centre, unites the Rocky or Columbian mountains in the north with the great chain of the Andes in the south. From these vast heights the land slopes towards the eastern shore, which, in the north and centre, is broken by immense gulfs-the Mediterranean seas of America. The configuration of the land just noticed accounts for the great rivers of America, almost without exception, flowing towards the Atlantic.

When we cast our eyes on the Western World, the first thing which strikes us, besides its extraordinary magnitude as a whole, is the large form in which nature has cast its different physical features. Its rivers are large and rapid beyond those of the ancient continents. The Maranon, the Orinoco, and the Plata, in South America, and the Mississippi and the St Lawrence in North America, are all conspicuous for the width of the channels in which they flow, and the prodigious mass of waters which they each contribute to the ocean. There is no chain of mountains on this side of the globe-the Himalaya excepted-which, in extent and altitude, can be compared to the Andes of South America; the Alps themselves dwindle into insignificance in comparison. The plains likewise of the New World are as extensive and beautiful as the mountains are elevated and grand. In some places, and at certain seasons of the year, the eye of the traveller in vain attempts to scan the farthest verge of the plain which stretches its monotonous expanse before him like some vast ocean; in other quarters the whole country is a boundless forest, or one wide rich savannah teeming with vegetable life, and clothed in the fairest hues of creation. Its lakes are equally remarkable: those in North America, extending in a chain from cast to west, are each of them an inland sea in magnitude. In vegetation, too, America displays a singular degree of vigour, producing what may well be termed the giants of the vegetable world. The pines that shade Columbia, are said to rise perpendicularly to the height of two or three hundred feet, and the plantain and tulip trees of Ohio are from forty to fifty feet in circumference.

The general level of America presents a remarkable difference from that of the old continent, the plateaus

being separated from the low plains by an extremely short and rapid declivity. Thus the region of the Cordilleras. and that of the table-land of Mexico-aerial, temperate, and salubrious tracts of country-come in immediate contact with the plains watered by the Mississippi, the Amazon, and the Parana. Even these plains, whatever may be their nature, whether they are covered with tall and waving plants as the savannahs of the Missouri, or offer to the view, like the Llanos of the Caraccas, a surface at one time burnt up by the sun, and at another refreshed by tropical rains, and clothed with superb grasses; or, in fine, similar to the Pampas and the Campos Parexis, they oppose to the fury of the winds their hills of moving sand, intermingled with stagnant ponds, and covered with saline plants-all of them preserve so low a level as to be rarely interrupted by rising ground. From this general division of America into lofty mountainous plateaus and very low plains, there results a contrast between two climates, which, although of an extremely different nature, are in almost immediate proximity. Peru, the valley of Quito, and the city of Mexico, though situated between the tropics, owe to their elevation the genial temperature of spring. They even behold the Paramos or mountain ridges covered with snow, which continues upon some of the summits almost the whole year, while at the distance of a few leagues, an intense and often sickly degree of heat suffocates the inhabitants of the ports of Vera Cruz or of Guayaquil. These two climates produce each a different system of vegetation. The flowers of the torrid zone form a border to the fields and groves of Europe. Such a remarkable proximity as this, cannot fail of frequently occasioning sudden changes of temperature, by the displacement of these two masses of air so differently constituted-a general inconvenience experienced over the whole of America. Every where, however, this continent is exposed to an inferior degree of heat; the polar climate extends to the very confines of the tropics; winter and summer struggle for the ascendancy, and the seasons change with astonishing rapidity. The trifling breadth of this continent, its elongation towards the icy poles, and its plateaus and

plains already mentioned, may serve in some measure to account for this.

Soon after it was discovered, this vast continent was seized by several of the nations of Europe. The United States were for the most part peopled by English settlers.; the Brazils were occupied by the Portuguese; while the Spaniards seized upon Mexico, Peru, and all the remaining part of South America. These latter people, for the sake of the gold and silver mines, spread themselves along the back of the Andes, as other nations spread themselves along the valleys of rivers, and lived an aerial people above the clouds, having built their cities in the purer and higher regions of the air. The European nations have lost their colonies, which, with the increase of power and population, have asserted their independence. The United States are fast rising into a great and powerful nation; the Spanish provinces are still wasting their strength in civil dissensions, the fruits of the long misgovernment of Spain. MALTE BRUN.-Abridged.

VI.-VOLCANOES.

THE name of Volcano, taken from that which the Romans gave to the god of fire, now designates those mountains which vomit forth flames, smoke, and torrents of melted matter. The chimney through which the smoke and lava issue, terminates in a vast cavity in the form of a truncated and inverted cone. This mouth of the volcano is termed the crater.

The eruption of a volcano is a most frightful and most majestic phenomenon. The signs which are the forerunners of the explosion, announce that the invisible combat of the enraged elements has already commenced. These are violent movements which shake the earth afar off, prolonged bellowings, subterranean thunders, which roll in the sides of the agitated mountain, or far below its base. Very soon the smoke, which is almost continually emitted from the mouth of a volcano, increases, thickens, and ascends under the form of a black column. summit of this column, yielding to its own weight, sinks down, becomes rounded, and presents itself under the ap

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pearance of the head of a pine tree, having the lower part for its trunk. This hideous tree does not long remain immoveable; the winds agitate its blackened mass, and disperse it in branches, which form so many trains of clouds. At other times the scene opens with more brilliancy. A stream of flame rises beyond a collection of clouds, keeps immoveable for some time, and then appears like a pillar of fire, which rests upon the ground, and threatens to set the sky in a blaze. A black smoke environs it, and from time to time intercepts the dazzling brightness. A number of lightnings appear to flash from the midst of the burning mass. On a sudden, the brilliant cascade seems to fall back into the crater, and its fearful splendour is succeeded by profound darkness. The effervescence, however, goes on in the interior abysses of the mountain; ashes, dross, and burning stones are projected in diverging lines, like the spouts of fire-works, and fall around the mouth of the volcano. Enormous fragments of rocks are thrown far into the sky. A torrent of water is often cast out with impetuosity, and rolls hissing over the inflamed rocks. There is then raised from the bottom of the crater a liquid and burning matter, similar to matter when in fusion. This fills the whole of the crater, and reaches to the very edges of the opening. An abundant quantity of dross floats on its surface, which ultimately appears and vanishes as the liquid mass rises or falls in the crater where it seems to boil. This scene, of so majestic a character, is but the prelude of real disasters. The liquid matter overflows, runs down the sides of the volcano, and descends to its base. There it sometimes stops, and appears like a fiery serpent recoiling upon itself. More frequently it dilates itself, and gushes out from beneath a kind of solid crust which is formed upon its surface. It advances like a large and impetuous river, destroys whatever it meets with in its course, flows over those obstacles which it cannot overturn, passes along the ramparts of the shaken cities, invades a space of country many leagues in extent, and transforms in a moment flourishing fields into a burning flame. Equal ravages may be sustained, though the liquid matter, called lava, does not issue exactly from the top of the volcano. It is

sometimes too compact and too weighty to be elevated to the summit; its violent efforts then occasion new ruptures in the side of the mountain, through which the igneous torrent rushes out. The cinders and ashes ejected from volcanoes, are often thrown to an immense distance, covering whole leagues of the country around. It was an eruption of this sort that overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii in the year 79.

Volcanoes are not peculiar to any particular district of the earth. Though generally found in lofty mountains, they sometimes rise from the plains, and even break out from unfathomable depths below the sea. In Europe there are three famous volcanoes; Mount Etna, which has burnt from time immemorial; Mount Vesuvius, which overwhelmed the city of Herculaneum, whose ruins have been discovered at a depth of sixty feet below the surface; and Mount Hecla in Iceland, surpassing even the other two in the violence of its eruptions. Iceland has many other volcanoes, which rise from the midst of perpetual snow. Stromboli, one of the Lipari or Æolian islands, from the constant burning of its volcano, has been called the lighthouse of the Mediterranean. The Peak of Teneriffe, 11,400 feet high, is the most elevated volcano in the old world. Extinguished volcanoes abound in almost all parts of Europe, particularly Italy, Germany, and France. In the latter country may be instanced Cantal, Puy de Dome, and Mont d'Or. China, Japan, the Moluccas, Java, Sumatra, and others of the South Sea Islands, have many burning mountains. But, of all parts of the earth, America is the region where those dreadful irregularities of nature are the most frequent and tremendous. Vesuvius and Etna itself, are

but mere fire-works in comparison to the burning mountains of the Andes. In Chili are sixteen burning craters; in Peru are those of Arequipa and Pitchinca, both remarkable for their frequent and destructive conflagrations; and in Columbia are Antisana, Cotopaxi, and many others. California contains five volcanoes; Mexico has Orisava, Popoca-tepetl, and Jorullo; whilst far to the north Mount Elias sends forth its flame at a height of 16,800 feet above the level of the sea.