therefore, be already of the size of the Hawkesbury
at Windsor, which is not less than two hundred and fifty yards in
breadth, and of sufficient depth to float a seventy-four
gun-ship, it is not difficult to imagine what must be its
magnitude at its confluence with the ocean; before it can arrive
at which it has to traverse a country nearly two thousand miles
in extent. If it possess the usual sinuosities of rivers, its
course to the sea cannot be less than from five to six thousand
miles, and the endless accession of tributary streams which it
must receive in its passage through so great an extent of
country, will without doubt enable it to vie in point of
magnitude with any river in the world. In this event its
influence in promoting the progress of population in this fifth
continent, will be prodigious, and in all probability before the
expiration of many years, give an entirely new impulse to the
tide of population: and here it may not be altogether irrelevant,
to enter into a short disquisition on the natural superiority
possessed by those countries which are most abundantly
intersected with navigable rivers. That such are most favourable
for all the purposes of civilized man, the history of the world
affords the most satisfactory proof There is not, in fact, a
single instance on record of any remarkable degree of wealth and
power having been attained by any nation which has not possessed
facilities for commerce, either in the number or size of its
rivers, or in the spaciousness of its harbours, and the general
contiguity of its provinces to the sea. The Mediterranean has
given rise to so many great and powerful nations, only from the
superior advantages which it afforded for commerce during the
long infancy of navigation. The number and fertility of its
islands, the serenity of its climate, the smoothness of its
waters, the smallness of its entrance, which although of itself
sufficient to indicate to the skilful pilot the proximity of the
ocean, is still more clearly defined by the Pillars of Hercules,
towering on each side of it, and forming land-marks not to be
mistaken by the timid, the inexperienced, or the bewildered. Such
are the main causes why the Mediterranean continued until the
discovery and application of the properties of the magnet, the
seat of successive empires so superior to the rest of the world
in affluence and power. It is indeed almost impossible to
conceive, how any considerable degree of w