eptibilities and its
occasions, to the utmost measure consistent with the happiness of the
whole; and that--even in those vast classes of inferior being which
can have no faculty of acknowledging their benefactor, from whom He
can obtain no tribute of affection, no proof of obedience, and no
return of gratitude--His exhaustless desire, of communicating
happiness acts throughout all?

This view certainly cannot be got rid of by saying, that all classes
of nature are essential to each other. What was the importance of a
flock of sea fowl in the heart of the Pacific to the human race for
the last four thousand years? or what may it ever be? Yet they pursue
their instincts, exert their powers, sweep on the winds, range over
the ocean, and return on the wing night by night to their island,
nestle in their accustomed spots, and flutter over their young,
without a shock or a change, without a cessation of their pleasures or
a diminution of their powers through ages! What must be the vigilance
which watches over their perpetual possession of existence and
enjoyment; or what conclusion can be more just, natural, or
consolatory than that, "if not a sparrow falls to the ground without
the knowledge and supervision of Providence," a not less vigilant
care, and a not less profuse and exalted beneficence will be the
providential principle of the government of man, and the world of man!

The examination of Torres Strait was a chief object of the expedition;
and we therefore give a sketch of a passage which is constantly rising
in importance.

All the islands which stretch across the Strait have a common
character; all are steep and rocky, and some six hundred feet in
height. They are, in fact, the prolongation of the great mountain
chain of the eastern coast of Australia. The especial importance of
Torres Strait is, that it must continue to be almost the only safe
route to the Indian Ocean from the South Pacific--the S.E. trade-wind
blowing directly for the Strait nearly the whole year within the
tropics, and during the summer being the prevailing wind over a large
part of the extra-tropical sea. The attempt to pass to the north of
New Guinea would encounter a longer route, with dangers probably much
greater, in a sea still comparatively unexamined.

But it is admitted that the navigation of the Torres Strait and the
Coral Sea, however exactly surveyed, must always be hazardous. Hazy
weather, errors of reckoning, errors in the ch