lands, and their course is more or less rapid according to the declivity of their beds and the quantity of water they contain.

Rivers which pass in their descent from rocks of one formation to those of another, often form cascades or cataracts. Nothing can be more picturesque than some of these waterfalls. Sometimes we see a body of water, before it arrives at the bottom, broken and dissipated into showers, as the Staubbach; sometimes it forms a watery arch, projected from a rampart of rock, under which the traveller may pass dry-shod, as the falling spring of Virginia; in one place we see it, as in the Rhine, urge on its foaming billows amongst pointed rocks; in another, we see it, as in the Czettina, rolling down from terrace to terrace, and presenting sometimes a sheet, and sometimes a wall of water. The most cele

brated cataract in the world is the Falls of Niagara, where a broad deep river is precipitated from a height of about 160 feet. Some magnificent cascades have been formed, at least in part, by the hands of man, as the cascade of Velino, near Terni, which is attributed to Pope Clement VIII.

It is reckoned that in the old world there are about 430, and in the new world at least 145 rivers which fall directly into the sea. The largest river in Europe is the Wolga, which falls into the Caspian Sea, after a course of 2400 miles; the largest in Asia is the Yenisei in Siberia, whose course is about 2000 miles; the largest in Africa is the Nile, supposed to be about 3000 miles long; and the largest in America is the Amazon-the greatest river in the world— which, after a course of nearly 4000 miles, falls into the Atlantic with a body of water 180 miles in breadth.

Lakes are accumulations of water surrounded on all sides by the land, and having no direct communication with the sea. They are divided into, 1. Such as neither receive nor give out rivers; 2. Such as give out rivers without receiving any; 3. Such as receive without giving out rivers; and 4. Such as both receive and give out rivers. In the first kind, some are temporary, and depend on the fall of rain or the melting of snow for the supply of their waters; and others are perennial, deriving their supply from springs at

the bottom. In the second description of lakes, the supply from springs is supposed to exceed the waste by evapora tion, and the redundant quantity flows off by rivers. In the third kind of lakes, the water received by rivers must either be equal to the quantity carried off by evaporation, or the superabundant waters must have some subterraneous outlet. In such as receive and give out rivers, the quantity of water admitted, and the quantity carried off, are supposed nearly to balance each other. Some lakes or inland seas contain fresh water; others contain salt or brackish water. Those which give rise to rivers, or are formed in the course of rivers, are fresh; but such as receive rivers, and have no visible outlet, contain salt water. The largest lake in the world is the Caspian Sea in Asia; it has an area of 140,000 square miles, and is a collection of salt water. The largest freshwater lake in the world is Lake Superior in North America; it is 1500 miles in circumference. Compiled.

THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.

THE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God poured thee from his "hollow hand,"
And hung his bow upon thine awful front,

And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
"The sound of many waters ;" and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks.
Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side!
Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar!
And yet, bold Babbler! what art thou to Him,
Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains?—a light wave,
That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might!

BRAINARD.

THE CATARACT OF VELINO.

THE roar of waters !-from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
The fall of waters! rapid as the light

The flashing mass foams, shaking the abyss;
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat

Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald:-how profound The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

To the broad column which rolls on and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea,

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
With many windings, through the vale :-Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track,

Charming the eye with dread,-a matchless cataract,

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a deathbed, and, unworn

Its steady dyes, while all around is torn

By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:

Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,

Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

BYRON.

JERUSALEM.

THE modern city of Jerusalem may be roughly stated to be about a mile in length, and half a mile in breadth. Its population (excluding the pilgrims who visit it at Easter and other seasons) is about 12,000, of whom three-fourths

are Mohammedans. It occupies two small hills, with valleys or ravines on three sides. On the east is the valley of Jehoshaphat; on the south, the valley of Siloam; and on the west, the valley of Rephaim. On the further side.

of these valleys are the hills which command the city -namely, the Mount of Olives on the east; the Hill of Offence on the south; Mount Gihon on the west; and, on the north-west, Scopo, where Titus encamped; so that the Scripture representation of Jerusalem, as guarded by mountains, literally answers to its topographical situation:"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people, from henceforth, even for ever."

"When seen," says Chateaubriand, "from the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem presents an inclined plane, descending from west to east. An embattled wall, fortified with towers and a Gothic castle, encompasses the city all round; excluding, however, part of Mount Zion, which it formerly enclosed. In the western quarter, and in the centre of the city, the houses stand very close; but in the eastern part, along the brook Kedron, you perceive vacant spaces; among the rest, that which surrounds the mosque erected on the ruins of the Temple. The houses of Jerusalem are heavy square masses, very low, without chimneys or windows: they have flat terraces or domes on the top, and look like prisons or sepulchres. The whole would appear to the eye one uninterrupted level, did not the steeples of the churches, the minarets of the mosques, the summits of a few cypresses, and the clumps of nopals, break the uniformity of the plan. On beholding these stone buildings, encompassed by a stony country, you are ready to inquire if they are not the confused monuments of a cemetery in the midst of a desert.

“Enter the city, but nothing will you there find to make amends for the dulness of its exterior. You lose yourself among narrow, unpaved streets, here going up hill, there down, and you walk among clouds of dust or loose stones. Canvass stretched from house to house increases the gloom of this labyrinth. A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view. Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labour, lest he should be robbed