The Mexican year, like ours, consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days; it contained eighteen months, and each month twenty days, making together three hundred and sixty days: they added to the last month five days, which were called Nemontemi, that is useless, because on those days they did nothing but pay and receive visits. The year one rabbit began on the 26th of February, but in every fourth year it advanced one intercalary day upon our bissextile year. In the last year of the century they began on the 14th of February, on account of the thirteen days interposed in the course of fifty-two years, but when the century was completed, they re-commenced upon the 26th.

The same author says that he discovered in ancient writings and traditions, that the Tultecas being banished from Amaguemecan and its capital Huehicetlapalla, or Huehuetlapalan, commenced their pilgrimage in the year one flint; and that their settlement, at the foundation of their empire, was in the year eight reed, and although he supposes these two events happened about the years five hundred and ninety-six, and six hundred and sixty-seven of the Christian æra, he declares in a note that the dates are not certain, but probable.

It is not very surprising, considering the want of some information which has recently been acquired, that although Torquemada and others found from the annals of the Tultecas that their pilgrimage lasted eight years, from the first flint, until the eighth reed, they should have confounded it with the one hundred and four years or signs of Gemelli's Itinerary, which, as we have already seen, was in Africa; nor does it excite much astonishment that they have proceeded with so much uncertainty, and diverged into such a variety of opinions, without having been able to discover the true origin of the Tultecas and Chichimecas. It deserves notice, as strongly confirming Votan's correctness on the subject of the seven Tzequil families, whom the authors before named discovered, that during their pilgrimage the people were subject to seven Captains or Chiefs, whose names they have preserved, Zacatlebalcatzin, Evecatzin, Couatzin, Tzihualcoatl, Metzotzin and Tlapalmetzotzin, which are given with a trifling difference by Torquemada, who experienced so much difficulty in comprehending the Mexican tradition of their coming originally from the seven caves, that he confesses "he felt great diffidence in endeavouring to unravel a perplexity the solution of which so many had attempted and yet failed in developing;" yet all the obscurities would be cleared away by substituting the word houses for caves, and families for houses. The system of the Mexican century, divided as it is into four names and thirteen numbers, does not admit of any one year being repeated under the same name and number during that century, yet this repetition does occur in different centuries. This repetition will perhaps occasion doubts as to the century in which any particular event may have happened, especially in referring to very remote times, therefore the connexion and combination of one event with another, is the only method of surmounting the difficulty, and exactly deciding upon the century to which it refers.

How are we to demonstrate the correctness of the following epochas? viz. Votan's arrival at Rome, in one of his voyages, in the year two hundred and ninety-one before Christ; the Punic wars in two hundred and thirty-five, in two hundred and nineteen, and in one hundred and fifty before Christ, and the destruction of Carthage, one hundred and forty-seven years before Christ. For these must prescribe the rule whereby to fix the Mexican century in which the pilgrimage of the Tultecas happened, and consequently the destruction of Amaguemecan and such other periods as may be required. Taking these as fixed data, and comparing the Mexican computation with our own, the year one flint, that in which the Tultecas were driven

"THIS animal is more commonly found in cold than in temperate climates, and is at least very rare in hot ones. Bory St. Vincent, however, assures us that he shot several in Spain. It is abundant in the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America. The Lynx of the Greeks and Romans was not the animal which now bears that name, but the caracal.

"The Lynx of which the ancients have said, that the sight was so sharp as to penetrate opaque bodies, and of which the urine was made to possess the marvellous property of hardening into a solid substance, a precious stone called lapis lyncurius, is an animal which never existed, any more than all the properties attributed to it, but in fable. To the present Lynx, or to the caracal, this imaginary one has no affinity, but in name. We must not, therefore, as the generality of naturalists have hitherto done, attribute to the former, which is a real being, the properties of this imaginary one, the existence of which Pliny himself does not seem disposed to believe, since he speaks of it only as an extraordinary beast, and classes it with the sphynx, the pegasus, and other prodigies or monsters, the produce of Ethiopia.

"Our Lynx possesses not the wonderful quality of seeing through walls; but it has bright eyes, a mild aspect, and, upon the whole, an agreeable and lively appearance. Such however is its native ferocity, that it is said to be incapable of being subdued. Its urine produces not precious stones, but like the cat, an animal which it nearly resembles, and of which it retains the manners, and even the cleanliness, it covers it over with earth.

"The most beautiful skins of the Lynx are brought from Siberia, as belonging to the lupus-cervarius; and from Canada, as belonging to the felis cervarius; because being, like all other animals of the New Continent, smaller than those of the Old World, in Europe they are compared to a wolf in size, and in Canada to a wild cat.

"The Lynx has short legs, and is generally about the size of the fox. The ears are erect, and are tipped with a long pencil of black hair. The fur, which is long and thick, is of a pale gray colour, with a reddish tinge, and obscurely marked with small dusky spots on the upper parts of the body. The under parts are white. The skin of the male is more beautifully marked than that of the fe

male. It does not walk or run like the wolf in a progressive motion, but leaps and bounds like the cat. It gains its whole subsistence by devouring other animals; and these it will follow to the very tops of trees. Neither can the wild cat, the martin, the ermine, nor the squirrel, escape its pursuit. It also seizes birds, lies in wait for the stag, the roe-buck, and the hare, and with one bound often seizes them by the throat. When in possession of its prey, it first sucks the blood of the animal, and then lays

open its head, in order to devour the brains. This done, it generally abandons the victim of its fury, goes in search of fresh prey, and is seldom known to return to the former; a circumstance which has given rise to the vulgar remark, that of all animals the Lynx has the shortest memory. The skin of this animal changes its colour according to the season and the climate. In winter it is in every respect better than it is in summer; and its flesh, like the flesh of all beasts of prey, is not proper to eat."

Neptune was the successor of Oceanus in the government of the seas. He was of the modern race of the gods, being the son of Saturn and Ops, (Rhea, Cybele, or Berecynthia,) and the brother of Jupiter and Pluto. There are different accounts of the manner in which he was preserved from the voracious jaws of his father, who was in the practice of devouring his children. Indeed, one story says that he actually devoured Neptune at his birth, but that afterwards, by virtue of a certain emetic draught administered to him, he was made to disgorge him, together with his brothers and sisters, who had shared a similar fate. Others say, that Ops concealed Neptune, and presented Saturn with a colt, as being the child which had been born; which colt Saturn devoured, and so Neptune escaped, and was consigned to the care and instruction of certain shepherds.

Jupiter, Neptune's brother, deposed their father Saturn from the government of the universe, and divided it into three portions, assigning the ocean to Neptune, the infernal regions to his brother Pluto, and retaining heaven and earth for himself.

The wife of Neptune was a sea nymph by the name of Amphitrite, a daughter of Nereus. The symbol of Neptune's government was a three-tined sceptre, denominated a trident. In the cut above, he is represented as holding this sceptre, seated in a shelly chariot beside his queen, drawn by sea-horses, and attended by Tritons, whose upper parts were human, and whose lower parts resembled fish. Triton in the singular number signifies a sea-god, the son of Neptune and Amphitrite. He is denominated Neptune's horn, because he acted as his trumpeter, blowing a horn before him, as seen in the cut above mentioned. But when the term Triton is used in the plural, (Tritons,) it then merely means sea horses resembling Triton, part man and part fish.

The race of horses owe to Neptune their existence. Striking the earth with his trident, a horse instantly sprang into being; whence Neptune is called Hippius and Hippodromus. When Neptune and Minerva disputed for the

honour of giving a name to Athens, the gods decided that that one should do it who would bestow upon the citizens the most useful gift. Neptune gave them a horse, and Minerva an olive tree. Minerva's gift being the most valued by the inhabitants, the city was called Athenæ, after one of her names.-Neptune was the producer of the famous winged horse Pegasus; also of Arion, the noblest courser ever backed by monarch or hero.

"The productions of Neptune are for the greater part monstrous. The Aloides, who, heaping mountains upon one another, attempted to scale the heavens, and became dangerous to Jupiter himself, were his sons; and his son also was the monstrous Cyclop Polyphemus, whom Ulysses deprived of his eye. This injury, done to his beloved son by mortal hands, Neptune left not unavenged, but severely punished the daring deed of Ulysses. He rendered vain, as long as possible, all attempts made by the unfortunate traveller to regain his home; he made him endure all hardships and dangers that can befal a sea-faring man; and when, at last, by the will of fate, he must reach Ithaca, his native island, Neptune avenged himself on the innocent ship of the hospitable Phoenicians who brought him thither, transforming her on her return into a rock. Thus dangerous was it even to Minerva's favourite, to have offended the dreadful power of the resistless element, and what was related to it.

"When the Mases were entertaining themselves on the Aonian mount," with song and the lyre, in so gay and cheerful a manner that all the environs participated in their joy, and Helicon itself leaped under their feet, Neptune, falling into a passion, sent up Pegasus with the injunction to set limits to the mirth and noisy joy of those revellers. When arrived at the top of the mount, Pegasus had nothing to do in order to bring all into its proper, quiet course, but to paw the ground; from beneath his tramp, however, that well known fountain burst forth, out of which the poets sip their inspiration, and which from the horse is called Hippocrene."

(To be Continued.)

THE existence of a North-West Passage, or of a navigable communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans round the northern coast of America, is a question which has exercised the ingenuity of the learned for the last three centuries; and the return of our adventurous countryman, Captain Ross, from his renewed efforts to aid in its determination, has once again created a lively intererest upon the subject among all classes. Its object may be briefly explained thus.

The greater part of the land contained on the surface of our globe, is collected into two great masses; the one of which is situated in its eastern hemisphere, and is called the Old World; the other in its western hemisphere, and termed the New World. The former, which is composed of the united continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, presents one unbroken mass of land, stretching from the Cape of Good Hope in the south, to the Arctic Sea in the north. The New World, or the continent of America, forms a similarly uninterrupted barrier, extending a nearly equal length, from the Straits of Magelhaens in the South, to a point yet undetermined in the North. The Atlantic Ocean is interposed between these two masses on one side of the globe, and the Pacific Ocean separates them on the opposite side. Previous to the close of the fifteenth century, it was not known that any communication existed between these oceans; in other words, the countries situated on the Atlantic, (including of course the principal nations of Europe,) had no maritime connexion with those washed by the Pacific, (of which the East Indies form a part.) There are at present two practicable routes by which such communication is maintained. The one is by the southern extremity of the Old World, or the Cape of Good Hope, the other, by the southern extremity of the New World, through the Straits of Magelhaens, or round Cape Horn. They may be termed respectively the South-East Passage and the South-West Passage, from the Atlantic into the Pacific. Each of these passages, however, implies the necessity of sailing to the southern end of the Atlantic, before either the eastern or the western turning into the Pacific can be reached; and as the chief maritime

nations of the world are placed much nearer to its northern end, it has occurred to them, that if they were to sail to the northern instead of the southern extremity, and then turn to the east or to the west, they would reach the Pacific much sooner; in other words, that a North-East Passage (round the northern coast of Europe and Asia,) or a North-West Passage (round the northern shores of America,) would be a much shorter route than the existing South-East or South-West Passage.

But obstacles exist to the accomplishment of either of these northern passages, which do not exist in the southern routes. The northern shores of both the Old and the New World are situated in much higher latitudes than their southern limits, and are therefore subject to a much more intense degree of cold; so that while the waters that bound the latter are at all times open to the seaman, those which encircle the former are during the greater portion of the year frozen into a vast icy barrier, entirely obstructing all navigation. Another circumstance also operates to the same effect. In accomplishing either of the southern passages, the navigator has merely to round a jutting promontory in a high latitude; but in attempting either of the northern routes, he has to pass a long line of coast extending above 100° or 180° of longitude under the same frozen parallel.

The question of a North-East Passage has long since ceased to excite much interest. It is certain, indeed, that a sea extends from Behring's Strait to the Spitzbergen Seas; but the passage has never yet been performed, and may be fairly assumed to be impracticable. A NorthWest Passage would be a much shorter route; but a shorter than all has been suggested, which is termed the North Polar Passage. It consists in sailing through the Spitzbergen Seas direct into the Polar Basin, or the region immediately surrounding the North Pole, and emerging at Behring's Strait; its track thus forming, as it were, the diameter of the circle presented by the northern shores of Europe and Asia on the one side, and those of America on the other. We shall now give a brief sketch of the various attempts that have been made to effect the remaining