114 Remarks on Madeira, Climate of the Tropics, 



they happen to contain different proportions of it. As the at- 

 mosphere, from its elasticity and motive powers, is more or less 

 in motion, the agency of this extremely subtile fluid manifests 

 itself in water-spouts, as well as in lightning and thunder, and 

 the rest of the great and awful convulsions in nature. 



In the densest clouds there is not that degree of density that 

 there is in water on tlie earth ; because electricity, as it becomes 

 intermixed with clouds in a state of vapour or expansion, coun- 

 teracts intimate cohesion or density by its motion, its subtiltv, 

 and its repelling powers, when the contiguous parts, which it 

 necessarilv pervades, happen to be simihirlv electrified. But as, 

 in the motion of the air and clouds, the influence of electricity is 

 neither constant nor uniform in the same or different parts, those 

 adjoining will necessarily gravitate, and the inferior part, by its 

 superior force of gravitation, will at last overcome the suspensory 

 power of the electric fluid, and instantaneously descend, and con- 

 tinue to do so, until the cloud shall be exhausted, or the gravi- 

 tation diminished, when the suspensory influence will, in conse- 

 quence, become greater as before, and carry up again, principally 

 V)y its cohesion and extreme subtilty, what had remained unspent 

 of it. 



Rio DE Janeiro. — A person on approaching Rio de Janeiro 

 at first, is struck with the peculiarity of the appearance of the 

 land, so unlike any place he had ever seen, or, in all probability, 

 imagined before. Straight before him, a number of detached 

 hills, curiously and differently shaped, seem to rear their heads, 

 in wild disorder, out of the bosom of the ocean. Far to the left 

 are seen the high lands of Copacabana — 



" Clad in colours of the air, 

 Which, to those who journey near. 

 Barren, hrown and rough appear ;" 



and likewise the towering Gavia, the summits of which, accord- 

 ing to the particular state of the weather, are ever t-apped with 

 clouds of the fleecy or gloomy hue. Nearer, also in this direction, 

 is seen, somewhat in the form of a cone, inclining towards an ad- 

 joining ridge, so as to make something like an elliptical section 

 with it, that enormous rock called, from its implied resemblance, 

 the Sugar-loaf, which is ever the prominentand unerring landmark 

 for mariners; and near which thevcan anchor their vessels in safety, 

 should the wind and tide prove at any time unfavourable on en- 

 tering the harbour. Close behind it a congeries of mountainous 

 hills fantastically rises, which bids defiance to the powers of the 

 pencil and description : — and on the right, or Braganza side, is 

 seen, but more in an extreme than lateral direction, a chain of 

 lofty hills, from which, to the northward, high lands with rugged 

 summits take a curvilinear course. Castle-hill (the name of the 



first 



