The Valley of Waipio, in Hawaii. from the Sand Hills on the Beach.

London PubLed by H Fisher, son, & Jacks. Marta 1826

us like a map, (with its numerous inhabitants, cottages, plantations, fish-ponds, and meandering streams, on the surface of which the light canoe was moving to a fro,) appeared in beautiful miniature. Makoa, our guide, led the way down the steep cliffs. The descent was difficult, and it was quite dark before we reached the bottom. A party of natives, returning from a fishing excursion, ferried us across the stream that ran along near the place where we descended, and we directed our steps towards the house of Haa, head-man of the village. He received us courteously, ordered a clean mat to be spread for us to recline on, and water for us to drink: some of his attendants also handed us a large wooden tobacco-pipe, which is usually passed round when strangers arrive; this last compliment, however, we begged leave to decline. Makoa seated himself by the side of the chief, and gave him a brief outline of our tour-our object, and the instructions given to the people. In the mean time fish was prepared for supper by a fire of sandal wood, which, instead of filling the house with disagreeable smoke, perfumed it with a fragrant odour. After family worship in the native language, we retired to rest.

"The next morning unveiled to view the extent and beauty of this romantic valley. Its entrance from the sea, which was blocked up with sand-hills fifty or sixty feet high, appeared to be a mile or a mile and a half wide. The summits of the hills, which bordered the valley, seemed six hundred feet above the level of the sea. They were nearly perpendicular, yet they were mostly clothed with grass, and low straggling shrubs were here and there seen amidst the jutting rocks. A number of winding paths led up their steep sides, and, in several parts, limpid streams flowed in beautiful cascades from the top to the bottom, forming a considerable stream, which, meandering along the valley, found a passage though the sand-bills, and emptied itself into the sea. The bottom of the valley was one continued garden, cultivated with taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and other productions of the islands, all growing luxuriantly. Several large ponds were also seen in different directions, well stocked with excellent fish. A number of small villages, containing from twenty to fifty houses each, stood along the foot of the mountains, at unequal distances on each side, and extended up the valley till projecting hills obstructed the

view."

THIS is a winding valley in the eastern side of Shropshire, on the banks of the Severn, between two vast mountains, which divide in various romantic forms, and are covered with beautiful hanging woods. In making a navigable canal to the Severn in 1787, several springs of excellent native tar were discovered, which, though now much reduced, flowed so copiously at first, as to afford from seventy to eighty gal lons per day; so that barrels could hardly be got ready to secure it. A spring of brine was also discovered, as strong as most of those used for making salt. A work for obtaining mineral tar from the condensed smoke of pit-coal has been erected, and the most exten

sive iron works in England are established in this dale, which, with the bridge of cast iron over the Severn, adds much to the natural romantic scenery of the place. The noise of the forges, mills, &c." says Mr. Young, "with all their vast machinery; the flames bursting from the furnaces, with the burning of coal, and the smoking of the lime-kilns, are all together horribly sublime." The iron bridge was erected in 1779; the road over it, made of clay and iron slag a foot deep, is twenty-four feet wide; the span of the arch is one hundred feet six inches; and the height from the base to the centre forty feet. The weight of iron in all is one hundred and eventy-eight tons and a half.

AVALANCHES.

THE immense masses of snow which are precipitated from the Alps, and often overwhelm whole villages in their destructive course, are distinguished by this name. When the snow begins to melt by the heat of summer, the water which is produced, in its attempt to run off below, destroys the adhesion between the snow and the earth; and a new snow, falling upon the old and almost detached mass, increases the weight, and determines its fall.-In 1719 an avalanche from a neighbouring glacier overspread the greater part of the houses and baths at Lenk, and destroyed a considerable number of the inhabitants. In 1769-70 an avalanche, produced by the immense quantity of snow which had fallen during the winter, rolled down upon the pastures on the mountain of Sext in the Alps, when the impulse was so great, that it levelled with the ground a forest of beeches and firs which covered the declivity of the mountain; stopped the course of the river Gipre, which runs through the subjacent valley; and overthrew a number of trees and barns on the opposite shore of the stream. In August, 1820, two gentlemen from Oxford-Mr. Dornford, fellow of Oriel, and Mr. Henderson, fellow of Brazen-nose, college-set out, in company with Dr. Hamel and M. Sellique, (who abandoned the enterprise at the end of the same day,) attended by twelve guides, to ascend Mont Blanc. They encountered the greatest danger (indeed with destruction to three of the party) from an avalanche. When warain for hund sed yards of the summit of this interesting mountais, the snow suddenly gave way beneath them, and carried them all wubia a few paces of an immense crevasse. Our readers will like fo read an account of this moment of danger in Mr. Dornford's own www...

14

The diiculty of breathing gradually increasing, and our thirst beg vaxat, I was obliged to stop half a minute to arrange my ** in this interval my companion H. and three of the guides passed way that I was now the sixth in the line, and of course the centre we*. He was next before me, and as it was the first time we had been so circumstanced during the whole morning, he remarked it, and said we ought to have one guide at least between us, in case of acculcat This Loverruled, by referring him to the absence of all gance of danger at that part of our march; to which he assented.

attempt to recover my place in front, though the wish more

than once crossed my mind, finding perhaps that my present one was much more laborious. To this apparently trivial circumstance I was indebted for my life.

"A few minutes after the above conversation, my veil being still up, and my eyes turned at intervals towards the summit of the mountain, which was on the right, as we were crossing obliquely the long slope. which was to conduct us to Mont Maudit, the snow suddenly gave way beneath our feet, beginning at the head of the line, and carried us down the slope to my left. I was thrown instantly off my feet, but was still on my knees, and endeavouring to regain my footing, when, in a few seconds, the snow on our right, which was of course above us, rushed into the gap thus suddenly made, and completed the catastrophe, by burying us all at once in its mass, and hurrying us downwards towards two crevasses, about a furlong below us, and. nearly parallel to the line of our march. The accumulation of snow instantly threw me backwards, and I was carried down in spite of all my struggles. In less than a minute I emerged, partly from my own exertions, and partly because the velocity of the sloping mass had subsided, from its own friction. I was obliged to resign my pole in the struggle, feeling it forced out of my hand; a short time afterwards I found it on the very brink of the crevasse. At the moment of my emerging, I was so far from being alive to the danger of our situation, that on seeing my two companions at some distance below me, up to the waist in snow, and sitting motionless and silent, a jest was rising to my lips, till a second glance shewed me, that, with the exception of Matthew Balinat, they were the only remnants of the party visible.. Two more, however, being those in the interval between myself and the rear of the party, having quickly re-appeared, I was still inclined to treat the affair rather as a perplexing, though ludicrous delay, (in having sent us down so many hundred feet lower,) than in the light of a serious accident, when Matthew Balmat cried out that some of the party were lost, and pointed to the crevasse, which had hitherto escaped our notice, into which he said they had fallen. A nearer view convinced us all of the sad truth. The three front guides, being where the slope was somewhat steeper, had been carried down with great rapidity, and to a greater distance, and had thus been hurried into the crevasse, with an immense mass of snow upon them, which rose nearly to the brink. Balmat, who was fourth in the line, being a man of great muscular strength, as well as presence of mind, had suddenly thrust his pole into the firm snow beneath, when he felt himself going, which certainly checked, in some measure, the force of his fall. Our two hindermost guides were also missing, but we were soon gladdened by seeing them make their appearance, and cheered them with loud and repeated huzzas. One of these had been carried into the crevasse where it was very narrow, and had been thrown with some violence against the opposite brink. He contrived to scramble out without assistance, at the expense of a trifling cut on the chin. The other had been dragged out by his companions quite senseless, and nearly black from the weight of snow which had been upon him. In a short time, however, he recovered. It was long before we could convince ourselves that the others were past hope,