north, where it soon gives way to the juniper and the meagre shrubs thinly scattered in the deserts of the polar circle.

3. The mountainous district south of Hudson's river forms a lofty rampart or terrace between the countries of the Atlantic and of the Mississippi. Its length to its termination near the Mississippi, may be estimated at near one thousand miles, and its breadth, which is very variable, from seventy to one hundred and twenty. It commences in a group called the Kaats-kill mountains on the right bank of Hudson's river, and branches off into a band of nearly parallel ridges, which extend from north-east to southwest across the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, increasing their distance from the sea as they proceed southward. These ridges having continued parallel to each other till they arrive at the frontier of North Carolina, unite into a knot called by Mr. Volney the Alleghany arch. The first of them on the side of the Atlantic, Mr. Volney, in opposition to Mr. Arrowsmith, but supported by the respectable authority of Evans, Fry, and Jefferson, traces along the Trent, Oley, and flying hills of Pennsylvania. It crosses the Susquehannah below Harrisburg, where it in creases in height, and is generally called the blue ridge, though it appears in the maps of Evans and some other geographers, under the name of South mountains, Mr. Volney says without any good reason, but doubtless from its relative situation with respect to the general band, which has a south-west direction. It crosses the Potowmack above the Shenando, and James's river above the junction of its two superior branches. The ridge called North mountain proceeds also from the Kaats-kill group, passes through Pennsylvania under the name of the Kittany, and crosses all the rivers in a direction nearly parallel to the bine ridge. The third and highest ridge which separates the vallies of the Atlantic from those of the Mississippi, is not distinctly marked in New York and Pennslvania, but appears to be lost in the high levels about the sources of the Mohawk and Susquehannah. Mr. Volney derives its principal ramification also from the Kants-kill; but as we conceive improperly, for that ramification being cut by the Delaware and the Susquehannah, is truly a subordinate ridge. South of the Susquehannah it is distinctly marked as

far as the Alleghany knot, whence it proceeds nearly single, and closely pressed on the west by the river Kanheway to a second knot still in Carolina, when it sends out the Kentucky ridges and the Cumberland mountain to the west, and proceeds almost alone to the angle of Georgia under the various names of White Oak, Great Iron, Bald and Blue Mountains. From that point it takes a direction nearly west towards the Mississippi, separating the bason of the Tenesee from the sources of the streams which run southward through Georgia and Florida. It is there called the Apalachian mountain, from a tribe of Indians who have also given their name to Apalachicola, a considerable river which takes its rise from that part of the chain and falls into the gulf of Mexico; and as the French became first acquainted with this part of the grand chain, they improperly gave its name to the whole. West of the grand Alleghany there are also some parallel ridges, the principal of which is called, in different parts of the line, the Gauley, Laurel-hill, and Chesnut-ridge; but of these Mr. Volney acknowledges that he has not sufficient documents.

The mountains of this long chain differ from those of Europe in having more regularity in their direction, greater continuity in their ridges, and less irregula rity in the line of their summits. They are also much less lofty. The highest peak of the Kaats-kill group, measured in 1798 by Peter de la Bigarre, was found to be 3549 feet above the level of the tide-way in Hudson's river. The summit of the Alleghanies near the source of the Potowmack, was calculated in 1789, by George Gilpin and James Smith, to be 3257 feet above the level of the sea. Otter Peak in Virginia, the highest land in all that part of the coun try, is supposed by Mr. Jefferson to be only 4000. The whole of this chain, therefore, so far from having a right to be compared with the Alps or the Pyrenees, can scarcely boast an equality in point of height with the mountains in the highlands of Scotland. The chain called the Blue ridge from the frontier of Pennsylvania to James river, says Mr. Volney, always exhibited to me the appearance of a terrace elevated ten or twelve hundred feet above the plain, with a very steep ascent, and a summit so even, that we scarcely perceive its undulations, or the few gaps that serve for passages across it. Its general outline

must consequently resemble the south ern Yorkshire wolds, when seen from the neighbourhood of York; nor can any part of the Alleghanies have a much more commanding aspect than that of the Cross Fell chain, as it appears from the banks of the Eden in the neighbour hood of Appleby, in Westmoreland.

Hudson's river not only breaks the continuity of the great chain, but marks also the separation of mountains which are entirely different from each other in their component parts. The Kaats-kill, the Blue ridge, the Alleghany, and in general all the chain as far as the angle of Georgia, are chiefly composed of sandstone. Other kinds of stone occur only as exceptions. The mountain between Harrisburg and Sunbury consists in part of granite; and there are numerous blocks of the same stone at the foot of the S. W. chain in Virginia. A few blocks of granite are also found at the gap made in the Blue ridge by the Potowmack: but the nucleus in that part is grey quartz; and between Fredericktown and Harper's ferry in the same ridge, a milky white quartz called arrowstone, is mixed with the sand-stone. The greatest exception is the long calcareous valley between the Blue ridge and the North mountain from Easton on the Delaware to the Alleghany knot, with a collateral slip of the same kind on the east side of the Blue ridge, from the Schuylkill to the gap made by the Potowmack. The limestone of both these tracts is generally of a pretty deep blue colour, often much broken, as if it had been jumbled together by violence; and where the strata are regularly inclined to the horizon, it is generally at an angle of 40 or 50°. Mr. Volney does not know that any fossil shells have been found in it. Strata of coal are found on the upper bank of the Potowmack. In Virginia the bed of James River rests on a bed of coal about four and twenty feet thick on an inclined stratum of granite, under one hundred and twenty feet of red clay. This sandstone region is covered with what Mr. Volney calls the middle forest, consisting of different species of oak, beech, maple, walnut, sycamore, acacia, mulberry, plum, ash, birch, sassafras and poplar on the side of the Atlantic, with the addition on the west, of the cherry, horse-chesnut, papaw, magnolia, and other deciduous trees; occasionally Bangled with the resinous ones, scattered

throughout the plain, and collected in clumps on the mountains.

4. The country between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi, from the great lakes to the gulf of Mexico, may be divided into three large districts very distinct from each other. The first lies between the lakes and the Ohio, forming what the Americans call the North-west Territory, which, for want of sufficient population, is not yet an established state, Its surface is nearly plain, with gentle risings; and on its western side, from the Wabash to the Mississippi, nothing is found but vast level meadows. It forms part of that high level already mentioned, which affords a bed for four of the great lakes, and in which are the sources of the waters that run partly into the Northern Ocean by the gulf of St. Lawrence, partly into the gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi, and partly into the Atlantic by the Mohawk, Hudson, and Susquehannah. The Alleghany mountains are in some respects only the breast-work of this flat, which almost equals them in height; and its northern and southern declivities are so gentle that, in the floods of winter, streams, navigable by boats, form a junction between the sources of the Wabash, which runs into the Ohio; the Miami, which rnns into lake Erie; the Huron, which falls into the entrance of the same lake; Grand River, which flows into lake Michigan, and several others. The soil is generally a bed of clay covered with excellent black mould, and resting on an immense stratum of horizontal crystallized primitive limestone, of a close smooth grain, and generally of a grey colour. The rivers, in consequence of the flatness of the surface and clayey nature of the soil, run even with the surface. The second district extends from the Ohio to the Tenesee, composing the states of Kentucky and Tenesee. It is traversed in its whole extent by lateral branches of the Alleghanies, steep in their declivities and narrow at their summits, except the Cumberland chain between the river of that name and the Teneste, which is thirty miles in breadth. Its fundamental stratuin is also of a limestone in lamine of one or more inches thick, covered by a kind of black, rich, loose and friable mould, which the streams and the rivers wear away, making for themselves two perpendicular banks from fifty to four hundred feet high, It is noticed

as a singularity in the rivers of Kentucky, that they flow more slowly near their sources and more rapidly afterwards: a proof that the upper part of their course is a flat country, and the lower one, at the entrance into the vale of the Ohio, down a more declining slope. The hills and vallies are covered with the deciduous trees of the middle forest, but much superior in size and vigour to those that grow on the Atlantic side of the chain. The third district is bounded to the north by the Apalachian chain, from which its rivers run into the lower part of the Mississippi and the gulf of Mexico. Its surface near the Apalachian chain is a little hilly, gradually sinking into a flat as it approaches the sea, at first rich and fertile, but near the coast sandy and bar ren. Concerning the composition of the Apalachian and Cumberland chain, Mr. Volney could procure no authentic information; he was therefore unable to assign the contiguity of the sandstone to the calcareous region, with precision.

The principal seat of coal in the west ern country is above Pittsburg on the Ohio, in the space between the Laurel mountains and the rivers Alleghany and Monongahela, where there is a stratum almost throughout at the mean depth of twelve or sixteen feet. This stratum is supported by the horizontal bed of limestone, and covered with strata of schistus and slate.

We have purposely confined ourselves to the facts brought forward in this part of the work, disposing them in the order which appeared best suited to a brief abstract; and have passed over the hypotheses and reasonings which Mr. Volney has founded on them: though, did our limits permit, we could have followed him with pleasure in his conjectures concerning the ancient lakes which he supposes must have occupied, at some very remote period, the upper part of the basons of the Ohio and Hudson, and particularly of all the rivers which intersect the Blue ridge. And this we should have done without any apprehension of diminishing our reverence for the writings of Moses as the vehicle of divine revelation. Whatever opinions may be entertained concerning the antiquity of our globe as a planet, and the changes which its surface has undergone with respect to the distribution of land and water, we have the concurring testimony of profane history and of all credible tradition, in sup

port of the comparatively recent creation of the human race. Mr. Volney himself in a learned dissertation of ancient chronology, published in the Encyclopedie Methodique, has shewn the perfect correspondence of the Greek and Hebrew historians in their accounts of ancient nations; with this advantage in favour of the latter, that their regular narrative extends to a much earlier æra. How long the matter of the earth had existed when it was first peopled with rational inhabitants, and through what different stages it had passed before it received a form suitable to their wants, are known only to Him with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Of these, Moses, we are persuaded, was as ignorant as ourselves. He might record the prevailing ideas of his own time; and we may reason on appear. ances as they gradually open to our knowledge, but they form no part of his divine legation or of our religious faith. Nothing, in our estimation, can be more injudicious, nothing can be more un friendly to the christian cause than an eager desire to maintain that the writers of the Old and New Testament were as supernaturally instructed by the Spirit of God in the principles of natural philosophy as in the essential articles of sacred truth.

With respect to the climate of the United States, the chief particulars pointed out by Mr. Volney are, that on the east of the mountains it is not only colder in winter, but also, though not generally noticed, hotter in summer than the coun tries under the same parallel in Europe; that the daily variations are also greater and more abrupt; and that in the basons of the Ohio and Mississippi, from the eastern termination of the Apalachian chain to the great lakes, it is less cold by three degrees of latitude than it is in the Atlantic states; or in other words, that those trees and plants which require a winter less cold and of shorter duration, are found three degrees farther north on the west side of the Alleghanies. These peculiarities Mr. Volney illus trates and proves by a long detail of facts partly founded on his own knowledge, and partly on the accounts of intelligent observers. But they are much too long to be transcribed, and could not be easily abridged. On the same account we are obliged to refer our readers to the work itself for the full and

minute investigation of the different winds that prevail in different seasons of the year and in different parts of the country, from which he attempts to ac count for these apparent anomalies. That part of his system which attributes the higher temperature of the western district to the influence of the trade wind, diverted from its course by the high land which bounds the gulf of Mexico, and forced by the direction of the coast up the bason of the Mississippi, is peculiarly ingenious and satisfactory.

The principal prevailing diseases in the United States are reduced to four. 1. Colds and catarrhs frequently terminating in pulmonary consumption, the natural effect of those sudden changes of temperature which are the distinguishing characteristics of the climate. 2. Defluxions on the gums with rottenness, and premature loss of teeth. 3. Autumnal intermittent fevers particularly endemic in places recently cleared, and in the neighbourhood of marshes or stagnant waters. 4. The yellow fever, which Mr. Volney decidedly pronounces to be an indigenous production of the country, though, at the same time, by no means positively denying its contagious cha

racter.

"Such (he concludes) are the chief characters of the soil and climate of the United States, of which I have traced as accurate a picture, as the model, so various in its extent, and so subject to local exceptions, will admit. It remains now with the reader, to form his own judgment respecting the advantages and inconveniences of a country become so celebrated, and destined by its geographical situation, as well as its political genius, to act so important a part on the stage of the world. I so mach the less pretend to influence the opiof others in this respect by giving my own, because I have frequently experienced, that on this subject more than any other, the tastes of people differ according to the feelings and prejudices of habit. Frequently have I heard opinions totally opposite advanced in companies of travellers in the United States from the various parts of Eutope. The Dane and the Englishman find fault with the heat of a climate, that appears moderate to the Spaniard and Venetian: the Polander and the native of Provence complain of humidity, where the Dutchman finds both the air and the soil a little too dry: opinions obviously arising from comparison with the native and accustomed climate of the individual. Still it is true, that all Europeans agree in condemning the extreme variableness of the weather from cold to hot, and from hot to cold but the Americans, who

consider this reproach almost as a personal offence, already defend their climate as their property, and have three powerful motives of partiality to it.

“These are individual self-love, common to

all men, and national vanity, which is every day growing greater; a habit contracted from the cradle, and become a second nature: and a pecuniary interest as dear to the state as to individuals, that of selling lands, and attracting foreign purchasers and foreign capitals.

With such motives it would be difficult to

persuade them that the United States are not the best country in the world: yet if the emigrant who wishes to settle, collect opinions from state to state, the inhabitants of the southern will deter him from fixing in those of the north by the length of the winter; the hardships of the severe cold; the expences thence arising for his dwelling, clothes, firing, &c.; the necessity of keeping his cattle in a stable half the year, and consequently of cultivating and laying in a stock of fodder, building barns, &c.; and, lastly, by the mo of the north, on the contrary, boasting his derate produce of the soil. The inhabitant health and activity, the effects of the coldness of his climate, the poorness of his land, and the necessity of labour, will decry the southern states for the insalubrity of their marshes and rice-grounds; the torment of their insects, flies and inoschettoes; the frequency the indolence and feebleness of constitution of their fevers; the intensity of their heat; thence arising, and producing idle habits, a dissipated life, abuse of liquors, love of gambling, &c.; all of them promoted likewise by the very richness of the soil and abundance of its produce, At the same time the inhabitant of Carolina will agree with him of Maine in decrying the central states, as liable to the inconveniences of both extremes, withont enjoying their advantages. Accordingly at Philadelphia I have heard Carolinians complain of heat, and Canadians of cold, because the people there know not how to take proper precautions against either. Lastly, if in a district of acknowledged unhealthiness the emigrant is desirous of precise information, every inhabitant assures him, that the focus of insalubrity is not in his farm, but a neigh bour's, and that the fever comes to him from a foreign soil.

The fact is, every individual, every nation, while they complain of their soil and situation, notwithstanding prefer their country, their city, their farm, from self-love, from in. terest, and above all, from a motive less felt, though far more potent, that of habit. The Egyptian prefers his Nile, the Arab his scorching sands, the Tartar his open wilds, the Huron his immense forests, the Hindoo his fertile plains, the Samoyede and Eskimo the barren and frozen shores of their northern seas: neither of them would forsake, would change his native soil, and this solely from the force of that habit, of which so much is said,

but all the magic power of which is never known, till we quit our own circle, to experience the effects of foreign habits.

Habit is a physical and moral atmosphere, which we breathe without perceiving it, and the peculiar and distinguishing qualities of which we cannot know, but by breathing a different air. Accordingly they who possess the greatest understanding, if they would talk of the habits of others without ever having stepped out of their own, that is in fact of sensations they have never experienced, are in reality no more than blind men discoursing of colours. And as backwardness in passing such judgments constitutes that rational spirit, so much decried by the blind and hypocritical under the name of the spirit of philosophy, I shall content myself with saying, that in comparison with the countries I have seen, and without renouncing the prejudices of my own feelings, and native constitution, the climate of Egypt, Syria, France, and all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, appears to me far superior in goodness, healthiness, and pleasantness, to that of the United States: that within the circuit of the United States themselves, had I to make choice on the Atlantic coast, it would be the point of Rhode Island, or the south-west chain in Virginia between the Rappahannock and the Roanoak; in the western country, it would be the borders of lake Erie, a hundred years hence, when they will have ceased to be annoyed with fever; but at present, on the faith of travellers, it would be those hills of Georgia and Florida, that are not so leeward of any marsh."

We have quoted this passage at full length that our countrymen may profit by the judgment of an enlightened foreigner, and be assisted in forming a sober estimate of the advantages to be gained and the disadvantages likely to be in curred, by leaving their native land and settling in a climate so dissimilar to their own. Whatever Englishmen may think, Frenchmen, we are persuaded, will resolve to suffer almost any oppression at home, rather than emigrate to the back settlements of America, when they read Mr. Volney's relation of his visits to the wretched French colonies at Gallipolis on the Ohio, and at fort St. Vincent's on the Wabash: the former established in the year 1791 in consequence of magnificent proposals published at Paris by a number of persons interested in the sale of lands, who called themselves the Scioto Company: the latter more than sixty years since, when the French were masters of Louisiana and Canada. Frenchmen, indeed, in Mr. Volney's opinion are, more than all other Europeans, un

fitted by natural disposition and habit for the situation of an American farmer. The reasons he assigns for this opinion are so striking and characteristic that we cannot resist the temptation of transcrib. ing two or three paragraphs.

"The American settler of English or German descent, naturally cold and phlegmatic, sedately forms a plan of managing a farm. He turns his mind, not ardently, but without ceasing, to every thing conducive to its forlers have laid to his charge, he become idle, mation or improvement If, as some travelit is not till he has obtained the object of his pursuit, which he considers as a competency.

"The Frenchman, on the contrary, with his troublesome and restless activity, is led by enthusiasm on some sudden fit, to undertake a project, of which he has calculated neither the expence nor the difficulties. More ingenious, perhaps, he rallies the slowness of his German or English rival, which he compares to that of an ox: but the German or the

Englishman will answer with his cool good sense, that the patience of the ox is better adapted to the plough than the fire of the met. tlesome racer. And in fact it often happens, that the Frenchman, after having undone, corrected, and altered what he had begun, and having harassed his mind with desires and fears, is at length disgusted, and relinquishes the whole.

does not rise very early; but when he has once risen, he spends the whole day in an uninterrupted series of useful labours. At breakfast he coldly gives his orders to his wife, who receives them with coldness and timidity, and obeys them without contradiction. If the weather be fair, he goes out, ploughs, wet, he takes an inventory of the contents of fells trees, makes fences, or the like: if it be his house, barn, and stables, repairs the doors, windows, or locks, drives nails, makes chairs or tables, and is constantly employed in rendering his habitation secure, convenient, and neat. With these dispositions, sufficient to himself, he will sell his farm, if an opportu nity offer, and retire into the woods thirty or forty miles from the frontier, to form a new settlement. There he will spend years in fella stable, then a barn; clearing the ground, ing trees, making for himself first a hut, then and sowing it, &c. His wife, patient and serious as himself, will second his endeavours on her part, and they will remain sometimes six months without seeing the face of a stranger: but at the expiration of four or five years they will have acquired an estate, that ensures a subsistence to their family.

“The American settler, slow and silent,

The French settler, on the contrary, rises carly in the morning, if it be only to talk of it. He consults his wife on what he shall do, and listens to her advice. It would be a mijacle if they were always of the same ope