former mistake. The currents here set in a direction contrary to the general motion of the sea westward; and so great is their force, that a passage which, with the current, is made in two days, is with difficulty performed in six weeks against t. However, they do not extend above twently leagues from the coast; and ships going to the East Indies, take care not to come within the sphere of their action.

At Sumatra the currents, which are extremely rapid, run from south to north: there are also strong currents between Madagascar and the Cape of Good Hope. On the western coasts of America, the current always runs from the south to the north; a south wind continually blows there, and most probably occasions this appearance.

But the currents that are the most remarkable are those in the Mediterranean sea. From the Atlantic ocean through the straits of Gibraltar, and from the Euxine sea by the Archipelago, there are perpetual currents flowing into it. This is one of the most extraordinary appearances in nature. This sea continually receives not only these currents, but also a very great influx from a multitude of rivers, among which are the Tyber, the Po, the Rhone and the Nile: outlets there are none visible; no straits, no rivers, but such as bring it fresh supplies; and yet its waters do not increase: they are no higher than they were a thousand years ago.

Mankind, in every age, have enquired how this vast quantity of waters has been disposed of, and how this sea, which is always receiving and never returning, has no sensible increase of its waters. The learned Kircher accounts for this by subterraneous passages into the Red Sea, by which he supposes the waters to be conveyed from the Mediterranean. Others have had recourse to evaporation by the heat of the sun, by which they suppose the superfluous waters are drained off. To support this idea, they have entered into long calculations upon the extent of its surface, and the quantity of water that would be raised from such a surface in a year. They then compute how much water runs into it, by its rivers and straits in that time; and they find the quantity raised by evaporation, to exceed the quantity received by rivers and straits. But these curious philosophers seem to have forgotten that the Euxine sea, and the ocean at large evaporate as well as the Mediterranean: as these are subject to the same drain, it follows, therefore, that all the seas must in this respect be upon a par; and, consequently, there must be some other cause for this appearance.

The most satisfactory account seems to be that there is an under current in the straits of Gibraltar that carries out as much water as is sufficient to keep an equilibrium in the waters.

The existence of under currents is evident at many places. Thus in the English channel, between the north and south Foreland, the water runs tide and half-tide, that it, it is either ebb or flood in that part of the Downs three hours before it is so off at sea: a certain sign, that though the tide of flood runs aloft, yet the tide of ebb at the same time runs under-foot, that is, close by the ground, and so, at the tide of ebb above, it will flow under-foot.

These under currents run also in the Baltic sound, of which an able seaman gave to Dr. Smith the following proof. That being there with one of the King's frigates, they went with their pinnace into the mid-stream, and were violently carried by the current. Soon after that they sunk a basket with a large cannon bullet to a certain depth of water, which gave a check to the boat's motion; and then sinking it still lower and lower by degrees, the boat was at last driven a-head to the windward against the upper current, the current aloft not being above four or five fathom deep He added that the lower the basket was let down the stronger the under current was found. The same experiment has since been made in the straits of Gibraltar, with the same appearances.

From this principle, it is easy to account for that continual indraught out of the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, through the straits of Gibraltar, which is a passage about twenty miles broad; yet without any sensible rising of the water along the coasts of Barbary, or any overflowing of the lands, which nevertheless lie there very low. Dr. Halley's solution, therefore, by evaporation, falls to the ground.

There are many shifting currents which do not last, but return at certain periods. These, most of them, depend upon and follow the anniversary winds, or monsoons, which, blowing with great violence in one place, cause a current in another. Thus in the straits of Sunda, when the monsoons blow from the west, in the month of May, the currents set to the eastward, contrary to the general motion. Between the island of Ceylon and Madura, when the western monsoons set in, in December, or when the winds blow from the north-west, or between the north and north-west, the currents then set to the south-east, or between the south and south-east.

In the Bay of Sans Bras, not far from the Cape of Good Hope, there is a remarkable current, which runs from east to west, to the land-ward ; and this the more vehemently as it is opposed by winds from a contrary direction. The cause, probably, is owing to some adjacent shore which is higher than this.

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'The number of the currents at sea is impossible to be recounted, nor can they indeed be fully known; new ones are daily produced by a variety of causes, and as quickly disappear. When a regular current is opposed by another in a narrow strait, or where the bottom of the sea very uneven, a whirlpool is often formed. These were, in ancient days, considered as the greatest obstructions to navigation, and the ancient poets and historians speak of them with terror; they are described as swallowing up ships, and dashing them against the rocks at the bottom: apprehension did not fail to add imaginary terrors to the description, and placed at the centre of the whirlpool a dreadful den, fraught with monsters, whose howlings served to add new horrors to the dashings of the deep. Mankind at present, however, view these eddies of the sea with very little apprehension; and some have wondered how the ancients could so much overcharge their descriptions. But this is not difficult to account for. In those times when navigation was as yet in its infancy, the slightest concussion of the waves generally sent

the poor adventurer to the bottom: is it then to be wondered at that he was terrified at the violent agitation of a whirlpool: When his little ship, but ill fitted to oppose the fury of the sea, was got within the vortex, there was no possibility of ever returning. To add to the fatality, they were always near the shore; and along the shore was the only place where this ill provided mariner durst venture to sail. Whirlpools were therefore dreadful impediments to him; for if he attempted to pass between them and the shore, he was liable to be sucked in by the eddy; and if to avoid them he stretched out to sea, he was often sunk by the storm. But in our improved state of navigation, Charybdis and the Eripus, with all the other irregular currents of the Mediterranean, are no longer formidable. Mr. Addison, not attending to this train of thinking, upon passing through the straits of Sicily, was surprised at the little there was of terror in the present appearance of Scylla and Charybdis; and seems to be of opinion, that their agitations are much diminished since the times of antiquity. In fact, from the above reasons, all the wonders of the Mediterranean are described in much higher colours than they merit, to us who are acquainted with the more magnificent terrors of the ocean. The Mediterranean is one of the smoothest and most gentle seas in the world; its tides are scarce perceivable, except in the gulph of Venice, and shipwrecks are less known there than in any part of the world.

In the ocean, indeed, where the currents are violent, and the tempests fierce, whirlpools are particularly dangerous That called the Maelstroom upon the coast of Norway, is considered as the most dreadful and voracious in the world. The name signifies the navel of the sea, because the natives suppose that a great part of the water of the sea is sucked up, and discharged again by its vortex. A description of its internal parts is not to be expected, since none who ever were there have returned to bring us information. The body of the waters which form this whirlpool are extended in a circle about thirteen miles in circumference. In the midst of this stands a rock, against which the tide in its ebb is dashed with inconceivable fury. The noise of it is heard several leagues off, and the vortices and pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carrried down to the bottom. No skill in the mariner, nor strength of rowing, can work an escape; the sailor at the helm finds the ship first going in a current opposite to his intentions; the motion of the vessel, though slow in the beginning, becomes every moment more rapid; it goes round in circles still narrower and narrower, till at last it is dashed against the rocks, and instantly disappears : nor is it seen again for six hours; and then the tide flowing, the remnants are voinitted forth again with the same violence with which it was drawn in.

The intervals of tranquility are only at the turn of the ebb and flood, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence then gradually returns. When the stream is most boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of it; boats, yachts, and ships having been carried away by it. It likewise happens frequently that whales come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its

violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. A large bear once attempting to swim from Lofodon to Moskoe, afforded the like spectacle to the people; the stream caught him and brought him down, whilst he roaned terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again, shivered to pieces: this plainly shews the bottom to consist of sharp craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. In the year 1645, early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such dreadful noise and impetuosity that the island of Moskoe shook, and many stones of the houses fell to the ground.

TO BE CONTINUED.

"A READER'S "

REMARKS ON MR. FULLER'S LETTERS.

SIR,

MR. FULLER in his third letter makes several appeals to the Reader. The following is the judgment of a Reader in consequence of those appeals.

In the paragraph p. 60. beginning with, "You carefully avoid," Mr. Fuller has heaped consequences upon you, Mr. Editor, in a manner which is rather peremptory. In the heat of his zeal to effect this, he has founded his own argument upon a mistake. He takes it for granted that God's view of punishment, exactly coincides with Mr. Fuller's. He also mistakes in his choice of a rule when he says, 66 we cannot have a more certain rule of estimating the just demerit of sin, than the wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against it." But unless Mr. Fuller can tell the exact quantity of the wrath of God which is revealed against it, he must admit that he has chosen to determine with certainty, by a rule the measure of which is altogether uncertain.

Mr. Fuller not only takes it for granted that God's view of punishment is exactly coincident with his own by proposing "the wrath of God which is revealed from heaven," as the most certain rule possible in estimating the future punishment of sinners, a rule which he can know neither the length nor the breadth of, and which he could not speak of positively without taking for granted that his thoughts in this respect are God's thoughts-but also, at the close of the same paragraph, Mr. Fuller goes on to say, "A criminal who has suffered the full penalty of the law, has no right to be told his liberation is an act of grace, or that it was owing to the mediation of another. Your Universal Salvation, therefore, is no point of that which arises from the grace of God." Here the Reader thinks that if it should be granted that Mr. F. may argue from the conduct and laws of men, to those of God, yet that he has not stated a parallel case. Mr. F. does not distinguish between this life and the next, or he would have perceived the futility of stating such a case. Such an one as the following would perhaps have been more to the purpose.

Suppose a man to have committed a crime, and that instead of being instantly punished to the utinost rigor of the law, certain conditions of behaviour are proposed to him for his observance during a certain number of years, at the expiration of which he shall be brought up and examined upon the conditions, and receive sentence, according to what the condition certified to him, from the beginning to the end of the term, shall have prescribed; which, suppose to be the following alternative; to receive a rich inheritance, if his conduct shall be found to have come within the line marked out in the conditions; if otherwise, to be sent to the Hulks. This man's case is not applicable to the subject in question, till after the expiration of the term specified in the conditions. Now is there not room, even after the inan shall have been condemned and sent to the Hulks-is there not room for an order from the king to some one or more of his servants to take such measure as shall effectually reform this criminal, and as soon as he shall be sufficiently reformed to liberate him from the Hulks? Here then let Mr. Fuller observe that there is both grace and mediation.

"The Scriptures (says Mr. Fuller, p. 61.) teach us that those who at a certain period are found filthy, shall be filthy still; that they shall be cast into the bottomless pit, which was prepared for the devil and his angels, and that they shall dwell with everlasting burnings."

The Reader is of opinon that Mr. F. here takes for granted the very thing he ought to prove. Do the Scriptures teach these things? You, Mr. Editor, will say they do not. And the Reader is of opinion that in strictness of reason, your denial without proof, is as good as Mr. Fuller's affirmation without proof. The Reader is not to be frighted from examination by bold speeches and claims to authority which have no support in truth and fact, and therefore he has compared this affirmation with the Scriptures alluded to in it. I say alluded to, because to deserve the epithet quoted, they should have been put down in the exact words of the sacred writers.

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Mr. Fuller, in the above quoted sentence from p. 61. alludes, first of all, to Rev. xxii. 11. but in this passage there is no such expression as that which he has put in italics. The common English version reads it, as it ought to be read, in the imperative, that it unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy let him be filthy still." Surely the language of exhortation, or bidding, is not to be construed as though it were the language of an absolute irreversible decree! The Reader thinks Mr. F. could not well have made a more unfortunate choice of a text than this, if his intention be to support the eternity of hell torments. It is unfortunate, because the adverb rendered in English "still," is a word of a very indefinite sense, and requires even in this very book of the Revelation to be variously rendered. St. Jerome's Latin version thus renders the passage, "Qui nocet noceat adhuc, et qui in sordibus est sordescat adhuc." Tremellius and Junius render it, "Qui injuste agit, injuste agat adhuc; et qui sordibus est sordescat adhuc." Supposing this to apply to the subject in question, very får is it from helping the cause of Mr. Fuller! How very far short does adhuc fall of eterne, or in æternum!

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