THE RIVER.

RIVER! River! little River!

Bright you sparkle on your way,
O'er the yellow pebbles dancing,
Through the flowers and foliage glancing,
Like a child at play.

River! River! swelling River!

On you rush o'er rough and smooth-
Louder, faster, brawling, leaping,

Over rocks, by rose-banks sweeping,
Like impetuous youth.

River! River! brimming River !

Broad and deep and still as Time,

Seeming still-yet still in motion,

Tending onward to the ocean,

Just like mortal prime.

River! River! rapid River!

Swifter now you slip away;

Swift and silent as an arrow,

Through a channel dark and narrow,
Like life's closing day.

River! River! headlong River!

Down you dash into the sea!

Sea, that line hath never sounded,
Sea, that voyage hath never rounded,
Like eternity.-C.

THE RIVER.-There is no object in nature of which the associations are more delightful than a river. The mountain and the lake have their sublimity; and in the economy of nature they have their uses-the mountain is the father of streams, and the lake is the regulator of their discharge. The lofty summit attracts and breaks the clouds, which would otherwise not be carried so far inland, or would pass over without falling to fertilize the earth. These are collected in snow, and laid up in a store against the bleak drought of the spring; and as the water, into which the melting snow is gradually converted during the thaw, penetrates deep into the fissures of the rock, or into the porous strata of loose materials, the fountains continue to pour out their cooling stores during the summer. The lake, as has been mentioned, prevents the waste of water which would otherwise take place in mountain rivers, as well as the ravage and ruin by which that waste would be attended. These have their beauty and their value; but they cannot, in either respect, be compared to the river. They are fixed in their places, but that is continually in motion-the emblem of life -the source of fertility-the active servant of man-and one

of the greatest means of intercourse, and, consequently, of civilization. The spots where man first put forth his powers as a rational being were on the banks of rivers; and, if no Euphrates had rolled its waters to the Indian Ocean, and no Nile its flood to the Mediterranean, the learning of the Chaldeans and the wisdom of the Egyptians would never have shone forth; and the western world, which is indebted to them for the rudiments of science, and the spirit which leads to the cultivation of science, might have still been in a state of ignorance and barbarity no way superior to that of the nations of Australia, where the want of rivers separates the people into little hordes, and prevents that general intercourse which is essential to even a very moderate degree of civilization. The river is a minister of health and purity. It carries off the superabundant moisture, which, if stagnating on the surface of the ground, would be injurious both to plants and animals. It carries off to the sea those saline products, which result from animal and vegetable decomposition, and which soon convert into deserts those places where there are no streams. When the alkalies and alkaline earths, that enter into the composition of organized bodies, are once united with the more powerful acids, they cease to be capable of again forming part of the living structure. Lime, which, chiefly combined with phosphoric acid, enters largely into the composition of bones, combines more intimately with sulphuric acid, and is then unavailing for animal purposes.It is the same with those alkalies which enter into the composition of plants and animals. Potass and soda are the alkalies usually found in vegetables; and the acids, with which they are found in combination, are, principally, the carbonic and acetic, though, in saline plants growing near the sea, there is usually a small portion of muriate of soda, or common salt. Now these combinations are easily dissolved by sulphuric or nitric acids, and the compounds which these form with the alkalies cannot be again dissolved by the weaker acid; so that if potass of soda be once united to either of those acids, it ceases to be fit for entering into the vegetable structure. The alkali which is found most abundant in animal structures is soda, and the acids with which it is found combined are principally the muriatic and phosphoric, or some having a weaker attraction for it than the muriatic. Ammonia is obtained abundantly in the decomposition of animal matter; but there is much reason to believe that it is formed during the process. Now, whenever any of those salts are changed to the nitrate or the sulphate, or when any of their alkaline bases are combined with nitric or sulphuric

acid-combinations that are sure to take place in every instance when the salt or the base comes in contact with either of these acids-a substance is formed which cannot, by any natural process of which we have any knowledge, be again separated so that the alkali may again enter into the composition of an organic structure. Thus, if these substances were allowed to remain, they would gradually accumulate, and the termination both of animal and of vegetable life would be the consequence. Of this we have many proofs: in those warm regions which, through the want of irrigation by water, have become deserts, there is always a crust of some of those salts upon the surface; and the beds of dried-up lakes in warm climates contain quantities of the same, while all their vicinity is sterile. On the surface of the neglected lands, the coast is comparatively thin, but in the basins that once were lakes (as in some of those in Mexico), it is several inches, or even feet, in thickness. The greater thickness in the beds of the lakes shows that there must have been an accumulation there while the bed was filled with water; and hence it is evident that the purification of the soil from saline compounds, deleterious to vegetable and animal life, is one of the most important functions of rivers; and if not so immediately necessary to the existing race of beings, at least essential to their permanent continuation.

THE SEA.

THE waters are usually divided into four Oceans: the Great Ocean, ten thousand miles across; the Atlantic Ocean, three thousand miles across; the Indian and Southern Ocean, and the Northern Ocean. Seas are detached pieces of water, as the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Gulfs and Bays are parts of the sea that indent into the land; and Straits are narrow passes joining one sea or ocean to another.

EUROPE has three inland seas: the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the White Sea; and its shores are washed by the Atlantic, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, the Northern Ocean, St. George's Channel, and the German Ocean.

TO THE SEA.

CHIEF of God's works! in grandeur of repose,

Or majesty of turbulence, to me

Still thou art beautiful, most glorious Sea!
And oft, when morning on thy mirror glows,
Or twilight shadowy curtains round thee close,

I gaze, with full expanded soul, on thee,-
The boundless heaven thy only boundary.
Thee, at thy birth, the Almighty Maker chose,
Aye to resound his everlasting praise :
Thy solemn sounding diapason suits
The theme of His tremendous attributes,
When thy full waves a lofty chorus raise;
And, murmuring sweet as angels' golden lutes,

His mercy whispers in thy softer lays.-C. H. T.

THE SEA.-There is something in being near the sea like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless and for ever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea. I wonder at the sea itself, that vast leviathan, rolling round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a large world of water-drops. Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange, ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension, ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy remorseless womb, what art thou? What is there in common between thy life and ours who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark, unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness! Still is it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance, and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own being, that can question thine!

THE CALM SEA.

THE gentle breeze that curl'd the sea had slowly died away,
And stretched in glassy stillness now, the wide blue waters lay;
The sea-bird's cry was heard no more, and soft as infant's sleep
Was the holy calm that lay upon the bosom of the deep.

But yesterday the storm had raged, and shook the mighty ocean,
That dashed aloft its foamy waves, and heaved in wild commotion;
To-day you might have thought no storm had ever touch'd its breast,
As it lay a mighty emblem of mild majesty and rest.

Is there such calm for mortal breasts when storms have once been there,
When passion wild has swept along, and heart-corroding care?
When guilt has once disturbed the soul, and mark'd it with its stain,
Can tranquil softness of the heart be ever ours again?

Yes; but it is not of this world the peace that must be sought,
And with the soul's repentant tears it can alone be bought;
Then, as it meekly bows to kiss affliction's chastening rod,

The broken and the contrite heart shall feel the peace of God.-W. J.

A VISIT TO THE DEAD SEA.-Having hired a Bedouin to be my guide, and made him eat with me to be assured of his fidelity, I committed myslf to his care and set out at midnight. We marched through the bed of the " Brook Cedron." along a steep and horrible ravine. At length we got into the plain, and to avoid the wandering Arab robbers, stretched about two miles to the south, and were lucky enough to reach the barren mountains which bound the western coast of the Lake Asphaltites or Dead Sea, without meeting a single Arab. The summit of the sterile rock on which I stood was about three hundred feet above the gloomy lake below, and the mountains on the opposite coast appeared to be about ten miles distant. The moon was shining in all her rising splendour on the desecrated scene, the shadows of the rugged promontories around me were reflected in the lake, but not a ripple was on its surface; the silence of death was there, and the curse of Heaven seemed written on the soil! For miles around there was life neither in earth or water. I stopped on the rock for half an hour, my feet were cut in many places with the sharp flints that abound there, and it was with difficulty I could descend. I was desirous of ascertaining the truth of the assertion, "that nothing sinks in the Dead Sea." I swam a considerable distance from the shore, and about four yards from the beach was beyond my depth: the water was the coldest I ever felt, and the taste most detestable, it was that of a solution of nitre mixed with an infusion of quassia : the buoyancy I found to be greater than that of any sea I ever swam in; I could lie like a log of wood on the surface without stirring hand or foot as long as I chose, and with a great deal of exertion I could dive sufficiently deep to cover all my body, but was immediately thrown up again on the surface in spite of my efforts to descend lower. On coming out of the water, I found my body coated with sulphur, and likewise with an incrustation of salt about the thickness of a sixpence, and the wounds in my feet pained me excessively, the poisonous quality of the water having irritated the abraded skin, and ultimately made an ulcer of every wound. I am well convinced, from my own observation and the accounts of the Arabs, that no living creature is to be found in the Dead Sea. The surrounding country has the appearance of having been blasted with fire, and the waters of the Dead Sea stand in sullenness and desolation, a record of the depravity of man and the vengeance of heaven.