the theatre of Casper, belonging to the nobles of Steinsberg, the company of Carlsbad, on whose stage the muses are very properly represented on the curtain drawing water, visits them very opportunely; after which they go to Augsburg; there is another under the direction of the veteran Guardasani, where the German and Italian muses divide the profits and nights of performance like sisters. The stage of Brünn is conducted by Rode, and that of Gratz by Domaratius. Each of these exhibits great talents, and the latter company often perform with great applause.

The Ratisbon theatre has long been declining, under the management of some speculating Jews; but that of Bremen has become more firmly established by the constant exertions of the privileged proprietor, Doctor Schütte, and through the great income it produces, which, in four months, amounted to a clear receipt of 17,000 dollars. This plentiful harvest is the surest pledge that they will still endeavour to improve, and to please a truly enlightened public.

Many other Thespian bands also travel towards the eastern and western frontiers with more or less advantage to themselves. The two companies of Stephanus, and of Klos and Hansing, in Lower Saxony, of which the former has taken up its abode at Zell, Hameln, and Lunenburg, and the latter at Glükstadt and Ritzebüttel, as also the privileged South Prussian company of Doebbelin, whose head-quarters are at Rawitsch, the company of Medex, which travels into Lusatia and the neighbouring country, and the troop of Wilhelm, which performs at Baden and Neustadt, near Vienna, all deserve consideration as travelling companies and adventurers in the. theatrical world. X.

Extract of two Letters sent from Cumana, the capital of Terra Firma in America, to Mr. de Zach, Astronomer at Gotha, by M. de Humboldt, a German Nobleman, travelling for cosmological Discoveries.

"Cumana, Sept. 1, 1799.

T last I am arrived on Terra Firma, and enjoy with my fellow-traveller, the unwearied naturalist Mr. Bonpland, the most perfect state of health. I have met here with every mark of kind and polite reception, and shall also henceforth be indebted to the positive orders of their majesties as well as the complaisant regulations made by their minister Don Mariano Urquijo, for the most unlimited assistance in forwarding my literary pursuits.

My

My physical and astronomical instruments are all arrived in good condition, and, from the moment of their arrival, have been in perpetual action. We have already laid up a considerable store of plants, insects, and shells, and we have made many drawings from nature. At present I am fully engaged in analysing the air. When at sea, and about the 12th degree of north latitude, I found its purity at the approach of night amount to more than thirty parts of vital air in a hundred, whereas on the top of the Pic of Teneriffe the quantity of vital air did not amount even to twenty.

The name of the Pic reminds me of a beautiful phenomenon, by the sight of which we were extremely delighted at that summit. It was at night, when at a certain point of the horizon we beheld a quantity of sparks scattered in all directions. We believed some distant volcano to be in the act of eruption; but we were soon undeceived by the rising of a cluster of stars from the same point. The beams of their light have (by the force of horizontal refraction with respect to so high a spot as the top of the Pic) been broken in so many directions, and cast about with such a liveliness, as to counterfeit even the eruptions of burning mountains.

Whilst on board ship I was studying the temperature of the ocean, and its specific gravity. Believe me, Franklin's and Jonathan Williams's idea, to sound the sea by means of thermometers, is as accurate as it is ingenious. At about the 17th degree of north latitude I found the fall of the quicksilver to be no less than four or five degrees of Fahrenheit, even in shallow places. With respect to specific gravity, at a certain spot of the ocean, the sea water is remarkable for its weight, and no currents are observed.

As for astronomical observations, I have done wonders on my voyage with the help of a sextant so small as not to exceed two inches. It was by Troughton of London, and I call it my sextant à tabalière. The accuracy of single altitudes of the sun, taken with that instrument in favourable circumstances, is be-tween two and three seconds of time.

But as to the country I inhabit, how shall I describe the purity, beauty, and splendour of its sky? Several stars may be discovered, even in the day time, with the naked eye; and at night Venus takes the lead with a splendour little inferior to that of the moon in other climates. She is always encircled by a beautiful rainbow-coloured halo, even when the sky appears to be perfectly purc. I have no doubt that, upon this spot of the globe, the starry vault of heaven shines to its greatest advantage, displaying on one side the lustre of the

southern

southern constellations, before those of the northern hemisphere are withdrawn from the view on the other.

Another phenomenon highly remarkable in this country, is a kind of atmospherical tide. I observed its fluxes and refluxes even from the second day after my arrival, by the perpetual and very regular motion of the quicksilver in my ba rometer, which begins to fall at nine o'clock in the morning, and continues falling till four in the afternoon. From that moment it begins to return, and mounts till eleven at night, when it again begins to fall till about four in the morning, from which time it continues mounting till nine. But let the weather be rainy or fine, calm or stormy, our atmospherical tide still pursues one regular course.

Mention me kindly to our common friend Mr. Blumenbach, of whom the beautiful and magnificent exposition of nature round us so often reminds me. Tell him no country in the world can be more interesting to geology than this. There are mountains of mica-schistus, of basaltes, of gypsum, and of sal gemmæ, besides great quantities of sulphur, and springs of petroleum every where among the rocks, and spouting even from below the water with great violence. It seems almost as if this were the great laboratory of nature, where she forges the implements of destruction, and subverting all the works of man, and shaking the very foundation of the globe, rushes as it were to her original state of chaos.

Nearly the whole of the town where I live is now in ruins. The earthquake at Cumana, in 1797, was the forerunner of that in Quito, by which 16,000 souls perished. At that time the volcano of Tonguragua threw out a much greater quantity of boiling water and mud than of lava: an instance which may contribute to reconcile the Neptunists of Europe with the Volcanists.

But the terror of earthquakes is not the only scourge of this country. We are surrounded by tigers and alligators, of equal size, and as cruel in the pursuit of their prey, as those of Africa.

Inform our friend Blumenbach, that the gigantic scale which nature has employed in this quarter of the world extends throughout her three kingdoms. Will he believe me when I tell him of ceiba-shrubs so large that one of them affords materials sufficient for four canoes? Will he believe me when I say I have here seen a man with a breast of milk so ample as to nurse one of his children, and of so good a quality that not the least difference can be discovered between his milk and that of a woman! However, we are told by the

ancients

ancients that even the breasts of he-goats have produced milk.

Nov. 17, 1799.

I unseal my letter of the first of September, to inform you that I have since then been all round the Cordilleras of Fumiquiri, inhabited by the Chaymas and Guarounos Indians. I have seen the famous grotto of Guacharo, the abode of millions of night-birds of the species called caprimulgus. No language can express the magnificent view of the entrance to that grotto through mazes of a wood of palms, pathoes, and ypomeens. We have made a large collection of plants, amounting to upwards of 1600, more than 600 of which are unknown to the botanists of Europe, besides a considerable number of insects and shells. But our eyes have been very materially injured by the reverberation of light on those rocky mountains, many of which are as white as snow.

The temperature of the level country is always between seventy-five and ninety of Fahrenheit. Every day at two o'clock in the afternoon we have had a thunder storm, the lightning of which continued for about nine hours, and on Nov. 4. we experienced a violent earthquake. The inclination of the dipping needle was lessened that day by one, degree. On Nov. 12, our eyes were gratified with a most splendid phenomenon, resembling fire works in the sky. Large balls of fire were from two o'clock in the morning to five incessantly flying above our heads, crossing each other in every direction, and flinging out as it were bundles of fire. It seemed as if we had arrived at the forge of Vulcan himself.

The eastern part of New Andalusia is full of small volcanoes, which throw out boiling water, sulphur, sulphurated hydrogen, and petroleum. The Guaiguaries Indians relate that a short time before the arrival of the Spaniards in that country the large bay of Cariaco was opened by an earthquake. In some parts of that bay the sea-water raises Fahrenheit's thermometer to 122 degrees.

According to my observations, made with Borda's apparatus, the magnetical power, or the number of oscillations of the needle may, 1st, increase when the dipping is increasing; 2d, the dipping inclination decreases rapidly beyond the 37th degree of north latitude; 3d, on one and the same parallel, the dipping is greater in countries lying to the westward, than in those to the eastward; 4th, near the equator the dipping is much affected by small exaltations of the apparatus above the surface of the sea; 5th, on the continent the dipping is more affected than the variation of the needle.

To

T

To-morrow I shall set out for Guayra, to penetrate, under the guidance of a capuchin missionary, into the interior of the country. I mean to return in spring down the Oronooco, and then to go on board a king's ship for the Havannah.

I am, &c.

T: F.

MOSES MENDELSOHN

ON ENLIGHTENING THE MIND.

THE HE terms intellectual improvement, or enlightening the mind, cultivation, and civilization*, are as yet scarcely naturalized in the German language. Their use is almost confined to books. By the majority of mankind they are scarcely known or understood: but can this be considered as a proof that the objects these words represent are new or foreign to us? Certainly not. It is said of a certain nation, that they have no words for virtue and superstition, and yet no small portion of each may justly be ascribed to them.

Common usage, however, although it apparently tends to establish a distinction between these nearly synonimous words, has not yet had time to fix the boundaries of each.

Civilization, cultivation, and intellect, are modifications of social life, the result of the industry and exertions of mankind to improve the general happiness.

The more the state of society of any nation is made to harmonize through art and industry with the respective conditions of men, to so much greater degree of civilization has that nation attained.

Civilization may be divided into cultivation and enlightening the public mind, the former of which seems to be chiefly practical, and to consist of refinement, beauty, and perfection in mechanics, in the arts, and in the manners of society; of talents and industry in the arts, and of moral inclinations and propensities. The more these agree with the condition of men, the more cultivation may they be said to have acquired, as a piece of land is said to be better cultivated, the more industry has been bestowed on it, so as to produce things useful to mankind; but on the other hand, enlightening seems to relate principally to theory or rational knowledge, and a facility to reason on the affairs of life according to their importance and influence on the condition of men.

* Aufklärung, Kultur, Bildung.

3

I con