by the name by which it is now commonly known, after Maurice, Prince of Orange. The Dutch, finding it of little use, although they had begun to colonize it in 1640, abandoned it altogether in 1712; and in 1712 the French, who had been already for some time in possession of the neighboring Isle of Bourbon, began to colonize it. From them it received the name of the Isle of France, and they retained it till December, 1810, when it was taken from them by the English. It still remains a British colony. The Mauritius is extremely mountainous, and exhibits in every part of it the marks of volcanic action. Some of the mountains are between two and three thousand feet in height, and are covered with snow during a great part of the year. Among them are several that assume the most singular and fantastic shapes; but the most ex*raordinary in its appearance is that which bears the name of Peter Botte, from a person who is said by tradition to have climbed to its summit many years ago, and to have lost his life in coming down again. This, however, is a mere unauthenticated rumor; and even if the attempt was actually made by the person in question, it is evident that the fate which overtook him must have rendered it impossible to say whether he succeeded in his enterprise or not. In point of fact, the top of the mountain has been usually regarded as quite inaccessible, notwithstanding the boast of a Frenchman about forty years ago that he had succeeded in reaching it. The attempt has also been several times made by our own countrymen since the island became a British possession; but always till now in vain. The exploit, however, was at length accomplished in the course of the last year. The account of its successful performance is given in a letter from one of the parties in the enterprise, which was communicated to the Geographical Society by Mr. Barrow. We have been permitted to copy from the journai the striking representation of the mountain which accompanied the origi- | nal account. "From most points of view," says the writer, "it seems to rise out of the range which runs nearly parallel to that part of the coast which forms the bay of Port Louis (the capital, situated on the west side of the island;) but on arriving at its base, you find that it is actually separated from the rest of the range by a ravine or cleft of a tremendous depth." The mountain appears, from the account, to be about eighteen hundred feet high.

feet broad, the precipice went sheer down fifteen hundred feet to the plain. One extremity of the neck was equally precipitous, and the other was bounded by what to me was the most magnificent sight I ever saw. A narrow, knife-like edge of rock, broken here and there by precipitous faces, ran up in a conical form to about three hundred, or three hundred and fifty feet above us; and on the very pinnacle old 'Peter Botte' frowned in all his glory. "After a short rest we proceeded to work. The ladder (see sketch) had been left by Lloyd and Dawkins last year. It was about twelve feet high, and reached, as you may perceive, about halfway up a face of perpendicular rock. The foot, which was spiked, rested on a ledge not quite visible in the sketch, with barely three inches on each side. A grapnel-line had been also left last year, but was not used. A negro of Lloyd's clambered from the top of the ladder by the cleft in the face of the rock, not trusting his weight to the old and rotten line. He carried a small cord round his middle; and it was fearful to see the cool, steady way in which he climbed, where a single loose stone or false hold would have sent him down into the abyss: however, he fearlessly scrambled away, till at length we heard him halloo from under the neck all right.' These negroes use their feet exactly like monkeys, grasping with them every projection almost as firmly as with their hands. The line carried up he made fast above, and up it we all four 'shinned' in succession. It was, joking apart, awful work. In several places the ridge ran to an edge not a foot broad; and I could, as I held on, half-sitting, half-kneeling across the ridge, have kicked my right shoe down to the plain on one side, and my left into the bottom of the ravine on the other. The only thing which surprised me was, my own steadiness and freedom from all giddiness. I had been nervous in mounting the ravine in the morning; but gradually I got so excited and determined to succeed, that I could look down that dizzy height without the smallest sensation of swimming in the head; nevertheless, I held on uncommonly hard, and felt very well satisfied when I was safe under the neck. And a more extraordinary situation I never was in. The head, which is an enormous mass of rock, about thirty-five feet in height, overhangs its base many feet on every side. A ledge of tolerably level rock runs round three sides of the base, about six feet in width, bounded every where by the abrupt edge of the precipice, except in the spot where it is joined by the ridge up which we climbed. In one spot, the head, though overhanging its base several feet, reaches only perpendicularly over the edge of the precipice; and, most fortunately, it was at the very spot where we mount

Along this path, which was not a foot broad, they picked their way for about four hundred yards, the negroes keeping their footing firm under their loads, by catching hold, as they proceeded, of the shrubs above them. We must allow Lieutenant Taylor to continue the story in his own words:

"On rising to the shoulder, a view burst upon us which quite defies my descriptive powers. We stood on a little narrow ledge or neck of land, about twenty yards in length. On the side which we mounted, we looked back into the deep wooded gorge we had passed up: while on the opposite side of the neck, which was between six and seven

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munication being established with the shoulder by a double line of ropes, we proceeded to get up the necessary materiel,-Lloyd's portable ladder, additional coils of rope, crowbars, &c. But now the question, and a puzzler too, was how to get the ladder up against the rock. Lloyd had prepared some iron arrows, with thongs, to fire over; and having got up a gun, he made a line fast round his body, which we all held on, and going over the edge of the precipice on the opposite side, he leaned back against the line, and fired over the least projecting part: had the line broke, he would have fallen eighteen hundred feet. Twice this failed, and then he had recourse to a large stone with a lead-line, which swung diagonally, and seemed to be a feasible plan: several times he made beautiful heaves, but the provoking line would not catch, and away went the stone far down below; till at length Eolus, pleased, I suppose, with his perseverance, gave us a shift of wind for about a minute, and over went the stone, and was cagerly seized on the opposite side.-Hurrah, my lads, 'steady's' the word! Three lengths of the ladder were put together on the ledge; a large line was attached to the one which was over the head and carefully drawn up; and, finally, a two-inch rope, to the extremity of which we lashed the top of our ladder, then lowered it gently over the precipice till it hung perpendicularly, and was steadied by two negroes on the ridge below. now hoist away!' and up went the ladder till the foot came

All right,

THE origin of men is in these fictions so subordinate, that they are represented as not even owing their existence to the reigning gods, but to a descendant of the Titans. Prometheus, who formed the first men out of clay, was a son of Japetus. He had three brothers, Atlas, Mencetius, and Epimetheus, who were all, like himself, hated by the gods. Their father, Japetus, was at the same time with the other Titans thrown into Tartarus; his powerful son Mencetius, on account of his dangerous strength and haughty pride, was killed by Jupiter's lightning; upon the shoulders of Atlas, Jupiter laid the burden of the whole weight of the skies; Prometheus himself was, by his direction, fastened to a rock, where a vulture perpetually gnawed on his entrails; and Epimetheus was destined to bring wo and misery upon men.

Thus odious to the gods was the family of Japetus, from which man took his origin, on whom all the innumerable sufferings were afterwards heaped together, by which he had to atone for the guilt of his grudged existence.

The formation of men was accomplished in the following manner. Prometheus took a piece of earth, a portion of clay still impregnated with divine particles, moistened it with water, and formed man after the image of the gods, so that he alone raises his look to heaven, while all other creatures bend their eyes to the ground.

Prometheus is represented upon ancient works of art as an artist engaged in his professional employment, with a vase standing at his feet, and before him a human bust, on which he seems to bestow the most intense consideration, in order to bring it to perfection.

When Prometheus had succeeded in representing the divine form, he burned with desire to bring his work to perfection. He rose up therefore to the chariot of Phobus, in order to kindle that torch from which he blew ethereal flames into the bosoms of his creatures, thus giving them warmth and life.

He is therefore often represented also sitting with a torch in his hand, over which a butterfly is hovering, to denote the animating breath by which the dead mass is enlivened.

bring to perfection the creation and formation of mankind. although well aware that he himself must afterwards atone for it in a horrible manner.

This unequal and distant relation between men and the reigning gods, often afforded in later times a subject for tragical poems, the genius of which breathes in the following lines, in which a modern poet introduces Prometheus speaking in the name of men, of whose misery he is deeply sensible.

PROMETHEUS.

"Cover thy sky, O Zeus, with dusky clouds, and, like playing boys, who thistles poll, try thy power on oaks and mountain-summits.

Thou must, in spite of thee, suffer my Earth to stand; my cottage, too, not built by thee, and my hearth, the glow of which thou enviest me.

I know no poorer creatures beneath the sun than you gods! You miserably support your majesty by means of small offerings, and the breath of prayers; and would starve if children and beggars were not hopeful fools.

When I was a child, not knowing what to do, I turned my strayed eye up to the sun, as if an ear for my complaint were there to be found, and a heart, like mine, to pity the distressed.

Who assisted me against the tyranny of the Titans? Who saved me from death, from slavery? Hast thou not performed it all, heart, glowing with sacred flames! And didst thou not, young and good, deceived, utter warm thanks for preservation to him who sleeps above the skies?

I honor thee?-For what? Hast thou ever lessened the pains of the heavy laden? Hast thou ever wiped the tears of affliction? Hath not almighty time wrought and formed me a man, and eternal fate, my masters and thine?

Dost thon haply ween that I should hate life, and flee into deserts, because not every flowery dream doth ripen? Here sit I, forming men after my image, a race to resemble me, to suffer and to weep, to enjoy and to rejoice; and, like me, not to care for thee?"

GOETHE.

Jupiter, angry on account of the theft of fire, had now formed by divine hands a female of exquisite beauty and seductive charms, called Pandora, whom he sent to Prometheus with a box, destined as a present for him. In this box, the whole train of evils that threaten mankind was enclosed. But Prometheus, aware of the fraud, did not accept the dangerous gift. Jupiter, still more enraged

For, at that time, Jupiter durst not give vent to his hatred against Prometheus himself. His object was first to destroy his work; but even in this he did not succeed. The noble son of the earth not being able to bear the misery of men, ascended the second time to the chariot of the sun, and brought again the ethereal fire, hiding it in the stem of a reed. But when from afar Jupiter descried the light of fire upon earth, he formed the design of punishing men through their own folly; while Prometheus continued to teach them every useful art, for which the employment of fire was necessary, and, which was the greatest of his benefits, deprived them of the view into futurity, lest they should anticipate unavoidable evils. Thus, notwithstanding the efforts of Jupiter, the benefactor of man went on to

the desire of revenging himself upon Prometheus, now ordered him to be fastened to a rock, where a vulture all the day long fed on his liver, which growing again during the night, continued to be the means of his torments.

Meanwhile, however, the misfortune appointed to men came upon them in spite of the prudence of Prometheus. The inconsiderate Epimetheus, although warned by his brother, suffered himself to be smitten with the charms of Pandora, who, after he had married her, opened the pernicious box, out of which all imaginable evils spread themselves over the whole earth, and upon all mankind. Pandora, perceiving the dangerous contents of the box, immediately closed it again; but alas! it was too late. All the evils had escaped, and nothing remained in it but Hope, which, according to Jupiter's decree, should in due time afford the unhappy mortals some consolation.

The following cut illustrates some of the events just mentioned on the preceding page.

It is worthy of observation, that in all these ancient fictions, which treat of the origin of men, an inflexible, violent, and warlike spirit is always implied. Thus Cadmus, in lonely Boeotia, was compelled by the command of the gods to sow the teeth of a dragon that he had killed, to supply the place of his slain warriors. And out of this seed armed men rose up, who turned their swords against each other, not ceasing from the fight until there were only five of them remaining, who assisted Cadmus. In these fables, fancy represents men as being in continual strife with, and raging with their innate cruelty against one another, finding a pleasure in destroying their fellow creatures. The pains of Prometheus, therefore, lasted until a mortal, by his valor and invincible courage, made himself a path to immortality, and thus reconciled, as it were, Jupiter with mankind. It was Hercules, son of Jupiter and Alcmene, who, at last, with Jupiter's consent, killed the vulture, and delivered the sufferer from his long torments. But the golden years of mortal men, as it has been already mentioned, were placed by fancy in those times when Jupiter did not yet rule with his thunder, under Saturn's reign, whither imagination collected together all that is dear and desirable to man, but gone to return no more. Saturn's time is the gray time of yore, which, as he himself swallowed up his own children, buried in oblivion the fleeting years, but left no trace of bloody wars, destroyed cities, and enslaved nations, which constitute the chief subject of history ever since men began to record the events of the world. At that happy time, when liberty and equality, justice and virtue were still reigning, men lived like the gods, in perfect security, without pains or cares, and exempt from the burden of old age. The soil of the earth gave them fruits without being painfully cultivated; unacquainted with sickness, they died away as if overtaken by a sweet slumber; and when the lap of the earth received their dust, the souls of the deceased, enveloped in light air, remained as genii with the survivors.

In this manner do the poets portray those golden times, on which imagination, wearied by the scenes of the busy world, dwells with so much delight.

But in later times, mortal men became the most oppressed of all creatures, and the poets describe the toils and pains of their sorrowful life, as in continual contrast with the careless condition of the gods.

ASTRONOMY.

THE MOON-CONTINUED.

THE average of a large number of observations, independently of the power which it gives us to detect laws unseen in the individual measurements, has also the advantage of destroying, in a great degree, the effect of errors of observation. The reason is obvious: let the instruments be ever so good, and the observer ever so attentive, each single measurement will be larger or smaller than the truth; and so long as there is no reason in the observer himself why he should commit a mistake rather on one side than the other, it is very unlikely that the sum of the defects in a great number of observations should differ much from the sum of the excesses. And whatever difference there may be, it is divided by the whole number of observations in taking the average.

The very allowable supposition here made is fully borne out by the whole history of astronomical observation. In the average of a large number of observations, all irregu larity, if not destroyed, is detected, and its cause looked for, and in most instances discovered. For example, it is understood that at the observatory of Greenwich the results of the transits of stars taken by different observers, all reductions being made, exhibit a slight difference, those of one particular observer being generally a little greater than those of another. The operation performed is simply noting the exact time by a clock at which a star passes over each of a succession of wires (thin spider's webs) seen in the telescope, and a practised observer generally makes an attempt to estimate each time noted by him, within one-tenth of a second. Each transit is the average of five such wires; so that whatever the total number of transits may be, taken by each observer, five times as many transits will have been taken at single wires. The average difference above mentioned is, we believe, not more than three-tenths of a second.

Now since an error of two-tenths of a second on one side or the other is possible at each wire, and generally some error does take place, we see the effect of a large number of observations in separating uniform from accidental errors, and detecting the former, even when accompanied by others nearly as large of the latter kind.— We have introduced this instance to give the reader an idea of this principle, that small differences, though they tell nothing in single observations, are not to be neglected when they are found in the average of a great number; and the greater the number, the greater is the probability that a difference between two sets of observations arises from some definite and discoverable cause. If there be one instrument of which, more than of another, the indications appear to be capricious, and regulated by no law, it is the barometer. Nevertheless, it is found that the average height of the barometer is nearly the same in different years at the same place, and even in the same months of different years. In general, also, a low state of the barometer indicates rain: and this