AUTHORITIES.

Americans as they are. By the Author of Austria as it is. 12mo. 1828.

Bell's Letters from Upper Canada. 12mo. 1824.

Buchanan's Sketches of the North American Indians. 8vo. 1824. Carey and Lea's American Atlas. 3d edition. Philadelphia, 1827. Geography, &c. 8vo. London, 1823. Chateaubriand's Travels in America and Italy. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1828.

Duncan's Travels through the United States and Canada. 2 vols. 12mo. 1823.

Dwight's Travels in New England and New York. 4 vols. London. 1823.

Grant's Memoirs of an American Lady. 2 vols. 3d edit. 1817. Hale's (Hon. Salma) History of the United States. 2d edit. London, 1827.

Haliburton's Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia.

2 vols. 8vo. Halifax, N.S., 1829.

Hall's, Captain Basil, Travels in North America. 3 vols. roy. 12mo. 1829.

Lieutenant F., Travels in Canada and the United States. 8vo. 2d edit, 1819.

Harris's Remarks made during a Tour through the United States. 12mo. 1821.

Head's Forest Scenes and Incidents in North America. 12mo. 1829.

Hodgson's Letters from North America. 2 vols. 8vo. 1824.

Howison's Sketches of Upper Canada. 8vo. 2d edit. 1822.

Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. vi. 2 parts. London, 1826.

Irving's Sketch Book. 2 vols. 5th edit. 1821.

Bracebridge Hall. 2 vols. 8vo. 1822.

James's Account of an Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. 3 vols. 8vo. 1823.

Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. 8vo, 1787.

La Fayette en Amérique. 2 tomes. 8vo. Paris, 1829.

Lambert's Travels through Canada and the United States. 3d edit. 2 vols. 8vo. 1816.

Lewis and Clarke's Travels to the Source of the Missouri, 3 vols.

8vo. 1817.

Mackenzie's Voyage from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans. 4to. 1801.

Mellish's Travels through the United States. 8vo. 1818.

Morse's American Geography. 8vo. Elizabeth Town, U. S., 1789. North American Review.

Notions of the Americans. By a Travelling Bachelor. 2 vols. 8vo. 1828.

Philadelphia in 1824. 18mo. Philadelphia, 1824.

Picture of New York. 18mo. New York, 1818.

Talbot's Five Years' Residence in the Canadas. 2 vols. 8vo. 1824. Warden's Statistical Account of the United States. 3 vols. 8vo.

1819.

Weld's Travels through North America. 4to, London, 1799.
Wright's View of Society in America. 8vo. 1822.

THE

MODERN TRAVELLER,

&c. &c.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

[Extending from latitude 24° 20′ to 49° N., and from longitude 67° to 124° W. Bounded, on the N., by the British Possessions; E. by the Atlantic Ocean; S. by the Gulf of Mexico; S.W. by the Mexican territory; and W. by the Pacific Ocean.]

Or the New World which the great Italian Navigator had the glory of giving to Castile and Leon,* it is remarkable, that no part now belongs to the crown of Spain, except the noble island + which holds his mortal remains, and that of Porto Rico. In vain Pope Alexander made over these vast regions to their Most Christian Majesties in perpetuity. The English language and the Protestant faith have taken root and spread themselves over the greater part of the Northern America, as well as the islands of the Caribbean Sea; while the Spanish possessions on both sides of the Isthmus, are divided among seven Republics, and what was once Portuguese America,

The inscription on Columbus's monument at Seville, is;-
"A Castilla y a Leon

Nuevo Mundo dio Colon."

† His bones were transported to America, and deposited in the cathedral of the city of San Domingo, whence they were transferred, in the year 1796, to Havana.

The Dictatorship of Paraguay is at present an eighth state, PART I.

B

forms the empire of Brazil. According to Baron Humboldt's computations, the continent of America, from the south-eastern extremity of the Isthmus of Panama to the parallel of 68°, forms an area of 607,337 square marine leagues; while South America comprises 571,290 square leagues. To the West Indies and Newfoundland is assigned a territorial surface of about 8303. The total is 1,186,930 square leagues, or about 12,000,000 square miles, with a population now amounting to nearly forty millions. The political distribution of these regions is thus stated :

According to this calculation, English America forms rather less than a third of the territorial surface; Spanish America nearly the same, and, with Portuguese America, more than one-half. The population of the Spanish and Portuguese portions is, to the British, as about 3 to 2. But the relative population of the United States is by far the greatest.

but there can be little doubt of its eventual annexation to the southern federacy.

It seems doubtful, whether the West India Islands are inIcluded in this estimate of territorial surface. The area of the British Possessions in North America is estimated, in Carey and Lea's Atlas, at 1,050,000 square miles, and the population at 700,000.

While comprising less than half the area of Spanish America, they contain two thirds of the population.* In the British continental possessions, the relative population is exceedingly small; while in Russian America, in the unappropriated territory bordering on New Mexico, and in the Patagonian lands south of the Rio Negro, the country is for the most part little better than desert. A large portion of the Brazilian territory is of the same barren character.

The territory of the United States, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and from the St. Lawrence and the great chain of Lakes which divide it from Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, is about 2500 miles in mean length, and 830 miles in mean breadth; the area being about 2,080,800 square miles, or ten times the extent of France. This vast territory is intersected by the great central valley of the Mississippi, which runs from N. to S. through the whole length of the United States, dividing it into two grand portions. These are again divided by two principal ranges of mountains; the Alleghany Mountains in the east, running nearly parallel with the Atlantic coast, and the Rocky Mountains, W. of the

* Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. vi. pp. 126, 7; 345. Estimating the total population of Continental America at only thirty-four millions in 1823, the learned Author assigns sixteen and a half to the Spanish Americans, four to the Portuguese Americans, and ten to the Anglo-Americans; the proportions being as 4, 1, 24; and the two first to the third as 2 to 1. The British possessions are omitted in this calculation.

† Its extreme length from the Pacific Ocean to Passamaquoddy Bay is, according to Malte Brun, 2780 miles; its greatest breadth, from the coast of Louisiana to the river La Pluie, 1300 miles; and its area, 2,300,000 square miles.-Malte Brun, vol. v. p. 150. In Carey and Lea, the area is stated at only 2,076,400 square miles, or 1,328,896,000 acres. We have followed Humboldt.