centre of the earth's magnetic attraction and magnetic life, accords not mathematically with the northern point, yet it lies at no very great distance from it. In other phenomena of nature, too, the real seat and principle of life will be found, not at the mathematical point, but a little removed from it. Another circumstance worthy of consideration is, that the Northern firmament possesses by far the largest and most brilliant constellations, and that though the Southern firmament is embellished by its own, they are neither in the same number, nor of the same beauty. To the impressions made by such objects, the men of the primitive ages were certainly far more alive than those of the present day; and an obscure feeling for nature, grounded on the real natural superiority of the North, as well as the poetical sagas which were in part the natural offspring of such feelings, may have contributed to direct the stream of the first migrations of nations towards the North, and have occasioned the very early colonization and settlement of its regions: for, in primitive antiquity, a certain presentient instinct, it is right to suppose, was much oftener the primary cause of those migrations than such a spirit of commercial speculation as afterwards animated the Phœnicians and their various colonies. We may here also observe that even in its present state, the remoter North has its own peculiar charms and advantages, and that by human industry it may attain to a much higher degree of productiveness, than we should be at first-sight tempted to suppose. In this sense ought to be taken the tradition of antiquity, as to the happy and virtuous people of the Hyperboreans; and it is easy to understand it in this sense without inferring thence too many consequences. If on the other hand, some able and learned naturalists, led away by this fact, appear almost inclined to regard the region of the North Pole, once in the enjoyment of a warm southern temperature, as one of the earliest, nay the very earliest abode of the human race; I cannot follow them in their hypothesis, opposed as it is to the positive and unanimous tradition of many and most ancient nations, pointing with one concurrent voice to central Asia as man's primitive dwelling-place. It appears indeed that the tradition of antiquity as to the Island of Atlantis ought to be considered historical; but instead of regarding this country as an island of the Blessed situated in the arctic circle, I think it much more natural to refer the whole tradition to an obscure nautical knowledge of America, or of those adjacent islands at which Columbus first touched, and to which the Phœnician pilots (who beyond all doubt circumnavigated Africa) may not improbably have been driven in the course of their voyage.