the limits of Europe towards the north-east. Modern discoveries have added a fourth division, that of America, which exceeding even Asia in size, might have been admitted under two grand and distinct denominations, limited by the isthmus of Darien.

It has always been supposed that a vast continent existed in the south of the globe. The second navigation of captain Cooke dispelled for a time the idea. But it is now discovered that a continent exists there. The vast extent of New Holland rewarded the views of enterprize; this, which seems too large to be classed among islands, has been ranked as a fifth division of the globe by various geographers of the present day, and distinguished by the name of Australasia which term, however, includes also the encircling islands.

Of the grand divisions of the earth, Asia has ever been esteemed the most populous; and is supposed to contain five hundred millions of souls, if China, as has been averred by the latest writers, comprises three hundred and thirty millions. The population of Africa may be estimated at thirty millions, of America at twenty millions, and one hundred and fifty millions may perhaps be assigned to Europe.

Modern discoveries have evinced that more than two-thirds of the globe is covered with water, which is contained in hollow spaces, or concavites, more or less large. But the chief convexites or protuberances of the globe consist of elevated uplands, sometimes crowned by mountains, sometimes rather level, as the extensive protuberance of Asia. In either case, long chains of mountains commonly proceed from those chief convexites in various directions, and the principal rivers usually spring from the most elevated grounds.

The grandest concavity of this globe is filled by the Pacific Ocean; occupying nearly half its surface from the eastern shores of New Holland, to the western coast of America, and diversified with several groups of islands, which seem in a manner the summits of vast mountains emerging from the waves. This ocean receives but few rivers, the chief being

the Amur from Tartary, the Hoan Ho and Kian Ku from China, while the principal rivers of America run towards the east.

Next to this in magnitude is the Atlantic, between the Old and New Continents; and the third is the Indian Ocean. The seas between the arctic and antarctic circles and the poles, have been sometimes styled the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans; but the latter is only a continuation of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans; while the Arctic Sea is partly embraced by continents, and receives many important rivers. Besides these, there are other seas more minute, as the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and others still smaller, till we come by due gradation to inland lakes of fresh water.

The courses of rivers are sometimes marked by oblong concavities, which generally at first intersect the higher grounds, till the declivity becomes more gentle on their approach to their inferior receptacles. But even large rivers are found sometimes to spring from lowland marshes, and wind through vast plains, unaccompanied by any concavity, except that of their immediate course; while on the other hand, extensive vales, and low hollow spaces, frequently occur destitute of any stream, Rivers will also sometimes force a passage where nature has erected mountains and rocks against it, and where the concavity would appear to be in another direction, which the river might have gained with more ease. In like manner, though the chief mountains of Europe extend in a south-easterly and north-westerly direction, yet there are so many exceptions, and such numerous and important variations in other parts of the globe, as to render any attempt at a general theory vain.

From the vast expanse of oceanic waters, arises in the ancient hemisphere, that wide continent, which contains Asia, Europe, and Africa; and in the modern hemisphere, the continent of America, which forms a kind of separate island, divided by a strait of the sea from the ancient continent. In the latter many discoveries of great importance to geography, are of very recent date, and it is not above eighty years since we obtained an imperfect idea of the extent of Siberia and the Russian empire, nor above thirty-five since ample, real, and accurate knowledge of these wide regions began to be diffused. So that, in truth, America may be said to have

been discovered by Europeans before many parts of Asia; and of Africa our knowledge continues imperfect, while the latest observations, instead of diminishing, rather increase our idea of its extent, at least in regard to its insular appendages.

But the grandest division of the ancient continent is Asia, the parent of nations, and of civilization: on the north-east and south, surrounded by the ocean; but on the west, divided by an ideal line from Africa; and from Europe by boundaries not very strongly impressed by the hand of nature. The Russian and the Turkish empires, extending over large portions of both continents, intimately connect Asia with Europe. But for the sake of clearness and precision, geographers retain the strict division of the ancient continent into three parts, which, if not strictly natural, is ethical, as the manners of the Asiatic subjects of Russia, and even of Turkey, differ considerably from those of the European inhabitants of those empires.

SECTION IV.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

Of the External Appearance of the Earth. 77. To account for the external appearance of the earth, Bishop BURNET in his "Sacred Theory of the Earth," begins with the separation of elements from a fluid mass;-the heaviest particles are sup posed to have sank and formed a nucleus; the water and air took their respective stations; and upon the water the air afterwards deposited in a rich unctuous shell or crust that contained in itself the elements of vegetation, and clothed the whole with a beautiful verdure. Mountains, seas, protuberances, or inequalities were then unknown; the

equator was coincident with the plane of the ecliptic, and all the charms of spring were perpetual.

Many centuries, however, did not glide away before the sun tore the aforesaid crust, or exterior, into large cracks and fissures, which gradually increased till they extended themselves to the great aqueous abyss. The consequences may be easily anticipated. The waters finding vents thus made, rose higher and higher; the shell was utterly broken up, and destroyed, and that universal deluge took place, of which we have an awful description in Gen. vi. and vii. From this flood, the state of the world is divided into Diluvian and Antediluvian.

By this catastrophe, the globe of the earth was not only shook and broke in a thousand places, but the violence of the shock it then underwent, shifted its situation; so that the earth which before was placed directly under the zodiac, became thenceforth oblique to the same; whence arose the difference of seasons, which the antediluvian earth was not exposed to. But at length dry land began to appear, owing to a gradual subsidence of the waters, which retired into caverns and crevices originally existing in the nucleus, or formed by the disruption of the crust. Upon the increasing dry land, vegetation began again to exist; and our present islands and continents were formed, while the sea still occupies in parts its original bed.

Such is a brief outline of Burnet's romance.

78. LEIBNITZ about this time published his "PROTOGŒA," in which he supposes the earth to have been in a state of combustion for many ages, and at length to have gone out for want of fuel. A glassy crust was thus formed, which gave rise to sand and gravel; other kinds of earth resulted from sand and salt; and as the globe cooled, the water which had before been kept in the state of steam assumed fluidity, and falling to the earth, produced the

ocean.

79. Whiston's "New Theory of the Earth" leaves us bewildered and perplexed, and is principally deserving notice as accounting for the deluge by the approach of a comet towards the earth.

This comet coming below the moon, would raise a prodigious and strong tide in the small seas, which, on his hypo

thesis, were in the antediluvian globe of the world; and also in the abyss, which was under the upper crust of the earth. This tide would rise during the approach of the comet, and would be greatest when the comet was at its least distancè from the earth. By the force of the tide, and the attraction of the comet, the abyss put on an elliptic figure; the outward crust of the earth, incumbent on the abyss, accommodating itself to that figure, which it would not do while it held solid and conjoined, at last broke, and hence the words of Moses, the fountains of the great deep being broke up. The same comet, in its descent towards the sun, passed so close by the body of the earth, as to involve her in its atmosphere and tail for a considerable time; and, of consequence, left a vast quantity of its vapours both expanded and condensed on her surface; but a great part of these being afterwards rarified by the solar heat, would be drawn up again into the atmosphere, but afterwards returning in violent rains, make good what Moses intimates by the windows of heaven being opened, and particularly by the forty days rain; for, as to the following rain, which with this, made the whole time of raining 150 days, Whiston attributes it to the unlucky earth coming a second time within the atmosphere of the persecuting comet, on its return from the sun. Lastly, to remove the waters, he supposes a mighty wind to have arisen, which dried up some, and forced the rest into the abyss again, through the clefts by which they had come up; only a good quantity remained in the alveus of the great ocean, now first made, and in the smaller seas, lakes, &c. Whiston only proposed this theory hypothetically at first; that is to say, he only supposed such a comet, because it would feasibly and philosophically account for the phenomenon of the deluge; but upon reconsideration, he thinks there actually was such a comet near the earth at that time; and that the great comet of 1688 is the

same.

80. But no one has proceeded to the forming a theory of the earth, with the pomp and circumstance of Buffon. And it merits attention from the eloquence with which it is adorned, the extent of information it displays, and the popularity it derived from these

sources.

Buffon supposes the planets in general to have been struck off from the sun by a comet; that they consisted of fluid matter, and thence assumed a spherical form: and that by the union of centrifugal and centripetal forces, they are restrained in their present orbits. The earth gradually cooled, and the