sensibility. From whence it results that the
articulation of sounds, which is beyond
contradiction, of all the effects of imitation, the most
inconceivable and advantageous result, cannot
fail to experience innumerable obstacles at an
age which has not advanced beyond the period
of infancy.

"4. We may likewise remark, that there
exists equally with the savage the most insulated,
as with the citizen raised to the highest point of
civilisation, an uniform proportion between their
ideas and their wants; that their continually
increasing multiplicity, in a state of polished
society, ought to be regarded as one of the
grand instruments for producing the development
of the human mind; so that we may be
allowed to lay it down as a general proposition,
that all the causes, whether accidental, local, or
political, which tend to augment or diminish
the number of our wants, contribute of necessity
to extend or to contract the sphere of our
knowledge, and the empire of the sciences, of
the fine arts, and of social industry."

What height of mental development the wild
boy of Aveyron reached at last, we have not been
able, after some research, to ascertain. If the
poor boy did not become a Solomon or a
Shakespeare, he at least proved a capacity for
development, always latent in the minds of idiots.

THE NORTH POLE QUESTION.

ONE of these days, Brigham Young, if he has
still sufficient stamina remaining, may have to
make another exodus, and, leaving the Salt
Lake, migrate to some more secluded spot. If
he has not already made his choice, we seriously
recommend him to try the North Pole—and not
to be too long about it, either, lest the lodgings
to let there should be previously engaged. But
the Mormon leader is not the man to hire; he
prefers taking a residence in fee simple. In
that case, despatch is still more urgent; for
the French are threatening to plant the
tricolour flag on the northern extremity of the
terrestrial axis.

Both the Poles have attracted much attention
of late. The close of the last century left
them labouring under the accusation of being
masses of ice, concentrations of cold, defying
the boldest discoverer to reach them. They
concealed no secret, it was thought, for their
condition was plain. That condition could be
no other than a homogeneous and unchanging
state of glacier and snow, ice piled upon ice,
drift heaped over drift, frost binding still
faster the effects of previous frost. Zero of
Fahrenheit was their mildest temperature.
Water would be a thing unknown, if there
were any living creature there to know.
Learned men, indeed, wished those extreme
points to be reached, as curiosities of physical
geography; but travellers cared little about
reaching them (the practical worthlessness of
any North-West Passage being ascertained),
convinced of their being uninhabitable.

Of late years a change has come over the
spirit of the Polar dream. Extenuating
circumstances have been successively discovered which
have led to a more favourable opinion of the
slandered regions, Antarctic as well as Arctic.
It was remembered, too, that the gifts of Providence
are remarkable for their balance and
compensation; that the Great Creator of
all things has made nothing in vain; that an
apparent and obvious evil is often made up
for, by unsuspected good and unforeseen
advantages; that hurricanes purify a pestilential
atmosphere; that a sterile soil may hide
mineral wealth; that equatorial heats mature
invaluable products; that cold countries are
exempt from many insect, and almost all reptile,
plagues. If so, where is the impossibility, or
even the improbability, that behind and within
the icy barrier with which we are acquainted,
there may exist some accessible tract of sea or
land of which as yet we are ignorant?

The area included by the Antarctic circle,
equalling in extent one-sixth part of the whole
land surface of our planet, has had its character
immensely raised by the publication of Maury's
Physical Geography of the Sea.

Southern explorers, as far as they have
penetrated within its limits, tell us of high lands
and mountains of ice. Ross, who went the
furthest of all, saw volcanoes burning in the
distance. The belt of ocean that encircles
our globe on the Polar side of 55 degrees
south, is never free from icebergs. They are
found in all parts of it all the year round.
Many of them are miles in extent and hundreds
of feet in thickness. The nursery for the bergs,
to fill such a field, must be enormous. And
such a nursery cannot be on the sea, for
icebergs require to be firmly fastened to the shore
until they attain full size. They, therefore, in
their mute way, are evidence of Antarctic shore-
lines of great extent—of deep bays where they
may be formed, and of lofty cliffs whence they
may be launched.

Again: it seems to be a physical necessity
with our planet, that land should not be
antipodal to land. Except a small portion of South
America and Asia, land is always opposite to
water. Only one twenty-seventh part of the
land on earth is antipodal to land. Now, the
belief is that, on the Polar side of 70 degrees
north, we have mostly water, and not land.
On the other hand, "there is now no doubt,"
says Dr. Jilek, in his Lehrbuch der
Oceanographie, "that around the South Pole a great
continent is spread, mainly within the Polar
Circle."

Not only is the Antarctic continent considered
proven, but there are facts that indicate that
the climate is mild—mild by comparison—
within the Antarctic Circle. Those facts and
circumstances are, a low barometer, a highly
rarefied atmosphere, and strong winds from the
north. We have not space here to deduce the
consequences which follow from these undisputed
facts; but the winds were the first to
whisper the news that the Antarctic winters