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called an "oasis," and I dare say you are anxious to know how it can exist there. It has its beginning in a spring of water. There may probably be a rock in the midst of the sand, from which a spring bursts forth. The animals that range these wilds soon become aware of it, and repair thither to satisfy their thirst. Some that have been wounded by the hunters, or by other wild animals, will drag themselves there to die. Their bodies, decaying, in a short time mix with the sand. This also happens with the refuse of all the animals which frequent the spring, so that by and by a fertile soil will be formed around it. The winds of heaven and the birds of the air supply seeds to it which, speedily growing up in so favourable a situain, Elossom, ripen their seeds, and diffuse them around; and so on till the neighbourhood of the well is covered with herbage, shrubs, and trees.

The hot winds of the desert may raise the sand in clouds, and shower it upon the oasis, but the taller shrubs and trees will raise their heads in spite of it; and though the humbler plants may be buried in it again and again, the same circumstances which first covered the spot with vegetation, will constantly occur again, as long as the well, the source of all this life and beauty, continues to flow.

But should the spring be dried up, or its waters be turned in another direction, the beautiful island soon disappears. Without the refreshing waters, its verdure withers and dies, and its fertile soil is quickly buried in the encroaching sand. A solitary palm or date-tree, with its roots stretching down far into the soil, may for a time lift its head to mark the spot, but soon nothing will remain but the hard rock from whose bosom the fertilizing waters sprung.-'Little Stories.'

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We have noticed the great inequality in the extent of dry land in the two hemispheres, whether we divide the sphere at the equator or at the meridian of Teneriffe; the two great insular

masses, or continents, eastern and western, old and new, present also some striking contrasts, and at the same time some analogies, deserving of notice. Their major axes are in opposite directions-the eastern, or old, continent, extending, in its greatest dimensions, from east to west, or more precisely from north-east to south-west; whilst the western continent extends from north to south, or more exactly from N.N.W. to S.S.E. On the other hand, both continents are terminated towards the north by a line coinciding nearly with the seventieth parallel, and to the south they both run into pyramidal points, having submarine prolongations which are indicated by islands and shoals-such are the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego; the Lagullas bank, south of the Cape of Good Hope; and Van Diemen's Island, separated from New Holland by Bass's Straits. The northern part of Asia passes beyond the above-mentioned (seventieth) parallel towards Cape Taimura (78° 16′ according to Krusenstern), and falls short of it from the mouth of the larger Tschukotschia river to Behring's Straits, where the eastern extremity of Asia (Cook's East Cape) is, according to Beechey, in 66° 3′ N. lat. The northern shore of the new continent follows the seventieth parallel with tolerable exactness, for the lands to the north and south of Barrow's Straits are detached islands.

The pyramidal form of all the southern terminations of continents belong to those "similitudines physicæ in configuratione mundi," to which Bacon called attention in the Novum Organum,'2 and with which Reinhold Forster, one of the companions of Cool. on his second voyage of circumnavigation, connected some ingenious considerations. Directing our attention eastward from the meridian of Teneriffe, we perceive that the terminations of the three continents, i.e. the southern extremities of Africa, Australia, and America, successively approach nearer to the South Pole. New Zealand, which is fully twelve degrees of latitude in length, seems to form a regular intermediate member between Australia and South America; its southern termination is likewise marked by an island, New Leinster. We may notice, further, as a remarkable circumstance, that the projecting points of the old continent, both to the north and to the south, are nearly under the same meridian; thus the Cape of Good Hope and Lagullas bank are situated nearly in the same meridian as the north cape of Europe, and the peninsula of Malacca nearly in that of Cape Taimura. We know not whether the two poles of the earth are surrounded by land or by an ice-covered sea; towards the North Pole the parallel of 82° 55′ has been reached, and towards the South Pole that of 78° 10'.

The pyramidal terminations of the great continents are frequently repeated on a smaller scale, not only in the Indian Ocean, in the peninsulas of Arabia, Hindostan, and Malacca, but also in the Mediterranean, where Eratosthenes and Polybius had compared in this respect the Iberian, Italic, and Hellenic Peninsulas. Europe itself, having an extent of surface equalling only one-fifth part of that of Asia, may be considered as the western peninsula of the compact mass of the Asiatic continent, to which it bears, in point of climate, a relation somewhat similar to that of the peninsula of Brittany to the rest of France. The favourable influence of the articulated and varied form of a continent on the civilization and intellectual cultivation of its inhabitants was recognised by Strabo, who extolled as a special advantage the richly varied form of our little Europe. Africa, and South America, which also offer many other features of analogy in their configuration, are the two continents which have the simplest and least indented outlines, while the eastern side of Asia, as if it were rent by the force of the currents of the ocean (fractas ex quore terras), presents a richly varied coastline; peninsulas and islands alternate along its shores, from the equator to 60° N. latitude. -HUMBOLDT'S Cosmos.'

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WHEN We contemplate the New World, the first circumstance that strikes us is its immense extent. It was not a small portion of the earth, so inconsiderable that it might have escaped the observation or research of former ages, which Columbus discovered. He made known a new hemisphere, larger than either Europe, or Asia, or Africa, the three noted divisions of the ancient continent, and not much inferior in dimensions to a third part of the habitable globe.

America is remarkable not only for its magnitude, but for its position. It stretches from the northern polar circle to a high southern latitude, above fifteen hundred miles beyond the farthest extremity of the old continent on that side of the line. A country of such extent passes through all the climates capable of becoming the habitation of man, and fit for yielding the various productions peculiar either to the temperate or to the torrid regions of the earth.

Next to the extent of the New World, the grandeur of the objects which it presents to view is most apt to strike the eye of an observer. Nature seems here to have carried on her operations upon a larger scale, and with a bolder hand, and to have distinguished the features of this country by a peculiar magnificence. The mountains of America are much superior in height to those in the other divisions of the globe. Even the plain of Quito, which may be considered as the base of the Andes, is elevated farther above the sea than the top of the Pyrenees. This stupendous ridge of the Andes, no less remarkable for extent than elevation, rises in different places more than onethird above the Peak of Teneriffe, the highest land in the ancient hemisphere. The Andes may literally be said to hide their heads in the clouds: the storms often roll, and the thunder bursts below their summits, which, though exposed to the rays of the sun in the centre of the torrid zone, are covered with everlasting snows. From these lofty mountains descend rivers, proportionably large, with which the streams in the ancient continent are not to be compared, either for length of course or the vast body of water which they roll towards the ocean. The Maragnon,3 the Orinoco, the Plata in South America, the Mississippi and St. Lawrence in North America, flow in such spacious channels, that long before they feel the influence of the tide, they resemble arms of the sea rather than rivers of fresh water.

The lakes of the New World are no less conspicuous for grandeur than its mountains and rivers. There is nothing in other parts of the globe which resembles the prodigious chain of lakes in North America. They may properly be termed inland seas of fresh water; and even those of the second or third class in magnitude are of larger circuit (the Caspian Sea excepted) than the greatest lake of the ancient continent.

The New World is of a form extremely favourable to commercial intercourse. When a continent is formed, like Africa, of one vast solid mass, unbroken by arms of the sea penetrating into its interior parts, with few large rivers, and those at a considerable distance from each other, the greater part of it seems destined to remain for ever uncivilized, and to be debarred

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

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