GEOGRAPHY. 
At the tropics, the meridian siin is vertical 
once only in the year, and at the opposite 
solstice, or the time of midwinter, his 
meridian altitude is 43° 4', as with us in 
April and the beginning of September. 
At the polar circles the sun describes, on 
midsummer-day, a complete circle, touch- 
ing the north or south point of the horizon; 
and in midwinter he shows only half liis 
disc above it, for a few minutes, in tire op- 
posite point ; that is, neglecting the eleva- 
tion produced by refraction, which, in these 
climates, especially, is by no means incon- 
siderable. At either pole, the correspond- 
ing pole of the heavens being vertical, the 
sun must annually describe a spiral, of 
which each coil is nearly horizontal, half of 
the spiral being above the horizon, and half 
below ; the coils being much more open in 
the middle than near the end. 
The climates, in the astronomical sense 
of the word, are determined by the dura- 
tion of the longest day in different parts of 
the earth’s surface ; but this division is of no 
practical utility, nor does it furnish any 
criterion for judging of the climate in a me- 
teorological sense. 
The natural division of the surface of the 
globe is into sea and land ; about three- 
fourths of the whole being occupied by 
water, although probably no where to a 
depth comparatively very considerable, at 
most of a few miles on an average. The re- 
maining fourth consists of lands, elevated 
more or less above the level of the sea, in- 
terspersed, in some parts, with smaller col- 
lections of water, at various heights, and in 
a few instances, somewhat lower than the 
general surface of the main ocean. Thus 
the Caspian Sea is said to be about three 
hundred feet lower than the ocean ; and in 
the interior parts of Africa there is proba- 
bly a lake equally depressed. 
We cannot observe any general symme- 
try in this distribution of the earth’s surface ; 
excepting that the two large Continents of 
Africa and South America, have some slight 
resemblance in their forms, and that each 
of them is terminated to the eastward by a 
collection of numerous islands. The large 
capes projecting to the southward have 
also a similarity with respect to their form, 
and the islands near them ; to the west the 
continents are excavated into large bays, 
and the islands are to the east : thus Cape 
Horn has the Falkland Islands ; the Cape of 
Good Hope, Madagascar ; and Cape Como- 
rin, Ceylon to the east. 
The great continent, composed of Eu- 
rope, Asia, and Africa, constitutes about a 
seventh of the whole surface of the earth ; 
America about a sixteenth; and Australasia, 
or New South Wales, about a fiftieth ; or 
in hundredth parts of the whole, Europe 
contains two ; Asia, seven ; Africa, Six ; 
America, six ; and Australasia, two ; the 
remaining seventy-seven being sea; although 
some authors assign seventy-two parts only 
out of one hundred to the sea, and twenty- 
eight to the land. 
These proportions may be ascertained 
with tolerable accuracy, by weighing the 
paper made for covering a globe, first en- 
tire, and then cut out according to the ter- 
minations of the different countries ; or, if 
still greater precision were required, the 
greater part of the continents might be di- 
vided into known portions of the whole 
spherical surface, and the remaining 1 irregu- 
lar portions only weighed. 
The general inclinations and levels of the 
continents are discovered by the course of 
their rivers. Of these the principal are, the 
river of Amazons, the Senegal, the Nile, the 
river St. Lawrence, the Hoangho, the river 
La Plata, the Jenisei, the Mississippi, the 
Volga, the Oby, the Amur, the Oronooko, 
the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Danube, the 
Don, the Indus, the Dnieper, and the Dwi- 
na ; and this is said to be nearly the or- 
der of their magnitudes. But if we class 
them according to the length of country 
through which they run, the order will, ac- 
cording to Major Rennel’s calculation, be 
somewhat different; taking the length of 
the Thames for unity, he estimates that of 
the river of Amazons, at 15| ; the Kian Kew, 
in China, 151 ; the Hoango, 13 j ; the Nile, 
12J ; the Lena, 1 11 ; the Amur, 11 ; the Oby, 
101; the Jenisei, 10 ; the Ganges, its com- 
panion the Burrampooter, the river of Ava, 
and the Volga, each 9i; the Euphrates, 
81; the Mississippi, 8 ; the Danube, 7 ; the 
Indus, 5i ; and the Rhine, 51 . 
We may form a tolerable accurate idea of 
the levels of the ancient continent, by 
tracing a line across it in such a direction 
as to pass no river, which will obviously in- 
dicate a tract of country higher than most 
of the neighbouring parts. Beginning at 
Cape Finisterre, we soon arrive at the Py- 
renees, keeping to the south of the Gar- 
ronne, and the Loire. 
After taking a long turn northwards, to 
avoid the Rhine, we come to Swisserland, 
and we may approach very near to the Me- 
diterranean in the state of Genoa, taking 
care not to cross the branches of the Po. We 
