SONNET.

OCEAN! I love to gaze on thee, for thou,
From earliest time the same, art ever new;
Such as Creation saw, we see thee now,

Yet daily change thine aspect and thine hue;
When storms of winter bid thy waters roar,
As moving mountains fraught with fate they seem;
In Summer's calm they gently lave the shore,
And heaven shines brightly in thy limpid stream.
Thy billows represent the race of man,

A moment sparkling ere they pass away;
Thus he, frail creature of a short liv'd span,
Flutters his hour, then sinks into decay;
Thyself eternal seems to our brief thought,

Like the Great God who framed thee out of nought!

CONNEXION OF THE ATLANTIC WITH THE PACIFIC.-A Bagota paper says, "The topographical commission appointed to examine the obstacles which oppose the opening of a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific through the Isthmus of Panama, have informed the government that, in their opinion, one considerable difficulty has vanished, in the discovery that the two seas prove the same level; but notwithstanding this, they consider the enterprise as not very easy to be accomplished. The present mode of communication would perhaps be preferable. The navigation of the river Chagres being improved by means of steam boats, and a road constructed from Cruces to Panama, which is scarcely seven leagues and can be made passable for carriages, the course to the Pacific would be very short. Even as the case is at present, Senor Hurtado, going with his family as far as the Panama, has travelled from Jamaica to Buonaventura, Popayan, in only twenty days. Whatever may be the mode, the government of the republic is disposed to encourage the projects which may be presented to facilitate the said communication across the Isthmus, and will give to the undertaking all the favour in their power which shall be compatible with the security and defence of the country."

RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. MARTIN'S PRINT OF THE DELUGE.
THE awful Vision haunts me still,

In thoughts by day, in dreams by night;
So well had Art's creative skill

There shown its fearless might.

The floodgates of the foaming deep
By pow'r supreme asunder riven !
The dark, terrific, arching sweep
Of clouds by tempests driven !

:

The beetling crags, which, on the right,
Menace swift ruin in their fall,
Yet rise on Memory's wistful sight,
And Memory's dreams appal.

The rocky fore-ground-where await

Man, beast, and bird, their fearful doom;
Wonder, and awe, and love, and hate,
Mute grief, and sterner gloom;

All passions of the human heart,

In moods the darkest, fiercest known,
Here, by the mastery of Art,

In energy are shown.

All wildest Fancy can portray

Of that tremendous scene and hour,

Exerts its own resistless sway,

And triumphs in its power.

It is no momentary spell,

Unfelt-when we behold it not:
Its woes on after-hours must dwell
Its fears be unforgot.

Yet not of woe or fear alone

It tells a sad and solemn story;
One object in the wreck is shown
Of love and grace-and glory!

One gleam-where all beside is dark,
From stern and hopeless horror saves ;
Shows where the Heaven-protected ark
The world of waters braves!

To that, amid Creation's doom,

Meek Hope and Holy Faith may cling,
And, in Destruction's darkest gloom,
Of Mercy's triumph sing!-***

VOLCANOES-EARTHQUAKES.

VOLCANOES are mountains in whose cavities internal fires are situated that burn with more or less force at different times the appearance of a volcano in an eruption is represented as appalling, grand, and altogether wonderful, from the vast columns of smoke, ignited matter, and stones hurled into the air with inconceivable violence and rapidity, exclusive of the torrents of liquid fiery substances, which roll down its sides in solemn and destructive majesty.

The supposed cause of earthquakes is steam engendered in the bowels of the earth: their operation is truly terrific ; the earth shakes violently, accompanied with dreadful noises under ground; often destroying towns and cities, or making

horrible chasms, which swallow up every object within their boundaries.

The effects of the great earthquake of 1783, in Calabria, upon the nerves of many individuals, were remarkable. Some remained for a long period in a state of helpless debility, and trembled at every trifling occurrence. Others appeared as if paralyzed for a considerable time; while some declined_rapidly in health and strength, from inability to digest their food; and others lost all powers of recollection for a considerable period. Some remarkable and well-attested instances of the long endurance of brute and human life without sustenance are deserving of record. Two pigs, which had been buried thirty-two days under the ruins, were heard to grunt by the labourers removing the rubbish. They were extricated in feeble and emaciated condition, and for some time refused the food offered them, but drank water with insatiable eagerness, and rapidly recovered. At Polisthena, a cat was buried forty days under the rubbish, and taken out in a wretched condition. She exhibited insatiable thirst, but soon recovered. In the same place an aged woman was found under the ruins of her dwelling seven days after the earthquake. When discovered she was insensible and apparently dead, but she gradually revived, and complained of no evil but thirst. She continued long in a state of weakness and stupor, and was unable to take more than very small portions of food, but eventually regained her wonted health and spirits. She stated, that very soon after the house fell, she experienced a torturing thirst, but that she soon lost all consciousness, and remained insensible until her release. In Oppido, a girl of fifteen, named Aloisa Basili, remained eleven days under the ruins without nourishment, and for the last six days in close contact with a dead body. She had the charge of an infant boy, and, when the house was falling, caught the child in her arms. He suffered greatly from incessant thirst, and expired on the fifth day. Until this period the senses of the poor girl had not failed her, but now she sunk under the combined tortures of hunger and thirst. Despair was succeeded by total insensibility; nor was she conscious, until her release, that the falling fragments had dislocated her hips, and made her lame for life. When restored to animation she complained of no suffering but thirst; and in answer to every inquiry concerning her situation under the ruins, she said, "I slept." It was generally observed, that the individuals buried alive beneath their houses fell into a state of drowsy insensibility; some immediately after the catastrophe, and others, of stronger nerves, some days later. Some of those

who were thus interred felt no terror, but a sense of intoxication, which continued until another shock sobered them, and at the same time, by altering the position of the ruins, enabled them to escape. The most remarkable instance of selfpossession and promptitude in sudden peril occurred at Casoletto, near Oppido, where the Prince was seated at table with his family, on the fatal 5th of February. On this day the oscillations of the first shock continued two minutes without interruption, and when the heaving earth began to rock the house, the brother of the Princess, a man distinguished on many occasions for his presence of mind, started from his chair, saw a large chasm opening in the wall, sprang instantly through the aperture, and escaped with the loss of a shoe. Every other member of the family perished except one son, who was aftewards dug out alive. The entire selfmastery displayed by this man under circumstances so appalling, reminds me of a singular instance of self-possession evinced by an Englishman, now resident in Venice. While entertaining a large party at dinner during a thunder-storm, the lightning entered and struck a plate out of the hand of a servant standing behind his chair. Turning coolly round, he said to the man, "Remind me to-morrow that I order a lightning-conductor."

E

METEOROLOGY.

AIR, RAIN, &c.

METEOROLOGY is the study of the variable phenomena of the atmosphere; such as mists, clouds, rain, hail, snow, &c.

The air of the atmosphere is that thin, light, invisible fluid in which we breathe and live: without it vegetation would cease; there would be neither rain nor refreshing dews; we should have no sound, no smell, no light, nor could we ourselves exist.

Every 100 parts of the atmosphere is composed of 28 parts of oxygen and 72 of azote or nitrogen, kept in a gazeous state by caloric or heat. Atmospheric air is found to weigh in proportion to rain water as 12 to 10,000; it is to oxygen gas as 5 to 6, and to hydrogen as 15 to 1; a cubit foot of it weighing 525 grains, or one ounce and a quarter nearly.

The atmosphere is found to be very elastic, and in consequence to press on every side equal to a weight of 33 feet of water, or 29 inches of mercury; and this elasticity is found to decrease as we ascend higher and higher, so as to render the barometer a means of ascertaining heights.

By the constant process of evaporation, 100,000 cubic miles of water are every year raised into the atmosphere, the greater part of which, at a certain height, parts with its caloric, and is condensed into clouds. These are carried by the winds over the land, broken and precipitated by the action of mountains and trees, and thus rendered the means of watering the soil. It then returns again to the sea in the form of rivers. So that there is a constant round of the waters they are raised from the sea chiefly, are carried by the winds over the land, fall in rain, and then return again to the sea in rivers!

The streams, their beds forsaking, upward move,
And form again in wand'ring clouds above:
Hence rich descending showers, hence balmy dews,
Their plenteous sweets o'er bright'ning fields diffuse;
Hence shoots the grass, the garden smiles with flowers,
And sportive gales steal fragrance from the bowers.

In the process of evaporation the salt of the sea is not taken up the water from the clouds is therefore fresh and pure. The quantity of rain which falls in Great Britain is about 24 inches per annum in the eastern counties, and 36 in the western, which receive the first clouds as they are brought