whither. A little time ago, the stately seven rolled round their

central orb in clear and uninterrupted space; their number has been

constantly increasing; we reckon now seventeen planetary bodies that

can be reduced to no law of proportion or harmony, either as to their

size, their orbits, the inclination of their axes, or any other

planetary property;[15] and the space they circulate in is intruded

on by other smaller and miscellaneous bodies, asteroids, and the

like, some of which, it seems, occasionally fall to the earth. Comets

come sweeping in from illimitable space, requiring, it is thought,

some eight thousand years for their revolution round the sun. Some

of these cross each other's orbits: one has crossed the orbit of the

earth; and their decreasing circle round the sun, gives notice of some

unknown ether suffused through the interstellar spaces. The outlying

prospect, beyond our system, grows still more bewildering. The stars

are no longer "fixed," nor is their brilliancy secured to them; this

increases and diminishes with perplexing mystery. What seemed a single

point of light, resolves itself into two stars revolving round each,

perhaps reciprocally sun and planet. The faint and telescopic nebula,

just reached by the glass in one age, is found in the next to be a

congregation of innumerable stars. Our milky way is, at the same

distance, just such another nebula. "The elder Herschel calculates that

the light of the most distant nebula, discovered by his forty-feet

refractor, requires two millions of years to reach our eyes." Oh, shut

up the telescope! the reason reels.

Science, in short, presents before us a field of perpetual activity--of

endless excitement, and that of the highest order--of practical results

of the greatest utility and most beneficial description; but it gives

no prospect of any resting-place--any repose for the speculative

reason--any position with which the scientific mind shall be content,

and from which it shall embrace the scene before it in its unity and

harmony. Always will it be

"Moving about in worlds half-realised."

Having touched upon these subtle agencies of light, and heat, and

electricity, and on the increasing difficulty we have of framing to

ourselves any distinct conception of them, we cannot refrain from

alluding to a little work or pamphlet, by Mr Grove, entitled, _The

Correlation of Physical Forces_, in which this subject is treated with

great originality. Mr Grove has made himself a name in experimental

science by his discoveries in electricity and chemistry; in this

pamphlet he shows, that he has the taste and power for enlarged

speculation on the truths which experiment brings to light. We would

recommend the perusal of his pamphlet to all who are interested

in these higher and more abstract speculations. How far the wide

generalisation he adopts is sustained by facts, we are not prepared to

say. But it is a powerful work, and it is a singular one; for it is

not often, in this country at least, that a man so well versed in the

minutiæ of science ventures upon so bold a style of generalisation.

After reviewing some of the more lately discovered properties of

electricity, heat, light, and magnetism, and showing how each of

them is capable of producing or resolving itself into the others, he

reasons that all the four are but the varied activity of one and the

same element. He adds, that this element is probably no other than the

primitive atom itself; and that, in fact, these may be all regarded as

affections of matter, which follow in their legal sequence, and not as

the results of separate fluids or ethers. We are not sure that we do

justice to his views, as we have not the work at hand, and it is some

time since we read it; but we are persuaded that its perusal will be of

interest to a philosophic reader, though its reasoning should fail to

satisfy him.

But we have not placed the title of Mrs Somerville's book at the head

of this paper, as an occasion to involve ourselves in these dark and

abstract discussions. We are for _out-of-door_ life; we would survey

this visible round world, whose various regions, with their products

and their inhabitants, she has brought before us.

"Physical geography," thus commences our writer, "is a

description of the earth, the sea, and the air, with their

inhabitants animal and vegetable, of the distribution of

these organised beings, and the causes of that distribution.

Political and arbitrary divisions are disregarded: the sea

and the land are considered only with respect to these great

features, that have been stamped upon them by the hand of the

Almighty; and man himself is viewed but as a fellow-inhabitant

of the globe with other created things, yet influencing them to

a certain extent by his actions, and influenced in return."

Physical geography stands thus in contrast with political and

historical geography. Russia is here no despotism, and America no

democracy; they are only portions of the globe inhabited by certain

races. To some persons it will doubtless seem a strange "geography"

that takes no notice of the city, and respects not at all the

boundaries of states. Those to whom the name recalls only the early

labours of the school-room, when counties and county-towns formed

a great branch of learning--where the blue and red lines upon the

map were so anxiously traced, and where, doubtless, some suspicion

arose that the earth itself was marked out by corresponding lines, or

something equivalent to them--will hardly admit that to be geography

which takes no note of these essential demarcations, or allow that to

be a map in which the very city they live in cannot be found. To them

the Physical Atlas will still seem nothing but a series of maps, in

which most of the names have still to be inserted. They unconsciously

regard cities and provinces as the primary objects and natural

divisions of the earth. They share something of the feeling of that

good man, more pious than reflective, who noted it as all especial

providence that all the great rivers ran by the great towns.

Others, however, will be glad to escape for a time from these landmarks

which man has put upon the earth, and to regard it in its great

natural lineaments of continent and sea, mountain and island. To do

this with advantage, it is necessary to disembarrass ourselves, both

in the book and the map, of much that in our usual nomenclature ranks

pre-eminently as geography. Nor is it easy to study this, more than

the older branch of geography, without an appropriate atlas. To turn

over the maps of Mr Johnston's, and con the varied information which

accompanies them, is itself a study, and no disagreeable one. Of the

extent of this information we can give no idea by extract or quotation;

it is manifestly in too condensed a form for quotation; it is a perfect

storehouse of knowledge, gathered from the best authorities.

The first thing which strikes an observant person, on looking over a

map, or turning round a globe, is the unequal division and distribution

of land and water. Over little more than one-fourth of the surface

of the earth does dry land appear; the remaining three-fourths are

overflowed by water. And this land is by no means equally disposed over

the globe. Far the greater part of it lies in the northern hemisphere.

"In the northern hemisphere it is three times greater than the south."

Of the form which this land assumes, the following peculiarities have

been noticed:--

"The tendency of the land to assume a _peninsular form_ is

very remarkable, and it is still more so that almost all the

peninsulas tend to the south--circumstances that depend on

some unknown cause which seems to have acted very extensively.

The continents of South America, Africa, and Greenland, are

peninsulas on a gigantic scale, all tending to the south;

the Asiatic peninsula of India, the Indo-Chinese peninsula,

those of Corea, Kamtchatka, of Florida, California, and

Aliaska, in North America, as well as the European peninsulas

of Norway and Sweden, Spain and Portugal, Italy and Greece,

take the same direction. All the latter have a rounded form

except Italy, whereas most of the others terminate sharply,

especially the continents of South America and Africa, India,

and Greenland, which have the pointed form of wedges; while

some are long and narrow, as California, Aliaska, and Malacca.

Many of the peninsulas have an island, or group of islands,

at their extremity--as South America, which terminates with

the group of Terra del Fuego; India has Ceylon; Malacca has

Sumatra and Banca; the southern extremity of New Holland ends

in Van Diemen's Land; a chain of islands run from the end of

the peninsula of Aliaska; Greenland has a group of islands at

its extremity; and Sicily lies close to the termination of

Italy. It has been observed, as another peculiarity in the

structure of peninsulas, that they generally terminate boldly,

in bluffs, promontories, or mountains, which are often the last

portions of the continental chains. South America terminates in

Cape Horn, a high promontory which is the visible termination

of the Andes; Africa with the Cape of Good Hope; India with

Cape Comorin, the last of the Ghauts; New Holland ends with

South-East Cape in Van Diemen's Land; and Greenland's farthest

point is the elevated bluff of Cape Farewell."

These are peculiarities interesting to notice, and which may hereafter

explain, or be explained by, other phenomena. Resemblances and

analogies of this kind, whilst they are permitted only to direct and

stimulate inquiry, have their legitimate place in science. It was

a resemblance of this description, between the zig-zag course of

the metalliferous veins, and the path of the lightning, which first

suggested the theory, based, of course, on very different reasonings,

that electricity had essentially contributed to the formation of those

veins--a theory which Mrs Somerville has considered sufficiently sound

to introduce into her work.

What lies _within_ our globe is still matter of conjecture. The radius

of the earth is 4000 miles, and by one means or another, mining, and

the examination of the upheaved strata, and of what volcanoes have

thrown out, we are supposed to have penetrated, with speculative

vision, to about the depth of ten miles.

"The increase of temperature," writes Mrs Somerville, "with

the depth below the surface of the earth, and the tremendous

desolation hurled over wide regions by numerous fire-breathing

mountains, show that man is removed but a few miles from

immense lakes or seas of liquid fire. The very shell on which

he stands is unstable under his feet, not only from those

temporary convulsions that seem to shake the globe to its

centre, but from a slow, almost imperceptible, elevation in

some places, and an equally gentle subsidence in others, as

if the internal molten matter were subject to secular tides,

now heaving and now ebbing; or that the subjacent rocks were

in one place expanded and in another contracted by changes in

temperature."

Perhaps these "immense lakes or seas of liquid fire" are a little too

hastily set down here in our geography. But of these obscure regions

beneath the earth, the student must understand he can share only in the

best conjectures of scientific men. Geology is compelled, at present,

in many cases, to content herself with intelligent conjecture.

To return again to the surface of the earth, the first grand spectacle

that strikes us is the mountains. Before it was understood how the

mountain was the parent of the river, the noble elevation was apt to

be regarded in the light of a ruin, as evidence of some disastrous

catastrophe, and Burnett, in his _Theory of the Earth_, conceived the

ideal or normal state of our planet to be that of a smooth ball, smooth

as an egg. The notion not only betrays the low state of scientific

knowledge in his age, but a miserable taste in world-architecture,

which, we may remark in excuse for poor Burnett, was, almost as much

as his scientific ignorance, to be shared with the age in which he

lived. For it is surprising, with the exception of a few poets, how

destitute men were, in his time, of all sympathy with, and admiration

of, the grander and more sublime objects of nature. "We have changed

all that!" The mountain range, pouring down its streams into the

valleys on both sides, is not only recognised as necessary to the

fertility of the plain; but, strange to say, we become more and more

awake to its surprising beauty and magnificence. The description of the

mountain ranges of the several continents of the world, forms one of

the principal attractions of the study of physical geography, and one

of the great charms of Mrs Somerville's book.

The mountains of Asia take precedence of all others in altitude and

length of range.

"The mean height of the Himalaya is stupendous. Captain Gerard

and his brother estimated that it could not be less than from

16,000 to 20,000 feet; but, from the average elevation of the

passes over these mountains, Baron Humboldt thinks it must

be under 15,700 feet. Colonel Sabine estimates it to be only

11,510 feet, though the peaks exceeding that elevation are

not to be numbered, especially at the sources of the Sutlej.

Indeed, from that river to the Kalee, the chain exhibits an

endless succession of the loftiest mountains on earth: forty

of them surpass the height of Chimborazo, one of the highest

of the Andes, and several reach the height of 25,000 feet at

least.... The valleys are crevices so deep and narrow, and the

mountains that hang over them in menacing cliffs are so lofty,

that these abysses are shrouded in perpetual gloom, except

where the rays of a vertical sun penetrate their depths. From

the steepness of the descent the rivers shoot down with the

swiftness of an arrow, filling the caverns with foam and the

air with mist.

"Most of the passes over the Himalaya are but little lower

than the top of Mont Blanc; many are higher, especially near

the Sutlej, where they are from 18,000 to 19,000 feet high; and

that north-east of Khoonawur is 20,000 feet above the level of

the sea, the highest that has been attempted. All are terrific,

and the fatigue and suffering from the rarity of the air in

the last 500 feet is not to be described. Animals are as much

distressed as human beings, and many of them die; thousands

of birds perish from the violence of the winds; the drifting

snow is often fatal to travellers, and violent thunder-storms

add to the horror of the journey. The Niti Pass, by which Mr

Moorcroft ascended to the sacred lake of Manasa, in Tibet, is

tremendous: he and his guide had not only to walk bare-footed,

from the risk of slipping, but they were obliged to creep along

the most frightful chasms, holding by twigs and tufts of grass,

and sometimes they crossed deep and awful crevices on a branch

of a tree, or on loose stones thrown across. Yet these are the

thoroughfares for commerce in the Himalaya, never repaired,

nor susceptible of improvement, from frequent landslips and

torrents.

"The loftiest peaks, being bare of snow, give great variety

of colour and beauty to the scenery, which in these passes

is at all times magnificent. During the day, the stupendous

size of the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety

and sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender

clearness of their distant outline melting into the pale blue

sky, contrasted with the deep azure above, is described as a

scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads

of stars sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the

mountains looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of the

earth and snow-light, the effect is of unparalleled sublimity;

and no language can describe the splendour of the sunbeams at

daybreak streaming between the high peaks, and throwing their

gigantic shadows on the mountains below. There, far above the

habitation of man, no living thing exists, no sound is heard;

the very echo of the traveller's footsteps startles him in

the awful solitude and silence that reigns in these august

dwellings of everlasting snow."

The table-lands of Asia are on a scale corresponding with its

mountains. But the same elevation, it is remarked, is not accompanied

with the same sterility in these parts of the world, as in the

temperate zone. Corn has been found growing at heights exceeding the

summit of Mont Blanc. "According to Mr Moorcroft, the sacred lake

of Manasa, in Great Tibet, and the surrounding country, is 17,000

feet above the sea, which is 1240 feet higher than Mont Blanc. In

this elevated region wheat and barley grow, and many of the fruits

of Southern Europe ripen. The city of H'Lassa, in eastern Tibet, the

residence of the Grand Lama, is surrounded by vineyards, and is called

by the Chinese 'the Realm of Pleasure!'" Nevertheless the general

aspect of the table lands is that of a terrific sterility. Here is a

striking description of them. We should have been tempted to say, that

in this singularly dark appearance of the sky at mid-day, there was

something of exaggeration, if our own limited experience had not taught

us to be very cautious in attributing exaggeration where the scenic

effects of nature are concerned.

"In summer the sun is powerful at mid-day; the air is of the

purest transparency, and the azure of the sky so deep that

it seems black as in the darkest night. The rising moon does

not enlighten the atmosphere; no warning radiance announces

her approach, till her limb touches the horizon, and the

stars shine with the distinctness and brilliancy of suns. In

southern Tibet the verdure is confined to favoured spots; the

bleak mountains and high plains are sternly gloomy--a scene of

barrenness not to be conceived. Solitude reigns in these dreary

wastes, where there is not a tree, nor even a shrub to be seen

of more than a few inches high. The scanty, short-lived verdure

vanishes in October; the country then looks as if fire had

passed over it; and cutting dry winds blow with irresistible

fury, howling in the bare mountains, whirling the snow through

the air, and freezing to death the unfortunate traveller

benighted in their defiles."

The description of the territory of the East India Company will be read

with interest. We cannot afford space to extract it. Plains and valleys

the very richest in the globe are to be found here, as also much rank

marshy land, and also much jungle. "It has been estimated that a third

of the East India Company's territory is jungle."

As a set-off against this jungle we have it intimated that, if proper

search were made, gold would probably be found in this territory, as

abundantly as in California. We sincerely hope no such discovery will

be made. If there is a sure specific for demoralising a people, it

is to involve them in the chase for gold, instead of that profitable

industry which produces the veritable wealth for which gold has become

the symbol and representative. The discovery of gold in one of our

colonies would not only demoralise, it would impoverish. It would

demoralise, by substituting for steady industry, with steady returns, a

species of enterprise which has all the uncertainty and fluctuation of

gambling; and it would finally impoverish by diverting labour from the

creation of agricultural and manufacturing wealth, to the obtaining of

the dry barren symbol of wealth, which, apart from its representative

character, has but very little value whatever.

We will not look back towards Chimborazo and the Andes, as we should

involve ourselves in long and tempting descriptions. In Africa, it

is remarkable that we are little acquainted with the mountains. "No

European has yet seen the Mountains of the Moon!" What a challenge

to enterprising travellers! We know the level sands of Africa better

than these elevations which have assumed so magnificent a title. What

a terrific sterility does a large portion of this the most ill-fated

of the great continents present! "On the interminable sands and rocks

of these deserts no animal--no insect--breaks the dread silence; not a

tree nor a shrub is to be seen in this land without a shadow. In the

glare of noon the air quivers with the heat reflected from the red

sand, and in the night it is chilled under a clear sky sparkling with

its host of stars." The wind of heaven, which elsewhere breathes so

refreshingly, is here a burning blast fatal to life; or else it drives

the sand in clouds before it, obscuring the sun, and stifling and

burying the hapless caravan.

In the _new_ continent of America--if it still retains that title--the

desert is comparatively rare. But its enormous forests have, in some

regions, proved that excessive vegetation can assume almost as terrific

an appearance as this interminable sterility.

"The forests of the Amazons not only cover the basin of that

river, from the Cordillera of Chiquitos to the mountains of

Parima, but also its limiting mountain-chains, the Sierra

Dos Vertentes and Parima, so that the whole forms an area of

woodland more than six times the size of France, lying between

the 18th parallel of south latitude and the 7th of north,

consequently inter-tropical and traversed by the equator.

According to Baron Humboldt, the soil, enriched for ages by

the spoils of the forest, consists of the richest mould. The

heat is suffocating in the deep and dark recesses of these

primeval woods, where not a breath of air penetrates, and

where, after being drenched by the periodical rains, the damp

is so excessive that a blue mist rises in the early morning

among the huge stems of the trees, and envelops the entangled

creepers stretching from bough to bough. A deathlike stillness

prevails from sunrise to sunset, then the thousands of animals

that inhabit these forests join in one loud discordant

roar, not continuous, but in bursts. The beasts seem to be

periodically and unanimously roused by some unknown impulse,

till the forests ring in universal uproar. Profound silence

prevails at midnight, which is broken at the dawn of morning by

another general roar of the wild chorus. The whole forest often

resounds when the animals, startled from their sleep, scream

in terror at the noise made by bands of its inhabitants flying

from some night-prowling foe. Their anxiety and terror before

a thunder-storm is excessive, and all nature seems to partake

in the dread. The tops of the lofty trees rustle ominously,

though not a breath of air agitates them; a hollow whistling in

the high regions of the atmosphere comes as a warning from the

black floating vapour; midnight darkness envelops the ancient

forests, which soon after groan and creak with the blast of

the hurricane. The gloom is rendered still more hideous by the

vivid lightning, and the stunning crash of thunder."

One of the most interesting subjects, of which mention is made in the

work before us, is the gradual elevation and subsidence observed in

some portions of these continents themselves. Just when the imagination

had become somewhat familiar with the sudden but very partial

upheaving of the earth by volcanic agencies, this new discovery came

to light of the slow rising and sinking of vast areas of the land, and

unaccompanied with any earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. In some parts

the crust of the earth has sunk and risen again; in others, sort of

see-saw movement on a most gigantic scale has been detected.

"There is a line crossing Sweden from east to west, in the

parallel of 56° 3´ N. lat., along which the ground is perfectly

stable, and has been so for centuries. To the north of it for

1000 miles, between Gottenburg and North Cape, the ground is

rising; the maximum elevation, which takes place at North Cape,

being at the rate of five feet in a century, from whence it

gradually diminishes to three inches in a century at Stockholm.

South of the line of stability, on the contrary, the land

is sinking through part of Christianstad and Malmo; for the

village of Stassten in Scania is now 380 feet nearer to the

Baltic than it was in the time of Linnæus, by whom it was

measured eighty-seven years ago."

It is evident that the elevation of the land, in relation to the level

of the sea, may be produced either by an uprising of the continent or

a depression of the bed of the ocean, permitting the waters to sink;

as also the apparent depression of the land may be occasioned by an

elevation in the bed of the ocean. This renders the problem somewhat

more difficult to solve, because the causes we are seeking to discover

may be sometimes operating at that part of the crust of the earth

which is concealed from our view. Mr Lyell, who, in his _Principles of

Geology_, has collected and investigated the facts bearing upon this

subject, mentions the following as probable causes of the phenomena:--

1. "It is easy to conceive that the shattered rocks may assume

an arched form during a convulsion, so that the country above

may remain permanently upheaved. In other cases, gas may drive

before it masses of liquid lava, which may thus be injected

into newly opened fissures. The gas having then obtained more

room, by the forcing up of the incumbent rocks, may remain at

rest; while the lava, congealing in the rents, may afford a

solid foundation for the newly raised district.

2. "Experiments have recently been made in America, by Colonel

Patten, to ascertain the ratio according to which some of

the stones commonly used in architecture expand with given

increments of heat.... Now, according to the law of expansion

thus ascertained, a mass of sandstone, a mile in thickness,

which should have its temperature raised 200° F., would lift

a super-imposed layer of rock to the height of ten feet above

its former level. But, suppose a part of the earth's crust one

hundred miles in thickness, and equally expansible, to have

its temperature raised 600° or 800°, this might produce an

elevation of between two and three thousand feet. The cooling

of the same mass might afterwards cause the overlying rocks to

sink down again, and resume their original position. By such

agency, we might explain the gradual rise of Scandinavia, or

the subsidence of Greenland, if this last phenomenon should

also be established as a fact on further inquiry.

3. "It is also possible that, as the clay in Wedgwood's

pyrometer contracts, by giving of its water, and then by

incipient vitrification; so large masses of argillaceous

strata, in the earth's interior, may shrink, when subjected

to heat and chemical changes, and allow the incumbent rocks

to subside gradually. It may frequently happen that fissures

of great extent may be formed in rocks, simply by the unequal

expansion of a continuous mass heated in one part, while

in another it remains in a comparatively low temperature.

The sudden subsidence of land may also be occasioned by

subterranean caverns giving way, when gases are condensed,

or when they escape through newly formed crevices. The

subtraction, moreover, of matter from certain parts of the

interior, by the flowing of lava and of mineral springs, must,

in the course of ages, cause vacuities below, so that the

undermined surface may at length fall in."[16]

Two agencies of the most opposite, character have apparently been, at

all times, acting on the crust of the earth to change its form, or add

to the surface of dry land--the volcano and the insect!--the one the

most sudden and violent imaginable, producing in a short time the most

astonishing effects; the other gradual, silent, and imperceptible, yet

leaving the most stupendous monuments of its activity. The volcano has

thrown up a mountain in a single night; there is an instance, too, on

record, where a mountain has quite as suddenly disappeared, destroying

itself in its own violent combustion, and breaking up with repeated and

terrific explosions. On the other hand, besides what has been long

known of the works of the coral insect, the microscope has revealed to

us that huge cliffs have been constructed of the minute fossil shells

of animalcule. These creatures, abstracting from the water, or the air,

or both, the minute particles of vegetable or other matter they hold

in solution, first frame of them their own siliceous shells, and then

deposit these shells by myriads, so as ultimately to construct enormous

solid mounds out of imperceptible and fluent particles.

Astonishing, indeed, is the new world of animals invisible to the naked

eye, which science has lately detected.

"Professor Ehrenberg," says Mrs Somerville, "has discovered a

new world of creatures in the infusoria, so minute that they

are invisible to the naked eye. He found them in fog, rain,

and snow, in the ocean and stagnant water, in animal and

vegetable juices, in volcanic ashes and pumice, in opal, in the

dusty air that sometimes falls on the ocean; and he detected

eighteen species twenty feet below the surface of the ground

in peat earth, which was full of microscopic live animals:

they exist in ice, and are not killed by boiling water. This

lowest order of animal life is much more abundant than any

other, and new species are found every day. Magnified, some of

them seem to consist of a transparent vesicle, and some have

a tail; they move with great alacrity, and show intelligence

by avoiding obstacles in their course: others have siliceous

shells. Language, and even imagination, fails in the attempt

to describe the inconceivable myriads of these invisible

inhabitants of the ocean, the air, and the earth."

With every great change, however brought about, in the surface of

the earth, and the climate of its several regions, it appears that,

either by the direct agency of the Omnipotent Creator, or through the

intermediate operations of laws which are at present profound secrets

to us, a corresponding change takes place in the forms of animal life,

and in the whole vegetable kingdom. Modern science presents no subject

to us of more interest than this, and none apparently so inscrutable.

Nor does the examination of the globe, as it exists before us at this

moment, with its various floras and faunas, at all assist us in forming

any conception of the law by which the geological series (if we may

so term it) of animal life, has been regulated, for the distribution

of the several animals over the several countries and climates of the

world follows no rule that one can detect. Of course, no animal can

exist where provision has not been made for its subsistence, but the

provision has been made with the same abundance in two countries,

and in the one the animal is found, and the other not. We should ask

in vain why the horse was found a native of the deserts of Tartary,

and why it was originally unknown to the plains of America? Nor can

any cause be detected for the difference between the congeners, a

representative species of one continent or island, and those of

another. And not only have the larger animals an arbitrary territory

marked out to them by nature, but birds, and even insects, are

separated and grouped together in the same unaccountable manner. The

chapters which Mrs Somerville has devoted to this subject will be read,

especially by those to whom the topic is new, with extreme interest.

They are enlightened and judicious.

It is a natural supposition to make, that, in the series of animals

which at great geological periods have been introduced upon the earth,

there has been a _progression_, so that each new form of animal life

has been, in some marked manner, superior to that which is substituted.

The comparative anatomist has not sanctioned this opinion; he tells

us that he finds the same "high organisation" in the fossil saurians

of a bygone world, as in the lions and leopards of the present day.

But we would observe that the presence of this "high organisation"

is not sufficient to determine the question. We should be surprised,

indeed, if any creature were to be found whose structure was not

perfectly adapted to the mode of life it was destined to lead. But

it is permissible to compare one animal with another in its whole

nature, and the character of its existence. The pig has the same high

organisation as the dog, yet we should certainly prefer the one animal

to the other; we should say that it was calculated for a happier life.

We cannot suppose that a bird is not a more joyous creature than the

worm or the snail. The adaptation of the whole form and structure to

a pleasurable existence, and not what is termed high organisation, is

that which we must regard, in estimating the superiority of one animal

to another. Now, in this respect, there surely has been a progression

from the earliest epochs. The crocodile and the tortoise are, amongst

the animals which now exist, those which most resemble some of the

more remarkable of the extinct genera. They are as perfectly adapted,

no doubt, as any other creature, to their peculiar mode of being; but

that mode of being is not an enviable one. The long stiff unwieldy body

of the one, and the slow movement, with the oppressive carcase, of the

other, are not consistent with vivid animal enjoyment. The crocodile,

accordingly, lies motionless for hours together--_waits_ for its

prey--and slumbers gorged with food. And for the tortoise, it appears

to lead a life as near to perpetual torpor as may be. Pass through a

museum, and note those huger animals, the elephant and the rhinoceros,

the seal or walrus, all those which most remind us of the gigantic

creatures of the antediluvian world, and compare them with the horse,

the deer, the dog, the antelope. Surely the latter present to us a type

of animal life superior to the former--superior, inasmuch as the latter

are altogether calculated for a more vivacious, sprightly, and happy

existence. We must not venture to remark on their greater comparative

_beauty_, for we shall be told that this is a matter for our own

peculiar taste. We should not be contented to be so easily silenced on

this head, but we should require far more space than we have now at our

disposal to defend our æsthetic notions.

We have found ourselves imperceptibly conducted from the inanimate

to the animate creation; we shall proceed, therefore, with the same

topic, in the few farther extracts we shall be able to make from the

work before us. Indeed, with so vast a subject, and so brief a space,

it would be idle to affect any great precision in the arrangement of

our topics; enough if they follow without abruptness, and are linked

together by natural associations of thought.

"Three hundred thousand insects are known!" and every day, we were

almost going to add, increases the number. They abound, as may be

expected, in equatorial regions, and decrease towards the poles. "The

location of insects depends upon that of the plants which yield their

food; and as almost each plant is peopled with inhabitants peculiar to

itself, insects are distributed over the earth in the same manner as

vegetables; the groups, consequently, are often confined within narrow

limits, and it is extraordinary that, notwithstanding their powers of

locomotion, they often remain within a particular compass, though the

plant, and all other circumstances in their immediate vicinity, appear

equally favourable for their habitation."

Mountain-chains, Mrs Somerville observes, are a complete barrier to

insects; they differ even in the two sides of the Col de Tende in the

Alps, and they are limited in the choice of their food. If a plant is

taken to a country where it has no congeners, it will be safe from

the insects of that country; but if it has congeners, the insect

inhabitants will soon find the way to it. Our cabbages and carrots,

when transplanted to Cayenne, were not injured by the insects of that

country; and the tulip tree, and other magnolias brought here, are not

molested by our insects.

The insect is a race, or order, of creatures not friendly to man, or

any of the larger animals.

"The mosquito and culex are spread over the world more

generally than any other tribe; they are the torment of men

and animals from the poles to the equator, by night and by

day; the species are numerous, and their location partial....

Of all places on earth, the Orinoco, and other great rivers

of tropical America, are the most obnoxious to this plague.

The account given by Baron Humboldt is really fearful; at no

season of the year, at no hour of the day or night, can rest

be found; whole districts in the Upper Orinoco are deserted on

account of these insects. Different species follow one another

with such precision, that the time of day or night may be known

accurately from their humming noise, and from the different

sensations of pain which the different poisons produce. The

only respite is the interval of a few minutes between the

departure of one gang and the arrival of their successors, for

the species do not mix. On some parts of the Orinoco, the air

is one dense cloud of poisonous insects to the height of twenty

feet."

The sea, as well as the air, is populous with insect life. The

discoloured portions of the ocean generally owe their tint to

myriads of insects. The vermilion sea off California is probably

to be accounted for from this cause, "as Mr Darwin found red and

chocolate-coloured water on the coast of Chili, over spaces of several

square miles, full of microscopic animalcules, darting about in every

direction, and sometimes exploding"--we hope for joy. "In the Arctic

seas, where the water is pure transparent ultramarine colour, parts of

twenty or thirty square miles, one thousand five hundred feet deep,

are green and turbid, from the quantity of minute animalcules. Captain

Scoresby calculated that it would require eighty thousand persons

working unceasingly, from the creation of man to the present day, to

count the number of insects contained in two miles of the green water."

Captain Scoresby must be very fond of calculations. We have noticed,

by the way, on several occasions, how very bold these men of figures

are! One pounds and pulverises the Pyrenees, and strews them over

France, and tells us how many feet this would raise the level of the

whole country. Another calculates how much soil the Mississippi brings

down, per hour, to the ocean; and another, still bolder, undertakes

to say what quantity of ice lies amongst the whole range of the Alps.

Some of these calculations are laborious inutilities, as it is evident

that no accurate data can be obtained to proceed upon. In the last

instance, how find the depth of the ice? The sand of the desert has

been sounded in one place, we are told, and the lead has sunk three

hundred and sixty feet without finding a bottom; but what plummet can

sound the glacier? Here and there a crevice may let us into the secret

of its depth, and we know that below a certain level ice cannot remain

unmelted; but who can tell the configuration of the mountain under

the ice, how shallow the glacier may be in some parts, and into what

profound caverns it may sink in others? There is something childish

in giving us an array of figures, when the figures present no useful

approximation to the truth.

We have alluded to the difficult problem of the distribution of the

different species of animals throughout the several regions of the

globe: the same problem meets us in the vegetable world. Here we might

expect to grapple with it with some better hopes of success, yet the

difficulties are by no means diminished; we only seem to see them more

plainly. In the first place, it is clear, as Mrs Somerville says, that

"no similarity of existing circumstances can account for whole families

of plants being confined to one particular country, or even to a very

limited district, which, as far as we can judge, might have grown

equally well in many others." But the _difference_ of the floras is not

the only difficulty. While there is difference in a great number of

the species, there is _identity_ in a certain other number. If now we

account for the difference by supposing that the several portions of

land emerged from the ocean at different epochs, and under different

conditions, and that, therefore, the generative powers of vegetable

life, (in whatever, under the will of Divine Providence, these may

be supposed to consist) manifested themselves differently, how shall

we next account for this identity? "In islands far from continents,

the number of plants is small; but of these a large proportion occur

nowhere else. In St Helena, of thirty flower-bearing plants one or

two only are native elsewhere." But these one or two become a new

perplexity. "In the Falkland Islands there are more than thirty

flowering plants identical with those in Great Britain." Very many

similar cases might be cited; we quote these only to show the nature of

the difficulty with which science has to cope.

And here comes in the following strange and startling fact, to render

this subject of vegetable production still more inexplicable:--

"Nothing grows under these great forests, (of South America;)

and when accidentally burnt down in the mountainous parts

of Patagonia, they never rise again; _but the ground they

grow on is soon covered with an impenetrable brushwood of

other plants_. In Chili the violently stinging Loasa appears

first in these burnt places, bushes grow afterwards, and then

comes a tree-grass, eighteen feet high, of which the Indians

make their huts. The new vegetation that follows the burning

of primeval forests is quite unaccountable. The ancient and

undisturbed forests of Pennsylvania have no undergrowth;

and when burnt down they are succeeded by a thick growth of

rhododendrons."--(Vol. ii. p. 190.)

But we must bring our rambling excursion through these pleasant volumes

to a close; the more especially as we wish once more to take this

opportunity, not as critics only, but as readers also, to express

our grateful sense of the benefit which Mrs Somerville has conferred

upon society by this and her preceding volume, _The Connexion of the

Physical Sciences_. It was once a prevailing habit to speak in a

sort of apologetic strain of works of popular science. Such habit,

or whatever residue of it remains, may be entirely laid aside. If

by popular science is meant the conveyance, in clear intelligible

language, as little technical as possible, of the results of scientific

inquiry, then are we all of us beholden more or less to popular

science. The most scientific of men cannot be equally profound in all

branches of inquiry. The field has now become so extensive that he

cannot hope to obtain his knowledge in all departments from the first

sources. He must trust for much to the authority of others. Every one

who is desirous of learning what anatomy and physiology can teach us,

cannot attend the dissecting table. How much that we esteem, as amongst

the most valuable of our acquisitions, depends on this secondary

evidence! How few can follow the calculations of the mathematician, by

which he establishes results which are nevertheless familiar to all as

household words! And the mathematician himself, great aristocrat as he

is in science, must take the chemist on his word for the nice analysis

the latter has performed. He cannot leave his papers to follow out

experiments, often as difficult and intricate as his own calculations.

Indeed the experiments of the man of science have become so refined

and elaborate, and deal often with such subtle matter, and this in

so minute quantities, that, as it has been said of the astronomer,

that it requires a separate education, and takes half a life to learn

to observe, so it may be truly said, that to devise and conduct new

experiments in philosophy has become an art in itself. We must be

content to see a great deal with the eyes of others; to be satisfied

with the report of this or that labourer in the wide field of science.

We cannot all of us go wandering over moor and mountain to gather and

classify herbs and flowers; interested as we all are in geological

speculations, we cannot all use the geological hammer, or use it to any

purpose; still less can we examine all manner of fishes, or pry with

the microscope into every cranny of nature for _infusoria_.

Mrs Somerville gives us the book!--the neat, compact, valuable volume,

which we hold so commodiously in the hand. The book--the book for

ever! There are who much applaud the lecture and the lecture-room,

with its table full of glittering apparatus, glass and brass, and all

the ingenious instruments by which nature, as we say, is put to the

torture. Let such as please spend their hot uneasy hour in a crowd.

We could never feed in a crowd; we detest benches and sitting in a

row. To our notion, more is got, in half the time, from a few pages of

the quiet letterpress, quietly perused: the better if accompanied by

skilful diagrams, or, as in this case, by admirable maps. As to those

experiments, on the witnessing of which so much stress is laid, it is

a great fallacy to suppose that they add anything to the certainty of

our knowledge. When we see an experiment performed at a distance, in a

theatre, we do, in fact, as entirely rely on the word of the lecturer

as if we only read of its performance. It is our faith in his character

that makes all the difference between his exhibition and that of the

dexterous conjurer. To obtain any additional evidence from beholding

the experiment, we ought to be at the elbow of the skilful manipulator,

and weigh, and test, and scrutinise.

But, indeed, as a matter of evidence, the experiment in a popular

lecture-room is never viewed for a moment. It is a mere show. It has

degenerated into a mere expedient to attract idlers and keep them

awake. The crowd is there, and expect to see something; and it has

become the confirmed habit of the whole class of popular lecturers to

introduce their experiments, not when they are wanted to elucidate or

prove their propositions, but whenever and wherever they can answer the

purpose of amusing the audience. If a learned professor is lecturing

upon the theory of combustion, he will burn a piece of stick or paper

before you, to show that when such things are burnt flame is produced.

He would on no account forego that flame. Yes; and the audience look

on as if they had never seen a stick or a piece of paper burn before.

And when he is so happy as to arrive at the point where a few grains

of gunpowder may be ignited, they give him a round of applause! In the

hands of many, the lecture itself becomes little more than an occasion

for the experiment. The glittering vials, the air-pump, the electrical

machine, undoubtedly keep the eyes at least of the audience open; but

the expedient, with all due deference be it said, reminds us of the

ingenious resource of the veteran exhibitor of _Punch_, who knows that

if his puppets receive knocks enough, and there is sufficient clatter

with the sticks, the dramatic dialogue may take its course as it

pleases: he is sure of his popularity.

Therefore it is we are for the book; and we hold such presents as

Mrs Somerville has bestowed upon the public to be of incalculable

value, disseminating more sound information than all the literary and

scientific institutions will accomplish in a whole cycle of their

existence. We will conclude with one or two practical suggestions,

which would add to the utility of the last of her two works--_The

Physical Geography_. Mrs Somerville has thought it well to insert a

few notes explanatory of some scientific terms. But these notes are

few. If it was well to explain such terms as "Marsupial animals,"

or "Testacea," a reader might be excused for wishing to know what a

"torsion balance" was, or what a "moraine,"--terms which fall upon him

just as suddenly, and unexplained by any previous matter. Would not a

glossary of such terms be advisable? But whatever may be thought of

this suggestion, our next remark is indisputable. To such a work as

this, an index is extremely useful--is all but essential. There is an

index, but it is so defective, so scanty, that it is worth nothing. We

cannot say whether this last remark applies equally to _The Connexion

of the Physical Sciences_, not having that work at present under our

eye. But we beg to intimate to all authors and authoresses, that

whenever a book is of such a nature that it becomes valuable as a

work of reference, it should be accompanied by a good index. It is a

plodding business, but it must be executed.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] _Physical Geography._ By MARY SOMERVILLE.

_The Physical Atlas._ By ALEXANDER KEITH JOHNSTON.

[15] "Nor are there," writes Humboldt, "any constant relations between

the distances of the planets from the central body round which they

revolve, and their absolute magnitudes, densities, times of rotation,

eccentricities and inclinations of orbit and of axis. We find Mars,

though more distant from the sun than either the earth or Venus,

inferior to them in magnitude; Saturn is less than Jupiter, and yet

much larger than Uranus. The zone of the telescopic planets, which are

so inconsiderable in point of volume, viewed in the series of distances

commencing from the sun, comes next before Jupiter, the greatest in

size of all the planetary bodies. Remarkable as is the small density of

all the colossal planets which are farthest from the sun, yet neither

in this respect can we recognise any regular succession. Uranus appears

to be denser than Saturn, and (though the inner group of planets

differ but little from each other in this particular) we find both

Venus and Mars less dense than the earth, which is situated between

them. The time of rotation increases, on the whole, with increasing

solar distance, but yet it is greater in Mars than in the earth, and

in Saturn than in Jupiter." After other remarks of the same character,

he adds, "The planetary system, in its relation of absolute magnitude,

relative position of the axis, density, time of rotation, and different

degrees of eccentricity of the orbits, has, to our apprehension,

nothing more of natural necessity than the relative distribution of

land and water on the surface of our globe, the configuration of

continents, or the elevation of mountain chains. No general law, in

these respects, is discoverable either in the regions of space or in

the irregularities of the crust of the earth."

[16] Lyell's _Principles of Geology_, p. 536.

CIVIL REVOLUTION IN THE CANADAS--A REMEDY.

To be British, or not to be, is now literally the question in all the

North American colonies. Like England, when Mr Cobden and the potato

blight produced, together, a panic which seemed to obliterate, for the

time, all past arguments, and all future consequences--changing minds

before deemed unchangeable, and raising to fame and greatness men and

reasoning that the world was never previously able to see the force or

the depth of--like England then, are the colonies now. They are in all

the depths and mazes of a panic. One of the storms which occasionally

break over the heads of all people is now raging over theirs. Nor is

it surprising--with England's history for ten years before us--if

there should be those among them who shrink from its drenchings or

its shocks, or are incapable, in the midst of its wild commotions, of

seeing sunshine in the distance. For our part, we are fond of that

sturdy greatness which can put its shoulder to the blast, and say,

"Blow on, great guns; we can stand your thunder."

Not that the panic in the colonies arises from the people's looking

forward to having nothing to eat. They have plenty, thank God, and to

spare. But they have nothing in their pockets; and, what is worse, they

are afraid, if they go on much longer as they are now doing, they will

soon be without pockets too. Factory cotton may be but fourpence a

yard; but if they haven't the fourpence to pay for it, it might as well

be as dear as diamonds, as far as they are concerned.

The policy of England, from the day that Lord Chatham said "that he

would not allow the colonies to make a hob-nail for themselves," has

been to convert them into marts for her manufactures--to make them

useful and profitable to her, by causing them to consume those things

which give her poor employment, her merchants and manufacturers profit,

and her commercial navy all the incidental carrying trade. As a return

for this, the colonies were directly and indirectly assured by England,

that their produce should be protected in her markets--that, for all

the profits England might make by manufacturing for the colonies, they

should have a full return in the profits they should have by their

produce being protected.

Meantime, the United States pursued an entirely different system.

They, notwithstanding the interests of the great body of the southern

states--whose interest, their principal product being cotton, was to

buy what they wanted of manufactured goods in the lowest market, and

to sell their cotton in the highest--rigidly adhered to the system of

forming manufacturing interests of their own, and of fostering and

encouraging them by every means in their power. While the colonies,

therefore, bought, with the produce of their country, broad cloths,

cottons, silks, blankets, scythes, hardware, and crockery, which

were manufactured in England, they saw all the profits of their

manufacture, their sale, and their carriage, go to another country, to

be spent among another people. The Americans, on the other hand, who

bought, with the produce of their lands, the manufactures of their own

country, saw the profits upon these manufactures applied to building

up factories, villages, and towns, which brought together a useful

population; built churches, made roads, established places of learning

and improvement; made better markets for some things which might have

been sold otherwise, and made sale for many that could not otherwise

have been sold at all, besides greatly enhancing the values of all

adjacent property, and increasing the general wealth of the whole

country. The advantages of the one system over the other, however, did

not stop here. The necessities and the advantages of manufactures,

which first dictated the making and improving of a common road, next

conceived the benefit of a railroad and a canal, and the profits of

manufacturing were straightway applied to their construction, and they

were done. The farmer, therefore, imperceptibly to himself, was placed

within a few hours of the best markets over the continent--found his

produce carried to them for a trifle, in comparison to what it used to

cost him--and found, withal, the process which made it so, bringing

thousands upon thousands of people into the country, to develop its

riches, to increase the price of its lands, and to contribute to its

civilisation and conveniencies, from the establishment of a college

down to the building of a blacksmith's shop. The colonial farmer,

too, who bought the goods of an English or a Scotch manufacturer,

contributed to send those manufacturers' children to school, to give

them a profession, or to leave them a fortune. The American farmer,

who bought his neighbours' manufactures, contributed to establish a

school in his own neighbourhood, where his children could be educated;

and to bring people together to support them, if they chose to study a

profession or to enter into business.

To trace, within the limits of a whole magazine even, much less in the

fragment of an article, the wealth and prosperity that have accrued

to the States over the Colonies, by this system, would be impossible.

We must content ourselves, for the present, with glancing at the

accumulation of capital, and the extraordinary improvements in one

State, as an example of what must have, and in truth what has, accrued

to the rest, in a greater or less degree, in proportion as they have

been engaged in manufacturing.

The state of Massachusetts, in point of soil, climate, and resources,

has fewer, or, at all events, as few advantages as any other state

in the American Union. With a few verdant valleys, and some highly

productive land, it has much that is rocky and barren, and more that is

marshy and useless. Yet this state, far below Upper Canada in natural

advantages, has, intersecting it in different ways, five canals, their

aggregate length being ninety-nine miles. It has, too, no fewer than

eleven railroads winding through it and round it, constructed at an

immense cost, and affording a profitable return to their proprietors.

Now what is the cause of this extraordinary growth of capital, in a

place where there was literally so little for it to grow upon?--and

how came such immense facilities for public business to be employed,

where nature has done so little to create business? The answer is

obvious. Massachusetts has not prospered by its land, or natural

resources--it has prospered by its manufactures; and its improvements,

great and extraordinary though they be, are but the natural offspring

of those manufactures. Its principal manufacturing town, Lowell,

the largest such town in the United States, has grown from a few

hundred inhabitants, that the land might have feebly supported, to

some forty thousand, that manufactures have profitably employed. The

necessities of these manufactures called for a canal and a railroad.

The profits of the capital invested in them, and the labour they

employed, soon constructed them. Salem, wholly by the profits of making

cotton fabrics, has become a town of fifteen thousand inhabitants.

Salem's manufacturing interests required a railroad to Boston, and

Salem's manufacturers' and artisans' profits were able to construct

it. Manchester and Lawrence owe their existence and prosperity, and

the adjacent country owes the advantages they are to it, wholly to

manufactories. They wanted, too, a railroad to connect them; and they

were able to make, and have made one. Springfield, also in this State,

and Worcester, Fallriver, Lynn, and Newburyport, and several other

places of minor consequence, owe equally their existence and prosperity

to the same cause. Nor is it to be wondered at that, in so short a

period, such vast improvements should be made, when we consider the

immense profits that have accrued upon the capital employed in these

manufactories, and upon the labour engaged in them. There is a cotton

factory in Salem which itself employs a capital of £200,000, giving

work to five hundred and seventy-five operatives,--three-fourths of

whom are girls,--whose average wages are three pounds twelve shillings

sterling a month. Yet, a great proportion of these being very young,

it necessarily follows that the wages of the grown up are reduced to

make up the average of those of the weaker, and that in reality an

industrious woman "can generally earn a dollar a day; and there are

those who have been known, from one year's end to another, even to

exceed this." Speaking of the character of this labour, and of its

effect upon the States, Mr Webster, the highest authority upon this

subject in America, thus truthfully and eloquently remarks--

"I have spoken of labour as one of the great elements of our

society, the great substantial interest on which we all stand.

Not feudal service, not predial toil, not the irksome drudgery

by one race of mankind, subjected, on account of colour, to the

control of another race of mankind; but labour, intelligent,

manly, independent, thinking and acting for itself, earning its

own wages, accumulating those wages into capital, becoming a

part of society and of our social system, educating childhood,

maintaining worship, claiming the right of the elective

franchise, and helping to uphold the great fabric of the State.

THAT IS AMERICAN LABOUR, and I confess that all my sympathies

are with it, and my voice, until I am dumb, will be for it."

Of the profits arising from the capital invested in these manufactures,

they have varied in different years, but have, on the average, vastly

exceeded those upon all similar investments in England, or in any part

of Europe. The _Newburyport Herald_, a couple of years since, gave a

statement of the profits arising from the Essex Steam Mill Company

in that town, by which it appeared _that forty-two and a half per

cent_ upon the capital invested was paid to the stockholders, as the

amount of profits for 1845. The Dedham Company, in the same state,

also divided ten per cent for six months of the same year; the Norfolk

Company, twelve per cent for the same period; and the Northern Company

ten. All these companies were engaged in the manufacture of cotton

goods--the most profitable, however, of all manufactures in the States.