time three centuries and a half. When it first emerged from the depths of the ocean, conjecture has not ventured a surmise; and how much longer it will keep its head above water, is a problem yet to become solved; the gases which uphove it having doubtless found vent in some other direction, have left it quiescent for the long period its existence has been known; but it is possible, if obstructed, they may return and create a revolution. At the era of its discovery, and indeed long after, there was an ardent display of devotedness in external forms, ceremonies, and expressions, pertaining to religious matters; devout words were ever on the lips of the Roman Catholic, to testify to the world, perhaps, now absorbed, even in the midst of the busiest modes of life, he was in heavenly contemplation. Sacred names were given to things and places, often indiscriminately, and with about as much reason as more modern navigators have shown in applying the names of men to islands and headlands. Where is the honour? In the act perhaps with as much force as in the instance of the sandseller calling his donkey "Blucher!" It is greatly to be doubted whether the Prussian warrior, had he been aware of the fact, would have felt flattered at the compliment designed to add lustre to his martial renown; for, as he was an oddity, there is no knowing if he might not have been tickled at the idea of his patronymic having been bestowed on so inoffensive and anti-belligerent a brute. But it is quite certain that on the part of the latter there must have been a perfect unconsciousness of the great honour which his owner, from admiration of the Continental hero, had thrust upon him. The compliment, however, though rather ambiguous in its relation to high respect of person, and of questionable propriety, which is implied in the acts of modern discoverers, seems to be less out of place than that of the old voyagers, which appears to embrace an objection much more strong than that of mere inappropriateness.

Thoughts are often errant in composition, and lead wide of the subject matter under review; but an incidental remark, even when it is irrelevant to the main body of the discourse, invites to the pursual of it; and digression is allowable.

We have just been speaking of the Catholics of three centuries ago, and of their habitual bestowal of holy and saintly names to places; from their doings in the present eventful times, connected not only with names but with something more important, we cannot resist the invitation to add here a few words on that toleration of Mr. Bull which places his liberality among the performances of the simple if not of the insane; he affects to entertain a sovereign contempt for precaution, and if he has reason to be suspicious, he is wonderfully slow in making that apparent! What we allude to is, his passive endurance in this Protestant land of the "Society of Jesus" (a most irreverent misnomer). The fact is the more remarkable, when it is well known that in some of the most strictly Roman Catholic countries its presence is not tolerated. Mr. Bull seems to be overconfident of the immutability of his Church, rebuilt on the rock of the Reformation, he is convinced of

the impossibility of its being undermined; but human hearts are weak, and human imaginings often take possession of the heart's citadel by assault, and the mind's prior conviction led captive away from the shrine upon which it had placed its hopes and its affections! The proofs are repeatedly recorded.

The politico-religious community of Jesuits, is known throughout the world, and in most states are considered dangerous; but how much more so should they be in one where Protestantism prevails? Like nature the subtle labourers work noiselessly and secretly: the heretic (Protestant) is their game, and there is no obstacle so great as will deter them in their attempts at conversion. In a time of war they become doubly dangerous. It is to be hoped that Mr. Bull will open his drowsy eyes before more mischief ensues; and not only banish this notorious sect, but suppress all monastic institutions, and "Sisters of Charity" societies, which are sadly out of place in such a country as Great Britain.

Now to our theme legitimate; in the hydrographic nomenclature we read such names as these,-Cape Blanco, Cape Espada, Cape Upright, the Saddle-hill, &c.; understanding their meaning, the imagination aids the mind in their recognition when seen; but we can make no-. thing from those names of men which have been given to headlands. Regret that such is the case is now useless; there is but one remedy, to rename; but that is an innovation not to be thought of.

After the fashion of the times, Gallego called this mass of scoriæ, parched and dried up by internal fires, in honour of the Virgin Mary, "Our Lady of Conception." Did his superstitious imagination aid him in the conception of so strange an honour? It was a serious vagary; whether the famous Albuquerque considered so, or not, we do not know, but he thought proper to change the name, two years afterwards, to Ascension, which it has retained.

There seems never to have been any restraint on this self-willed privilege of naming lands; no rules, no established superior power, that thought it worth while to interfere. The lowest skipper and the highest royal seaman claim and exercise alike the immunity. Have these, and the intermediates, one and the same motive in the bestowal of names?

No! whim and caprice, alas! too often guide
When sober Reason's voice is mute;

For vanity is airy; dogmatic, pride;
Fancy surprisingly acute!

To w ll and to do, 'tis said, belongs of right
Alike to men of ev'ry degree,

Though they be bless'd with intellectual light,
Or, nought beside but darkness see!

In that, ignorance and knowledge are equal;
The savant and the boor take this

Privilege of nature, be they good or evil,

And will have their fling,' hit or miss!

The old navigators often sighted the island, generally on their return voyage. In 1604, Sir Edward Michelburne "descried the island, or rather rock, called Ascension, in 8° 30′ S. The day before, in 7° S., they had a surprising phenomenon: the sea sparkled in a strange manner, and appeared as if all in flames; sending forth such a light in the night (the moon being down) that they could see to read the smallest print." Was this appearance merely the phosphorescence often observed in the ocean, or was it connected with submarine ignivomous operations? A naval officer informed me that a phenomenon of a similar kind had been seen from his vessel near the equator.

In Captain James Lancaster's voyage, we find this brief mention of the island:-"The thirteenth (July) passed by an island, called The Ascension, in eight degrees. No ships touch there, for it is quite barren, and without water: only it hath good store of fish about it, but a deep sea, and ill riding for ships." This was on the return voyage from the East Indies in the year 1603. It is probable that the pirates of the eighteenth century often visited Ascension to turn turtle, and perhaps also to bury some of their ill-gotten booty.

This solitary spot of the Southern Atlantic, which the old mariners. thought of no sort of use, has become more familiar to the reading public than any of the other islands, excepting St. Helena, from its having always been the resort of turtle, and latterly from the establishment which has been formed there for the accommodation of. the African squadron employed in the suppression of the Slave Trade, and for other vessels requiring refreshment. It is associated in our ideas with sand, because that product is the medium that the sea-turtle adopts as a nest for her eggs.

Now that the solitary island has been peopled, it is a fortunate circumstance that, unlike the generality of birds, the turtle does not incubate, or wait to attend upon its young when relieved from the ova, or it is probable it would desert the place of deposit altogether. How admirable and perfect are all the provisions of nature! In this instance we perceive that the turtle, as a viviporous animal, from its form and construction would be incapable of incubation; it is consequently endowed with an unerring instinct, which instructs it to deposit its eggs in a hole in the sand, and to cover them up in such a position that the warmth of the sun shall perform the office which, from its own peculiar nature, it is incapable of discharging.

By the same natural tendency, the young, as soon as it escapes from the case of the shell, which the enlargement of its body had burst, digs its way out of the sand, and pursues its course directly to the sea, into which it plunges, and is at once in its proper element and home! The fecundity of the turtle is great; it is useful to man, and that perhaps is the main reason which suggests itself to us why it should be so; but there is another reason: the predatory birds and fishes are ever actively on the watch to capture the weaker animals. The young of the turtle are small, and helpless in defence on the land and in the water, and hence many of them fall a prey to their enemies in both; if they

were not therefore in superabundance the species would soon be annihilated.

The larger turtle, which are caught during their periodical visits, (we believe generally at night,) are consigned to craals, and are of course lost to their companions of the ocean, and therefore can "tell no tales" about the fate which attends such visits; yet, it is not improbable that the individuals which are so fortunate as to escape from the pilfering hands of man, take warning, if they have been alarmed, and seldom return to the same place; if they do, it is perhaps a case of necessity with them, as there is no other insular spot so convenient for completing the natural purpose which prompts them to seek the land. At present they are no longer the sole masters of the strand; the eternal disturber and supplanter man is there!

I have hinted that all birds do not incubate; as an illustration I here quote from a M.S. entitled "Australian Sketches," an instance or two. That interloper, the cuckoo, affords a well known example in our own country; but there are others which are less familiar to us, and which are more interesting.

We will turn again to the southern clime, and offer some brief remarks on a few of its strange peculiarities. Here the Leiposa, a large bird, well worth domesticating if means could be devised for overcoming its habitual wildness, like the turtle, lays its eggs in the sand, and there leaves them for the sun to hatch.

Here, likewise, the Tallegalla, a species of wild turkey, somewhat after human fashion form a common "lying in hospital." They congregate at certain seasons in the deep and retired forests, where the sun's beams never penetrate. With one accord they then collect the decayed and fallen leaves, with which they erect a pyramid, and therein deposit their eggs. These leaves ferment, the heat and steam thus produced hatch the eggs there layed. It is surprising that these birds should be thus acquainted with the effects of nature's chemistry, or why fling in a heap the decaying leaves? thus enabling them to forego all the pains and trouble of incubation. In Egypt chickens are hatched by the heated oven, but here the Tallegalla procures the same effect by the agency of steam; and the system is fully as efficacious as the Egyptian dry scheme. Physical nature never acts in a single instance without design; and no doubt the novel plan which this bird follows, has a cause which its form would point out; but the sagacity displayed is admirable. The efforts of a single bird would not raise a heap large enough to be capable of hatching the batch of eggs she lays. A combination is therefore formed, and the work is perfected with ease: but by what sort of sign the birds are led so to act in company, no human eye has hitherto seen. There is one point not yet determined; that is, the care of the young before they can fly; whether the chicks are tended by the parent, or whether there is a general nursery. This affords us another instance of the care of Providence over all his works, and of the inscrutible way in which he works his will. Ornithologists do not agree about the family to which this bird should belong; one assigning it to the Vulturida, while ano

ther places it among the Gallinacia. It no doubt belongs to the useful Gallinaciæ, having most of the characteristics of that class, although it has the foot of the Vulturida.

Ascension is decidedly volcanic, yet there is the curious feature in the middle of the mass of scoriæ, &c., of a limestone mountain of 2,400 feet elevation, which appears free from the action of fire. How came it there in such an anomalous position? By a force no doubt acting upwards beneath its original position. From its assuming a little verdure, it is called the "Green Mountain," and from absorbing moisture is highly prized; in fact, it appears to be the most valuable portion of the island; and the industry of the "jollies" has turned it to good account for the benefit of the torrid-tanned blue-jackets. In the spirit of improvement, I think it would well repay the cost to import, from the nearest point of Africa, ship loads of soil.

On the subject of sterile isles, I find notes on Sable Isle, but that has been recently well handled. I may just hint, however, with respect to that accumulation of arenaceous matter, that a steam-engine, stone and mortar, and piles, with a Nasmyth's hammer to drive these down, directed by a clever engineer, would soon drain it of its superfluous water, and by the introduction of thousands of tons of soil from Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, convert its surface into a profitable garden. Tanks for fresh water, piers, break-waters, houses, &c., &c., would then follow as a matter of course.

We now quit Mr. Bull's turtle isle, and steer in quest of more points, if any remain to be overhauled, first having a yarn about the Southern Ocean, as intimated in the title to this paper. The periodical phenomenon of the "Rollers," has been explained and described by Mr. Webster and others in the Nautical:

The English brig Crusader, arrived at Cowes from St. Jago de Cuba, and landed the captain and crew of the Pauline, Le Chevalier, master. It appears that on the 17th of last month, whilst on their passage from Porto Rico, in long. 40° 10′ W. of Paris, and lat. 40° 30′ N., with a cargo of sugar, bound to Havre, at about 11 A.M., whilst under easy sail, the vessel, a new ship of 400 tons, was struck by a monstrous whale on the bow, and the damage was so great that the ship filled almost immediately. The captain and crew, consisting of ten men and a passenger, hoisted out a boat, in which, after stowing away a bag of biscuits and a little water, they embarked, and about fifteen minutes after the vessel was struck, she sunk. For three days and nights she was tossing about, but on the fourth day they were providentially seen by the Crusader, and rescued from their perilous situation. None of these rescued have preserved anything, and as they are destitute of necessaries, the French consul, W. Stuart Day, Esq., has shown his usual kindness and promptitude in providing for their necessities.