170 Analt/sis of Scientific Books and Memoirs. 



constitution, productions, phenomena, and inhabitants of Europe and 

 America, is now about to extend his regearches to the ahnost unknown 

 central regions of Asia. We are happy to observe, that the Lectures on 

 Physical Geography by this great man, which last year were delivered at 

 Berlin to an immense assembly of all ranks, are about to appear in the Eng- 

 lish language, and cannot fail to be a important donation to science. 



In speaking thus pre-eminently of Humboldt, we would be far from de- 

 siring to exclude the various philosophers, who, by their observations or 

 writings, have contributed to advance our acquisitions in physical geogra- 

 phy, and Professor Schouw of Copenhagen, whose pamphlet is now before us, 

 though best known as a botanist, bids fair to hold, by a continuation of his la- 

 bours, a very high rank in that class in which Humboldt has taken the lead. 

 M. Schouw, besides, has an opportunity of affording important information 

 on a great district almost as little known with respect to natural history 

 as the equinoctial regions before the publication of the " Relation His- 

 torique." Scandinavia, the vast and rugged high land of the north of Eu- 

 rope, will, it is to be hoped, not much longer remain unknown to the Eu- 

 ropean naturalist after the extended researches of M. Schouw ; and as his 

 present paper is literally merely a " Specimen" of an extensive work, it 

 aifords us a favourable earnest of the results of his investigations. His aim 

 is a judicious, though a limited one. He undertakes to compare the physi- 

 cal peculiarities of three great Alpine districts of Europe, those of Scan- 

 dinavia, the Pyrenees, and the Alps, which he does in a very methodical 

 manner under the various heads we shall presently enumerate. 



We are not aware in what method the author proposes to execute his 

 larger work, and whether this pamphlet is meant to form as it stands any 

 integral part of it ; but we are inclined to think, that, if this is the case, the 

 plan is too formal, and the data, propositions, and corollaries of which it 

 is in fact composed, though very distinct, are too far carried for a work of 

 this nature. Some positions which are hypothetical are too slightly treat- 

 ed, and too positively ranked among the results, while others are such ob- 

 vious matters of reality, that it appears trifling to methodize them in so 

 tegular a manner. These, however, are minute errors in a paper of sixty 

 pages like this " Specimen," in which so much is included ; and though in 

 a larger work a little more generalization would be desirable, we are 

 here the more easily enabled to lay the principal contents of it before our 

 readers. 



Our author, after his preliminary remarks, presents us with a very co- 

 pious list of works which he has consulted. We reckon twenty-nine on 

 Scandinavia alone, among which the names of Wahlenberg and Von Buch 

 are the most conspicuous, and many of the others are probably known to 

 few but the northern philosophers. The part of M. Schouvv's researches 

 contained in this fasciculus is entitled " Comparatio Alpium, Pyrenaeo- 

 tum, et Montium Scandinaviae." 



The first section treats of the natural limits of the three ranges ; under 

 which we need only observe, that the author does not include in the Scan- 

 dinavian high land, the part of Sweden to the east of the Giilf of Bothnia^ 

 but merely the great peninsula of which the isthmus is contained between 



