from any active or enlarged communication with the rest of mankind. When, like Europe, a continent is opened by inlets of the ocean of great extent, such as the Mediterranean and Baltic; or when, like Asia, its coast is broken by deep bays advancing far into the country, such as the Black Sea, the gulfs of Arabia, of Persia, of Bengal, of Siam and of Leotang; when the surrounding seas are filled with large and fertile islands, and the continent itself watered with a variety of navigable rivers, those regions may be said to possess whatever can facilitate the progress of their inhabitants in commerce and improvement. In all these respects America may bear a comparison with the other quarters of the globe. The Gulf of Mexico, which flows in between North and South America, may be considered as a Mediterranean sea, which opens a maritime commerce with all the fertile countries by which it is encircled. The islands scattered in it are inferior only to those in the Indian Archipelago,* in number and in magnitude and in value. As we stretch along the Northern division of the American hemisphere, the Bay of Chesapeak presents a spacious inlet which conducts the navigator far into the interior parts of provinces no less fertile than extensive; and if ever the progress of culture and population shall mitigate the extreme rigour of the climate in the more northern districts of America, Hudson's Bay may become as subservient to commercial intercourse in that quarter of the globe, as the Baltic is in Europe.

The other great portion of the New World is encompassed on every side by the sea, except one narrow neck, which separates the Atlantic from the Pacific Ocean; and though it be not opened by spacious bays or arms of the sea, its interior parts are rendered accessible by a number of large rivers, fed by so many auxiliary streams flowing in such various directions, that, almost without any aid from the hand of industry and art, an inland navigation may be carried on through all the provinces from the River de la Plata to the Gulf of Paria. Nor is this bounty of nature confined to the southern division of America; its northern continent abounds no less in rivers which are navigable almost to their sources, and by its immense chain of lakes provision is made for an inland communication, more extensive and commodious than in any quarter of the globe. The countries stretching from the Gulf of Darien on one side, to that of California on the other, which, from the chain that binds the two parts of the American continent together, are not destitute of peculiar advantages. Their coast on one side is washed by the Atlantic ocean, on the other by the Pacific. Some of their rivers flow into the former, some into the latter, and secure to them

all the commercial benefits that may result from a communication with both.-ROBERTSON's ‘History of America.'

1. From this assertion, one exception | somewhat differently, but I let them at least ought to be made. The Hima- stand as they are in Robertson. laya mountains are undoubtedly the highest of which we have any account. Kunchinganga, the highest peak, is 28,177 feet above the level of the sea, while Lorata the loftiest point of the Andes, is only 25,250 feet.

2. Here again is a geographical error. The Peak of Teneriffe is only 12,236 feet high, while Mont Blanc is 15,730 feet. For an accurate list of heights of mountains, see the author's Physical Geography, 2nd edition, p. 247, &c.

3. These names are now usually spelt

4. Archipelago means a sea interspersed with many islands. The name was originally applied to the Ægean sea, situated between Europe and Asia, and which is called the Grecian Archipelago, but has been also extended to other seas and even oceans. By the Indian Archipelago is to be understood the collection of islands south of the eastern part of the continent of Asia, and forming a part of what is comprehended under the term East Indies.

THE Ocean was a device of the Almighty, which, when executed by placing the seas in their present positions and diffusion, gave to His providence the easy means and power of distributing the nations of which He meant His human population to consist, in such localities, and with such connections and insulations, and immediate or future relations, as His progressive plan required. Colonization by coasting voyages, more or less distant, became thus always practicable. It was never difficult to transport small bodies for new settlements, by boats or larger vessels. It was easy, by adverse winds, to waft some of these to greater remoteness, or to other points than they themselves intended. All such could be kept aloof from others, as long as His designs required; and as they enlarged into tribes, or cities and states, the Ocean then became His convenient instrument for such further changes and circumstances as He meant to educe.

For as none could traverse the Ocean but those who applied themselves to the art and practice of navigation, and became thereby maritime states, it was only such as He led to be of this description which could visit those that were raised and flourished in the distant regions of the earth. Thus the first power which He produced of this sort was the Phoenician, whose navigating tendencies were enlarged by their offspring, the Carthaginians. The Greeks, in their Cretan and other islands of the

Cyclades and gean Sea, were the next nation which was formed to have the maritime propensity: and these soon spread their territorial settlements, till they become extensive colonizers on the Bosphorus and Hellespont above them; and in no long time, also, in Lower Italy, and Sicily, and France. To these, in due time, the Romans succeeded, though with less activity and with but little taste for commercial navigation.

But when His new plans for the improvement of our Europe began to open, then several of its countries were induced, by the stimulus and necessities resulting from the Crusades,1 to cultivate their shipping and to attempt distant voyages. The Hanse Towns, the Italians, Flemings, and, in time, our English forefathers, were actuated by these impulses: their efforts, however, being for several centuries restrained and limited, as the purposes of the Great Ruler required.

But when the time arrived for His causing the remoter nations of the earth to become known to us, we know historically, that of all the states of Europe bending their attention to maritime concerns, it was the Portuguese who were selected to pass the Cape of Good Hope, and discover the ocean passages to India and China; as it was the Spanish nation who, in like manner, were urged and conducted to make the Americas known to the civilized world, and to begin our relations with them.

The Dutch were then made the next most distinguished people for these distant voyages in the Asiatic seas, as England became also on the Atlantic, as the instrument for planting a new race of mankind, of her national species, on the shores of North America. Thus the Ocean was made the peculiar means in the hands of Providence of keeping away, from both Eastern Asia and the Americas, those nations whom He did not choose to plant there, or to have frequent intercourse with their inhabitants; and of leading over it to them, such as He determined and designed to have the dealings and connection, from which others were withheld. At present, the British nations have been raised to the ascendency in India, Australia, Polynesia, South and West Africa, and in the eastern frontiers of North America; while the populations of the Spanish race are permitted to occupy and retain the South American continent; every one being moved as the Great Director means and leads, and all fulfilling His wise and prospective purposes, and advancing His grand ulterior ends.-TURNER's Sacred History of the World?

6

1. For an account of the effects of the Crusades, consult Gibbon's Decline and Fall, or Guizot's Lectures on European Civilization, particularly the 8th lecture. 2. Hanse Towns (from the old German

word hanse, a league) is the name given to a large number of European cities and towns, which were league together, in the thirteenth century for the promotion and protection of commerce.

THE BAND OF COMMERCE.

GOD, working ever on a social plan,

By various ties attaches man to man :
He made at first, though free and unconfined,
One man the common father of the kind;
That every tribe, though placed as he sees best,
Where seas or deserts part them from the rest,
Differing in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook lamented, and with tears as just
As ever mingled with heroic dust-

Steered Britain's oak into a world unknown.
And in his country's glory sought his own,
Wherever he found man to nature true,
The rights of man were sacred in his view;
He soothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile
The simple native of the new-found isle;
He spurned the wretch that slighted or withstood
The tender argument of kindred blood,
Nor would endure, that any should control
His freeborn brethren of the southern pole.
Again-the band of commerce was designed
To associate all the branches of mankind;
And if a boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe.
Wise to promote whatever end He means,
God opens fruitful nature's various scenes:
Each climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers something to the general use ;
No land but listens to the common call,
And in return receives supplies from all.
This genial intercourse, and mutual aid,
Cheers what were else an universal shade,
Calls Nature from her ivy-mantled den,
And softens human rock-work into men,
Ingenious Art, with her expressive face,
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race;
Not only fills Necessity's demand,
But overcharges her capacious hand!
Capricious Taste itself can crave no more
Than she supplies from her abounding store;
She strikes out all that luxury can ask,
And gains new vigour at her endless task.

Here is the spacious arch, the shapely spire,
The painter's pencil, and the poet's lyre;
From her the canvas borrows light and shade,
And verse, more lasting, hues that never fade;
She guides the finger o'er the dancing keys,
Gives difficulty all the grace of ease;
And pours a torrent of sweet notes around,
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound.

COWPER.

THE object of those daring adventures, which bring to mind the words of Shakspeare,—

"Half way down,

Hangs one that gathers samphire-dreadful trade,"

is chiefly the Guillemot (Uria Troile), a bird somewhat like the Penguin, but with a pointed beak. The Gannet (Sula Bassana) is of the Pelican tribe, and is confined, at least in large congregations, to one or two localities, of which the principal are the Bass Rock,' on the east coast of Scotland, and St. Kilda, the most western of the Hebrides. On these rocky isles they assemble in such countless hosts that they can only be compared to a swarm of bees, or to a shower of snow, the air being filled with them. The inhabitants of the latter isle are said to consume twenty-two thousand of the young birds every year, besides eggs. They are powerful birds upon the wing, and pursue with much eagerness the shoals of herrings and pilchards, on which they pounce with the perpendicular descent of a stone. Buchanan conjectures that the Gannets destroy more than one hundred millions of herrings annually. In flying over Penzance some years since, a Gannet's attention was arrested by a fish lying on a board. According to custom down he swooped on the prey; but his imprudence cost him his life; and it was found that from the impetus of his descent, the bill had quite transfixed the board, though an inch and a quarter in thickness. The fishermen take advantage of this habit to allure the bird to its destruction, for they fix a fresh herring to a board, and draw it after a sailing boat with some