than their beds, but than the heights through which their beds pass. That the main drainage of the Forest Ridge does pass through the North and South Downs, which are masses of uniform structure and hardness, is a fact which of itself proves that the waterflow made its own courses. The sea could not have made them unless their original contents had been softer than their sides. Mr. Martin, indeed, points out that the four southern rivers are exactly opposite the five northern rivers. And Mr. Hopkins proves, by Nor by mathemathematical methods,' that 'cross fractures' must quakes. have occurred where these nine rivers pass through the Downs. And Lyell agrees, that, owing to the loosening of the materials, the sea has been enabled to make the nine river-courses. But, first, any two points are opposite one another. But if we take the tortuous lines of the rivers, they are oppositer; for they are opposite all the points of the compass. And as for the eight or nine 'cross fractures,' there is not a particle of evidence for the existence of any one of them.

"The pressure of superincumbent strata of unknown thickness and kind, must also be taken into account; and it will not be thought wonderful that diluvial action and the operation of more modern causes apart, there should be so little direct evidence of fissure upon the surface.'

matical earth

Mr. Martin here talks of little evidence; but he actually produces none whatever.

It is true that a fracture and a fault are claimed in the valley called 'the Coombe ;' but there is no river there, nor is the fracture across fracture,' but a longitudinal fracture, running east and west, and in the line of one of several smaller anticlinal ridges, which are supposed on each side of the main Forest Ridge, and parallel to it.

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Supposing all these longitudinal fractures to have rivers as well as the cross fractures,' which on mathematical principles they should,

To one who looked from upper air,

what a pretty effect the symmetrical, fluvial reticulation would have! like a net on a lady's head. What would be the mathematical name which the interstices between the intersections would assume?

The pompous* Humboldt cracks out his con

* ' Professus grandia turget.' In almost the first words of the 'Cosmos,' Humboldt declares his intention to describe nature in exalted forms of speech.' He accordingly gives loose to a barbarous jargon of words, the mixture of verbis græca latinis, which Demosthenes and Cicero together would be puzzled to interpret. I do not mean that he is singular in this. Such gaudy frippery may hide and cloke the deformity or weakness of the false, but can it deck or dignify truth and nature? Gild refined gold, or throw a perfume over the violet! But this nomenclature, or, as Lyell calls it, terminology,

tinental watercourses still more ridiculously. Indeed, his ideas on the subject appear to me like the ravings of madness. It may be asked, Why then waste time on the ravings of madness? and I beg pardon for doing so. But the reply is, that in discussing the theory of rivers and the formation of valleys, the opinions of Humboldt cannot be passed in silence, and particularly when (alas!) we find Lyell sharing in those opinions.

Humboldt writes ('Cosmos, Physical Geography'): The main direction of the whole continent of Europe (from south-west to northeast) is opposite to that of the great fissures which pass from north-west to south-east, from the mouths of the Rhine and the Elbe, through the Adriatic and Red Seas, and through the mountain system of Putschi-koh, in Luristan, towards the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. This almost rectangular intersection of geodesic lines exercises an important influence on the commercial relations of Europe and Asia and the north-west of Africa, and on the progress of civilisation on the formerly more flourishing shores of the Mediterranean; that is, formerly Rome, Car

is not only useless, as it conceals the laws of nature (which are as simple as they are sublime) behind the double veil of Greek and Latin-it is a hideous iniquity, for it effectually shuts out from the vast majority of mankind truths which might be known and should be known by every man, woman, and child.

thage, Greece, Phoenicia, and Egypt, owed their civilisation to the 'great fissure' formed by the Alps, the Rhine, and the Elbe. And to these we are indebted for the present progress of civilisation' around the whole shores of the Mediterranean.'

But are there no rivers in Europe save these two German ones? The Dnieper would swallow both. And if the Spree and Potsdam had appertained to the Dnieper instead of to the Elbe, perhaps the Vistula, the Dnieper, and the Black Sea would have formed the rectangular intersection of geodesic lines.' The Danube, which would also swallow both, and the Po, are in the same line as the main direction of the whole continent of Europe.' And the Volga, which again would swallow both, and Don, form ‘a rectangular intersection' of Humboldt's great fissure.' The 'great fissure' between the Adriatic and the Rhine is precisely the highest part of Europe-the Alps.

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But is the writer of Cosmos' to consider 'the main direction' of the land and water of Europe separately from that of the land and water of Asia (which contains how many of the largest rivers in the world), because man has divided this one continent into two by a difference of names?

On whichever side of high land the sea is, the waterflow must go to it. This is the sole and

simple secret of the direction of rivers and valleys. And the principle applies to the inland seas and lakes of central Asia, as well as to the great oceans. If the sea is close to high land, as the Pacific to the Andes, an infinity of small streams run straight to it. If distant, as the Atlantic, the infinity of small streams, in seeking the sea, fall together, and form large rivers, collecting as they go the waterflow of the regions through which they pass. Thus a long river is a strong river, because vires acquirit eundo, and it gets wider as it descends. But if river-courses were igneous cracks formed in the elevation of the land, these cracks of construction should get narrower as they descend, and they should die off to nothing at the sea. The crack of the River Plate is 170 miles wide at the sea; and, like all other rivers, instead of widening, as an igneous crack ought, it narrows as you proceed inland. I do not know what the width of the crack of the Amazons is at the sea, but it is three or four miles wide at the foot of the Andes, and there narrows to a few hundred yards. If you follow one stream, it narrows off to nothing, that is, to one spring. Does this one spring, with the spring on the opposite side of the mountains,