and powers of things shall be seen to reveal themselves, in the guise of a natural whole, actuated by intrinsic aptitudes. Nature is no dead aggregate; she is, "to the inspired inquirer," (as Schelling grandly expresses himself, in his admirable Discourse on the Fine Arts), “the holy, the eternally creative prime mover of the universe, engendering and evolving all things out of her pregnant self.” The hitherto imperfectly seized idea of a PHYSICAL HISTORY OF THE EARTH expands, under more enlarged views and the comprehension of all created things in earth and heaven, into the idea of a PHY

SICAL HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

titles is fashioned from the former.

The latter of these But it is the history

of the universe, or the doctrine of Cosmos, as I conceive it; by no means an encyclopædic exposition of the most general and important results derived from particular natural historical, natural philosophical, and astronomical books. Such results will only be introduced incidentally into my description, and be used as materials only in so far as they illustrate the connection and co-operation of the forces of the universe, the production and limitation of natural phenomena. The study of the distribution of organic types according to soil and climate, the geography of plants and animals, is as dissimilar from descriptive botany and zoology, as geological knowledge of the crust of the Earth is different from oryctognosy. A physical history of the universe, consequently, must not be confounded with an encyclopædia of the natural sciences. In our survey of the Universe, the Individual will only be regarded in its relations to the General, and the higher the point of outlook now indicated is assumed, the more

will this survey be made susceptible of especial treatment, and of interesting discussion.

THOUGHT and LANGUAGE, however, stand in most intimate and old relationship to ope another. When speech adds grace and clearness to ideas, when its picturesqueness of derivation and organic structure favour our efforts sharply to define natural phenomena as a whole, it scarcely fails at the same time, and almost unconsciously to us, to infuse its animating power into the fulness of thought itself. The WORD is, therefore, more than the mere sign and form, and its mysterious influence still reveals itself most strikingly where it springs among free-minded communities, and attains its growth upon native soils. Proud of our fatherland, whose intellectual unity is the prop and stay of every manifestation of mental power, we turn our eyes with joy upon this privilege of our native country. Highly-favoured, indeed, may we call him who draws, in his accounts of the phenomena of creation, from the depths of a language, which, through the force and unfettered application of intellect, in the regions of creative fancy, no less than in those of searching reason, has for centuries influenced so powerfully all that affects the destinies of man.

43

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION.

1 (page 8.)—This expression is borrowed from a fine description of a forest in Bernardin de St.-Pierre's Paul and Virginia.

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2 (p. 10.)-These comparisons are only approximations. accurate elements (heights above the sea-level) are for the SCHNEE- or RIESEN-KOPPE, in Silesia, 824 toises, according to Hallaschka; for the RIGI, 923t., assuming the surface of the Lake of Lucerne to be 223t. (Eschmann's Results of Trigonometrical Measurements in Switzerland in 1840, p. 230); for MOUNT ATHOS, 1060t. (Capt. Gaultier); for MOUNT PILATUS, 1180 t.; for ETNA, 1700-4 t., or 10,874 English feet, after Capt. Smyth. According to Sir John Herschel's barometric measurements, communicated by him to me in 1825, it is 10,876 Eng. ft. 1700.7 t.; and, according to Cacciatore, from angular measurements, and, assuming the terrestrial refraction to be = 0.076, it is 10,898 Eng. ft. or 1,704 t. For the SCHRECKHORN, 2,093 t.; the JUNGFRAU, 2,145 t. (Tralles); for MONT BLANC, according to the results discussed by Roger, 2,467 t. (Bibl. Univ. May 1828, pp. 24—53); whilst Carlini determined it, from Mont Colombier, in 1821, at 2,460 t.; and Austrian engineers, operating from Trelod and the Glacier d'Ambin, fixed it at 2,463 t. The actual height of the Swiss snowy mountains varies, according to M. Eschmann, about 3t., owing to the variable thickness of the coating of snow. CHIMBORAZO, my trigonometrical measurements give 3,350 t. (Humboldt, Rec. d'Obs. astr. vol. i. p. LIII.); for DHAWALAGIRI, 4,390 t. All these mountain-heights are given in toises, of six Paris feet each. As Blake and Webb's determinations differ by 70 t., I must here remark that the measurements of Dhawalagiri (or White Mountain, from the Sanscrit

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dhwala, white, and giri, mountain,) cannot pretend to equal accuracy with those of JAWAHIR (4,027 t.=24,160 Par. ft.=25,749 Eng. ft.= 7,848 mètres), founded on a complete trigonometrical operation (vide Herbert and Hodgson, in Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 189; and Supp. to Encycl. Brit. vol. iv. p. 643). I have shown in another place (Ann. des Sciences nat. Mars 1825), that the height of Dhawalagiri (4,391 t.= 26,345 Par. ft. - 28,077 Eng. ft.) simultaneously depends on several imperfectly settled elements of astronomical positions and azimuths (Humboldt, Asie cent. vol. iii. p. 282). Still more unfounded is the surmise that some snowy peaks of the Tartarian chain, in the north of Tibet, near the Kuenlun chain, rise to the elevation of 30,000 Eng. ft. (4,691 t., nearly twice that of Mont Blanc), or at least to 29,000 Eng. ft. or 4,535 t. (vide Capt. Alexander Gerard and John Gerard's Journey to Boorendo Pass in 1840, vol. i. pp. 143 & 311). Chimborazo is styled "only one of the highest points of the Andes," since the learned and able traveller, Mr. Pentland, in 1827, during his memorable expedition to Upper Peru, or Bolivia, measured two mountains east of Lake Titicaca; namely, SORATA (3,948 t. 23,688 Par. ft.) and ILLIMANI (3,753 t. 22,518 Par. ft.), which far exceed Chimborazo (3,350 t.=20,100 Par. ft.) in height, and nearly approximate to Jawahir (4,027 t.), the highest of the hitherto accurately measured Himalayan mountains. Mont Blanc (2,467 t. = 14,802 Par. ft.) is, therefore, 883 t. lower than Chimborazo, and Chimborazo 598 t. lower than Sorata, which is 79 t. lower than Jawahir, but probably 443 t. lower than Dhawalagiri. The measurements in this note may be taken as more accurate from being given in various scales, since false reductions of these scales have led to erroneous numerical statements in modern maps and profiles. Pentland's more recent measurement of Illimani, in 1838, gives 7,275 mèt. = 3,732 t. for its height, differing only 21 t. from the measurements of 1827.

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3 (p. 11.)-The absence of Palms and arborescent ferns in the temperate zones of the Himalaya is shown in Don's Flora Nepaliensis (1825), as also in the lithographed and remarkable catalogue of Willich's Flora Indica, a catalogue which contains the enormous number of 7,683 almost entirely phanerogamous Himalayan species, although not yet sufficiently examined and classified. We as yet know of only one species of palm, Chamaerops Martiana, Wall. (Plant. Asiat. vol. iii. p. 5, t. 211) in Nepaul (lat. 26°—274°), 5,000 feet above the sea, in the shady valley of Bunipa.

The splendid arborescent fern, Alsophila Brunoniana, Wall. of which the British Museum has had a stem, 45 feet long, since the year 1831, does not come from Nepaul, but from the mountains of Silhet, north-east of Calcutta, lat. 24° 50'. The Nepaul fern, Peranema cyathoïdes, Don, formerly Sphæropteris barbata, Wall. (op. cit. vol. i. p. 42, t. 48), is nearly related to the Cyathea, of which I saw a species, 30 feet high, in the South American Missions of Caripe; but it was still no tree, properly so called.

4 (p. 11).-Ribes nubicola, R. glaciale, R. grossularia. In spite of a declaration of the ancients on "Eastern Asia" (Strabo, lib. xi. p. 510, Cas.), the vegetation of the Himalayas is characterized by 8 species of Pinus, 25 oaks, 4 birches, 2 species of Aesculus (the 100 feet high wild chesnuttree of Cashmir is inhabited up to 33o N. lat. by a great white ape with a black face-Charles von Hügel, Kashmir, 1840, part ii. p. 249), 7 maples, 12 willows, 14 roses, 3 strawberry species, 7 Alpine roses, (Rhododendra), one of which is 20 feet high, and many other Northern forms. Amongst the Coniferæ we find the Pinus Deodwara, or Deodara (properly déwadáru, god-timber,) nearly related to Pinus Cedrus. Near the eternal snows the Gentiana venusta, G. Moorcroftiana, Swertia purpurescens, S. speciosa, Parnassia armata, P. nubicola, Pæonia Emodi, Tulipa stellata, display their large blossoms. Even next to the peculiar Hindoo mountainous species of European orders, we find eight genuine European species, as Leontodon taraxacum, Prunella vulgaris, Galium Aparine, Thlaspi arvense. The heath, already mentioned by Saunders, in Turner's Journey, and which has even been confounded with Calluna vulgaris, is an Andromedaa fact of great importance for the geography of Asiatic plants. If, in this note, I make use of the unphilosophical expression, "European forms, or European species, growing wild in Asia," it is a consequence of the ancient botanical language, which very arbitrarily subjects the idea of the distribution, or rather of the coexistence of organic forms, to the historical hypothesis of an immigration, even premising a movement from west to east, out of prejudice to European cultivation.

(p. 11). The snow-line of the southern declivity of the Himalayan chain is 2,030 t.=12,180 ft. above the sea-level, whilst on the northern side, or rather on the peaks which rise, in 30° to 32° lat., above the Tartaro-Tibetan table-land, it is 2,600 15,600 ft., the snow-line being at the height of only 2,470 t.

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t.

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14,820 ft. under the equator in