views and tendency of the Society. The controversy on this subject has been decided by a great majority of the most pious and intelligent persons in the kingdom. To revert, therefore, to fundamental points, would divert our attention too much from the important events which have succeeded, and which render the progress of the Bible Society at present the cause of the greater part of the civilized world. (To be continued.) ART. 6. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. Description of two ranges of Mountains in the State of Massachusetts; in a Letter from Chester Dewey, Esq. Professor, &c. in Williams College, to Samuel L. Mitchill, dated January 12, 1819. DEAR SIR, HAVING read the account of the mountains of New-England, addressed to you and published in the Monthly Magazine for last month, I take the liberty to send you the following. That communication, so far as I am acquainted, is very correct, and contains the most full account of our mountains which I have read, though confined principally to the mountains of Vermont and New-Hampshire. Two elevated mountains in Massachusetts are entirely omitted. The one is Saddle Mountain, between Williamstown and Adams, in this state. It has its name from its resemblance, when seen at a distance, to a saddle, and is much higher than any other mountain in the state. Though nearly insulated, it belongs to the range which separates Connecticut River from the Housatonick, and lies about 14 miles E. of S. from Mount Anthony, between Pownal and Bennington, (Vermont.) Gray Lock, the highest and southern peak, lies about 5 miles E. of S. from the College in Williamstown, and is much higher than any of the Green Mountains till you pass several miles to the north, being about 2800 feet above the College, and probably nearly 4000 feet above the tide-water of the Hudson. The north peak, in full view from the valley of Williamstown, is 2300 feet in height. A lower range lies a little west of these peaks. The whole forms a noble mountain, of rapid elevation, covered to its summit with lofty trees. The beautiful Pinus Traseri is found on its vertex, with others much more common. The range, to which Saddle Mountain belongs, presents no very elevated points to the south, though it is every where a high ridge. The western, or Taconick range, which divides Massachusetts from New-York, is much more broken: roads of easy passage cross through its hollows in several places. It has been generally said, to unite with the other range in the S. W. part of Vermont, and both together to form the Green Mountains. Captain Partridge states, however, that the two ranges are plainly distinct in Vermont. It is certainly desirable, in a geographical respect, to keep them distinct, if this be the fact. To the north of this place this range has no elevation, I presume, which exceeds 1600 feet. The same is true towards the south, till you come to the S. W. corner of Massachusetts. Taconick has two elevated peaks on the west of Sheffield. The highest is about 2300 feet above the plain in that town. The Housatonick flows three or four miles from its east base, with a slow meandering stream. Between Canaan and Salisbury, (Conn.) it falls at once 70 feet, and 200 feet in the course of a few miles. Perhaps 2800 feet would not be a high estimate for the elevation of Taconick above the ocean. There is a considerable elevation still further south, in Connecticut, but its altitude has not been ascertained. These two ranges of mountains bound Berkshire county on the east and west. The rocks of the east range are granite, These ranges are crossed by east and west roads, in three places, in Berkshire county. They are all stage-roads, from Albany to Boston. The north rout is through Williamstown, over the mountain between Adams and Florida, to Greenfield, on Connecticut River. The west range is crossed with ease; and the east, at a less elevation than on the other two roads. A road is also now working from Williamstown, over the west range, to Troy, and will shorten the distance 11 miles. The middle road passes through Pittsfield, over the east range in Peru, to Northampton. The hills on this route are higher than on the others; but it is a road of great travel. The south road crosses the west range in WestStockbridge, at a moderate elevation, and passing through Stockbridge, rises the east range in Becket, and passes to Springfield: it is much travelled. Besides these, there are two oblique roads across these ranges. One is from Albany, through Lenox, to Hartford, (Con.); the other is a stage-road from Hudson, through Sheffield, to Hartford: it crosses the west range, at considerable elevation, a few miles north of Taconick mountain. CHESTER DEWEY. Mr. EDITOR, The following singular and amusing specimen of the quaint and conceited style of writing, and of the affectation of classical learning, which once prevailed among the scholars of an earlier day, is taken, strange as it may appear, from a venerable volume of law re ports: it is the address to the reader at the commencement of the second part of Brownlow's Reports, and is offered for the amusement of your readers. One would hardly suppose that Barrister Brownlow could have lived in an age which had already been adorned by Shakespeare and Bacon, and was about to witness the splendid displays of the genius of Milton. << TO THE READER. Upon the strict survey of Natures Products, there is nothing to be found, whether in the bosome of its Causes, or in its Singularities, within the Convexity of the Universe, which being contemplated at an intellectuall distance, beyond the Magnetick Effluvium of our Senses, doth not felicitate with more certainty, Nedum, probability, as more obsequious to the Prototype of its projection, then MAN: the very Cronologie of whose Errors doth compute his Existency, an ingratefull returne for the dignity of his Essence, which unmolested and freed from the Procacity of his Junior and Inferior faculties, would have fixt him in the harmonious Orbe of his motion, and have secured him, as well against the scandall of a Planetique, as the Ecclipse of his native glory: But alas! the doome is past, Ex Athaniis in Barathrum, hee's now benighted with Ignorance, Phainomena's and Verities; an Ignis fatuus, and a Linck-boy, are Eodem calculo; which condition imposes upon him something more then Metaphorically, the semblance of a Moth-flye, which is in nothing so soli. citous, as in its owne ruine: Neverthelesse had Privation in his Judgement been the onely losse, hee could then have undergone; but his Poco di matto, but his will, and too too cereous Potestatives, have Stigmatiz'd him in all his habitudes, undiqueversum, with a more reproachfull Sobriquet of Vellacazo teso, in which shamefull state, forgetting his Constitutive Nature, and rudely breaking through his Divisive difference, he seems now to be lost, if perchance he is not found in the confused Thickets and Forests of his Genus; where measuring his actions (rather Ausa furosa) by the Cubit of his strength, he giddyes himselfe into a Maze Debating and Reporting of Cases in our Law: And, the denoting of Limitations in that of the Empire; which first, properly are, or (a notatione) at least should be, no other then Exceptions to the Rules generall, from a due consideration of individuating circumstances. For the Expediment of which knowledge, this Gentleman, the painfull Collector of these ensuing Relations, for his owne benefit, whilst yet living, and for the good of others, who by natures Decree should see his Pyre, did think it Tanti to make his Observations Legible: There now remaines nothing, but thy Boni consule, in which thou wilt oblige the Publisher to continue thy Friend in all like Opportunities. DEAR SIR, Animal. R. M. Barr :” of Inquietudes, shuffling the Malefactor and Judge into one Chaire, to make up the Riddle of all Injustice, because all things are Just Hence was the no lesse opportune, then needfull Venu of Cicero's Vir magnus quidem & sapiens, &c. Hence the blissfull emergency of all Laws, the limitting Repagula's of his Insolency, and the Just Monuments of his Depravity: But Hinc polydacrya, he is yet so unwilling to forgoe his bainefull Appetite (Reasons too potent Competitor) that he is still perswaded he may safely act without controlment; though like a Partridge in a Net, he finds no other Guerdon for his Bussle, then a more hopelesse Irretition: And as if he were damned to be a Fury to himselfe, he will not admit that wholesome and thriving Councell, That Obedience to Laws is a much more thriving piece of Prudence then Reasons for believing the Earth to be an Sacrifice; and as much differenced as innocency, and guilt ignorant of its expiation. Whence I conceive by a just title, to keep the World from Combats, and the reward of vertue from Violation, the wisest in all Ages have had the priviledge, not onely of prescribing, but of coacting the orders of Regiment amongst others, who by necessary Complot have engaged for observance; which somthing seems to repaire the loss; yet so, as by our Dianoeticks, we have opportunity enough to see, and like the Satyre in the Fable, to feare, our Idœated Humanity, although in a more sublime contemplation, it may fall out otherwise, in respect that the Law of Essences are more certaine, and of a far more facile direction, then those of existency; which is so necessarily entituled to infinite Incertainty, from Approximation of Accidents, that it would now be an equal madnesse for the Governour to think he can, or the governed to fancie hee should, constitute Laws, Adaquate to humane Velleity, since the wills of no two Sons of Adam did ever Mathematically concenter, nor were ever two humane Actions shaped with parallel cir cumstances; which, as it seems necessarily to import the deficiency of the Rule, so also to imply the evident reason of I have often wondered at the egotism of that little thing called man, in locating himself at the head of creation. Were he as comprehensive and astute as he would fain be thought to be, there is reason to believe he must soon be cut short of all his usurped plumes. Could the peal of that thunder, and the glare of that lightning, which impresses him with so much awe, be construed into the infuriated rage and dreadful roar of some mighty living monster, how much more forcibly would he appreciate his insignificance! And should he extend his view a few steps farther, and see in that tremendous animal the very earth" in which we move and have our being," to what a calamitous depth of degradation will he have reduced his high prerogatives! And has all our philosophy then arrived to this, that man is but a mere animalcule, infesting, with his brother tribes of the animal kingdom, the crevices and rugs in the hide of that base creature whom we denominate Earth! Even so doth appear to be the truth. Our reasons for believing the earth to be an animal are grounded upon analogy, a species of evidence which we are told by an illustrious and approved authority in these matters, furnishes " a rational ground of conjecture and inquiry," differing from experience, that grand abutment of our logic, only in degree. On a comparison of what may be termed the attributes of the earth, with the charac ters of the animal kingdom, it would seem that this globe is deficient in no one par→ ticular, and even possesses more than the common allotment of those distinctive properties which are said to be essential to animality. They have only this very natural difference, that where they are developed in the earth, they are commensurate with her magnitude. Yet they have escaped the piercing ken of human observation; our perceptions apparently being confined within a certain range of objects, equally perplexed on the one hand by immensity, or minuteness on the other. Has not the earth motion, one of the most prominent features of life? Who has not dwelt with admiring rapture on the almost immeasurable, yet imperceptible rapidity of her flight! She has the very tourbillon, the whirligig or rotatory motion of many of the similarly-shaped animals of the zoophytical tribe. Has she not blood-vessels? What are those mighty rivers, the Wolga, the Danube, the Ganges, the Indus, the Nile, the La Plata, the Oronoko, the Hudson, the Mississippi, and the St. Lawrence, with their innumerable branches, but so many huge veins that pervade and ramify the superfices of her envelope! The ocean and the inland seas are so many receptacles or sinuses, in which are concentrated the circulating fluids previous to their admission, probably, into a still larger set of vessels, which communicate with some central point in the dark recesses of her interior. After all the boasted discoveries of naturalists, their exfodiations have scarcely penetrated into the bare corticle of her substance. As far as these researches have gone, however, it would appear, from the succession of strata we meet with, that this crusty covering or coat is, like that of most animals, of a laminated, or rather tunicated structure. The fathomability of inland seas and lakes lead to the inference, that this stratified tegument underlays also the bosom of the deep, except where the latter communicates with the internal parts of the circulatory system. While Each purple peak, each flinty spire Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splinter'd pinnacle, are like the spines and processes on the body of the little sea-urchin, the mere prickles or tubercles jutting from her surface! It is almost pitiable to abase in this way, by "one fell swoop," all the admired effusions of poetry and romance that have resounded, for so many ages past, their encomiestic strains o'er the wondrous beauties of nature. Where then, too, are the mighty pyramids ! The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces! The solemn temples! They are indeed "like an insubstantial pageant," and little doth it matter if they "leave not a rack behind." Incomparably less durable, and infinitely less magnificent or vast, than the massive pillars of coral reared by the pygmy labours of the polype in the bosom of the ocean, they are yet the proud and arrogant monuments of human exertion, and the sublime mansions of human habitants! Nevertheless, those objects that we so presumptively group together under the common appellation of Works of Nature and Art, can never entirely lose their influence upon the human intellect. Though divested of much of their importance by the light of analogy, they still retain certain unalienable relations towards ourselves that can never be undermined. Thus their relations of magnitude, of proportion, of fitness, will, in all probability, remain immutable while the constitution of our mind preserves its susceptibility to beauty and sublimity. That part of the earth's coat which we call the alluvion, and which fills up the valleys and forms the banks and bottoms of lakes and rivers, and lines the coasts of seas, appears to be no other than a deposition or secretion, like the adipose and cellu Jar matter of other animals, to give her a convenient and elegant rotundity of shape. The lofty pine, "fretted by the angry gusts of heaven," to the humble daisy that just lifts its head from the ground, are the hairs and down, of various figure, and strength, and size, that embellish and mat over the face of this globe. It is among these puny bristles, and on this soft pubescence, that the little animalcule Man "plays such fantastic tricks ;" and makes the shaggy forests and pimple mountains of old Earth re-echo with his clamours! Were it compatible with my limits, I could here expatiate on the multitudes of other and larger animalcules, that nestle and procreate like a sort of epizootic or parasitic vermin, in the hairs and dandriff of old mother Earth. I might tell of those who, like Taenias, and Lumbrici, and Hydatids, roll about in her very blood, and revel upon her vitals! The sea-serpent, with his terrific contortions, would dwindle into the microscopic eel, and the monster Kraken and the spouting whale form but larger species of the same contemptible race. She is too immeasurably great, however, to evince the reaction of sensibility from the insect stings and musquito turmoils of a class of existences so piteously insignificant! But let us recall to our reflection for a moment the countless myriads again that harbour in the substance of these very beings! What a boundless field of inquiry here presents itself! Do we then see the links, can we mark the progression of that chain, whose extremes are concealed in awful mystery! Is creation, then, but an involuted series of germs! This is certainly correspondent to the ordination of things, and even to that arithmetical or graduated action, if I may so call it, of the human mind itself. The doctrine of equivocal generation rests upon a causeless base, a supposition at which the soul of man recoils with chilling horror! It is, besides, an idle and useless fantasy, if it be true that the earth itself is an animal. The earth, too, perspires, and again absorbs the fluids that she had emitted, thus keeping good the round of circulation, as seen in "clouds, and vapours, and storms." If she has no distinct mouth at either of her poles, it is probable that her nutritive functions are performed entirely through the medium of her natural pores. It is difficult to say why she has been put, by some, in the femenine gender. But our topic becomes too unwieldy to be dwelt upon in so small a compass. It swells too rapidly to be long gazed upon with steadiness. Hear the loud crash of her voice in the thunder "bellowing o'er the deep!" Hark, while she rolls along the sky with her sister spheres! It is the tremendous earthquake that ever and anon shakes the foundations of her frame, and giving vent to her dreadful fury, pierces with deafning din the remotest regions of eternal space! Yours, &c. TRISMEGISTUS. Pronunciation of the Latin Language. The following is extracted from the Gentleman's Magazine, published in London. The cause of complaint, which is the chief subject of the article, exists also in the United States; and the proposed remedy has frequently been suggested to several professors and learned gentlemen in this country. In fact, it is inconsistent to say that the Latin language is the universal language of the learned, so long as its true pronunciation is not universally adopted. The rhymes of an angliciser or English latinist, are no rhymes to the latinist who pronounces the language correctly. However, in the remarks below, the subject is presented in a proper point of view; and while we offer it to the attention of our learned readers, we would also urge its importance. K. N. "I would observe respecting the national disadvantage, that while the latinists of all the other countries of Europe, |
