The British embassies to China, besides making us better acquainted with this country, added no little to our information respecting those places which were visited in going to and returning from China.  Perhaps the most important correction of geography is that which was made by Captains Maxwell and Hall, who took out the second embassy:  we allude to what they ascertained respecting the kingdom of Corea.  They found a bay, which, according to the charts of this country, would be situated 120 miles in the interior; and at the same time they ascertained, that along the southern coast of Corea there was an archipelago of more than 1000 islands.  These discoveries; the valuable additions which were made during the voyage of Captain Maxwell to the geography and hydrography of the Yellow Sea; the correction of the vague and incorrect notions which were long entertained respecting the isles of Jesso and the Kuriles, by the labours of La Perouse, Broughton, Krusentein, &c., and the full and minute information given to the public respecting Java, and other parts of the southern Indian archipelago, by Raffles, Craufurd, &c. seem to leave little to be added to our geographical knowledge of the eastern and southeastern portions of Asia.

III.  We come now to America;—­and though Africa is one of the most ancient seats of the human race, and of civilization and science, and America has been discovered only about 350 years, yet we know much more respecting the coasts and interior of the latter than of the former portion of the globe.

Although the Spaniards and Portuguese, who, till very lately, possessed nearly the whole of South America, guarded their possessions strictly from the curious intrusion of foreigners, and were themselves very sparing in giving to the world the information respecting them which they must have acquired,—­yet, even during their power there, the geography of this part of America was gradually developed and extended; the face of the country; the great outline of those immense mountains, which, under the torrid zone, are visited by the cold of the Pole; the nature of the vast plains which lie between the offsets of these mountains; and the general direction of the rivers, not less remarkable for their size than the mountains and plains, were generally known.  The geography of South America, however, taking the term in the most philosophical and comprehensive sense, has been principally enriched within these few years, by the labours of Humboldt and his fellow-traveller Bompland, of Depons, Koster, Prince Maximilian, Luccock, Henderson, and by those Englishmen who joined the Spanish Americans during their struggle with the mother country.  From the observations, enquiries, and researches of these travellers, our information respecting all those parts of South America which constituted the Spanish and Portuguese dominions there, especially of Mexico, Terra Firma, Brazil, and Buenos Ayres, and generally the eastern and middle portions, has been much extended, as well as rendered more accurate and particular.  Humboldt, especially, has left little to be gleaned by any future traveller, from any of those countries which he has visited and described.