When we contemplate that little spot of earth which forms the Island of Barbados, perched, as it no doubt is, upon the top of a lofty submarine mountain, and consider the ages that must have been consumed in its formation with the myriads of little insects employed in its construction, we may indeed exclaim—“Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord!”

The mineralogy of the island is in no way interesting, and affords very little variety. In the calcareous formation there are only found a variety of sheik preserved, not petrified; but in the clay-deposit, within the district called Scotland, there are several substances, some of which I have already mentioned;—the brown and the black sandstone, the gypsum in fragments and crystals, nodules of flint and ironflint, with several iron-ores, such as clay iron-stone, compact black iron-stone, and brown ochre iron-stone.

In a hill named “Chalky Mount,” from its white appearance, there is a bed of porphyritic slate, or clink-stone porphyry, about eighteen inches in thickness, lying between beds of very loosely-cohering sandstone, and dipping to the north-east at an angle of thirty degrees. Rolled fragments of the calcareous rocks are found in endless variety throughout the clay-deposit, some of them at a considerable distance from their original situation, to which, however, they can generally be traced; indicating that they have been broken off by the violence of the waves, and carried to their present position, before the mud had become sufficiently solid to form the present soil.

In former times Trinidad certainly was, and I believe still is, the most unhealthy of all our West Indian possessions. In certain situations, and in many of the other islands in particular districts, disease may be more prevalent, and the mortality comparatively greater; but in no other are the effects of the malaria so generally diffused, or so constantly experienced, as in this island. The atmospheric temperature is seldom above the average range common in these latitudes. In the plain in which Port of Spain is situated, it is about 86° of Fahrenheit; but the range between the highest and the lowest degree, during twenty-four hours, is greater here than in any of the other colonies that I am aware of: the nights actually feel cold. It is not, however, any great difference of the temperature that renders the island unhealthy; it is that great extent of uncultivated land, and more especially of that land which is not fit for cultivation, which still exists, and constitutes by far the largest portion of the island. The poisoned vapour constantly hangs as a dense cloud over these savannahs, and from thence penetrates into every valley, and finds a speedy passage to every hill-top. Under certain circumstances, this Miasm, or marsh-poison, becomes greatly augmented in quantity, and more virulent in its quality; and then it is that we find the fevers more frequent, and the symptoms greatly aggravated.

The traveller from the Old World to the New is apt to lose himself in reflection when he should be observing. Speculations come in crowds in the wilderness. He finds himself philosophizing with every step he takes, as luxuriously as by his study fireside, or in his rare solitary walk at home.

In England, everything comes complete and finished under notice. Each man may be aware of some one process of formation, which it is his business to conduct; but all else is presented to him in its entireness. The statesman knows what it is to compose an act of parliament; to proceed from the first perception of the want of it, through the gathering together of facts and opinions, the selection from these, the elaborating, adjusting, moulding, specifying, excluding, consolidating, till it becomes an entire something, which he throws down for parliament to find fault with. When it is passed, the rest of society looks upon it as a whole, as a child does upon a table or a doll, without being aware of any process of formation. The shoemaker, thus, takes his loaf of bread, and the clock that ticks behind his door, as if they came down from the clouds as they are, in return for so much of his wages; and he analyzes nothing but shoes.

The only thing remarkable in the weather for July, 1831, in Barbados, was the unusual quantity of rain; it, indeed, is said to have rained almost incessantly. The trade-winds, however, blew moderately and steadily from the proper quarter, and the atmospheric temperature was uncommonly uniform: the maximum is noted at 86°, and the minimum at 79°.

Towards the end of that month thunder and lightning were of frequent occurrence, and electric clouds hung over the island. In Bridgetown, the 1st of August commenced fine, with light breezes from the north-east, but by nine a.m. the weather had changed, the wind blew strongly, and the remainder of the day was wet and cloudy, and in some parts of the island the thunder was very severe, particularly in the neighbourhood of Chalky Mount, in the district of Scotland, where the lightning shattered a small house, killed a white child, and wounded the mother.

On the tenth morning of the month, it was remarked that the sun rose without a cloud, and shone resplendently through an atmosphere of the most translucent brightness; at six a.m. the thermometer stood at 80°, at eight it rose to 85°, and at ten, to 86°; at which hour the gentle morning-breeze, which had, up to that moment, fanned the country, died away: occasionally, after this, high winds sprang up from the east-north-east, but soon subsided. Calms generally prevailed, with puffs from between the north and northeast points of the compass.

Religion is the highest fact in the Rights of Man from its being the most exclusively private and individual, while it is also a universal, concern, of any in which man is interested. Religion is, in its widest sense, “the tendency of human nature to the Infinite;” and its principle is manifested in the pursuit of perfection in any direction whatever. It is in this widest sense that some speculative atheists have been religious men; religious in their efforts after self-perfection; though unable to personify their conception of the Infinite. In a somewhat narrower sense, religion is the relation which the highest human sentiments bear towards an infinitely perfect Being.

There can be no further narrowing than this. Any account of religion which restricts it within the boundaries of any system, which connects it with any mode of belief, which implicates it with hope of reward or fear of punishment, is low and injurious, and debases religion into superstition.

The Christian religion is specified as being the highest fact in the rights of man from its embodying (with all the rest) the principle of natural religion—that religion is at once an individual, an universal, and an equal concern.