- Scientific Reviews. 203 
which she had just been polishing in the inside with a brickbat.] By St. Jago 
and St. Dennis’”—I did not wait to hear any more, but sneaked up stairs again, 
with my tail betwixt my legs, (just as a well-bred dog does out of a room when 
he sees preparations making for kicking him out,) blessing my stars that I did 
not get a spank with the frying-pan on that part of me which escaped last. 
Finally, I ate the fish, fried in oil, and before Teresa would be pacified, was 
obliged to recant my filthy.and damnable heresies, and say I was only in fun - 
that her way was much the best; and, moreover, give her two more glasses 
of brandy; and thus ended my unfortunate expedition. (I should not have 
truckled to her at this rate, but that she was the most industrious, cleanly, and 
honest domestic that ever poor miscrosopher had.) Now what this she Spaniard 
expressed, with the fierce energy of her clime and country, every man, I suspect, 
feels more or less, when any attempt is made to put him out of his way in mat- 
ters in which he thinks it is his exclusive province to dictate. I have never for- 
got Teresa’s lesson, and expect about as much luck in reforming microscopes as 
{I had in teaching her to fry fish.”,— ote, p. 36. 
We conclude, then, with the opinion, that this is a very service- 
able, and indeed necessary work, got up in such a manner, that 
those to whom it must be exclusively useful, will be prevented from 
giving it that support which they desire ; for it must be recollected 
that the microscope is not used in Billinsgate. But we trust 
that, as a broken and contrite spirit cannot be despised, the purity 
of future numbers will atone for the imperfections of the past. 

GEOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS. 
Geographical Details on the Rio Colorado. 
NoTWITHSTANDING the numerous mountains which intersect Mexico, there 
is a general want of water and of navigable rivers. ‘The great rivers Rio-Bravo- 
del-Norte, and the Rio Colorado, are the only ones which fix the geographer’s 
attention, both on account of the length of their course, and of the great mass of 
water which they carry into the ocean; but passing through that portion of the 
country which is least cultivated, and to which little attention has been hitherto 
paid, they have remained without commercial interest. Lieutenant Hardy, in his 
journey undertaken in pursuit of the pearl fishery in the Gulf of California, ex- 
plored the Rio Colorado at its mouth ; and we have copied a chart, (Vide Pl. IV.) 
introduced by that gentlemen into his work, (Travels in the Interior of Mexico,) 
which does him great credit. The soundings indicate a navigation of little ex- 
tent, and rendered still more intricate by a succession of reaches or shoals. 
There is no account, as far as Lieutenant Hardy knows, of any vessel having 
gone higher up the Gulf of California than the southern extremity of the island 
called “‘ El Angel de la Guarda,’”’? which in most maps is laid down as forming 
a part of the mainland of Lower California. The printed maps of this gulf are 
sadly erroneous ; but there is a manuscript one which extends as high as Sal si 
Puedes, and which is sufficiently correct for navigating those seas as far as it 
goes; but as soon as Lieutenant Hardy had passed that island, it became per- 
fectly useless. 
In running up the gulf, in lat. 31° 12’ N., long. 112° 45’ W. of Greenwich, 
the Lieutenant met with land composed of four small islands, about 100 yards 
wide, and extending in a straight line about 2000. As they did not appear on 
