the Po. Were it not for this immense and never-ending drain, the whole earth would soon be under water; for the evaporation from land and sea is so great, that, though only a third of it may fall upon the land in the shape of rain or snow, and about two-fifths of that third may be dissipated again through the atmosphere, or absorbed in the processes of vegetation, there will yet remain a superfluous quantity sufficient to deluge entire continents.

Rivers may, at first sight, appear to obstruct inland communication; but, in reality, they greatly facilitate it. Through their means, ships can visit the interior of mighty regions, and merchandise can be conveyed from one place to another in boats and rafts. When they are not suitable for navigation, on account of their shallowness, or of some peculiar obstructions, they can yet supply with water navigable canals. They also furnish men with a power almost unlimited, in turning the wheels that set in motion his vast piles of machinery. So useful, in many ways, are rivers, that almost all towns are situated upon their banks. It would appear, indeed, that no town can flourish unless it lie upon the sea-shore, or upon the banks of some considerable stream; while to rivers many towns owe their pre-eminent greatness. London, that most wealthy and wonderful of cities, is indebted for most of its mercantile grandeur to the Thames. Though seventy miles from the sea, it is visited by thousands of ships from every region of the globe, and into its ample docks and warehouses are incessantly poured the treasures of the east and the west. Its noble river is the king of floods, if commerce can give the pre-eminence.-Rivers, with mountains, form the best boundaries and bulwarks of kingdoms. In the time of war, they retard the progress of an invading foe, while they furnish the inhabitants of the invaded country with a most effective means of defence. The fishes, with which rivers abound, afford us a wholesome and delicate species of food. The motion of their currents also adds to

the salubrity of the climate, by agitating and purifying the air.

The surpassing beauty of rivers gives a last charm to their utility. They are not only beautiful in themselves, but they are the causes of beauty wherever they flow. What object in nature is more grandly interesting than a river among its native steeps, flinging itself sheer down some precipitous cliff? Or what more graceful and pleasing than the same river, escaped at last from the mountainous tracts, and augmented with numberless tributary streams, winding in dallying meanders along the fertile valley, clothing in living green the meadows and stately woods upon its borders, now dashing through lofty arches of stone, and now washing the walls of ancient cities and towers, bearing in its lucid bosom gay pinnaces and barges, and strange ships from foreign lands, while it approaches, with still increasing majesty and beauty, its final and glorious resting place, the sea? Thus the scenery of the river shore is of the most picturesque and delightful description. The sweet spots of the earth are watered and beautified by brooks and rivers; and no where is the grandeur of nature more visible and pleasing, than in the cataracts and rapids, and resounding currents of those mighty floods that issue forth from the mountains, to spread beauty and abundance over the rejoicing plain.

Rivers, therefore, destructive as they sometimes are in their rapid inundations, form an indispensable part of those grand arrangements by which the Creator renders the earth the fit and lovely abode of animal and vegetable life. So useful are they, that a country is rich in proportion to the number and extent of them within its limits. Thus, in every portion, or general feature of nature, we find inexhaustible proofs of matchless wisdom, of overflowing goodness. Streams and rivers murmur forth the glory of God; and, ever since the creation, they have been the ministers of his bounty. When the great Architect of Heaven and Earth himself formed an

abode suited to the innocence and dignity of the noblest of his creatures, and gave it unto our first parent, as the scene of his happiness and sinless labours, he sent forth a river to water it, and make it fruitful, and to crown its enjoyments. J. D.

SECOND WEEK-TUESDAY.

VEGETABLE SOIL.

In treating of the various operations of nature in this, as well as the other seasons of the year, I shall follow the plan adopted in the volume on Winter, by examining the various conditions of organized life in their natural order; beginning with the productions of the soil, and rising through the various genera of animal life, till we arrive at Man, the last called into existence, and the chief of the Creator's sublunary works. In the present paper, our attention shall be directed to the character and qualities of the soil itself.

In the previous volume it was mentioned, that, in its primitive state, the crust of our earth seems to have been barren, waste, and void, consisting entirely of rocks and water, without soil, without vegetation, and without animal life; and that the first scanty soil was gradually formed by the breaking down and abrading of the rocks, which prepared nature for the sustenance of organized beings. Such is the geological theory; but whether it be admitted or not, there is no doubt that our present productive soil consists chiefly of minute particles of stone, mingled with calcareous substances, which are the spoils of marine animals, and with fat earth, being the remains of all kinds of organized bodies in a state of decomposition.

With this kind of soil, we find the surface of the earth generally covered to a greater or less depth. There are,

indeed, exceptions to this, which give rise to rocky and barren wastes; but these exceptions serve to confirm the general rule, and are not so numerous as to throw the slightest doubt on the intention of the arrangement, so wise and so beneficent, by which most extensive provision has been made for a vegetation suitable to the support of living creatures over the surface of the earth. It might have been otherwise. There seems to be nothing in the ordinary laws of nature which rendered such an arrangement necessary, or even probable. It is true, that a disintegration of rocks is occasioned by the action of the atmosphere, and that water, whether in the form of rain, of mountain torrents, or of constantly flowing rivers, is continually and actively employed in spreading the soil thus formed, over the low grounds, or carrying it into lakes or seas, on which it makes encroachments, by the formation of new deposits. But such causes, however powerful they may be, could only be partial in their operation. They tend to fill up valleys, and extend the boundaries of the dry land; but the extent of their operation must, even in a long series of ages, be comparatively very limited. Such agents give rise merely to what has been called alluvial soil, such as is found along the low banks, and at the mouth of rivers; and, if these were the only places where soil was deposited, it is easy to conceive what a naked and sterile waste the general surface of the earth would be. By far the greatest proportion of the soil is to be found in situations, and under circumstances, where the action of water, in any of the ways we have enumerated, instead of accumulating it, must have a tendency to wash it away. Such is the earth which covers all the elevated grounds, from the mountain ranges down to the gentle declivities which form by far the greater part of the cultivated lands. This is called diluvium by geologists, because, as stated in the preceding volume, it is justly believed to have been deposited by the turbid and agitated waters which passed over the surface of the globe, either immediately before the era

of the Mosaic creation, or during the subsequent deluge in the time of Noah, or rather at both these periods.

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But, whatever were the agents employed, the effect is altogether providential; and the more we consider the general aspect of the earth, in other particulars, the more reason will we have to believe that the fertile covering with which it is enveloped, is the arrangement of an Intelligent and Contriving Mind. "The structure of the globe," says Malte Brun, in his System of Geography, presents, in all its parts, the features of a grand ruin;” and, for the truth of this, he appeals to the confusion and overthrow of most of its strata; the irregular succession of those which seem to remain in their original situations; the wonderful variety which the direction of the veins, and the forms of the caverns display; the immense heaps of confused and broken substances, and the transportation of enormous blocks to a great distance from the mountains of which they appear to have formed a part. All this is undeniable and striking, and obviously indicates some mighty catastrophe, or succession of catastrophes, by which the ancient strata of the earth have been broken up, overturned, and dislocated. But the more we become aware of the disorder in which the materials of the earth are placed, the more will we be struck with the proofs which meet us on every hand, of a regulating and overruling power, which has controlled that seeming disorder, and rendered it subservient to his own beneficent purposes. I have already had occasion to advert to this view, in other instances; but let us at present apply it to the subject before us. Had the disruption and ruin alluded to by Malte Brun, and familiar to all geologists, taken place by the mere agency of mechanical causes-by some accidental explosion, for example, of a central fire, or by some oversetting of the equilibrium of the earth, or by the casual collision of a comet, without the intervention of Divine Wisdom, can it be supposed that this vast ruin would have been every where so wonderfully overspread with a soil fitted for