182G.] 



It Is the noon of day. 

 And half the sun's declined— 

 Lo ! where the swdl'n clouds their dark lolUng keep ! 

 Collected now they low'r ;— 

 The storm Is loos'd with pow'r 



Upon th' Indignant deep, 

 And with a lurid glare the lightnings play- 

 Hark ! In horrid fray 

 The thunder, with the rising depths combln'd. 

 And the warraying wind. 



Shakes the rock ; 

 Sole in midnight cave. 



Under the wave, 

 The spirit of the centre feels the shock. 

 Now on mountain clilT sublime — 

 While around the thunders roll, 

 And mounts the soul 

 On the tempest's wing with her Bery exultation. 

 All the stem greatness of the scene, — 

 There be my station ; 

 Listening, I ween. 

 The voicesof the deep in dreadful chime. 

 Now the wild Wore begins to cease ; 

 It languishes in sounds of peace; 

 Low in caverns lay'd : 

 It dies away,— 

 Away: — 

 And silence brKiuls upon the wreck it made. 



Ode, p. 19, begins with the following 

 stanza : — 



Hark ! with wild notes the chorist of the grove. 

 Hymns to the rising morn his Maker's praise ; 



And his yon lav'rock, who is soul above. 

 Pours in the beam th' inspircr of his lays. 



There is no inspiration here ; and we 

 sincerely hope that such poetry will never 

 again he sent us to review. 



A Succinct View and Analysis of Au- 

 thentic Information, extant in, Oriijinal Works 

 on the Practicability of Joining the Atlantic 

 and Pacific Oceans, by a Ship Canal across 

 the Isthmus of America. By Robeut Birks 

 Pitman. — The author of this work appears 

 fully sensible of the magnitude, dithculties, 

 and utility of the projected scheme, and is 

 consequently very circumspect in express- 

 ing his opinion. He has diligently com- 

 piled materials from Dampier and Wafer, 

 in 1681 ; Sharp and Funnel, in 1703 ; De 

 Ulloa, in 1726; Brj-an Edwards, in 1799; 

 M. De Humboldt, in 1803; Walton, in 

 1817; Robinson, in 1820; Hall, in 1822; 

 and Purdy, 1824. The reader must not sup- 

 pose that this work is a mere compilation. 

 Mr. Pitman has only used the materials af- 

 forded by these writers for a well-arranged 

 and able discussion. He has not confined 

 himself to the inquiry into the practicability of 

 uniting the two Oceans, but has entered 

 fully into the topography of the harboiu's, 

 nature of the coasts, and their comparative 

 merits for commercial purposes, and an- 

 chorage for ships ; and has also given de- 

 tails of the winds which prevail at certain 

 seasons, and of the state of the atmosphere, 

 and the diseases which are frequent. The 

 latter point is not treated as fully or as 

 ably as the other portions, but gives as 

 much general information as illustrates the 

 subject. 



Domestic and Foreign. 



527 



The idea of uniting the two ooeaas was 

 entertained as early as Uie year J513; and 

 has been revived from time to time by 

 Spaniards, Portuguese, Americans, and 

 English. Five places have been selected 

 as ca])able of allowing the union of these 

 seas, namely, the Isthmus of Darien, the 

 Isthmus of Panama, the Province of C'hoco, 

 the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Isthmus 

 of Nicaragua. Tlie greatest ditficulty is 

 not in opening a passage between the 

 oceans, but arises in the nature of the 

 coasts, wliich are shoal or rocky, or ex- 

 posed to tempestuous winds, without har- 

 bours or safe roadsteads. The Isthmus of 

 Darien is perhaps a partial exception, aa 

 ships may ride well enough either in Caret 

 Bay, upon the eastern coast, in the Gulf of 

 Darien, or within Golden Island. On the 

 western coast the anchorage would be 

 within the Bay of St. Michael, into wliich 

 the river Santa Maria nms, and has, as far 

 as the tide rises, in it sutficient depth of 

 water for ships of considerable burtiien ; 

 farther up the river it is divided and becomes 

 shoal. The streams in this track are on 

 different levels, dry, or nearly so, at one 

 season, and torrents at another, and, not- 

 withstanding, incapable of supplying a suf- 

 ficiency of water for a great ship citnal ; so 

 that the excavations must be made lower 

 than the level of cither sea, and that through 

 an arm of the Cordilleras, which renders it 

 unlikely that this track will be ever chosen. 

 This district is also very unhealthy. 



The Isthmus of Panama is precluded by 

 incurable defects — a want of ports, particu- 

 larly on the western shores, and a very 

 shoal and dangerous coast, lofty mountains, 

 imcertain supplies of water, and a very un- 

 healthy climate. 



The province of Choco, in the kin!;dom 

 of New Grenada, contains, in the opinion 

 of De Humboldt, a line of counti-y of about 

 eighty leagues, through which a canal could 

 be cut, but which would not be applicable 

 to vessels of burden, as the mouth of 

 the Arato, or river Darien, has only six 

 feet water over it- This seems the only 

 part of America in which the chain of 

 the Andes is entirely broken. The follow- 

 ing is a curious fact which may interest 

 some of our readers -. — 



In the interior of the province of Choco, the 

 small ravine of Ruebrada de la Raspadura imites 

 the neighbouring sources of the Rio de Noanama, 

 called also Rio San Juan, and the small river Quito. 

 The latter, the Rio Andageda, and the Rio Zitara, 

 form the Riod'Atrato, which discharges itself Into 

 the Atlantic Ocean, while the Rio San Juan flows 

 into the South Sea. A monk of great activity, cur6 

 of the village of Xovita, employed his parishioners 

 to dig a small canal in the ravine De la Raspa- 

 dura, by means of which, when the rains are abun- 

 dant, canoes loaded with cocoa pass from sea to sea. 

 This interior communication has existed since 1788, 

 unkno .< n in Europe. The small canal of Raspadura 

 unites, on the coasts of the two oceans, two points 

 seventy -five leagues distant from one another." 



