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Family servants, and others emigrating from Europe, however, who are sober and industrious, very often find opportunities, in families, of improving their condition, in accordance with the degree of their education, knowledge, or general qualifications.

The state of morality in this country," says the North American Review of 1828-9, "is sounder than in Europe, and we have less crime, in proportion to the population. The Americans have less inducements to guilt, because subsistence is so easily procured; and all their wants are within the reach of industry. Our vices are the results of idleness, thoughtlessness, passion and sudden impulse; not of want, constitutional depravity, and political corruption. Having much time to spare, the common people drink, become sots, gamble, quarrel, and fight; these are the prevailing excesses. We have no privileged orders to render fashionable the vices of seduction, boxing, and racing. Convictions are relatively fewer than in England; they average, throughout the whole country, about 300 annually to the million; whilst in England they are nearly 700; and in Ireland 800. And on a careful analysis of these convictions we find more than half are coloured people and foreigners. We may, therefore, call drunkenness, gambling, fighting, leading to occasional murders, our prevailing vices; and the traits of temper or irregular conduct that we manifest oftenest, are vanity, exaggeration, and a disposition to over-reach one

another."

The number of original languages in the world is said to be about 80; but, including the various dialects, or branches derived from them, it amounts to upwards of 3000, of which about 550 are European. In Asia and Oceana there are nearly 1000; in Africa, 276; and in America, 1200.

Although the population of America may be referred to three distinct branches of the human family, the Caucasian, the Ethiopian, and that designated by Professor Blumenbach as the American,-viz., descendants of emigrants from Europe, Africa and India, or aboriginal inhabitants, and therefore descendants of almost every portion of the world,—yet being principally of English ancestry, the prevailing language is English; and if they do not speak a purer Saxon than their English ancestors, and some have a little deflected from the standard of English pronunciation,-they have fewer provincialisms and dialects. Generally, the idiomatic infringements on

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the purity of our language are few. There are few persons above the lowest rank, who do not speak as well as act with propriety.

American writers, however, adopt. expressions and idioms unknown to the British classics. Their utterance is also marked by a peculiar modulation, which can scarcely be reconciled to the received ideas of euphony.

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VARIETY OF SURFACE, SOIL, AND CLIMATE Of the United STATES GENERALLY.-Their dissimilarity with those of Europe in the same degrees of latitude. Their influence on human life. Seasons of the year. Varieties of vegetable life, and their general dissimilarity to those of Europe. Scenery of the North-Eastern and Middle States. America not classic ground. Rural homesteads. Principal objects of attraction in rural scenery. Where situated. General character of American landscapes. Scenery of the Southern and Western States. River scenery-the Mississippi, Ohio. Cataracts. Autumnal appearance of forests. Mountain scenery. Magnificent and pictorial beauty of the lakes. Their Indian legendary associations. Testimony of the Earl of Carlisle. "Virginia Water."

In so vast a region as that of the United States, embracing every zone, a great variety of surface and soil is necessarily included. Generally, America may be said to be an undulating plain of unusual fertility. To the north there is an area of grain-bearing quality exceeding 1000 miles square, intersected by lakes, railroads, and canals, where the cultivation of green crops, to preserve the vigour of the soil, is unnecessary: this may also be said of other portions of the country. But, taken as a whole, from north to south, it is greatly diversified. And between these fertile and extensive valleys, the inland districts contain mountains exceeding 6000 feet in elevation, producing a climate most remarkable, excessively changeable, and giving birth to a peculiar character of arboreta and flora.

The climates are strikingly various. The same variety of climate indeed is presented by the whole extent of the United States, so far as regards heat and cold, as may be experienced in proceeding from the equator to the pole, or in ascending a mountain within the tropics. Very remarkable is the succession in the different orders of plants which rapidly succeed to each other in ascending a mountain. From the palm trees and sugar canes at the foot of the mountain, the traveller rises to the vines and olives of a milder clime; thence to the chestnuts and oaks; afterwards to the fir trees, corresponding with the climate of Scotland and Riga; and, higher up, to the stunted rhododendrons, corresponding to the south of Lapland; at last he rises to the litchen, rangefrinus, auriculas, and other plants of

APPEARANCE OF FORESTS IN AUTUMN.

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Greenland and Spitzbergen; at the summit he finds only perpetual snow and hard-bound frost.

The climate and soil of the country together are adapted to the production of almost everything that can sustain life or increase its luxuries. In New England, the winters are long and severe, the summer oppressive, the autumn delightful. The atmosphere, however, is sometimes dry, thin, and desiccating, having, as is supposed, an injurious effect on the human constitution, rendering its inhabitants less florid and robust than the English. No portion of the earth furnishes anything more cheering than the fall of the year in this section of the Union. Indeed, the most splendid rural scenery presented throughout America is when the first frost touching the leaves changes them into a hundred dyes. The forests are then in their glory; the brightest yellow and the deepest red are intermingled with green, orange, and brown, in endless variety and brilliancy; the whole woodlands presenting a depth and glow of colouring belonging to no other country;-the landscapes ever and anon diversified by the revolutions of the seasons, and the changes of the atmosphere. In these tints in the American fall, the year has been said, like a dolphin, to give out its brightest colours as it dies.

"The sloping sun with arrows bright
Pierces the forest's waving maze;
The universe seems wrapped in light,
A floating robe of rosy haze.

O Autumn! thou art here a king,

And round thy throne the smiling hours

A thousand fragrant tributes bring

Of golden fruits and blushing flowers."

November, the month so proverbially unpleasant in England, is here the most agreeable of the year-that during which occurs what is designated the "Indian summer," a phenomenon as yet never satisfactorily explained. The atmosphere, previously chilly and damp, suddenly becomes delightfully warm. A slight haziness, a pure, mystical, romantic veil overspreads the sky, through which the sun's rays diffuse a ruddy and pleasing light. The winds are still, and all nature combines to produce an indescribably serene and cheerful frame of mind. After continuing a fortnight, or sometimes from October to December, this calm, beautiful Indian summer ceases; the misty curtain is gradually removed, and winter commences in all its rigour.

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It is remarkable that the climate of America is found to differ from that of the eastern continent-the amount of heat in the same parallel of latitude being less than in Europe, although the difference, from causes satisfactorily explained by Baron Humboldt, is not so great as was formerly imagined. The atmosphere is 10 degrees warmer on the coast of Europe than in the same parallels of latitude on the coasts of America, owing, as is supposed, to the vast forests that still exist, to the peculiar configuration of the country, and to the important influence of the polar winds, which are unobstructed from the borders of the Frozen Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. The mean temperature of Massachusetts is 49 degrees of Fah., Philadelphia 53, Virginia 57, Charleston 63, and New Orleans about 70. The climate of the North-East States is said greatly to resemble that of Pekin in China. New York lies in the latitude of Naples. The climate of Paris, which is about 49 degrees north, is as mild as that at Washington, which is about 39 degrees north; and in the same ratio in regard to the other States. The climate of some parts of America is nearly tropical, and requires here no particular description.

The atmosphere, however, throughout the greater portion of the States, is extremely variable, often changing from heat to cold several times in the same day. And these extremes are great and sudden. The rays of the sun are intense at noon, while the cold at night is excessive; and in the early morning and towards evening it is almost equally severe. In Kentucky, the thermometer in the summer rises to 100 in the shade, and in the winter, although in latitude 38, sinks to 40 or 50 degrees below freezing point.

The following are general observations on the climatic conditions of the United States by gentlemen who have made the subject their especial study. The summer temperature of America is lower, under equal degrees of latitude, than that of Europe. The average temperature of St. Petersburgh is found on the eastern coast of America in latitude 47° 30′ or 12° 30′; more to the south, and in like manner, we find the climate of Koningsburg, latitude 43° 36′, at Halifax, in latitude 44° 39'. Toulouse, latitude 43° 36′, corresponds in its thermic relations to Washington.

"It is very hazardous to attempt to obtain any general results respecting the distribution of heat in the United States," says

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