agency of the lady D'Aulney, who heroically forgets her duty to her husband in compassion for an old lover,such was La Tour to her, whose life was in jeopardy. But our limits will not admit of a further analysis of the volume, and we shall have accomplished the object of this article, if we succeed in drawing the attention of our readers to a work not unworthy of their perusal.

Universal Geography, or a Description of all the Parts of the World, on a New Plan, according to the Great Natural Divisions of the Globe, accompanied with Analytical, Synoptical, and Elementary Tables. By M. MALTE-BRUN. Improved by the addition of the most recent information, derived from various sources. Boston. Wellis & Lilly.

Orbis situm aggredior, impeditum opus et facundiæ minime capax, was the complaint of Mela, when the Baltic, the Caspian, and the Atlantic were the barriers which neither Grecian commerce, nor Roman arms, had ever passed. And now that Diaz has crossed the line, without singeing a hair or blackening his skin; that Columbus has traversed the ocean, which so long and so vainly courted the sails of the timid mariner, and in the few and simple, but sublime words of his epitaph,

A Castilla y a Leon

Nuevo mundo dió Colon;

that Magellan has penetrated yet farther, to a world which neither poets nor philosophers ever foretold; that "many have gone to and fro, and knowledge has been increased;" it is indeed an opus impeditum, a work of labor and difficulty to describe the world and its wonders.

But, notwithstanding the progress which has been made, in modern times, in exploring the globe, and the superiority of our geography to that of the ancients, in local extent and scientific accuracy, we are not yet in a condition to prepare a complete geographical system. The greater portion of the surface of the earth, not to speak of "unsunned heaps" of treasure yet hidden, in the central cavity, from all but one prophetic eye, is but imperfectly known; and a very large part of it is not known at all.

M. Malte-Brun has long been distinguished as an able and learned geographer. For many years editor of the "Annales des Voyages," familiar with the sciences, and with the history of

man, he united all the qualifications necessary for his great undertaking; clear and simple in the more abstruse portions of the work, he often decorates the results of fifteen years of geographical labor with the lighter graces of style. It is not our purpose to follow him through all the details of his plan, but to examine here and there some striking excellence, to point out some remarkable peculiarity, and to convey some idea of the variety and extent of his labors.

Preliminary to the particular descriptions of local geography, are twenty-three books devoted to the general theory of geography. The six first of these treat of the astronomical and mathematical portions of the theory; the sixteen next of physical, and the last of political geography. The earth is first considered as a planet, floating in space, and revolving amidst a universe of other worlds; its relations to the sun and moon, which determine its seasons, its days, and nights, and months, are explained; its figure and size are determined, as far as they have been fixed by the different measurements, from that of Eratosthenes to the great work of Delambre, Mechain, and Biot. The four remaining books of mathematics are occupied with the explanation of the construction and use of globes, and of the different projections and developements of maps, whether geographical, hydrographical, political, physical, or military.

The subject of the sixteen succeeding books is physical geography. It is truly observed by the author, that "Physical geography makes us feel the limits of our powers. We have ascertained the dimensions of the sun; we know the laws of gravity upon the surface of Jupiter; we have measured the eleva tions of the mountains of the moon; even the erratic comets seem to submit to the calculations of our astronomers. But the interior of that very earth on which we walk, baffles our researches. We have never penetrated a two thousandth part of the diameter of the globe. Nay, even the very surface of the earth is not known to us throughout its whole extent." And the reason is obvious, when we consider how much the instruments of the empirical philosophy are inferior to those of the exact sciences; how far calculation outstrips observation; how much sense lags behind thought. Yet there is no lack of theories of the earth; of architects, who build worlds, as they would blow bubbles; who pile "systems on systems," with the same ease and the same success, too, that the infant piles up his tiny tower of cards. "How often," says the author, "has the term, crystallization, been employed to conceal the insignificance of a shallow remark.

In the cabinets, almost every thing is crystallized; in nature, almost every thing is irregular in its figure." "Mountains, valleys, waters, climates, and tracts of country present themselves to the eye under very complicated and irregular appearances, which it is much easier to describe than to bring within exact definitions. The grandeur and majesty of nature, defy the subtilty of our combinations and the littleness of our rules."

Our author's division and classification of the seas and of the land are in some respects peculiar; and, besides the merit of novelty and ingenuity, are recommended by their great simplicity. The ocean he divides into the Great Southeastern Basin and the Western Basin. In the first, he includes, I. The Southern Ocean, extending round the south pole to a line drawn from Cape Horn, along the southern extremity of the Cape of Good Hope, and returning by the southern coasts of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand,-presenting nearly an uninterrupted mass of water. II. The Great Eastern or Pacific Ocean, which comprises three subdivisions, 1. The Northeastern Ocean, extending from Asia to North America; 2. The Great Archipelago, reaching from the Marquesas on the east to the Straits of Malacca on the west, and from the Great Southern Ocean on the south, to the Northeastern on the north; 3. The Southeastern Ocean, contained between the Archipelago and South America. III. The third division of this great basin is the Indian Ocean, lying between the Archipelago and the Southern Ocean. The second, or Great Western Basin, forming a sort of channel between the two continents, is divided into 1. The Northern Ocean, lying north of the two hemispheres, and extending to a line drawn along the western coast of Great Britain, by the Faroe Islands and Iceland; 2. The Atlantic Ocean, from that line to the points where the opposite coasts of Brazil and Guinea approach nearest to each other; and, 3. The Ethiopic Ocean, lying between the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean. The proportion of land in the Northern hemisphere to the entire surface of the hemisphere, is 0.419; in the Southern, it is only 0.119.

The phenomena of the air and the water, winds and currents, whirlpools and water-spouts, meteors and hurricanes, the deadly samiel, the regular monsoon, and the mad tornado, are minutely and graphically described. The subtle, but powerful energies of electricity, the secret influences of magnetism, the mysterious beauties of the aurora borealis, are recounted and explained. The colors of the rainbow, and the illusion of the mirage, are mercilessly destroyed. The earth is considered as to its composition,

and the wonders of mineralogy and geology are displayed; as the abode of organized beings, and the geography of animals and vegetables is discussed; as the habitation of man, and his diversities of race, language, manners, governments, are pointed out. On some of these subjects, there will be those, who will find too much science, and those who will find too little. But every portion will be full of interest, and crowded with information to the majority of readers. We can only notice, further, the two books, which close the general theory, on man considered first as a physical, and afterwards as a moral and political being.

The population of the globe has been very differently estimated by different writers. In fact, the data, on which all calculations on this point are founded, are entirely uncertain. Take China, for instance; one account allows it twenty-seven millions of inhabitants; another grants seventy millions; a third crowds it with two hundred millions; and a fourth has not scrupled to squeeze three hundred and thirty millions within its borders. The most common calculation of the sum total of the human race is a milliard, or one thousand millions; that of our author, allowing one hundred and seventy millions to Europe, from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and forty millions to Asia, twenty millions to the islands of the Great Ocean, seventy millions to Africa, and fortyfive millions to America, reduces the total number to about six hundred and forty or six hundred and fifty millions.

One of the remarkable discoveries of modern scholars, is the great extent of a family of languages, prevailing over nearly all Western Asia and Europe, from the Ganges to the Atlantic. To this family is given the significant name of the Indo-Germanic tongues. It is well known, that the Hindoos and the Europeans are classed by physiologists in the same variety, the Caucasian, as it is called, and these varieties are formed merely on physical considerations, the shape of the head, the color of the hair, &c. Now, it appears, that the Sanscrit, or ancient language of Hindostan, resembles the Greek, Latin, and German, not only in its roots, but in its conjugations and declensions; the three ancient languages of Persia contain many German words, and their grammar is in many points similar to those of the German and English languages. The Greek is of the same family, and_the Latin, it is known, is the daughter of the Æolian dialect. The Sclavonic tongues, which include the Polish and the Russian, are similar in their declensions, and several other circumstances, to the Greek; while the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the English are mixt languages, composed of the different dialects of this

extensive family; over Eastern Asia, beyond the Ganges, the monosyllabic languages prevail, totally different from the IndoGermanic languages. More or less deficient in moods, tenses, and other grammatical forms, their deficiencies are supplied by intonations, gestures, and hieroglyphic writing.

It is evident, that the common division of the earth into zones, is rather of an astronomical, than of a physical nature. The polar snows of the frigid zones, and the mild temperature of the temperate are found within the tropics; and it is the tropical, much more than the equatorial regions, which burn with "torrid heat." The principal properties, which characterize climates, are heat, cold, humidity, dryness, and the different combinations of these four elements produce four physical climates, and give to the four principal constitutions of the human race their peculiar characteristics. First, we have the olive complexion, and the sanguinary dispositions of the hot and dry climate, such as Arabia and the deserts of Africa; here vegetation languishes, and the animals are powerful and ferocious, but few. Secondly, there is the swarthy skin, and phlegmatic temperament of the hot and humid climate, in which vegetables and animals are numerous and gigantic, but the moral character of man is almost lost; we find examples in Bengal, the coasts of Senegambia, Panamà, &c. Then follow the white skin, and sanguine temperament, of the cold and dry climate, where the animals are active and strong, the vegetation sufficiently abundant, and the moral and physical man is in his highest perfection; Europe, Asia, and America furnish many examples. Lastly, we have the red, copper-colored skin and melancholy temperament, the stunted vegetation and torpid animals of the cold and humid climate, where man is weak and sluggish, and thinks only of defending himself against the inclemency of nature.

Let the reader imagine himself standing on the island-continent, if we may be allowed the expression, of New Holland, facing the north; let us suppose, that, like Æneas amidst the ruins of Troy, his eyes are cleared from the cloud,

quæ nunc obducta tuenti Mortales hebetat visus;

that on his left are seen the shores of Africa, on the north, those of Asia, which are extended in the distant view before him; farther to the right, scattered over a space of eight thousand miles, lie the islands of the great Eastern Basin, forming, in our author's arrangement, the third division of the world, under the appropriate name of Oceanica. This part of the world, estimated to contain twenty