whitish hue. Otters are likewise caught, and white squirrels resembling in colour those of Siberia. In winter the beasts of prey are so bold that they enter villages and sometimes towns.

-Russian Armenia is not particularly rich in forests; yet the cantons of Abaran, Sudaghian, Darachitchak, the Guneïs, or southern slopes of the Gok-chai, Daralagoez, the upper part of the valley of Garni and of the Wedichai, and the western part of the Great Ararat, produce wood enough, with the tizaks already mentioned, for firewood. The trees consist, for the most part, of birch, linden, oak, walnut, wild apple and pear, medlar, juniper, &c. There are no pines; these are obtained from the pashalik of Kars, and are floated in rafts down the Araxes. At the market of Eriwan pieces of timber from the forests of Darachitchak, ten arsheens long and two or three vershoks thick, sell for 1s. to 1s. 6d. each; but the price varies considerably. A load of firewood costs from 1s. 24d. to Is. 94d.; of coals, 6s. This trade is chiefly in the hands of the Karapapakh, Kurd, and Karachorlu nomades.

The whole plain on both banks of the Araxes, as well as all the uninhabited spots, is covered with different kinds of bushes, amongst which occur, generally in the highest places, the wild plum, the wild rose, the raspberry, the barberry, and the jasmine, which is used for making excellent pipes for smoking. In the low plains are found the vine, the herb called ilghin, used for making brooms, and the cholgan, the ashes of which yield potass. The natives use the latter, in the form of soap, to bleach their cotton fabrics. The saline and sterile plain, which extends from the northern foot of the two Ararats, and the sources of the Kara-su, to Akh-goeli and Burolan, and between the Araxes and the frontier of the canton of Makin, produces a shrub, four or five feet high, the leaves of which resemble the vine. The natives gravely assert that it formerly bore grapes, which were those of which the patriarch Noah made the first wine, which he drank immoderately. Awaking the following day with a dreadful head-ache, he cursed this vine, which henceforward bore no grapes.

The dye-plants found in this country are the saw-wort and wild madder. The culture of good madder has commenced, and there is every reason to expect that it will flourish as well as in Daghestan, and other Caucasian countries. Another plant is worthy of notice, which greatly resembles liquorice; it grows abundantly in warm and stony places; it does not rise more than a foot above the soil, in thick roundish tufts covered with long spines; on its principal branches lumps of gum form, of the size of an egg, which might be successfully employed as a substitute for gum arabic in silk-manufacture.

The lofty mountains which traverse and enclose the province of Eriwan contain every production of the mineral kingdom; but their treasures have scarcely yet been explored, by reason of the country having been hitherto ruled in a barbarous manner by stupid Musulmans, incapable of appreciating the gifts which nature does not place immediately before their eyes. The first of these products now known is the sal gem of Koolpi, which supplies the chief revenue of the province. At the north-eastern foot of the high peak named Takaltu, and between it and the Araxes, is a rounded hill of an ashen grey colour; it is about five English miles in circuit, yields no plant, and is rent by deep ravines. This hill contains an inexhaustible mine of sal gem, known throughout the Caucasian countries under the name of the mine of Koolpi. On its western side is the Armenian village of Koolpi, vulgarly pronounced Gogp or Kogp, the inhabitants of which are wholly employed in extracting the salt. The quarries are all on the side of the village, and are

not carried very deep in the mountain, but are cut in the form of galleries supported by pillars of salt. One shaft is carried deeper than the rest, but it is filled with water, and consequently abandoned for the present. The miners detach with a spade flat pieces of the salt, commonly three-quarters of an arsheen long, six vershoks broad, and four thick. They generally weigh about seventy-two Russian pounds. The labourer begins by detaching such a mass on each side of the rock around him, he then strikes the masses in different directions with a hammer, which occasions them to separatel✅sA good miner can detach in this way from twenty-five to thirty-two masses of salt a day, four of which are a bullock's load, and thirty-two may be put upon an arba, or Tartar car. In the time of the Sardars of Eriwan, the arba of salt cost upon the spot, with all expenses, about 12s., and a bullock's load, 3s. According to this, the product of all the mines would not exceed £2,100 annually. There is no doubt, however, that this revenue might be greatly increased, as appears from two modes of calculation, one of which assumes that the quantity of salt necessary for the consumption of the population of Eriwan, and of the places whither the article is sent, is 60,000 loads; the other makes the amount of salt dug out annually, by the villagers of Koolpi, 88,200 loads: the mean is 74,000 loads.

Salt is likewise found at the north-west extremity of Great Ararat, a short distance from the village of Tat-burun; a lake there, about 500 paces in circumference, is covered in summer with a crust of white salt more than two inches thick. A slightly bitter taste which this salt has makes the people prefer that of Koolpi.

Saltpetre is found in Eriwan, on the banks of the Araxes and the Kara-su. On Great Ararat, near the village of Akhury, the soil is highly impregnated with alum. On the summit of the Alaghoez and its most elevated rocks, covered with eternal snow, sulphur runs in the form of stalactites, which the people in the vicinity detach and bring down by musket-shot. This sulphur is often as transparent as yellow amber. There is another species, less esteemed, which does not run, but is found in masses in the soil.

In the canton of Darachitchak, within the principal chain of the mountains of Bambaki, and near the sources of the river Mis-khanah, are found mides of auriferous and argentiferous copper. Under the Persian government, these mines were worked by Greeks; but the Sardar of Eriwan never dared to work them extensively, lest the Shah, hearing that there were mines of gold in his territory, should impose upon him an annual tribute of a larger amount than he then paid. The rocks in the neighbourhood of these mines contain veins of white and yellow marble, which is also met with in the district of Zaïtbazar, near the village of Ulu-khanlu. At Darachitchak and near Koolpi are veins of very white and pure alabastar.

About five miles to the west from the ruins of the ancient town of Talyn, and on the road to Hajji Bairam, is a hollow filled with transparent pebbles of different colours, much resembling the topaze. Similar stones, but of a deeper hue, occur fourteen miles from Eriwan, along the heights which skirt the left bank of the Zanghi; they there form an entire mountain, which appears as if made of glass. In many places are found white stones covered with small grains; as they are easily vitrified, they are reduced to powder and used as sand for making glass.

In the valley of Wedi-bazar is a mountain composed of strata of a calcareous stone very smooth and white, which appears adapted for lithography. In the province of Eriwan are also three quarries from whence mill-stones are pro

cured. The stones of one are of a yellowish colour; of another, a deep violet. At Lake Gok-chai, Mount Altun-takht is covered with pumice stone, and the borders of the lake with whetstones. In a valley of Mount Ker-oglu, at a part the access to which is extremely difficult, occurs a stone to which the natives give the name of pirboza, or turquoise. The impossibility of getting at the mine without the aid of machines disappointed all the efforts of the last› Sardar of Eriwan to obtain specimens, owing to which the real nature of the stone is doubtful. According to the report of the chief of the Kara-papakh nomades, who inhabit the district of Darachitchak, there is a stratum of pit coal near the village of Randamal, built on the ancient site of the Armenian town of Hetsirory. Throughout Eriwan, argillaceous earth occurs of various qualities and colours; one sort, which is very white and fine, and might be used in making porcelaine, is found a little below the Armenian village of Poroken.

RUSSIAN SATIRE.

"THE Russians," observes our informant, who has travelled in their country, “have an ingenious mode of criticizing their public men. I met with the following satire, which was written about forty years ago, with a view of exposing the military talents of Prince P. to disadvantageous contrast with those of Count R.:

Samt Nicholas was solacing himself in sleep, amongst the celestial host, when a great noise was heard in heaven.

And the saint awoke, and calling to the angel Gabriel, said, Gabriel, Gabriel, what is the matter?

The angel replied, Thy Russians are at war with the Turks.
Who commands my Russians? inquired the saint,

Count R., said Gabriel.

I am content, rejoined Saint Nicholas; and composed himself to sleep. And lo! a greater noise was heard in heaven.

And Saint Nicholas awoke, and called aloud, Gabriel, Gabriel, what

is the matter now?

ប

Thy Russians and the Turks are again at war.

Who now commands my Russians? asked the saint.

Prince P., replied the angel.

Prince P. exclaimed the saint. Zounds, Gabriel, then give me, my

AMERICA CONQUERED BY THE MONGOLS!

VARIOUS have been the hypotheses suggested to explain the enigma of the peopling of that great portion of the terrestrial globe, the existence of which was not known in Europe till the close of the fifteenth century. As there is a total absence of all historical data upon this question, to guide the inquirer, every hypothesis must be founded upon conjectures, more or less corroborated by physical traits of resemblance between the races inhabiting America and those of other countries; for the former, when discovered by Europeans, had made too slight a progress in civilization, and were too imperfectly acquainted with the inventions of social life, to afford the means of comparing institutions, manners, governments, literature, or useful arts.

The peculiar features, which discriminate the various races of North and South America respectively, seem clearly traceable to a cause independent of climate and other physical circumstances, which vary the aspect of the aboriginal natives of one and the same country, in widely different latitudes, and to demonstrate that the origin of the American tribes was not in all cases identical. The close approximation of the American continent to that of Asia, the earliest peopled portion of the earth, in the north, easily reconciles us to the supposition that the inhabitants of the one passed over to the other; but it is scarcely credible that the race who inhabited those frozen regions, where the two continents are in near contact, was the stock from which sprung the subjects of the populous empires in the southern portion of America, which had attained something approaching to civilization and splendour, when crushed by invaders from Europe.

We do not recollect to have met with any theory which assigned the peopling of South America to the emigration of the Malays thither; but, if we were forced to adopt some hypothesis, this appears, if not plausible and probable, to have fewer objections to encounter than any other.

The active and enterprizing Malay race, who appear to have originated, not as vulgarly supposed, in the peninsula of Malacca, but in the great, islands of Borneo and Sumatra, in the centre of the latter of which there existed a powerful and flourishing Malay government as late as the eleventh or twelfth century, have spread themselves throughout the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; and there is now ample ground for assuming it as an admitted fact, that the clusters of islands in the Pacific Ocean, and even the continent of Australasia, were peopled by Malays. This fact, which has long been considered probable from consimilarity of person, is now almost demonstrated by affinity of language, the Polynesian tongues, in particular, generally speaking, being dialects, more or less diversified and corrupted, of the Malay language, most of them retaining all its softness and delicacy. From repeated experiments, it has been ascertained that of one hundred Malay words, one-half are Polynesian. The structure of the Malay language has all the simplicity of the island dialects; it is without complexity or artificial arrangement; it has no inflexion, gender,

tense, or mood: the same word is often used as noun, adjective, verb, or adverb, its quality being determined by position. The genuine Malay governments are likewise of the rudest construction, and exhibit an analogy with those in the Pacific Ocean, which, although possibly the result of accident, is not a circumstance of trifling weight, or to be overlooked, when taken in conjunction with other facts.

That these people should make such long voyages is not surprising, when we consider that they are undoubtedly the most enterprizing and fearless native navigators in the Eastern seas, and that many of their prabus are remarkably fine vessels. That they have visited the northern coast of New Holland is notorious. When the expedition to this part of Australasia first landed at Port Essington, with a view of forming the settlement at Melville Island, which was afterwards abandoned, evident traces were perceived of the visits of the Malays in that quarter; and it even entered into the speculations of those who projected the settlement, that traders of that race might be attracted thither, and that a commercial emporium might be formed there as at Singapore.

Under these circumstances, there is no improbability whatever in supposing that the Malays peopled the Sandwich and Society Islands; and if so, since the former are distant from the coast of Mexico only about one-half the distance at which the Sandwich Islands are situated from Borneo, and the Society Islands are about equidistant from Australasia and the coast of Peru, it seems no violent theory to conceive that those empires. were really founded by Malays, the less so, as the description of the persons and dispositions of the Americans, given by their Spanish conquerors, cor-. responds remarkably with the Malay character in all essential points. The bronze complexion, the regular features, the long black hair, are not less remarkable points of analogy between the native Americans within the tropics, and the Malays, than the vindictive and cruel disposition, when provoked, which is attributed to both.

Whatever be the value of this conjecture, for we offer it as nothing more, it is at least somewhat more rational than the hypothesis that Peru and Mexico were conquered in the thirteenth century by Mongols accom panied with elephants: a discovery which has been made by Mr. John Ranking, and which he has announced in a work of about 500 pages, containing what he fancies to be proofs of this extraordinary fact.

As our critical duties require, before passing judgment upon a book submitted to us, we have not only read Mr. Ranking's work, but read it attentively from beginning to end; and having done so, we can only express our utter astonishment that a person capable of appreciating the nature of evidence of any kind, could ever have imposed upon himself so far as to imagine he had adduced one single fact in support of his theory. The whole work consists of a mass of trifling circumstances, some extremely frivolous and,

Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, Mexico, Bogota, Natchez, and Talomeco, in the Thirteenth Century, by the Mongols, accompanied with Elephants; and the local Agreement of History and Tradition with the Remains of Elephants and Mastodontes found in the New World. By JOHN RANKING, author of "Researches on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans." London, 1827; Supplement, 1831. Longman and Co.