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We have before us, then, the everlasting results of two inconceivably powerful as well as permanent impulses, one of which, according to general belief, (though I think most preposterously,) is lodged in the moon, and the other, by universal assent, admitted to exist in the earth itself. How such hypotheses are to be reconciled with each other, or with that plainness and simplicity which are indisputable characteristics of Nature, in her accustomed displays and purposes, and which in all cases, where understood, agree so well with the ordinary judgment and reasoning powers of men, is beyond the reach of my ken or comprehension.

HAVING expressed my entire disbelief in the prevailing theory that the tides are produced through the instrumentality of the moon, I shall now submit to the reader certain facts, which no one will presume to doubt, or attempt to controvert; and I think they will be found to corroborate my position, beyond the reach of dispute or cavil. They are the result of recent observations and experiments, and their authority cannot be questioned. The first in order here follows.

Observations copied from 'An Account of Levellings carried across the Isthmus of Panama, to ascertain the relative height of the Pacific Ocean at Panama, and of the Atlantic at the mouth of the river Chagres, accompanied by geographical and topographical notices of the Isthmus. By John Augustus Lloyd, Esq. Communicated by Capt. Sabine, Secretary of the Royal Society.'

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By careful and continued observations, I found the rise and fall of the tide in the Pacific, at Panama, as follows: Between the extreme elevation and depression of the water by occasional tides, there is a difference of 27.44 feet, and the mean actual rise and fall, two days after full moon, 21.22 feet.

'At Chagres I observed the rise and fall of the tide at the close of the dry season, in April, 1829, to be 1.16 feet, and being there subsequently, during the rainy season, I had an opportunity of observing that the high water mark was the same in both seasons.

'The time of high water is nearly the same at Chagres and at Panama, namely, at 3 h. 20 m., at full and change. Hence the following interesting and curious phenomena are deducible, in respect to the difference of level of the two seas:

1st. High water mark at Panama is 13.55 feet above high water mark of the Atlantic at Chagres. Half the rise and fall of spring tides at Panama is 10.61 feet, and at Chagres, 0.58 of a foot; and assuming half the rise and fall above the low water of spring tides to be the respective mean levels, the mean height of the Pacific at Panama is 3.52 feet higher than that of the Atlantic at Chagres.

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2d. At high water, the time of which is nearly the same on both sides the Isthmus, the Pacific is raised at mean tides 10.61 feet, and the Atlantic 0.58 of a foot above their respective mean levels. The Pacific is therefore the highest at such times (10.61-0.58-3.52) 13.55 feet.

'3d. At low water, both seas are the same quantities below their respective mean levels; therefore at such times the Pacific is lower than the Atlantic by (10.61-0.55-3.52) 6.51 feet.

In every twelve hours, therefore, and commencing with high tides, the level of the Pacific is first several feet higher than that of the Atlantic; it becomes then of the same height, and at low tide several feet lower; again, as the tide rises, the two seas are of one height; and finally, at high tide, the Pacific is again the same number of feet above the Atlantic as at first.'

Several years since I became acquainted with an intelligent and well-educated American naval officer, who had traversed that region of country, and who confirmed the above facts, in all the essential particulars. He stated that in the Bay of Panama the ordinary tides were about twelve feet, and the spring tides frequently twenty-two. At the mouths of the Chagres and St. John's rivers, the ordinary tide was only a foot and seven or eight inches.

Here are two great contiguous oceans, in both of which the tides make nearly at the same time, and yet the difference in their elevation ascertained to be most extraordinary, and showing incontestibly that an agency very different from that presumed to be placed in the moon, is employed in producing this unexplained mystery.

The next important fact, and one on which entire reliance may be placed, is copied from Williams' Narrative of Missionary Enterprise in the South Sea Islands.' This is a work of unusual merit; for, in addition to a full and very instructive detail of all the important circumstances immediately connected with his mission, it abounds with sketches of natural history, and with topographical and geographical remarks, the whole of which are highly interesting and valuable. An excellent edition of this work has been recently republished in New-York, by Messrs. Appleton and Company. The writer's remarks on the tides are:

Upon a variety of other interesting topics in reference to Rarotonga, I must be equally brief. Some, indeed, I must pass over altogether. An observation or two, however, upon the tides, should not be omitted. It is to the Missionaries a well known fact, that the tides in Tahiti, and the Society Islands, are uniform throughout the year, both as to the time of the ebb and flow, and the height of the rise and fall, it being high water invariably at noon and midnight, and consequently the water is at its lowest point at six o'clock in the morning and evening. The rise is seldom more than eighteen inches or two feet above low water mark. It must be observed, that mostly once, and frequently twice, in the year, a very heavy sea rolls over the reef, and bursts with great violence upon the shore. But the most remarkable feature in the periodically high sea, is that it invariably comes from W. and S. W., which is the opposite direction to that from which the trade wind blows. The eastern sides of the islands are, I believe, never injured by these periodical inundations.' The third fact to which I shall refer, will be found in 'Topographical Sketches of Florida,' published a few years since. Not having the work at command, I must quote from memory. Speaking of the tides on the west coast of the peninsula, the writer says,

.that in one district, the tides ebb and flow once in three hours, and in another only once in twelve hours; and that these movements are believed to take place with as much uniformity as are usually characteristic of these phenomena. Ordinary tides are known to have their flux and reflux once in about six hours.

To conclude. It is known that there are two stupendous agents exercising incessant influence in the movements of the Atlantic ocean. The effects are continually manifest, but the power itself is concealed. The secret is beyond our comprehension, and therefore we are left to conjecture. We can reason only from analogy, and from the few familiar facts which, through a series of ages, have been revealed to us. One leading truth we must concede, which is, that the operations of nature are neither complicated nor ambiguous; for wherever we are made acquainted with them, we find nothing crude or mystified; nothing strained, nothing far-fetched. The adaptation of means to ends is both natural and easy, and the process by which they go on, may be compared to the grace and beauty of the flowing

stream.

From these circumstances, which are undeniable, I think we are authorized to believe, that wherever may be the origin of the impulses given to the oceans, varied and singular as the effects are known to be, these impulses cannot be rationally sought for in remote or distant depositories. And I would beg leave to repeat a question already asked: Why should that power which governs the tides, be placed in a secondary planet, at an immense distance, when, as we may suppose, it could be much more conveniently and advantageously lodged in the primary itself? That the sole and original powers which beget consequences so extraordinary as the incessant rushing in, and recession of the tides, and the perpetual motion and warmth of the Gulf Stream, are the certain results of natural and wise lodgments in the earth itself, I have little more doubt than I have that the sun is the fountain of light and heat. And if I were asked how and by what means are all those wonders effected, I could answer by asking another question, equally pertinent: By what means does the sun turn on his own axis?' But throwing aside all hyperbole, I shall presume to offer an opinion respecting these phenomena, whatever of extravagance may be attached to it. My thorough persuasion, therefore, is, that they are all the result of INTERNAL ORGANIZATION— PERFECT ORGANIZATION. I do not believe the moon exercises the slightest influence in relation to one more than the other, and this I think must be admitted, as a reasonable and fair conclusion, from the evident weight and importance of the facts adduced. And, viewed in any other light, the subject appears to me not only enveloped in far-sought and impenetrable mystery, but wrapped in the mantle of inexplicable absurdity.

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MORN lay on crowned Olympus' steep,
And silver Peneus' tide;

And the giant mists wound slowly up
Along piled Ossa's side.

And fair as in the elder time,

Beneath lay Tempe's vale;

And afar flashed Eta's fabled height,
And Malia's distant sail.

Morning in storied Greece- and song,
Like the startling trumpet's clang,
From the olive-gatherers on the heights,
Through the leafy branches rang.

And where the purple dropping fruit,
Uppiled each teeming wain,

O'er the grape-wreathed hills, the vintagers,
Swelled out the Homeric strain.

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But they who lived, ere o'er the land

Rome's conquering cohorts poured,

Ere the free earth echoed the charger tramp,
Of the hostile Asian horde :

Or ere o'er fallen Illium's domes,
High blazed her funeral pyre-
Ages, ere Chios' bard to praise
Of heroes, turned the lyre.

Dwelt they where proud Eurotas' stream,
The crowned river, lay!

Or where bright Ilissus wandered on

Through flowery Attica?

Where closed the fight at eve? What grove

With songs triumphal rang,

While high on the waving boughs their shields
To the cooling breezes swang?

WHO were the mighty? say! No voice

Breaks from their hidden urns ;

From the dim funereal cypress grove,
No answering sound returns.

Forgotten all!- for them no bard

The heroic lay might swell;

There were none for them to raise the song,

Or strike the sounding shell.

And the land hath now no memory

Of their old battle day;

With the fiery breath of their charging steeds,

They have passed from earth away.

IONE.

THE STUDENT.

'DESIRE to know, without the means, is given
To some, by the mysterious will of heaven,
Among the tortures of the nether zone.'
'With the stars,

And the quick spirit of the universe,
He held his dialogues; and they did teach,
To him the magic of their mysteries.'

DANTE'S PURGATORIO'.

BYRON.

THE red rays of an autumn sunset spread a halo over the turrets of Castle D, which in its ruins seemed as an eloquent wreck of the mighty past appealing to the future; a melancholy voice, telling of power and magnificence, when all had departed. Proud though in desolation,' it stood like some hoary representative of a fallen house, whose lofty bearing and unconquerable spirit are all that remain of the fairy tale of life. Below lay the ancient shadows of the Black Forest; and now its paths grew dimmer, and its long vistas darker; and at last not a ray was seen over the mingled gloom, save the red glow on the western tower of the venerable castle. Passing through one of its narrow casements, the mild warm sunlight streamed along a small desolate apartment; and lighted the pale cheek of a student, who sat with brow resting on his hand, and compressed lips, and bright but restless gaze. Papers and folios lay in confusion around him, evidently flung aside in some mood of impatience or abstraction; for his intellectual eye was fixed, now on vacancy, now on the clear and beautiful sunset; and its rapid flashes seemed movements of thought, whose energies were concentrated on some one all-absorbing subject. Yet it was not the deep and constant expression of the searcher for hidden truths; but as if the soul felt the restraining bars of its prison-house press upon its energies, like the closing dungeon of the Italian, whose walls at last crushed its prisoner. It was the mighty struggle of a mind to whom years of patient plodding through the tomes of learning, had brought this meed of knowledge that nothing had been learned; that the unexplored area beyond was too vast for the term of human existence; and that if all were grasped that mind has accomplished, it were still but the superficies of things, isolated facts, or a train of circumstances whose very premises are effects; and that cause in nature or philosophy sleeps in its own unfathomed ocean.

There were other and gentler characters in the soul of Kriesler than thirst for knowledge, though this was the all-pervading passion, through every action and every dream of his quiet existence; quiet, that the world mingled not its turmoil with the occupations of the student, yet feverish and excited with the restless energies of its own unquiet and onward nature. There was extreme veneration,

*THE vivid imagination, and the German spirit and imagery, which pervade 'The Student,' would doubtless have elicited warm praise from COLERIDGE, and should certainly secure the hearty applause of the author of Sartor Resartus. To the especial admirers of each of these writers, therefore, as well as to the general reader, we commend this tale of the past. EDS. KNICKERBOCKER.

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