LESSON XXX.-FRIDAY.

THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

The Jews are among the most remarkable people in the annals of mankind. Sprung from one stock, they pass the infancy of their nation in a state of servitude in a foreign country, where, nevertheless, they increase so rapidly, as to appear on a sudden the irresistible conquerors of their native valleys in Palestine. There they settle down under a form of government and code of laws totally unlike those of any other rude or civilized community. They sustain a long and doubtful conflict, sometimes enslaved, sometimes victorious, with the neighbouring tribes. At length, united under one monarchy, they gradually rise to the rank of a powerful, opulent, and commercial people. Subsequently weakened by internal discord, they are overwhelmed by the vast monarchies which arose on the banks of the Euphrates, and transplanted into a foreign region. They are partially restored, by the generosity or policy of the Eastern sovereigns, to their native land. They are engaged in wars of the most romantic gallantry, in assertion of their independence, against the Syro-Grecian successors of Alexander. Under Herod, they rise to a second era of splendour, as a dependent kingdom of Rome; finally, they make the last desperate resistance to the universal dominion of the Cæsars. Scattered from that period over the face of the earthhated, scorned, and oppressed, they subsist, a numerous and often a thriving people; and in all the changes of manners and opinions retain their ancient institutions, their national character, and their indelible hope of restoration to grandeur and happiness in their native land. Thus the history of this, perhaps the only unmingled race, which can boast of high antiquity, leads us through every gradation of society, and brings us into contact with almost every nation which commands our interest in the ancient world,—the migratory pastoral population of Asia; Egypt, the mysterious parent of arts, science, and legislation; the Arabian Desert; the Hebrew theocracy under the form of a federative agricultural republic, their kingdom powerful in war and splendid in peace; Babylon, in its magnificence and downfal; Grecian

arts and luxury endeavouring to force an unnatural refinement within the pale of the rigid Mosaic institutions; Roman arms waging an exterminating war with the independence even of the smallest states; it descends, at length, to all the changes in the social state of the modern European and Asiatic nations.

The religious history of this people is no less singular. In the narrow slip of land inhabited by their tribes the worship of one Almighty Creator of the Universe subsisted, as in its only sanctuary. In every stage of society, under the pastoral tent of Abraham, and in the sumptuous temple of Solomon, the same creed maintains its inviolable simplicity. During their long intercourse with foreign nations in Egypt and Babylon, though the primitive habits and character of the Hebrew nation were greatly modified, and perhaps some theological notions engrafted on their original tenets, this primary distinction still remains; after several periods of almost total apostasy, it revives in all its vigour. Nor is this merely a sublime speculative tenet; it is the basis of their civil constitution, and their national character. As there is but one Almighty God, so there is but one people under his especial protection, the descendants of Abraham. Hence their civil and religious history are inseparable. The God of the chosen people is their temporal as well as spiritual sovereign; he is not merely their legislator, but also the administrator of their laws. Their land is his gift, held from him, as from a feudal liege-lord, on certain conditions. He is their leader in war, their counsellor in peace. Their happiness or adversity, national as well as individual, depends solely and immediately on their maintenance or neglect of the Divine institutions. Such was the common popular religion of the Jews, as it appears in all their records, in their law, their history, their poetry, and their moral philosophy. Hence, to the mere speculative inquirer, the study of the human race presents no phenomenon so singular as the character of this extraor dinary people; and to the Christian, no chapter in the history of mankind can be more instructive or important, than that which contains the rise, progress, and downfal of his religious ancestors.-Milman.

SECTION III.

LESSON I.-MONDAY.

DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND WATER.

Nature has inscribed in legible characters the chronicle of those violent revolutions in which the solid and fluid elements of our planet have disputed the mastery of its surface. The extinction of entire tribes of animals and vegetables marks the stages of gradual formation, before man, the crowning glory of creation, appeared, and geological inquiries enable us to describe the most remarkable features of those mighty catastrophes which have resulted in the various distribution of sea and land. The product of the latest epoch in the history of creation is represented in the map of the world. We cannot, indeed, imagine any pause in the course of nature; we see here disturbances, there renovations; on the one hand perishing, on the other commencing existence; and, consequently, alterations in the surface of the earth. But the changes taking place under our eyes are insignificant in comparison with those which occurred during the lapse of those incalculable eras anterior to the period of historical record.

The earth has a superficial area of 196,600,000 English square miles, and the depressions of its crust are filled with water so that probably only one-third of the surface rises as land above the level of the ocean. Expressed with more accuracy, the ratio of land to sea is as 19 to 52; the land occupying 52,963,961 square miles, and the sea 143,638,262. If the globe be divided into two hemispheres, by a meridian passing through the island of Teneriffe-the one usually selected for the projection of maps of the world—the land will be found to predominate greatly on the eastern side of that line, and the water on the western. In the eastern half, the land is to the sea as 1 to 13; the land occupying 36,862,917 square miles, the sea 61,438,194; in the western, the land is to the sea as 1 to 5; for there are of land 16,376,456 square miles, and of sea 81,924,655. From this comparison

it appears that the eastern hemisphere contains more than twice as much land as the western, but only three-fourths as much sea; in other words, the former is more continental than the latter, and the latter more oceanic than the former. Comparing the northern and southern hemispheres, as divided by the equator, the following results are obtained:-In the northern, the land is to the sea as 1 to 13; for there are of land 39,595,857 square miles, and of sea 58,705,254; in the southern, the ratio is nearly as 1 to 5, the land occupying 13,643,516 square miles, the sea 84,657,595. Thus, the northern hemisphere contains nearly three times as much land as the southern, but little more than three-fourths as much sea; that is, the northern is more continental than the southern, and the southern more oceanic than the northern. If we compare the northern and southern hemispheres with the eastern and western, we find that the northern and eastern hemispheres on the one hand, and the southern and western on the other, are nearly alike in their proportions; therefore the northern hemisphere is as continental as the eastern, and the southern hemisphere is as oceanic as the western; but on the whole the oceanic character preponderates. From this view it follows that a large proportion of the land is concentrated towards the north-east, and the sea lies chiefly towards the south-west, so that we may construct two hemispheres which shall represent the one character or the other. We divide a continental north-eastern from an oceanic south-western hemisphere by projecting them on the plane of the horizon of London; in the continental half will be found, of land, 47,773,493 square miles; and of sea, 50,527,619; in the oceanic half, of land, 5,465,881 square miles; and of sea, 92,835,232. Hence the continental half contains as much land as sea, nine times more land, and half as much sea as the oceanic half; on the contrary, the oceanic half contains seventeen times as much sea as land, twice as much sea, and only one-ninth as much land as the continental.

Opposite to the continental portions of the earth lie almost exclusively those which are pelagic and oceanic. The masses of land extend in their greatest breadth near the north pole; towards the south pole they run out like tapering branches, diverging from a common stem, gradually break

up into archipelagos, and sink beneath the level of the ocean long before reaching the antarctic polar circle, while the northern continental masses stretch quite an equal distance beyond the arctic polar circle.

The centre of the continental hemisphere is found in England; that of the oceanic in New Zealand. A person raised above Falmouth till he could perceive a complete hemisphere, would see the greatest possible expanse of land; while were he elevated to the same height above New Zealand, he would see the greatest possible extent of ocean. How important is the bearing of this fact on the advancement of the human race, and on the position of Europe in the scale of civilisation!

The

If we examine the distribution of land and sea in the several zones, we perceive at once that the largest quantity of land is concentrated in the north temperate zone. ratio of land to sea in the north frigid zone is nearly as 1 to 1 or 1; in the north temperate zone, as 1 to 1; between the tropics, as 1 to 3; and in the south temperate zone, as 1 to 10. These facts give to the countries and nations of the north temperate zone a geographical importance.

LESSON II. TUESDAY.

THE PROPERTIES OF FLUIDS.

The particles of a solid body are held together with an intensity which renders their separation difficult. On the contrary, the cohesion between the particles of a fluid is so slight, that a very small force suffices to separate them, and as soon as the force which parts them is withdrawn they reunite. A feather may be easily moved about in water so as to cause an agitation among its particles, but this effect in any solid body would be obviously impossible. All fluids do not possess in an equal degree this primary distinction of their aggregate form, viz., perfect freedom of motion among their particles. Fluidity as well as solidity admits of various degrees. Water has a mean degree of fluidity; sulphuric acid and ether are among the bodies possessing this property in the highest degree, whilst the fatty oils are much less fluid than water.