Persia is singularly destitute of water; the Lake of Zurrahı, on the frontiers of Afghanistan, having an area of 18 square miles, is the only piece of water on the western part of the tableland of Iran.

It is evident from the saline nature of the soil, and the shells it contains, that the plains round the Caspian, the Lake Aral, and the steppes, even to the Ural Mountains, had once formed part of the Black Sea; 57,000 square miles of that country are depressed below the level of the ocean,―a depression which extends northwards beyond the town of Saratow, 300 miles distant from the Caspian. The surface of the Caspian itself, which is 82 feet below the level of the ocean, is its lowest part, and has an area of 140,000 square miles, nearly equal to the area of Great Britain and Ireland. In Europe alone it drains an extent of 850,000 square miles, receiving the Volga, the Ural, and other great rivers on the north. It has no tide, and its navigation is dangerous from heavy gales, especially from the south-east, which drive the water miles over the land: a vessel was stranded 40 miles inland from the shore. It is 3,000 feet deep in some parts, but is shallow to the east, where it contains several islands, and where it is bounded by impassable swamps many miles broad. The Lake of Eltonsk, on the steppe east of the Volga, has an area of 130 square miles, and furnishes two-thirds of the salt consumed in Russia. Its water yields 29.13 per cent. of saline matter, and from this circumstance is more buoyant than any that is known.

The Lake of Aral, which is shallow, is 117 feet higher than the Caspian, and has an area of 23,300 square miles: it has its name from the number of small islands at its southern end; Aral signifying "island" in the Tartar language. Neither the Caspian nor the Lake of Aral have any outlets, though they receive large rivers; they are salt, and, in common with all the lakes in Persia, they are decreasing in extent, and becoming more salt, the quantity of water supplied by tributaries being less than that lost by evaporation. Most of the rivers that are tributary to the lake of Aral are diminished by canals that carry off water for irrigation; for that reason a very small portion of the waters of the Oxus reaches the lake. Besides, the Russian rivers yield less water than formerly from the progress of cultivation. The small mountain-lake Sir-i-Kol, in the high table-land of Pamer, from whence the Oxus flows, is 15,630 feet above the sea; consequently there is a difference of level between it and the Dead Sea of nearly 17,000 feet.

The limpid transparency of the water in lakes, especially in mountainous countries, is remarkable; minute objects are visible

at the bottom through many fathoms of water. The vivid green tints so often observed in Alpine lakes may be produced by vegetable dyes dissolved in the water, though chemical analysis has not detected them.

Lakes, being the sources of some of the largest rivers, are of great importance for inland navigation as well as for irrigation; while, by their constant evaporation, they maintain the supply of humidity in the atmosphere so essential to vegetation, besides the embellishment a country derives from them.-MARY SOMERVILLE.

THE SPRINGS OF RIVERS.

SAY, then, where lurk the vast eternal springs,
That, like creating Nature, lie concealed
From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores
Refresh the globe, and all its joyous tribes?
O, thou pervading Genius, given to man,
To trace the secrets of the dark abyss!
O, lay the mountains bare; and wide display
Their hidden structures to the astonished view;
Strip from the branching Alps their piny load;
The huge encumbrance of horrific woods
From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretched
Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds;
Give opening Hamus to my searching eye,
And high Olympus pouring many a stream!
O, from the sounding summits of the north,
The Dofrine Hills, through Scandinavia rolled
To farthest Lapland and the frozen main;
From lofty Caucasus, far seen by those
Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil;
From cold Riphaan Rocks, which the wild Russ
Believes the stony girdle of the world;

And all the dreadful mountains, wrapt in storm,
Whence wild Siberia draws her lonely floods;
O, sweep the eternal snows! Hung o'er the deep,
That ever works beneath his sounding base,
Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign,
His subterranean wonders spread! unveil
The miny caverns, blazing on the day,
Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs,
And of the bending Mountains of the Moon;
O'ertopping all these giant sons of earth,

Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line
Stretched to the stormy seas that thunder round
The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold!
Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose;
I see the rivers in their infant beds!

Deep, deep I hear them, labouring to get free!

ONE of the most curious countries in the world is an island far north, called Iceland, the name of which tells very well what sort of country it is. Most part of the year there is winter, which is very severe, and the summer is uncertain as well as short. There are many highland rugged mountains covered with eternal ice and snow, down which frequently rushes the tremendous avalanche, carrying with it and burying in its fall, men, animals, houses, everything that offers an interruption to its impetuous course.

But the strangest thing in regard to Iceland is, that though its surface is wasted and made desolate by extensive cold, yet under that surface, down in the interior of the earth, it is also the seat of fierce and ever-burning fire. Amidst ice and snow, the ground opens for the escape of boiling fountains which shoot up into the air with great force and to an astonishing height. The greatest of these is called the Geyser; it rushes from its prison in the earth with a roar like that of the sea when it is boisterous, and shoots up its hot streams into the air several hundred feet towards the heavens. One of the mountains called Hecla is a volcano, always burning, and during its frequent irruptions, showering fire and lava over its barren sides and down into the bleak plains beneath. Large hailstones are seen running along the ground, intermingled with coals of fire thrown from the burning mountain. The most astonishing and sublime phenomena of heat and cold are here seen side by side.

One of those natural curiosities most striking to the traveller in Iceland is the Ilvervale, which means the "roaring mountain." Through a small opening in the rock, only three or four inches in width, there rushes a thick smoke with so loud a noise that a person, with a clear and strong voice, cannot make a shout be heard, even at the shortest distance from the place where

he stands. When an attempt is made to fling in small stones at the opening, the violence of the gust which meets them drives them back to a great distance.

The seas which surround this strange country cast up towards its shore great rocks of ice drifted from Greenland and the Frozen Ocean, still farther north; and on other parts of the coast an immense quantity of floating wood is cast ashore; there are ten or twelve different sorts of timber drifted in this manner by the sea to the coast of Iceland; and it is generally thought that they come from the great forests in America.

Although Iceland may excite the wonder and astonishment of those travellers who quit their own homes to view the wonders of nature in foreign lands, yet few strangers will be tempted to remain, for the aspect of the country, however sublime, is bleak and desolate, and it produces but scanty food for the supply of its inhabitants. No corn will grow in Iceland, so that bread of any sort is considered a great delicacy; indeed, it is not from the island itself, but from the sea which surrounds it, that the Icelanders procure the principal food on which they subsist; even the sheep and cows are frequently in winter supported on fish; and if the winter be more severe than usual, are sometimes kept in life simply on the refuse of the fish used by the poor islanders. Dried fish, and different preparations of milk, are the principal articles of food. The potato has been introduced with difficulty, and few other vegetables flourish and come to perfection in this inhospitable region. Yet notwithstanding the bleakness of the climate, and the barrenness of the soil, the natives of Iceland are passionately attached to their country. During the long winter nights they meet together, and while engaged in preparing wool, knitting articles of dress, or making nets, one of the company reads aloud, out of old chronicles, the ancient history of Iceland, which at one time was more populous and flourishing than it now is. This amusement makes the people feel a great interest and pride in their country, and inspires them with an earnest curiosity to know all that relates to their forefathers, so that they are generally well skilled in all the ancient stories and traditions, both of themselves and the other modern nations with which their own history is connected.

It is probable that, but for the influence of those traditions in attaching the Icelanders to their bleak and sterile country, it would ere this have been left destitute of human inhabitants, and given up to bears and seals, for which it seems to have been intended by nature, rather than the habitation of man. But, however little suited to attract as a permanent residence, it will always be an object of interest to the curious and the traveller, from the

number and variety of those natural wonders which are here, and here only, to be seen, and from the extraordinary grandeur and sublimity of its external aspect.- Little Stories."

THE PATRIOT'S BOAST.

As some lone miser, visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er,
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still;
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies;
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,

To see the hoard of human bliss so small:
And oft I wish, amidst the scene to find
Some spot to real happiness consigned,

Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
But where to find that happiest spot below
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease:
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.
Nature, a mother kind alike to all,

Still grants her bliss at labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side;
And though the rocky-crested summits frown,
These rocks by custom turn to beds of down.
From art more various are the blessings sent-
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.