The pumice had evidently flowed along with the obsidian, and formed the upper surface of the stream, which, on examination, they found to have flowed by different mouths from the great crater. The greatest breadth of this stream was about two miles and a half, and the length of it about three. Nothing can make the volcanic origin of obsidian pumice more evident than these phenomena. It is not inferred from this that they are in every case produced by fire; but it is made certain that fire does produce them in some instances.

A very remarkable fact, of which we owe the knowledge to Sir George Mackenzie, is equally favourable to the volcanic origin of pumice. About the end of January 1783, flames were observed rising out of the sea, about 30 miles off Cape Reikianes, the western point of the Guldbringe Syssel. Several small islands also appeared, which however, on subsequent examination, were not to be found; but a reef of sunk rocks now exists in the direction in which the flames were seen, terminating in what is called the Blind Rock, over which the sea breaks. The flames lasted several months; during which time, vast quantities of pumice and light slags were washed on shore all around the Gulph of Faxé. In the beginning of June, earthquakes shook the whole of Iceland; the flames in the sea disappeared, and a dreadful eruption commenced from Skaptaa Jokul, two hundred miles distant from the place where the continuance of flame over the surface of the sea, for the space of six months, had so clearly indicated the explosion of a submarine volcano.

On climbing the mountain Drapuhlid, in search of pearlstone, our travellers met with masses of wood mineralized in a manner different, we believe, from any hitherto observed. It looks like charcoal, but feels much heavier, and contains a great deal of chalcedony intersecting it in transverse fissures. It burns without flame; and when the carbonaceous matter is consumed, the substance is little altered, and its weight scarcely diminished. The Surturbrand, another kind of fossil wood peculiar to Iceland, burns with flame; and from some specimens of it, seems not at all mineralized. It is worked as timber; and Sir George brought with him a piece which had served for a table.

Another very singular phenomenon is here described, and is peculiar to Iceland, as far as is yet known. The mountain of Akkrefell is composed of beds from 10 to 20, nay sometimes 40 feet thick, consisting of amygdaloid, tuffa, all apparently in their original position, and in one that does not at all indicate, the action of volcanic fire. Our geologists, therefore, were very much surprised when they found the under sides of many of these beds having a slaggy appearance, and bearing unequivocal marks of no slight operation of fire. This was the case at the under side of every bed, excepting those of

tuffa, as far as they ascended. They observed also a vein of greenstone, about four feet thick, cutting these beds, and having a vitreous coating on its sides, as is usual in all the veins of the country. There are similar appearances observed in some other of the Icelandic mountains; and the slag above described is sometimes united to calcareous spar. This last circumstance is certainly a proof, that the heat which produced the slag-like ap pearance was applied under great pressure, otherwise the calcareous spar would have been reduced to quicklime. The face of Akkre fell, where these appearances are observed, may have been the wall or side of some volcano at the bottom of the ocean: the under sides, or edges, of the beds of greenstone may have been melted, without the beds themselves having flowed.

Another of the facts brought out in this tour, will, we are per suaded, appear no less new than the preceding. Sir George was soon led to distinguish two very distinct formations of lava; the one the common; the other, which he has distinguished by the name of Cavernous Lava, had no appearance of having flowed, but rather of having been melted in its place; for it appears heaved up into large bubbles, or blisters, of various forms, from a few feet to 40 or 50 in diameter. Many of them had burst, and displayed caverns of considerable depth. It was on this account the name of Cavernous Lava, was given them.

This lava was traced to a great distance; it appeared to form large valleys; it was often covered by more recent lava-sometimes with sand, and very commonly with soil. The whole of the great plain below Hecla is composed of cavernous lava. It reaches from Cape Reikianes to Thingvalla, a distance of 55 nautical miles. The theory which Sir George has formed of the formation of this extraordinary rock, is, that it is one which has been softened, and even melted, by subterraneous heat, over a vast extent of surface, but without being removed from its place. This must have happened at the bottom of the sea, which is confirmed by the sand and sometimes gravel which cover it. But till volcanic countries are more carefully examined, we cannot hope for any stable theory of these singular phenomena.

Thus we have three very curious and new facts in geology brought to light by these travels. The existence of carbonized wood, containing veins of chalcedony; the slaggy beds of amygdaloid, &c. on the face of Akkrefell; and, lastly, the cavernous lava. Sir George Mackenzie, and the two gentlemen who accompanied him, entered on the examination of a volcanic country with particular advantages, in consequence of having studied the class of rocks, that have the greatest affinity to lava in the great variety of these afforded by Scotland, and particularly by the country round Edinburgh: We mean the trap or whinstone rocks, so apt to be confounded with lava, and which, in a coun

try where the two are so much intermixed as in Iceland, would unavoidably be so, if the language which nature speaks had not been previously studied in one of its simplest forms.

The volume concludes with a catalogue of Icelandic minerals, of which Sir George has presented very rich collections both to the Royal Society and to the University of Edinburgh. To all this an account of the Botany and Zoology of Iceland is added by Mr Bright. A Meteorological Journal, for the year 1811, is also given; from which, if we had leisure to enlarge on it, many curious conclusions might be deduced.

ART. IX. Religion and Policy, and the Countenance and Assistance each should give the other. With a Survey of the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes. By Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Lord High Chancellor of England, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. 1811. 8vo. pp. 711.

FEW

Ew of those, we suppose, who have lately discussed the great question of religious toleration, with a reference to the Roman Catholics, expected to find a part taken in the controversy by the great Earl of Clarendon, in the year 18:1. So the fact is, however; and we are glad to have an opportunity of considering the subject under some of the points of view suggested by that venerable person.

From an advertisement prefixed to this work we learn, that the manuscript from which it was printed, together with several other unpublished writings of the same author, was given by his representatives to certain trustees, for the benefit of the University of Oxford. The date of the donation is not mentioned; but we collect from the names of the parties, that it was made. in the year 1777, or in one of the six preceding years. For the publication of the work now before us, the world is indebted to the present trustees, William, Earl of Mansfield; John, Lord Bishop of London; the Right Hon. Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons; and the Rev. Dr Cyril Jackson, late Dean of Christ-Church, Oxford.

The title of the book, which appears to proceed from the author himself, is very ill calculated to apprize the reader of the nature of its contents. Of the 711 pages which it contains, 636 are occupied in an historical development of the rise, progress and decline of the Papal authority; beginning with the foundation of the Church of Rome, and ending with the reign of Cle ment X, who was elected in the year 1670. The remaining 75 pages are divided between a short introduction of 11 pages, and a chapter entitled, Concluding Observatious upon the Pope's U

surped Supremacy; and the Duty of Catholic Subjects to Protestant Sovereigns. Except with reference to the conflicts between the Pope and temporal princes, very little occurs in any part of the work, which can justify the adoption of the first part of the title; and Lord Clarendon's sentiments respecting the countenance and assistance which religion and policy should give each other,' do not materially differ from the principles gene rally prevalent in the intolerant age during which he lived."

The chief object which Lord Clarendon had in view in the composition of this work, was to demonstrate two propositions, which we will subjoin in his own words.

The first is, the extreme scandal and damage religion hath sustained from this exorbitant affectation of superiority and sovereignty in the Pope; the greatest schisms and separations amongst Christians having flowed from that fountain; and from thence the greatest ruin to kings and kingdoms, in the vast consumption of treasure and blood in unnatural wars and rebellions, having had their original. The second is, that Catholic princes themselves, who, for their own benefit and mutual exchange of conveniences, * do continue that correspondence with the Pope, and do themselves pay and enjoin their subjects to render that submission and obedience to him, have not that opinion of his divine right, nor do they look upon it as any part of their religion; so that in truth the obligation which is imposed upon the Catholic subjects of Protestant princes is another religion, or at least consists of more articles of faith than the Catholic princes and their subjects do profess to believe. p. 649.

In a subsequent passage, the second proposition is more concisely stated in the following terms.

Catholic princes themselves, and their subjects who continue their correspondence with the Pope, and do pay that submission and obedience to him, do it not out of any opinion of the divinity of it, nor do look upon it as a vital part of their religion.' p. 660.

Such being the sentiments of the noble author respecting the Papal authority, the historical part of his work is drawn up in a mode entirely conformable to them. It contains, in the first place, we will not say an exaggerated, but certainly a very highly coloured picture, of the enormities of the several pretended Vicars of Jesus Christ; and, secondly, an ample account of the most remarkable instances of resistance to their pretensions, which have proceeded from princes and governments which adhered to their communion. In the relation of these examples of resistance, Lord Clarendon frequently stops to remind the reader, of the absolute incompatibility of such conduct, on the part of Catholic states, with a serious persuasion that the Bishop of Rome has, by divine or apostolical institution, any spiritual authority out of his own diocese. We will give a short

The words in Italics contain an unguarded admission of considerable importance.

specimen of our author's mode of reasoning on this subject, which may also serve as a specimen of the style of his work, coinsidered as a literary composition.

It is well known, that the interdict of the republic of Venice by Paul V., in the year 1605, was the last instance in which the Pope attempted to brandish that spiritual thunder which had been so formidable during the dark ages. The shrewd brushes' which he received in this affair, and in several others during the preceding century, have confined him to his cave ever since, at the mouth of which he sits grinning at the pilgrims who pass by.' To a long, and not nnentertaining account of that impotent transaction, Lord Clarendon subjoins the following remarks.

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The wounds which the Papal Chair received in that conflict may be closed and bound up; but the scars thereof can never be wiped out. To have all his claims of a supreme ecclesiastical dominion, by arguments and places of Scripture refuted and retorted upon him; to have his excommunication examined, and contradicted as invalid, by the rules of law; and his interdict resisted and condemned as without ground; and all this by a sovereign body of Catholics, is, and will continue to posterity, an undeniable evidence, that those excesses and powers were not held of the essence of Catholic religion; and when such fulminations may pass without being felt, and are recalled without leaving smart or sign behind them, and without the least acknowledgment that they were so much as taken notice of, men cannot but believe that they have no terror in and from them selves, but from the stupidity of the persons who are affected by them; and whilst the memory of Paul the Fifth is preserved in the ecclesiastical annals, the distinction of spiritual and temporal persons in the administration of the sovereign justice of kingdoms will be neglected as ridiculous, † and the Pope's excommunication of sovereign princes will be held fit to be derided.' p. 523.

The

* A priest of Padua, being asked by the Podestà, whether he preferred being hanged for obeying the Pope, or being excommunicated for obeying the Senate, replied, that for his part, he had rather be excommunicated thirty years, than be hanged a quarter of an hour." p. 499.

By the distinction between spiritual and temporal persons in the administration of justice, Lord Clarendon means the benefit of clergy, in its original acceptation, the abolition of which was one of the two principal causes of the quarrel between the Pope and the Republic. The other measure which the Pope endeavoured to counteract, was the establishment of a law of mortmain. Here it may be observed, that the Pope has very seldom attempted, even in the darkest times, to wage war with temporal princes on private and personal grounds. In almost every case, he has appeared in the character of the defender of the real or supposed rights of the clergy of the country,