"earthen vessel," the appearance of which, first but not his only purpose. He strove, scespecially in his loftier moods, suggested an condly, to be a Christian prophet. Believing energy within, and a possibility before him, that the end of our present cycle of Chriswhich made his works, and even his public tianity was at hand, and that God was about preachings, seem poor in the comparison. Let to introduce a new and most mighty dispensaus remember, too, the age at which he was tion, he felt impelled to proclaim that old removed. He was barely forty-two, an age things were fast passing away, and that all when nine-tenths of clever men have not even things were becoming new. This he did with begun to publish. And he had advanced all the energy of his nature. He smote with at such a rate. It was true that latterly he his hand-he stamped with his foot-he fell into a singular hallucination, or, at least, wept he cried aloud and spared not he a one-sidedness. A gentleman told us that, rose early and sate late-he exhausted his calling on him once, and complaining that his entire energies, and gained an early grave in published writings were not quite worthy of the proclamation of his message. The mantle his fame, Irving pointed to a mass of MS. of the Baptist seemed to have descended on below his study table, and said: "Look here, him, and his sermons ceased to be composisir! There are there scores of sermons in- tions, and became cries-the cries of fierce comparably superior to aught I have publish- protest, stern injunction, and fire-eyed haste. ed. But when I wrote them, I was under Repent ye! Repent_ye! The kingdom of the impression that I must fight God's cause Heaven is at hand.' How far his impressions with the weapons of eloquence and carnal on this subject were correct, is another queswisdom; I have learned otherwise since, sir, tion. But surely if Carlyle - the godless proand believe that the simpler and humbler Iphet of his period - the cursing Balaam of his am in my language, God will prosper my ser- day, demand and deserve credit for the halfmons and writings more; according to that insane sincerity with which he recites his lesScripture, "When I am weak, then am I son of despair, Irving must be much more adstrong." So far he was right, but so far also mired for his intense earnestness, as like the he was wrong; and in a short time had he wild-eyed prophet who ran around doomed lived, he would have come to the golden Jerusalem, crying out Woe,' woe, till he sank No preacher can be too simple, and down in death, he spent his last breath in none too sublime. Every preacher, who is crying Woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of able, should, by turns, be both. No writer the earth, because of the trumpets which are can be too clear, and none too profound; and soon to sound, and the vials of vengeance every writer should seek, if he has capacity, which are soon to be outpoured.' to be both. The author of that little card to Philemon, wrote also the Epistle to the Romans. Irving might, and would, had God spared his life, have attained a mode of writing which, by turns, would have attracted infants, and overpowered philosophers-made a Mary weep and a Felix tremble-a child, like Timothy, prefer it to the instructions of his grandmother Lois, and a doubter, like Thomas, cry out, "My Lord and my God."

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mean.

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Vain perhaps the inquiry, had he lived, what would have been his career? Many may be disposed to say Bedlam.' We think not. Irving had, indeed, his deep halluncinations, and died under them; but he was a man still in his prime, his mind retained much of its original vigor; these hallucinations were only mists, which had strangled his sun at noon, and would have passed away and left the orb brighter, and shining with a tenderer To enter into a consideration of his creed, light than before. Others may say Popery.' we have not room, and it might besides in- We trow not. He had too much Scotch sagavolve us in controversy. In some points we city, whatever some of his followers may have, deem him to have been deeply and even fear- ever to become the bond-slave of its degrading fully mistaken, and his wildest errors, of course, and mind-murdering superstitions. Carlyle, we were most popular among the weak; but in know, supposes that at the time of his death, others, if he was in error, his errors were not Irving was ripe for that transfigured negation, deadly, and he erred in good company. But that golden No, which he calls his creed. Here, whatever were or were not his mistakes, of too, we demur. That Irving admired and one thing there could be no doubt. He was loved Carlyle, is notorious, but that a nature in carnest, and he strove to infuse his earnest- so enthusiastic, affectionate, sanguine, trustful, ness into the age. We were lately discoursing and holy, could ever have been satisfied with of one extraordinary man, since, alas! depart- Carlyleism, is to us inconceivable. Had he ed, whose wondrous powers have been neutral- even, like Samson, been seduced under cloud ized through his want of concentrated purpose; of night, into that city No, when his senses rebut certainly this cannot be charged against turned in the morning, he would have arisen rving. His objects during his life, seem to in wrath, shaken himself as at other times, and have been two. Carlyle says, This man carried away its gates with him in his retreat. strove to be a Christian priest. This was his A man like Irving would, we verily believe,

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rather have died trailing the car of Juggernaut | ture; he died a meek and humble disciple of than have lived trusting to the tender mercies Jesus Christ, and ages may clapse ere the of a system which stereotypes despair, and in Church shall see his like again. Of many banishing God out of the universe, reduces lowly individuals, it can be truly said, as Christ man to a hopeless puzzle and life to a miser- said of the woman, she hath done what she able dream. could;' but of how few men of Irving's powWe venture to say that had Irving's life been ers, accomplishments, and splendid fame, can spared he would have forsaken his wilder nos- it be affirmed that duty was ever dearer to trums, rid himself of the silly people around him than delight that his purpose ever towhim, and calmed and sobered down into one ered more loftily before him than his personal of the noblest specimens of enlightened, sanc- desires- that he loved God better than himtified, humbled, Christ-like humanity which self- that emphatically he did what he our age or any other has seen. He had the could.' And the time has come when even elements of all this within him. His heart was those who most deeply differed from him in as warm as his genius was powerful. If in his opinion and do still in many things differ, may pulpit efforts he sometimes seemed touching unite with his ardent worshippers in proclaimupon the angel, in private life and in the un- ing him a man of whom the world was not dress of his mind he became as a little child.' worthy. A thousand stories are extant of his generosity his liberality. his forbearance his simplicity, as well as of his piety and zeal. But it seemed good to Eternal Providence that his career should be as short as it was checkered, brilliant and strange. And what, although he founded no sect deserving the name, wrought parade so much, are diseased-too "sweet to be deliverance on the earth, reared no pile of lit-wholesome." Edward Irving would not now march erary or theological handy work what, al- through Coventry with such semi-papistic-semithough he died sick of his associates, of his po-name; but were his name fully known it would Swedenborgian hybrids. They shelter under his sition, and of some of his cherished doctrines, crush them. Alas! how often do monkeys gibber and was emphatically at sea'- he had lived, and make mouths and attempt mimicries behind on the whole, a heroic life; his errors them- the back of a man! selves had proclaimed the nobility of his na-.

Note. We have called Irving a comet; but, unlike a comet, his tail has not been his brightest or largest portion. With a few exceptions, the present race of Irvingites are, we fear, as feeble, conceited, and superstitious a set of religionists as exists. Even their love and charity, which they

from the coast.

From the American Journal of Science and Arts cold season, short of a distance of 2500 miles On a Change of Ocean Temperature that would attend a Change in the level of the We have also remarked upon the evidence African and South American Continents. that a similar southern or extratropical curBy JAMES D. DANA. rent affects the temperature of the whole southern Atlantic, and makes this literally the cold ocean of the globe.

THE idea of a change of climate consequent upon a change of the distribution of land and It is moreover evident from the temperature water on the globe, brought forward by Sir of the waters off western South America, that Charles Lyell, has recently been discussed the extratropical or antarctic current has a with much ability and precision, by Prof. vastly wider influence here than in the southHopkins, especially with reference to the ern Atlantic; the positions of the lines of Northern Atlantic. As there is profit in this 68 deg. and 74 deg. in the two regions make consideration of possibilities, whether we can this sufficiently apparent. It is also obvious, prove the actual occurrence of the supposed that the South American Continent, by exevents or not, we briefly remark in this place tending so far south,-22 degrees, or 1300 upon another geological change that would miles, beyond the south point of Africa,affect the temperatures of both the Pacific should necessarily intercept to a large extent and Atlantic Oceans. the antarctic current, and thus occasion, in connection with other causes, the northern flow that influences so widely the temperature

Upon the Oceanic isorthermal chart issued with the last number of this Journal, and discussed in that and this number, it is observed of the waters off this coast. The position of that the whole western coast of South America the isocryme of 35 deg., shows that this same is bordered by cold waters; and that while in current flows on, rising somewhat northward the Pacific, 80 deg. F. is the coldest tempera- towards Cape of Good Hope; yet the African ture of the year in mid-ocean, towards South continent lies so far to the north, that it can America, even under the equator, the ocean in fact intercept but a small part of the southtemperature of 74 deg. is not found, in the ern current, which consequently to a large

extent passes on south of the Cape; yet this small part produces the wonderful effects pointed out.*

Suppose now, that by a change of level, America were to terminate in latitude 34 deg. S., and Africa in latitude 56 deg. S.: the relation of the two, and of the cold influences of the currents adjoining, would be entirely the ocean, as the fossiliferous rocks are mainly changed. The vast area in the South Pacific, of marine origin. We know that in the creembraced between the west South American taceous and tertiary periods, the Andes were coast and the isocryme of 74 deg.,--which in part under water, or at a much lower level, marks the influence in the colder season of and effects of the kind considered cannot be the cold southern waters, though not by any altogether hypothetical. means its extreme limit,-would, if transferred to the Atlantic equatorial regions, stretch nearly or quite across from Guinea to the East Cape of South America; and the line of On 68 deg. would sweep around north of the equator quite to mid-ocean. The actual extent of the change may be perceived with close accuracy if we transfer the isochronal lines off this part of Western America to the Atlantic. In the Pacific, under the same circumstances, the line of 68 deg. would nowhere reach within several degrees of the equator.

My attention was directed to this subject by observations which I made on the growth The distribution of marine life would be of trees in the country around the borders of greatly changed. While now the west coast the Irish Sea in the neighborhood of Liverof South America is, as regards the ocean, one pool. I there remarked, that where the seaof the coldest regions for the latitude in the board is backed by the hills of Wales, trees world, it would become very much moderated, grow with vigor at a comparatively short disand a considerable portion of coast would be tance from the coast, while on the Lancashire bordered by tropical waters, Along by Lima, shore, to the north of this town, where there and far south, there might be coral reefs. In is an extensive flat very little elevated above the Atlantic, on the contrary, the Gulf of the surface of the adjacent sea, the trees have Guinea now characterized by torrid waters, a stunted, poor appearance. I believe the would be filled with the colder seas of the cause of this can be shewn to be due to the temperate zone, and true tropical life would hilly ground checking sea winds, which are be altogether excluded. sometimes loaded with a principle most deleterious to vegetation. To shew how this property of a sea breeze gets into the atmosphere, I had better first describe the formation of

The influence also on the Gulf Stream would be very decided, and the whole North Atlantic would feel the change.

place, we may learn from the facts what vast changes in marine life have happened in past ages, through such changes of level as have occurred in the earth's history. The changes on the land from this cause would be less marked; besides, these have had far less influence on the life of the rocks than those of

Although we cannot show that the supposed change of level in the continents has taken

*We find that at the recent meeting of the British Association, Mr. A. G. Findlay, in the course of a paper on the oceanic currents of the Atlantic and Pacific, takes the common view that the Lagulhas current is the origin of the current that flows up the West African coast, a view shown to be

untenable.

From the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.

the influence of undulating or hilly ground in checking Currents of Wind. By RICHARD ADIE, Esq., Liverpool. Communicated by the Author.

It is a remarkable fact, that while the west "spoon-drift," a technical term applied by coast of America is bordered in the tropical sailors to water raised into the air from the part by cold waters, 10 deg. to 12 deg. below sea in a manner which gives it properties the mean of mid-ocean, and the marine zoo- widely different from any other form of atlogy is hence extratropical, the temperature mospheric moisture. Spoon-drift is formed of the land is peculiarly torrid over the same by a stormy wind striking the tops of agitated latitudes. It is evident that in judging of the waves, and taking from them particles of sea influence of the ocean temperature on the water. temperature of the land, the direction of the In the Mersey, during gales, I have on sevaerial currents for the year, should be consid-eral occasions witnessed the spoon-drift and ered as a most important element towards any some of its effects. I have stood on the Chejust conclusions. shire shore and looked towards Liverpool, and noticed along the dock-wall a belt of cloud which was raised by a strong west wind striking the agitated tops of the waves formed in that locality at the time. This belt of cloud was in rapid motion, being carried forward by the force of the wind. In the town, the day after the storm, the windows of the houses had a soiled appearance, occasioned by the salt which had dried on them. In the coun

So, pent by hills, the wild winds roar aloud,
In the deep bosom of some gloomy wood.

The action of trees and ridges of ground in retarding the motion of the air is very different; wind in passing through trees is retarded by the friction of the air on the leaves

try, on hedge-rows, I saw, pendant from the elevated a few feet above the highest tides. twigs, drops of water which tasted strongly On the southern border of this marsh there is of salt. Storms of this kind rarely occur a hill 200 feet high; but, with this exception, during the season of verdant foliage, but when the ground around the pool is low; yet the they do happen in that period, their effect on winds issuing from the gap were often a cause vegetation is most marked. On the 2d Oc- of anxiety to the boatmen of the Mersey; tober 1853, the Mersey was visited by a vio- and I have been told of serious boat accidents lent gale, which raised spoon-drift, and distri- off the mouth of Wallasley Pool. This charbuted it in the manner I have stated. In acter is likely to be altered now, for the tide forty-eight hours after the storm the leaves of has ceased to ebb there. It has been convertthe trees, on the windward or exposed side, ed into a great shipfloat, filled with water, had a shrivelled, scorched aspect. A road near and studded over with the masts of shipping: Birkenhead, lined with two thriving, haw- but when the surface was open, the influence thorn hedges, presented the singular appear on the atmosphere of a slight depression was ance of two different colors, occasioned by often observable. the one side being a windward surface, the other side a leeward one. The leeward surface escaped the saline spray, and retained the dark green color natural to it at the end of summer; the windward surface was chan- and branches. When wind has to rise over a ged to be quite brown, through the deadly ridge of ground, there is the friction of the action of salt on vegetation. The hard spine- air on the earth's surface, and if all the air like leaves of the gorse bushes and the ever- which ascended the ridge were to descend on green pines are often, during the winter the other side to the same level, so that the months, browned on the parts exposed to a opposite surfaces of ridge resembled the two saline atmosphere; but, so far as I have been arms of a syphon, then the friction would be able to note, winters which do this to any ex- the only retarding force. But this is not what tent do not occur oftener than once in three occurs in nature, which will be at once seen to five years. In the spring, after a season if we look at a mountain ridge on a great that has had a saline gale, I have heard it re-scale. Take for illustration the island of marked by a traveller who had gone over the Great Britain; a large mass of air annually extreme range of British railway ground, that passes across its surface from the Atlantic to Lancashire appeared more blighted than the the German Ocean; in its transit a quantity moors, or any other place he had passed over; of aqueous vapor is condensed, and descends it is due to the lands in this county being ex- in the form of rain. A part of the rain is deposed to be swept by strong westerly gales rived from vapor which has been evaporated from the Irish Sea, carrying with them parti- from the surface of the island, and is only a cles of sea-water. Arboreal vegetation, from process of return-the state of the earth as its elevation, is more liable to be injured by to moisture, in an annual mean, being nearly sea salt than the cereals, or other plants which stationary. The extent of the condensation form the object of the farmer's care. The of vapor which has come from the sea or forlatter, for a long period of their growth, only eign ground is measured by the annual disrise a few inches above the surface of the soil, charge of our rivers. The vast volume of while, during the time of their most active air annually condensed on the surface of the development for flowering and seeding, saline island may be conceived, when the quantity storms are rare; hence it is that ground where of water discharged into the sea is multiplied trees thrive badly is found covered with fertile 1700 times; and the winds have suffered from corn-fields. the discharge of their aqueous vapor a retarding force measured by the gravitating of the rivers in their descent to the ocean, for the weight of water is lost to them on the descending limb of the syphon.

The influence of hills in checking winds within a certain sphere of their action, is shown in the quotation given above from the Iliad, translated by Pope: for if wind rushes with much violence down a gap among hills, the fact of its doing so, which is so well known, and is here established on the authority of one of the oldest of authors, shews that there must have been resistance offered to it by the of water-power brings another force into play form of the ground. On the Cheshire side which tends to give a horizontal motion to the of the Mersey there was an inlet called Wal-air, namely the vacuity left by the condensed lasley Pool, where the tide ebbed and flowed moisture. Consequently when we come to through a hollow very slightly depressed be- consider the effect of elevated ground on the low the neighboring country; the upper part atmosphere in its widest sense, experience of the pool passed through a flat marsh only shows that it acts as a disturber; the most

If we reflect on the extent of the water power of this island, some idea may be formed of the vast body of air required to be condensed to produce it. Again, this formation

palpable proof of this is afforded by the gen- the 100 cubic inches. And suppose that the eral quiescent state of the extensive flat sur- stratum of the mass in motion is 300 feet face of the Pacific Ocean,—the name pacific thick, the calculation founded on these data being an indication of its character-con- shows the weight of air raised 10 feet during trasted with the stormy portions of this ocean every hour, to be 310 millions of tons. In which lie around Cape Horn and the Cape of the mean state of dryness, the atmosphere Good Hope. The action of undulating ground contains 14 parts per 1000 of aqueous vain checking currents of air refers to localities por, which proportion gives for the water within a certain range of their influence; in raised 10 feet along a sea-board of 100 miles, such situations trees are found in a more 4 1-4 millions of tons per hour-a large luxuriant state of growth near the sea, than quantity of this vast weight being capable would have been the case if the ground of condensation into rain. around them had been flat; at the same time The gales requid to form the " spoon the fact must not be lost sight of, that while drift" which I have described as so destruchills protect much of the surface from winds, tive to vegetation, may be judged of from they also expose certain localities where the the subjoined notice, extracted from Mr. wild winds roar more than on any sea-girt Hartnup's report.

plain.

The following results show the compara

A calculation of the weight of air which tive violence of the four heaviest gales of a ridge of very moderate elevation will raise wind which passed over the observatory durhourly, may startle some of your readers. ing the year 1852:— Take a ridge of 10 feet high on a sea-board of 100 miles in length. According to Mr. Hartnup, in his meteorological results for the Liverpool Observatory, 1852, the mean hori- January 4. 28 pounds. zontal motion of the air for the year is 13 miles per hour. The mean weight of the air that crosses may be counted at 2 lb. per cubic yard, which is nearly 30 1-2 grains to

99

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9.

29 42 27. 42

Extreme pressure
on the square foot.

From the American Annual of Scientific Discoveries,

1854.

Dec'm. 25.

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Greatest velocity of the air between any one hour and the next hour following.

53 miles.

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62

70

71

action of carbonic acid; and the more abundant and various these solutions, the more fruitIMPORTANT NEW THEORIES IN AGRI-ful is the ground." Arguing from this view,

CULTURAL SCIENCE.

it is not richness of soil or humus that proM. BAUDRIMONT, professor of chemistry at duces the multiplied varieties of alpine plants the Faculty of Sciences at Bordeaux, has just in Germany, or the absence of it that propublished a work, "On the Existence of In- duces but few. "Soluble mineral constituterstitial Currents in Arable Soil, and the In- ents" are shown to be the characteristic of fluence which they can exert on Agricul- our cultivated field; and "an agricultural ture;" in which, after a long study of the plant" is defined as one, "distinguished from subject, he states, that there is a natural pro- wild individuals of the same species, by pecucess at work by which liquid currents rise liar qualities, which constitute its fitness in to the surface from a certain depth in the culture, and which depend upon a modificaground, and thus bring up materials that help tion of chemical action." The amazing yield either to maintain its fertility, or to modify its of Indian corn in Mexico from 200 to 600 character. Many phenomena of agriculture fold-is something which, with all our skill, and of vegetation have at different times been we cannot accomplish, and is a fact in favor observed; which, hitherto inexplicable, are of the argument, "that in no case do the readily explained on this theory. Such, for organic substances contained in the ground example, the improvement which takes place perform any direct part of the nutrition of in fallows; and there is reason to believe that plants." The annual destruction of organic these currents materially influence the rota- matter all over the earth is estimated at 145 tion of crops. billions of pounds, equal to 2 1-4 billions of

In Germany, Schleiden is attracting much cubic feet; and if all vegetation depends on attention by his masterly views on the pheno- organic matter for nutrition, to satisfy this conmena of vegetation; and it will surprise many sumption, "there must have been, five thouto hear that he admits of no relation between sand years back, ten feet deep of pure organic the fertility of a soil, and the quantity of ferti- substance on its surface." Another illustration lizing matter expended upon it.—“ The good- is furnished by taking the number of cattle ness of the soil," he says, "depends upon its and other animals in France in a given year inorganic constituents-so far at least as they (1844), and observing the amount of food they are soluble in water, or through continued consuine. The process of nutrition would re