king's command, strove who should be the first in leaping overboard to lighten the vessel, and save the prince's life at the expense of their own.

Under Artaxerxes Longimanus, so called on account of the unequal length of his hands, the successor to Xerxes, the Grecian cities, situated on the borders of Lesser Asia, obtained their freedom.

Of Xerxes the Second, and Ochus, we have nothing remarkable to mention.

Artaxerxes Mnemon, so named from the excellence of his memory, studied the arts of Peace; and, to secure his own power and tranquility, he excited dissentions among tho Grecian states. Artaxerxes had three brothers, of whom Cyrus the elder attempted to seize the government, but, after a bloody battle, was killed; and so desirous was Artaxerxes of the honour of having slain his brother with his own hand, that he put to death two men for saying that they had killed him. The Greeks, who had assisted Cyrus against his brother, though at the distance of six hundred leagues from their own country, made their way through the territories of the enemy; and there is no fact in history more celebrated than this as the retreat of the ten thousand. The length of their journey has been calculated to be eleven hundred and fifty-five leagues, which was performed in the space of fifteen months.

Artaxerxes reigned forty-six years, and was succeeded by Ochus, a most cruel tyrant, who beheaded in one day his brothers and near relations, to the number of fourscore. He surpassed all the Persian kings in the indulgence of his passions and in the cruelty of his government; and perished by poison, given to him by his physician, at the instigation of Bagoas. Bagoas was an Egyptian by birth, and had conceived hatred to the king because he had plundered the Egyptian temples, and slain the sacred bull, or god Apis. Not satisfied with the death of the king, he cut the dead body into small pieces, and gave it, thus mangled, to the cats, and of the bones he made handles for swords.

Arses, the youngest son of Ochus, was elevated to the throne, who, in the second year of his reign, was

put to death by the same Bagoas, and was succeeded by,

Darius Codomannus, a prince of mild and generous disposition, of great personal valour, and, with regard to his person, he was esteemed the handsomest man in the Persian empire. He was not, however, able to withstand his fortunate rival Alexander the Great. By him Dari" was defeated in three battles. The first of which was the battle of Granicus, where the Persians lost twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse. In this action Alexander himself was first wounded in the head, afterwards in the side, besides having a horse killed from under him. In the second battle, which was fought near Mount Taurus, Darius lost, with his army, his wife, his mother, and his children, and with much difficulty escaped himself: after the third defeat at Arbela he fled to Media, where he was betrayed, and mortally wounded by Bessus, governor of Bactria. Two years after, Bessus was taken and sent to Alexander, by whom he was delivered to the brother of Darius, who cut off his nose and ears, and nailed him to a cross as a mark for the soldiers to shoot at.

Although the Persian monarchs were masters of the whole of Asia, yet they were at all times unsuccessful in their attacks upon the Scythians and Greeks. It had therefore been the policy of the Persians, for a number of years, to promote dissentions among the Grecian states, and occasionally to afford assistance to the weaker against the more powerful. Darius Codomannus despised, or was ignorant of this art, and thereby drew the united strength of Greece upon him; hence all Asia was subdued by the Macedonians, and an end put to the Persian monarchy.

Darius, who had been wounded with a shower of arrows, was left lying alone in a cart, to which the groans of the dying monarch conducted Polystratus, a Macedonian. The king, very near his end, had strength enough to ask for water, which Polystratus readily brought him. After drinking he charged him to return his hearty thanks to Alexander for the kindness he had shown to his wife, mother, and children,

and to acquaint him, that with his last breath he besought the gods to prosper him in all his undertakings, and make him sole monarch of the universe; adding, that he thought it needless to beseech him to punish those traitors who had treated him with such cruelty, as it was the common cause of kings. Then taking Polystratus by the hand, "Give him," said he, "your hand, as I give you mine, and carry him, in my name, the only pledge I am now able to give of my gratitude and affection." Having uttered these words he immediately expired in the arms of Polystratus. Alexander soon after arrived at the spot, and beholding the body of Darius, burst into tears, bewailing the cruel lot of a prince who, he said, had deserved a better fate. He immediately pulled of his own military cloak, and covered the corpse, and causing it to be embalmed, sent it in a rich and magnificent coffin to be interred with the other Persian monarchs.

CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES, WITH SUITABLE REFLECTIONS.

ASTRONOMICAL SKETCHES.NO. v.

THE seas cover three-fourths of the surface of the earth; but we are not to conclude that this is an inconvenience to mankind. Rain, which is so essential to the comfort of human life, and without which vegetation could have no existence, must first be raised up in vapours from the sea, by the action of the sun, before it can be formed into clouds, and fall in fruitful showers on the land. If the land occupied three-fourths of the surface of the earth, and the seas only one-fourth, the consequences would be the destruction of all vegetable substances for want of moisture; and the land between the Tropics would be in danger of being burnt by the intense heat of the sun. To prevent this, the great Creator has nicely balanced the land and sea on the surface of the earth; so that the land has only that quantity of moisture which is necessary for the produc

tion of the various fruits of the earth, &c., and for the comfort and support of the animal creation.

The earth, in its annual revolution round the sun, passes through all the signs of the Zodiac. The sun and earth are always in opposite points of the heavens. When the sun enters Aries or Libra, the days and nights are equal in every part of the world, except at the Poles of the earth.

When the sun enters Cancer, on the 21st of June, the South Pole has been destitute of the solar light for three months; nor can the sun shine upon that Pole, until the expiration of three months more. When the

sun enters Libra, on the 23d of September, the North Pole loses the light of the sun, and is not revisited by that luminary, until the expiration of six months. So that each Pole has but one day and one night in the year, each day and each night being six months long.

These various and important changes are caused by the annual revolution of the earth round the sun, and the declination of its axis, or the angle which the plane of the Ecliptic makes with the plane of the Equator, which is 23° 28".

In this

-no

If the axis of the earth were parallel with the axis of its orbit, our days and nights would be always equal. arrangement of the axis of the earth and the Ecliptic, we should have no diversity of seasons ;interchange of winter, spring, summer, and autumn? and these northern parts of the world would be rendered nearly uninhabitable for want of heat and sustenance. The influence of the sun would not be sufficiently powerful to produce vegetation in sufficient abundance to supply our wants; we should know nothing of the delights of a summer's morning or evening; and our fields, gardens, &c., would present to our view little else than empty wastes and solitary and barren places. In the equatorial regions, an excess of heat from the rays of a vertical sun, shining day by day and year after year on the same line, would render them intolerable, and endanger the safety of the world. But from the present arrangement of the planes of the Equator and the Ecliptic, we behold the infinite wis

dom and goodness of God toward mankind, in placing or balancing the earth in such a position toward the sun, as to produce the various seasons of the year, to vary our days and nights, and to cause these high northern regions to become nearly as delightful, as beautiful, and as fruitful, as any other parts of the earth; while the heat of the sun is so diffused along the tropical regions, as to render them not only inhabitable, but beautiful and fruitful in the extreme.

CABINET OF NATURE.

RIVERS.

The next feature of the earth's surface which may be noticed, is, the rivers with which it is indented in every direction. These are exceedingly numerous, and seem to form as essential a part in the constitution of our globe, as the mountains from which they flow, and as the ocean to which they direct their course. It is reckoned, that in the old continent, there are about 430 rivers, which fall directly into the ocean, or into the Mediterranean, and the Black seas; but in the new continent, there are only about 145 rivers known, which fall directly into the sea. In this enumeration, however, only the great rivers are included, such as the Thames, the Danube, the Wolga, and the Rhone. Beside these, there are many thousands of streams of smaller dimensions, which, rising from the mountains, wind in every direction, till they fall into the large rivers, or are carried into the ocean. The largest rivers in Europe are the Wolga, which, rising in the northern parts of Russia, runs a course of 1700 miles, till it falls into the Caspian sea-the Danube, whose course is 1300 miles, from the mountains in Switzerland to the Black sea-and the Don, which runs a course of 1200 miles. The greatest rivers in Asia are-the Hoanho, in China, whose course is 2400 miles-the Boorhampooter, the Euphrates, and the Ganges. The longest river in Africa, is the Nile, the course of which is esti mated at 2000 miles. In the continent of America,