springs, celebrated in a still extant inscription:-"Hail golden city Hierapolis! the spot to be preferred before any in wide Asia, revered for the rills of the nymphs, adorned with splendour!" The ancients speak of the transforming power of the waters, and relate that being conducted about the vineyards and gardens, the channels became long fences, each a single stone. There is now a powerful hot spring feeding numerous rills, and a calcareous cliff, an entire deposition from it. The occurrence of petrifactions, which puzzled science a century ago, and which rustic ignorance accepted as instances of the real transmutation of different objects into stones, is now well known to arise from the deposition upon them of the earthy ingredients of the waters to which they are exposed, investing them with a calcareous or siliceous crust. The Dripping Well at Knaresborough, on the banks of the Nidd, often visited on account of its inviting scenery, and the cave of Eugene Aram in the neighbourhood, is a curious petrifying spring; and at the Matlock Wells the process of petrification is shown, objects which are put into them becoming soon encrusted with the limestone precipitated from the water as it evaporates. A considerable number of springs have recently been found to contain iodine or bromine. Those which issue from the lias at Leamington, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, and Cheltenham, contain iodine. The saline aperient waters of Epsom contain a small quantity of bromine, which is also found in the springs from the coal formation of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Newcastle, and Kingswood. In several European springs, a remarkable animal substance

has been detected, termed glairine, which may be derived from strata containing animal fossil remains, through which the water percolates.

Such are the chief peculiarities of the subject of this chapter. No apology need be offered for devoting so much space to it; for, however incompetent to explain all the phenomena, there can be no difference of opinion as to the high interest and practical utility of the phenomena themselves. The springs are the sources of the rivers which fertilise the soil through which they flow, and form the navigable channels which offer nations a convenient medium of intercommunication. To the geologist, they speak in the language of comment respecting the interior constitution of the globe, by their occasional high temperature and mineral composition, and the mode in which many of its strata have been produced, by the solid products in course of formation from their waters. The medicinal virtue of their streams is also a beneficial item of no mean importance; and whether welling through the loose sand and stony pavement of the Arabian desert, or breaking

forth at the grassy foot of a grove-crowned hill, the fountains of the earth are inviting objects of contemplation, through their association with the ideas of purity and benevolence, independently of being beautiful parts of natural scenery. Hence we may sympathise with the sentiment that inspired the ancient songs of the Well, and regard as an appropriate homage, when under due restraints, that principle of veneration for the waters which pervaded the mind of all antiquity, and has survived in some rural customs to the present day. Milton, in his Comus, alludes to the honours formerly paid to the Severn:

"The shepherds at their festivals

Carol her good deeds loud in rustic lays,

And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream,

Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils."

There is an elegant custom still observed by the villagers of Tissington, in Derbyshire, of a similar kind-that of dressing their wells with flowers on Ascension day. There are five copious springs issuing out of the limestone, which are decorated with boughs of laurel and white thorn, interspersed with the flowers of the season, arranged in various patterns and inscriptions. The effect is singularly beautiful; and the procession of the peasantry to sing at each well- a graceful usage handed down from a remote age -forms a very agreeable spectacle.

CHAPTER VI.

RIVERS.

IVERS constitute an important part of the
aqueous portion of the globe; with the great
lines of water, with streams and rivulets, they
form a numerous family, of which lakes,
springs, or the meltings of ice and snow,
upon the summits of high mountain chains,
are the parents. The Shannon has its source
in a lake; the Rhone in a glacier; and the
Abyssinian branch of the Nile in a confluence
of fountains. The country where some of
the mightiest rivers of the globe have their
rise, has not yet been sufficiently explored to
render their true source ascertainable.
origin of others is doubtful, owing to a num-
ber of rills presenting equal claims to be con-

The

sidered as the river-head; but many are clearly referable to a single spring, the current of which is speedily swelled by tributary waters, ultimately flowing in broad and deep. channels to the sea. Inglis, who wandered on foot through many lands, had a fancy, which he generally indulged, to visit the sources of rivers, when the chances of his journeys threw him in their vicinity. Such a pilgrimage will often repay the traveller by the scenes of picturesque and secluded beauty into which it leads him; and even when the primal fount is insignificant in itself, and the surrounding landscape exhibits the tamest features, there is a reward in the associations that are instantly wakened up

the thought of a humble and modest commencement issuing in a long and victorious career—of the tiny rill, proceeding, by gradual advances, to become an ample stream, fertilising by its exudations, and rolling on to meet the tides of the ocean, bearing the merchandise of cities upon its bosom. The Duddon, one of the most picturesque of the English rivers, oozes up through a bed of moss near the top of Wrynose Fell, a desolate solitude, yet remarkable for its huge masses of protruding crag, and the varied and vivid colours of the mosses watered by the stream. Petrarch's letters and verses have given celebrity to the source of the Sorques-the spring of Vaucleuse, which bursts in an imposing manner out of a cavern, and forms at once a copious torrent. The Scamander is one of the most remarkable rivers for the grandeur of its source-a yawning chasm in Mount Gargarus, shaded with enormous plane-trees, and surrounded with high cliffs, from which the river impetuously dashes in all the greatness of the divine origin assigned to it by ancient fable. To discover the source of the Nile, hid from the knowledge of all antiquity, was the object of Bruce's adventurous journey; and we can readily enter into his emotions, as he stood by the two fountains, after all the toils and hazard he had braved. "It is easier to guess," he remarks, " than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment-standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns, for the course of three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies; and each expedition was distinguished from the last, only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all. Fame, riches, and honour, had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads these princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood-the object of my vain-glory-suggested what depressed my short-lived triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however, but then half through my journey; and all those dangers, which I had already passed, awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself." Bruce, however, laboured under an error, in supposing the stream he had followed to be the main branch of the Nile. He had traced to its springs the smaller of the two great rivers which contribute to form this celebrated stream. The larger arm issues from a more remote part of Africa, and has not yet been ascended to its source.

Upon examining the map of a country, we see many of its rivers travelling in opposite directions, and emptying their waters into different seas, although their sources frequently lie in the immediate neighbourhood of each other. The springs of the Missouri which proceed south-east to the Gulf of Mexico, and those of the Columbia which flow north-west to the Pacific Ocean, are only a mile apart, while those of some of the tributaries of the Amazon flowing north, and of the La Plata flowing south, are closely contiguous. There is a part of Volhynia, of no considerable extent, which sends off its waters, north and south, to the Black and Baltic seas; while, from the field on which the battle of Naseby was fought, the Avon, Trent, and Nen receive affluents, which reach the ocean at opposite coasts of the island, through the Humber, the Wash, and the Bristol Channel. The field in question is an elevated piece of table-land in the centre of England. The district referred to, where rivers proceeding to the Baltic and the Euxine take their rise, is a plateau about

a thousand feet above the level of the sea. The springs of the Missouri and the Columbia are in the Rocky Mountains; and it is generally the case, that those parts of a country from which large rivers flow in contrary directions, are the most elevated sites in their respective districts, consisting either of mountain-chains, plateaus, or high table-lands. There is one remarkable exception to this in European Russia, where the Volga rises in a plain only a few hundred feet above the level of the sea, and no hills separate its waters from those which run into the Baltic. The great majority of the first-class rivers commence from chains of mountains, because springs are there most abundant, perpetually fed by the melting of the snows and glaciers. They have almost invariably an easterly direction, the westward-bound streams being few in number, and of very subordinate rank. Of rivers flowing east, we have grand examples in the St. Lawrence, Orinoco, Amazon, Danube, Ganges, Amour, Yang-tse-Kiang, and Hoang Ho. The chief western streams are the Columbia, Tagus, Garonne, Loire, and Neva, which are of far inferior rank to the former. The rivers running south, as the Mississippi, La Plata, Rhone, Volga, and Indus, are more important, as well as those which proceed to the north, as the Rhine, Vistula, Nile, Irtish, Lena and Yenisei. The easterly direction of the great rivers of America is obviously due to the position of the Andes, which run north and south, on the western side of the continent, while the chain of mountains which traverses Europe and Asia, from west to east, cause the great number of rivers which flow north and south. In our own island, the chief course of the streams is to the east. This is the case with the Tay, Forth, Tweed, Tyne, Humber, and Thames, the Clyde and Severn being the most remarkable exceptions to this direction. The whole extent of country from which a river receives its supply of water, by brooks and rivulets, is termed its basin, because a region generally bounded by a rim of high lands, beyond which the waters are drained off into another channel. The basin of a superior river includes those of all its tributary streams. It is sometimes the case, however, that the basins of rivers are not divided by any elevations, but pass into each other, a connection subsisting between their waters. This is the case with the hydrographical regions of the Amazon and Orinoco, the Cassiaquaire, a branch of the latter, joining the Rio Negro, an affluent of the former. The vague rumours that were at first afloat respecting this singular circumstance, were treated. by most geographers with discredit, till Humboldt ascertained its reality, by proceeding from the Rio Negro to the Orinoco, along the natural canal of the Cassiaquaire.

Rivers have a thousand points of similarity, and of discordance. Some exhibit an unbroken sheet of water through their whole course, while others are diversified by numerous islands. This peculiarly characterises the vast streams of the American continent, and contributes greatly to their scenical effect, of which our illustration gives us an example, selected from the beautiful Susquehanna, the largest Atlantic river of the United States. The St. Lawrence, soon after issuing from the Lake Ontario, presents the most remarkable instance to be found of islands occurring in a river channel. It is here called the Lake of the Thousand Islands. The vast number implied in this name was considered a vague exaggeration, till the commissioners employed in fixing the boundary with the United States actually counted them, and found that they amounted to 1692. They are of every imaginable size, shape, and appearance; some barely visible, others covering fifteen acres; but in general their broken outline presents the most picturesque combinations of wood and rock. The navigator in steering through them sees an ever-changing scene, which reminds an elegant writer of the Happy Islands in the Vision of Mirza. Sometimes he is enclosed in a narrow channel; then he discovers before him twelve openings, like so many noble rivers; and soon after a spacious lake seems to surround him on every side. River-islands are due to original surface

inequalities, but many are formed by the arrest and gradual accretion of the alluvial matter brought down by the waters.

There is great diversity in the length of rivers, the force of their current, and the mass and complexion of their waters; but their peculiar character is obviously dependent upon that of the country in which they are situated. As it is the property of water to follow a descent, and the greatest descent that occurs in its way, the course of a river points out generally the direction in which the land declines, and the degree of the declination determines in part the velocity of its current, for the rapidity of a stream is influenced both by its volume of water and the declivity of its channel. Hence one river often pours its tide into another without causing any perceptible enlargement of its bed, the additional waters being disposed of by the creation of a more rapid current, for large masses of water travel with a swift and powerful impetus over nearly a level surface, upon which smaller rivers would have only a languid flow. In general, the fall of the great streams is much less than what would be supposed from a glance at their currents. The rapid Rhine has only a descent of four feet in a mile between Schaffhausen and Strasburg, and of two feet between the latter place and Schenckenschautz; and the mighty Amazon, whose collision with the tide of the Atlantic is of the most tremendous description, falls but four yards in the last 700 miles of its course, or one-fourth of an inch in 1 miles. In one part of its channel the Seine descends one foot in a mile; the Loire between Pouilly and Briare one foot in 7500, and between Briare and Orleans one foot in 13,596; the Ganges, only nine inches; and, for 400 miles from its termination, the Paraguay has but a descent of one thirty-third of an inch in the whole distance. The fall of rivers is very unequally distributed; such, for instance, as the difference of the Rhine below Cologne and above Strasburg. The greatest fall is commonly experienced at their commencement, though there are some striking exceptions to this. The whole descent of the Shannon from its source in Lough Allen to the sea, a distance of 234 miles, is 146 feet, which is seven inches and a fraction in a mile, but it falls 97 feet in a distance of 15 miles between Killaloe and Limerick, and occupies the remaining 219 miles in descending 49 feet. When water has once received an impulse by following a descent, the simple pressure of the particles upon each other is sufficient to keep it in