common confusion of thought and expression, and had imputed it to an absolute incapacity in the writer, of expressing himself in any tolerable manner on any subject. But proceeding to the next page we find a different cause suggested.

"It is impossible here to enter into an analysis of the systems proposed for explaining the causes of this difference between the two parts of the same globe. It is a secret of nature on which the human mind becomes more and more confused in propor tion as it obstinately determines to fathom it."

Here we are informed that the difference between the two

parts of the globe, so much to the disadvantage of our western continent, is a secret of nature, and that the contemplation of this secret tends to confuse the the mind. Sad indeed! But what makes it sadder still is, that it becomes more and more confused in proportion as it obstinately determines to fathom this amazing secret. So that, it seems, this secret is a great Serbonian bog, in which even the giant understandings of Europeans are in danger of being utterly overwhelmed, while letting

themselves down to fathom it. No wonder that our puny intellects can discover nothing about this secret, if the mighty minds of our European superiors become more and more confused and dizzy, while prying into it!

"Nevertheless, those physical vicissitudes, the earthquakes, the volcanoes, the inundations, and peculiar catastrophes, whereof we, who live

in the calm of the elements, have not a very accurate idea, may have had some influence in its production; and it is well known at present that the most violent shocks of earthquakes,

which are sometimes felt throughout the whole extent of the new continent,

communicate no succession at all to ours."

The

What is a vicissitude? proper meaning of the word is undoubtedly a regular change, as is perfectly exemplified by day and night, summer and winter, the fluctuations of the tide, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, &c. There is another mean. ing, less proper however, when by vicissitude we intend change simply.

But earthquakes and volcanoes, and inundations, are not vicissitudes, according to any licenced usage of language. It would be as proper to call the conspiracy of Cataline, or the gun-powder plot, by that name. As to peculiar catastrophes, perhaps it becomes us not to decide whether they are vicissitudes or not, till we are better informed what is intended by them. For the present we are in Egyptian darkness on the subject. The reader's attention would not have been detained by a verbal criticism, were it not to show the total emptiness of the man's mind, who wrote this passage. He either knew not, or did not at all consider, the plain meaning

of the words which he used.

But let us pass on to the con. templation of the wonderful conjecture, which is contained in the passage last cited; viz. "that earthquakes, &c. may have had some influence on the production of this secret of nature." It is sufficient to exhibit the extreme futility of such a conjecture, merely to mention, that there is

no

conceivable connexion between earthquakes, &c. and the state of the human body, or the human mind. But we need not

rest here.

It is very far from being proved, and, we apprehend, from being capable of proof, that this continent is more exposed to earthquakes, volcanoes, or inundations than the eastern continent, which is so complacently said to be in the "calm of the elements." As to peculiar catastrophes, we again beg to be excused from saying any thing about them. One would think, that earthquakes were not so strange events even in England, as the writer of this article would lead us to suppose. Pray, Messrs. Cyclopodists, how many times have the people of London spent their nights in the fields, through fear that their houses would be tumbled upon their heads by an earthquake? Out of twenty-six great earthquakes recorded to have taken place within less than three centuries past, twenty have spent their force on the Eastern continent. Only one was felt in both continents, and that was in 1692, when Port Royal was destroyed with three thousand inhabitants, and one hundred thousand people perished in England, France, and Germany.

Ask Lisbon, Naples, and the adjacent country, and the island of Sicily, whether they are situated in the ❝ calm of the elements ?" How often have Nicomedia, Antioch, and Constantinople, been either wholly, or in part, laid in ruins by earthquakes? This direful calamity at one time laid waste one hundred and fifty cities, in Europe and Asia; at another, in 745, no fewer than five hun. dred cities of Asia, were laid in ruins, or greatly injured; and no computation could be made of the loss of human life.

Did

not these people live in the "calm of the elements ?" As to volcanoes, Herculaneum, and Pompeia, are, we trust, compe tent witnesses to prove, that volumes of fire and smoke, and riv ers of burning lava, have been known and dreaded even in Europe. We might make similar remarks with respect to inundations; but will trouble the read-, er no longer upon so plain a subject.

The writer proceeds to state, as a fact corroborative of his conjecture, that "it is well known at present, that the most violent shocks of earthquakes, which are sometimes felt throughout the whole extent of the new continent, communicate no succession" (delectable word!) "at all to ours." In the first place, we are not able to find, that there ever was an earthquake felt throughout the whole extent of the American continent. In the next place, if there were, and if it did not communicate any succession to the castern continent, what does all this prove? We may retort upon them, that their most violent earthquakes have communicated no succession" to our continent. But let us attend to the wonderful fact, and still more wonderful reasoning which follows.

66

notwithstanding his parade of 66 private advices" &c. than to say, that an earthquake which shook the whole continent of

America was not felt in Europe. Not to spend any time upon verbal criticism, we doubt the fact, whether there was such an earthquake, as is here described, in the year 1768. We can find no printed account of any earthquake in that year, nor can the old men to whom we have applied inform us of any. Mr. Webster, whose researches on that subject have been as extensive, as those of any man within our knowledge, mentions none on this continent, though he tells us of one by which Bagdad, situated "in the calm of the elements," was overthrown and nearly destroyed. But admitting the writer's fact, what does it conduce to his argument? If the carthquakes of one continent are not felt on the other, how does this prove, that the people of America are inferior to their brethren in the eastern world?

What the writer can mean by his inference in the latter part of the sentence, which we have been considering, we confess ourselves unable to decipher. Whether this is owing to our stupidity, or not, we may be confident that it can have no possible meaning relative to the subject under discussion. The writer sat out by attempting to account for the

the slightest intimation." Wonderful conclusion! But the writer proceeds:

example of some of the learned, apply to the new world the prodigies found in the Timæus and the Critias of Plato, concerning the Atlantis sunk by a torrent of rain that lasted only four and twenty hours. The basis of this tradition was brought from Egypt, &c. &c. &c.”

"Neither should we, following the

It

Thus goes on this pedantic rhapsody, growing more and more senseless, if possible, through two paragraphs. talks of "anachronisms, cata clysms, Hercules, Orpheus, and the Argonauts," and many oth er things, which have no more relation to the subject, than has Robinson Crusoe, or Gulliver's Travels.

The opinion that America was settled from Kamschatka, is next attacked; but as no reasons are offered in support of that attack, either new or important, the reader will not be troubled with any quotations or remarks.

In.

To give some notion of the barbarous dialect in which this part of the article is written, it is sufficient to cite only a few expressions as specimens. stead of being told that certain species of animals are become extinct, we are informed "they have been annihilated." To the ordinary terms of Natural History, the words

frugivorous,

cans; and in the prosecution of this design has proceeded to in

have been added. tion we here read

For perspira "transpir

calamities may have happened whereof the inhabitants of that hemisphere (what hemisphere,

corn, our ears are "torrefied maize."

delighted with

centre of the continent, had not the slightest knowledge of salt. The man who does not know, that salt-licks and salt springs, are interspersed throughout the interior of North America, so far as the country has been explor. ed, to say nothing of the newly discovered salt mountain, is indeed ignorant, and bat ill qualified to give a description of this continent.

Allowed and habitual incest among the aboriginal Americans is alleged as another cause of their inferiority; but as the writer does not find any authority, which he is willing to rely upon in support of so monstrous a fact, and as persons of information know full well, that no such fact exists, we merely mention the charge, and pass on.

One curious characteristic in some of the petty tribes is, according to the Cyclopædist, that they were "sunk in a total ignorance of all that constitutes the rational animal;" a phraseology which none but a French philosopher could have invented, and none but a slavish imitator adopted.

The American editors, after recapitulating the principal arguments on the subject of the inferiority, which we have so often had occasion to mention, and ennumerating some facts, which shew the futility of these arguments, very properly subjoin; "Had these facts been known, and duly weighed, much of the foregoing matter might have been spared, which contains the most absurd inferences, drawn from the most groundless sur.

mises."

It is assumed by the Cyclope dist, that the animals of America

are smaller than those of the same kinds in Europe, and that cattle imported here always degenerate; both of which assumptions Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, has proved to be false.

The American editors have shewn, from the memoir of a European traveller, that America is greatly superior to Europe in the productions of the forest. The following are some of the comparisons.

trees, which grow to the height of "In Europe there are thirty-seven thirty feet; of which eighteen form the mass of their forests, and sixteen are found in every part of Europe. In America there are ninety species of trees, which exceed forty feet in height. They are all natives of the forest, and seventy-two are common to all parts of the United States. In Europe only seven are fit for architecture, in America no less than fifty

one."