i "Sits in the whirlwind, and directs the Besides, there are, as the author to cherish the belief of their divinity. He touches them with a sparing hand; and Apollo and the muses, I have reason to believe, were never once invoked to assist in the composition of this poem. It would be flattering the author too much, to suppose that he could perceive the meaning of the foregoing observations. I therefore feel the necessity of telling him in plain English, that there is neither " music, image, sentiment, nor thought," in the whole poem; and that it is a downright imposition on the com mon sense of the public. mate not the merit of a book by the number of pages it contains, but by the merit of the work itself. One page where genius is conspicuous, is of more intrinsic value than a thousand where nonsense is predominant. But of merit of any kind, " Home, a poem," is altogether destitute. I esti If the author conceived that poetry was his hobby-horse, he might have contented himself with ambling home, and amusing his children or dependents, and not have brought his poor animal into the highway, where every passenger must pity the poor condition of the horse, and laugh at the asinine appearance of his rider. "It is for homely features to keep in the WEST INDIES. THE mind of man is continually One thing in "Home, a poem," Remarks on a Surprising Phenomenon I cannot pass unnoticed, and that is the vein of piety which runs through it. In this age of infidelity, it becomes necessary to mark with high approbation any work which may have a tendency to correct and improve the public morals. The author is not, like many writers, absolutely a heathen; and though he sometimes mentions the deities of the ancients, yet it would be unfair to conclude from this, that he wished thirsting for knowledge deavours to discover the secrets of nature, and explore the laws that regulate the economy of the universe; it soars beyond the limits of our atmosphere, and contemplates the amazing operations of providence in distant worlds. Every object that attracts the sight excites in it new ideas, and offers new difficulties: part is understood, and part is concealed; nor can the most piercing genius totally remove the veil, or penetrate through the gloomy labyrinth of effects to the original and secret cause. Nature, ever mysterious in her operations, perpetually of fers new objects for admiration, and exhibits phænomena, which we too often unsuccessfully attempt to explain. It would be unnecessary to produce instances of this kind; every student in philosophy knows that they may be found in the most common productions of nature. But the following I think very remarkable, and therefore I shall beg leave to lay it before your curious readers. The weather in Curacoa, an island helonging to the Dutch, in longitude 68° 30', N. latitude 12° 30', is prodigiously hot, and would be quite, unsupportable, were it not mitigated by a cooling breeze from the north east, which never fails to pay its wel. come visit when the sun has reached the western verge of the horizon. But what is really surprising, at least to me, is, that a thermometer held in the hand of a native, or one who has for some years resided on the island, will not rise within two or three de. grees so high, as in the hand of a person lately come from Europe. I must own that I have often laboured to find a satisfactory solution of this problem of nature, if I may be allowed to call it by that name, but have continually been disap pointed. The fact is, however, ab solutely true, having been often ob served. It is well known in Hol land, though I have never seen any attempt to explain it. Perhaps some of your ingenious correspondents may remove the difficulty and give a satisfactory explanation of this natural phenomenon, which will be very acceptable, to, Sir, Your most obedient servant, Gifford Park, June 1806. M-. Particulars respecting the VOLCANOES in the ANDES, and the Fishes thrown out by them. By M. Von Humboldt. on THE chain of the Andes, extending more than 2000 leagues, from the Straits of Magellan to the northern shores which border Asia, contains above fifty volcanoes still active, of which the phenomena are as various as their height and local situation. A small number of the least elevated of these volcanoes throw out running lava. I have seen, at the volcano of Zurullo, in Mexico, a basaltic cone that sprung from the earth the 15th of September 1759, and at present rising 1593 feet above the surrounding plain. The volcanic ridges of Guatimala cast out a prodigious quantity of muriat of ammonia. Those of Popayan and the high plain of Pasto contain either solfatares, which exhale sulphureous acid, or little craters filled with boiling water, and disengaging sulphurated hydrogen, which decomposes by contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere. The volca noes of the kingdom of Quito throw ont pumice stone, basaltes, and scorified porphyries; and vomit enormous quantities of water, carburet. ted argil, and muddy matter, which spreads fertility from eight to ten leagues around. But since the period to which the traditions of the natives ascend, they have never produced great masses of running melted lava. The height of these colossal mountains, being five times greater than that of Vesuvius, and their inland situation are, no doubt, the principal causes of these anomalies. The subterranean noise of Cotopaxi during its great explosions, extends as far as the distance between Vesuvius and Dijon. But notwithstanding this prodigious force, it is known, that if the volcanic fire was at a great depat, the melted lava could neither raise itself to the edge of the crater, nor pierce the flank of these mountains, which, to the height of 8970 feet, are fortified by high surpounding plains. It appears, therefore natural, that volcanoes so elevated should discharge from their mouth only detached stones, volcanic cinders or ashes, flames, boiling water, and, above all, this carburetted argil impregnated with sulphur, that is called moga in the language of the country. crater, 1 The mountains of the kingdom of Quito sometimes offer to the naturalist another spectacle less alarming, but not less curious. The great explosions are periodical, and somewhat rare. Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, and Sangay, sometimes do not present one in twenty or thirty years. But during such intervals, even these volcanoes will discharge enormous quantities of argillaceous mud; and, what is more extraordinary, an innumerable quantity of fish. By accident, none of these volcanic inundations took place the year that I passed the Andes of Quito; but the fish vomited from the volcanoes is a phenomenon so common, and so generality known by all the inhabitants of that country, that there cannot remain the least doubt of its authenticity. As there are in these regions several very well informed persons, who have successfully devoted them selves to the physical sciences, I have had an opportunity of procuring exact information respecting these fishes. M. de Larrae, at Quito, well versed in the study of chemistry, who has -formed a cabinet of the minerals of his country, has been particularly useful to me in these researches. Examining the archives of several little towns in the neighbourhood of Co. topaxi, in order to extract the epochs of the great earthquakes, that fortunately have been preserved with care, I there found some notes on the fish ejected from the volcanoes. On the estates of the Marquis of Selvalegre the Cotopaxi had thrown a quantity so great, that their putrefaction spread a fetid odour around, In 1691, the almost extinguished vol. cano of Imbaburu threw out thousands on the fields in the environs of the city of Ibarra. The putrid fevers which commenced at that, period were attributed to the miasma which exhaled from these fish, heaped on the surface of the earth, and exposed to the rays of the sun. The, last time that Imbaburu ejected fish, was on the 19th of June 1798, when the volcano of Corgneirazo sunk, and thousands of these animals, enveloped in argillaceous mud, were thrown over the crumbling borders, The Cotopaxi and Tungurahua throw out fish, sometimes by the crater which is at the top of these mountains, sometimes by lateral vents, but constantly at 15.000 or 16,000 feet above the level of the sea: the adjacent plains being 9000 feet high, we may conclude that these animals issue from a point which is 9000 feet higher than the plains on which they are thrown. Some Indians have assured me that the fish thrown out by the volcanoes were sometimes still alive, as they descended, along the flank of the mountain: but this fact does not appear to me sufficiently proved: certain it is that among the thousands of dead fish that in a few hours are seen descending from Cotopaxi with great bodies of cold fresh water, there are very few that are so much disfigured that we can believe them to have been exposed to the action of a strong heat. This fact becomes still more striking, when we consider the soft flesh of these animals, and the thick smoke which the volcano exhales during the eruption. It appeared to me of very great importance to descriptive natural history to verify sufficiently the nature of these animals. All the inhabitants agree that they are the same with those which are found in the rivulets at the foot of these volcanoes, and called prennadillas : they are even the only species of fish that is discovered at the height of above 7500 toises, in the waters of the kingdom of Quito. M. Lacepede, who has also examined it, advised me to place it in that division of Silurus, which, in the fifth volume of his natural history of fishes, he has described under the name of pi. melodes. i From the enormous quantity of pimelodes the volcanoes of the kingdom of Quito occasionally discharge, we cannot doubt, that this country contains great subterranean lakes which conceal these, for in the little rivers around there are very few. A part of those rivers may communicate with the subterranean pits; it is also probable that the first pimelodes which have inhabited these pits have mounted there against the current. I have seen fish in the caverns of Derbyshire in England; and near Gailenreath, in Germany, where the fossil heads of bears and lions are found, there are living trouts in the grottoes, which at present are very distant from any rivulet, and greatly elevated above the level of the neigh. bouring waters. In the province of Quito, the subterraneous roarings that accompany the earthquakes; the masses of rocks that we think we hear crumbling down below the earth we walk on; the immense quantity of water that issues from the earth during the volcanic explo. sions, and numerous other phenome na, indicate that all the soil of this elevated plain is undermined. But, if it is easy to conceive that vast subterranean basins may be filled, it is more difficult to explain how these animals are attracted by volcanoes that ascend to the height of 9000 feet, and discharged either by their craters or by their lateral vents. Should we suppose that the pimelodes, exist in subterranean basins of the same height at which they are seen to issue? How conceive their origin in a position so extraordinary; in the flank of a cone so often heated, and perhaps partly produced by volcanic fire? Whatever may be the source from which they issue, the per. fect state in which they are found induces us to believe that those volcanoes, the most elevated and the most active in the world, experience from time to time, convulsive movements, during which the disengagement of caloric appears less considerable than we should suppose it. Earthquakes do not always accompany those phenomena. It 1 1 The corregidor of the city of Ibarra, Don José Pose Pardo, has communicated to me an interesting observation on the pimelodes. It is known (says he in a letter which I have still preserved,) that the volcano of Imbaburu, at the time of its great eruption on the side next our city, threw out an enormous quantity of prennadillas; it even continues still occasionally to do so, especially after great rains. is observed, that these fishes actually live in the interior of the mountain, and that the Indians of St Pabla fish for them in a rivulet at the very place whence they issue from the rock. The fishery does not succeed either in the day or in moonlight: a very dark night is therefore necessary, as the prennadillas will not otherwise come out of the volcano, the interior of which is hollow." It appears then that the light is injurious to these subterraneous fishes, which are not accustomed to so strong a stimulus. an observation so much the more. curious, that the pimelodes of the same species, which inhabit the brooks in the vicinity of the city of Quito, live exposed to the bright. ness of the meridian sun. Journal -Bombay-Muscat -Bassora. at present about three hundred Europeans, Con rather a mixture of Europeans and Mulattoes,) and about five companies of Malays and Pertugueze in garrison, theirbartillery seems to be in very badiowdens cul Act Cochin is a large colony of Jews of all tribes, and of all nations. A few of them wandered here, on their dispersion at the time the temple was destroyed, and some of them vintermarrying with the natives, many are now quite black. Theyistill preserve their religion, and all theird antieen customs; some of them, however, have entered into one army as Sepoys, and have behaved themselves well, I both as privates and joffictos३०: ৩৩ 16908 21 ar oqimi Isqioning PtI COCHIN is situated about two obiles up the river on the south banki There is a bar which they say prevents large ships from entering the river, except at spring tides, and unloaded, bus as they studiously pre vent any vessels from sounding, it may reasonably be supposed, that the danger is more imaginary than reales in going out, we stood due East, and kept about one thirdt he river's breadth from the north shorew The fort is rather smaller than Fort St George Bancout stands uponma very high and fortified in the modern manner; the bastions in general having four guns in Bankow The ditch is broad, and the cover'd way well palisaded, but without rivetments. There is phill, con the summit of which biss a very extensive, and fertile plaisirit was built by the famous Nadir Shah: the walls ofsity are of mis immense thickness, but there are movicegular another narrow ditch round the gla-works the situationmisbeautiful cis, of little depth. The gate to the eastward has a large work before it, one face of which is parallel to the river, and mounts about ten pieces of cannon, the other face terminates on the front of a bastion to the west of the gate. Opposite to the center of the face of the fort looking to the rivers, (which consists of only a low thin wall without a ditch) is an island distant about four hundred yards, and covered with trees and houses, so that a battery might easily be constructed, undiscovered. In the inside of the wall is a narrow ditch into which the tide flows thro' a sally port, and by which canoes enter into the town, but it is very narrow. On the west side there is another gate which opens to a low point that runs to the sea. Here, there are no out works, except a pallisade, and battery which runs from the glacis to the sea, and seems only intended to prevent an enemy from possessing himself of the point from the land. The Dutch have v and commanding but the greatest inconvenience attends viss beingrisurrounded by hills, and deep sandygnalleys, where neither horsel on seven palanquins can be used. The billson this coasty care much mored fertile than those on the coast of Coromandel, producing very fine grass, which when cut at a proper age, makes most excellent shayd Mr Farmbroshowed us some very fine in stacks that had been managed in the same manner as in England medכסחיץ The natives neveracut it, but occasionally, and in general vit stands till wither'd, when, of course, at retains little nourishmentsqu berb رة we We arrived at Bombay on the 14th of the evening when we were received in the politest manner by Goya Buddom. Upon application to him understood that no company's vessel would sail up the gulf for some time, and that the only clance we had of obtaining a passagemtoon, Iwasi: to take one in a merchant ships which |