It was a natural result of his principles, that he inculcated and practised religious toleration. Without being indifferent to the principles and forms of religion, he had a deep conviction that the appropriate weapon of religion, in its defence and in its extension, is that of love. A man's belief is, and ought to be sacred. We may try to correct it by kind argument; but in every act beyond that, we violate the laws of the mind, as well as the claims of morals, and act without authority. Such were the views of Fenelon, which he inculcated at a time, and under circumstances, which showed the firmness of his purpose, as well as the benevolence of his heart.

We have already had occasion to notice that, when he was appointed a missionary among the protestants of Poitou, he accepted this difficult and delicate office, only on the condition that the king should remove all the troops, and all appearance of military coercion, from those places to which he was to be sent in the exercise of a ministry of peace and love. In the latter period of his life, in the year 1709, he was visited by a young prince at the episcopal residence. In the conversations which passed between them, the archbishop recommended to him, very emphatically, never to compel his subjects to change their religion. "Liberty of thought," said he, " is an impregnable fortress, which no human power can force. Violence can never convince, it only makes hypocrites. When kings take it upon them to direct in matters of religion, instead of protecting it, they bring it into bondage. You ought, therefore, to grant to all a legal toleration; not as approving every thing indifferently, but as suffering with patience what God suffers; endeavouring, in a proper manner, to restore such as are misled, but never by any measures but those of gentle and benevolent persuasion."

Fenelon died in 1715, at the age of 65. His work was accomplished. It was found after his death, that he was without property and without debts. United with Christ, he had no fear. As he had the spirit, so he delighted in the language of the Saviour. His dying words were, "THY WILL BE DONE." And thus he met his God in peace.

There is, perhaps, not another man in modern times whose character has so perfectly harmonized in its favour all creeds, nations, and parties. His religion expanded his heart to the limits of the world. It was natural, therefore, that the whole human race should love his memory. In the time of the French revolution, when the chains, which had been fastened by the tyranny of ages, were rent asunder by infuriated men, who, in freeing themselves from outward tyranny, forgot to free themselves from the domination of their own passions, the ashes of the

good and great of other days, in the forgetfulness of all just distinctions, were scattered by them to the four winds of heaven. But they wept over and spared the dust of Fenelon.

THE PHENOMENA OF THE SEA.

The sea is one of the most important subjects of physical geography. By its exhalations, which refresh and moisten the air, it supports vegetable life, and furnishes the necessary supply to those valuable canals of running water, which, though constantly flowing, never become empty.

Without the kindly influence of these vapours, which every moment escape from the surface of the sea, all the earth would languish like a desert; the drying up of the ocean, whether slow or rapid, would probably be sufficient to reduce all organized nature to a state of annihilation. That vast mass of water is equally useful for absorbing and decomposing a great quantity of noxious gas and animal and vegetable remains. The ocean, too, by affording increased facilities for commerce, secures the advantages of neighbourhood to nations, which so many lofty mountains and so many rapid rivers seemed to have separated for ever from each other.

The bottom of the basin of the sea seems to have inequalities similar to those which the surface of the continent presents; if it were dried up, it would exhibit mountains, valleys, and plains, even more remarkable than the inequalities of the land. It is, moreover, inhabited, almost throughout its whole extent, by an immense quanty of testaceous animals, or covered with sand and gravel. It was thus that Donati found the bottom of the Adriatic sea: the bed of testaceous animals there, according to him, is several hundred feet in thickness. The celebrated diver Pescecola, whom the emperor Frederick II. employed to descend into the strait of Messina, saw there, with horror, enormous polypi attached to the rocks, the arms of which, being several yards long, were more than sufficient to strangle a man. In a great many places the madrepores form a kind of petrified forest, fixed at the bottom of the sea, and frequently, too, this bottom plainly presents different layers of rocks and earth.

The granite rises up in sharp pointed masses. Near Marseilles marble is dug up from the submarine quarry. There are also bitumenous springs, and even springs of fresh water, that spring up from the depths of the ocean; and in the gulf of Spezia a

great spout or fountain of fresh water is seen to rise like a liquid hill. Similar springs furnish the inhabitants of the town of Aradus with their ordinary beverage.

On the southern coast of Cuba, to the southwest of the port of Batabano, in the bay of Xagua, at two or three miles from the land, springs of fresh water gush up with such force in the midst of the salt, that small boats cannot approach them with safety; the deeper you draw the water, the fresher you find it. It has been observed, that in the neighbourhood of steep coasts the bottom of the sea also sinks down suddenly to a considerable depth, whilst near a low coast, and one of gentle declivity, it is only gradually that the sea deepens.

There are some places where no bottom has yet been found. But we must not conclude that the sea is really bottomless; an idea which, if not absurd, is, at least, by no means conformable to the analogies of natural science. The mountains of continents seem to correspond with what are called the abysses of the sea; it may, therefore, be reasonably concluded that these last do not exceed in depth 40,000 feet, but it is impossible to find the bottom in some places with the means at our command. The greatest depth to which the ocean has been penetrated is 27,000 feet, and no bottom obtained, was the result of an experiment by Captain Ross, in latitude fifteen degrees south; but bottom has been obtained in mid-ocean at 12,000 feet.

The saltness of the sea seems, in general, to be less towards the poles than under the equator. There are, however, exceptions to certain countries, and generally in all gulfs which receive a great many rivers. Sea water is, in several places, less salt at the surface than at the bottom. In the strait of Constantinople. the proportion is as seventy-two to sixty-two, in the Mediterranean as thirty-two to twenty-nine. It has been found, says Bugmann, that in the Oeresund the water taken at the surface, and from the depth of five to twenty fathoms, was in proportion to melted snow water as 10,047 to 10,060 and 10,189 to 10,000.— Water ought to be denser and heavier at a certain depth, and from the result of experiments, in which a pressure has been applied to it equal to what it sustains 1800 fathoms from the surface, it has been computed that at that depth it should be compressed .013 by its own weight. Sea water, by acquiring additional saltness, seems, at a certain depth, to lose its bitterness; so, at least, it appears from the observations of Sparrmann, who took up a bottle of sea water from the depth of sixty fathoms, and found it had the taste of fresh water in which common salt had been dissolved. According to chemical analysis, it had very little magnesia. It is easier to perceive the great ad

vantages resulting from the saltness of sea water, than to discover its origin. Without this saltness, and without the agitation in which they are continually kept, the waters of the sea would become tainted, and would be infinitely less adapted for the motion of vessels; and probably it is to this that the inhabitants of the ocean owe their existence. But whence comes this saltness? Is it from beds of salt lying at the bottom of the sea? These beds, themselves, appear rather to consist of deposites which the sea has formed by precipitation. Does the saltness originate from the corruption of river water? It seems, in fact, that the fresh water which is discharged into close and stagnant lakes becomes corrupted, decomposed, and forms deposites of salt. Now the ocean may be considered as a great lake, the common reservoir of all terrestrial waters. But in this case it is said, that the saltness should increase from day to day. Halley, who broached this opinion, wishes that experiments were made, which in future. ages might conduce to throw light on the subject. Several modern philosophers consider the sea as the residuum of a primitive fluid, which must have held in solution all the substances of which the globe is composed; that these sea waters having deposited all the earthly principles, both acid and metallic, with which they were impregnated, there remains in their residuum (which is the present sea) some of these elementary principles too intimately combined with water to escape from it; and with respect to the bitterness of sea water, as it diminishes in proportion to the depth, it can arise solely from the great quantity of decomposed and putrefying animal and vegetable substances which float in the ocean, and which the running waters never cease to bring into it.

Various measures have been employed to render sea water drinkable. The only one which has succeeded is distillation; but it requires too much care and too much fuel to be used frequently or on a large scale. Even distillation does not divest sea water of all its bitterness, when it contains sal ammoniac. Thus mariners, though sailing in the midst of water, often see themselves exposed to all the horrors of dying when their stock of fresh water is exhausted. But should they be fortunate enough to fall in with floating or mixed ice, pieces of it, when melted, afford them water which is fresh, although a little insipid.

The colour of the sea varies very much in appearance, but it is generally of a deep bluish green, which becomes clearer towards the coasts. This apparent colour of the sea seems to arise entirely from the same causes which impart a blue shade to distant mountains, and which give the atmosphere its azure hue. The rays of blue light, being the most refrangible, pass in the

greatest quantity through the aquatic fluid, which, from its density and depth, makes them undergo a strong refraction.

The other shades in the colour of sea waters depend on causes which are local, and sometimes illusory. It is said that the Mediterranean sea, in its upper part, has sometimes a purple tint. In the gulf of Guinea, the sea is white, and around the Maldive islands, black. The Vermeille, or Vermillion sea, near California, has received its name from the red colour which it often assumes. The same phenomenon was observed at the mouth of the river Plata by Magellan, and also in other places. The light or sparkling of the sea is a magnificent and imposing spectacle. Sometimes the vessel, while ploughing her way through the billows, appears to mark out a furrow of fire; each stroke of the oar emits a light, sometimes brilliant and dazzling, at other times tranquil and pearly. These moveable lights are grouped in endless varieties. Here thousand of luminous points, like little stars, appear floating on the surface, and then combining form one vast sheet of light. Then the scene becomes more tumultuous, the refulgent waves heave up, roll, and break in shining foam. At other times we see large sparkling bodies, resembling the forms of fishes, pursuing each other, disappearing, and bursting forth anew. B.

[FOR THE REGISTER.]

THE MEXICAN VOLUNTEER.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

Thank God I have returned again! thank God I see around
Familiar looks, and hear once more familiar voices sound!
Thank God I have returned again! what! would you hear me tell
Of all the wond'rous fortunes that the wandering boy befell?
Come sit you down my mother! and sister, draw you near!
And little brother, climb my knee, and all of ye shall hear.

I kept outside a high brave look when I left ye all that day,
But little did ye know the grief that in my bosom lay;
Dear sister! little brother! as ye close did cling to me

I felt my inmost being wrung with utter misery;

And, mother, when you clasped your son and kissed him o'er and o'er,

I thought I should have fallen like a dead man on the floor.

We landed on the burning sands, we saw the castle rise

In proud and massive strength beneath the Vera Cruzan skies.