Who placed it in its right position? Possibly the ingenious individual with whom I am conversing. Were I seriously to impute to this most useful yet inanimate machine, the actual government of the works, and even the settlement of the sales and purchases, you I would not fail to call me a madman or a fool. Yet precisely of the same degree of madness and folly is that philosopher guilty, who goes no further than his second cause, forgets his Creator, and ascribes the orderly arrangement of the universe, and all its glorious phenomena, to the LAWS

OF ATTRACTION AND MOTION.

(To be concluded.)

SCENES OF THE UPPER MISSOURI.

The following short article, which we insert as affording a pleasing variety to our work, not inconsistent with its general design, is from a correspondent of the New York Commercial Advertiser.

St. Louis, Oct. 20.-Since writing the above, which I had no means of transmitting to this place sooner than by my own packet, I have succeeded in descending the river in safety for 2000 miles, in a small skiff, with two men at the oars, and myself at the helm, steering its course the whole way among the snags. This part of my journey has been the most rugged, yet, the most delightful of my whole tour. Our skiff was generally landed at night on the point of some projecting barren sand bar, where we straightened our limbs on our buffalo robes, secure from the annoyance of mosquitos, and out of the walks of Indians and grizzly bears. In addition to the opportunity which this des cending tour has afforded me of visiting all the tribes of Indians on the river, and leisurely filling my port folio with the beautiful sce

nery which its shores presentthe sportsman's fever was roused and satisfied the swan, ducks, geese and pelican-the deer, antelope, elk and buffalo, were stretched by our rifles, and sometimes"pull boys, pull! a war party! for your lives pull! or we are gone!" I often landed my skiff and mounted the green carpeted bluffs, whose soft grassy tops invited me to recline, where I was at once lost in contemplation-Soul melting scenery that was about me! A place where the mind could think volumes, but the tongue must be silent that would speak, and the hand palsied that would write. A place where a Divine would confess that he never had fancied Paradise-where the painter's palette would lose its beautiful tints-the blood-stirring notes of eloquence would die in their utterance-and even the soft tones of sweet musick would hardly preserve a spark to light the soul again, that had passed this sweet delirium.

I mean the Prairie, whose enamelled plains that lie beneath me, in distance soften into sweetness like an essence: whose thousand thousand velvet-covered hills (surely never formed by chance, but grouped in one of nature's sportive moods)-tossing and leaping down with steep or graceful declivities to the river's edge, as if to grace its pictured shores and make it" a thing to look upon." I mean the Prairie at sunset, when the green hill-tops are turned into gold-and their long shadows of melancholy are thrown over the valleyswhen all the breathings of day are hushed, and nought but the soft notes of the retiring dove, can be heard, or the still softer and more plaintive notes of the wolf, who sneaks through these scenes of enchantment, and mournfully howls as if lonesome, and lost in the too beautiful quiet and stillness about him. I mean this prairie, where Heaven sheds its purest light and

sheds its richest tints-this round topp'd bluff, where the foot treads soft and light; whose steep sides and lofty head rear me to the skies o'erlooking yonder pictured vale of beauty-this solitary cedar post, which tells a tale of grief-grief that was keenly felt, and tenderly, but long since softened in the march of time, and lost. Oh, sad and tear-starting contemplation! sole tenant of this stately mound, how solitary thy habitation! Here Heaven wrested from thee thy ambition, and made thee sleeping monarch of this land of silence.

Stranger! Oh, how the mystic web of sympathy links my soul to thee and thy afflictions! I knew thee not, but it was enough-this tale was told, and I, a solitary wanderer through thy land, have stop ped to drop familiar tears upon thy grave. Pardon this gush from a stranger's eyes, for they are all that thou canst have in this strange land, where friends and dear relations are not allowed to pluck a flower and drop a tear, to freshen recollection of endearments past. Stranger, adieu. With streaming eyes, I leave thee again, and thy fairy land, to peaceful solitude. My pencil has faithfully traced thy beautiful habitation, and long shall live in the world, and familiar, the name of "Floyd's grave." GEO. CATLIN.

from the pen of Dr. Watts, would be gratifying to the curious. But there is in this, such an inherent excellence, such an unction of wisdom and piety, as to show it worthy to be placed among the best productions of its distinguished author, and to render it eminently edifying to all practical Christians, especially to those who have suffered the loss by death of their beloved offspring.

The loss you have sustained is of a tenderer and more distressing kind: yet let us see, whether there are not sufficient springs of consolation flowing all round you to allay the smart of so sharp a sorrow, and may the Lord open your eyes, as he did the eyes of Hagar in the wilderness, to espy the spring of water when she was dying with thirst, and her child over against her ready to expire-Genesis, 21. 19. Have you lost two lovely children? Did you make them your idols? If you did, God has saved you from idolatry: if you did not, you have your God still, and a creature cannot be miserable who has a God. The little words, my God, have infinitely more sweetness in them than my sons or my daughters. Were they very desirable blessings, your God calls you then to the nobler sacrifice. Can you give up these to him at his call? God delights in such a sacrifice.

Were they your all? So was Isaac when Abraham was required to part with him at God's altar; are you not a daughter of Abraham? Then imitate his faith, his self-denial, his obedience, and make evidences of such a spiritual relation to him, shine brighter on the solemn occasion. Has God taken them from your arms? and had you not given them to God before? Had you not devoted them to Him in baptism? Are you displeased that God calls for his own? Was not your heart

sincere in the resignation of them to him? Show, then, madam, the sincerity of your heart in leaving them in the hand of God. Do you say they are lost? Not out of God's sight and God's world, though they have gone out of our sight and our world.

All live to God. You may hope the spreading covenant of grace has sheltered them from the second death. They live, though not with you. Are you ready to complain you have brought forth for the grave? it may be so, but not in vain. Isaiah Ixv. 23-They shall not labour in vain nor bring forth for trouble (i. e. sorrow without hope,) for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their off spring with them. This has been a sweet text to many a mother, when their children have been called away betimes.

And the prophet Jeremy, xxxi. 15-17, has very comfortable words to allay the same sorrows. Did you please yourself in what comforts you might have derived from them in maturer years? But, madam, do you consider sufficiently that God has taken them away from the evil to come, and hid them in the grave from the prevailing and mischievous temptations of a degenerate age?

My brother's wife in London, has buried 7 or 8 children, and among them all her sons: this thought has reconciled her to the providence of God, that the temptations of young men in this age are so exceedingly great, and she has seen so many of the young gentlemen of her acquaintance so shamefully degenerate, that she wipes her tears for the sons she has buried, and composes her soul to patience and thankfulness.

Perhaps God has by this stroke prevented a thousand unknown sorrows. A worthy husband is a living comfort, and may God preserve and restore him to you with

joy! Food, raiment, safety, peace, liberty, and religion, access to the mercy seat, hope of Heaven, all these are daily matters of thankfulness.

Good madam, let not one sorrow bury them all-show that you are a Christian, by making it appear that religion has supports in it which the world doth not know. What can a poor worldling do, but mourn over earthly blessings departed, and go down with them comfortless to the grave? But methinks a Christian should lift up the head as partaking of higher hopes. May the blessed Spirit be your comforter. Madam, endeavour to employ yourself in some business amusement of life continually, lest a solitary and inactive frame of mind tempt you to sit brooding over your sorrows, and nurse them to a dangerous size. Turn your thoughts often to the brighter scenes of heaven and the resurrection.

or

You have so many excellent comforters round you, that I even blush to send what I have writ, yet since the narrowness of my paper has excluded two or three thoughts, which may not be unimportant or useless on this mournful occasion, I will insert them here. You know, madam, the great and blessed God had but one Son, and he gave him up a sacrifice, and devoted him to a bloody death, out of love to such sinners as you and I.

Can you show your gratitude to God in a more evident and acceptable manner, than by willingly resigning your two sons to him at the call of his providence? This act of willing resignation turns a painful affliction into a holy sacrifice. Are the two dearest things torn from the heart of a mother? Then you may ever sit so much the looser to the world, and you have the fewer dangerous attachments to this life. 'Tis a happi

ness for a Christian not to have the heart-strings tied too fast to any thing beneath God and Heaven. Happy the soul who is ready to remove at the divine summons. The fewer engagements we have

on earth the more we may live above, and have our thoughts more fixed on things divine and heavenly. May this painful stroke be thus sanctified, and lead you nearer to God. Amen. I. W.

THE MOSAICAL AND MINERAL GEOLOGY, Illustrated and Compared. By W. M. Higgins, F. G. S.

London. 1832.

(Concluded from page 76.)

But, to turn from a heavy discussion, we will enliven our readers with some passages on other topics from the work before us. A most important question in geology, as connected with the disclosure of Holy Writ, is the period of the world's creation. It is demonstrable from facts that it was not eternal; but facts equally plain speak to a very lengthened duration. Many Christians have felt alarmed at these facts, lest they should contradict the Mosaic, that is, the inspired, account of the creation. Let us look first at the facts, and then their compatibility with the Mosaic account. They are summed up as follows by our author.

"The crust of the earth, as we have already stated, consists of a number of beds of various substances, irregularly alternating with each other. It has been proved by analogy, that these beds were formed by causes still in action, in a manner similar to those that are now being deposited in the beds of rivers and lakes, and that the formation of each stratum requires a considerable portion of time. But, if it require a length of time to form a single deposit, how much greater time will be necessary to form a series, each differing from the other in mineralogical characters? Circumstances which will produce a calcareous deposit, will not produce an argillaceous. An entire revolution of local circumstances is absolutely necessary, in order to change the character of the bed. Admitting, therefore, that the strata composing the crust of our globe were formed with a rapidity of which we have no conCh. Adv.-VOL. XI.

ception, from a variety of circumstances, particularly the greater surface temperasently speak, it is quite apparent that they ture of our earth, of which we shall prerequired considerable time for their deposition.

"But again, all these beds are crowded with organic remains, and each has those peculiar to itself. In certain beds we find the remains of animals which cannot elsewhere be found through the whole series, but seem only to have existed at that particular time when these beds were forming. Certain other beds contain, some in great abundance, the remains of oviparous

animals; but neither above nor below them can an individual specimen be found. And there are other strata, and these among the highest in the series, which contain the bones of mammalia, but below them they have been sought for in vain. Every step, therefore, that we take in the invesigation, impresses us the more deeply with the conviction that time must have long shaken its hasty wing over this terrestrial

globe, and that the earth often completed its accustomed journey around the great orb of day after its creation, before the Eternal God of all placed man upon it, as the perfection of his work, and the object

of his love.

"But if we would look still further into this question, we must examine the relative position of rocks towards each other. The natural position of all sediments would, of course, be horizontal, or nearly

80.

But when we come to the investigation of rocks as they are, we find that they have been subjected to the most violent disturbances. Here we find a series tilted by the action of subterranean fires, and upon it horizontal undisturbed strata. In another place we find the primitive rocks thrust through a number of those that contain organic remains, forming chains of snow-capt mountains; and upon their flanks we trace a series of calcareous beds in their undisturbed position. What more sufficient proof that time was necessary for the formation of these beds can be required or given? Geologists have been charged with presumption in their deductions, but what can be clearer than the deductions they form from such phenomeR

na as the above? Here are a series of rocks upheaved by ancient volcanic action, and others resting upon them undisturbed; surely it requires little argument to prove that the horizontal beds could not have formed when the others were upheaved, that an entirely new state of things must have been instituted before they could have been deposited, and, consequently, that a considerable time must have transpired between the elevation of the one series, and the formation of the other.

"It is not requisite for the proof of our proposition to enumerate all the phenomena presented by rocks. Wherever we examine them, we observe the combined action of water and fire; and that the several localities have at one time been beneath, at another above, the waters. Sometimes we trace the action of subterranean fires without any visible proof, except the disturbance the rocks have suffered; and at other times we find the fissures through which the liquefied rock has been cast, as well as the bed that was poured over the surface. Above these, we may observe the horizontal strata, and, perhaps, the entire series may have been afterwards exposed to diluvian action, and portions of it swept away by the force of an inconceivably vio

lent flood.

"Connect with these circumstances the fact that all the deposits have been formed under different circumstances, and the demonstration of our proposition will be tolerably complete.

"The circumstances under which a bed was formed, must be determined by its mineralogical composition, and the organic remains it contains: if it consist of rounded pebbles and angular flints, we know that it must have been formed under far more violent circumstances than if it consisted of clay or sand. If the stratum contain remains of animals which are known to live in seas, we say that it is a marine deposit; if its remains are fresh water, we call the deposit lacustrine, or fresh water; and if they should be terrestrial, we must judge of its origin either from the mineralogical character of the bed, or the fossils which may be associated with it, for it is possible that terrestrial animals may be washed into the sea, although it is far more probable that they will find their graves in the bed of an inland lake or river.

"But how are we to account for the alternation of terrestrial and marine beds unless we allow that a considerable portion of time was occupied in their deposition? Let us suppose that in the beds of our rivers and lakes depositions are going on, and that the remains of fresh water animals are deposited in them; before it be possible that the entire deposition can be changed and marine animals entombed, it will be necessary that the sea should be let in upon the entire district, either by the

depression of the district itself, or the elevation of the present bed of the ocean. These, however, are phenomena which are continually observed by geologists, and, consequently, the same circumstances must have interfered to produce them.

"The formation of strata, therefore, must have required a considerable time, and it is equally certain that they were deposited at a period antecedent to the universal deluge.

"The person who has taken the slightest notice of geological phenomena, can. not have failed to observe that immediately beneath the vegetable soil, in almost all places, there are beds of gravel, sand, or clay, with rounded pebbles. These beds are composed of the detritus, or destroyed materials of older rocks, called by geologists diluvium; and are, in all probability, the result of the universal deluge. No fact in geology, therefore, is more certain than that, after all the strata which compose the crust of our globe had been formed, the entire earth was overwhelmed with a universal flood. Where the water necessary to deluge the world could be obtained by natural causes, is, perhaps, difficult to conceive; or what became of it when obtained; but it is less extraordinary,' says Mr. Greenough, that water should have stood in some former period at a height exceeding that of our highest mountains, than that strata should have been formed without a precipitate, that gravel should have been rounded without attrition,' or valleys excavated without a flood.

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"There have, however, been some who have rejected the Scriptures on the ground that they will believe nothing that they cannot understand. Nature, say they, is our preceptress; but how often has she failed to answer their interrogations, and when she has spoken, how often has she given the lie to their principles. But this is not the only instance in which natural phenomena have corroborated the sacred records, and left the pretended admirers of nature as much in ignorance of causes as they were before they consulted her oracle. Such men, to be consistent with their own assertions, must have formed an enormous estimate of their mental powers, rejecting, as unworthy their belief, one-half of those beautiful truths which the investigations of philosophy have discovered, but for which it cannot account.

"If, therefore, the beds of gravel which cover over all the strata were formed by the diluvian waters, and also the valleys which are cut out of the strata themselves; then the whole of the fossiliferous rocks were formed previous to the universal deluge. The period which intervened between the creation of man and the deluge is, evidently, insufficient to have accomplished their deposition; they must, therefore, have been formed previous to the creation of the human species.