glad if he had found some other sanction for the deed, than the name of the oldest scientific society in our country. But with this we have nothing to do at this time.

The character and present condition of the inhabitants of these islands, which is the next view to be taken of them, is one of comparatively little interest. They have no original features; of Portuguese origin, and catholics in religion, they preserve all the manners and customs of their nation and religion with a few modifications, which their insular situation has produced. Colonial life is generally the infancy and childhood of a portion of the species, but little more than mere animal existence, and the events of its history are for the most part about as important and as diversified, compared with the great history of nations, as a mother's account of her children's daily sports and occupations, compared with the perfect development of minds like Milton's and Newton's. We do not introduce this remark by way of complaint against our author for making us so thoroughly and intimately acquainted with the modes of life and habits of the people of the island, which he has so ably described, but in justification of ourselves for passing so lightly over this part of his work, as we are compelled to do. The island of St Michael, he informs us, is the largest of the Azores, being forty eight miles in its greatest length, and eleven in breadth; its population in 1818 was eighty thousand, of which twelve thousand were in Ponta Delgado, its chief city. It has a military governor and a principal civil officer, called Corregidor, both of whom are sent out by the crown, and hold their offices for three years only. The people in general are represented as ignorant, the institutions for instruction being few and miserable-acquainted with no science but music, and passionately fond of this-superstitious and consequently narrow-minded, and illiberal in religionthe richer class idle and inactive in their habits, slovenly in their dress, given to games of chance and like amusements, formal in their manners and fond of show in the highest degree. This trait in their character is very pleasantly and graphically described by our author in the following passage:

Visits of ceremony are usually made soon after dinner, which among the Portuguese is at twelve o'clock, and the party is composed of most of the members of the family. The ladies are dressed in silks and satins of the most gaudy colours, with a profusion of gold ornaments, jewels, &c. and are always attended by

one or more gentlemen in laced coats and embroidered waistcoats, with cocked hats and swords.

'As soon as notice is given of their arrival, the master of the house descends to the street door to receive and conduct the lady to the drawing room, where she is handed to the sofa, left vacant for her, and to which no one else dare approach; the lady of the house takes a chair on her right, the other members of the family seat themselves on her left: and in this manner the visit is continued from one to three hours.

Evening parties assemble about five in the afternoon, and are conducted with equal formality. The ladies are arranged on one side of the room, the gentlemen on the opposite, little or no conversation takes place, and they often occupy the same seat till the time of departure. Whenever any lady crosses the room all the gentlemen rise and remain standing, till she resumes her seat." p. 54.

We may infer from this account that politeness to ladies is one of the characteristics of their manners, and it is almost the only commendable quality they possess. The condition of

females in some other respects is not the most pleasant; they are immured almost as much as in Mahommedan countries, and are not allowed to be governed by their own choice in forming their matrimonial connexions. It seems, however, that they have learned, as ladies always do, by the exercise of vigilance and their natural ingenuity, to go where they please and marry whom they please, and settle the affair with husbands and fathers afterwards. These are the principal features in the characters and manners of the inhabitants of St Michael, and it will be seen on looking at them that they are not much unlike those which their native country exhibits. Three chapters of the work are devoted to the topics of which we have given an abstract; the four next treat of convents and religious ceremonies, which we pass over without remark to come to the eighth and ninth, which furnish some highly interesting information in regard to the climate, agriculture, and commerce of the island. It is really enough to make one discontented with the blessed land in which we live to lift our eyes from Dr Webster's account of the climate of the Azores, and look abroad upon our leafless trees, our snow clad fields, and our shivering men and women, whom all the furs and eider down of Russia and Sweden cannot warm, to know that there is a spot where the thermometer ranges from October to March between 50° and 75° of Fahrenheit, and at the same time to

feel that the most we can do by the aid of furnaces, and pipes, and double windows, and double doors, and Turkey carpets, is to raise the atmosphere of our habitations a few degrees above freezing. Equally inviting is his picture of the appearance of vegetation at the same season. In the months of December and January the air is perfumed by the geraniums, myrtles, and roses, then in full flower-the orange and lemon trees blossom in the months of February and March. At this time the deep and glossy green of the old leaves, the light, fresh tints of those just shooting forth, the brilliant yellow of the ripe fruit, and the delicate white and purple of the flower are finely contrasted with each other, presenting one of the most beautiful sights imaginable.' How can one read of such things, and not exclaim with the song of the harper in Wilhelm Meister:

'Knows't thou the land which boasts the lemon's bloom,
Where the gold orange spreads its sweet perfume;

Mid lofty laurels, fragrant myrtles rise,

And balmy breezes breathe from azure skies—
Know'st thou that land? O, Love! that there
I might with thee to that bright realm repair.'

Whether those, who dwell continually among these enchanting scenes of nature retain any sensibility to their beauties we will not pretend to decide, but we doubt not they value them. less for the delight they afford the eye, than for the wealth they bring. The usual produce of a good tree in common years,' says our author, 'is from six to eight thousand oranges or lemons. Some instances of uncommon productiveness have occurred; a few years since twenty six thousand oranges were obtained from one tree, and twenty nine thousand have been gathered from another.' This last, he adds, has never been exceeded; but it has been considerably in the Cape de Verds, -forty thousand being there not unfrequently produced on a single tree. Ashe, with his usual correctness, gives sixty thousand, as the maximum produce of one tree in St Michael, and fifty thousand as the average; and estimates them at two and a half dollars the thousand, by which rule he makes every tree yield the owner one hundred and twenty five dollars annually, and consequently an acre of land certainly not less than ten thousand dollars. After such an absurd statement as this, Ashe does not venture to mention the quantity exported, but Dr Webster does, and from unquestionable authority, the

records of the American consul, by which it appears that eighty thousand boxes is the exportation of a very productive year, which is somewhat less than the produce of two trees by Ashe's method of computation. The cultivation of fruit appears to be the only considerable branch of agriculture, except that of Indian corn, of which three hundred thousand bushels are annually exported. No wine is made beyond what is required for home consumption. The tenure by which lands are held is unfavourable to the encouragement of agriculture, which, combined with the indolent habits of the people, and their prejudices against innovations, however beneficial, reduce the surplus produce of the island vastly below what the fertility of its soil, and the excellence of its climate, make it capable of yielding. This is an affair of much more importance to the people of the west of Europe and to us, than it is to the inhabitants of the island; for, beside being a most convenient and admirable fruit garden for both countries, the commerce which is carried on with it affords employment to a very considerable number of their ships and men.

The remainder of the volume is entirely geological, and we congratulate the author upon being the first to furnish this needed information, and thus to fill up one of the chasms in the history of volcanos. It does not appear that these islands were observed to be volcanic, until a long time after their discovery. Berland, who visited them in 1589, says nothing of it; neither does Linschoten, who was there in 1592, although both of them speak of the earthquakes by which they are convulsed. One of these, according to the latter authority, must have been more violent than any that has been felt since. The shock began July 26, 1591, and lasted till August 12, during which time, the land in some places rose up, and the cliffs removed from one place to another, and some hills were levelled and made even with the ground; and such thunder and noise were heard under the earth, as if all the devils in hell had been assembled together there.' This is very like Kircher's description of the earthquake which preceded the submarine volcanic eruption in 1638, when a new island sprung up from the sea, near St Michael and it is in the work which contains this account, his Mundus Subterraneus, first published in 1660, that we find the earliest mention of the volcanic character of the Azores. Another island made a like sudden appearance between St Michael and Terceira, November 1720, New Series, No. 9.

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which again brought them into discussion, and the fact of their being volcanos was as clearly established as any scientific facts ever were in those days. Separate accounts of this phenomenon were published in the London Philosophical Transactions for 1722, and in the Histoire de l'Academie des Sciences of the same year; and it is worthy of remark, that in the former the event is said to have happened eighteen days earlier than in the latter. The English account, however, is most entitled to credit, as it came from an eye witness, John Robinson, master of the pink snow Richard and Elizabeth, from Piscataqua in New England. Since that time these islands have always been set down as volcanos, but nothing more is found in any writer on the subject than the bare fact. They are recognized as such by Faujas de St Fond, in his 'Recherches sur les Volcans;' but in his Mineralogie des Volcans,' he never refers to them as localities of any of the volcanic substances described by him, nor does Ordinaire, in his 'Histoire naturelle des Volcans,' give any particulars of their history. Hebbe, a Swedish traveller, spent the winter of 1802 in Fayal, and on his return to Sweden published an account of that island, with some remarks on the other Azores, but he did not anticipate Dr Webster in any part of his geological information: still less did Capt. Ashe, notwithstanding he went so deeply into the subject, as to satisfy himself that 'the subterraneous conflagration was travelling westward, and that in a short time they [the people of St Michael] would be relieved from all apprehensions of volcanos and earthquakes.' In fact, the examination of volcanos and volcanic phenomena in situ is altogether a modern study; for, although it began with Pliny, it was laid aside again until the time of Sir William Hamilton, to both of whom it was suggested by the same circumstance,-a residence in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius. Sir William's example was soon followed by Dolomieu, Ferber, Spallanzani, Dietrich, Born, Gioeni, Raspe, Fortis, and Faujas de St Fond; and more latterly a new interest has been given to the inquiry by the influence ascribed by Dr Hutton and Mr Playfair to the great volanic agent in the formation of the present exterior crust of the earth. Breislak, Von Buch, Montlosier, Lacoste, sir G. Mackenzie, Cordier, and Humboldt have collected new facts from widely distant regions, in which these grand operations of nature are exhibited; but the mystery is not yet solved, and the remark of Humboldt still remains true, that notwith