In this age of scientific illustration, no more splendid work has been produced than the one of which we now give some general notice to our readers. It is not our purpose to panegyrise either the work or the author; but it is only justice to say, that no work more distinguished by completeness of knowledge on its subject—by the novelty, variety, and depth of its researches—by the skill of its arrangement, and by the beauty of its engravings and typography—has ever appeared in this country, or in any other. It is a magnificent tribute to the science and to the skill of England.

The author, in his desire to acknowledge his obligations, by stating that his work is founded on the Physical Atlas of Professor Berghaus, has done himself injustice. His volume, though naturally availing itself of all contemporary knowledge, exhibits all the originality which can make it his own.

Of all modern sciences, the science of the globe has made the most rapid, the most remarkable, and the most important progress. Bacon makes the fine remark, that while the works of man advance by successive additions, the works of Nature all go on at once: thus the machinist adds wheel to wheel, and spring to spring, but the earth produces the tree, branch and bark, trunk and leaf, together. There is something analogous to this combined operation in physical geography: a whole crowd of remarkable discoveries seem to have burst on us at once, expressly designed to invigorate and impel our progress in geographical science. Thus, our century has witnessed new phenomena of magnetism, new laws of heat and refrigeration, new laws even of the tempest, new rules of the tides, new expedients for the preservation of health at sea, new arrangements for the supply of fresh food, and even for the supply of fresh water by distillation, and all tending to the same object—the knowledge of the globe.

The use of steam, to which modern mechanism has given almost a new existence, and certainly a new power—the conquest of wind and wave by the steam-ship, and the almost miraculous saving of time and space by the steam-carriage; the new necessity of remote enterprise, originating in the urgency of commercial and manufacturing difficulties; the opening of the thousand islands of the Indian Archipelago, till now known to us as scarcely more than the seat of savage life, or the scene of Oriental fable; the breaking down of that old and colossal barrier of restrictions and prejudices, which, more than the wall of China, excluded England from intercourse with a population amounting to a third of mankind; and most of all, those vast visitations of apparent evil, which the great Disposer of things is evidently transmuting, year by year, into real good, by propelling the impoverished multitudes of Europe into the wildernesses of the world—all exhibiting a stupendous combination of simple means, and a not less astonishing convergency to the one high purpose, the mastery of the globe—place Physical Geography at the head of the sciences essential to the happiness and power of humankind.

In the glance which we shall give at this great science, we look only to the external structure of the earth; briefly protesting against all those theories which refer its origin to an earlier period, or a longer process, than the "six days" of Scripture. It is true, that Moses may not have been a philosopher, though the man "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" may have known more than many a philosopher of later days. It is equally true, that the object of the Book of Genesis was not to give a treatise on geology. But Moses was a historian—it is the express office of a historian to state facts; and if Moses stated the "heavens and the earth, and all that therein is," to have been created and furnished in "six days," we must either receive the statement as true, or give up the historian as a fabricator. But if we believe, in compliance with the Divine word, that "all Scripture is by inspiration of God," by what subterfuge can we escape the conclusion, that the narrative of Genesis is divine? Or if, in the childish scepticism of the German school, we require a more positive testimony, what can be more positive than the declaration of the commandment of the Sabbath, "that in six days God made heaven and earth;" founding also upon this declaration the Sabbath—an institution meant for every age, and for the veneration and sanctification of every race of mankind? If such a declaration can be false, what can be true? If ever words were plain, those are the words of plainness. The law of Sinai was delivered with all the solemnities of a law forming the foundation of every future law of earth. It would have been as majestic, and as miraculous, to have fixed the creation at a million of years before the being of Adam. But we can discover no possible reason for the history, but that it was the truth. That truth is divine.

If the geologist shall persist in repeating, that the phenomena are incompatible with the history, our reply is, "Your science is still in its infancy—a science of a day, feebly beginning to collect facts, and still so weak as to enjoy the indulgence of extravagant conclusions. There have been a thousand theories of creation—each popular, arrogant, and self-satisfied, in its own time; each swept away by another equally popular, arrogant, and self-satisfied, and all equally deserving of rejection by posterity. You must acquire all the facts, before you can be qualified to theorise. The last and most consummate work of genius, and of centuries, is a true theory."

But, without dwelling further on this high subject, we must observe, that there is one inevitable fact, for which the modern geologist makes no provision whatever; and that fact is, that the beginning of things on the globe must have been totally different from the processes going on before our eyes. For instance, Adam must have been created in the full possession of manhood; for, if he had been formed an infant, he must have perished through mere helplessness. When God looked on this world, and pronounced all to be "very good"—which implies the completion of his purpose, and the perfection of his work—is it possible to conceive, that he looked only on the germs of production, on plains covered with eggs, or seas filled with spawn, or forests still buried in the capsules of seeds; on a creation utterly shapeless, lifeless, and silent, instead of the myriads of delighted existence, all enjoying the first sense of being?

But, if the first formation of the world of life must have been the act of a vast principle, to which we have no resemblance in the subsequent increase and continuance of being, what ground have we for arguing, that the common processes of material existence in our day must have been the same in the origin of things? On the whole, we regard the declaration—"In six days God made the heavens, and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is," as an insuperable bar to all the modern fantasies of the geologist, as a direct rebuke to his profaneness, and as a solemn judgment against his presumption.

The whole surface of the globe gives striking evidence of design, and of design contemplating the service of man. But one of the most remarkable evidences of that design is given in the Mountain Map of the globe. Variety of temperature, the supply of water, and the change of level, are essential to variety of production, to fertility of soil, and to the vigour and health of the human frame—the expedient to meet them all is provided in the mountain districts of the great continents. A mountain chain girdles the whole of the mass of land from the Atlantic to the Sea of Kamchatka. Minor chains, some parallel, some branching from the great northern chain, and some branches of those branches, intersect every region of the globe. The whole bears a remarkable resemblance to the position of the spine in the human frame, with its collateral muscular and venous connexion with the body. An outline view of the mountains of our hemisphere would be strikingly like a sketch of the human anatomy. The general formation of the countries north and south of those chains is early the same—vast plains, extending to the sea, or traversed and closed in by a bordering chain. The great Tartarian desert is a plain extending, under various names, five thousand miles from west to east.

Spain is a country of mountains, or rather a vast table-land, intersected by six ranges of lofty, rugged, and barren hills. Northern Africa is a basin of plains, surrounded by vast ridges. Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, find in those hills at once their frontiers and their fertility. The Pyrenees form a chain of nearly three hundred miles long, and upwards of fifty broad—a province of mountains, intersected by valleys of romantic beauty and exuberant fertility. But the Alps, from their position between the two most brilliant nations of the Continent—France and Italy—and from the extraordinary series of memorable events of which they have been the theatre, since the earliest periods of European history, are the most celebrated range of mountains in the world. The higher Alps, beginning at the Gulf of Genoa, and extending north and east through the Grisons and the Tyrol, stretch between four and five hundred miles. They then divide into two branches, one of which reaches even to the Euxine. The breadth of the great range is, on an average, a hundred and fifty miles.

The Apennines, another memorable chain, also beginning at the Gulf of Genoa, strike direct through the heart of Italy, and end in Calabria—a line of eight hundred miles. Dalmatia and Albania are knots of hills; Pindus, and the mountains of Northern Greece, are bold offsets from the Eastern Alps.

Among those wonderful arrangements, the table-lands are perhaps the most wonderful. In the midst of countries where everything seemed to tend to the mountainous form, we find vast plains raised almost to a mountainous height, yet retaining their level. This form peculiarly occurs in latitudes of high temperature. The centre of Spain is a table-land of more than ninety-two thousand square miles—one half of the area of Spain.

The country between the two ranges of the Atlas is a table-land, exhibiting the richest products, and possessing the finest climate, of Northern Africa. Equatorial Africa is one immense table-land, of which, however, we can only conjecture the advantages. Whether from the difficulty of approach, the distance, or the diversion of the current of adventure to other quarters of the world, this chief portion of the African continent continues almost unknown to Europeans. The central region is a blank in our maps, but occasional tales reach us of the plenty, the pomp, and even of the civilisation and industry of the table-land. The centre of India is a table-land, possessing, in that region of fire and fever, a bracing air, and a productive, though rugged soil.

The table-lands of Asia partake of the characteristic magnitude which belongs to that mighty quarter of the globe. That of Persia has an area of more than a million and a half of square miles. That of Tibet has an area of six times the extent, with a still greater elevation above the level of the sea—its general altitude being about the height of Mont Blanc, and, in some instances, two thousand feet higher. The mean altitude of the Persian plateau is not above four thousand feet.

We have adverted to those formations of vast elevated plains in the midst of countries necessarily exposed to extreme heat, as one of the remarkable instances of providential contrivance, if we must use that familiar word in such mighty instances of design, for the comfort of animated being. We thus find, in the latitudes exposed to the fiercest heat of the sun, a provision for a temperature consistent with the health, activity, and industry of man. Persia, which, if on the level of the sea, would be a furnace, is thus reduced to comparative coolness; Tibet, which would be a boundless plain of fiery sand, exhibits that sternness of climate which makes the northern Asiatic bold, healthy, and hardy.

If the Tartar ranger over those lofty plains is not a model of European virtue, he at least has not sunk to the Asiatic slave; he is bold, active, and has been, and may be again, an universal conqueror. The same qualities have always distinguished the man of the table-land, wherever he has found a leader. The soldiery of Mysore no sooner appeared in the field, than they swept all Hindostan before them; the Persians, scarcely two centuries since, ravaged the sovereignty of the Mogul; and the tribes of the Atlas, even in our own day, made a more daring defence of their country, than all the disciplined forces of the Continent against Napoleon.

The two most remarkable ranges of Asia are, the Caucasus, extending seven hundred miles from west to east, with branches shooting north and south; and the Himalaya, a mountain chain of nearly three thousand miles in length, uniting with the Hindoo Coosh and the mountains of Assam. This range is probably the loftiest on the globe, averaging eighteen thousand feet—several of the summits rising above twenty-five thousand. Many of the passes are above the summit of Mont Blanc, and the whole constitutes a scene of indescribable grandeur, a throne of the solitary majesty of Nature.

But, another essential use of the mountain chains is their supply of water—the fluid most necessary to the existence of the animal and vegetable world,—and this is done by an expedient the most simple, but the most admirable. If the surcharge of the clouds, dashing against the mountain pinnacles, were to be poured down at once, it must descend with the rapidity of a torrent, and deluge the plains. But, those surcharges first take a form by which their deposit is gradual and safe, and then assume a second form, by which their transmission to the plains is gradual and unintermitting. They descend on the summits in snow, and are retained on the sides in ice. The snow feeds the glacier; the glacier feeds the river. It is calculated that, without reckoning the glaciers of the Grisons, there are fifteen hundred square miles of glacier in the Alps alone, from a hundred to six hundred feet deep. The glacier is constantly melting, from the mere temperature of the earth; but, as if this process were too slow for its use, it is constantly moving downwards, at a certain number of feet a-year, and thus bringing the great body of ice more within the limit of liquefaction. All the chief rivers of Europe and Asia have their rise in the deposits of the mountain glaciers.

In addition to all these important uses, the mountains assist in forming the character of man. The mountaineer is generally free from the vices of the plain. He is hardy and adventurous, yet attached to home; bold, and yet simple; independent, and yet unambitious of the wealth or the distinctions of mankind. Whether shepherd or hunter, he generally dies as he lived; and, though daring in defence of his hills, he has seldom strayed beyond them for the disturbance of mankind. The Swiss may form an exception; but their hireling warfare is not ambition, but trade. Their nation is pacific, while the individuals let themselves out to kill, or be killed. The trade is infamous and irreligious, offensive to human feeling, and contrary to human duty; but it has no more reference to the habits of the mountaineer than the emigration to California has to the habits of the clown of Massachusets; the stimulant only is the same—the love of gold.

We have adverted to the mountain system of the globe, from its giving a remarkable illustration of the Divine expediency. We judge of power by the magnitude of its effects, and of wisdom by the simplicity of its means. In this instance the whole of the results seem to arise from the single and simple act of raising portions of the earth's surface above the general level. Yet from this one act, what a multitude of the most important conditions follow!—variety of climate, variety of production, the temperature of Europe introduced into the tropics, health to man and the inferior animals, the irrigation of the globe, the defence of nations, and the actual enlargement of the habitable spaces of the globe, by the elevated surface of the hills—not to mention the beauty and sublimity of the landscape, which depend wholly on the colours, the forms, and the diversity of mountains.

An interesting note on this subject says, "It appears probable, that a legitimate way is now opening towards the solution of the ultimate problem of the upheaving force. The agreement of deductions from the scientific hypothesis goes far to establish, that all dislocations of strata, and the accompanying mountain chains, have resulted from the upheaval of large portions of the earth's surface by a diffused and equable energy—an energy concentrated in one point or district, only when it has produced craters of elevation. Accepting instruction from the surface of the moon, we have certain lights also respecting the history of the development of this force; for, while its concentrated action, with its varied and remarkable craters, has evolved nearly all the mountain forms in that luminary, even as we find it among the almost obliterated ancient forms of the earth, its operation in raising extensive zones, now so frequently and characteristically exhibited in our own planet, has yet scarcely appeared in the moon. The time will doubtless come, when, viewing it as a great cosmical agency, all such specialities belonging to this yet hidden power shall receive their solution."

The Ocean.—The next most important portion of the globe to man is that mighty reservoir of water which surrounds the land, penetrates into every large portion of it, supplies the moisture without which all life must rapidly perish, and forms the great means of intercourse, without which one-half of the globe would be ignorant of the existence of the other.

In the ocean, we have the complete contrast to the land, the whole giving an extraordinary evidence of that extreme diversity of means, which the Creator wills to exercise for every purpose of his creation. The land is all variety, the ocean is a plain of millions of square miles. The land never moves, the ocean is in perpetual movement. Below the surface of the land, all animal life dies; the ocean is inhabited through a great portion of its depth, and perhaps through its whole depth. The temperature of the land is as varying as its surface; the temperature of the ocean is confined within a few degrees. The temperature of the earth appears to increase with the depth to which man can descend; the temperature of the ocean, at a certain depth, seems always the same.

Even in that relation to beauty and grandeur, which evidently forms a part of the providential design, the sources of enjoyment to the human eye, in the land and the ocean, are strikingly different. On land, the sublime and the beautiful depend on variety of form—the mountain shooting to the skies, the valley deepening beneath the eye, the rush of the cataract, the sharp and lofty precipice, the broad majesty of the river, the rich and coloured culture of the distant landscape. In the ocean, the sublime arises from total uniformity. An unbroken surface, stretching round, as far as the eye can gaze, forms the grandeur; the clouds and colours of the sky, reflected on its surface, form the beauty. Even when the phenomena are most similar, the effect is different: the sunset of land and sea are equally magnificent; but the sunset on land is lovelier, from its inlaying of gold and purple light on the diversities of hill and valley, forest and field: at sea, it is merely one gorgeous blaze—splendour on cloud above and wave below. But moonlight at sea is lovelier than on land. Beautiful as it is, even on the imperfect outlines of trees and hills, a large portion of the lustre is broken and lost by the obstacles and varieties of the landscape. But at sea there is no obstruction; its lustre falls on a mighty mirror; all around is light, all above is majesty: the absence of all the sights and sounds of life deepens the sense of calm admiration, and the impression almost amounts to a feeling of the holy.

The ocean covers three-fourths of the globe, yet even this enormous extent has not been sufficient for the providential object of human intercourse. The Divine expedient was the formation of inland seas. Nothing in the distribution of land and sea is more remarkable, than the superior magnitude of the world of waters to the world of land, in a globe whose chief purpose was evidently the support of man. The Pacific alone is larger than all the land. From the west coast of America, to the eastern coast of Africa, spreads one sheet of water—a traverse of sixteen thousand miles. The valley of the Atlantic has a breadth of five thousand miles, while its length reaches from pole to pole—its surface is an area of more than twenty millions of square miles.

Yet, it is perfectly possible that this proportion was once of a different order. As we know nothing of the antediluvian world but by the Mosaic history, and as that history has not revealed the original boundaries of the land and sea, no positive conclusion can be obtained. Yet, from the deposits of marine products in the existing soil, it has been conclusively conjectured, that the land has been once the bed of the ocean, while the present bed of the ocean has been the land. The almost total absence of the human skeleton among fossils, and some old and dim traditions of a continent submerged, where the waters of the Atlantic now roll, may add to the conjecture. The globe then would have afforded room for a population threefold that which it is now destined to contain. If it is now capable of supporting sixteen times its present number, as has been calculated, it would then have been equal to the sustenance of little less than fifty thousand millions. Yet, what would be even that space to the magnitude of Jupiter; or that number to the beings of flesh and blood, however differing from man, which may at this moment, in that most magnificent planet, be enjoying the bounty of Providence, and replenishing a circumference of two hundred and forty thousand miles!

Uniform as the ocean is, it is a vast theatre of contrivances. To prevent the impurity which must arise from the decay of the millions of fish, and perhaps of quadruped and reptile life, constantly dying in its depths,—it is saline. To prevent the stagnation of its waters, which would reinforce the corruption, it is constantly impelled by currents, by the trade-wind, and by the universal tide. At the equator the tide moves with a rapidity which would shatter the continents; but it is met by shallows, by ridges of rock, and by islands; a vast system of natural breakwaters which modify its force, and reduce it to an impulse compatible with safety.

The water of the sea retains its fluidity down to four degrees below the freezing point of fresh water; the object is, perhaps, the preservation of the millions of animated beings contained in the waters; but as, in the tropic latitudes, its exposure to the sun might engender disease, or create tempests, vast refrigeratories are provided at both the poles, which are constantly sending down huge masses of ice to cool the ocean. Some of those floating masses are from ten to twelve miles long, and a hundred feet high above the water, with probably three hundred feet below. They have been met with two thousand miles on their way to the equator, and have sensibly cooled the sea for fifty miles round, until they wholly dissolved. Of course, on subjects of this order, human observation can do little more than note the principal effects—the rest can be only probable conjecture. It may be, that human sagacity has never ascertained the hundredth part of the purposes of any one of the great agents of nature. Still, it is the business of science to inquire, as it is the dictate of experience to acknowledge, that every addition to discovery gives only additional proof of the sleepless vigilance, boundless resources, and practical benevolence of the great Ruler of all.

The variety of uses derived from a single principle is a constant, and a most admirable, characteristic of nature. The primary purpose of the ocean is probably, to supply the land with the moisture necessary to production. But, the collateral effects of the mighty reservoir are felt in results of the first importance, yet of a wholly distinct order. The ocean refreshes the atmosphere, to a certain degree renews its motion, and obviously exerts a powerful agency in preventing alike excessive heat and excessive cold. The tides, which prevent its stagnation—a stagnation which would cover the earth with pestilence—also largely assist navigation in the estuaries, in the lower parts of the great rivers, and in all approaches to the shore. The currents, a portion of this great agency, (still perhaps to give us new sources of wonder,) fulfil at least the triple office of agitating the mass of ocean, of speeding navigation, and of equalising or softening the temperature of the shores along which they pass, in all directions. They seem equivalent to the system of high-roads and cross roads in a great country. It had been said of rivers, that "they are roads which travel;" but their difficulty is, that they travel only one way. The currents of the ocean obviate the difficulty, by travelling all ways. And, perhaps, we may look forward to a time when, by the command of wind and wave given by the steamboat, and by our increased knowledge of "ocean topography," if we may use the phrase; a ship may make its way across the ocean without ever being out of a current; a result which would be obviously a most important accession, if not to the speed, at least to the security of navigation.

Those ocean traversers evidently belong to a system. Some are permanent, some are periodical, and some are casual. The permanent arise chiefly from the effect of the flow from the poles to the equator. Descending from the poles in the first instance, they pour north and south. They gradually feel the earth's rotation; but on their arrival at the tropics, being still inferior in velocity to the equatorial sea, they seem to roll backwards; in other words, they form a current from east to west. This current is farther impelled by the trade-winds.

The progress of this great perpetual current includes almost every part of the ocean. In going westward, it necessarily rushes against the coast of America, where it divides into two vast branches, one running south with great force, and the other north-west. A succession of currents, all connected, obviously form a "moving power" to prevent the stagnation of the ocean, and, by their branches, visit every shore of the globe.

Some of those currents are of great breadth, but they generally move slow. Humboldt calculates that a boat, carried only by the current from the Canaries to Caraccas, would take thirteen months for the voyage. Still there would be obvious advantages to navigation in moving along a district of ocean in which all the speed, such as it was, furthered the movement of the vessel, and which offered none of the common sources of hindrance.

But another curious effect of the Atlantic currents is to be commemorated, as giving us probably the first knowledge of the western world. "Two corpses, the features of which indicated a race of unknown men, were thrown on the coast of the Azores, towards the end of the fifteenth century. Nearly at the same period the brother-in-law of Columbus, Pedro Correa, governor of Porto Santo, found on the strand of the island pieces of bamboo of an extraordinary size, brought thither by the western currents."

Those coincidences might have confirmed the idea of the great navigator. But Columbus still deserves all the glory. A thousand conjectures may be formed, and a thousand confirmations given, and yet all be lost to the world. The true discoverer is the man of practice. Columbus was that man; and we are to remember also his indefatigable labour in realising that practice, the unexhausted resolution with which he struggled against the penury and neglect of the Continental courts, his noble scorn of the sneers of European ignorance, and the heroic patience with which he sustained the murmuring of his crews, and asked "but one day more." The world has never seen a man more equal to his great purpose; if he was not a direct instrument appointed to the noblest discovery of man.

But those evidences of connexion are not unfrequently given to our more observant time. "When the wind has been long from the west, a branch of the Gulf Stream runs with considerable force in a north-easterly direction towards the coasts of Europe. By this the fruit of trees belonging to the torrid zone of America is annually cast ashore on the western coasts of Ireland and Norway. Pennant observes, that the seeds of plants which grow in Jamaica, Cuba, and the adjacent countries, are collected on the shores of the Hebrides. Thither also barrels of French wine, the remains of vessels wrecked in the West Indian seas, have been carried. In 1809, H.M.S. Little Belt was dismasted at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and her bowsprit was found, eighteen months after, in the Basque Roads. The mainmast of the Tilbury, burned off Hispaniola, in the Seven Years' War, was brought to our shores.

"To the Gulf Stream, England and Ireland are partially indebted for the mildness of their climate. The prevailing winds are the south-west. Coming over a vast space of the comparatively heated ocean, it is calculated, that if those winds were so constant as to bring us all the heat which they are capable of conveying, they would raise the column of air over Great Britain and France, in winter, at once to the temperature of summer."

But interesting as it might be thus to range through the great phenomena of the globe, and demonstrate its abundant and astonishing adaptation to the purposes of living existence, our more immediate object is to mark to the reader the materials of this noble volume.

The especial sciences of which it treats are, geology, hydrography, meteorology, and natural history, with their several subdivisions; the whole delivered in the most intelligible form of modern knowledge, and with the fullest information acquired by modern research; and illustrated by maps, the skill of whose execution can have been equalled only by the labour of their formation.

The volume commences with the geological structure of the globe in all its branches, and with separate articles given to the mountain chains of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, all illustrated by maps: then follow the glaciers and glacial phenomena, with maps; then the phenomena of the volcanoes and volcanic regions, developed by charts and descriptions,—this department closing with that most curious, most disputed, and still most obscure of all subjects, the PalÆontology of the British Isles.

The second division—hydrography, commences with charts of the ocean, and with charts of those wondrous, and still comparatively obscure, agencies, the eleven currents which intersect it in all quarters. Then follow charts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, now forming such new and interesting objects to the navigator and the philanthropist. We then have maps of the tides and river systems.

The Indian Ocean, now scarcely more than beginning to be the subject of scientific inquiry, will probably assist us effectively in the discoveries of those most important agents, the winds. The monsoon and the typhoon of those seas exhibit characters apparently almost exclusive. To ascertain their general direction, and their especial limits, must be a great boon to the commerce which is now directing itself, with such renewed vigour, to those tempting regions. The lights which have been thrown on the use of the barometer, and on the rise and direction of the West Indian storms, have already given a species of guidance to this important investigation; and if the theory of the hurricane can never render its power harmless, it may, at least, make human precaution more vigilant, and, of course, more successful.

Those investigations are naturally followed by the third great division of the work—meteorology. The value of exact observations on wind and weather must have been felt from the beginning of the world; but, until our day, it was little more than the science of the shepherd, who foretold a high wind or a shower, generally when both had already come. The barometer and thermometer, though both well known, and both admirable, had done but little for a science, which, without exactness of practice and connexion of causes, is nothing.

Humboldt, by his attempt to trace lines of temperature on the map of the globe, first raised those scattered conceptions into the shape of a science. Yet Humboldt was not the original inventor of the inquiry into the mean temperatures. Meyer of Gottingen first threw the observations on this important and evasive subject into the well-known formula, which made the temperature depend on the square of the cosine of the latitude. Playfair followed, by including in his formula the elevation of the place and the season. The object of Humboldt was, to determine, by a series of curves on the earth's surface,the points at which—however the temperature differed from time to time—the average annually was the same. On this important subject we are now furnished with a map of striking detail and execution.

The late magnetic researches pursued round the globe may, at no remote period, establish a connexion between the revolution of the magnetic poles and the isothermal lines, as had been long since conjectured. But, as practical science advances, we shall probably see all the great agencies of nature combined,—if not all shown to be but the modifications of one.

The Hyetographic or rain chart of this volume gives a most complete and minute detail of a most important subject. It exhibits the rains of the globe, in their constant gradation from the equator to the pole, in their influence on the seasons, and in their degrees from the plains to the summit of the hills. A map is added, on the polarisation of the atmosphere—almost a new science—with an explanatory article by Sir David Brewster.

The fourth division is Natural History; itself divided into Phytology, Zoology, and Ethnography. This division abounds in maps, and in these departments they are obviously of the most necessary use. In the description of plants and animals, the pencil must speak, the tongue loses its faculty; a sketch, executed at the moment, will give a fuller explanation than any dexterity or copiousness of language can. We accordingly have here charts of all the geographical positions of the plants important to the food of man, and of the geographical distribution of plants on the surface of the globe.

The Zoological charts give the regions, the habitats, and the characters of all the diversities of animal life on the land—from the mammalia to the birds and reptiles.

The Ethnographical portion, or view of the general position and races of the European nations, commences with a fine map, by Kombst, exhibiting a view of all its varieties, with reference to birth, language, religion, and forms of government. Having thus glanced at the scientific contents of this noble volume, we propose to give some sketches of those portions of the globe which, within the last half century, have become the refuge or the property of the emigration from the British shores.

Australia, the fifth continent, is nearly as large as Europe. Divided by the tropic, it is capable of producing the chief plants of both the temperate and the tropical zones. Its principal geological feature is a mountain chain, which, extending through its whole length on its eastern coast, runs on the north into New Guinea, and on the south into Van Diemen's Land. From its immense size, (two thousand four hundred miles from east to west, and one thousand seven hundred from north to south,) and from the savage state of its native population, the exact nature of its central portion is yet only to be conjectured. But conjecture has been busy; and by some it is held, that the centre is a Mediterranean, from the direction of some of the rivers; by others, that it is a huge Sahara, from the hot winds which often blow towards the coast. But two late expeditions, sent from Sydney, have passed, without difficulty, the one as far as Torres Strait, and the other almost to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is true, that neither of those was towards the centre; but they had the wiser practical object, of ascertaining the nature of the country most important to the British settler—that great tract lying between the mountains of the cast coast and the sea. And that country they found to be fair and fertile, temperate and easily accessible. The whole expedition of Colonel Mitchel, the surveyor-general, has almost the air of romance. He describes the country, in the latter half of his advance to the north, as not only of remarkable richness, but of singularly picturesque beauty; the latter a quality of the most unusual order in Australia. To the customary complaint of want of water in the interior, Colonel Mitchel answers, that Australia, to remedy this defect, wants nothing but labour; that it has rivers which supply water in the rainy season sufficient for the use of the year; that the formation of the land everywhere suggests the idea of vast reservoirs; and that man has only to complete what nature has begun. The British settlements in the south and west will probably soon bring these resources into action.

Large deposits of minerals are already beginning to bring wealth to the settlers. Coal has been found. The tide of emigration which some years ago was checked, has suddenly flowed with increased force to Australia; and the vigour of the English character, the only character in the world capable of effective colonisation, has already made Sidney a flourishing metropolis, and before another century (a moment in the life of nations) will exhibit to Europe an English empire at the antipodes! And this is the history of a land which, though coasted by the celebrated Cook in 1770, was never trod by a colonist till nearly twenty years after. This wonder has been wrought within the lifetime of one generation.

Van Diemen's Land affords a striking evidence of the variety in which nature seems to delight. It forms a contrast in everything to its huge neighbour: it is small, it is a mass of mountains, it is well watered, it is rainy, it is agricultural, and it abounds in fine harbours. On the whole, it bears the same relation to Australia which Ireland might bear to England, if England were united to the Continent. It is also about the size of Ireland—Van Diemen's Land containing nearly twenty-eight thousand square miles, Ireland perhaps thirty thousand.

In Europe, the continent is richer than the islands; at the antipodes, the islands are richer than the continent. New Zealand, the last colony of England, promises to be one of the noblest of the British possessions. It may either be regarded as one island, fifteen hundred miles long, or as three, divided by boisterous channels, and lashed everywhere by a roaring ocean. It has remarkable advantages for colonisation—a fertile soil, boundless forests, beds of minerals, and picturesque beauty. The mountains in its interior have all the grandeur of the Alps, with more than their forest clothing, and (more picturesque than all) with the volcano, which is wanting to the supremacy of the Alps. It has table-lands for the agriculturist, sites on a luxuriant coast for cities, fine harbours for commerce, copious rivers for communication, and mountains of from twelve to fourteen thousand feet high, to irrigate the soil, and supply the heated regions with the luxury of perpetual ice. The climate seems to be healthy; and the country, by its boldness, storms, varying temperature, and even by the roughness of the billows which toss for ever on its shore, appears destined for the school of Englishmen and English constitutions.

To the north of Australia, and almost within sight—another vast and lovely region, and another contrast to the great continent—lies New Guinea, fourteen hundred miles long, and two hundred broad. Its appearance from the sea is magnificent—an immense undulation of luxuriance covering the coasts, and rising up the sides of mountain ranges loftier than Mont Blanc. But the tropical excess of vegetation may render it dangerous to European life: at all events, it will be only wisdom to people Australia before we intrude on the naked foresters, and do battle against the more fatal enemy, the swamps of New Guinea.

Borneo, which has so lately become an object of English interest, by the settlement of Sir James Brooke, is also a large and noble island; it has the bold mountain interior, the table-lands, the rivers, and the harbours, which belong to New Guinea. The English settlement, and the presence of British ships, may introduce such imperfect civilisation as the Oriental savage can ever receive; piracy may be partially put down, and even honesty may be partially introduced. But there is this great drawback to the success of English colonisation—that the land is already peopled, and that the strangers are more likely to fall into the indolent habits and luxurious vice of the native, than the native ever to rise to the manly habits of the Englishman.

The Indian Archipelago is almost a new world to the European. Though known to the Dutch soon after the decay of that empire which the Portuguese secured by the discoveries of de Gama, and occasionally touched upon by English commerce, it had been almost forgotten among the stirring scenes in which Europe was involved in the last three centuries. Our conquests in Hindostan, our possession of Ceylon, the capture of the Dutch colonies in the French war, and, later still, our establishment at Singapore, and the opening of China, have turned the eyes of England to those exuberant countries; and we shall now probably reunite them to the world of Europe.

But we must hope that, beyond commerce, and the communication of the comforts and intelligence of English life, our ambition will not extend. Those climates are generally hazardous to European life; they are not less hazardous to the manliness and vigour of English habits, and even to the force of the English character. It has been said that, if the first generation of colonists are English to the grave, the second are Indian from the cradle. They contract the lassitude of the tropics; they become incapable of effort: dissipation is the natural resource of opulent idleness; they linger through life from excess to excess; and, unless a revolution of the hardier native drives them out, or an emigration of their hardier countrymen keeps them in, the colony sinks into the ground.

The new impulse reserved for our century is Colonisation. Always existing, even from the earliest ages of mankind, it had hitherto scarcely deserved the name. The French colonisation of Canada had not advanced, in a century, beyond the nook where they first nestled themselves, and where the most absurd of all policies—that of allowing them to place their language on a footing with the manlier tongue of their conquerors—has perpetuated them as a separate race, with all their absurdities, all their prejudices, and even with all their hostility to the British name. The Spanish colonisation of South America amounted to scarcely more than settling the descendants of the Spanish garrisons, of the Spanish refugees, and of the attendants on the viceroys.

The only true colonists were the English of North America; who, for a hundred years, poured a feeble stream towards the prairies of the Mississippi, recruited and stained by the vagabondage of Europe. But no great impulse of national necessity gave depth and force to the current. But within these two years a more powerful impression has been made by necessity. The Irish famine of 1846, and the following year, drove multitudes to seek for bread on the shores of America. Some hundred thousands probably have left Europe behind for ever, and are now delving and woodcutting in the forests of the western world. A German emigration, though of a more tardy order, has followed, from a pressure, if not of direct famine, yet of difficulty. And within the last year a powerful impulse has been also made in the direction of Australia, of all countries the one which offers the fairest prospect for the Englishman. The success of these emigrations will naturally tend to continue the outpourings of Europe. The emigrants, once settled and successful, will encourage the movement of those whom they have left behind, as much embarrassed as they themselves originally were; and the comforts which come into the possession of industry, in a land of cheap purchase—unburthened with taxes, and unburthened with the still heavier taxes which the vanities of old countries lay on the myriads of middle life—must form a strong temptation, or rather a rational inducement, to seek independence at the antipodes.

But the sudden discovery of the Californian gold-country has given a still more determined urgency to emigration. That a vast territory, which, if we are to rely on the reports of its labourers, is a sheet of gold, should have lain for three hundred years in the hands of the Spaniards, wholly unknown to a people always hungry for gold, is among the wonders which sometimes strike across us in the history of nations. But its immediate effect is, unquestionably, to aid the general tendency. It is already drawing thousands from every part of the world towards California. Columns of men, followed by their trains of oxen and wains of merchandise, are already pouring over every track of the West. In a few years, the desert will probably be filled with population; and when the mines are exhausted, or taken into the possession of the government, the more valuable mine will remain, in the existence of a new nation, in the commerce of the Pacific, and in the richness of a soil unploughed since the Deluge.

The effect of this emigration, for the moment, is obviously to assist the reception of the multitudes from Europe. It is thinning the population of the United States, carrying off the labourers, and turning every unoccupied eye in the direction of the west. The drudgery of Ireland, the skilled labour of England, and the patient and not unintelligent toil of Germany, will daily find the mart more open; and thus even the mania of gold-digging will have its effect on the sober welfare of mankind.

But a still more important effect, though more remote, may follow from the Californian mines. The celebrated Burke, sixty years ago, predicted that the new population on the plains of the Mississippi would extinguish the power, if not the existence, of the cities on the coast, and that when those "English Tartars," as he imaginatively described them, once poured down on the New Yorks, Bostons, and Philadelphias, they would turn them into warehouses, and their sites into watering-places. They would have fulfilled his prophecy long since, but for the boundless expanse of territory which lay behind this "Tartar" region. Their discontents evaporated into the wilderness; the provincial who looked with a jealous eye on the man of cities, found it easier to travel than to make war; and he forthwith set up a state for himself in the boundless prairie. A Californian republic may erect a formidable balance to the domination of the old States. Washington will no longer be the capital of America, and the north of the New World may yet have a stronger resemblance to Europe—with its great kingdoms, its little princes, and its commercial cities—than the anomalous government of the Stripes and Stars.

But the noblest of all the projects which have ever excited the curiosity of the world is still to be consummated—the communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific—a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. That isthmus is but twenty miles broad, but a passage across it would shorten the voyage to China, perhaps to six weeks, instead of four months; annihilate, the perils of the navigation round South America, and bring Europe into rapid contact with Australia, India, and the unexplored glories and exhaustless opulence of the finest archipelago in the ocean.

The project is so natural that it had been a hundred times conceived; but the perpetual wars of Europe, the angry jealousy of Spain, and, in later years, the disturbances of the native governments, have wholly obstructed the mightiest benefit ever offered to the progress of civilisation. The enterprise of the Americans had not overlooked this key to both hemispheres, and, some years since, a compact was entered into with a company headed by the American Biddle. But it was suffered to die away; other contracts succeeded, equally abortive, the government on the spot demanding terms of such exorbitance that it was impossible to carry the work into execution. With the usual short-sightedness of the foreigner, they had placed all their profit on the rent and tolls of the canal, foolishly forgetting that their real profit was to be found in the wealth which the intercourse of all nations must bring into their country.

Two projects are now said to be under consideration—a railroad, which would be exclusively for the benefit of the Americans; and a canal capable of carrying large vessels across the Isthmus, and which would be open to all nations. There can be no question as to the superior benefits of the latter to mankind.

Of the five routes, four are exposed to obstacles arising from elevation of ground, (the track to Panama rises a thousand feet,) from insalubrity, and from other circumstances of the soil and the locality. The fifth, by the river of Nicaragua, evidently deserves the preference. It lies through a fine river, reaching from the Atlantic to a central lake, and thence descends through a second river to the Pacific. The whole distance would be but two hundred and seventy-eight miles, which would require locks and other works, (the rivers being at intervals interrupted by rapids,) but this portion would amount to but eighty-two miles. The lake-sailing would be a hundred and twenty-five miles. The whole expense, estimating it at the prices of Europe, would be less than four millions sterling. Sanguine calculators value the profits at twelve per cent. But whatever might be the smallness of the dividends in the first instance, there can be no imaginable doubt that, with fair dealing on the part of the local government, the Isthmus would soon be worth all the mines of Peru, with all the gold-washings of California besides.

The next great enterprise would be the junction of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, by a passage across the Isthmus of Suez. There is already a road, but the passage is slow and difficult, from the heat, the soil, and the imperfect conveyance. Two proposals have been long since made, the one for a canal and the other for a railroad. To the canal there seem to be insuperable objections, the shallowness of the sea at Suez, the shifting nature of the sands on the way, which would soon fill up the canal, and the difficulty of water for its supply. It has been also ascertained by the survey of the French engineers that the Red Sea is about thirty feet higher than the Mediterranean.

The railroad is obviously not merely the true expedient, but the only one. But it is almost impossible to deal the foreigner on any subject of prospective profit. The habit of living but for the day deteriorates all the movements of national progress. Unless he can grasp his profit at once, it exists no longer to his eye. With the man of the East, the grasp is eager and avaricious. Mehemet Ali might have brought millions of wealth into Egypt by a railroad, while he was wasting thousands in paltry contrivances to make a royal revenue for himself, out of the contending bargains of English and French engineers. The result is, that except a miserable canal between Alexandria and the Nile, dry half the year, and scarcely navigable during the other half, nothing has been done; and the journey across the isthmus occupies nearly two days, gives infinite trouble, and makes money only for donkey-boys and tavern-keepers, which, by a railroad, might be effected luxuriously in three hours.

The Ethnography of this volume forms the material of a treatise, which might itself be expanded into a volume. Some years ago the population of the globe was computed at 860 millions; but, from the accelerated rapidity of increase, year by year, we should suppose it to be now 900 millions; and even that, a number which, unless some great human catastrophe should arrive, would speedily increase to 1000 millions! The laws of population are yet imperfectly comprehended; but, like all the other great problems of nature, they are given for our inquiry, and will ultimately yield to our inquiry.

The chief obstacle to population is evidently neither poverty, nor general discomfort of living, nor inferiority of food. Under all these circumstances, population accumulates in an extraordinary degree. The population of Ireland is a case in point. War seems to exercise but a slight check on population. Barrenness of soil must have its effect, for where men cannot eat, they, of course, cannot live; but insecurity of property, implied in tyrannical government, is the great depopulator. Men will not labour, where they cannot be certain of the fruits of their labour; they sink into lassitude, indolence, and beggary. The actual power of life departs from them, and they either perish by the first pressure of famine, sink under the first attack of disease, or emigrate, to make the experiment of renewing their existence in a freer soil. But the subject is still equally obscure, boundless, and interesting.

Till within these few years, French and German scepticism, always hostile to the Mosaic revelation, had adopted the opinion that the races of mankind were of different parentage, and thus that the scriptural account was untrue. But the manlier research and honester philosophy of Dr Pritchard, and others, in this country, have proved the assertion to be as unfaithful to facts, as the argument was sophistical. Whatever may be the external differences in the five great races of the earth—the Circassian, the Mongolian, the Malayan, the Ethiopian, and the American—all are fully capable of being accounted for by the accidents of climate, food, temperature, and position, while the internal configuration of all is the same. There is still the more convincing similitude in their faculties, affections, intelligence, passions, and language. All that constitutes the class "Mankind" is the same, from the mountaineer of Circassia, the finest, and probably the original, type of the human form, to the Esquimaux, probably the most degraded. Even evidences of relationship in higher things might be given. All, in various degrees, acknowledge a Supreme Ruler of earth and heaven, admit the necessity of worship, retain some traditions of paradise, recognise the general morals of life, have impressions of justice, temperance, and truth, however often forgotten. All look to a future state of being!

But we must now close our remarks on the volume, which Mr Johnston has thus contributed to the knowledge, and, we will believe, to the admiration of his time. The mere circumstance of its appearing under the auspices of its present publishers, has not in the slightest degree coloured our necessarily rapid and cursory criticism. If we had found the volume in the dust of a monkish library, we should have pronounced it a masterly performance; if we were about to offer a gift to the rising intelligence of our age, there is none which we should offer in preference. So ample, so definite, and yet so comprehensive are the stores of information presented by this admirable digest of physical science—of all that we know regarding the structure of the great globe we inhabit, and regarding whatever lives and moves on its surface, together with the laws that regulate the whole—and, at the same time, so absolutely necessary is that information for the proper culture of the mind, that we must confess it was with a sigh of regret, while turning over the leaves of the magnificent folio, that we felt that such a work could only be destined for the wealthy and for the privileged class who have access to public libraries, but that it was likely to remain "a book sealed" to the great bulk of general inquirers. Our fears, however, on this subject, we rejoice to be informed, are groundless; and, since commencing this paper, we have learned that a reduced edition is on the eve of publication. As was also to have been desired, this is to appear in a serial form, so as to render it accessible to every class of readers, and at only one-fifth of the original cost.

This is as it should be. To the scholar, to the student, and to the already large yet daily increasing multitude of inquirers who cultivate natural science, the Physical Atlas is a treasure of incalculable value. It brings before the mind's eye, in one grand panoramic view, and in a form clear, definite, and easily comprehensible, all the facts at present known relative to the great subjects of which it treats, and may be regarded as a lucid epitome of a thousand scattered volumes, more or less intrinsically valuable, of which it contains the heart and substance.

From this time henceforward an acquaintance with physical geography must form the basis of educational knowledge, and on no basis so adequate can the superstructure of general scholarship be reared. History, without such an acquirement previously made, can only be half understood; and, in ignorance of it, the works of creation are, at best, but a maze without a plan. If we were called on to give proof to the world of the combination of vigorous diligence, manly acquirement, clear reasoning, and philosophical conception of which the British mind is capable, we should lay on the table this noble volume of Mr Johnston. Indeed, if we might hazard a prediction, the future is not far distant when such a work must be indispensably requisite to every educational establishment, and be found in the hands of every scholar.