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purpose of life is to arrive at a certain maturity, in the possession of which alone it is possible to make the passage out of a limited and imperfect condition into one more free and complete. For we cannot imagine that death, and a resurrection to a new state of existence, are merely accidents, or depend on outward events. A departure from life, whether it be early or late, certainly stands in vital relation to the inward being of the individual, and is always a token that in the view of the Almighty, from whom nothing is concealed, a further development on this stage of existence would not be advantageous to him who is quitting it.

In like manner, death may not have the same influence on all persons; it may operate differently, for example, on him who has attained in life to a higher and more spiritual maturity, and on him who on the contrary has lagged behind. Death and a new life always take hold of that which they already find waiting for them. Man must therefore cultivate this maturity in himself; and the ripeness for death and for a new life is one and the same thing. For it consists in a separation from earthly interests, an indifference to earthly pleasure and earthly activity; it is a life of ideas which take no hold of the world, a withdrawal from a desire after happiness; it is, in fact, a state of mind in which one is unconcerned about the manner in which he is here dealt with by fate, and looks only to the goal after which he aspiresin which, therefore, he exercises his power of self-denial, and gains a brave mastery over himself. Out of this condition of mind there arises the cheerful, fearless composure which, needing nothing from without, spreads itself over life like a second sky, a spiritual one, answering to the unclouded blue of heaven, which overspreads the visible canopy.-HUMBOLDT.

1. What does unmoved qualify?

2. Transition is here used as a sort of adjective qualifying states.

TO A SNOWDROP.

LONE flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend

Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,

Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May

Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

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WORDSWORTH.

Extensive.
Direction.

Altitude.

Adjacent.

Emissaries.

THE hollows formed on the surface of the earth by the ground sinking or rising, earthquakes, streams of lava, craters of extinct volcanoes, the intersection of strata, and those that occur along the edges of the different formations, are generally filled with water, and constitute systems of lakes, some salt and some fresh. Many of the former may be remnants of an ancient ocean left in the depressions of its bed as the waters retired when the continents were raised above its surface.

Almost all lakes are fed by springs rising at the bottom, and they are occasionally the source of the largest rivers. Some have neither tributaries nor outlets, the greater number have both. The quantity of water in lakes varies with the seasons everywhere, especially from the melting snow on mountain chains and in high latitudes, and from periodical rains between the tropics. Small lakes occur in mountain-passes, formed by water which runs into them from the surrounding peaks; they are frequently, as in the Alps, very transparent, of a bright green or azure hue. Large lakes are common on table-lands, and in the valleys of mountainous countries, but the largest are on extensive plains. The basin of a lake comprehends all the land drained by it, consequently it is bounded by an imaginary line passing through the sources of all the waters that fall into it.

There are more lakes in high than in low latitudes, because evaporation is much greater in low latitudes than in high; and in this respect there is a great analogy between the northern plains of the two principal continents. Sheets of water of great beauty occur in the mountain valleys of the British islands, of Norway, and Sweden, countries similar in geological structure; and besides these there are two regions in the old world in which

lakes particularly abound. One begins on the low coast of Holland, goes round the southern and eastern sides of the Baltic, often passing close to its shores, along the Gulf of Bothnia, and through the Siberian plains to Behring's Straits. The lakes which cover so much of Finland, and the great lakes of Ladoga and Onega lie in a parallel direction; they occupy transverse rents which had taken place across the paleozoic strata, while rising in a direction from S.W. to N.E., between the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea; that elevation was, perhaps, the cause of the cavities now occupied by these two seas. Ladoga is the largest lake in this zone, having a surface of nearly 1,000 square miles. It receives tributary streams, and sends off its superfluous water by rivers, and Onega does the same; but the multitude of small steppe lakes among the Ural Mountains, and in the basin of the river Obi neither receive nor emit rivers, being for the most part mere ponds, though of great size, some of fresh and some of salt water, lying close together-a circumstance which has not been accounted for those on the low Siberian plains have the same character.

The second system of lakes in the old continent follows the zone of the mountain mass, and comprehends those of the Pyrenees, Alps, Appenines, Asia Minor, the Caspian, the Lake Aral, together with those on the table-land, and in the mountains of central Asia.

In the Pyrenees, lakes are most frequent on the French side; many are at such altitudes as to be perpetually frozen, one on Mount Perdu, 8,393 feet above the sea, has the appearance of an ancient volcanic crater. There is scarcely a valley in the Alpine range and its offsets that has not a sheet of water, no doubt owing to the cavities formed during the elevation of the ridges, and in some instances to the subsidence of the soil. Lake Trüb, 7,200 feet above the level of the sea, is the most elevated. There

are

more lakes on the north than on the south side of the Alps; the German valleys are full of them. In Bohemia, Galicia, and Moravia there are no less than 30,000 sheets of water, besides great numbers throughout the Austrian empire.

Of the principal lakes on the northern side of the Alps, the Lake of Geneva, or Lake Leman, is the largest and most beautiful from its situation, the pure azure of the waters, and the sublime mountains that surround it. Its surface, of about 240 square miles, is 1,230 feet above the sea, and near Meillerie it is 1,012 deep. The Lake of Lucerne is 1,407 feet above the sea, and the lakes of Brienz 1,900 feet. The Italian lakes are at a lower level; the Lago Maggiori has only 678 feet of absolute altitude ; they are larger than most of those on the north of the Alps, and

with the advantage of an Italian climate, sky, and vegetation, they surpass the others in beauty, though the mountains that surround them are less lofty.

These great lakes are fed by rivers rising in the glaciers of the higher Alps, and many large rivers issue from them. In this respect they differ from most of the lakes in Lower Italy, some of which are craters of ancient volcanoes, or perhaps ancient craters of elevation, where the earth had been swelled up by subterranean vapour without bursting, and had sunk down again into a hollow when the internal pressure was removed.

In Syria, the Lake of Tiberias and the Dead Sea, sacred memorials to the Christian world, are situate in the deepest cavity on the earth. The surface of the Lake Tiberias is 329 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, surrounded by verdant plains bearing aromatic shrubs; while the heavy bitter waters of the Dead Sea, 1,312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, is a scene of indescribable desolation and solitude, encompassed by desert sands, and bleak, stony salt-hills. Thus there is a difference of level of 983 feet in little more than 60 miles, which makes the course of the river Jordan very rapid. The water of the Dead Sea is so acrid from the large proportion of saline matter it contains, that it irritates the skin; it is more buoyant, and has a greater proportion of salt than any that is known except the small lake of Eltonsk, east of the Volga.

Though extensive sheets of water exist in many parts of Asia Minor, especially in Bithynia, yet the characteristic feature of the country, and of all the table-land of western Asia and the adjacent steppes, is the number and magnitude of the saline lakes. A region of salt lakes and marshes extends at least 200 miles along the northern foot of the Taurus range, on a very elevated part of the table-land of Anatolia. There are also many detached lakes, some exceedingly saline. Fish cannot live in the Lake of Toozla; it is shallow, and subject to excessive evaporation. Neither can any animal exist in the Lake of Shahee or Urmiah, on the confines of Persia and Armenia, 300 miles in circumference; its water is perfectly clear, and contains a fourth part of its weight of saline matter. These lakes are fed by springs, rain, and melted snow, and, having no emissaries, the surplus water is carried off by evaporation.

It is possible that the volcanic soil of the table-land may be the cause of this exuberance of salt water. Lake Van, a sheet of salt water 240 miles in circumference, is separated from the equally salt lake Urmiah only by a low range of hills; and there are many pieces of fresh water in that neighbourhood, possibly in similar hollows.

Persia is singularly destitute of water; the Lake of Zurrah, on the frontiers of Afghanistan, having an area of 18 square miles, is the only piece of water on the western part of the tableland of Iran.

It is evident from the saline nature of the soil, and the shells it contains, that the plains round the Caspian, the Lake Aral, and the steppes, even to the Ural Mountains, had once formed part of the Black Sea; 57,000 square miles of that country are depressed below the level of the ocean,-a depression which extends northwards beyond the town of Saratow, 300 miles distant from the Caspian. The surface of the Caspian itself, which is 82 feet below the level of the ocean, is its lowest part, and has an area of 140,000 square miles, nearly equal to the area of Great Britain and Ireland. In Europe alone it drains an extent of 850,000 square miles, receiving the Volga, the Ural, and other great rivers on the north. It has no tide, and its navigation is dangerous from heavy gales, especially from the south-east, which drive the water miles over the land: a vessel was stranded 40 miles inland from the shore. It is 3,000 feet deep in some parts, but is shallow to the east, where it contains several islands, and where it is bounded by impassable swamps many miles broad. The Lake of Eltonsk, on the steppe east of the Volga, has an area of 130 square miles, and furnishes two-thirds of the salt consumed in Russia. Its water yields 29.13 per cent. of saline matter, and from this circumstance is more buoyant than any that is known.

The Lake of Aral, which is shallow, is 117 feet higher than the Caspian, and has an area of 23,300 square miles: it has its name from the number of small islands at its southern end; Aral signifying "island" in the Tartar language. Neither the Caspian nor the Lake of Aral have any outlets, though they receive large rivers; they are salt, and, in common with all the lakes in Persia, they are decreasing in extent, and becoming more salt, the quantity of water supplied by tributaries being less than that lost by evaporation. Most of the rivers that are tributary to the lake of Aral are diminished by canals that carry off water for irrigation; for that reason a very small portion of the waters of the Oxus reaches the lake. Besides, the Russian rivers yield less water than formerly from the progress of cultivation. The small mountain-lake Sir-i-Kol, in the high table-land of Pamer, from whence the Oxus flows, is 15,630 feet above the sea; consequently there is a difference of level between it and the Dead Sea of nearly 17,000 feet.

The limpid transparency of the water in lakes, especially in mountainous countries, is remarkable; minute objects are visible

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