CL 21. Effects of the sea on steep -coasts composed of stony strata. 22. Effects of the sea in

gulphs.

23. General considerations on the phenomena which prove the small antiquity of our continents.

24. The accumulation of fallen materials under the abrupt sides of mountains, as well in valleys as towards the plains, and those which are formed at the foot of steep coasts, constitute one of the most 1 common of the classes of chronomcters.

25. The alluvial lands formed by rivers along their course constitute another class of chrono. meters.

66 26. The maritime new lands form a large class of chronometers.

27. Since the sea has occu pied its present bed, its level has never changed."

Mr. de Luc, having endeavoured to prove and illustrate the truth of each of these heads or positions, proceeds thus:

"The history of our globe, like every other which relates to past time, can be traced back only by monuments. It is thus that the histories of nations have been com. piled; but of those the most ancient monuments have been successively effaced or disfigured by a thousand various events and interests; and, for the most part, no. thing remains in that respect but traditions, obscure, imperfect, and often fabulous: hence have arisen so many contradictions in the carly annals of the same nation; and from these has originated historic doubt.

"The case is not the same with the history of the earth; the mo.

magnitude to have been essentially changed by mankind, and the surface of the globe is covered with them: What, then, can be the reason that this history has been traced back in manners so discordant with each other? It is because here the monuments are those of effects, produced by natural causes; 30 that, unless these effects are recognised as indubitably belonging to certain causes, their nature can. not be really determined; as reci. procally, unless this be perfectly determined, the real causes cannot possibly be discovered. Those geologists, therefore, who attempted

to connect these effects with their causes, long before observation had made sufficient progress, could do it only at random. But the mo. numents remain, and may still lead to truth.

This is what I have endea voured to render evident, in my determination of each of the pre ceding heads. I flatter myself that those who shall read them with attention will readily agree, that, if all the facts, of which they offer the compendium, are such as I have represented them under ge. neral forms, the history of the carth, which I have here succes sively traced, in opposition to different opinions, is established beyond all possibility of doebt. Now every thing in this history is connected, as may have been seen, with the four following points, which the observations assembled in my Travels will all concur to prove:

"1. The catastrophes, of which evident marks are impressed on the mass of our continents, by the valleys among mountains, the cavi. ties of lakes, and the disturbed si

tuation

him. It is rather a singular phe. nomenon.. It is a remarkable ef. fect of the universality of the French language, that the probable circulation of a book shall induce a banker to betake himself to the business of authorship and bookselling. Mr. Laborde, too, has been at great pains and expense to seck, and has had, op. portunities of being well acquainted with Spain and the Spaniards; he has had the aid of many books little known, and of others which few can either purchase, or have access to otherwise; and the sub. jects of his compilation are, at the present moment, particularly in teresting.

Mr. de Laborde is editor of an expensive and splendid publication, intitled "Voyage Pittoresque de L'Espagne," which was under. taken by the banking-house of Laborde, at Paris, in which Alexander has a share, as a commercial speculation, to be executed by ar. tists paid and employed under its direction. During the slow progress of this work, which was to derive its principal value, not from written narration or description, but from the arts of drawing and engraving, Mr. Laborde had lei sure, collaterally with the Voyage Pittoresque,' to carry on the work before us, the object of which is thus briefly set forth by the author:

"It is with pain I repeat, that I have dared to present to the public a work written and printed with such haste; I have left it nearly as it was committed to paper on the very spots where it was writ. ten; but the cause of its faults may be an excuse for them. It would have taken me three years

to execute this work tolerably, which it was necessary to finish in a few months. If I had delayed it, it would have been of no te The works which relate to the laws, customs, and even mannen of Spain, will soon be to that country what the ancient ordi. nances of war, the arrêts of parlia ment, and of the chamber of at counts, the liberties of the Galfe church, &c. are now to the French, Whatever may happen, bounds art now fixed between the past history of this country, and the future va. known events to which it is detined; and as the Picturesque Travels through Spain' will de scribe the monuments, such as they have been, preserved to this time, so I have endeavoured, in this work, to ascertain the state of the legislation and of the industry of the country before they experi enced any change whatever. My design is, that these two works should illustrate each other, and that neither should encroach too much on what belongs to the other. Thus the details in the Itinerary of the public edifices, of the arts, sciences, and literature, will be little more than a simple nomen. clature in comparison to the er. pansion they will receive in the other work; whereas, all that re. lates to political economy, will ap pear simply as a sketch in the Voyage Pittoresque.'

Mr. Laborde's "View of Spain" consists of an Introduction, which occupies about one-fourth part of the first volume; of short direc tions for travelling in Spain, which are taken chiefly from Fischer; of observations on the climate and physical geography of Spain, by the Baron de Humboldt; of a de scriptive

scriptive itinerary of the provinces of Spain, which fills more than two volumes and a half; and lastly, of dissertations on the population, manufactures, commerce, government, laws, literature, and manners of the country, which take up the two concluding volumes. The division which exceeds in bulk that of all the other heads put to. gether, the descriptive narrative, is incredibly tedious, insipid, and uninteresting, and, in many instances, deficient even in accuracy. The whole work is tarnished throughout with plagiarisms, ana. chronisms, historical blunders, in consistencies, and contradictions. Of the plagiarisms and inconsistencies, the following is an instance: Mr. Laborde, in his introductory discourse, follows the opinion of Capmany, that at no period has Spain been so populous, industrious, commercial, and opulent as at the close of the eighteenth century, He acknowledges that the same view of the subject had been taken by Capmany. And in a note prefixed to his Introduction, he mentions that author as having been extremely useful tohim-Extremely useful to him! why, he not only adopts the system of that learned, acute, and accurate historian, but the whole of the arguments and illustrations by which the justness of it is proved. Laborde, by his statement of the matter, assumes the merit of being an original in quirer. He claims the indulgence of his countrymen, for combating ideas generally received,' when he is, in fact, the mere copyist and translator of the Spanish his torian, whom he mentions only incidentally as one who happened to entertain the same opinion, to

which he himself, it is insinuated, had been led by a deliberate and accurate investigation.

It was scarcely to have been expected, however, whether he was the original author, or only the adopter of the system in question, that he would have adopted those silly tales that stuff the ordinary books about the former state of Spain. Yet the same Laborde, who, in his Introduction, maintains that "At no period has Spain been so populous, industrious, commercial, and opulent as at the close of the eighteenth century," gravely affirms, in a subsequent part of his book, that, in the sixteenth century, Toledo had 200,000 inhabitants; that Seville contained 16,000 silk-looms, 130,000 silkweavers, and a population of 300,000 souls; that the silk manu facturers of Spain employed, in the sixteenth century, 1,100,000 persons; that 300,000 Moors quitted Seville when that city was surrendered to Ferdinand; that, in the kingdom of Grenada, at the time of its conquest, there were three millions of inhabitants, 400,000 lived within the walls of Grenada; and that Cordova, under the caliphs, contained a million, and Tarragona, under the Romans, two millions and a half of inhabitants. Mr. Laborde, it seems, had given credit to those idle fictions, before he met with Capmany's book. But that, after embracing the system of Capmany, he should have retained and published those fruits of his former industry, can be attributed only to that mercan. tile avidity which hurried him on to the publication of his book in order to catch the market before it was closed. If he had delayed

his publication, he says, it would have been of no use; the fate of Spain might have been decided before it could have appeared. It would have been less interesting. To describe and transmit to posterity a full and faithful account of Spain before the usurpation of the Clown by the Buonapartes, whatever might be the issue of the struggle, would have been a li beral design. But this was not the design of Laborde. He chose to let his work go prematurely into the world, with all its blunders and defects about it, rather than wholly to lose the market. This opulent man, acquainted "with so many families of distinction in Spain, and whose travels in that country, (we are told)* including the various expenses incurred with a view to his two works, have not cost him less, upon a moderate calculation, than 20,000 pounds sterling," this rich banker, by his own confes. sion, is to be classed among those senseless, short-sighted, and hungry booksellers, whose main aim is to strike the senses by the magnitude of their volumes, and to get the start of their competitors in the trade by early publication.

The portion of Laborde's "View of Spain" that does him most credit is, the passages relating to the physical constitution of the Spa. niards, their character and manners, customs, dress, ceremonies, &c. These evince a considerable share of judgment and discrimina. tion. We have made, for the amusement of our readers, pretty copious extracts from these parts of Laborde's work, under our

head of Characters. This portion of the book will, no doubt, appear the most interesting to the generality of readers. To those who are at all conversant with the study of Nature, the most valuable part is the section included in the Intreduction, intitled Observations npon the Face of the Country of Spain and its Climate, with a Re. presentation of the Elevation of the two Castiles, in two geological es gravings by M. A. de Humboldt,” Here, again, the artice of the book-maker appears. "For these engravings, as well as for the inte resting explanation that accom. panies them," Mr. Laborde acknowledges that he is "indebted

to the great kindness of ML, de Humboldt." He was indebted, perhaps, to Humboldt for the use of the engraven plates. But as to the explanation that accompanies them, Mr. Laborde is not more indebted than the whole literary world, to the great kindness of Mr. de Humboldt. The observations of Humboldt are these:

"No country of Europe pre. sents so singular a configuration as Spain. It is this extraordinary form which accounts for the aridity of the soil in the interior of the Castiles, the power of evaporation, the want of rivers, and that diffe. rence of temperature which is ob servable between Madrid and Na. ples, two towns situated in the same degree of latitude. We shall only be able to give a rough sketch of this meteorological view of Spain. Very few observations have hi therto been made on the mean temperature, or on the height of the barometer. A great deal of rais. able materials, perhaps, remains un

know