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Barbadoes, St. Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, Trinidad. Of these the most considerable are Cuba and Porto Rico,. belonging to Spain; Hispaniola, otherwise called St. Domingo, from the principal town on the south coast, once divided between Spain and France, but since the revolution in France entirely in the hands of the revolted slaves; and Jamaica, the principal British settlement in that quarter of the world. The natural productions, climate, and soil of these islands are in a great measure the same; they are in general mountainous, and in many parts extremely fertile sugar, rum, tobacco, coffee, cotton, and indigo. Jamaica is in length about 170 miles, and 60 in its greatest breadth. It is divided into three counties, Cornwall in the west, Middlesex in the centre, and Surry in the east ; the whole subdivided into twenty parishes. The number of inhabitants exceeds 20,000, that of free negroes and mulattoes (in the West Indies called people of colour) 10,000, while the slaves are computed to be about 250,000. The seat of government is St. Jago or Spanish-town, situated back from the shore; but the principal place is Kingston, a place of great trade and opulence, on the north side of a beautiful bay, forming a secure and spacious haven, In 1788, the population of Kingston consisted of 6,559 whites, 3,280 free people of colour, and 16,659 slaves, in all 26,478 inhabitants: Port-royal, once a place of the greatest importance, is now greatly reduced by repeated earthquakes and inundations of the sea; it still, however, contains the royal dock-yard, navy hospital, and barracks for troops; it is well fortified, and occupies the extremity of a long sandy neck, forming the south side of Kingston harbour.

SOUTH AMERICA:-This great portion of the new world is separated from the northern by an idealline, from the gulf of Mexico, in N. lat. 9° to the Pacific ocean, in lat. 7° 40'..considerably to the westward of the narrowest

part of the isthmus of Panama. The extent from N. to S. is about 4,080 geographic miles, and the greatest breadth from W. to E. about 2,700.

South America presents long ranges of mountains, the most elevated of any on the globe, at least, so far as their elevation has hitherto been accurately determined. The great Cordillera, or chain of the Andes, extends from N. to S. the whole length of the country, their western slopes, washed by the Pacific ocean; but from them to the Atlantic, on the east, the country presents in general one vast plain. A singularity of this chain of mountains is, that the lofty peaks do not spring from the ordinary level of the country, but from a broad range of plain table land,, itself elevated eight or ten thousand feet above the sea.. Chimborazo, the highest peak, situated in S. lat. 1° 30', rises to the height of above 20,000 feet, or nearly four, English miles, and, although lying almost under the Equator, is covered with perpetual snow 2,500 feet perpendicularly below the summit. From the N. end of the, Andes, a branch, rising in some places to the height of 14,000 feet, lines the northern shores of S. America, disappearing opposite to the island of Trinidad: many of the S. American mountains are volcanic.

In proportion to the elevation and extent of the mountains of S. America, the rivers of that portion of the earth surpass those of other parts for quantity of water and length of course. The great river of the Amazons, or the Mara, nyon, has its origin in a lake, on the east side of the Andes, in S. lat. 11°, whence, after a circular sweep, it turns to the N W. to N. lat. 5o, where it begins its long eastern course, and opens into the Atlantic, under the Equator, by a mouth divided by low islands into many channels, and so broad, that a considerable way up from the sea the one bank cannot be seen from the other. The tide is perceptibie 600 miles from the mouth; and the course of this

cochineal is also the produce of these dominions: it is the female of a very small insect found on a plant, called by the natives nopal, in the West Indies the prickly pear, and by botanists cactus coccinillifera, whose juices and flowers are of a beautiful red colour. The insects are placed on the plants in October, when the periodical rains are over, on the parts exposed to the sun. Each female affords about a thousand eggs, from which the young insects soon spread over the plant, as no less than six generations are usually produced every year. The insects are scraped from the plants into vessels, where they art dipped in water to kill them, and then dried in the sun : others kill them in an oven; but this method injures the beauty of the colour.

The mineral treasures of the Spanish part of North America are great beyond conception; the fifth part, which belongs to the crown, amounting to about two millions sterling annually. Silver is the principal product, but gold is also found in abundance. The chief mining station at this time is at Guanajuato, about 100 miles to the northward of the city of Mexico. Tin, lead, and copper, are also discovered in these rich tracts.

No country of equal extent presents so great a number of volcanoes, not fewer than fifty being at present in existence, besides those now extinct. The most remarkable is that of Orizava, about 60 miles south-east from Mexico, where its snowy summit is visible.

The chief city of Spanish North America is Mexico, singularly situated in a beautiful vale inclosed by mountains, in the neighbourhood of a cluster of lakes, extending ninety miles in circuit. The present town is built in a fenny situation, having been abandoned by the lake which surrounded it, when this country was first discovered. town contains upwards of one hundred churches and chapels, and the population is reckoned to amount to 150,000. Vera Cruz, on the bottom of the gulf of Mexico, is the

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