of this shining appearance, an ingenious Greek physician informed me that he found it always extremely difficult to accumulate the electric fluid in his apparatus on such occasions..

On the Sultness of the Sea.

100. Sea water is salt, while that of rivers is mild, fresh, sweet, and fit for human purposes. Some think that this saltness arises from great beds of salt lying at the bottom of the sea. But others, more rationally suppose it is owing to the following cause. Salt is one of the original principles of nature, and is mixed, in greater or less quantities, with most other bodies.

Now all rivers run into the sea, and carry some salt with them; but no rivers run out of it, nor is any water taken from it, except by exhalation or evaporation. But chemists have demonstrably proved, that no salt can ascend in either of these ways; and consequently, all the salt carried into the sea by the immense numbers of rivers that run into it, remains behind, and occasions its saltness.

That no salt ascends from the sea, either by exhalation or evaporation, is evident from this, that rain-water, which falls from the clouds, and which was originally exhaled from the sea, is, of all kinds of water, the sweetest, purest, and lightest, and is made the standard by which philosophers judge of all other waters.

The water of the ocean contains about the 30th part of its weight of salt: the water of the Baltic holds only from the 200dth to the 100dth part, consequently the water of the Baltic ought to stand 1-40th part higher from the bottom of the sea, than the water of the ocean, in order to maintain its hydrostatic equilibrium. It is observed on the Baltic shores, that the water subsides, and that its surface is lower in all parts than it formerly was. May not this be in consequence of the Baltic becoming salter, and thus approximating to the specific gravity and height of the ocean?

Of the Origin of Springs and Rivers:

101. Various opinions have been held by ancient, as well as modern philosophers, respecting the origin of springs and rivers: but the true cause is now pretty well ascertained. It is well known that the heat of the sun draws vast quantities of vapour

from the sea, which being carried by the wind to all parts of the globe, and being converted by the cold into rain and dew, it falls down upon the earth; part of it runs down into the lower places, forming rivulets; part serves for the purposes of vegetation, and the rest descends into hollow caverns within the earth, which breaking out by the sides of the hills forms little springs; many of these springs running into the valleys increase the brooks or rivulets, and several of these meeting together make a river.

I see the rivers in their infant beds!
Deep, deep I hear them lab'ring to get free;
I see the leaning strata, artful rang'd:
The fissures gaping to receive the rains,
The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs..
Strew'd bibulous above, I see the sands;
The pebbly gravel next, the layers then
Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths.
The gutter'd rocks, and mazy-running clefts,
In
pure effusion flow. United, thus

Th' exhaling sun, the vapour-burden'd air,
The gelid mountains, that to rain condens'd
These vapours in continual current draw,
And send them, o'er the fair-divided earth,
In bounteous rivers to the deep again;
A social commerce holding firm support.

THOMSON.

Dr. Halley says, the vapours that are raised copiously from the sea, and carried by the winds to the ridges of mountains, are conveyed to their tops by the current of air; where the water being presently precipitated, enters the crannies of the mountains, down which it glides into the caverns, till it meets with a stratum of earth or stone, of a nature sufficiently solid to sustain it. When this reservoir is filled, the superfluous water, following the direction of the stratum, runs over at the lowest place, and in its passage meets perhaps with other little streams, which have a similar origin; these gradually descend till they meet with an aperture at the side, or foot, of the mountain, through which they es cape, and form a spring, or the source of a brook or rivulet. Several brooks or rivulets, uniting their streams, form small rivers, and these again being joined by other small rivers, and united in one common channel, form such streams as the Rhine, Rhone, Danube, &c.

Several springs yield always the same quantity of water, equally when the least rain or vapour is afforded, as when rain falls in the greatest quantities; and as the fall of rain, snow, &c. is incontant or variable, we have here a constant effect produced from an inconstant cause, which is an unphilosophical conclusion. Some naturalists, therefore, have recourse to the sea, and derive the origin of several springs immediately from thence, by supposing a subterraneous circulation of percolated waters from the fountains of the deep.

Sources of the Rivers Ganges, Jumna, and Bhagi

rutta.

102. These immense rivers take their rise in the heart of the stupendous Himalaya mountains, situated in the Nepaul country; and the following is an account of Captain Hodgson's tour to discover their sources.

Captain Hodgson left Reital;—a_village consisting of 35 houses two or three stories high, and built of wood, (in latitude 30° 48′ N.),-on the 21st of May, 1817. On the 31st he descended to the bed of the river, and saw the Ganges issue from under a very low arch, at the foot of the grand snow bed. The river was bounded on the right and left by high rocks and snow, but in front over the debouchee, the mass of snow was perpendicular, and from the bed of the stream to the summit, the thickness was estimated at little less than 300 feet of solid frozen snow, probably the accumulation of ages, as it was in layers of several feet thick, each seemingly the remains of a fall of a separate year.

From the brow of this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large and hoary icicles depended. The height of the arch of snow is only sufficient to let the stream flow under it.-Blocks of snow were falling on all sides, and there was little time to do more than to measure the size of the stream; the main breadth was twentyseven feet, the greatest depth about eighteen inches, and the shallowest part nine or ten inches. Captain Hodgson believes this to be the first appearance in day-light of the celebrated Ganges! The height of the halting-place, near which the Ganges issues from under the great snow-bed, is calculated to be 12,914 feet above the sea.

At Jumnoutri, the visible source of the river Jumna, the snow which covers and conceals the stream is about sixty yards wide, and is bounded on

the right and left by precipices of granite 40 feet thick, which have fallen from the precipices above. Captain Hodgson was able to measure the thickness of the bed of snow over the stream very accurately by means of a plumb-line let down through one of the holes in it, which are caused by the steam of a great number of boiling springs at the border of the Jumna.

The head of the Jumna is on the S. W. side of the grand Himalaya ridge, differing from the Ganges inasmuch as that river has the upper part of its course within the Himalaya, flowing from south-east to north-west, and it is only from Sookie, when it pierces through the Himalaya that it assumes a course of about 20 south west. The mean latitude of the hot springs of Jumnoutri appears to be 30,58.

After descending into the bed of the Bhagirutta, that river was also traced nearly to its source: the glen through which it runs is deeper and darker, and the precipices on either side far more lofty than those forming the bed of the Jumna: the rock in the neighbourhood of its source was granite, and contained black tourmaline.

Note. As various other interesting subjects connected with this earth on which we live will crave our attention under separate titles of this work, we reserve these for their proper places, as scientific arrangement is absolutely necessary if we would travel nature's variegated regions without blindness or irregularity.

Temperature.

103. Temperature is dependent on the depth of the atmosphere, and the direction of the solar rays; hence the great heat experienced under a deep atmosphere, and vertical sun; the mild temperature under one moderately high, combined with rather oblique rays; and the intense cold in and near the polar regions, where the atmosphere is shallow, and the rays very oblique. Water, in high latitudes is colder, and consequently heavier, bulk for bulk, than in warm climates; hence the constant currents from the polar regions towards the equator, and the flowing of cold seas into those that are warmer.

1

In winter, the ocean, from 70° n. to the equator, is seldomTM cooler than 4° below the freezing point; the inland countries, from 49° n.to 7° n. are frequently cooled to 40°, 50°, and sometimes 70° below the freezing point: consequently the ocean winds, at this season, are warmer than those from the land. In summer, land is heated above the temperature of the ocean, but no considerable tract of land is heated to above 15° or 20° more than the ocean, stony and sandy deserts excepted: therefore the land winds, at this season, are warmer than the ocean winds. -Seas, in general, if not surrounded with high mountains, are a few degrees warmer in summer, and cooler in the winter, than the ocean; in high latitudes they are frequently frozen: the British sea is about 30 degrees cooler in winter, and 3°. warmer in summer, than the ocean is. The Mediterranean is at all seasons warmer than the ocean; hence the atlantic flows into it. The White sea is frozen in winter; the Baltic is almost wholly frozen; the northern parts of the Gulf of Venice are sometimes frozen; many parts of the Black sea and the sea of Azoph are frozen; the waters of the Black sea flow into the Mediterranean; the chief part of the Caspian Sea is frozen, though it is said by Pallas to be lower than the ocean.-Snow is perpetual in the torrid zone at the elevation of 5233 yards above the level of the ocean; under the tropics at 5000 yards;: in the middle latitudes at 2325 yards; in the latitude of 80° at 400 yards.

SECTION VII.

OF THE PRODUCTIONS, INHABITANTS, RELIGIONS, AND
GOVERNMENTS OF THE EARTH.

104. ALL natural productions are arranged under three grand classes, called KINGDOMS; 1. the mineral; 2. the vegetable; and 3. the animal kingdom.

The Mineral kingdom contains, 1. all earths and stones; 2. mineral combustibles; 3. salts; and 4. metals.

The vegetable kingdom includes all trees, shrubs, and plants, whether in the ocean, or on the land; hence we speak of marine and terrestrial vegetables.

The Animal kingdom contains all living creatures, as 1. quadrupeds; 2. bipeds; 3. fowls; 4. fishes; 5. Reptiles; 6. insects; 7. worms.

Man, the chief of the world, is the noblest of all God's