tries activity in scientific research is not very congenial either with the maimers or the commercial engagements of the inhabitants; and the pestilential exhalations from the swamps, and the pathless intricacies of the forests, "strangled with waste fertility," that on all sides gird the mountains, may well dispirit the most adventurous naturalist. Several of those giant sons of the forest that were noticed in the botany of India, grow wild in these islands, and equal in stateliness their oriental brethren. Such are the Indian fig or banyan tree, at first a feeble stem, twining for support round some neighboring plant, but in the course of years becoming a grove by itself; the bombox ceiba, or wild cotton tree, from a single hollowed trunk of which has formed a canoe able to contain a hundred men; the logwood; and the locust tree, most gtateful in these torrid regions by its night of shade. Scarcely inferior to these are the wide-spreading mahogany, the brasiletto, the cabbage palm, the tallest of all vegetables, rising sometimes in a strait majestic column to the height of nearly two hundred feet, and the great fan palm, one of whose capacious leaves will shelter eight persons from the rain or sun. The cccropia deserves mention, not only as a large timber tree, but for the excellence of its fruit, and its tough fibrous bark that is used for cordage; the tamarind tree for its airy elegance, and its acid pods, of no mean estimation in this sultry climate. The laurus chloroxylum, or cog wood, is of high value in mill work; and the Iron wood, the Barbadoes cedar, and a species of cordia, known in the English islands by the name of Spanish elm, are in great request for durable substantial timber. The fruits of the West-Indies are deservedly celebrated for their variety and flavour; the plantations in the mountainous districts yield the apple, the peach, the fig, the grape, the pomegranate, the orange, and all the other European fruits, while the more sultry parts abound in native products that may well vie with, if they do not suipass, these adopted strangers: the pine-apple, the sapota or sapadilla, the avocato pear, the cashew nut, the cocoa nut, the psidium or guava, the custard apple, the papaw, the shaddock, and the granadilla, form the principal. The commercial products of these islands are for the most part procured from cultivated and naturalized vegetables, which therefore can scarcely be admitted in an account of their indigenous plants. The vanilla however is found truly wild in the woods of Jamaica and St. Domingo; the aloe, though cultivated only at Barbadoes, grows spontaneously on the dry rocky soils of Cuba, the Bahamas, and many other of the islands: the bixa orellana, from which is procured the annotta, is common to the West-Indies, and all the hot parts of America; and the fragrant pimento or all-spice is not only a genuine native, but even refuses to be propagated by human care. Of all the beautiful species of myrtle, the myrtus pimenta is perhaps the most beautiful, and from the eloquent pen of Bryan Edwards it has received its merited pruise; it rises in natural groves on the side of the mountains that look toward the sea, to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and as no Other shrub will grow beneath its shade, it always affords a cool open walk, perfumed with the exquisite fragrance of its snowy blossoms, floating in loose clusters on its deep green foliage. But few of the other indigenous vegetables of the West-Indies are likely to interest the general reader; of these the aborescent ferns are perhaps the most striking: while the British ferns never exceed the height of three or four feet, and die to the ground at the approach of winter; those species that enjoy the perpetual summer of these islands are perennial plants, and the polypodium arboreum in particular throws up a trunk above twenty feet high, terminated by broad pinnated leaves, which gives ii exactly the habit and general appearance of a palm tree. Three plants remain to be mentioned, namely, the guiacum or lignum vitx, of which both the resin and the wood are useful, the former in medicine, the latter as a material for pullies and turnery ware; winterana canella, whose bark is introduced into the pharmacopxa; and cinchona Caribbxa, a species of the Peruvian bark.* For much information concerning the vegetables of the West-India islands, the botanical reader may consult, with great advantage, the writings of Sloane, Browne, Jacquin, Hughes, Swartz, and many other botanists or travellers. To Swartz, in particular, we are indebted for a most important work, the Flora Indiæ Occidentalis. B. SOUTH AMERICA. EXTENT. ORIGINAL INHABITANTS. CLIMATE AND SEASONS.--LAKES. RIVERS.---MOUNTAINS. -- EXTENT. THIS division of the new continent extends, as already explained, from the mountainous boundary between the provinces of Veragua and Panama, the latter province belonging to South America. But the land afterwards ascending considerably further to the north, the length must be computed from about 12° of north lat. to 54° south lat. and yet further, if the Terra del Fuego be comprised. The length is at least sixty-six degrees, or 3960 geographical miles; While the breadth, as already mentioned, is about 2880 geographical miles. Original Population. The Original population of this large portion of the earth remains obscure, but has, in all probability, been lrom Asia: for it has already been observed, that the sources of popu-, lation of the two continents seem to have been the same. Indeed, many striking affinities between the languages of the Peruvians, Chilese, Brazilians, and other nations of South America, and the languages of the Asiatics, have been pointed out.* Mr. Pinkertan thinks it more probable, that the South Americans are derived from Africa. "The discovery of Brazil (be says), by a Portuguese fleet destined to pass the Cape of Good Hope, shews that America might have been disclosed by mere accident; and that the winds might waft vessels across the Atlantic The constant trade winds, blowing from east to west, could scarcely fa,I to impel some rash African mariners to the American shores. This conjecture (he adds) may perhaps admit more probability, when further discoveries and investigations shall have been made in the African dialects.—The Natchez of Florida seem to strengthen this theory, by their tradition that they came from the rising sun, or the east, that the voyage was long, and their ancestors on the point of perishing when thef discovered America. Du Pratz, i 113. The natives of the Canaries are said to have been extremely tall, and may perhaps have been the ancestors of fhe Tehuels, called by Europeans, Patagonians, who always bury their dead on the eastern shores, as looking towards the country of their ancestors. See the French Astronomical voyage, 17/8, 4to. tome i. and Falkner's Patagonia." Our specimens of the language of the Natchez is small and imperfect, but it is sufficient to shew, that it is closely allied to the Creek language; and this last is, unquestionably, Asiatic. It contains many Japanese and Tatar words; and ft is curious to observe* that many Japanese customs are the customs of the Creeks. B. PROGRESSIVE GEOGRAPHY. The progressive geography is here synonymous with the various discoveries which have been indicated in the general view of America. Many parts of the interior are still obscure; wide regions on the great river of Amazons being covered with impenetrable forests, and others flooded by the inundations, so that much precision can rarely be attained. In the south there are vast saline plains, and small sandy deserts, equally adverse to geographical certainty. The Spanish maps are likewise of noted inaccuracy. But great light has been diffused over South America by the recent large map of Don Juan de la Cruz, Cano y Olmedilla, geographer to the king 1775, republished by Mr. Faden 1759. So recent is any exact delineation of this grand division of the new world!• The religion of South America is in general the Roman Catholic, with the exception of the small Dutch territory, and a few savage tribes. Climate Ann Seasons. The southern extremity, extending far beyond that of Africa, is exposed to all the horrors of the antarctic frosts; and Terra del Fuego in the south Iat. of 55° seems exposed to the almost perpetual winter of Greenland in north lat. 70°. Tehuclia, or Patagonia, consisting mostly of open deserts and savannas, with a few willow trees on the rivers, seems to enjoy a temperate but rather cool climate. On proceeding towards the north the great chain of the Andes constitutes real zones and climates, which strangely contradict the theories of ancient geographers; the chief inconveniencies of the torrid zone being extreme cold on the mountains, and extreme moisture in the plains-t Near Callao the months of October and November form the spring. In Peru what is called summer is the dry season, often extremely cold; and the rainy season is called winter. The former begins in May, which is nearly the beginning of winter in the lower parts, and continues till November, when the slight fogs, called winter in the valesj begin to disperse. On Uie mountains winter logins in December, which in the plains is the first month of summer; and a journey of four hours conducts the traveller from one season to another. At Quito, situated between two chains of the Andes, on a plain of remarkable elevation, the months from September to May Or June, constitute the winter; and the other months the summer; the former being exposed to almost constant rains, which are also frequent, but at longer intervals, during the summer season. At Carthagena the winter, or rainy season, extends, on the contrary, from May to Even the large map by Kitchen, 1774, of the southern half, inserted in Falkner's Patagonia, though pretended to be built upon authentic materials, will be found to be almost wholly imaginary, when compared with that of La Cruz. † Ulloa Memoires Philosophiques, Paris, 1787, two vol. 8vo. i. 89. Ulloa's Voyage, i. 278, but see the observations at the end of vol. ii. of the French translation, two vol. 4to. which is far superior. At Ricbamba rhs winter lasts frpm December to June, being far colder than at Quitoi and further to the south Chili (Tchili) receives its name from snow. From the gulf of Guayquil to the deserts of Atacama, a space of 4G0 leagues in length by 20 or 30 in breadth, it never rains; and thunder storms are unknown. Bouguer, xxiiii. November, and the summer, or dry season, from December to April. At Panama the summer begins rather later, and ends sooner; at Lima, in a southern latitude nearly corresponding with the northern of Carthagena, the heat is far more moderate; and spring begins with December, winter with July: the summer is in February, the autumn in May. In general the confined regions on the west of the Andes are dry, the clouds being arrested by their summits; while the wide countries on the east of that chain are exposed to torrents of rain, from the eastern or trade winds blowing over the Atlantic. In Brazil the rainy seasou begins in March or April, and ends in August, when the spring begins, ov rather the summer, the distinction being only between wet and dry seasons.* LAKES. South America can scarcely boast of any inland sea; but the great river of Amazons, and that of La Plata, may be said to supply this deficiency; and if numerously peopled by industrious inhabitants, there would be no room to complain of the want of inland navigation throughout the greater part of this ample portion of the earth. The gulfs on the south-west extremity containing the isles of Chiloe, St. Martin, &c. are of small consequence, and in a remote and disadvantageous position. No part of the globe displays so great a number of lakes as North America; and the southern part of the new continent is perhaps equally remarkable by their rarity. Many sup fosed lakes, as that of Zarayos or Shantyos, in the course of the river 'araguay, only exist during the annual inundations, which are on a far grander scale than those of the Ganges, and may be said to deluge whole provinces. In the most northern part the Lagoon of Maraycabo is remarkable, being a circular bason about 100 British miles in diameter, receiving numerous rivers and rivulets, and communicating with the sea by a considerable creek. The celebrated lake Parima, called also Paranapitinca or the White Sea, is represented by La Cruz as more than 100 British miles in length by fifty in breadth. This size, and even its existence, have been doubted, as it was the noted seat of the city El Dorado, the streets of which were paved with gold; a fable which seems to have arisen from a rock of talc reflecting like a mirror, the golden rays of the sun. According to La Cruz this lake receives the Orinoco on the north-west which afterwards emerges, and pursues a westerly course, till it finally bends north and east. The Parima also gives source to the great river of the same name, likewise called the Rio Blanco, which joins the river Negro, and great river of Amazons. In this part of South America, there is, as it were, a contest betwixt land and water; and so level and mutable is the soil, that the rivers seem dubious what course to pursue, as they flow in every direction, and branches of the Orinoco communicate with the tributary rivers of the immense Maranon. The natural history of the celebrated lake of Parima would not be a little interesting, but a deep obscurity pervades those regions. In Amazonia and Brazil there do not appear to be any lakes of con sequence: but the Portuguese are inferior even to the Spaniards in |