been but too often to some objects of most partial interest, written into repute by the fanciful pen of a man in power, or extolled by the clamorous anxiety of a novelty-loving public, The two great problems that have occupied the attention of British Europe in modern times, and involved the destruction of many brave and enterprising men, are extraordinary examples of a perverted public taste, and a want of philosophic and humane motives to direct research and ennoble enquiry. The often-repeated voyages to the icy seas of the North have been conducive to some interesting geographical discoveries, which, nevertheless, can be of no utility to present generations, till changes in the temperature of the earth, as are evidenced in the vegetatable and animal remains of the fossil kingdom, to have taken place in former times, recur in their operation on the earth's surface, not from the effects of a varying axis of the terrestrial globe, but from an alteration in the configuration of the earth, either in the distribution of land and water, or in the progressive plantation and cultivation of these. We allude here to land alone, for there is nothing in the facts conveyed to us by the description of the present state of the arctic seas that would appear to preclude the possibility of their being ever rendered useful for the purposes of navigation. On the contrary, every thing testifies that an alteration once effected, and the navigation being kept up even to a very small amount, there would not be time for the ice to renew itself so as to block up the passages. Icebergs are not the growth of a season, but on the contrary, of many. In some cases they appear to be as ancient as many of the strata which form the mineral crust of the globe, and the floes which hurry down to the coast, and bury ships under their mighty plains, once moved, could never regain an extent and thickness which it required long periods of undisturbed repose to have attained. The chronicles of the bold and skilful attempts made to explore the North Seas also contain many valuable additions to the physical history of the globe, and the contributions made to natural history are splendid monuments erected by enterprise to a noble and amiable science.

If, on the other hand, after history had recorded the attempts made to reach a central river of burning Africa, by twenty-five of our countrymen, fourteen Frenchmen, two Americans, and one German, of whom but a small number from the days of Houghton have not fallen victims to their ambition, when the tear was hardly dry at the recital of Laing's sufferings and the heart-rending burial of poor Clapperton; an Englishman should have succeeded in ascertaining the course and outlet of this much soughtfor river, what are the results? Are scientific men engaged to bring the labours of Adanson on the Gambia, and Tuckey in the Zaire into correlation, and fill up the gap that was wanting in the description of the western coast of Africa, or is even the slightest attempt made to obtain correct information on the capabilities of the river, and the productions of its shores and mountains. No! The organ that penned the misfortunes of the Congo expedition was silent when time and discovery exhibited those errors, which he did not attempt to retrieve, by even inculcating the necessity, or advocating the utility of an active survey of the new entrance offered to us into the interior of a country which, in magnitude and extent it has been truly remarked, exceeds the bounds of human imagination, and a company of merchants fitted up a vessel propelled by wind and steam, and guided by the bold discoverer, took their departure for these rich tropical scenes. A medical man and an engineer, but no naturalist, were associated to the expedition, and bound to secrecy, that the world might not know what forms of beauty and shapes of loveliness, in the vegetable or animal world, or what mineral treasures abound in these untrod shores. We do not discuss the right of a private body to do this, that cannot be denied, but was this what a nation had to expect from a discovery made at so great a sacrifice of life? a discovery rewarded by government and scientific institutions, to which the public had indirectly contributed in several expeditions, by defraying the expenses, which offered the most central and the most advantageous centre from whence to overthrow the system of human slavery to extinguish which they had

But another and a more comprehensive enquiry suggests itself in connection with this discovery of the course of the Joliba or Niger river. France and America have planted colonies on the coast of Africa, with pretty nearly the same intentions and united views of philanthropy and national aggrandisement. The settlement of Liberia is said to be already producing the most beneficial results, and after the repeated insults we have received in humble submission from the sanguinary Cacique of Algiers, it is scarcely to be lamented that his "Excellency the Governor" as the rude tyrant is diplomatically designated, should have to make way for the more polished and far-seeking French.

Africa is not every where an inert lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles; where there is water there is vegetation. The Bildulgerid, or Land of Dates, on the southern acclivity of the Atlas, glories in a most abundant and luxuriant vegetation of creepers intertwining round the colossal trunks of the palm, and shrubbery and flowering flanks growing in the shade of this natural temple. It abounds also in living things. On the borders of Lake Tchad, the jungle of a single season attains a growth that will hide elephants,

and the acclivities of the Tarenta Mountains are clad with vegetation; it is thus probable, that the aridity

and barrenness of the interior is en

tirely to be attributed to the unequal distribution of water, for similar parallels of latitude in the new world are neither desert nor arid. The moral condition of the inhabitants is necessarily connected with the physical state of the country, the hazardous life, the difficult wants, the few enjoyments, give to the tribes, which, as Talleyrand has it, rather traverse than people these vast deserts, a moral aspect which is more gloomy even than the face of the country. Every consideration connected with Africa, should tend to the removal of these combined causes of a pestilential and unproductive clime, and of a degraded morality, -of death and slavery. An able writer and clever thinker has proposed to drain

the interior is found by modern observations to present great variety-to apply in his own expression, tourni quets upon those veins and arteries, which, eternally bleeding, have hitherto left a great portion of Africa destitute of vegetable life; to these we would add plantation. We had a great example of a change of climate produced in America, by the clearing away of the woods. We have heard of lands that were worthless in Australasia becoming invaluable when the neighbouring acclivities were clad with forest trees which brought drown the rain. We know the influence of pine forests in breaking the storms on the Alps; we see the banks of the Oroonoko and Amazons shaded with virgin woods; and we are thus led to judge of the relative good effects similar proceedings might have on Africa; but on this subject, which is not so hypothetical as many might be inclined to think, we must quote the words of a modern author :

"The first great argument which, in propriety, should most humbly be offered, is the universal belief that God has made nothing in vain, and that there is no obstacle to our full enjoyment of this earth, which sooner or later we shall not with the assistance, and by the surprising powers which are daily imparted to us, be enThere abled eventually to surmount.

was once a time when no man dared to

imagine, that the great ocean could be traversed in every direction; we are also aware that America was carefully hidden population had extensively increased. from our view, until our powers and our raised, and were we gradually made acThe great curtain of the West was then quainted with a portion of our globe,

whose features, its mountains, rivers, and plains, are on so vast a scale, that in ancient times men would have been

totally unable to contend with them.

"Seeing, therefore, that in the great history of the world different portions of the globe have at different periods successively been subjected to our use and dominion, it is surely reasonable to infer, that Africa will eventually become part and parcel' of the beneficent garden in which we are placed; and the very fact, that our steam and machinery are so rapidly increasing, that we literally can hardly imagine to what known obstacle we shall have occasion to apply them, tends to show, that there must remain

something very important in this world for man to do. In short, the enormous tools which nature is placing in our hands clearly foretells, that she has some wonderful work for us to perform; and, therefore, instead of calculating, as some people do; for instance, how long coals are to last us, and in how many years hence we are unavoidably to be left in cold and darkness, is not juster to believe, that with our new power we shall obtain new resources, and that the wisdom of nature will continue to bloom when the idle

fears and theories of the day have faded and corrupted."—Life of Bruce, by Major F. Head, p. 129.

A more general acquaintance with physical geography, by showing with what simple means the greatest objects are effected in the operations of nature, would have led the author above quoted to have said less on the application of mechanical powers, and more on the altered configuration and aspect of the soil; and we cannot, without advantage to ourselves, nor without wonder and admiration, contemplate the onward progress of civilization, and the ultimate relation in which the giant earth may stand to pigmy man, unless it may please the Almighty by one of those catastrophes which the rainbow does not preclude us from, to send all the monuments of human art and industry, cities, and vast commercial establishments, and all the various tribes of men to chronicle by their remains, to future and distinct generations, the history of a former world?

What would that geography be which should have any claim to be called philosophical, which embraced not a mere description of the earth, but the history of its physical features in their relation to organized creations, and again to moral and intellectual man, and which marched with the progress of the other sciences?

The first and the most elementary study after that of the form of the earth, would be the comparative distribution of land and water, the relation of the mean height of mountains, mountain chains, and plains, with the depth of the ocean, and the evidences purely geographical, which such an investigation would give of the rotundity of the earth, and of the balance of gravity, which, puzzling Buffon, was by Pau accounted for by a supposed diminu

tion in the depth of the Antarctic seas, but more curiously explained by Raynal, the historian of the Indies, by the supposition, that the prodigious quantity of insects and small creatures hurried by tropical storms into southern latitudes occupied the places of masses of land.

The contrasted configurations or varied aspect of mountain and of valley, of precipice or of plain, which characterize the surface of the earth, of the soil, and rise of empires, should intimately connected with the fertility also be studied in the natural divisions which they effect in countries where a citadel points out the boundary which the sword has traced. The natural features of the soil are also of the highest importance to our knowledge of the resource and capabilities of a country, and the elevation of the plains, or the levelling of rivers, can alone point out the agricultural improvement of which a district is capable. For example, the maps which are about to be published of the admirable survey now making of this country, profess to be so perfect, that the drainage of a bog will be marked on the sheet, by its various elevation and that of the surrounding districts. In France, the levellings of some of their great rivers, have been made the subject of prizes, offered by the Geographical Society of Paris, and it was from the barometrical observations of De Humboldt and Helmersen, that we became acquainted with the existence of a great hollow or depres sion in the interior of Asia, occupying an extent of 1800 leagues. Observations of this kind, or the collection of facts, cannot be made without considerable knowledge of the subject and discrimination in. its use, for a certain object, a bond of union, which will constitute the philosophy of the enquiry, must always keep together facts which may sometimes appear discordant or unconnected, and which are only proved to be otherwise, when a principle of analogy which science gives, comes to establish their relation, and the fancied inconsistencies of objects remotely connected, are by its means brought together, like beads hung upon a thread of gold, or links in the great chain of human knowledge.

hitherto been given, in all British Geographical works, without an exception, are founded upon relations established only by visible or superficial connections, which have no reference to their true importance. Such are the junction of mountains, when they are called chains; the existence of supposed continuous levels, to which the name of plains or uplands are given, when they have mostly proved to be hydrographical plateaux, or local depressions, while in other cases, the existence of either one or the other is omitted or neglected. Thus, in our own country, a central chain of mountains extends north and south, from the borders of Scotland to the centre of Derbyshire. Its different portions, known under various local names, attracted attention as far back as in the time of the Roman colonists of Britain. "Totam in æquales fere partes," says Richard of Cirencester, "provinciam (maximam) dividunt montes alpes Penini_dictí. Hi ad fluviam Trivoniam (the Trent) surgentes continuà serie per 150 milliaria septentrionem versus decurrunt." Yet these Penine alps, or grand Penine chain, as Conybeare calls them, are not even alluded to in our elementary or systematic works on Geography, while the Grampians, a country of mountains, are described as a single chain. The Pyrenees are made to cross in a straight line between the nearest point of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, when their easily ascertainable course is from the first mentioned coast to Cape Ortegal in Gallicia. The Alps of Switzerland, which consist of four distinct chains. are described as one. The interior of Asia, is still adverted to as a lofty upland, and central Africa, so long considered as a uniform sandy desert, has been shewn to be every where clad with rocks, sometimes rising through the wilderness in distinct chains, and to be interspersed with lake and streams. A science which, by its magic influence, can bring dis tinct objects into consideration at the same time, and point out the relation of phenomena apparently at variance with one another, has, in modern times, unfolded the great principles by which the distribution of masses of land, in connection with the structure of the earth, is regulated in the same man VOL. I.

ner that another branch of knowledge has developed to a certain extent, the laws by which the animal and vegetable creations are distributed on the surface of the earth, in different zones and climates, and at different altitudes. This science has gone further, it has established the relation which the present configuration of the earth bears to its antecedent appearance, it has disclosed the evidence of a different distribution of land, and even of a change in state, and of its created beings; and it has endeavoured to ally the evidence of successive eras, with the appearances which are presented at the present time, in the distribution of the various forms of life, and the soil which they inhabit. And it is by this truly valuable effort of human understanding, that we can alone obtain correct ideas of the Geographical relation of the different parts of the earth's surface; and as it thus constitutes, at once, the elements and the philosophy of Geographical scienceas it becomes the threshold over which no adventurous theorist can now dare to leap; so there can in future be no pretensions to systematise facts, connected with the history of the earth's surface, unless they are based on the acknowledged principles of scientific research.

Philosophical Geography, founded upon such a basis, teaches us as an interesting example, that the ocean, so ill defined as the totality of salt-waters, which occupy the greater part of the surface of the globe, has been subjected to an arbitrary division, and has been marked out into circumscribed regions, which, as consisting of mobile waters, and traversed by still more inconstant winds, contain nothing to characterise them, but the shores which they wash, or the plants and animals which inhabit them. And these artificial divisions, established by ancient, and adopted by modern Geographers, in very few cases assimilate themselves with nature, in the distinction which she has established, in the immutable characters of the productions with which she has clad the depths and superficies of her seas, or peopled their vast waters.

It is not, that in any part of the aqueous globe, the productions belonging to the vegetable or animal kingdom, stop at such or such a circle of the sphere; the equator, the tro

4 U

pics, the ecliptic, polar circle and meridians, the knowledge of which, is indispensable for determining the hororary climates, the respective position of each place on the globe, and the course of a ship, have no exact and positive relation with its aquatic or terrestial productions. We could no more quote a vegetable, or an animal, which first made its appearance at such or such a degree of latitude or longitude, either in the depths of the ocean, or on the continents or islands, than we could mention any that extended from pole to pole, without any solution of continuity in the line of their propagation. But all natural productions have their zones, more or less large and sinuous, in the variable size of which we see them propagate themselves, either in society or separately, but on different inclinations upon all the circles of the sphere; and it is thus only, in the manner in which the principal marine productions are distributed over the immensity of the waters, that grounds can be obtained for a philosophical division of the surface of these seas, Thus, the filamentus, laminar and slightly arborescent plants of the ocean, obey in their distribution, laws similar to those which regulate the dissemination of terrestial plants, which by causes dependant on their organization, are strengthened against atmospheric vicissitudes; or, on the contrary, are, by the possession of a more subtile organization, rendered capable of adaptation, without effort to the exigencies of climate, and the caprices of seasons. And thus, as lichens and mosses, equally independant of elevation and latitude, are every where dispersed, requiring for their developement only a small number of circumstances; so some hydrophytes reproduce themselves in distant countries, and Fuci of the north of Scotland, re-appear on the shore of Van Dieman's Land.

But in some species, these localities become conditions of existence, some placing themselves on a spot which the tides cover and leave bare every day, as others inhabit spots which the tide uncovers only in the syzygies or the equinoxes; some prefer rough and agitated seas, others calm and tranquil spots; some live and die in the space of a few hours or months, while others

on

survive the tempests of many seasons. But, all have bands or zones particular habitations in the different depths of the ocean, regions in which the column of supported water, and the relative quantity of light and heat are in harmony with the disposition of their organs. Plants will flourish in the centre of these zones, and perish towards their limits; the seeds which escape from them appear also, by their specific gravity, to place themselves in equilibrium with the columns of water which they displace, and to swim in the zones where the plants will also vegetate. For example, on the coast of the Gulf of Gascogny, we find that there are six zones, the first extending from a foot below the line of high water, to a depth of twenty feet, the second, from five to thirty feet, the third, from fifteen to thirty-five, the fourth, from twenty to forty, the fifth, from thirty to sixty, and, lastly, the sixth, from forty to one hundred feet. In these zones, we find thirty-four species of ulvæ growing between the first and sixth zone, sixty-three species of fucus, of which only two belong to the first zone, twenty-nine species of ceramiæ, of which, none are found in the first zone, nor do they extend be yond the fifth, and two species of Diotoma, which occur in the second zone, where are also found, two Zosteræ, Z. Marina, and Z. Mediterranea, but the latter rarely. of these zones, is not, however, the greatest that has been observed, for De Humboldt found the celebrated Caulerpe at a depth of 200 feet off the Canary islands a depth at which theory would not preclude transparency. Maugé and Peron drew up, from a depth of 500 feet off Lewin's Land, plants and zoophytes. Bory St. Vincent, found the Sargassium turbinatum, off Mauritius, at a depth of 600 feet, and animal life appears to be continued at still greater depths, for the extraordinary polypus, figured by Ellis and described by Linnæus, under the name of Pennatula encrinus, was torn up at about 80 miles from the coast of Greenland, nearly 79° N. Lat. from a depth of eleven hundred feet. This animal was six feet in length, and of a yellow colour.

The extent

It can be easily conceived, that, in some seas which extend to immense distances, almost from cold regions to