4th, That when we behold more than half of our globe divided into symmetrical areas, which, within a limited time, have undergone certain known movements, we obtain some insight into the system by which the crust of the globe has been modified during its long cycles of change. But while we derive this important infor island. In order to confirm these views, graphical distribution of organic beings is Mr. Darwin points out the great proba- elucidated by the discovery of former bility of a general subsidence in the Pacific, centres, from which the germs could be disand he states that, within the lagoon of seminated; and Keeling Island, proofs of subsidence may be deduced from many falling trees, and from a ruined storehouse, and that these movements seem to take place at the time of severe earthquakes which affect the island of Sumatra, six hundred miles distant. As there are undoubted proofs that Sumatra is rising, he infers that, as Sumatra rises, the other end of the lever descends-Keel-mation from the labors of almost microing Island thus subsiding, and acting as an scopic insects, we cannot but express our index of the ascending movement of the astonishment at the vast and permanent bottom of the Indian Ocean. At Vanikoro, additions which they have made to the too, where recent subsidence is indicated solid fabric of the globe. Were we to by its structure, violent earthquakes are unite into one mass the immense coral known to have occurred. reefs, 700 miles long, and the numberless coral islands, some of which are 40 or 50 miles in diameter, and if we add to these all the coralline limestone and the other formations, whether calcareous or siliceous, that are the works of insect labor, we should have an accumulation of solid mat1st, That linear spaces of great extent ter which would compose a planet or a are undergoing movements of an astonish-satellite, at least one of the smaller ing uniformity, and that the bands of elevation and subsidence alternate. After pointing out the areas of subsidence and elevation in the Southern Ocean, which our readers will find laid down in a map by Dr. Nichol,* Mr. Darwin has deduced from his inquiries the following results : 2d, That the points of eruption (volcanoes, &c.) all fall upon the areas of elevation. 3d, That certain coral formations acting as monuments over subsided land, the geo *The following are the leading facts indicated by this Map:-The West India Islands, the west coast of South America, and the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, extending from the American coast to the Sandwich Islands, and including them, constitutes an area of elevation. This area is succeeded by an area of subsidence, including all the rest of the Pacific Ocean and its islands, and also all Australia. This, again, is followed by an extensive area of elevation, including, at its remotest part, Ceylon and all the Indian Islands to the east of it, Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippine Islands, the Ladrones, &c. Within a curved boundary of this area, in the Chinese Sea, north of Borneo, there is an area of subsidence. To the west of Ceylon, a large portion of the Indian Ocean, including the Maldiva Islands and those to the south of them, and the Egmont Isles forms an area of subsidence, extending probably through Keeling Island (east long. 198° 45', and south lat. 11°) to the Australian coast. Again, the eastern coast of Africa, including Madagascar, the Mauritius, and all the adjacent islands south of the Equator, and to the west of the 59th parallel of east longitude, form an area of elevation. The north and south extremities of the Red Sea have experienced an elevation, while the middle part of it has subsided. The general elevation of the Red Sea may have formed a part of the Madagascar area, the subsidence of its middle being produced probably by elevations to the east or west of it. planets, between Mars and Jupiter. And if such a planet could be so constructed, may we not conceive, that the solid materials of a whole system of worlds might have been framed by the tiny but longcontinued labors of beings that are invisible! Compared with the edifices of coral life, how contemptible in magnitude are those of man, even when despotic power has combined the labors of thousands of its slaves. His gigantic monuments-his colossal temples,-structures which time even reduces to their elements, stand in humiliating contrast with the mountain pyramids of insects, which have reared their subterranean palaces where Neptune reigns. While man tramples under foot, and crushes at every step he takes, myriads of those helpless laborers, the day of retribution arrives, when his war-ship, with its thousand inmates, fortified by ribs of oak and bars of iron, is shivered into atoms against the coral breakwaters of the deep. Although the map of which we have spoken exhibits only the changes in the earth and ocean beds in the southern regions, and even there only in particular localities, yet it is equally true that great revolutions of subsidence and elevation have taken place over the whole surface of the globe, and though not indicated by coral reefs and islands, they are displayed in geological mass will rise in the form of a rounded cone or hill, breaking through the strata, and bearing the uplifted portions of them upon its sloping sides. If the strata lifted up into an oblique position are Nos. 1, 2, and formations, which attest not only their existence, but their repetition. When Cuvier was exploring along with Brongniart, the formations which lie above the chalk bed in the vicinity of Paris, he encountered phenomena which he had in vain striven to ex-3, it is manifest that the mountain must be plain. On a subsequent occasion, in company with his friend at Fontainbleau, he suddenly exclaimed, "J'ai trouvé le naud de l'affaire." "Et quel est il ?" said Brongniart. "C'est qu'il y a dee terrains marins et des terrains d'eau douce," replied Cuvier, that is, the phenomena which have perplexed us are produced by successive alternations of fresh and salt water deposits, a fact which places it beyond a doubt, not only that alternate subsidences and elevations have taken place, but that after the formations that were deposited at the bottom of the sea had been elevated, they were covered with fresh water which deposited strata of a different kind, and that these new strata were afterwards covered by the ocean, and again raised to their present level. Dr. Nichol has illustrated this grand truth by the geological structure of the south-eastern counties of England, where a fresh-water formation is interposed between two formations of salt water, the uppermost of which is the chalk formation, which has been subsequently upheaved by some stupendous revolution, so as to form the grand chalk cliffs on the coasts of France and Britain, in which the rent forming the English Channel has been subsequently excavated, probably, during the historic period. Dr. of more recent origin than the strata Nos. The interesting information which Elie de 2. Transition formation. 4. Vosges Sandstone, or (New Red.) 5. Bunter Sandstein, Muschel Kaulk Keuper, (Triassic system.) 6. Jura Chalk, (Oolitic Limestone.) 6. Greensand and Chalk. 8. Lower tertiary formation. 9. Upper tertiary formation. 10. Ancient alluvial land. 11. Recent alluvial land. TO THEIR AGE. * But independent of this class of phenomena, there are others equally unequivocal, which have led geologists to establish successive epochs in the physical history of the earth, to determine even, though in a rude calendar, the ages of the different mountain groups which have at different periods been elevated by subterranean power. Nichol has illustrated this great fact, which we owe to M. Elie de Beaumont, by this SYSTEMS OF MOUNTAIN CHAINS ACCOrding geologist's sections of the different strata which lie at the base or cover the flanks of the different mountain chains in the old and new world. Though debarred from the use of diagrams, we hope to be able to make our readers understand this important truth. Let us suppose a certain number of horizontal strata or beds, whose relative order of deposition is marked by the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c., and let us also suppose that a mass of melted rocks is protruded through these strata upwards by a subterranean force, then it is obvious that this melted 1. System of Westmoreland and the Hundsruck.-This system includes the slate rocks of Westmoreland, the southern chain * Systems I. and III. are not represented in Elie de Beaumont's chart, nor referred to by Dr. Nichol. As Dr. Nichol has not entered into any details on the subject of that system, but has left his map to speak for itself, which it does very articulately, we have thought it necessary to give a full notice of the system from the author's own Memoir, that the general reader who has studied Dr. Nichol's work, may enter more fully into the subject. of Scotland from St. Abb's head to the Mull of Galloway, the grauwacke chains of the Isle of Man, the state ranges of Anglesea, the principal grauwacke chains of Wales and Cornwall, the grauwacke and slate beds of Eiffel, Hundsruck, and Nassau, and parts of the Vosges. All these mountains have nearly the same direction of N.E. by E. and S.W. by W., and this parallelism, not only of the chains, but in the bearing of their strata, is regarded as not accidental, but as characteristic of the mountain chains of the same age. The mountains of this system have been raised before the deposition of No. 3, the coal measures. The Westmoreland series abut against these measures, and at the foot of the German mountains are deposited the coal measures of Belgium and Saarbuck. II. System of the Ballons (Vosges) and of the hills of the Bocage in Calvados.-In the first system it is only proved that the slates were raised before the deposition of the coal measures, but it appears that there has been an elevation of strata before the deposition of the more recent transition rocks, so that these last have not been raised in a N.E. and S. W. direction, but, on the contrary, were formed on upheaved beds of the former. III. System of the North of England.This system consists of the north and south range of the great carboniferous chain of the north of England, extending from Derby to Scotland in a direction a little to the N.N.W., and is supposed to have been produced immediately previous to the deposit of the red conglomerate. IV. System of the Netherlands and South Wales.-This system is the great east and west range, extending for 400 miles from the vicinity of Aix la Chapelle, to the small isles of St. Bride's bay, Pembrokeshire. The elevation of the beds composing this system, which nowhere rise to a great height, are considered to be anterior to the deposition of the magnesian conglomerate of Bristol, and the gres de Vosges. The beds of the (new) red sand-stone series which rest on this district, are not so ancient as the red conglomerate of the third system. V. System of the Rhine.-This system first grouped under this name by Von Buch, consists of the Vosges and the Swartwald, which are parallel ranges between which the Rhine flows from Balse to Mayence. They are formed principally of beds of the gres de Vosges, and seem due to great fractures nearly S. 15 W. and N. 15° E. The epoch of this disturbance has preceded the depositions of all the beds that extend from one ridge or cliff to the other forming the basin of Alsace. The rocks are the red of variegated sandstone, the mussel chalk, and the variegated marls, (marnes irisées). VI. System of the S. W. coast of Brittany, and of La Vendee of Morvan, and the Bohmerwaldgebirge and of the Thuringerwald.-This system stretches in the direction N.W. and S.E., and while the beds of the red and the variegated marl, as well as the more ancient rocks, have been thrown out of their original positions, the Oolitic series, embracing the lias, and its inferior sandstone, have remained undisturbed where they were originally deposited, namely, in an assemblage of seas and gulfs which marks out the winding of the various systems and mountains composing the system. VII. System of the Pilas, the Cote d' Or, and of the Erzgebirge-This system, including the Cevennes and a portion of the Jura chain, consists of many longitudinal ridges and furrows, in the direction N.E. and S. W. nearly parallel, and never rising into mountains of the first order. In this group, the strata are disturbed up to the Oolitic rocks, inclusive, while the cretaceous series (green sand and chalk) were subsequently deposited. M. de Beaumont states, that as the inclined strata are shattered and contorted, the action of upheavel must have been brief and violent, and that the epoch of elevation was followed by an immediate change in many of the forms of organic life, Ben Nevis, Snowdon, and the Ord of Caithness, have been placed under this system. VIII.* System of Monte Viso.—The French Alps and the S. W. extremity of the Jura, form a series of crests and dislocations in a N.N.W. direction, in which the green sand and chalk and the slate beds of the Wealden formation are upheaved as well as the Oolitic series. The pyramid of primitive rocks composing Monte Viso is traversed by enormous faults, which belong to this system of fractures. The Eastern crests of the Devolny, consisting of the most ancient beds of the green sand and chalk system, have been thrown up to the the height of 4700 feet. At the foot of these enormous escarpments, there have been hori The system is not given in Elie de Beaumont's chart. In that chart, the system of the Pyrenees, &c., is No. III., and that of Corsica and Sardinia, Viso after these two as No. X., which is not reNo. IX., so that he must have placed that of Monte presented in the chart. zontally deposited 2000 feet lower down | beds contemporaneous with the fahluns of near the Col de Bayard "those upper beds Touraine. Under this system, the Cordilof the cretaceous system, which are distin- leras of the coast of Brazil, the chain of guished from the rest by the presence of Kiöl in Scandinavia, the chains in Morocco Nummulites, Cerithia, Ampullaria, and the between Cape Tres Furcas and Cape Blanc, genera of which were long considered as not and Monte Rosa, have been ranked. extending deeper in the series than the tertiary rocks. Thus it was between the two portions of that which is commonly termed the series of the Wealden formation, green sand and chalk, that the beds of the Monte Viso system were upraised." IX. Pyreneo-Appennine System. "This system includes," says M. Elie de Beaumont, "the whole chain of the Pyrenees, the northern and some other ridges of the Appennines, the calcareous chain to the N.E. of the Adriatic, those of the Morca, nearly the whole Carpathian chain, and a great series of inequalities continued from that chain through the N.E. escarpment of the Hartz mountains, to the plains of Northern Germany." All these leading inequalities are nearly parallel, having a direction about N.N.W. and E.S.E. "All the great parallel ridges and chains of this secondary system must have been suddenly and violently elevated, and at a period between the deposition of the chalk and the commencement of the tertiary groups. The upheaved strata are often lifted up to the very pinnacles of the mountains, while the tertiary strata are as horizontal as the waters in which they were deposited. "The corresponding change in organic types is, in this instance, still more striking than in the preceding system. The Alleghanies and certain chains in the north of Africa, of Egypt, of Syria, of the Caucasus, and those on the N.E. boundary of Mesopotamia, belong also to this system. X. System of the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia. This system is supposed to have been upheaved during the supercretaceous period. From the similarity in the direction of this system to that of Nos. I, II, III, VII, and IX, M. de Beaumont considers them as having succeeded each other in the same order, "leading to the supposition that there has been a kind of periodical recurrence of the same, or nearly the same, directions of elevation. Lebanon, Taganai in the Ural, Monte d'Oro, and Monte Rotundo, belong to this system. XI. System of the Western Alps.-The mean direction of this system is about N. N.E. and S.S.W., and its epoch of upheaving has succeeded the deposition of those recent tertiary beds named shelly molasse, XII. System of the Principal Chain of the Alps (from the Valais into Austria, comprising, also the Chains of the Ventoux, the Lebaron, and the St. Baume in Provence.This system, stretching E. N.E., and W. S.W., has been upheaved previous to the dispersion of the erratic blocks, and those gravels called diluvial, but which, in the vicinity of the Alps, have been found to be deposited upon other gravels, often of considerable thickness. It seems probable that the volcanic cones of Auvergne have been formed subsequently to the upheavel of this system. Under this system the Sierra Morena, and most of the Spanish chains, the Balkan, the Andes in America, the Himalaya Mountains, Mount Elbruz, and the central trachytic chain of the Caucasus which it crowns, and the Atlas in Africa, have been placed. Such is a brief notice of twelve great convulsions, in which the Earth's imprisoned lava has, at successive epochs, burst through its horizontal sedimentary strata, and formed the principal mountain chains of our globe. As geology widens her range of inquiry, and deepens her descent into the bowels of the earth, these epochs may be increased in number and modified in substance; but their existence can no more be questioned than that of the hurricane or the flood, although we see but the forests which they have prostrated, or the harvests they have destroyed. Has the astronomer or the naturalist ever read such a lesson of wisdom to those who live amid these ruins of nature, and are gathering, for their own and not for their Maker's service, the rich spoils of silver and of gold which these very convulsions have thrown into their hands? Has the moralist ever enforced his homily on earth's vanities in language so breathing and so burning as that which lays open the burying vaults where its ancient life has been entombed? Can the Divine match the geologist in expounding the ancient but now intelligible text, that "the depths of * Our readers will now understand how important is the study of mountain chains, and how valu able are the researches of Baron Humboldt. It is to him, indeed, and to his illustrious friend, mation upon which M. Elie de Beaumont has Baron von Buch, that we owe much of the inforfounded his results. the earth are in His hands," and that "the his joints into marble, his mind can soar to strength of hills is His " its highest flight, and seize with its firmest But while the mind rests, with a pleasing grasp. Nor do the affections plead less elosatisfaction, on these great deductions of quently for a future home. Age is their philosophy, it yet pants for a fuller and a season of warm and genial emotion. The higher revelation. If the man of clay has objects long and fondly clasped to our been honored with such magnificent apart- bosom, have been removed by Him who ments, and fed at such a luxurious table, gives, and who takes what He gives: and may not his undying and reasoning soul lingering in the valley of bleeding and of count upon a spiritual palace, and sigh for broken hearts, we yearn for that break of that intellectual repast at which the Master day which is to usher in the eternal morn— of the feast is to disclose his secrets. In for that home in the house of many manits rapid and continued expansion, the mind, sions which is already prepared for us,-for conscious of its capacity for a higher sphere, the promised welcome to the threshold of feels even now that it is advancing to a goal the blest, where we shall meet again the more distant and more cheering than the loved and the lost, and devote the eternity tomb. Its energies increase and multiply of our being to the service of its almighty under the encumbrances of age; and even Author. when man's heart is turning into bone, and From the British Quarterly Review. INFLUENCE OF POETRY UPON CIVILIZATION. Poems. By LEHIGH HUNt. Poems. By JOHN KEATS. Songs and Poems. By BARRY CORNWALL. New Editions. London. If the amount of genius in any given era | gloom of these "iron times," marks of her could be calculated after the manner of an radiant footsteps are yet visible. That arithmetical series, we should not hesitate her track is somewhat indistinct none can in arriving at the conclusion that it was never greater, in the history of our literature, than at present. The publications prefixed to this article form but a scanty portion of those we might have named, had we regarded them as worthy of such distinction. From the catalogue at our service, a casual observer might imagine, that by those who affirm that the imaginative faculties are in a state of senility, the age had been belied, its spirit had been impugned, and its tendencies entirely misunderstood. deny; but that poetical genius is extinct, or even that it is tending to annihilation, is, as we shall endeavor to prove, very far from the truth. If we had no faith in the progress of humanity and if we did not cherish the full assurance of its arriving at the lofty elevation which prophecy has foretold, and experience goes far to demonstrate, we should be ready to despair of the future triumphs of genius, and be inclined to adopt the opinion, that with the masterminds of past ages every great effort had been consummated; and we might run the Amidst the strife of politics-the won-risk of becoming converts to a theory which ders of mechanical invention, which exceed, we deem as pernicious as it is false,—that both in ingenuity and power, the marvels with the increase of civilization there is a of an Arabian tale and the feats of necro-proportional decline in the powers of imamancy-it would not seem unreasonable to suppose that the small still voice of Poetry should be unheard, and that, disgusted with the selfishness and turmoil which she beheld on earth, she had taken her flight, and sought for worshippers in a more genial region. Yet, amidst all this earthliness, it would appear that the pure spirit is still resident amongst us, and that through the gination and fancy, and consequently a decay in poetry and the arts-that nations, like individuals, only once in their history appear in the freshness of youth, and in the bloom of beauty; and, that such a period having once elapsed, their further attempts at originality and vigor are totally ineffectual. But for the reasons we have assigned we are still hopeful. We cannot school |