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heat) which some wise men have supposed to be latent in our globe, and in fact in all matter in and upon it. I know, Sir, that some may scoff at this, and assert that it will take place in a miraculous manner! If by miracu lous they mean something out of the usual mode of nature, I will grant it to them, because that burning of worlds is not a very usual process; but as the powers of matter, or its capability of being acted upon by powers that are known to exist, are fully competent to the production of the case in point, we are not to suppose that the Deity will use any other means of fulfilling his prophecy.

But it may be objected, that the prophecy says it shall be done in an instant; and that this process, according to the known laws of destruction or dissipation by means of caloric, would require ages to destroy such a large mass as this earth consists of. Now, Sir, to this I would answer, that the word instant, or the idea resulting from it as applicable to earthly time, is but comparative; even time itself, when measured by the scale of eternity, is nothing. To a being who lives for ever, what is one revolution, or what are one hundred revo lutions of this earth round the sun? Man is born, educated, and married; he builds, plants,|| wakes and sleeps, leaves a new generation be hind him, and at the end of seventy or eighty years sleeps again. The little fly, the ephe meris, is boru, flits in the rays of a noontide or an evening sun, eats, drinks, but does not sleep until he has left behind him the elements of a new generation, and then goes to sleep for ever, after a life of six hours! Yet who can say, were he possessed of ideas, that his life, to him, would not be as long as that of the oldest man amongst us? Whilst an inhabitant of this earth is growing old during a long series of sixty revolutions of our planet round the sun, an inhabitant of Saturn has but completed two years of his existence! Now, Sir, if time, as it has been defined, consists merely in a succession of ideas, let us suppose that a man here has one idea per day, which by the bye is more than some are possessed of, any school boy then can tell how many he will have during the course of his sixty years; why then, to keep an inhabitant of Saturn on a par of existence with us, one

of his ideas must last him as long as one hundred and eighty of ours, or he must have a succession of one hundred and eighty in a period which may perhaps appear to him but as a day, or at least in some proportion according to his rotatory motion on his axis.

I allude to this, however, merely to shew that what is called an instant in the language of eternity, may perhaps amount to five, ten, or a hundred thousand years in the language of time. Let us now then examine the future fulfillment of the prophecy according to our modern chemical knowledge. Why, Sir, unless there was a regular blow up all at once, we should have this earth in a state of ignition, sending forth both light and heat; and as its gravity would thereby be slowly diminished, it is not impossible that attraction also might be altered; so that a change in its attraction and gravity might produce an alteration in its orbit, and either cause it to approach the sun, or what is more likely, recede farther from him, in an orbit approaching more to an ellipsis than at present.

What would the earth be then? In fact, it would be an ignited body, slowly burning, surrounded with au igneous vapour, and moving in an eccentric orbit! And pray what is a Comet? Why, Sir, I believe nobody attempts to give it any other definition.

But to pursue the subject a little further, let us examine it in some other bearings. The earth, when ignited would submit to the various laws of evaporation, fusion, and combustion. Water would be decomposed, some substances would be melted, others would be burut to a cinder; and all this operating gradually from the surface to the centre: whilst oxygen, hydrogen, and the various gases would form its surrounding vapour. Let us suppose then that in this state its revolution round the sun might be lengthened to one hundred years instead of its present period, or to perhaps ten or twenty times the length of a revolution of Saturn or the Georgium Sidus; its next revo||lution might be longer, and so on perhaps for a hundred thousand years, so that to the in habitants of other planets, it would exactly appear as Comets now do to us, returning at long periods, perhaps of unequal duration, but probably in the same orbicular planes or ap

parent paths in the heavens. Let us again suppose, as Mr. Whiston did, that it might approach in some of these eccentric revolutions, some other planet, Saturn for instance: what would be the consequence? Why, that Saturn would act the part of a great condenser; that he would absorb the caloric which kept the vapour in a gaseous state, that the oxygen and hydrogen uniting would form water, and thus produce on his surface a general deluge, similar to our own.

But it may next be asked, what consequence would result from this with respect to the earth in its cometary state? To this the answer is plain. If the earth had been long enough in a state of ignition to have been cousumed to the depth of some hundreds of miles beneath its present surface, and had thus been reduced to a diameter of one or two thousand miles, instead of seven thousand as at present, the absorption of caloric by Saturn, might condense all the remaining part of its vapour into an atmospheric state, and reduce the nucleus from a state of ignition to that of a temperature fitted to its then distance from the sun. It might then, from this great change, become susceptible of a new law of attraction; and though it would not perhaps resume its ancient place in the system, it might fall into some other, and thus become a new small planet, to which the Herschels of other worlds might give the name of Georgium Sidus, of Ceres, or of Pallas. Again the Deity might people it with a new race of inhabitants, and if there were any philosophers among them, they would find sufficient proofs of Vulcanian theory, to which also a Neptunian one might be added, after it should in its turn have undergone a second deluge from some other travelling stranger with a long fiery tail! But it may be asked, what would the other planets be doing all this time? Why, just as they are at present, like a parcel of old women warming themselves around a good fire, ab sorbing the caloric! For if rays of light can come to us, not only in a passage of six months, as from Sirius, the nearest fixed star, but during a much longer course of time, from telescopic stars, it is not impossible that rays of heat may pass in the same manner.

In this manner a Comet may diffuse caloric in regions where it was expended, which again may be absorbed by colder planets when they pass through those regions in the course of their orbits. Nay, it is not impossible that the millions of rays of light (and why not heat?) which are continually emanating from the thousands of heavenly bodies seen by the naked eye, and the millions of others which the telescope has shewn us through almost infinite space, may be collected in the very farthest verge of the solar system by our pre. sent Comets for wise, but to us incompre hensible purposes: and in this task our earth may have already assisted, and may again assist, in a former, and in a future cometary state; for it is impossible to say that our earth may not have existed in another state, and perhaps in another part of the system, long before the era of present created beings. Nor is this inconsistent with revelation. Moses tells us the history of the creation of our own kind, and the geohistorical events immediately connected with it. The nothing from which the present system of nature has sprung, may either have been the earth in the chaotic confusion of a cometary state, or it may have been a first creation from absolute nothing; and either of these, I think, on a slight consideration may be found consonant with the general Mosaic detail.

Having thus hastily thrown together a few ideas, which may lead to further investigation, I shall not trespass further on your limits at present, but remain yours,

PHILO.

P. S. There is a peculiarly curious phenomenon attendant upon all Comets, which I believe nobody hitherto has explained satisfactorily; yet ou my theory, if established, nothing would be more easy: I allude to the tail preceding the Comet in its course. Of this my explication would be simple. The Comet having warmed those parts of space behind, and on each side of it, the igneous vapour surrounding it is attracted by that part of space deficient in caloric, and thus produces that effect hitherto unaccounted for.

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS IN SARDINIA, SICILY, MALTA, &c. IN 1811.

GIBRALTAR.

BY JOHN GALT.

THE Bay of Gibraltar may be described as of a semi-oval form. It is about five miles in breadth between the town of Algesiras and the rock, and probably of the same extent in the contrary direction. The mountains of AndaJusia are seen rising at a distance, beyond the hill which is called the Queen's seat ever since it was the station from which the infamous Queen of Spain surveyed the grand attack on the fortress, and witnessed the destruction

of the floating batteries. On turning round, Apes hill, opposite the mouth of the bay, forms a majestic central object, from the east and

west sides of which interminable vistas of the African mountains are seen extending.

even twenty thousand could not be considered
too high an estimate.

The motley multitude of Jews, Moors, Spa.
niards, &c. at the Mole, where the trading
vessels lie, presented a new scene to me; nor
was it easy to avoid thinking of the odious
race of the Orang Outang, on seeing several
filthy, bearded, bear-legged groupes huddled
together in shady corners during the heat of
the day. The langour occasioned by the heat
appeared to have increased the silly expression
of their faces; particularly of the Jews, who,
notwithstanding the usual sinister cast of the
Hebrew features, seemed here to be deplorably
simple animals. Their females are entitled to
any epithets but those which convey ideas of
beauty or delicacy. A few may possibly be
discovered, now and then, inclining towards
comeliness, but so seldom, that it is no great
injustice to call them, on the whole, superla-
tively ugly.

The fortress, undoubtedly, may be called stupendous, and may be regarded as impregnable; but it has not that degree of visible grandeur which its fame and the circumstances of its resistance in the last siege lead one to The town of Gibraltar possesses a charter, expect. The face of the rock is to the full as which being calculated for a place much inrugged as can well be conceived. From the ferior in size and importance to what it has ship's deck not a spot of pasturage can be seen; become, is now perhaps rather limited. In and the few trees scattered among the buildcriminal causes justice is administered accordings and along the ramparts, appear so stunted ing to the laws of England; but, as in other in their growth, and are usually so disguised colonies of the empire, there are local pecu❤ with dust, that they may be considered rather liarities in settling civil disputes. Questions as memorials than as specimens of vegetation. between debtors and creditors are referred to The town is situated behind the principal basthe Judge Advocate, and two respectable pertions, and rises in successive tiers of ordinary sons of property, from whose award an appeal looking houses, a considerable way up the may be made to the Governor. When the acclivity. The ruins of a Moorish castle on sum at issue exceeds three hundred pounds the shoulder of the rock, add an air of anti-sterling, the Council at home may he appealquity to its picturesque effect. In walked to, but when under this amount, the deci ing round the ramparts, different parts of sion of the Governor is final. the walls were pointed out to me as covered with a composition which, though only road`dust, pounded stone, and a little mortar mixed up with water, becomes as hard and as durable

as stone.

The population of the rock, exclusive of the garrison, may be computed at tea thousand souls. In the principal street, however, the throng is certainly very great; and were the appearance there to be taken as the criterion, No. XXX. Vol.V.-N. S.

In Gibraltar there is a contemptible theatre, where strolling Spanish comedians sometimes perform. The garrison library is the only place of rational amusement for strangers, and there are few towns which have any thing comparable to it. The inns are mean, but the rate of the charges is abundantly magnificent. A dollar here passes under the name of a cob; and it is but a small matter that a cob can purchase.

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SARDINIA.

Cagliari, the capital of this island, appears to have fallen greatly from what it has been in some more prosperous epoch of the government. Many of the houses still show traces of Spanish grandeur, but an air of ruin and decay is visible throughout the whole town. The streets are not more than twenty feet wide, and for their passable condition are evi dently more indebted to the dry weather than to scavengers.

and the arts of polished life can have made any interesting degree of progress. There is, however, an institution in Cagliari worthy of being particularly noticed. It is formed for the purpose, as it were, of affording an opportunity to humble-born genius to expand and acquire distinction. The children of the peasauts are invited to come into the city, where they serve in families for their food and lodg. ing, on condition of being allowed to attend the schools of the institution.

They are called Majuli, and wear a kind of uniform, with which they are provided by their friends. Some of the Majoli rise to high situations: the greater number, however, return back to the provinces, and relapse into their hereditary rusticity; but the effects of their previous instruction remains; aud sometimes,

The inhabitants of Sardinia (I speak of the common people) are scarcely yet above the negative point of civilization; perhaps it would be more correct to say that they appear to have sunk a certain way back into barbarism. They wear indeed linen shirts, fastened at the collar by a pair of silver buttons like hawks' bells; but their upper dress of shaggy goat-in remote and obscure valleys, the traveller skins is in the pure savage style. A few have got one step nearer to perfectibility, and actually do wear tanned leather coats, made somewhat in the fashion of the armour worn in Europe in the fifteenth century. With such durable habiliments it is easy to conceive that they do not require much assistance from the manufactures of foreign countries.

In the district of Tempio the mountains are infested with banditti, and the villages are often at war with one another. A feudal ani. mosity of this kind, which had lasted upwards of half a century, was lately pacified by the interference of a monk. The armies of the two villages, amounting each to about four hundred men, were on an appointed day drawn out in order of battle, front to front, and musquets loaded. Not far from the spot the monk had a third host prepared, consisting of his own brethren, with all the crucifixes and images they could muster. He addressed the belligerents, stating the various sins and wrongs that they had respectively committed, and shewing that the period had arrived when their dispute should cease, for the account current of aggressions then balanced. The stratagem had the desired effect, and a general reconciliation took place.

meets with a peasant who, in the uncouth and savage garb of the country, shews a tincture of || the polish and intelligence of the town.

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The population of the island is estimated at five hundred thousand souls. The peasantry are the vassals of their respective chieftaius; and the citizens are commonly employed in the little internal commerce which the country affords. The nobility are numerous and ig. norant; and the same terms may be applied to the ecclesiastical locusts.

SYRACUSE.

The road from Lentini to the remnant of Syracuse, affords various and romantic views, but the country is barren and waste. The great charm of the journey, and which renders every spot that the traveller passes interesting, is the consiousness of approaching so celebrated a city. The circumference of the ancient Syracuse has been estimated at upwards of twenty miles; I was indeed told, that the walls may yet be distinctly traced. A most ingenious contrivance in the ancient fortifications, apparently for the purpose of making sorties, has lately been discovered. It consists of a subterranean passage, for a considerable way beyond the walls, where it formed several branches, each opening at a port of the same dimensions as the entrance to the

In a country where the inhabitants still wear skins, and titles remain in a great degree territorial, it is not to be expected that learning || principal communication. By this contriv

ance the garrison could send, suddenly, forth a greater body of troops than is practicable by any plan in the modern system of fortification. The theatre and amphitheatre having been excavated in the rock on which the city was built, are still tolerably entire. The latter is small, and, being of posterior construction to the former, may be regarded as a proof of the declining state of the city at the time it was formed, which is said to have been in the reign of Nero. The theatre must have been a vast work; it contained benches for upwards of twenty thousand spectators It seems almost impossible to conceive, in what manner the actors could make themselves heard

ass's; the other has suffered, as all tyrants' ears should suffer, a degree of culprit deficiency. They are both excavations in the two principal latomies. A latomy is just a stone quarry. The bottom of one of the largest is now converted into a beautiful sequestered garden. Huge fragments, from the precipice, overhang the pathways like the segments of broken arches, and the olive trees are seen starting out of the rocks, where there is not a particle of soil. This recluse paradise belongs to a Capuchin convent, the chief of which, a sensible well-bred man, conducted me through it. In turning a corner, I observed a monumental inscription; and on approaching was surprised to find it in the English language. It mentioned, that the body of an American midshipman was deposited in the rock behind. He had been killed in a duel, and the monks, in charity, had permitted him to be buried there. In the other great latomy there is a picturesque cavern, occupied by twine-spinners, and a small manufactory of nitre.

throughout so great a concave. Hollow pas sages between every four or five benches, are supposed to have been made for the purpose of conducting the sound from the stage; places are also shewn where reverberators were, according to this hypothesis, fixed, in order to throw out the sounds to the audience; that is to say, that the text of the performance was heard like the talk of the invisible girls; a Among other curiosities, a street of tombs supposition very like nonsense. Some of the is shewn. In this street is the sepulchre of learned have fancied that the actors performed Archimedes; but all the marks by which only the pantomime of the drama, and that Cicero discovered it are obliterated, and it is there was a person behind the scenes who not now known. In passing from this place roared out the dialogue. This, however, I do to the catacombs, the entrance to which is not believe, more especially since I have seen about half a mile distant, we happened to cross the theatres of Syracuse and Toarmini. In the excavated acqueduct which antiently supthe latter, on each side of the stag", there is a plied the city with water. It is chiefly replace where, it is said, a pulpit stood, which, I markable on account of containing two canals, imagise, must have been for the readers: a one over the other. It is supposed that this contrivance more probable than the supposi- was a secret contrivance in case of siege, that tion of a person behind the scenes. If the if the enemy stopped up one, the other, being man concealed could have been heare, the concealed, might still furnish a sufficient supactors themselves might just as well have|ply of water. In a neighbouring field I saw made use of their own voices. I have some- a number of broken marbles lying, uear which where seen it suggested, that the Greek tragedies were probably recited with music, like the modern Italian operas; and I feel rather inclined to assent to this notion.

The Ear of Dionysius, as it is called, is of all the remains of Syracuse the most famous; but it appears that he had two ears, both of which are still in existence: which of the two to chuse as the right one, I confess myself unable to determine. One of them is still tolerably perfect, and is marvellously like an

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not long before, a statue of Venus was discovered, of very admirable workmanship; it wants, however, the head and right arm., It is the property of the King, otherwise it would have been bought by some of the English travellers. It was standing, when I saw it, in in the house of a private gentleman, covered with an old green silk petticoat, exposed to the ribaldry and carelessness of the servants.

The catacombs may be described as a subterranean city-the city of the dead. They

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