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how little reason. In the spring of 1835, the water of the Dwina rose fourteen or fifteen feet in a few hours, lifting up the whole ice in a compact mass. At length, the cover broke with a crash like the roar of artillery. Where the banks consist of stones, or rock, the ice tears up these with it, and deposits them in long lofty ridges along the banks, or sweeps them down to the sea. Similar ridges, at various elevations, surround many of the northern lakes. But even the southern provinces of Russia are not free from vast changes, caused by the inundations of the modern rivers, which, on the melting of the snows in spring, rise forty feet, or more, above their summer level, convert the whole ground into vast chains of lakes, and undermining the cliffs, cause large masses of the loose friable materials to fall down in enormous land-slips, furnishing inexhaustible materials for the rapidly increasing deltas at their mouths.

* The hands of man have also produced, and are still effecting, considerable changes in large tracts of Russia, by the destruction of her forests, and the conversion of her northern marshes into arable lands. A few centuries only have elapsed since northern Russia was a dense virgin forest, with vast intervening marshes and lakes, but now her gigantic pine-trees are felled, lakes and marshes are drained, and the culture of corn is extended to the White Sea. The natural recipients of so much moisture having been destroyed, we may, (exclusive of the great spring debacle, which, in an extreme climate, may have been always nearly the same,) in great measure, account for the sensible diminution, in late years, in the waters of the Volga, and other great streams, whose affluents rise in those very countries where large tracts are now drained.'

But it is time to bring our review of this important work to a close. There are a few points on which we might have wished to express our dissent from some speculations of the authors: particularly regarding the origin of the crystalline formations of Finland and Sweden,

and the evidence for their palæozoic epoch, being in reality the protozoic—the earliest dawn of life and organization on the globe-but we have travelled too far with them in friendly communion to begin a dispute so near our journey's end. We are too grateful for the light which their labours have shed on the geological structure and history of so large a portion of the European continent, or, more correctly, of so large a portion of the habitable globe, to indulge in trivial criticism on small points of minute detail. It was, indeed, a bold undertaking to fill the blank which Russia but a few years ago presented on the geological map of Europe—and well has it been accomplished in the beautiful maps and carefully prepared volumes before us. We have, indeed, spoken chiefly of the first volume, in which Sir R. Murchison has given the results of the whole journey to the general reader in the English language; but the second, written in French by his associates, and containing the descriptions of more than four hundred species of fossils, will not be less valued by the scientific geologist. In its preparation they have been assisted in particular departments by some of the most eminent palæontologists of the day: D'Orbigny, Agassiz, Brongniart, in France; -Owen, Lonsdale, and Morris, in our own country. We rejoice to see scientific men thus working in the common cause of advancing truth, without distinction of country or of language, and setting an example of brotherly assistance which politicians would do well to follow. And it is right that it should be so, for science is undoubtedly the common inheritance of the human race, and not of one age or one people. And well may men when contemplating the mighty revolutions revealed to them by geology -revolutions involving not kingdoms or empires, but whole continents, and the great globe itself—forget the puny political distinctions and national animosities by which the one family has been too long divided. Even in this region we see a series of events, before which the rise and fall of empires is as nothing. We see vast masses of sedimentary matter distributed in uniform horizontal layers over immense spaces, and each layer exhibiting its own peculiar group of life and organized beings. These formations must have taken place beneath the waters of the ocean, above which they have now been raised, not by many isolated partial movements, but in one continuous mass, from the Ural to the Baltic on the one hand, from the Arctic ocean to the Euxine on the other. In this series of mighty events, the elevation of the Ural chain and the filling its rocks with veins and ores of metal, appear but as minute episodes, important, indeed, to man, but small in the general history of the planet, on whose convexity that chain forms a scarce perceptible wrinkle. Truly may we conclude with the authors, that every • effort made by man to read new lessons in the ancient book • of nature has augmented his admiration of the works of the • Creator,' his profound conviction of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness wherewith they have been formed, and that every onward step in the path of natural science but more impressively proclaims, in the words of the sublime poet, that

“La gloria di Colni che tutto muove

Per l'universo penetra e risplende."

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ART. II. Newspaper Press and Political Literature of Spain.

(1.) Gaceta de Madrid.—(2.) Eco del Comercio.—(3.) Clamor Publico. (4.) Heraldo.-5.) Espanol.—(6.) Espectador.7.) Universal. (8.) Esperanza. (9.) Tiempo.-(10.) Pensamento de la Nacion.-11.) Catolico. (12.) Guia del Comercio.

(13.) Faro.—(14.) El Correo.—(15.) El Popular, &c. It is a strange but an unquestionable fact, that the genius, learning, and intellectual power of Spain shone forth brightly when the rest of Europe, with the exceptions of Attica and Etruria, were steeped in barbarism. At a period, more than twenty centuries ago, when Gaul and Germany were covered with forests and morasses, and their inhabitants as wild and untutored as backwoodsmen, the population of Iberia, guided and instructed by the Phænicians, knew not merely how to construct, but to guide and govern ships—to dig into the bowels of the earth in search of mines and minerals—to melt and model metals in a most cunning fashion—to spin, and weave, and dye in brilliant colours—to manufacture arms—to build cities, and to defend them by regular fortifications,

Roman civilization found in no part of the world a soil more fruitful in great men than Spain--men whose renown contributed to enhance her glory and consolidate her greatness. The geographer, Pomponius Mela, and the agriculturist, Columella, were both born in Spain ; the literary celebrities, to use a word borrowed from the French, and recently adopted by usage, if not sanctioned by critical authority-the literary celebrities, Quintilian, Florus, Seneca, Martial, Lucan, and Silius Italicus, were all Iberian; and among those highest in station and power, the liberal patron of letters, the active and austere Adrian—Trajan, whose virtues were so remarkable for his time,—and the brave and warlike Marcus Aurelius, may be mentioned as natives of the Spanish peninsula.

In the barbarous irruption of the people of the North, Spain suffered less than other lands. The Arabs, who expelled the Visigoths, introduced a knowledge and a civilization that had never expired in the East. Numerous scientific establishments were founded by them at Cordova, Toledo, Grenada, Seville, and Valencia. Their schools acquired a universal repute, and were frequented by a considerable number of Western Christians.

Agriculture and irrigation were professed and practised as liberal sciences-the vine, the olive, the palm, the cotton, the fig-tree and sugar-cane were cultivated; the culture and pro

cence.

duction of silk was an ordinary and every-day avocation; and the manufacturers of Spain then produced tissues of worsted, cotton, and silk-stuffs spangled with gold and silver-carpets of Persian pattern and texture-red leather, costly armoury, and housings and saddles of extraordinary taste and magnifi

Numerous were the inventions that penetrated into Europe by the aid of the Moors settled in the Spanish peninsula. Chemistry, pharmacy, and the art of distillation were largely indebted to them; they introduced algebra, almanacs, numerals, the fabrication of sealing-wax and paper, the knitting of stockings, and many other inventions not necessary here to specify. Architecture was also largely indebted to them, as the remains of mosques and palaces mutely but eloquently attest; but their zeal and public spirit were even more conspicuously prominent in works contributing to what we now call the material prosperity of the country. Even while we write, evidences of the fact are patent to every eye; for it is impossible to travel through any portion of the South of Spain without being struck by the erection of bridges, canals, and reservoirs-of roads, embankments, and fountains, which display the solicitude of the sovereigns for the people they governed. The bridge of the Guadalquivir, by which you enter Cordova, is a work of the Moorish kings; and the aqueduct which for six centuries supplied Seville with the water necessary for its consumption, is also a monument of their wisdom and beneficence.

These facts imply that public instruction was then much more generally diffused than we in our ignorant vanity allow. Instead of being concentered in the more elevated classes, as among the people of antiquity, or chiefly confined to the upper and middle classes, as in our own day, it is plain that, in Moorish times, it was more generally and more equally distributed. The proof of this may be found in the quantity of inscriptions written in the language of the people in all the structures raised by the Moors. The custom of writing presupposes a habit of reading; for why take the trouble of writing in public places, if the general public, pioneers and all could not decypher, understand, or at least spell out a meaning? It may be answered, that there was no newspaper press in those days; it is true, there was not. But people communicated their wants and wishes very speedily, nevertheless, and communicated intelligence as quickly as the Jews of Poland during the late war, or the Moors of Morocco and Algiers do now, without putting pen to paper. If there were not newspapers there were numerous beacons and belfries used for the purpose of conveying intelligence, and numberless libraries, which supplied, in some sort, the want of newspapers. In the kingdom of Grenada, in the twelfth century, when the population was only three millions, there were seventy libraries. That these libraries were considerable, in point of extent and variety, there can be little doubt; for in that of the Caliphs alone there were 600,000 volumes, or nearly as many as are contained in the Royal Library of Paris. At the end of the fifteenth century, this happy state of civilization existing, and existing without a newspaper press, was altogether changed by the fortune of war. In the shock, everything perished-agriculture, commerce, industry, public instruction. The people

which had created these wonders were swept away. Spain became a feudal land, subject to the omnipotence of the Romish priesthood, the tyranny of the Inquisition, and a second time lost that superiority for which she was in the first instance partially indebted to Roman institutions, and in a still greater degree to the enterprising, ingenious, and active spirit of the Arabs.

For the three hundred years that have since elapsed, Spain has produced considerable poets, excellent painters, good historians, able commanders, and learned lawyers, but not one great newspaper writer or journalist. It is true that the newspaper or the journal is a thing in Spain of very modern growth, but the political pamphlet has been known to Spain for more than a century; and yet, with the exception of Jovellanos, there has scarcely been an able pamphleteer. Whence arises this strange fact, for strange it undoubtedly is? From this, as

? we conceive, that since the institution of what was called the Holy Office under Philip II., towards the end of the sixteenth century, the Spaniards had never the opportunity to think aloud freely, still less the liberty of publishing their thoughts through a free press. Liberty of thought has, till within the last few years, existed in a lesser degree at Madrid and Toledo than in the seat of the Papacy. No Italian inquisitor ever issued, like Torquemada, in the space of eighteen years, 107,541 sentences of condemnation, of which 10,220 were of death, and 97,321 of infamous punishments.

The system of education pursued in Spain, too, interfered to prevent anything like political writing or journalism. It was calculated to enslave the human mind. Education if education that could be called which taught the student nothing useful to himself

or to his country—was wholly confined to the upper ranks.

The physical and mathematical sciences, to which the world owes, in a great degree, its progress, were

* Llorente Historia de la Inquisicion.

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