8,000; its breadth is proportionally great, being sixty miles at Quito, and a hundred and fifty, or two hundred in Mexico, and some districts of the Peruvian territory. This stupendous ridge is intersected, in Peru and New Granada, as we have seen, by frequent clefts or ravines of amazing depth; but, to the north of the isthmus of Panama, it softens down by degrees, and spreads out into the vast elevated plain of Mexico. In the former provinces, accordingly, the inhabitants are obliged to travel on horseback or on foot, or even to be carried on the backs of Indians; whereas carriages drive with ease through the whole extent of New Spain, from Mexico to Santa Fé, along a road of more than 1500 miles."

"The most important feature of the American Continent is the very general and enormous elevation of its soil. In Europe, the highest tracts of cultivated land seldom rise more than 2,000 feet above the sea; but in the Peruvian territory, extensive plains occur at an alti tude of 9,000 feet, and three fifths of the vice-royalty of Mexico, comprehending the interior pro. vinces, present a surface of half a million of square miles, which runs nearly level, at an elevation from 6,000 to 8,000 feet, equal to that of the celebrated passages of Mount Cenis, of St. Gothard, or of the Great St. Bernard. These remark. able facts are deduced chiefly from barometrical observations. But Humboldt has adopted a very ingenious mode, infinitely superior to any description, of represent. ing, at one view, the collective re. sults of his topographical and mi

neralogical survey. He has given profiles or vertical sections of the countries which he visited, across the continent, from Acapulco to Mexico, and thence to Vera Cruz; from Mexico to Guanaxuato, and as far as the volcano of Jorullo; and from Mexico to Valladolid. These beautiful plates are in every way highly interesting.

The central Andes are rich beyond conception in all the me. tals, lead only excepted. One of the most curious ores in the bowels of those mountains is the paces, a compound of clay, oxyd of iron, and the muriate of silver with native silver. The mines of Mexico and Peru, so long the objects of envy and admiration, far from being yet exhausted, promise, under a liberal and improved system, to become more productive than ever. But Nature has blended with those hidden treasures the active ele. ments of destruction. The whole chain of the Andes is subject to the most terrible earthquakes. From Catopaxi to the South Sea, no fewer than forty volcanoes are constantly burning, some of them, especially the lower ones, ejecting lava, and others discharging the muriate of ammonia, scorified ba salt and porphyry, enormous quan tities of water, and especially moya, or clay mixed with sulphur and carbonaceous matter. Eternal snow invests their sides, and forms a barrier to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Near that confine, the torpor of vegetation is marked by dreary wastes.

"In these wide solitudes, the condor, a fierce and powerful bird of prey, fixes its gloomy abode. Its size, however, has been greatly exaggerated; it is not larger than

the

the Læmmer Geyer, or Alpine vulture of Europe, its extreme length being only three feet and a half, and its breadth across the wings nine feet. The condor pur sues the small deer of the Andes, and commits very considerable ha vock among sheep and heifers. It tears ont the eyes and the tongue, and leaves the wretched animal to languish and expire. Estimating from very probable data, this bird skims whole hours at the height of four miles; and its power of wing must be prodigious, and its pliancy of organs most astonishing, since in an instant it can dart from the chill region of mid-air to the sultry shores of the occan.

"The condor is sometimes caught alive, by means of a slipcord; and this chase, termed correr buitres, is, next to a bull-fight, the most favourite diversion of the Spanish colonists. The dead carcase of a cow or horse soon attracts from a distance crowds of these birds, which have a most acute scent. They fall on with in. credible voracity; devour the eyes and the tongue of the animal, and plunging through the anus, gorge themselves with the entrails. In this drowsy plight they are ap. proached by the Indians, who easily throw a noose over them. The condor, thus entangled, looks shy and sullen; it is most tena. cious of life, and is therefore made to suffer a variety of protracted tortures."

"In South America we find plains of immense extent. The Llanos (plains), or savannahs, extending to a vast distance from the borders of the Oronooko, resemble the smooth surface of the ocean. Co

vered with a slight layer of earth, moistened by dew, or inundated with periodical rains, though des. titute of trees and running water, produce in abundance a species of tall and spongy grass, that nourishes immense herds of cattle, which, since the conquest of Ame rica have become wild, and live in a state of nature. The pampos of Buenos Ayres are of the same description, and still greater extent. Amidst the tufted grass live a kind of dogs that do not bark, that have become wild and live in holes, from whence they dart with fury on the weary traveller. It is under the happy climate of the meridional regions, that Nature has multiplied her vegetable productions with equal variety and splendour; here reigns a perpetual spring, and fruits succeed fruits, without interruption, on their ever-green bark."

An observation was made by Humboldt, which will, no doubt, attract the attention, and may, perhaps, occasion some embar rassment to geologists. What have been called secondary formations are of immense thickness, and are found at an immense height. In the neighbourhood of Santa Fó we find beds of coal at the height of 8,500 feet above the level of the sea, and, near Iluanooko, in Peru, at the height of 14,700. Fossils which have never been dis. covered in the Old World at a greater clevation than that of the Pyrenees, that is, 11,700 feet, are found in Peru, at 12,800, and even 14, 120 feet above the level of the sea. The basaltes of Pichincha is found at an elevation of 15,500 feet, whilst its greatest elevation in the Old World is 4,225 feet. On 3 M2

the

the other hand granite, which in Europe crowns the highest moun tains, is not found in the American continent at a greater height than 11,500 feet. The icy summits of Chimborazo, of Cayambé, and of Anitsana, are entirely composed of porphyry, which on the sides of the Andes form a mass 1000 or 1200 feet thick.

The planters of New Spain divide the cultivated part of the country into three zones. First, the hot territory, not rising above the elevation of 1000. This region produces, in abundance, sugar, indigo, cotton, plantains, and bananas. Secondly, the tempe rate lands, which lie on the acelivity of the great chain, and which, at the height of 5000 feet, enjoy the temperature of spring, which farely varies, during the course of the whole year, so much as ten degrees. Thirdly, the cold region, at the height of 8000 feet, comprehending such elevated plains or platforms as those of Mexico, whose temperature is generally under sixty-three degrees, and never exceeds seventy-five.

Mr. Humboldt has confirmed former accounts, and thrown some rays of new light on the character, habits, and manners of the native Indians. The natives of the temperate regions of New Spain are of a deeper colour than those that live under a hotter climate. This race of people, and above all the Mex icans, bending under long oppres. sion, in qualities, both moral and intellectual, seem inferior even to the Africans. The same apathy of character is common to them and the individuals of the hot cli

mates, where man is so easily sup plied with the necessaries of life. Although they are sometimes go. verned by caprice, they are never induced to depart for a moment from their habitual listlessness by the love of gain. When our tra vellers visited the Havannah, they were struck with the singular beauty of the flowers which fell, white as snow, from the tops of the royal-palm, and, being desirous to examine the economy of vege tation in this efflorescence, for every branch or sprig bearing flow. ers, they offered the children of the negroes inhabiting the neighbouring villages two piastres, or near eight shillings sterling: but no thing could move them to stir a step.

As the summer advances, the low plains of the American coast begin to be scorched with excessive heat. The herbage is dried up to the very roots, and the hardened soil is of a burning heat. The cattle and other beasts of the field, enve. loped in clouds of dust, and tormented with thirst, run wildly from place to place. But the mule, better guided by his natural in. stinct, scrapes out the water-melon with his foot, and sucks in a re freshing beverage. All of a sudden the piercing cries of apes of the largest kind announce the ap proach of rain. Incessant torrents inundate the plains. The croco. dile and the boa, long concealed in a state of torpor, raise their hor. rible heads, and come out of their tombs with a terrible noise. By and by the rivers, overflowing their banks, cover the land with their vast inundations. The whole delta of the Oronooko is laid under a sheet