British jack displayed at her stern. She passed the first rapid unhurt, still head on, making a plunge, shipping a sea, and rising from it in beautiful style; and in her descent over the second, her masts went by the board, at the same moment affording those who have never witnessed a shipwreck a specimen of the sudden destruction of the spars of a ship at sea, in case of a wreck. Expectation for her fate was now at the highest; she swung round and presented her broadside to the dashing and foaming waters, and after remaining stationary a moment or two, was by its force swung round stern foremost, and having passed the third rapid she bilged, but carried her hull apparently whole between Grass Island and the British shore to the Horse Shoe, over which she was carried stern foremost, and launched into the abyss below. In her fall she was dashed into ten thousand pieces. I went below the falls immediately after the descent, and the river exhibited a singular appearance from the thousands of floating fragments, there being scarcely to be seen any two yards nailed together, and many of her timbers were broken into twenty pieces. Such was the eagerness of the multitude present to procure a piece of her, that before sunset a great part of her was carried away. I believe I have already informed you of the animals on board. They consisted of a buffalo from the Rocky Mountains, two bears from Green Bay and Grand River, two foxes, a racoon, a dog, a cat, and four geese; the fate of these you will probably wish to learn. When the vessel was left to her fate, they were let loose on deck, except the buffalo, who was enclosed in a temporary pen. The two bears left the vessel shortly after she began to descend the rapids, and swam ashore, notwithstanding the rapidity of the current. On reaching the British shore they were taken. The buffalo was seen to pass over the falls, but was not visible afterwards. What became of the other animals is not known. Those who had glasses could see one of the bears climbing the mast as the vessel approached the rapids; the foxes, &c. were also running up and down, but nothing was seen of them after the schooner passed over. The only live animals of the crew that passed over the falls were two geese; they were taken up unhurt. Major Fraser obtained one, and an English gentleman purchased the other for two dollars."

VALLEY OF CHAMOUNI.-Near St. Maurice is the celebrated valley of Chamouni, which, with Mont Blanc and its glaciery, and the still more wonderful Mer de Glace, are the most surprising natural curiosities ever witnessed in this

or any other country. This extraordinary valley, strange as it may appear, was wholly unknown to the inhabitants of the country till the year 1741, when it was discovered by two adventurous English travellers, who explored the valley, ascended the Montanvert to the Mer de Glace, penetrating those recesses where the human voice was never before heard, and threading paths before unvisited, except by the chamois and by the goat of the rocks. It was a singular instance of enterprise, and it deserves to be recorded that, although within 18 leagues of the city of Geneva, it was reserved for the adventure and courage of Englishmen to disclose to the world the hidden wonders of the Alps. An immense block of granite on the Montanvert, on which the adventurous travellers dined, is called to this day, "la pierre d'Anglais." M. de Saussure some years afterwards visited the valley, and was the first to ascend Mont Blanc. His great work on the Alps rendered the country so famous that thousands of travellers flocked from all countries to see this hitherto unknown and wonderful territory; and it is now become a regular summer lounge for half the idle tourists of Europe. The valley of Chamouni is about half a mile wide. The base of Mont Blanc forms its southern wall, and Mont Bremen, followed by a long chain of hills, is on the opposite side. The first view on entering the valley is unique and wonderful. The monarch of mountains on the one side, raising his majestic head, and overlooking the world, whose successive ages and changes he has quietly witnessed: the gloomy forests that clothe the base, partly borne down and intersected by immense glaciers, which slowly, but irresistibly, force their way from the accumulated pressure of snow, and seem, like a skirting drapery to the mountain, of dazzling whiteness; the bursting torrents which force their way through immense fragments of other worlds; and the contrast which these sublime monuments afford to the beautiful and verdant clothing of the smiling valley, are all justly calculated to inspire the mind with the most vivid and lofty conceptions of the works of that great Architect, in comparison with which all efforts of human skill betray their feeble origin, and sink into insignificance. The tourist who would wish to view Mont Blanc in all its grandeur must ascend Mont Bremen on the opposite side. He will then, standing at about half the elevation of Mont Blanc, be fully impressed with the magnitude of the greatest mountain in Europe. By looking upwards from the valley it scarcely seems higher than its compeers, but from Mont Bremen its superiority becomes awfully conspicuous. The ascent of

Mont Bremen is not considered either difficult or dangerous with the assistance of judicious guides, whose directions it is necessary to follow implicitly. A terrible instance which followed the contempt of their advice occurred some years since. A Danish traveller, named Eschur, ventured heedlessly over the glacier of Druet, and always kept in advance of his guides, vainly supposing that his ideas were equal to their experience. Having preceded them on one occasion more than two hundred yards, to their horror he suddenly disappeared from their sight. The nature of the calamity was too well surmised to require explanation. He had slipped and fallen into one of the numerous chasms which intersect these vast seas of frozen snow. His companion and the guide hastened back for assistance, and on the same evening four men undertook the search of his body. It was at last found at the bottom of a chasm nearly two hundred feet deep. The unfortunate young man must have died instantly. He was lying with his arms over his head as though for protection; but not a bone of his body was broken. There is a monument erected near Savoy to record his melancholy fate.

FORMATION OF OUR GLOBE.-On the geological scheme of the early history of the globe there are only analogies to guide us, which different minds may apply and interpret in different ways; but I will not trifle with a long preliminary discourse. Astronomical deductions and actual measures by triangulation prove that the globe is an oblate spheroid flattened at the poles; and this form, we know, by strict mathematical demonstrations, is precisely the one which a fluid body revolving round its axis, and become solid at its surface by the slow dissipation of its heat or other causes, would assume. I suppose, therefore, that the globe, in the first state in which the imagination can venture to consider it, was a fluid mass, with an immense atmosphere revolving in space round the sun; and that, by its cooling, a portion of its atmosphere was condensed in water which occupied a part of the surface. In this state, no forms of life, such as now belong to our system, could have inhabited it; and, I suppose the crystalline rocks, or, as they are called by geologists, the primary rocks, which contain no vestiges of a former order of things, were the results of the first consolidation on its surface. Upon the further cooling, the water, which more or less had covered it, contracted; depositions took place; shell fish and coral insects of the first creation began their labours; and islands appeared in the midst of the ocean, raised from the deep by the productive energies of

millions of zoophytes. These islands became covered with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, such as palms, and various species of plants similar to those which now exist in the hottest part of the world; and the submarine rocks or shores of these new formations of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, on which various species of shell fish and common fishes found their nourishment. The fluids of the globe in cooling deposited a large quantity of the materials they held in solution, and these deposits agglutinating together, the sand, the immense masses of coral rocks, and some of the remains of the shells and fishes found round the shores of the primitive lands produced the first order of secondary rocks. As the temperature of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles were created to inhabit it;-and the turtle, crocodile, and various gigantic animals of the sauri kind, seem to have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive lands. But in this state of things there was no order of events similar to the present ;-the crust of the globe was exceedingly slender, and the source of fire a small distance from the surface. In consequence of contraction in one part of the mass, cavities were opened, which caused the entrance of water, and immense volcanic explosions took place, raising one part of the surface, depressing another, producing mountains, and causing new and extensive depositions from the primitive ocean. Changes of this kind must have been extremely frequent in the early epochas of nature; and the only living forms of which the remains are found in the strata that are the monuments of these changes, are those of plants, fishes, birds, and oviparous reptiles, which seem most fitted to exist in such a war of the elements. When these revolutions became less frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and the inequalities of its temperature preserved by the mountain chains, more perfect animals became its inhabitants, many of which, such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium and gigantic hyena, are now extinct. At this period, the temperature of the ocean seems to have been not much higher than it is at present, and the changes produced by occasional eruptions of it have left no consolidated rocks. Yet one of these eruptions appears to have been of great extent and some duration, and seems to have been the cause of those immense quantities of water-worn stones, gravel, and sand which are usually called diluvian remains; and, it is probable that this effect was connected with the elevation of a new continent in the southern hemisphere by volcanic fire. When the system of things be

came so permanent that the tremendous revolutions depending upon the destruction of the equilibrium between the heating and cooling agencies were no longer to be dreaded, the creation of man took place; and since that period there has been little alteration in the physical circumstances of our globe. Volcanoes sometimes occasion the rise of new islands, portions of the old continents are constantly washed by rivers into the sea; but these changes are too insignificant to affect the destinies of man, or the nature of the physical circumstances of things. On the hypothesis that I have adopted, however, it must be remembered, that the present surface of the globe is merely a thin crust surrounding a nucleus of fluid, ignited matter; and, consequently, we can hardly be considered as actually safe from the danger of a catastrophe by fire. There are distinct facts in favour of the idea that the interior of the globe has a higher temperature than the surface; the heat increasing in mines the deeper we penetrate, and the number of warm sources which rise from great depths, in almost all countries, are certainly favourable to the idea. The opinion that volcanoes are owing to this general and simple cause, is, I think, likewise more agreeable to the analogies of things than to suppose them dependant upon partial chemical changes, such as the action of air and water upon the combustible bases of the earths and alkalies, though it is extremely probable that these substances may exist beneath the surface, and may occasion some results of volcanic fire; and, on this subject, my notion may perhaps be more trusted, as for a long while I thought volcanic eruptions were owing to chemical agencies of the newly discovered metals of the earths and alkalies, and I made many, and some dangerous experiments, in the hope of confirming this notion, but in vain.

WONDERS OF HEREFORDSHIRE.-John Bill, in his work entitled "A Delineation of the vniuersall Notions of Geo

graphie," says, "Of remarkable things in Hereford-shire, the spring called Bone-well, neere Richard's Castle, is famovs for fish-bones and no fish, which, though it be cleerely cleansed thereof, will shortly after be fvrnished afresh with the like. Bvt the great wonder was the admirable motion of Marcley-Hill, containing about 26 acres, within ovr own memorie, anno 1571, which, with great noise, removed itself from its own place, and went continvally for 3 days together, carrying with it sheepe in their cots, hedge-rowes and trees, and overthrowing Kinnaston Chappell and diuers trees, tvrning 2 high waies neere 100 yards from their vsvall road, and bearing the earth before it the space of 400 yards."