64. Of what country is Mocha, and how situated?

107. What towns are situated on the Ganges?

108. How are Canton, Calcutta, and Pekin situated with respect to each other?

109. What large islands are those situated directly under the equator?

110. How is the island Sumatra separated from Ma lacca and Java?

111. What island is that which the tropic of Cancer crosses ? 112. How do the Japanese Islands lie from China, and between what parallels of latitude are they situated?

113. How do the Spice Islands lie from Java?

114. How is Nova-Zembla situated, and in what lat. ? 115. Where is East Cape?

116. How is the Sea of Arabia bounded?

117. One of the chief cities in the United States, and one of the chief cities in China, are situated on the same parallel of N. lat.; what are the names of these cities? 118. In what latitude is the great wall in China, and what countries does it separate ?

QUESTIONS ON THE MAP OF AFRICA.

1. How is Africa bounded?

2. How could it be made an island?

3. What isthmus unites it to Asia?

4. How is Sahara or the Great Desert situated? 5. Where are the Atlas mountains situated?

6. What is that range of mountains which runs almost across Africa?

7. In what part of Africa are Algiers, Morocco, Tripoli and Tonis, called the Barbary States, situated?

8. Which of these States lie without and which within the Straits of Gibralter?

9. Sailing up the Mediterranean, in what order do you approach these States?

10.

What large rivers are those in the west of Africa?

11. Where is the river Zaire ?-Orange river?

12, Where is Cape Verd, in what latitude, and how situated with respect to the rivers Senegal and Gambia? 13. Where is the river Niger, the mouth of which has not yet been explored?

14. Where has the Nile its rise, what is its course, and into what sea does it empty?

15. How is the coast of Guinea divided?

16. What towns are situated at the mouth of the Nile? 17. Which is the largest of the African Islands ?

18. Where are the Comoro Isles?

19. What are the north and south capes of Madagascar? 20. Which are the most northwardly, the Cape Verd or the Canary Isles ?

21. What islands are in the Gulf of Guinea ?

23.

22. What islands lay off the kingdom of Morocco ? Where is St. Helena, and in what latitude? What two islands are situated E. of Madagascar ? Where is the island Cyprus, and how is it situated with respect to Candia?

24.

25.

26.

Where is the Mozambique Channel ?

27. In what zone is Africa chiefly situated?

28. In what direction has Africa its greatest extent, from east to west, or from north to south?

29.

What are the E. W. N. & S. capes of Africa? 30. Where is the Lybian Desert situated ?

31. Where is Cape Three Points?

32.

33.

How is Egypt situated?

What country is that situated between the Lybian and the Great Desert ?

34. Which is the most considerable lake in Africa, and where is it situated?

35. Where is the Gulf of Sidra?—The Bay of Lorenza ?-Table Bay?

36.

What part of Africa is it the Hottentots inhabit ? 37. What are the towns situated on the river Nile? 38. What are the countries on the E. coast of Africa? 39. What are the countries on the Western coast?

Required the situation and lat. of the following cities and towns.

40 Sierra Leone?

42 Syene ?
43 Algiers?

44 Tombuctoo?
45 Cape Town?

Of what countries are the following towns ?-how situated?

41 Cairo ?

46 Tangier ?

47 Gondar ?

48 Goos?

THE WORLD.

THE ancients had no certain knowledge of the figuré of the earth. But later discoveries, both by astronomy and navigation, demonstrate the world we inhabit to be a large, opaque globe or ball, nearly eight thousand miles in diameter. In proof of this it is only necessary to notice, that various navigators have actually sailed round it. Of these the first was Sir Francis Drake, who, in 1580, completed the circumnavigation of the globe, after an absence of two years, ten months, and twenty days, from England, his native land.

About two-thirds of the surface of the earth are covered with water. In respect to its universal communication, the ocean may be regarded as one; but for geographical purposes it has been found more convenient to consider it as distributed into portions or parts. The greatest of these parts, constituting nearly one half of the surface of the globe, is the Pacific Ocean, so called from the tranquillity, observed by navigators in crossing it in certain directions. Its width is generally computed at 10,000 miles. Next in extent is the Atlantic, 3,000 miles wide. The Indian Ocean may be reckoned the third that is ranked in this class. The seas called Arctic and Antarctic, from their situation near the poles, are properly branches of the Pacific and Atlantic. They are expansions of ice rather than of water, undissolved through successive ages.

This distribution and proportion of lard and water is an incontrovertible evidence of the wisdom and goodness of our adorable Creator; for thus the earth is rendered a suitable and commodious habitation for man; the blessings and advantages of commerce are augmented; and those extensive seas, which afford a free intercourse between distant nations, are productive of the most felicitous consequences to the land, by supplying a suitable quantity of vapours for the formation of clouds, which, in the elegant language of scripture, drop down fatness upon the wilderness, while the little hills rejoice on every side.

AMERICA.

IN America nature has operated on her largest scale. In extent it exceeds each of the other quarters of the world. Its mountains, (except those of Thibet and Napaul, in Asia,) its lakes, and its rivers are unequalled on the globe. Most of the metals, minerals, plants, fruits and trees, found on the other continent, are met with here, and many of them in greater quantities and in higher perfection.

Notwithstanding its great extent and abundant fertility, America remained unknown to the inhabitants of the other hemisphere, until about the close of the fifteenth century, when Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, conceiving the bold design of sailing to India by the west, procured three ships from the court of Spain, and heroically ventured his life in prosecution of a discovery, in which the inhabitants of two worlds were interested. After a voyage of thirty-three days across the then unexplored Atlantic, on the evening of October 11th, 1492, be discovered land, which proved to be one of the Bahama islands. In his third voyage he discovered the continent of South America.

At that period America was one vast and almost entire wilderness, but sparingly inhabited by a people mostly rude and savage, collected together in tribes, thinly scattered over its immense territories. To this general character, however, there were two very remarkable exceptions; the one in Mexico, and the other in Peru. Here the Indians had made some progress in civilization and the arts; and although their manners were still extremely barbarous, they had founded two powerful empires, that of Mexico, under Montezuma, and that of Peru, governed by a race of princes called Incas, supposed by the Peruvians to have been descendants from the sun.

As the Spaniards were the first discoverers, so were they also the first European inhabitants who settled in America. Their cruelties to the natives in their first conquests will never be forgotten. The fame and prospect of wealth acquired by Spain, in consequence of her discoveries, excited the attention of the other European powers, particularly the Portuguese, English, French and the Dutch, who also made discoveries in different

parts, and planted colonies. Thus was the American continent, soon after its discovery, parcelled out to the different powers of Europe.

Having given this brief account of the first discovery and settlement of America, we shall now proceed to a more particular description of its several parts.

UNITED STATES.

Mountains. A long and broad range of mountains, 900 miles in length, and from 60 to 200 miles in breadth, pervades the whole territory of the United States, which has obtained the general name of Alleghany, or Endless Mountains. Their course is nearly parallel with the seashore, at the distance of from 50 to 130 miles from it, dividing the rivers and streams of water which fall into the Atlantic on the east, from those which fall into the lakes and the Missisippi on the west. This immense chain begins in Canada, near the mouth of the river St. Lawrence. Tending south-west, it forms the boundary of the United States, until it enters New-Hampshire. Stretching southward through Vermont, it assumes the appellation of the Green Mountains; crosses Hudson river at West Point, forming with its abrupt points what are called the Highlands. Hence proceed a number of ridges, which traverse in a south western direction, New-York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. These ridges reunite on the confines of Virginia and North Carolina, into one grand chain, forming what is called the Bow of the Alleghany. Extending to the confines of Georgia, it changes its name and direction, and under the appellation of Apalachian or Cherokee Mountains, tends due west towards the Missisippi.

Lakes. There is nothing in other parts of the globe that resembles the prodigious chain of lakes which are met with in America.

It is

Lake Superior is 1500 miles in circumference, and is the largest collection of fresh water yet known. clear, of great depth, and abounds with a variety of excellent fish; such as trout, pickerel, bass, &c. It is frequently covered with fog, particularly when the wind is east, Storms affect this lake as much as they do the Atlantic ocean, the waves run as high, and the navigation is equally dangerous.