of some of their proceedings is afforded by our author, and forms one link in his chain of argument.

In the afternoon I went upon the reef with a party of the gentlemen, and the water being very clear round the edges, a new creation, as it was to us, but imitative of the old, was there presented to our view. We had wheat sheaves, mushrooms, stags' horns, cabbage leaves, and a variety of other forms, glowing under water with vivid tints of every shade betwixt green, purple, brown, and white; equalling in beauty and excelling in grandeur the most favourite parterre of the curious florist. These were different species of coral and fungus, growing as it were out of the solid rock, and each had its peculiar form and shade of colouring; but while contemplating the richness of the scene, we could not long forget with what destruction it was pregnant.

Different corals in a dead state, concreted into a solid mass of a dull white colour, composed the stone of the reef. The edges of the reef, but particularly on the outside, where the sea broke, were the highest parts: within were pools and holes containing live corals.

time.

This curious fact I was desirous to verify, and his description was proved to be correct. I found also two broken columns of stone three or four feet high, formed like stumps of trees, and of a thickness superior to the body of a man; but whether they were of coral or of wood now petrified, or whether they might not have been calcareous rocks, worn into that particular form by the weather, I cannot determine. Their elevation above the present level of the sea, could not have been less than four hundred feet.

This is justly called a "curious fact," by Capt. F. and it appears to have strongly excited his attention. He re-. curs to it on another occasion.

The length of these cliff's from their second commencement is thirty-three leagues; and that of the level banks from near Cape Pasley where it was first seen from the sea, is no less than one hundred and forty five leagues. The height of this extraordinary bank is nearly the same throughout, being no where less by estimation than four hundred, nor any where more than six hundred feet.*

This equality of elevation for so great an extent, and the evidently calcareous nature Here then were some of the living of the bank, at least in the upper two hunagents, and some of the effects of their dred feet, would bespeak it to have been dead progenitors, within reach of im- the exterior line of a vast coral reef, which mediate observation. These corals live is always more elevated than the interior and work incessantly under water: ar- parts, and commonly level with high water mark. From the gradual subsiding of the rived at the atmosphere, Nature declines sea, or perhaps by a sudden convulsion of their further services by what means nature, this bank may haye attained its then do their labours attain the eleva-present height above the surface, and howtion of hills and mountains? how rise into the air, from their origin at the bottom of the sea? for such appears to be the fact, from concurrent testimony.

Capt. Vancouver has described the country in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound, and therefore a few observations on it will suffice. The basis stone is granite, which frequently shows itself at the surface, in the form of smooth bare rock, but upon the sea coast hills, and the shores on the south sides of the Sound and Princess Royal Harbour, the granite is generally covered with a crust of calcareous stone, as it is also upon Michaelmas Island. Capt. Vancouver mentions (Vol. I. p. 49) having found upon the top of Bald Head, branches of coral protruding through the sand, exactly like those seen in the coral beds beneath the surface of the sea; a circumstance which should seem to bespeak this country to have emerged from the ocean at no very distant period of

ever extraordinary such a change may ap pear, yet, when it is recollected that branches of coral still exist on Bald Head, at the elevation of four hundred or more feet; this supposition assumes a great degree of probabilty, and it would further seem, that the subsiding of the waters has not been at a period very remote, since these frail branches have yet neither been all beaten down, nor mouldered away by the wind and weather.

In fact, a bank of similar corals, destined one day to be islands, may be said to surround this vast continent: on

This appearance maintains a distinguished place among the sketched portraits of different islands, and other localities, annexed to the Atlas. There is something in it so difficult of comprehension, that even on paper these cliffs must be pronounced tremendous.

thirteen feet could now be found, on the shallowest part of the bar;" the water therefore has been diminished by accumulation at the bottom, no less than four feet in about twenty years.

66

one of them our author was shipwrecked; | marked seventeen feet deep: no more than others have proved fatal to other British vessels, and there can be no doubt but that on some such hidden danger, La Perouse with both his vessels perished. The inferences to which these facts give rise, are connected with important consequences. We see the whole kingdom of Sweden, in the north, sinking, as it were annually; the active cause of this phenomenon is undiscovered: we see these islands in the south, rising up to day almost annually; after a short time these unite, and form groups, from which they increase, till they form Continents. All this while, the sea supports those inconceivable numbers of operative animalculæ, whose constructions create rocks and other accumulations. By their instrumentality, then, the sea forms the land. What principle does the sea afford, as the basis of this wonderful | conversion? what a change of condition, from the freely flowing wave to the fixed and immoveable bank of a hundred and forty five leagues in length, and five or six hundred feet in height! what a wonderful transformation!

But other wonders meet us: Some of the trees on Preservation Island, had partly undergone a peculiar transformation. The largest of them were not thicker than a man's leg, and the whole were decayed but while the upper branches continued to be of wood, the roots at the surface, and the trunks up to a certain height, were of a stony substance resembling chalk. On breaking these; chalky trunks, which was easily done, rings of the brown wood sometimes ap peared in them, as if imperfectly converted; but in the greater number nothing more than circular traces remained. The situation in which these trees were principally found, is a sandy valley near the middle of the Island, which was likewise remarkable for the quantity of bones of birds and small quadrupeds, with which it was strewed. The petrefactions were afterwards particularly examined by Mr. Bass, who adopted the opinion that they had been caused by water.

more

In one of our extracts, speaking of islands, " every gale adds something to the bank; the form of an island is gradually assumed, and last of all," says Capt. F. very coolly, comes man to take possession." But, there are other difficulties to be obviated before the philosopher can come to the possession taken by man. How those sluggish fish, oysters and mussels, and perriwinkles, might come there, how birds might come there, it is not difficult to conceive; but by what means Kangaroos established themselves on the "Kangaroo island" of our author, baffles all conjecture. Those animals could not swim; how then did they arrive at the island? If, indeed, the island were broken off from the continent on which they resided, then has the species only kept its place of residence ;-but, then too, not all the islands of the Great South Sea could be coral banks, originally the works of insects bred in the mighty waters. This difficulty we must leave, to attend our enterprising navigator. That numerous inhabitants exist where man has yet no footing, is notorious; but an instance of their numbers, so striking as the following, is not, at present, in our recollection.

A large flock of Gannets was observed to the southward; and they were followed at day light, to issue out of the great bight by such a number of the sooty Petrels as we had never seen equalled. There was a stream of from fifty to eighty yards in depth, and of three hundred yards, or more, in breadth: the birds were not scattered, but flying as compactly as a free moveand ment of their wings seemed to allow; during a full hour and a half, this stream of Petrels continued to pass without interruption, at a rate little inferior to the swiftness of the pigeon, On the lowest computation, I think the number could not have been less than a hundred millions; and we were thence led to believe, that there must be, in the large bight, one or more uninhabited islands of considerable size.

Our author states the grounds of his estimate of these numbers in a note,

Taking the stream to have been fifty not unfrequently appeared to consider us yards deep by three hundred in width, to be seals. and that it moved at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and allowing nine cubic yards of space to each bird, the number would amount to 151,500,000. The burrows required to lodge this quantity of birds would be 75,750,000; and allowing a square yard to each burrow, they would cover something more than 18 geographic square miles of ground.

A pleasant mistake this! and committed in reference to the Lord of the Creation! whose dominion, by the bye, was impugned by creatures more diminutive; which only by degrees were taught to understand their duty, and to conduct themselves with due respect and veneration.

A pretty numerous covey! but it . . . The common black flies, from their proves that the powers of Nature exert extraordinary numbers and their imputheir activity, independent of the inter-dence, were scarcely less annoying than ference of man: in fact, man is an animal so strange on these shores, that his fellow animals know not how to behave to him: some mistake him for Kangaroo because they are used to see only Kangaroos on their dominions; some for Seal, because Seal is their only companion; while the insects think him a stock or a stone, on which they may settle, ad libitum, as on other stocks and stones. The picture of their simplicity is extremely amusing.

Says Capt. F.

...

We were proceeding. up the hills.. when a white eagle with fierce aspect and outspread wing, was seen bounding totowards us; but stopping short at twenty yards off, he flew up into a tree. Another bird of the same kind discovered himself by making a motion to pounce down upon us as we passed underneath; and it seemed evident that they took us for kangaroos, having probably never before seen an upright animal in the island, of any other species.

If these birds kept records of events in this island, we could like to see their account of these strange animals which they mistook; to their mortifying disappointment. On another occasion, tays our author,

Never, perhaps, had the dominion possessed here by the kangaroo, been invaded before this time. The seal shared with it upon the shores, but they seemed to dwell amicably together. It not unfrequently happened, that the report of a gun fired at a kangaroo near the beach, brought out two or three bellowing seals from under #bushes considerably further from the water side. The seal, indeed, seemed to be much the most discerning animal of the two; for its actions bespoke a knowledge of our not being kangaroos, whereas the kangaroo

musketoes; they get into the mouth and nose, and settle upon the face, or any other part of the body, with as much unconcern as they would alight on a gum tree; nor are they driven away easily. This was the case on shore, and on board the ship while lying at anchor, and for a day or two afterwards: but the society of man wrought a change in the manners even of these little animals. They soon became more cautious, went off when a hand was lifted up, and in three or four days after quitting the land, behaved themselves orderly, like other flies; and though still numerous on board, they gave little molestation.

We hope this lesson will not be lost on the genus Musca: though we fear it may

be perverted under the frail protection of tradition. Not much will the talents of that race of men who roam the wilds of the South Sea Islands, contribute to the promotion of recondite science, or the elegant arts; although the rudiments of such powers are natural to their minds, and they display the first principles, without an idea of their refinement or perfection. On one of these islands Captain F. found specimens, the only instance he met with of skill savage in design. In Groote Eylaud,

In the steep sides of certain chasms were deep holes, or caverns, undermining the cliff's; upon the walls of which I found rude drawings made with charcoal, and something like red paint, upon the white ground. of the rock. These drawings represented porpoises, turtles, kangaroos, and a human hand; and Mr. Westall [the landscape painter to the expedition] who went afterwards to see them, found the representation of a kangaroo, with a file of thirty-two persons following after it. The third person of the band was twice the height of the others, and held in his hand something resembling the whaddie, or wooden sword of

the natives of Port Jackson; and was pro

bably intended to represent a chief. They The Architectural Antiquities of Great could not, as with us, indicate superiority by clothing or ornament, since they wear none of any kind; And therefore, with the addition of a weapon, similar to the ancients, they seemed to have made superiority of person the principal emblem of superior power, of which, indeed, power is usually a consequence in the very early stages of society.

This deserves distinction. Amid the wilds of African deserts, Mr. Barrow found delineations of animals, and rude

imitations of the human figure. Among

the Otaheiteans, the natives of the Sandwich islands, and others, grotesque heads, &c. ornament their canoes and dwellings; on Easter island are remains of sculptures, certainly extraordinary : Are these traditional memorials of descent from one great family,-broken branches of the same family talents? or, are they rude emanations of genius, ab initio, original proofs of natural talent, led to the imitation of natural forms, constantly exposed to inspection, and serving as models?-The question is not without interest, but we cannot pursue it.

Britain, represented and illustrated in a series of Views, Elevations, Plans, Sections, and Details, of various ancient English edifices: with historical and descriptive Accounts of each. By John Britton, F. S. A. Vol. IV. 4to. Taylor, &c. London. 1814.

nation of a work, the early numbers of We announce with pleasure the termiwhich favourable auspices. The public has completely appeared under the diligence, research, and spirt of the justified the opinion we had formed of author; we may add, also of the talents and professional skill of the artists employed in the preparation and execution of the plates. That a long series of is not in the nature of things: they do not plates should all be equally well treated, all equally require that operose effect, without which some remain imperfect. One or two, perhaps, have been such favourites with the artist as to suffer from excess of anxiety to do them justice to do justice to that conception of These instances in savage life, seem merit which floated before the imaginato imply, very forcibly, that the rudi- tion of the engraver. It must be conments of the arts of design, are a natural fessed, too, that in contemplating some part of the constitution of the human mind. of these prints, it is difficult to guard Here we must close: we pass over against the idea of a certain kind of with reluctance the narrative of our an- snow-like flickering that beguiles the thor's meeting with Malay Prows, which eye, though not so intended. In general, shews by what means these islands might however, the series does credit to the be peopled: the profits expected in their state of art, and to the artists, who have trade; also in a trade in slaves, carried profited by this opportunity of displayon by an American vessel: especiallying their abilities. We have no reason the history of Captain F.'s shipwreck, and his desertion, by a vessel that escaped destruction: his detention also at the Marritius; and many other circumstances painful or pleasant. Nothing that human care can suggest has been omit-ried further, as in one or two instances, ted to ensure the accuracy of this work; and that must be its chief recommendation, notwithstanding, as our readers will perceive, there are parts of it pecuharly interesting to science in its various branches. An appendix contains a specimen of plants; observations on the longitudes, with other disquisitions and calculations; the whole executed in a manner very creditable to the persons employed on the work.

to doubt the general accuracy of the details; many of which are extremely curious. As to liberties taken by the artists to produce effect, in the general views, they ought to be modest; if car

notice should be given in the narrative. After all, general views should not be considered as landscapes; neither should they be made into landscapes, fidelity is their first merit. The measurements, sections, &c. we may safely describe, as exact.

Public approbation has accompanied this undertaking in a degree truly honourable to the discriminating taste of our countrymen; the consequence is,

if France continues in a peaceful "attitude," that the arts will flourish, and the ingenuity and talents of her natives will justify the good opinion of those who look to them for superior things. The art of engraving has lately produced specimens in Germany, and others in Italy, which do great credit to the powers of their authors. They shew a command of hand, a brilliancy and tone of execution, with a correctness of design, which cannot but exact the ap plause of every judge of graphic excel

that, several other works are likely to branch off from this, and to continue the subject of Antiquities, though in another form. Already have two numbers of Ecclesiastical, or rather, Cathedral Architecture been published; and it is probable that Mr. Britton may turn his thoughts to Castellated Architecture: for which he has made some preparations. The present work, however, contains specimens of various kinds from the simple stone cross, the history of which, entrusted to tradition has expired, to those extremely curious arti-lence. cles, the round churches; mutilated For his authorities, Mr. Britton has abbeys, time mouldered towers, halls had recourse to those among our literaonce festive; and a few festive still the ture which are generally esteemed, and seat of Nobility or of Royalty, as Windsor, are acknowledged as the most authentic. and others. Colleges, too, have engaged In some instances he has been happy great attention; and with their parts at enough, by force of research to disinter large, their plans, &c. form a consider- ancient documents which have long lain able feature of the work. Perhaps, we forgotten among heaps of mouldy rehave never seen a more interesting as- cords; but generally, he has made use semblage of the domestic residences, and of the labours of his predecessors, imconveniences, or want of conveniences, proved in manner and arrangement.which marked the dwellings of our An instance by way of specimen may ancient nobles, and gentry. So many shew his manner. We select his acedifices of the middling ranks have been count of the Cathedral of Lindisfarn, or pulled down, and given place to succes-Holy Island, on the coast of Northumsors, that correct notions on this branch berland. of the subject are far from cominon among us.

We acknowledge a certain feeling of rivalship, on behalf of our artists versus those of France. If it be a weakness, let our confession expiate the guilt; but, if there be an equal proportion of Topographical Antiquities, or equal pains bestowed in such researches, by individual exertions we have not had the good fortune to meet with convincing proofs of it. What works have been done by the late government, have indeed, been studiously sumptuous; but that they might well be, when the treasures of the nation were lavished on thein. We have heard nothing of associations among the artists, or publishers, to present works at their private risk, and charge, equal to this before us, either in nature, or in execution. This observation is far from being the result of spleen, or dislike of a late notorious instance of mutable fortune. It is more properly, and usefully, convertible to the purpose of warning our men of genius:-there can be no doubt,

VOL. I. Lit. Pan. New Series. Dec. 1.

The See of Lindisfarn was founded about the year 684, and owes its origin to the following circumstance:-Oswald, a Saxon monarch of Northumberland,-which kingdom then extended from the Humber to the Forth-during his banishment in Scotland, before he came to the throne, had been converted to Christianity by a monk of that pious seminary, which flourished in the little island of Iona or Icolmkill, and impressed with a due sense of the miseries of his subjects from their own barbarism, and that of their enemies, requested of the holy fraternity to depute one of their brethren to teach Christianity to his uncivilized subjects.

Corman, a monk of severe and rigid temper, was accordingly pitched upon for this office, but he soon found himself unequal to it, and returned in disgust to his monastery, where, describing to his associates the dangers and difficulties of his mission; a voice from among them exclaimed-" brother, the fault is your owif; you expected from the barbarians more than they could perform; you should first have stooped to their ignorance, and then have raised their minds to the sublime maxims of the gospel." A rebuke șo sea*0