Scientific Reviews. 267 
ductions might not interfere with those of the present state, pro- 
duced the fermentation which soon led Mexico to join in the move- 
ment which the same causes had impressed on the whole of the 
Spanish colenies ; for a short time she was under the dominion of 
a despotism entailed by her vices, till she again more firmly sealed 
her independence. Since that time, we have had ‘“ Ward’s Mexi- 
co’ and Hardy’s Mexico.” Baradére was permitted to collect an- 
tiquities, and dig in their research. -The works which came be- 
tween this and De Humboldt’s, were mere copyists of the latter, 
or the trashy productions of unoriginal observers. Indeed, none of 
the authors subsequent to that great naturalist’s journey, have been 
daring enough to expose the mistakes, which, from the multipli- 
city of objects to which he directed his attention, he could not 
avoid ; but increase of statistical infermation, and the new facts 
daily brought forward in contemporary journals, have been daily 
paving the way to more accurate details on this interesting subject. 
Mr. Murray has, without any apology to his readers, omitted the 
whole subject; and, while he has given a picture of the physical 
geography of the United States, of which a much better might be 
found by turning over the pages of ‘‘ Malte-Brun,’ he has given 
no details of a country, part of which hes under the temperate 
and part under the torrid zone, a land of mountains and mountain 
plains, (plateaux,) attaining an almost unequalled elevation, and 
peopled.and cultivated at a heigh of mere than 7000 feet. 
It was the conquest of Mexico that led to the discovery of Cali- 
fornia, and to some expeditions aleng the north-west coast, unpro- 
ductive of any very important results. But it is to the celebrated 
voyage of Captains Cock and Clerk that we are most indebted for 
any knowledge of these coasts, and to these names are joined, in 
the annals of discovery, those of Behring, Meare, Vancouver, and 
Kotzebue. It is well known that Caboto, like Columbus, navi- 
gated the Atlantic, with the supposition of finding a western pas- 
sage to the East Indies, the practicability of which, on the disco- 
very of North and South America, became still farther removed. 
Magellan sailed through the straits that now bear his name in 1520. 
dn 1577, Frobisher discovered a passage north of Hudson’s Bay. 
In 1585, Davis sailed across the bay that now bears his name, and 
which, with Hudson’s Bay, discovered so shortly afterwards, were 
‘both to become the theatre of the exertions of a navy which could 
boast of the experience of centuries, and which held an undisputed 
sway on the ecean. Mr. Murray’s account of these voyages, and 
of the Arctic land expeditions, which should have constituted the 
principal feature of the werk, is restrained to mere historical nar- 
ratives of the proceedings, while certainly an equal quantity of sa- 
tisfactory results, at least in the physical sciences, were never per- 
haps obtained in so short a space of time, or on so large an extent of 
land ; and for a proof of what we assert, we appeal to those works 
which are at present publishing under the authority of Government, 
and which promise to make us most minutely acquainted with the 
