GENERAL VIEW OF THE WORLD.

AMERICA.

AMERICA is a vast continent comprising one of the grand divisions of the globe; it contains an extent of territory nearly equal to half of the other three continental divisions, constituting about three-tenths of the dry land on the surface of the earth; it is washed on both sides by vast oceans, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the Pacific. It ranges from north to south through 125 degrees of latitude, and in its widest part 113 degrees of longitude, being in length about 9000 miles, and in average breadth about 2000; the extent of surface has been variously estimated at from 17,303,000 to 14,622,000 square miles, but in every estimate allowance must be made for the uncertainty of the northern limits, and our still imperfect acquaintance with some of the coasts.

America comprehends the whole of the tropical and temperate climates, with part of the arctic on both sides of the equator. The whole of the continent north of latitude 55° may be considered as a frozen region. In Greenland and around Hudson's Bay, mercury freezes in winter, and ice and snow accumulate on the land and water and covers a great part of the country throughout the year. The winter begins in August and continues for nine months. In summer the heat is as great as in New England; it continues however for too short a period to bring grain to maturity, and cultivation is very little practised. Vegetation is too scanty to supply the inhabitants with any considerable part of their food, they therefore live chiefly on seals and other productions of the sea.

Between 55° and 44° north the climate of North America is still severe. In winter the cold is intense, and the snow, which begins to fall in November, remains till May. The summer advances with such rapidity that the season of spring is hardly known. In June the fields and forests are covered with luxuriant verdure; grain is abundant and in some portions is cultivated with success. The temperate portions of North America may be considered as extending from 46° to 37° north latitude. These regions are prolific in grass, the various descriptions of grain, and a variety of fruits are produced in great abundance. From 37° north to the latitude of 40 degrees south the climate is hot, and the products constitute some of the most valuable articles of commerce, being chiefly tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo, coffee, sugar, and the various tropical fruits. Beyond latitude 40° south the climate again becomes cold, and at Tierra del Fuego it is severe; at the South Shetland Islands, in latitude 63° and 64° south, the climate is that of Greenland and Spitsbergen; islands of ice are tossing through the seas, and the land is peopled only by those animal forms peculiar to the Antarctic Circle. Nature in this continent assumes an aspect of peculiar magnificence, for whether we consider its mountains, its rivers, its lakes, its forests, or its plains, America appears to be distinguished in all those leading features by a grandeur not to be found in the other parts of the globe. This continent contains a great variety of wild animals, and since its discovery the species usually domesticated in Europe have been introduced and are now found in great abundance. The birds are exceedingly numerous, and are said to be more beautiful in their plumage than those of the old continent, but in their notes less melodious.

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The vegetable kingdom is in the highest degree rich and varied, many of the trees are amongst the most ornamental and useful, the fruits are rich and in great profusion, the plants and flowering shrubs exceedingly diversified and beautiful, and almost all the various species of grain necessary to sustain life are cultivated and afford abundant crops. In mineral treasures America surpasses all the other quarters of the globe.

South America and Mexico abound particularly in the precious metals, and such ample supplies have been carried to European markets that their value has been greatly diminished since the discovery of the American mines; all the more common metals, minerals, and precious stones, are found in great profusion, and many of them furnish the materials for extensive and important manufactures.

The inhabitants of this continent have been estimated by various writers at from 20 millions to 50 millions, but are probably about 44 millions; of this number about 18 millions are supposed to be whites, 10 millions of the aboriginal race, 8 millions of negroes, and 8 millions of the mixed race, as mulattoes, zamboes, &c. The whites are chiefly English in the north, and Spaniards in the south, with some French, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, &c. The negroes are Africans, whom the cupidity of the European races has dragged into slavery, or descendants of the earlier victims of a barbarous traffic.

The aboriginal population consists of two distinct races, the Esquimaux, inhabiting the maritime districts of the Arctic regione, and the copper-coloured Indians, who are spread over all the rest of the continent; their origin has been a subject of much investigation, but the total absence of historical records among the Indians themselves, renders it difficult to arrive at any satisfactory result. It has been discovered that there are remarkable resemblances between some of the languages of Asia and those of the Indians, and hence it becomes nearly certain that they came from the Asiatic continent, but at what period they emigrated it is impossible to determine. It is evident that they are a distinct people, being essentially different in several respects from any of the existing races on the eastern continent.

The natives in some parts, particularly Mexico and Peru, were considerably advanced in civilization. Those inhabiting Mexico were denominated Aztecs; their government was a sort of feudal monarchy, in which the nobles and priests monopolized the power, the mass of the people being mere serfs attached to the soil. The Aztecs had neither tame animals, money, nor artificial roads; but they were acquainted with the arts of weaving cloth, hewing stone, carving in wood, and of modelling in soft substances. Their method of picture writing, though rude, compared with the alphabets of the nations of the old world, was superior to any thing else found in the new, and enabled them to transmit intelligence and to record events with sufficient distinctness. Their calendar was more accurate than that of the Greeks and Romans, and evinced a degree of scientific skill that has created suspicions of a foreign origin.

The government of the Peruvians, or Quichuas, was a theocracy of the most despotic character; the sacred Incas, descendants of the sun, were at once temporal and spiritual sovereigns, and the people, or children of the earth, were kept in a state of complete servitude, living according to minute regulations which reduced them to mere machines, labouring in common, and holding no property. The Quichuas employed the lama as a beast of burden; constructed roads of great extent and solidity; built suspension-bridges of a most ingenious kind; formed chisels of a hard alloy of copper and tin; understood the art of moving large masses, and excelled the Aztecs in the perfection of their masonry, but were inferior to the latter in their mode of computing time and in their method of recording events.

The political state of America presents some striking features and contrasts. The native tribes who still survive, are partly held in subjection by European Americans; but the greater number wander over their extensive wilds, either in rude independence, or ruled despotically by their chiefs and caciques. The European colonists, who form now by far the most numerous and important part of the population, were long held in subjection to the mother countries, the chief of

which were Spain and Great Britain; but the greater part of them have now established their independence, and have generally adopted the republican form of government.

Another political element is formed by the negroes, who are mostly in a state of slavery; a numerous body of them, however, in one of the finest West Indian Islands, have emancipated themselves and become a free people; while Great Britain has recently bestowed restricted liberty on the large numbers by whom her islands are cultivated. There yet remain about 5 millions of black slaves in Brazil and the United States, besides a considerable number in the other European colonies.

Many of the indigenous tribes have become, at least in name and outward forms, converted to Christianity; but a great number still cherish the crude notions and rude ceremonials of their native faith. The European Americans have commonly retained the religious creed of their mother country, so that, while in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies, the Roman Catholic is the prevailing system, those countries that have been settled by English colonists are chiefly of the Protestant persuasions. The negroes have generally been instructed in the elements of Christianity. The whole number of Roman Catholics may be estimated at about 25 millions, of Protestants 15 millions, and of unconverted Indians 1 millions: on this estimate, however, the negroes are considered as belonging to the denomination embraced by their masters.

No part of the world presents so great a number of languages spoken by so few individuals, as the American continent. It is estimated that more than 438 languages, and 2000 dialects, are here spoken by about 10 millions of indigenous natives, and consequently, about one half of the known tongues in the world are spoken by about one eighth of the population. An analogy of structure, however, so remarkable, has been found to pervade all the American languages as far as they are yet known, that they have been designated polysynthetic, a term descriptive of their remarkable powers of composition. No class of languages equals the American in its astonishing capacity for expressing several ideas and modifications of ideas, in one word; and idioms of naked savages are not less regular and complicated in structure than rich in words. From the country of the Esquimaux to the Straits of Magellan, mother tongues, in their roots have, if the expression may be allowed, the same physiognomy. It is in consequence of this similarity of structure, that the Indians of the missions could learn the tongue of a different tribe much more easily than the Spanish, and the monks had once adopted the practice of communicating with a great number of hordes through the medium of one of the native languages.

NORTH AMERICA.

NORTH AMERICA comprises that portion of the New World extending from 80 to 70° north latitude, and from 55° to 168° west longitude. The area of this vast region is about 7,200,000 square miles, exclusive of the islands lying west and north-west of Baffin's Bay and Barrow's Strait. Presenting a broad front to the Arctic Seas, it gradually expands in width to about 50° north latitude, when it again contracts its dimensions until it terminates in the Isthmus of Darien.

Its winding outline presents a great extent of sea coast, which is estimated to amount to about 9500 miles on the eastern, and somewhat more on the western side, exclusive of those on the frozen shores of the northern border.

Mountain ranges, peculiarly distinguished by their magnitude and continuity, pervade this quarter of the world. Those of North America consist of two great chains, the eastern and western; the latter, or Rocky Mountain range, known also as the Chipewayan. Passing through Guatemala from the Isthmus of Darien, it spreads out, in Mexico, into extensive table-lands, crowned by lofty volcanic peaks: running thence through the western regions of the United States, and the

British possessions, it finally sinks to a level on the shores of the Polar Sea, westward of the Mackenzie River. Its extent is probably not less than 5000 miles, and in its general course it is nearly parallel to the Pacific Ocean, forming the great dividing ridge, or line of separation, between the eastern and western waters, the principal of which have their origin in its rugged declivities.

The only other extensive range is the Alleghany or Appalachian, which, running parallel to the eastern coast of the United States, throws off some irregular and rather slightly connected branches diverging into Canada, Labrador and the vicinity of Hudson's Bay. This consists principally of two parallel chains, the Alleghany and the Blue Ridge. These, however, are not so extensive in their range, nor do they attain the elevation of the great western chain.

The rivers of America constitute perhaps her grandest natural features, or at least those in which she may claim the most decided pre-eminence over the other quarters of the globe. They are unequalled, both in their length of course and in the vast masses which they pour into the ocean. The principal of these take their rise in the great western chain, from its eastern side, whence, being swelled by numerous streams, they roll, broad and spacious, across the great interior plain, until they approach the eastern range of mountains: thence they derive a fresh and copious series of tributaries, till, bearing, as it were, the waters of half a continent, they reach the ocean. Thus, the Missouri (which, notwithstanding the error which has given the name of the Mississippi to the united channel, is undoubtedly, in a physical view, the main stream) takes its rise in the Rocky Mountains, then flows eastward into the great central valley, where it is joined by the Mississippi, and there receives, from the Alleghany chain, the copious tribute of the Ohio. In its course thence southward, it receives tributaries both from the eastern and western range.

The St. Lawrence and Mississippi proper derive their ample stores not from any mountain chain, but from that cold watery region of swamps and forests which forms the northern prolongation of the great central plain. The Mackenzie and Great Fish River which flows through the north into the Arctic Sea, have a long diversified course, but, from the barren regions which they traverse, are of no commercial value.

The Lakes of North America are numerous and important; they are not, however, mountain lakes, nor formed by mountain streams. They originate in those great wooded and watery plains whence the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence take their rise. The chain of connected lakes on the upper course of the latter river, Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior, form the largest bodies of fresh water in the world. Communicating with the sea by the broad channel of the St. Lawrence, and in a country whose population is rapidly increasing, they are becoming of the greatest importance to commerce. Similar lakes extend to the northward as far as the Arctic Sea; the Lake of the Woods, the Athabasca, the Great Slave, and the Great Bear Lake; but these, unconnected with any other sea, and frozen for the greater part of the year, cannot serve any commercial purpose.

The Plains of the New World form almost as great and remarkable an object as its mountains. In North America, of those more especially worthy of attention, the first is the plain along the Atlantic, between that ocean and the eastern range of mountains. To that belongs the original territory of the United States. It is a region of natural forests; of mixed, but rather poor soil, and of but moderate fertility. The second is that on the opposite side of the continent, between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean; a country with a mild and humid atmosphere, as far north as 55°, but inhospitable beyond that latitude. The most extensive is the great central valley of the Mississippi, rich and well wooded on the east side; bare, but not unfertile in the middle; dry, sandy, and almost a desert on the west. This vast plateau is prolonged without interruption, from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of the Polar Sea, so that, as has been observed, one of its borders is covered with the palms and the splendid foliage of the tropics, while, in the other, the last buds of arctic vegetation expire. The area of this great plain is estimated at 3,240,000 square miles.