its hair. The skeleton is now in the Museum Academy at St. Petersburgh".

FORMATION OF ISLANDS.

By the silent labours of the Corallina have immense continents been formed. Reefs extend along the whole western coasts of Guinea, and Madagascar; the eastern coast of Abyssina; the Red Sea; the Mediterranean; the coasts of China, Japan, Corea, and the Straits of Sunda; while they extend also along the whole eastern coasts of Australasia; and are found in almost every part of the Pacific, covering not only detached parts, but extending several thousand square leagues.

Thus islands are formed. The corallina, with gradual, but incessant, labour, raise their foundations from the bed of the ocean on these reefs, after an interval, the high tides deposit sand, shells, pumice, pebbles, mud, weeds; pieces of coral, roots, wood, and soil. Birds then begin to settle upon them; salt plants take root upon them; tropical trees, vegetables, seeds, and shells, are washed upon them; and birds deposit their exuvia. In this manner islands are formed into groups and archipelagos; and become enriched with soil and in a few years they are clothed with the prurient vegetation of tropical climates. Man then takes

a There is also a skeleton of the mammoth in the Museum of Philadelphia : a middle-sized man may stand with his arms outstretched under its body.

b On this coast are two species of Coral; one of which, in Bosman's time, was called Conta de Terra; the other was of a blue colour. The latter was valued at its equal weight in gold; the former at four times its weight.

e Vid. Capt. Hall's Voyage of Discovery to the west coast of Corea and Loo-choo Islands, 4to., p. 107, 8, 9. The Loo-choos call coral Oòroo.-Vid. Clifford's Vocabulary.

d Vid. Flinders' Voy. to Terra Australis, ii. p. 115. Peron's Voy. to Australasia, p. 183.

e Mosses and lichens clothe the soil with verdure in newly-formed countries, where the atmosphere is humid; but in countries near the tropics, the succulent plants.

possession; and Nature has rewarded herself for her labours but she does not cease to extend her operations. Her work of marine creation still goes on; and the time may, one day, come, when the existence of the Pacific, as an entire ocean, will be esteemed as fabulous, as the ancient Atlantis. Islands are increasing every year; in size every hour. They rise in archipelagos, and archipelagos, in future ages, may associate into continents.

b

We may read the manner, in which Alluvial Islands are constituted, by that in which Edmonstone Island has been formed. A few years since and it was not in existence. It is now situated in the upper part of the bay of Bengal; between the mouths of the Hoogly and Channel Creek. It is two miles long, and about half a mile in breadth : a mere sandbank; but it is rapidly acquiring a much higher character.

From the manner in which this island is proceeding, we may also form no very erroneous idea of the method, with which Nature has secured the gradual extension of her vegetable productions; and the adorning remote islands with flowers and plants. This island, having gradually accumulated by the soil of two rivers, trunks of trees, with branches containing pods and seeds, were deposited upon it. Plants, too, of various kinds were washed upon its sides. Some of these decomposed; and with the excrement of birds assisted in the formation of a fruitful soil. Seeds, too, have taken root upon the higher beach; these when afterwards in seed were scattered by the birds and winds: and some of the branches of trees cast ashore, being gradually covered with soil by succeeding tides, took root.

No human hand has yet planted one tree, shrub, flower,

■ Some have even supposed, that all marbles, limestones, and calcareous rocks, were originally formed by analogous animated beings.

b For observations on the alluvial land of the Danish islands in the Baltic, and on the coast of Sleswick, vid. Jameson on Cuvier, p. 202.

c Vid. Journal of a Voyage to Sangor, Asiat. Journ. vii. 355.

or even seed upon this island; and yet the central part has a strong verdure, formed by the ipomea pes capræ, and the salsola and several tufts of the saccharum spontaneum have lately been observed in a flourishing condition. A few trees and plants are, also, growing up; amongst which are the manby date and morinda; a species of bean; and no inconsiderable quantity of purslane. The northern part of the beach is occupied by a large quantity of small sea crabs : and turtles are frequently seen upon the southern part.

In the north of Siberia, two islands, between the mouths of the Lena and the Indigerka, have been formed by the bones of animals, carried down, like trees, from the interior. These bones, having accumulated during the progress of ages, were at length cemented with sand and ice, till they formed two complete islands: affording a curious instance of the art, with which Nature sometimes avails herself of animal materials.

It would seem, that America is not so old a continent as either Europe or Asia. The depth of mould is very fleet; in the forests seldom more than six feet; and frequently not more than three. Some islands have been formed by the mud of large rivers, which has gradually risen above the utmost reach of the tide. Some derive existence from the accumulation of sea weeds and trees upon rocks, but slightly buried under the waves. These substances being cast higher and higher every spring tide, become a substratum for future decompositions. Sands, blown upon each other by high winds, when left by the tide, accumulate into large banks, and alter and shift their positions at the discretion of the winds, until they acquire permanency from vegetation. The Baltic, near Kronolung, on the Swedish side, becomes shallower every year, on account of the great accumulation of sand, grass, wrack, and sea-weed.

Some islands are composed almost entirely of alluvial soil.

The group at the mouth of the Orinoco was formed by an accumulation of trees, weeds, sand and mud, during the various inundations of that river. Some of these islands abound in palms and cocoa trees; upon the tops of which live in huts an Indian tribe, called Guaröus. These aërial habitations are covered with palm-leaves; and cocoa trees furnish their inhabitants with wood for fuel; food and beverage. The Guaröus are social and hospitable; and are at peace, even with the Spanish settlers. Secured by their height from the inundations of the river, they live in peaceful enjoyment; are passionately fond of dancing; and derive no little profit from trading in various species of fish; which their dogs assist them to catch, in nets, in hammocks, and in baskets. They are frequently called the Palm-tree Nation; and their numbers vary from 10 to 12,000.

The African Atlantic islands are of basaltic formation, and of submarine volcanic origin. Amsterdam Island had a similar formation"; and the eruptions of the several different periods were observed by Dr. Gillan, to be distinctly marked in regular divisions by different layers. 1st. A layer of vegetable mould; 2d, volcanic ashes; 3d, celular lava; 4th, compact lava; and 5th, glassy lava o.

a Professor Smith. Tuckey, p. 29, 4to.

b The process is obvious whereby even solid rocks are converted into soil, fit for the maintenance of vegetation, by simple exposure to atmospheric agency; the disintegration produced by the vicissitudes of heat and cold, moisture and dryness, reduces the surface of almost all strata to a comminuted state of soil, or mould, the fertility of which is usually in proportion to the compound nature of its ingredients.—Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 69.

This island is about 2,000 miles from shore, and lies midway between New Holland and Madagascar. It is eight square miles in surface. Zeolite, obsidian, and pumice are seen in every part of the coast. There are many boiling springs; and whenever the ear is applied to the earth, a noise is heard like the bubbling of water. There is not one quadruped, nor one land-bird; and, if we except flies, not one visible insect. There are mosses, sow-thistles, garden parsley, procumbent pearlwort, polypody, spleenwort, and a few other plants ; and, what is extremely curious, they are all British. The gardeners of the Lion, on their voyage to China, planted potatoes here.

It is many ages before a coral rock becomes so deeply covered with soil, as to bear the bread-fruit tree. In some islands of the Pacific, pandangs, sago-palms, casuarinas, and the Barringtonia, will grow to a great size; but the breadfruit will not; and this, not because it is unadapted to the climate, but because it has not the power of insinuating its roots into the coral rocks; of which those islands are, in a great measure, composed.

Palmerstone Island is of still more recent formation a. It is a mile only in circumference; and it is composed of coral sand, mixed with blacker earth. Upon it grows scurvy-grass and cocoa trees; and though the soil is poor, there are a great many shrubs and trees. That it possesses men of war and tropic birds, with crabs crawling among the bushes, is not much a subject for wonder; but that in one part of the reef there should be a lake, full of blue, black, red, and yellow fishes, is a phenomenon, for which it is now, perhaps impossible to account.

Sponges in Italy are found rooted on hard flints"; and on the amphitheatre near Albano, several trees have insinuated large roots between the best cemented stones. The lichen calcareum even vegetates on the naked rock; and draws its chief nourishment from the air. This, decaying, furnishes a bed and a little moisture to maintain a moss. The moss

a

Captain Colebrooke, in his account of Barren Island, has the following remark" From the singular appearance of this island, it might be conjectured, that it has been thrown up entirely from the sea, by the action of subterranean fire. Perhaps, but a few centuries ago, it had not reared itself above the waves; but might have been gradually emerging from the bottom of the ocean, long before it became visible; till at length it reached the surface, when the air would naturally assist the operation of the fire, that had been struggling for ages to get vent, and it would then burst forth. The cone or volcano would rapidly increase in bulk, from the continual discharge of lava and combustible matter; and the more violent eruptions, which might have ensued at times, when it would throw up its contents to a greater elevation and distance, might have produced that circular and nearly equidistant ridge of land we see around it."-Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 413, 14.

b Misson, ii. p. 399.