in entering Behring's straits, which he should be prepared to do by the middle of August, when captain Franklin not only found the ice broken up within the sphere of vision, but a heavy swell rolling from the northward, and indicating a sea unincumbered either by islands or ice. As there is some doubt as to the depth of water, his vessel should be one of small draught, though strongly built, (indeed we never could see the use of such large vessels and numerous crews as captain Parry had,) which, while it would have an advantage over captain Franklin's boats, in the comfort and security it afforded the men, as well as in its strength to resist the dangers of sea and ice, would not be stopped by narrow and shallow channels; perhaps the use of a steam vessel, with her wheels fixed in the stern, might not be found impracticable. Two or three weeks would probably bring this vessel to Melville peninsula, or cape Garry; but should any unforeseen obstacle arise, she might winter at the mouth of Coppermine river, being supplied from the contiguous posts of the Hudson Bay company.

The narrative of the Expedition is followed by an Appendix, containing some very well written and highly interesting scientific notices by Dr. Richardson, and a number of useful tables of observations by him, captain Franklin, and the other officers of the party. These are well worthy of a minute examination ; we have room however here, for nothing more than one or two incidents which appear to us particularly striking.

In the geological notice, Dr. Richardson remarks that the whole country north of the St. Lawrence is divided into three portions; by the Rocky mountains towards the western side of the continent, and by a range seven hundred miles east of them, in latitude 50°, but gradually approaching them as it runs north, until it terminates towards the shores of the Polar ocean, leaving the intermediate valley very narrow. These ridges are both primitive, and between them flows the Mackenzie, through a secondary formation. We are led to notice this particularly, because exactly the same general arrangement is pursued through the United States. The Eastern primitive range, crosses the St. Lawrence, and spreading to considerable width in New-England and the north part of New-York, diminishing in the middle states, but again enlarged as it proceeds southward, forms the eastern boundary of the vast secondary basin, corresponding to that of the Mackenzie, through which the Mississippi flows, and which again in like manner is bounded by the Rocky mountains on the west. This general similarity in the geological features of the continent, north and south of the St. Lawrence, has however led Dr. Richardson into an error, which it is well to correct; following the authority of Dr. Bigsby, he supposes that the eastern primitive range, after crossing the St. Lawrence,

"joins with the Alleghanies and their southern continuations." This is a mistake; the Alleghany mountains consist entirely of transition rocks; the primitive region lies considerably to the east, until it reaches the state of Virginia, and then only joins the Blue ridge, a low, and the most eastern range of them.

From a table of the duration and direction of the winds, kept at Fort Franklin from October to April 1825-6, and from October to January, 1826-7, it appears that north-westerly winds prevailed one third of the whole time, and that next to them, south-easterly winds were much the most frequent. During those eleven months, snow fell seventy-one days.

A register of the temperature and seasons, made at the same place, presents some curious phenomena. The mean heat in the shade during the summer was greater than would probably be supposed, being 50°.40; and a series of observations on solar radiation, may fix the additional heat at mid-day at 20° more; the mean temperature of the spring was found to be 14°.43, of autumn 22°, and of winter 16°.81 below zero. At Carlton House, a post of the Hudson Bay company, in latitude 52° 51', or about 860 miles farther south, the mean temperature of the spring months was found to be 29°.86. At Fort Franklin, by the twentieth of October, the brown ducks, (anas fusca,) the last birds, had taken flight, the smaller trees were nearly frozen through, the Great Bear lake began to freeze, and the sun was less than nine hours above the horizon. On the 22d of December, the day had shortened to two hours and thirty-eight minutes; and the refraction of the atmosphere was occasionally so great, as to give many objects in the horizon an inverted position. On the 17th of March it began first to thaw; on the 31st the willows were observed to swell; on the 17th of April a house-fly was seen in the open air; on the 6th of May swans arrived; on the 17th the forests were enlivened by the notes of singing birds; and on the 20th the streams broke their icy fetters, and the days had become nineteen hours long. The intensity of cold was found to operate sensibly on the transmission of sound through the atmosphere, and after a variety of experiments, the retardation was fixed at 1.167 feet for every degree of decrease of Fahrenheit's thermometer when below the freezing point, and the mean velocity at that point, 1118.5 feet per second.

The magnetic variation is very minutely recorded; the least observed, along the northern coast, was at Return reef, where it was only 41° 20' E., and the greatest near Parry's point, where it amounted to 56° 33' E. It had increased 15° at the mouth of the Mackenzie, since it was observed there by Sir A. Mackenzie, in 1789, which is an average of 25' a year. Contrary to the observations of captains Parry and Foster, in Prince Regent's inlet, the needle was found to be strongly influenced by the Auro

ra Borealis, especially when it was very vivid, exhibiting the prismatic colours, and darting rapid streams of light; but it ought to be recollected, that the appearance of the Aurora at port Bowen was seldom or never thus accompanied, and that its corruscations and brilliancy are by no means increased in a very high northern latitude.

In concluding our remarks on the valuable scientific observations, made during this expedition, we cannot avoid recording two circumstances, which appear to possess some interest, the result of a perusal of the volume before us, and some reflections on the subjects of which it treats. So far as we can perceive, they have not occurred to the intelligent travellers themselves, nor do we recollect to have seen them noticed, in any work of science that has fallen under our observation.

The first of these relates to the shallowness of the ocean around the pole. The truth of this fact, as we have already mentioned, has been pretty fully ascertained in the previous voyages to the northern seas. The observations of captain Franklin and Dr. Richardson confirm it, as far as they went, and it is understood that captain Beechey noticed it, to the same extent that Cooke and Kotzebue had done before him. Now it appears to us, that this is a phenomenon, not confined merely to the shores and outlets, but one that will be found to pervade the whole polar basin, to a greater or less degree, and that it is evidently deducible from a great general cause. This cause we take to be the spheroidal figure of our globe; its increased velocity at the equator having had a greater influence on the fluid than the solid portion of the earth, and having thus deprived those regions of their proportion of water, and accumulated it upon the equatorial diameter; and in consequence, the polar regions, in very high latitudes, will probably be found, at all times, in some degree unfavourable to navigation.

The other observation which has occurred to us, is one connected with the astronomical situation of the planet we inhabit. A very extraordinary fact will be observed, in referring to a geographical view of the earth-that the discoveries of navigators have reached to latitudes so much higher in the northern than in the southern regions, while in both they have been only bounded by the same perpetual obstructions of polar ice. Thus in the former, they have extended to 83° N., while in the latter they have been limited by about 72° S., leaving a difference between them of eleven degrees, or nearly eight hundred miles; within the arctic zone, extensive countries have been explored, but beyond the antarctic circle lies a vast and unknown space. The cause of this is unquestionably to be found in the astronomical fact, that in the annual revolution of the earth round the sun, its northern surface is turned towards him during one hundred and eighty-seven days,

out of three hundred and sixty-five; for the sun enters Aries on the 20th of March, and Libra, not until the 22d of September. The consequence is, that the northern regions enjoy the influence of the solar heat, eight days in every year, longer than those south of the equator. It is hardly necessary to say, that this is accounted for in the elliptical form of the earth's orbit, and that its effect is to render the northern latitudes of the globe, warmer and more habitable than the same southern parallels.

We are not disposed to draw hasty inferences with regard to the designs of Providence, from partial and limited facts, but when we observe the much larger portion of the terrestrial surface, included within the northern hemisphere, this difference of warmth cannot but seem to be a provision, in favour of that part of the globe which is destined for the habitation of mankind, and on which fertility is in consequence more widely diffused; while over those latitudes where earth is wanting, heat is less necessary, and a broad ocean is left open to answer for the purposes of commerce, and as the means of communication between the various collections of the human race. Had this channel been closed to the south, as to the north, by the extension of the continent to the ices which surrounded the poles, how changed would have been the situation of men! how different the intercourse which now exists, and which is destined so much more widely to spread from east to west! how barren and deserted those regions of inhospitable land, that must have occupied the scene of active navigation and profitable enterprise!

It is thus in all the investigations of science, that we are able to trace, not merely in the vast theories resulting from long observation and study, but in the accidental development of facts apparently trifling, the hand of infinite wisdom; to learn, indeed, that all chance is direction which we cannot see; to feel that we are deriving benefits, of which we are ignorant, from causes that are yet unknown; to perceive that discoveries, which we hail with rapture, are only some further views of the great provisions upon which the mighty systems of the universe have been conducted from all previous creation; to expect in this and future states of being, knowledge still more various and extended, powers of acquisition and perception still more vast, and sources of pleasure still more unalloyed; and to indulge not merely from enthusiasm, but from the full conviction of reason, those feelings of gratitude and devotion which are apt, so often, to spring uncalled for from the heart.

ART. IX.-Reise Seiner Hoheit des Herzogs Bernhard zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, durch Nord-Amerika, in den Jahren 1825 und 1826. Herausgegeben von Heinrich Luden. Weimar, 1828. Travels of his Highness Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, through North-America, in the years 1825 and 1826. Edited by Henry Luden. Weimar, 1828. 2 vols. Royal Octavo, bound in one, xxxii, 317 & 323 pp. With 16 Viguettes, 4 Copperplate Engravings, and 2 Maps.

THE celebrated Zimmerman, whose charming book upon Solitude has never yet, we believe, prevented a young lady from going to a ball, nor a gentleman to a dinner party, wrote also a treatise upon national pride, in which he proves in the most conclusive manner that this weakness is common to all the nations that exist, or ever existed on the surface of the earth. One alone he excepts from this general condemnation; a singular association of men, differing in this respect from all the rest of the world. And who, do you suppose, gentle reader, is this favoured people? Why, no other than the author's own dear countrymen, the Swiss, whom he thinks to exculpate from the charge of being proud, by proudly asserting their solitary exemption from this common failing of our nature. He could not more effectually have proved the truth of his general proposition.

We are apt to suspect that all mankind are Swiss in this particular, if we judge from the eagerness with which nations seem disposed to fix this charge upon their neighbours, and to repel it from themselves. At most, when we affect to be very candid, we may admit that we are proud; (and who is not, that has a proper feeling of attachment to his country?) but we call vanity the same feeling in our fellow men, and we exult in the vast difference that there is between our own dignified pride, and the foolish vanity of others. While the Englishman boasts of his glorious roast beef,* he smiles at other not less childish vanities of the neighbouring nations, while the fact is, that these follies are pretty much equalized throughout the world. But nobody likes to acknowledge this truth as applied to themselves, and this is so true, that in the genuine spirit of a Zimmerman, we cannot, as Americans, resist this opportunity of boasting, that however, in other matters, we may be justly taxed with national vanity, or pride, we have not, at least, yet gone so far as to hold up our culinary preparations to the admiration of the universe. The English have their roast beef and their plum-pudding, the French their pâtés de Perigord, the Scotch their haggis, and the

* The glorious roast beef of England.-Hall's Travels to Chili and Peru.