Subsequent discoveries have, however, taught us the errors of the ancients. We now know that the torrid zone teems with organic life; and possesses, in many parts, a population more dense than the temperate, and is equally well adapted to its support: nay, we even find the temperature of that region to be such that it contains mountains capped with perpetual snows, which the beams of a July sun do not dissolve. It has also been ascertained that the frigid zones are partially inhabited: but it seems that a certain timid dread, perhaps in part attributable to the prejudices imbibed from our ancestors, has prevented our exploring the extent of those regions. However, as far as civilized man has yet ventured to penetrate towards the poles, we find that plants grow, flowers bloom, and human beings make a permanent residence; nay, even the untutored savages who reside there tell us that other human beings reside yet further to the north; and animals are known to migrate in that direction. Reasoning then from analogy, and from what we know, we have no ground to conclude that such a vast extent of surface has been created by an all-wise Providence for no other purpose, than to be eternally clothed with mountains of ice. Such a conclusion comports not with the general economy _we do know_ to exist throughout his works. We are constrained to acknowledge, notwithstanding our improvements in science, that, comparatively, we know but little of the economy of nature. Within a few years past, almost an entire revolution has taken place in the world respecting the philosophy of light and heat――a change which affects the theory both of their nature, and of their causes:――They are now believed to be two distinct things, and that the sun communicates neither, but merely gives activity, in some manner not yet known, to the principles, or matter, of light and heat with which our elements abound. If this be the case, as I believe is now admitted by the learned world, we cannot undertake to say, that the intensity or the absence of either, is necessarily dependant alone on the altitude of the sun, under any particular latitude; or on our nearness to, or remoteness from, the centre of the system:――For aught we know, both may be connected with arrangements that require but few of the sun's rays to make them answer the purposes of organic life. For aught we can tell, the planet Georgium Sidus, which rolls eighteen hundred millions of miles distant from the orb of day, may, nevertheless, be favoured with as brilliant light, and as genial warmth as our little globe; and for aught we know the interior of this planet, in the concavity of the spheres, under the equator, may enjoy the same light and heat that fructify and bless the equatorial climes on the convex surface.