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    trustworthiness in matters requiring minute accuracy , and that is a very important quality for such a task . We cannot help fancying that Mt . Smallfield loves his subject very much ; he seems to have plunged into it very heartily , and to be still thoroughly immersed in it : and we love it too ; and therefore it is that we wish him

    sufficient encouragement to complete and even extend his design . We have never felt the difficulty of the honest boatswain , who wondered what could possibly be the use of so much dry land in the world ; neither have we any doubt about the use and the beauty of the rivers by which it is variegated . An acquaintance with them well deserves to be erected into a distinct science . We hail

    Potamology with a cordial greeting ; and welcome it to our studies , parlours , schools , reading rooms , lecture rooms , mechanics * institutes and universities . There is no end to the interest which rivers excite . They may be considered physically , geographically , historically , politically , commercially , mathematically , poetically , pictorially , morally , and even relig iously , by which we mean devoutly as well as ceremonially . In the world's anatomy they are its veins , as the primitive mountains , those mighty structures of granite , are its

    bones . They minister to the fertility of the earth , the purity of the air , and the health of mankind . They mark out nature ' s kingdoms and provinces , and are the physical dividers and subdividers of continents . They welcome the bold discoverer into the heart of the country , to whose coast the sea has borne his adventurous bark . The richest freights have floated on their bosoms , and the bloodiest battles have been fought upon their banks . They move the wheels of cotton mills by their mechanical power , and madden the

    souls of poets and painters by their picturesque splendour . They make scenery , and are scenery , and land yields no landscape without water . They are the best vehicle for the transit of the goods of the merchant , and for the illustration of the maxims of the moralist . The figure is so familiar , that we scarcely detect a metaphor when the stream of life and the course of time flow on into the ocean of eternity . Superstition has consecrated and adored their waters , and religion made them its emblem of moral purification , and there is the river of life even among the bowers of Paradise .

    We hinted at a method of teaching Geography with which Mr . Smallfield ' s tabular plan harmonizes . We mean the reverse of the common system , which begins at the wrong end , teaching artificial and political distinctions first , and natural ones afterwards ; or rather , perhaps , not at all , save as they are incidentall y and therefore very imperfectly acquired . Pure Geography ( as the French writers call it ) should always be taught first , and made the basis of all the other kinds of knowledge which are usually

    connected with the term Geography , including the productions of the soil , location of minerals , distribution of animals , demarcation of kingdoms , &c , &c . Having studied the surface of the Globe as nature has shaped , indented , divided , and diversified it , by mountains , rivers , and seas , the mind would come prepared for the other , the less obvious and permanent distributions of its surface , according to which it is mapped out by science , history , and politics . They would be easily superinduced upon the original chart ; would

    be , as it were , only so many different modes of dividing or colouring it ; and would be made the more intelligible by their reference to it . A . set of Tabular Descriptions , which we hope Mr . Smallfield will go on to produce , would much facilitate this rational mode of teaching Geography ; wnile they would also be exceedingly valuable , and in some measure supply a serious deficiency to those who have been instructed , or are instructing , in the ordinary way .

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    16 Potamology .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/16/