went off, the vessel ran aground, and out they all came, rank and file; and as soon as the ground was in travelling order, they went different ways, and every thing went on as before. After that""O! but stop, stop, gently, if you please!" I should exclaim, "you are extremely vivacious to night, but we have more phlegm, and like to see our way. You mentioned just now, as an undisputed fact, the existence, at the present day, of many insulated indigenous breeds of animals, that is, if I understood aright, breeds peculiar to certain districts, living on spots parted by vast tracts of water from places where they are not found. Now with all due deference to the authority of your President, whom we will, for form's sake, suppose a respectable man, I must own, I cannot exactly see how he means to support his hypothesis of only a few of each being saved from the waters, especially if any of them are like one we have, called a kangaroo. This creature was discovered by us, at a comparatively late date, on a spot completely isolated; and moreover, his fore legs are so short, so woefully unsuited for aquatic excursions, that I don't think he could swim one hundred yards: how could he get there, from a place perhaps an immense distance off, through the ocean? Besides, you only specified

beasts, birds, and reptiles, at least so I understood you have you no insects, no minute genera, of countless forms? We have tens of thousands; or did you forget to mention their fate in the general wreck?" Here our Lunarian would puff stronger, peradventure blow his nose, as if to sound a parley; upon which I should frankly say: "I tell you what, mine honoured guest, the President was pleased to be funny at your expense; he was certainly joking, or imposing on you; the mildest construction we can put on the story is, he was himself deceived. Such facetious tales wont do here; if the rest of your forthcoming narrative is of a piece with the exordium, smoke your pipe, and don't stir the question further: I was in hopes to have heard some valuable, interesting information; but never mind, as your hero said, 'We must make shift without it.' Come, you don't get on; fill again, and make yourself at home."

AND here, I would point out with delight, with feelings of honest pride, the wide difference in the routes of Ignorance, attended by Cunning and Fanaticism; and of Science, supported by Candour and love of Truth. Ignorance, tied to forms and prejudices, flounders on through thick and thin, without deigning to look on either side, before, or behind. Even if she sees her error, false shame forbids an honest avowal; checks all retraction and amendment: "Let me alone," she exclaims, "I will have my own way, I will not learn better; talk not of impossibilities, to me all things are possible; I engross all learning, all possibility:" and thus, she sticks fast in the mire ploughed up by her own corrosive feet. While meek-eyed Science, rising in silent dignity, diffident yet steady, advances beaming with hope and cheerfulness. She says, in sweetest accents, “I will humbly attempt to know the way of Truth; I will strive without ceasing for the melioration of my genus; I will save them

from the reproach of their own; Envy and Malice may spit venom in my path, they shall taunt in vain: if I am fated to perish, it shall be in the attempt to rescue Truth from Falsehood, Detraction, and Oblivion."

We come now to the Hebrew Cosmogany; that part of their writings need delay us but a very short time: I shall content myself with observing by the way, that the men of your tribe ask of our missionaries a rude question or two; such as, "If God was angry with the Father, why was he with the Child? And how could he, All-powerful, Allknowing, allow another being of inferior power and knowledge, to take him unawares? " So deeply is a sense of natural justice rooted in man, as part of himself. We will leave the gentlemen concerned, to ruminate, and answer these queries at leisure, and proceed to what is more important, namely, the Mosaic account of the last deluge. Here, we get to something feasible and substantial, to an event supported by the strongest collateral proof. We have every where traces more or less marked and definable, of such tremendous visitations having happened. The Greeks had their Deucalion and Pyrrha, only a solitary pair saved in the wreck of life; all the rest they destroyed: the Hebrew records save eight. Science con

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fesses, that as yet she has not ascertained the demonstrable cause of these events: I submit, (and this is a doubtful case open to the opinion of every man,) that these deluges, whether proceeding from a cause merely extrinsic to to our solar system, or from independent power, have not been at any one period general, but confined and partial in the scope of their ravages. That they are like all other phenomena in Nature, only effects springing from adequate necessitous causes : that they may be periodical, and if so, had happened before, and may, or will, happen again. It has been objected, that the idea of a drowning world is too dreadful and cruel to be listened to: there is some weight in that position, if these catastrophes are spoken of in the light of a "Specialty;" but I can with difficulty bring against Nature a charge of cruelty; and if these be considered as proceeding from natural causes, they are not one iota more cruel or tremendous, than the destructions by earthquake, visitations which we know have taken place, and to which no reflecting man ascribes specialty. Whether is it more cruel that forty millions, forty thousand, or forty units, should perish in natural operation? Each individual loses life in each case. Besides, every living creature is born