_Fatal Simoon._--Extract of a letter from Smyrna:--We have received intelligence of a dreadful calamity having overtaken the largest caravan of the season, on its route from Mecca to Aleppo. The caravan consisted of 2,000 souls, merchants and travellers from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, pilgrims returning from Mecca, and a numerous train of attendants; the whole escorted by 400 military. The march was in three columns. On the 15th of August last, they entered the great Arabian Desert, in which they journeyed seven days, and were already approaching its edge. A few hours more would have placed them beyond danger; but on the morning of the 23d, just as they had struck their tents, and commenced their march, a wind arose from the north-east, and blew with tremendous violence. They increased the rapidity of their march to escape the threatening danger; but the fatal Kamsin had set in. On a sudden dense clouds were observed, whose extremity obscured the horizon, and swept the face of the desert. They approached the columns, and obscured the line of march. Both men and beast, struck with a sense of common danger, uttered loud cries. The next moment they fell beneath its pestiferous influence lifeless corpses. Of 2,800 souls, composing the caravan, not more than 20 escaped this calamity; they owed their safety to the swiftness of their dromedaries. Literary Panorama, for January, 1814. [72] See Baptist Magazine, for December, 1816. [73] So the word is translated Luke xix, 10; 2 Cor. iv, 3. * * * * * CHAPTER IV. THIRD DAY. _Section_ I.--THE SEA. Water and land separated -- Formation of the sea -- Its restrictions -- Extent -- Depth -- Composition -- Saltness -- Motion -- Tides -- Four states of water -- Circulation -- Religious improvement. On the _third day_, the earth was drained, and the waters, which before covered its surface, were gathered into copious receptacles, and called seas. God said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas.” The almighty Creator proceeds to separate, put in order, and control the element nearest to _light_ and _air_ in quality and use, and, although not elastic, yet of great power. Probably the air was used by him as the great agent in gathering the waters into one place. Thus, instead of the confusion, which existed when the earth and the water were mixed in one great mass, there is now order; and by their separation each is rendered useful: the earth affording a habitation and support for man and the various orders of land animals; and the water forming an abode for the numerous tribes of living creatures adapted to subsist in that liquid element.[74]