would catch the eye of a wayfarer from the old world. To these humbler mountain pictures, must be added many a castle and strong-hold, of royal or semi-royal origin, that are met with on the summits of abrupt and rocky eminences farther north. Germany has many of these strong-holds, which are kept up to the present day, and which are found to be useful as places of security, as they are certainly peculiar and interesting in the landscape. It has often been said by scientific writers, that this country affords many signs of an origin more recent than the surface of Europe. The proofs cited are the greater depths of the ravines wrought by the action of the waters following the courses of the torrents, and the greater and general aspect of antiquity that is impressed on natural objects in the other hemisphere. This theory, however, has met with a distinguished opponent in our own time. Without entering at all into the merits of this controversy, we shall admit that to the ordinary eye America generally is impressed with an air of freshness, youthfulness, and in many instances, to use a coarse but expressive term, rawness, that are seldom, if ever, met with in Europe. It might perhaps be easy to account for this by the labors of man, alone, though we think that natural objects contribute their full share towards deepening the picture. We know of no mountain summits on this side of the Atlantic that wear the hoary hues of hundreds that are seen on the other side of the water; and nearly everywhere in this country that the eye rests on a mountain-top, it encounters a rounded outline of no very decided tints, unless, indeed, it may actually encounter verdure. To our eye, this character of youthfulness is very strongly perceptible throughout those portions of the republic with which we are personally acquainted, and we say this without reference to the recent settlements, which necessarily partake of this character, but to the oldest and most finished of our own landscapes. The banks of the Hudson, for instance, have not the impress of time as strongly marked on their heights and headlands, and bays, and even mountains, as the banks of the Rhine; and we have often even fancied that this distinguishing feature between the old and new worlds is to be traced on nearly every object of nature or art. Doubtless the latter has been the principal agent in producing these effects; but it is undeniable that they form a leading point of distinction in the general character of the scenery of the two continents. As for England, it has a shorn and shaven aspect that reminds one of the husbandman in his Sunday's attire; for we have seen that island in February, when, owing to the great quantity of its grain and the prevalent humidity of the atmosphere, it really appeared to us to possess more verdure than it did in the subsequent July and August.