shire, and from the name of the stream, the Dove, that flows through it. This is a valley between high and precipitous limestone rocks, three miles in extent, the sides closely approximating in some places, and again expanding. It seems as if it had been formed at once by some convulsion of nature, which rent asunder what had before been a vast compact mass, an impression often made by the appearance of valleys in mountain regions. Sometimes their opposite sides present salient and re-entering points, which so exactly

correspond, that if it were possible to bring them together, it seems as though they would fit into each other, leaving little trace of their former separation. Dovedale is approached on the west through a confined defile remarkable for its deep seclusion, of which Dr. Plot states, that the mountains are so high that in rainy weather their tops may be seen above the

clouds, and they are so narrow, that the inhabitants, a few cottagers, in that time of the year when the sun is nearest the tropic of Capricorn, never see it; and when it does begin to appear, they do not see it till about one o'clock, which they call Narrowdale noon, using it as a proverb when anything is delayed.

In Dovedale itself, the high eminences that form the lateral walls of the valley - the projecting rocks assuming the most fantastic shapes-sharp pinnacles and bold bluffs - the stream that flows at their base, now still, now murmuring, and dashing over a barrier of stones that have fallen from the heights into its bed - the wild flowers common to the limestone stratum the copses of mountain ash- all combine to form a scene that satisfies at first sight, and increases in interest the more it is examined.

When the valley form of the earth occurs upon a grand scale, there are points at which the traveller loses sight of the masses of mountains that environ it. He beholds stretching out on every side a tract of level land, or at least the diversity of hill and vale occurs in such an unimportant degree as not essentially to disturb the idea of being in a flat country. The powerful upheavals and submergences which give to mountainous districts so peculiar a character of variety, have not operated upon these portions of the earth's

surface; for while in the former the difference between high and low is that of thousands of feet in a very small space, in the latter frequently it does not amount to fifty feet, nor in some cases to ten, through a wide area, but the surface rises and falls in gentle wavy lines, which offer no relief to the dull uniformity of the scene. The surface of these levels is usually composed of the most recent aqueous deposits, the loosely deposited beds of clay, sand, and rolled pebbles, characteristic of newly elevated land. They may be classed under the general denomination of plains, but the term will then have great latitude of meaning, and include regions of very diverse aspect and character. Giving it a wide acceptation, not only will low flat districts rank as plains, but tracts of horizontal land at an immense elevation above the sea, and extensive districts which are traversed by valleys, ravines, and hills, but exhibit in contrast with mountainous countries a generally level surface.

The great levels of the earth vary as to their elevation above the sea from a few feet to between two and three miles, while some are actually depressed beneath it.

To the more elevated plains, the terms plateau and table-land are applied, which Humboldt proposes to confine to elevations producing a sensible diminution of temperature, or to heights which attain to 1800 or 2000 feet, and upwards. Some writers, however, draw a distinction between plateau and table-land which seems appropriate. According to this distinction, a plateau is a great extent of country raised above the general surface, upon which there may be systems of mountains and valleys insterspersed with plains, while true table-land, on the contrary, consists simply of an extensive elevated region, which abruptly ascends from the neighbouring country, with a level or gently undulating surface.

The grandest example of plateau upon the face of the globe is in Central Asia. It consists of the region of Chinese Tartary and Thibet, an immense tract of country very imperfectly known, but at a mean height of many thousand feet above the sea. It is supported by immense ramparts of mountains, the summits of which rise far above the elevated interior. In the following section of the continent from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, this great plateau appears bounded on the west by the heights of Belûr-tagh, or the Cloudy Mountains, and

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on the east by the Yung-ling range, which divides China from Thibet by a series of snowy peaks. Fig. 1. represents the level of the Black Sea; 2. the height of Mount Ararat; 3. the level of the Caspian; 4. Tartary; 5. the Belûr-tagh, or Cloudy Mountains; 6. the plateau of Crim Tartary; 7. the mountains of Yung-ling; 8. China; and 9. the Pacific Ocean.

The next is a section of the continent from the Arctic to the Indian Oceans, which shows the Altaian Mountains, the boundary of the plateau to the north, and the Hima

bet; 6. the Himalaya mountains; 7. Nepaul; 8. India; 9. the Bay of Bengal. From the flanks of this plateau the largest rivers of Asia descend, and roll their waters across the space which divides it from different seas; the Brahmapootra, Ganges, Indus, Tigris, and Euphrates proceeding southward to the Indian Ocean; the Yenisei and Obi with their affluents travelling northwards through the swampy wilds of Siberia to the Arctic Ocean; the Hoang Ho, and Yang-tseu-Kiang pursuing an easterly course to the Pacific. The interior region has its rivers, deserts, hills and valleys. The second great example of plateau embraces nearly the whole of Mexico, and consists of the ridge of the Corderilla, continuous with the Andes, upon which there are vast tracts of champaign country, mutually connected, and interspersed with lofty mountains. The section of the country from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean exhibits this plateau, the general height of which is equal to that of the Great St. Bernard of the

The descent towards the coasts is by a graduated series of terraces, which present an extraordinary diversity of vegetation. Of table-lands, properly so called, or elevated plains which have a generally level surface, there are many examples in both continents. The Nilgherry district in Hindùstan is a beautiful piece of table-land formed by the gently undulating top of the Blue Mountains, often visited by Europeans for the sake of enjoying its bracing air. The great extent to which the sound of the human voice may be conveyed, frequently observed in elevated regions, was here noticed by Mr. Hough of Madras:—“I have heard," he remarks, "the natives, especially in the morning and evening, when the air was still, carry on conversation from one hill to another, and that apparently without any extraordinary effort. They do not shout in the manner that strangers think necessary in order to be heard at so great a distance, but utter every syllable as distinctly as if they were conversing face to face. When listening to them, I have often been reminded of those passages in Holy Writ where it is recorded that Jotham addressed the ungrateful men of Shechem from Mount Gerizim; that David cried from the top of a hill afar off to Abner, and to the people that lay about their master Saul, and that Abner addressed Joab from the top of a hill." Numerous and extensive table-lands occur in south-western Asia at a great elevation, the majority of which are arid wastes, though some are green as an emerald in summer. The plain of Teheran, the modern capital of Persia, is at the height of 3786 feet above the sea level, while that of Erzroum, the capital of Turkish Armenia, is not less than 6114. The central region of the Spanish peninsula, also consists of a series of table-lands, varying from 2000 to 2664 feet in elevation, divided and bounded by mural precipices which rise far above them. The western continent likewise presents many remarkable specimens of high table-lands. That upon which the city of Santo Fè de Boqotà is situated is an almost perfect level, 8640 feet above the sea, and 45 miles by 20 in extent, environed

with high mountains, through which the waters of the plain escape by a narrow outlet, and form the celebrated fall of Tequendama.

The great levels of the globe are however neither plateau nor table-land districts, but vast territories which have only a very inconsiderable elevation above the sea. They are classified, according to their respective physical conditions, into deserts and steppes. The former, to use the words of Humboldt, are mere dead uninhabited plains, rendered impracticable both by man and by the powerful influence of vegetation, and remaining in all their primeval rudeness. The latter are more or less covered with grasses, or with small plants of the dicotyledonous class, as well as with various forms of animal life, and are only wearisome by their monotony and sameness. The word steppe is Russian, and means a large extent of flat uninhabited country destitute of trees. It is synonymous with the haiden or heaths of Germany, the landes of France, the savannahs and prairies of North America, and the pampas and llanos of South America. It has been thought sufficiently characteristic of the leading divisions of the globe, to say, that Europe has heaths, Asia steppes, Africa deserts, and America savannahs. But such a classification is manifestly incorrect, since Asia has large regions of true desert, as destitute of vegetation as the interior of Africa, while in the great Sahara of the latter there are savannahs and pastures in the midst of barren and unfruitful spots, and all the European plains are not heathy, nor all the American llanos grassy. Waiving generalizing, the levels of these different regions will be best discriminated by a notice of them in detail, taking Humboldt and Berghaus as the chief guides.

The great Lowland of Europe extends from Paris to the frontiers of Asia, an immense district, including part of northern France, the Netherlands, the north of Germany, the entire kingdom of Prussia, with Poland, northern Turkey, and southern Russia, to the terraces of the Ural and the waters of the Black Sea. This region, in general very level and fertile, traversed by numerous navigable rivers, is the birth-place and surface land of a large amount of modern civilisation. It is a vast plain with two grand declivities, inclining north and south-easterly, which determine the course of the superficial waters either to the Baltic Sea and the German Ocean, or to the basin of the Black Sea. As an instance however of the little inclination of the surface in some places, a prevailing north wind will drive the waters of the Stattiner-Haf into the mouth of the Oder, and give the stream a backward flow for an extent of thirty or forty miles. At the northern confine of the European lowlands, to a considerable distance from the shore, there is only a very slight elevation above the sea, and hence extensive marshes are formed along the coast. Holland is to a great extent so near the level of the waters as to require artificial means to protect it from inundation; and on approaching it, the trees and spires seem as if planted upon the ocean. Notwithstanding the general fertility of this tract of country, we meet with many spots incapable of cultivation, either wholly bare of vegetation, or only producing a few grasses and dicotyledonous plants, which constitute true heaths and landes. The moor and bog-lands of Westphalia are remarkable for their flat and tableformed surfaces. From the middle of the Beerktanger Bog, heaven and earth seem to mingle; no tree, no bush is to be seen far as the eye can reach; while here and there the play of refraction magnifies to elephants the small and coarse-woolled sheep which find a scanty subsistence on the Erica vulgaris, which vegetates on the scattered productive portions of the bog. The infertile plains, for the most part sandy, occur chiefly in north Germany and Prussia, those of Lüneburg and its vicinity occupying a space of about six thousand square miles. Similar sandy plains, interspersed with heaths and marshes, occupy an extensive space in the south of France between the Gironde and the Pyrenees. Towards its eastern extremity, the great level of Europe abounds with enormous tracts of pasture land, which appear to have been rendered smooth by a long abode of the waters

upon their surface. On these pastures nothing interrupts the view. The eye only finds a resting point at the horizon, and the traveller may pass over them for miles without

meeting with a village or a single house. From the mouths of the Danube, along the coasts of the Black Sea to the Don, these green plains terminate at the horizon with an azure line, such as is commonly perceived in the open sea. They possess the finest soil, a black rich mould, which with slight cultivation produces in great abundance all the cerealia, and even hemp and poppies. Nature, here left to herself, affords the most luxuriant and succulent pastures, in which herds of splendid oxen, such as are found in Holstein and Holland, graze night and day. From time to time, a few huts are met with, indicated on the charts as inns or post-houses. The transition from cultivation to nomadic life, is recognised in this region, which is more palpable as an easterly direction is pursued, and gradually the aspect of the country changes, becomes wavy, undulating, and less fertile. Everything here, says Humboldt, speaking of the district east of the Don, awakes the anticipation of the steppes of Asia - the climate itself, with its hot summer, its cutting and sharp winter, and dry east wind, and even man himself!

The region of the Steppes commences in Europe, and occupies almost the whole of the north-west of Asia. They are extensive and almost treeless plains, intersected with barren ridges and hills, with vegetation of rank coarse grass in the intervening spaces; at least this is their general character on the European side of the Volga. Mr. Stephens, the American traveller, thus describes his first acquaintance with them :- "At daylight we awoke, and found ourselves upon the wild steppes of Russia, forming a part of the immense plain which, beginning in northern Germany, extends for hundreds of miles, having its surface occasionally diversified by ancient tumuli, and terminates at the long chain of the Urals, which, rising like a wall, separates them from the equally vast plains of Siberia. The whole of this immense plain was covered with a luxuriant pasture, but bare of trees, like our own prairie lands, mostly uncultivated, yet everywhere capable of producing the same wheat which now draws to the Black Sea the vessels of Turkey, Egypt, and Italy, making Russia the granary of the Levant; and which, within the last year, we have seen brought six thousand miles to our own doors. Our road over these steppes was in its natural state, that is to say, a mere track worn by caravans of waggons; there