.' and this, not because it is unadapted to the climate, but because it has not the power of insinuating its roots into the coral rocks; of which those islands are, in a great measure, composed.

Palmerstone Island is of still more recent formation 1. It is a mile only in circumference; and it is composed of coral sand, mixed with blacker earth. Upon it grows scurvy-grass and cocoa trees; and though the soil is poor, there are a great many shrubs and trees. That it possesses men of war and tropic birds, with crabs crawling among the bushes, is not much a subject for wonder; but that in one part of the reef there should be a lake, full of blue, black, red, and yellow fishes, is a phenomenon, for which it is now, perhaps, almost impossible to account.

IV.

Sponges in Italy are found rooted on hard flints2; and on the amphitheatre near Albano, several trees have insinuated large roots between the best cemented stones. The lichen calcareum even vegetates on the naked rock;

1

Captain Colebrooke, in his account of Barren Island, has the following remark: From the singular appearance of this island, it might be conjectured, that it has been thrown up entirely from the sea, by the action of subterranean fire. Perhaps, but a few centuries ago, it had not reared itself above the waves; but might have been gradually emerging from the bottom of the ocean, long before it became visible; till at length it reached the surface, when the air would naturally assist the operation of the fire, that had been struggling for ages to get vent, and it would then burst forth. The cone or volcano would rapidly increase in bulk, from the continual discharge of lava and combustible matter; and the more violent eruptions, which might have ensued at times, when it would throw up its contents to a greater elevation and distance, might have produced that circular and nearly equidistant ridge of land we see around it."-Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 413, 4.

and draws its chief nourishment from the air. This, decaying, furnishes a bed and a little moisture to maintain a moss. The moss yields to the course of Nature, decomposes, and adds to the previous soil. Seeds of other vegetables are wafted by the winds, or dropt by birds; and thus the bare rock, after a series of ages, becomes green with vegetation.

Christmas Island, in the South Seas, is composed of sand, rotten vegetables, dung of birds, decayed shells, broken coral stones, and other marine productions. There is no fresh water; and therefore no inhabitants: but there are marine birds, land crabs, and lizards. The two clusters of islands, lately discovered (May 17th, 1819-long. 180° 54′ W. lat. 8° 29′ S.-long. 181° 43′ W. lat. 8° 5' S.) are but now emerging, as it were, into visible existence. They are so low, that they can be seen from the deck, even in the daytime, only when ships are very near. They were discovered by De Peyster, while sailing from Valparaiso to the East Indies. To the former cluster he gave the name of Ellice's Group; to the latter, that of De Peyster's Islands. They appeared to be totally uninhabited. Byron and Wallis had previously borne down near these islands; but, from their lowness, they did not discover them.

- Some suppose, that land is entirely derived from the exuviæ of marine animals. That the earth possesses a renovating power is certain. Islands expand, and become elevated by the combined influence of heat and water. The power, which heat possesses, of dilating bodies, arises out of its faculty of forcing itself between their separate particles. This, as a natural consequence, causes them to occupy a larger space than before.

CHAPTER XII.

BEFORE we enter upon the subject, to which the preceding observations naturally lead, viz.—the emigration of plants and animals,-it may be proper to make a few remarks on the subject of mineral positions.

Aerolites have fallen in Saxony, Bohemia, Alsace, Moravia, and in Italy in Spain, France, England, and Ireland in Senegal: at Benares; and at Connecticut in North America. All these have fallen from the atmosphere; where they are supposed to have been generated', though in what manner still remains to be explained.

Minerals have no power of voluntary emigration; and yet we find resembling specimens in widely distant

'Some believe them to be projected from the moon or volcanoes; others that they are of an earthy matter, fused by lightning. Their constituents are silex, magnesia, iron, nickel, sulphur, and oxide of iron. All have these ingredients; only differing in proportions. No mineral substance has yet been found, combining the same materials. They move from east to west; and not from west to east.

In addition to the meteorlites, mentioned in the various encyclopedias, we may add two others, of comparatively recent visitation. One fell February 18, 1819, at the village of Dooralla, in the East Indies. It was seen moving in the air with great velocity *. The day was serene, without a cloud in the sky. Temperature of the air as usual, The Bramins conveyed it to the village, and covered it with wreaths of flowers. It weighed 25lbs.

“St. PetersburgH. —A meteoric stone, weighing 40lbs. fell from the air during a violent thunder-storm, at six o'clock in the evening, on the 12th July 1820, in the village of Listen, in the circle of Dunaburgh. It penetrated a foot and a half in the ground, whence it was dug up by the peasants, and

Bird's Letter to Major Pennington, April 15, 1819.

latitudes and longitudes. Coals form a vast body; and seem in some places to constitute one great basis of the globe. No wonder, therefore, is excited by its strata nearly encircling temperate regions; from England, France, and Germany, to Siberia, and the northern parts of China; and thence to Canada, and the coast of Newfoundland. Mines of gold, silver, and platina, are however parted by wide longitudes, though not by equally wide latitudes. Precious stones are more arbitrary. Diamonds are found not only in Golconda and Bengal, but in Borneo, and the Brazils: jargoon, in Ceylon, and some parts of Europe: adamantine spar in China and India: topaz in Siberia, in America, and in an island of the Red Sea. Jasper in Germany, Sicily, and Canada; and the heliotrope, in longitudes and latitudes, so widely distant, as Iceland and Persia. It would be useless to endeavour to discover the cause of these dispositions; but it is curious to remark them. It is, also, curious to observe, in what situations other substances have been found, imbedded in chemically analyzed by Dr. Eichler. The Imperial Academy of Sciences commissioned one of its members to examine it, who found the specific gravity of the stone to be 3'718. In the air it weighed 6 oz. 5 dr. 50 gr. * and lost in water, of the temperature of 13 4 Reaumur, 1 oz. 6 dr. 18 gr. in weight; consequently the cubic content of this aerolite was 3.4 English cubic inches, if a cubic inch of water is taken at 253 gr. Notwithstanding the small size, and the few pores that could be perceived, its weight in the water, after it had been well dried, had increased 68 gr. A magnetic needle was pretty quickly attracted, as well in an horizontal as in a vertical direction, by all points of its surface, but it did not at all attract iron filings."

I

1 In the Scandinavian mythology it is fabled, that in the rencontre between Thor and Hrugner, the latter had a lance, made entirely of whetstone. This

*There appears to be some omission here: probably a piece of stone of the weight here specified may have been knocked off, and sent to St. Petersburgh for examination -ED."

materials, entirely foreign to their characters. Thus nodules including water have been discovered in Monte Berico, near Vicenza; olivine in the cells of Siberian meteoric iron; mesotype in Iceland spar; and liver-opal in beds of adhesive slate near Paris. A beautiful variety of calcedony in a green silicious substance in Siberia; amazon stone in fragments of quartz in Siberia; amber in sandstone and limestone'; and vesuvian in a steatitic rock in Kamschatka. Green sand has, also, been found in a small river, watering the desert of Atacama, between Chili and Peru.

CHAPTER XIII.

MANY vegetables are so attached to climates and soils, that, if transplanted without peculiar attention to their relative natures, they die. In this they associate with certain animals. But when they have once

lance Thor broke into a multitude of pieces with his mallet; the pieces flew into all quarters of the world; and every whetstone, wherever it is found, is a part of it.

1 Count Borkowsky discovered amber imbedded in sandstone; and a mass of yellow amber, too, was discovered on the sea-shore in the Spanish province of Santander, imbedded in limestone. In Greenland amber has been found in pit-coal.

2 M. Humboldt has observed, that "certain forms become more common from the equator to the pole; like ferns, glumaceæ, and rhododendrons, &c. Other forms increase from the poles to the equator; as the rubiaceæ, malvaceæ, and the composite plants; others attain their maximum in the temperate zone, and diminish both towards the poles and the equator; as the amentaceæ, cru ciferæ, and umbelliferæ."