were so violent, that the mere concussion of the air gases, and acids." There is, however, another (for no earthquake movement was perceived) rent and a rarer class, which are closely connected with the ceilings of the rooms in the palace of Portici. the earliest revolutions of our planet. Trachytic In the neighboring villages of Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre del Annunziata, and Bosche tre Case, a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed. Throughout the whole of that part of the country the air was so filled with ashes as to cause in the middle of the day profound darkness, lasting for several hours; lanterns were carried in the streets, as had often been done in Quito during the eruptions of Pinchincha. The flight of the inhabitants had never been more general. Lava currents are regarded, by those who dwell near Vesuvius, with less dread than an eruption of ashes, a phenomenon which had never been known to such a degree in modern times; and the obscure tradition of the manner in which the destruction of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Sta- * * * mountains open suddenly, emit lava and ashes, and close again perhaps forever. The gigantic mountain of Antisana on the Andes, and Monte Epomeo in Ischia, in 1302, are examples of that phenomenon. Eruptions of this kind sometimes take place in the plains, as happened in Quito, in Iceland, at a distance from Hecla, and in Eubœa in the Lelantine fields. Many of the islands upheaved from the sea belong to the same class. The communication of the external opening with the interior of the earth is not permanent, and as soon as the cleft or opening closes, the volcanic action wholly ceases. Humboldt is of opinion that "veins or dykes of basalt, dolerite, and porphyry, which traverse almost all formations, and that masses of syenite, augitic porphyry, and amygdaloid, which characterize the recent transition and oldest sedimentary rocks-have probably been formed in a similar manner." That the earth is a melted mass at no very great distinctly heard, and distinguished from the sounds depth below its surface, is placed beyond a doubt, which proceeded from the interior of the volcano. not only by the preceding facts, but by a great In no other eruption had the play of the electric forces formed so striking a feature. On the morning of the 26th October, a surprising rumor prevailed, that a torrent of boiling water was gushing from the crater, and pouring down the slope of the cone of ashes. Monticelli soon discovered that this was an optical illusion. It was in reality a flow of dry ashes, which, being loose and movable as shifting sand, issued in large quantities from a crevice in the upper margin of the crater.-Pp. 229, 230. Owing to the thunderstorm noticed in this extract, an abundant and violent fall of rain took place, and as the rain is heaviest above the cone of ashes, torrents of mud descend from it in every direction; and when the summit of the volcano is in the region of perpetual snow, the melting of the snow produces very disastrous inundations. At the foot of volcanoes, too, and on their flanks, there are frequently vast cavities, which, having a communication by many channels with mountain torrents, become subterranean lakes or reservoirs of water. When earthquakes, as happens in the Andes, shake the entire mass of the volcano, these reservoirs are opened, discharging water, fishes, and mud. On the 19th June, 1698, when the Carguairazo, to the north of Chimborazo, and upwards of 19,000 feet high, fell in, an area of nearly thirty square miles was covered with mud and fishes! Vesuvius, and other similar volcanoes, have permanent communications, by means of their craters, with the interior of the earth. They alternately break forth and slumber, and often "end by becoming solfataras, emitting aqueous vapors, * The thickness of the bed of ashes which fell during the twelve days was little above three feet on the slope of the cones, and only about eighteen inches on the planes. This is the greatest fall of ashes since the erup tion of Vesuvius, which occasioned the death of the elder Pliny. * * * Elastic mass of observations collected by Humboldt and Our author concludes this instructive section with a speculation which he himself characterizes as bold; the object of which is to explain, by means of the internal heat of our globe, the existence, in a fossil state, of the tropical forms of animals and plants in the cold regions of the globe. This hitherto unexplained fact has been ascribed to various causes-to a change in the obliquity of the ecliptic by the approach of a comet, and to a change in the intensity in the sun's light and heat. We have been led to suppose that, as the two poles of maximum cold are nearly coincident with the magnetic poles, they may partake in their revolution, and thus make the warm and the cold meridians, which are now proved to exist, occupy in succession every position on the earth's surface; and that variations in the forces or causes by which that cold is produced, may produce a still further variation of temperature.* Everywhere, (says our author,) the ancient world shows a distribution of organic forms at vari* Edinburgh Transactions, vol. ix., pp. 211, 212. * * * * others said, that it was the assertion of the Empire of Reason over Desire." A collection of pictures having arrived from Rhodes, there was found among them the companion or pendant of the Rhodian Genius. The Genius was still the central figure; but his head was now drooping. The butterfly was no longer on his shoulder; and ance with our present climate. It Genius as the personification of Spiritual Love may be that, in the ancient world, exhalations of forbidding the enjoyment of sensual pleasure; heat issuing forth from the many openings of the deeply-fissured crust of the globe, may have favored, perhaps, for centuries, the growth of palms and tree-ferns, and the existence of animals requiring a high temperature, over entire countries where now a very different climate prevails. According to this view of things, the temperature of volcanoes would be that of the interior of the earth; and the same cause, which, operating his torch was inverted and extinguished. through volcanic eruptions, now produces devastating effects, might, in primeval ages, have clothed youths and maidens pressing around him had met the deeply fissured rocks of the newly oxydized and embraced. Their glance, no longer sad and earth, in every zone, with the most luxuriant veg etation. If, in order to explain the distribution of tropical forms whose remains are now buried in northern regions, it should be assumed that the long-haired species of elephant now found enclosed in ice, was originally indigenous in cold climates, and that forms resembling the same leading type may, as in the case of lions and lynxes, have been able to live in wholly different climates; still this solution of the difficulty presented by fossil remains cannot be extended so as to apply to vegetable productions. From reasons with which the study of vegetable physiology makes us acquainted, palms, musacer, and arborescent monocotyledones, are incapable of supporting the deprivation of their appendicular organs, which would be caused by the present temperature of our northern regions; and in the geological problem which we have to examine, it appears to me difficult to separate vegetable and animal remains from each other. The same mode of explanation ought to comprehend both.---Vol. ii., pp. 239, 241. The next chapter of the " Aspects of Nature" is one of seven pages, entitled, "The Vital Force, or the Rhodian Genius." It was first printed in Schiller's Hora for 1795, and contains "the development of a physiological idea in a semimythical garb." In an earlier work, our anthor had defined the vital force as "the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following their original affinities;" and he endeavors to illustrate this position by the following story: --A picture, called the Rhodian Genius, was brought to Syracuse from Greece, and was supposed to be the work of the same artist who cast the Colossus of Rhodes. It was placed in the Gallery of Paintings and Sculpture, and excited much difference of opinion, both respecting its author and its object. On the foreground were youths and maidens, handsome and graceful, but unclothed, and expressing in their features and movements only the desires and sorrows of an earthly habi tation. Their arms outstretched to each other indicated "their desire of union;" but they turned their troubled looks towards a halo-encircled Genius who stood in the midst of them. On his shoulder was a butterfly, and in his hand a lighted torch. Though childlike in his form and aspect, a celestial fire animated his glance, and he gazed as with the eye of a master upon the gay throng at his feet. The object of the picture became a problem, which philosophers and connoisseurs strove to solve. "Some regarded the "The subdued, announced, on the contrary, emancipation from restraint, and the fulfilment of longcherished desires." The companion picture afforded no clue to the solution of the problem; and in this crisis of baffled ingenuity and disappointed curiosity, Dionysius ordered the picture, along with a faithful copy of the Rhodian Genius, to be carried to the house of Epicharmus, a Pythagorean philosopher, who fixed his eyes upon the picture, and thus addressed his disciples : * As living beings are compelled by natural de sires to salutary and fruitful union, so the raw materials of inorganic matter are moved by similar impulses. Thus the fire of heaven follows metal-iron obeys the attraction of the loadstone-amber rubbed takes up light substancesearth mixes with earth-salt collects together from the water of the sea and the acid moisture of the Stypteria, as well as the flocculent salt of Trichitis, love the clay of Melos. In inanimate nature, all things hasten to unite with each other, according to their particular laws. Hence no terrestrial element is to be found anywhere in its pure and primitive state. Each, as soon as formed, tends to enter into new combinations, and the art of man is needed to disjoin and present in a separated state substances which you would seek in vain in the interior of the earth, and in the fluid ocean of air and water. In dead inorganic matter, entire inactivity and repose reign, so long as the bands of affinity continue undissolved, so long as no third substance comes to join itself to the others; but even then the action and disturbance produced are soon again succeeded by unfruitful repose. It is otherwise, however, when the same substances are brought together in the bodies of plants and animals. In these the vital force of power reigns supreme, and regardless of the mutual amity or enmity of the atoms recognized by Democritus, commands the union of substances which, in inanimate nature, shun each other, and separates those which are ever seeking to enter into combination. Now come nearer to me, my friends; look with me on the first of the pictures before us, and recognize in the Rhodian Genius, in the expression of youthful energy, in the butterfly on his shoulder, and in the commanding glance of his eye, the symbol of vital force animating each individual germ of the organic creation. At the fect are the carthy elements desiring to mix and unite conformably to their particular tendencies. The Genius, holding aloft his lighted torch with commanding gesture, controls and constrains them, without regard to their ancient rights, to obey his laws. Now view with me the rew picture which the wards, the extinguished torch is reversed, the head of the youth has sunk, the spirit has fled to other spheres, and the vital force is dead. Now the youths and maidens joyfully join hands, the earthy substances resume their ancient rights; they are free from the chains that bound them, and follow impetuously after long restraint the impulse to union. Thus inert matter animated awhile by vital force passes through an innumerable diversity of forms, and perhaps in the same substance which once enshrined the spirit of Pythagoras, a poor worm may have enjoyed a momentary existence. - Vol. ii., pp. 255-257. Tyrant has sent to me for explanation; turn your of the Pacific. A young Indian, who usually eyes from the image of life to that of death. The discharges this important duty, swims in two days butterfly has left its former place and soars up- from Pomahuaco to Tomependa, carrying the few The closing chapter of Baron Humboldt's work contains an account of the Plateau of Caxamarca, the ancient capital of the Inca Atahualpa, and describes the first view of the Pacific Ocean as seen from the crest of the Andes. After mentioning the Quina (or fever bark*) producing forests in the valleys of Loxa, and the alpine vegetation and mountain wildernesses of the Paramos, our author describes the gigantic remains of the ancient artificial roads of the Incas of Peru, which formed a line of communication through all the provinces of the empire, extending more than a thousand English miles. The road itself is 21 feet wide, and above a deep understructure was paved with well cut blocks of blackish trap porphyry. Station-houses, of hewn stone, are built at nearly equal distances, forming a kind of caravanserai. In the pass called the Paramo del Assuay, the road rises to the height of 15,526 feet, almost equal to that of Mont Blanc. Across the wide and arid plains between the Pacific and the Andes, and also over the ridges of the Cordilleras, these two great Peruvian roads, or systems of roads, are covered with flat stones, or " sometimes even with cemented gravel, (Macadamized.)" The roads crossed the rivers and ravines by three kinds of bridges, " viz., those of stone, wood, and rope, and there were also aqueducts for bringing water to the caravanserais and to the fortresses." As wheel-carriages were not then used upon roads, they were occasionally interrupted by long flights of steps, provided with resting-places at suitable intervals. Along with their grand artificial paths, the Peruvians possessed a highly improved postal system. These splendid remains of the Incas, however, have been wantonly destroyed, and Humboldt mentions that, in one day's journey, they were obliged to wade through the Rio de Guancabamba twenty-seven times, while they continually saw near them the remains of the high-built roads, with their caravanserais. In the lower part of the same river, which, with its many falls and rapids, runs into the Amazons, our author was amused with the singular contrivance of a "Swimming Post," for the conveyance of correspondence with the coast * The Cinchona Condaminia (officinalis.) This beautiful tree, though only six inches in diameter, often attains a height height of sixty feet. The bark was introduced into Europe in 1632 or 1640. letters from Truxillo, which are intended for the province of Jaen de Bracamora. The letters are carefully placed in a large cotton handkerchief, which he winds round his head in the manner of a turban. He then descends the Rio de Chamaya, (the lower part of the Guancabamba,) and then the Amazons. When he reaches waterfalls, he quits the river and makes a circuit through the woods. In this fatiguing voyage the Indian sometimes throws one arm round a piece of a very light kind of wood, and he has sometimes the advantage of a swimming companion. They carry no provisions, as they are always sure of a hospitable reception in any of the scattered huts surrounded with fruit trees, which abound in the beautiful Huertas de Pucara and Cavico. Let ters thus carried are seldom either wetted or lost and Humboldt mentions, that soon after his retur from Mexico to Europe, he received letters fron Tomependa, which had been bound on the brov of the swimming post. The "Correo que nada,' as he is called, returns by land by the difficul route of the Paramo del Paredon. Several tribes of wild Indians, who reside on the banks of the Upper Amazons, are accustomed to travel "by swimming down the stream sociably in parties." Humboldt had an "opportunity of seeing in this manner in the bed of the river the heads of 30 or 40 persons, (men, women, and children,) of the tribe of the Xibaros, on their arrival at Tomependa." When the travellers approached the hot climate of the basin of the Amazons, they were delighted with the splendid orange trees, sweet and bitter, of the Huertas de Pucara. "Laden with many thousands of their golden fruit. they attain a height of from 60 to 64 feet, and instead of rounded tops or crowns, they have aspiring branches like a laurel or bay tree." Not far hence, (says Humboldt,) near the Ford of Cavico, we were surprised by a very unexpected sight. We saw a grove of small trees, only about 18 or 19 feet high, which, instead of green, had apparently perfectly red or rose-colored leaves. It was a new species of Bougainvillæa, a genus first established by the elder Jussieu from a Brazilian specimen in Commerson's herbarium. The trees were almost entirely without true leaves, as what we took for leaves at a distance proved to be thickly crowded bracteas. The appearance was altogether different in the purity and freshness of the color from the autumnal tints which, in many of our forest trees, adorn the woods of the temperate zone at the season of the fall of the leaf. often found here the Porlieria hygrometrica, which, by the closing of the leaflets of its finely pinnated foliage, foretells an impending change of weather, and especially the approach of rain, much better than any of the Mimosaceæ. It very rarely de ceived us. Vol. ii., pp. 279, 280. * * We As night was closing upon our travellers, when they were ascending the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras, they arrived at an elevated plain where the argentiferous mountains of Gual- After leaving the sea, the travellers ascended gayoc, the chief locality of the celebrated Silver a height about 10,000 feet high, and were " struck Mines of Chota, afforded them a remarkable spec- with the sight of two grotesquely shaped portacle. The cerro of Gualgayoc, an isolated mass phyritic summits, Aroma and Cunturcaga, which of silicious rock, stands like an enchanted castle, consisted of five, six, or seven solid columns, separated by a deep ravine from the limestone some of them jointed, and from thirty-seven to mountains of Cormolatsche. It is traversed by forty-two feet high." Owing to the distribution innumerable veins of silver, and terminated on of the often converging series of columns of the the N. W. by a nearly perpendicular precipice. "Besides being perforated to its summit by many hundred galleries driven in every direction, this mountain presents also natural openings in the mass of the silicious rock, through which the intensely dark blue sky of those elevated regions is visible to a spectator standing at the foot of the mountain. These openings are popularly called windows," and "similar ones were pointed out to us in the trachytic walls of the volcano of Pinchincha." On their way to the ancient city of Caxamarca, Cerro Aroma placed one above another, "it resembles a two-storied building, which, moreover, is surmounted by a dome or cupola of noncolumnar rock." It had been the earliest wish of our author to obtain a view of the Pacific from the crest of the Andes. He had listened as a boy to the adventurous expedition of Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the first European who beheld the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean, and he was now about to gratify this longing desire of his youth. When they had reached the highest part of the mountain by the * * * Humboldt and his companions had to cross a suc- Alto de Guangamarca, the heavens suddenly becession of Paramos at the height of about 10,000 came clear, and the western declivity of the Corfeet above the sea, before they reached the Pa-dilleras, covered with quartz blocks fourteen feet ramo de Yanaguanga, from which they looked high, and the plains as far as the seashore near down upon the fertile valley of Caxamarca, con- Truxillo, "lay beneath their eyes in astonishing taining in its oval area about 112 English square apparent proximity. We saw for the first time miles. The town stands almost as high as the the Pacific Ocean itself, and we saw it clearly. city of Quito, but being encircled by mountains, * The joy it inspired was vividly it enjoys a far milder climate. The fort and pal- shared by my companions, Bonpland and Carlos ace of Atahualpa exist only in a few ruins. The Montufar," and the sight "was warm baths of Pultamarca, at which the Inca peculiarly impressive to one who like myself owed spent a part of the year, have a temperature of a part of the formation of his mind and character, 156° Fahrenheit, and are seen in the distance. and many of the directions which his wishes had The town is adorned with a few churches, a state assumed, to intercourse with (George Forster) one prison, and a municipal building, erected upon of the companions of Cook." * * * part of the ruins of the palace. On the porphy- In the preceding analysis of the "Aspects of ritic rock upon which the palace stood, a shaft Nature," we have found it very difficult to do jushas been sunk which formerly led into subterra- tice either to the author or to ourselves as renean chambers, and to a gallery said to extend to viewers. Owing to the great length of the the other porphyritic dome of Santa Polonia. "annotations and additions," which extend to The room is yet shown where Atahualpa was more than twice the length of the original chapimprisoned for nine months from November, 1532, ters which form the text, we have been under the and the mark on the wall is still pointed out to necessity of incorporating the information conshow the height to which he offered to fill the tained in both, partly in our own language, and room with gold in bars, plates, and vessels, if set partly in that of the author, and have therefore free. In order to avoid being burnt alive, the found it impossible to give such copious and conInca consented to be baptized by his fanatical per- tinuous extracts as the reader might have desired. secutor, the Dominican monk, Vincente de Val- This difficulty, too, has been greatly increased by verde. He was strangled publicly in the open the admixture of scientific with popular details, air, and at the mass for the dead the brothers and by the use of technical terms which the general Pizarro were present in mourning habits.* The reader will sometimes find it difficult to interpret. population of Caxamarca did not, at the time of Regarding the work, however, as one of great value our author's visit, exceed seven or eight thousand inhabitants. * It is with some reluctance that, in imitation of Humboldt, we throw into the obscurity of a note, a specimen of court etiquette at the palace of the Incas. "In conformity," says our author, "with a highly ancient court ceremonial, Atahualpa spat, not on the ground, but into the hand of one of the principal ladies present;"-"all," says Garcilaso, on account of his majesty."-Vol. ii., p. 314. When the possessors of a little brief authority thus degrade their office and their race, we feel that they from its science, and great interest from its subject, and as possessing that peculiar charm of language and of sentiment which we look for in vain in similar productions, we cannot withhold the expression of our anxiety that the popular matter in the "annotations and additions" should be incorporated with the original text, and the technical and parenthetic references in the text, either converted into foot notes, or transferred to the have withdrawn themselves from the sphere of human "annotations." We should thus have a work sympathies, and we almost forget the cruelties of the Spaniards when we find them perpetrated against bipeds truly popular, without losing any of its scientific like Atahualpa. accuracy. The translation of Mrs. Sabine is like her trans- always strongly opposed. Mr. Cuthbert Southey lation of Kosmos, admirably executed. We are had taken orders before his father died, and never offended with the harshness of a foreign remains still where he then was, with the duties idiom, and we never discover that the author and and pittance of a hard-working curate. One the translator are different persons. would be tempted to ask if he had shown any marked incapacity of intellect or character, but that evidence has been some time before the world of his excellence in both. Mindful of the manner in which church patronage is distributed, we must plainly say of this neglect that it is the reverse of creditable to its authors. It is notorious that the matter was brought before the last ministry, and that among those who then refused a helping hand to lift Southey's son out of a shabby curacy, were men who had offered to raise Southey himself, while their party was yet profiting by his genius, to the empty rank of a baronet. Is it too late for their successors to redeem this reproach by an example of generous homage to the memory We have thus endeavored to give our readers some account of a work full of wisdom and knowledge, written by one of the most distinguished writers and philosophers of the present day, and well fitted to draw our attention to a subject with which every person ought to be familiar. To live upon a world so wonderfully made, without desiring to know its form, its structure, and its purpose to eat the ambrosia of its gardens, and drink the nectar of its vineyards, without inquiring where, or how, or why they grow-to toil for its gold and its silver, and to appropriate its coal and its iron, without studying their nature and their origin-to tremble under its earthquakes, and stand aghast before its volcanoes, in ignorance of a powerful and honorable opponent? of their locality, of their powers, and of their origin-to see and handle the gigantic remains of vegetable and animal life, without understanding when and why they perished to tread the mountain range, unconscious that it is sometimes composed wholly of the indestructible flinty relics of living creatures, which it requires the most powerful microscope to perceive-to neglect such pur No one will question that such epithets are justly given to Southey, and that the respect and admiration of all who honor virtue and genius belong to him in his grave. Few men have written so much, and written so well. Few men have passed through a long life, almost always in the public eye, with a more honorable and unstained character, or purposes more free from suits as these, would indicate a mind destitute of blame. We may grieve that he so completely the intellectual faculty, and unworthy of the life threw off the opinions with which he started in and reason with which we have been endowed. It is only the irreligious man that can blindly gaze upon the loveliness of material nature, without seeking to understand its phenomena and its laws. It is only the ignorant man that can depreciate the value of that true knowledge which is within the grasp of his divine reason; and it is only the presumptuous man who can prefer those speculative studies, before which the strongest intellect quails, and the weakest triumphs. "In wisdom hast Thou made them all," can be the language only of the wise; and it is to the wise only that the heavens can declare the glory of God, and that the firmament can show forth his handiwork. It is the geologist alone who has explored them, that can call upon the "depths of the earth to praise the Lord;" and he "who breaketh the cedars of Lebanon," who "shaketh the wilderness," who "divideth the flames of fire," who "causeth the hinds to calve," and "maketh bare the forest," has imperatively required it from his worshippers, "that in his temple every one should speak of his glory." From the Examiner. his ardent youth; but those were days when opinions of the most resolute men were shaken. Southey at least never forfeited his station or his title to esteem. He did not become a hack, or a party tool; nor did the dignity of literature ever suffer in his person. This is hardly the time-with so brief a section of his life as yet before us to speak of the various public claims of Southey. But some things we may say with little dread of dispute. His prose is of the best in the language. It is clear, vigorous, and manly; with no small prettinesses in it, but full and muscular as that of our older and stronger race of writers; and often sparkling with a current of quaint grave humor which is singularly fascinating. His larger poems, however judgments may differ concerning them, are at least written on solid principles, and with a sustained power of art. We are not very certain, indeed, if it might not be put as a good test of the pure love of poetry in any man, that he should like those Madocs and Rodericks and Kehamas and Joans of Arc. For a man may adore Wordsworth as a devotee to Wordsworth's system, and may be greedy for Lord Byron as for any other The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. of the stronger stimulants; but if he admires Edited by his son, the Rev. CHARLES CUTHBERT these poems of Southey, it is as efforts of unmixed SOUTHEY, M.A., Curate of Plumbland, Cumber- imagination-as a child might admire whose land. Six vols. Vol. I. Longman and Co. fancy is only to be touched by the wonderful and THE first remark upon the subject of this book beautiful; with the addition that he has a mind is suggested by its title-page. The professional to feel the great and elevating thoughts they career of the son of Robert Southey is likely to embody, and thoroughly to appreciate the simend where it began, unless he receives promotion plicity which is their groundwork. We take from that party in the state which his father Southey to be a real poet in the sense of Ariosto; |