tlements, which, being taken under the control of the crown until the suppression of Spanish authority in America, have fallen into decay, and do not at this time probably contain the one-tenth of the population of their days of prosperity.

The principal town in the missions is San Francisco Borja, containing about 1300 inhabitants.

PATAGONIA.

PATAGONIA is in full possession of an Indian race, all mounted on horseback, and in habits and aspect closely resembling those who desolate the Pampas. They have drawn the attention of navigators by their size, and have been actually reported as a nation of giants. Although this be exaggerated, yet they really seem tall above the ordinary standard. They are described to be excellent horsemen. The eastern coast of this country is bordered by a prolongation of the Andes; but these mountains, after passing Chili, display no longer that stupendous elevation which has marked so great a portion of their range. Their general height from thence to the Straits of Magellan is not supposed to exceed 3000 feet, though some peaks rise to 5000 or 6000, when they wear a most dreary aspect, being covered with perpetual ice and snow. This part of the chain has no valley interposed between it and the ocean, whose stormy waves beat direct against its cliffs, and have furrowed the land into almost numberless islands, separated from the continent and each other by long and narrow channels. One continental peninsula alone, that of Tres Montes, is said to be directly exposed to the waves of the Pacific. Of these isles, the largest and most northerly, called Wellington, is separated from the continent by the channel of Mesier, 160 miles long, whose shores are bordered by low hills, covered with thick woods. To the southward is the archipelago of Madre de Dios, which is little known; but the channel of Concepcion, which divides it from the continent, is broad and safe, and the opposite coast deeply indented with bays, the principal of which, called St. Andrew, is terminated by abrupt mountains, covered by enormous glaciers. Next follows Hanover Island, of considerable extent, and to the south of it a numerous group, called the Archipelago of Queen Adelaide, which borders on the Straits of Magellan.

Opposite to the southern boundary of the American coast extends the dreary region of Tierra del Fuego. Narrow straits, crowded with islets, divide it into three parts, of which the most eastern, and much the largest, is called King Charles's Land; the middle and smallest, Clarence Island; the most westerly, Desolation Land. Between Tierra del Fuego and the continent extends the long narrow winding strait, celebrated under the name of Magellan, who by it first penetrated into the Pacific Ocean.

Staten Land, another large island, lies off the eastern coast, from which it is separated by the Straits of Le Maire. One of the islands belonging to the group, called Hermit, is remarkable as containing Cape Horn, the most southerly point of America, and facing directly the wastes of the ocean which surround the Antarctic pole. It was once deemed "infamous for tempests;" but it is now found that in a proper season Cape Horn may be passed with little danger, and it is commonly preferred to the winding and difficult channel of Magellan. The Petcherais, who inhabit Tierra del Fuego, are a handful of miserable savages, in the lowest state of wretchedness, and subsisting solely by the shell-fish which they pick up on the shore. The Spaniards made an early attempt to form a settlement at Port Famine, in the middle of the strait, but could not maintain it.

The eastern coast of Patagonia is comparatively low. That immediately north of the straits is covered in a great measure with extensive plains, or pampas; but from Port St. Julian, in about 49° S. lat. to 44°, it is broken by considerable eminences. Ports Desire, St. Julian, and Santa Cruz, afford tolerable anchorage, often resorted to by vessels destined for the southern fishery. The natives are seldom seen on this coast, which they are said to frequent only for the purpose of interring their dead.

EUROPE.

EUROPE, though it is the least of those four great divisions of the globe to which geographers have applied the name of Continents, holds the second place in the scale of population, and the first in importance, whether considered with respect to itself or to its influence on the rest of the world. It is the theatre most crowded with civil and political events. Here the moral perceptions, the mental powers, and the physical energies of man have made the greatest progress; here arts, sciences, and civilization have flourished and continue to flourish in unrivalled splendour; and here too, man enjoys all that superiority which these attainments so pre-eminently confer.

Europe is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, and on the west by the Atlantic. On the south, the grand inlet of the Mediterranean divides it from Africa; and the Grecian Archipelago, with its subordinate branch, connected only by a narrow strait, the Euxine or Black Sea, divides it from a great part of Asia. Between the north-east extremity of the Black Sea and the Northern Ocean is an interval of 1400 or 1500 miles of land, forming the eastern boundary of Europe, of which about one-half is occupied by the Ural Mountains, and the remainder by the Rivers Volga and Don. The length of Europe, from the western part of Portugal to the Ural Mountains on the east, is about 3300 miles; and from the North Cape in Norway, to the southern extremity of Greece, 2350; the area being about 3,250,000 square miles.

The form of this continent is singularly broken and varied. While Asia, Africa, and the two Americas are each formed into a vast inland expanse, Europe is split into many distinct portions; peninsulas, large islands, and kingdoms, with extended and winding coasts. This form arises chiefly out of its inland seas, which penetrate farther, and are more deeply embayed, than those of any other part of the globe. Numerous gulfs, scarcely secondary in magnitude and importance, branch out from them. The mountains and the plains of Europe do not display those immense unbroken groups, or those level and almost endless expanses, which give so vast and monotonous a character to the interior regions of Asia and Africa. In general they are separated into smaller portions, and are happily and commodiously interchanged. They have kept Europe divided into a number of separate nations, holding easy intercourse. Probably, this relative position has been one great cause of that intellectual activity, and those vigorous exertions in all liberal and ingenious arts, which have raised this part of the globe to so high a pre-eminence. The immense inland plains of Russia and Poland, presenting an aspect wholly Asiatic, remained, even after the civilization and improvement of all western Europe, sunk in the deepest barbarism, from which they are but slowly and with difficulty emerging.

The surface of Europe is very diversified. Its mountains do not reach that stupendous height, nor stretch in such unbroken chains, as those of Asia and America. The principal ranges of mountains are the Scandinavian, or Dofrafield range, the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, and Carpathians. The Scandinavian chain commences at the southern extremity of Norway, and, running north, soon becomes the boundary between Sweden and Norway. The Pyrenees run in an easterly direction, from the southern part of the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, forming the boundary between France and Spain. The Alps, the loftiest mountains in Europe, form the western and northern boundary of Italy, separating it from France, Switzerland, and Germany. The Apennines commence near the Mediterranean, at the south-western extremity, and pursuing an easterly course around the Gulf of Genoa, turn to the south-east, and pass in that direction to the southern extremity of Italy. The Carpathian Mountains encircle Hungary on three sides, separating it from Germany on the north-west, from Galicia on the northeast, and from Turkey on the south-east. At the southern extremity of the range a branch proceeds in a southerly direction across the Danube, to the centre of Eu

ropean Turkey, connecting the Carpathian Mountains with the great eastern branch of the Alps.

The rivers of Europe are numerous, but none of them of the very first magnitude. The two largest flow through the great eastern plain, a semi-Asiatic region, and terminate in distant and interior seas, where they contribute little to commercial intercourse. The Volga, which alone can come into rivalry with the great rivers of Asia, passes the Asiatic limit, where it spreads into the great interior expanse of the Caspian. The Black Sea absorbs the other rivers from the great plain of Russia and Poland: it receives also the noble stream of the Danube, which belongs indeed to the central region of Europe; but directing its lower course through barbarous and uncultivated regions, and terminating in this distant receptacle, it conduces only in a secondary degree to the distribution of wealth and plenty through the continent. Western Europe is too much broken into separate portions, and crossed by high mountain barriers, to allow to its rivers a length of more than from 400 to 600 miles; and they have usually their entire course through a single country. The Rhine, the Elbe, and the Oder, through Germany; the Loire, the Rhone, and the Garonne, through France; the Po through Italy; the Ebro, the Douro, the Tagus, and the Guadalquivir, through Spain. The northern rivers of Britain and Scandinavia, restricted to a still narrower field, seldom accomplish as long a course as 200 miles. Yet, though Europe does not present the grand rivers which distinguish the greater continents, it is on the whole happily and commodiously watered. Almost every part of it enjoys the benefit of river communication; it is neither overspread by the dreary swamps of America, nor the sandy deserts which render uninhabitable so great a part of Asia and Africa.

The lakes of Europe are chiefly enclosed within its mountain regions; but few of them are of sufficient magnitude to rank as inland seas. Those alone entitled to this distinction are the Ladoga and the Onega, which, forming a sort of continuation of the Gulf of Finland, and being situated in bleak and frozen regions, minister very little to internal intercourse. The others worthy of notice are the Wenner and Wetter, in Sweden; the Swiss lakes of Geneva, Lucerne, and Constance; the Platten Sea or Lake, in Austria; and the Lakes Garda, Como, and Maggiore, in Italy, &c.

The European soil is distinguished for productions, perhaps surpassing in value those of any other quarter of the globe. Grain, of one description or another, is raised over its whole surface, excepting in the extreme north; wines throughout all its southern kingdoms. In hemp, flax, and wool, those staple materials of clothing, Europe is equally pre-eminent. Silk, another valuable commodity, it produces copiously, though not so as to be independent of supplies from India and China. Except the horse and the camel, for which Asia is renowned, Europe contains the most valuable as well as the most numerous breeds of domestic animals. Its northern forests produce the finest timber in the world, with the exception of the teak; and its iron, the most useful of metals, surpasses that of the rest of the world but all the more precious substances, gold, silver, pearls, jewels, exist in an extent so limited as scarcely to be deserving of mention. The cultivation of the soil is carried on with much greater diligence than in any countries except in the south-east of Asia, while in science, skill, and the extent of capital employed upon it, European agriculture is quite unrivalled.

In manufacturing industry, this quarter of the world has, within these few centuries, far surpassed all the others of the globe. The looms and workshops of Europe yield a variety of fine and beautiful fabrics, in such profusion, and at so cheap a rate, as to place them within the reach of almost every class of society. This continent thus clothes all the young nations which have issued from her own bosom, and which fill nearly two entire quarters of the habitable earth.

Commerce, on so great a scale as to connect together the distant quarters of the world, can hardly be said to exist out of Europe. European vessels are found in the utmost bounds of Asia and America, in the snowy regions of either pole, and crowding the ports of the Austral continent. There is not now a place on earth, however remote, affording any scope for the employment of commercial capital,

which is not immediately filled with the same promptitude as if it had been situated in the heart of Europe. The ships of that continent exceed those of all the others in number and dimensions, and are more skilfully navigated, with the exception of those States in the Western Continent colonized by Europeans, which are beginning to form a commercial and maritime system, modelled on that of Europe-a system which may one day surpass the original.

The population of Europe, though more closely calculated than that of any other quarter of the globe, is yet far from being ascertained on data that are very precise. In regard to some districts, and in particular to the whole of the Turkish empire, no census has ever been instituted; in others, the computation is founded only on the number of houses: and in some, ten, twenty, and thirty years have elapsed since any was attempted. At the present time the population of the whole continent, and including all the different races, is estimated by the best writers at from 220 to 225 millions.

The people of Europe are divided chiefly into three great races, which differ, to a very marked degree, in language, political situation, and habits of life. These are the Sclavonic, the Teutonic, and the Romish,

The Sclavonic races consist of about twenty-five millions of Russians, ten millions of Poles, Lithuanians, and Letts, and about ten millions of other races, known under the names of Windes, Tcheches, Slawakes, Croats, Morlachians, which have found their way into eastern Germany, Hungary, and Illyria. The Sclavonians are, in general, less improved than other Europeans. They have only some infant forms of art and literature, which have sprung up from the imitation of those of the eastern nations. They are generally subjected to absolute monarchy, and the greater part of them are only beginning to emerge from the degrading condition of personal slavery. The majority profess that form of Christianity acknowledged by the Greek Church. Yet they are a brave, enterprising, and persevering race, and have established themselves as a ruling and conquering people, in reference to all the contiguous nations of Europe and Asia.

The Teutonic race occupies generally the centre and north of Europe; besides Germany, their original seat, they have filled the greater part of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain, and may be reckoned at fifty millions. The Teutonic people generally are brave, hardy, intelligent, and industrious, though somewhat blunt and unpolished. All the sciences, and even the arts, both useful and ornamental, have been carried among them to the highest perfection; yet they are accused of wanting some of the graces and elegancies which embellish the courts and fashionable circles of the south, by whom they are treated as semibarbarians. A great majority of the Teutonic nations are Protestants; and that profession is in a great measure confined to them, and to the nations in the other parts of the world who have sprung from them.

The race called Romish comprehends the modern inhabitants of France, Italy, and Spain. They were the most early civilized of the modern nations, and have carried the polish of manners and the cultivation of the elegant arts to a higher pitch than any other known nation. In solid energy and intelligence, they scarcely equal the Teutonic nations. The Roman Catholic is the ruling religion in all these countries, and has among them her metropolitan seat.

Certain interesting and antique races inhabit the rude and mountainous extremities of Europe. They are the Gael, the Cymri, and the Basques, the descendants of the Celts, the most ancient possessors of western Europe. The first inhabit the chief part of Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland; the Cymri, partly Wales and Britany, and partly in the south of France, and in the north of Spain, where they are called Basques. Having retained their habits and language during many ages, they cherish a fond attachment to antiquity, and trace their pedigree higher than any of the Romish or Teutonic nobles. They are probably about 6,830,000 in number, of which the Gael amount to 4,500,000, the Cymri 1,700,000, and the Basques 630,000.

The Greeks, once the most illustrious of all the races, are spread through different parts of the Turkish empire. Depressed by two thousand years of slavery, they had ceased to display those high attributes which excited the admiration of

mankind; but the prospects of independence which they have now opened for themselves, afford some hope that they may regain their place in the scale of nations. Their number may be about 2,100,000. The Jews, that singularly interesting people, are spread through all Europe, but especially the eastern countries, Poland, Russia, and Turkey: they are supposed rather to exceed 2,000,000. The Gypsies, in an humbler sphere, are widely scattered over all Europe, to the supposed number of 340,000; a wild, roaming, demi-savage race, of unknown origin, but probably Asiatic rather than Egyptian. Other races are, the Turks, the ruling people in the Ottoman Empire; and the Magyars, who prevail in Hungary and Transylvania, are originally Asiatic. The former amount to 3,250,000, and the latter to 3,000,000.

The religion of Europe is almost entirely monotheistic. A mere handful of pagans, the Samoyeds, are found in its north-eastern extremity, on the shores of the Icy Sea. Europe is almost entirely Christian; and the small population of Mahomedans who have found their way into it consist of Asiatic races, Turks, and Tartars. The Jews, however generally diffused, have nowhere a national church, nor are they, in any nation, fully identified with the body of the people. The Christians of Europe are divided into three great churches, the Greek, the Latin or Roman Catholic, and the Protestant.

In learning, art, science, and all the pursuits which develope the intellectual nature of man, and which refine and enlarge his ideas, Europe has far surpassed every other continent. The empires of southern and eastern Asia alone have an ancient traditional literature of which the remains are yet preserved. But, besides being now in a very decayed state, it never included any authentic history, sound philosophy, or accurate knowledge of nature. An extravagant, though sometimes poetical mythology, proverbial maxims of wisdom, and a poetry replete with bold and hyperbolical images, compose almost its entire circle. The science of Europe has been employed with equal success in exploring the most distant regions of the universe, and in improving the condition of man in society.

The invention of printing, and the consequent general diffusion of information among all classes, are features especially European. By their means, in its enlightened countries, the essential branches of knowledge are now placed within the reach of the humblest classes, and even the highest branches are not absolutely beyond their attainment. The endowments for the support of learning are very extensive, founded in a great measure during the middle ages, and bearing some stamp of the then infant state of literature; but they are now adapting themselves to modern improvements. The extensive and extending institutions for the instruction of the lower orders have produced a general diffusion of intelligence, to which, in the other parts of the world, if we except America, there is nothing analogous.

The political state of Europe is also peculiarly fortunate. Elsewhere, with rare exceptions, a turbulent anarchy prevails, or vast empires are subjected to the absolute sway of a single despot. It is in this continent only that the secret has been found out of establishing a regular and constitutional liberty, in which the extremes of tyranny and licentiousness are equally avoided. Even the absolute monarchies are generally administered with mildness, according to legal forms, and afford to the bulk of the people a tolerable security of person and property. The European states have also established among themselves a balance of power, which sets bounds to the encroachments of any particular state, and has repeatedly rescued the whole continent from the imminent danger of universal subjugation. The military and naval power has been raised to a height to which none of the other continents can offer any effectual resistance. A great proportion of them has now been conquered, occupied, or colonized by Europe; and if the whole is not reduced under this condition, it is only through distance and extensive deserts that many great countries still preserve their independence.

The native animals of Europe are neither so varied nor so extensive as those of more genial climes. The most useful and important of the domestic kinds have been introduced from other regions. The horse, originally from Arabia, or, according to the opinion of some, from Tartary, has, by cultivation and education,