differs in quantity by more than a third to what it would be if potatoes which had not advanced had been used, and further, that besides this diminished product, the quality also is very inferior*. 25. PRESERVATION OF FROZEN POTATOES. In time of frost the only precaution necessary is to retain the potatoes in a perfectly dark place for some days after the thaw has commenced. In America, where they are sometimes frozen as hard as stones, they rot if thawed in open day, but if thawed in darkness they do not rot, and lose very little of their natural odour and properties†. 26. CURE OF WOUNDS IN ELM TREES. Those elms which have running places, or ulcers, may be cured as follows:-Each wound is to have a hole bored in it with an auger, and then a tube, penetrating an inch or less, is to be fixed in each. Healthy trees which are thus pierced give no fluid, but those which are unhealthy yield fluid, which increases in abundance with the serenity of the sky and exposure to the south. Stormy and windy weather interrupts the effect. It has been remarked that in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours the running stops, the place dries up, and is cured ‡. 27. PRESERVATION OF FRUIT TREES FROM HARES. According to M. Bus, young fruit trees may be preserved from the bites of hares by rubbing them with fat, and especially hogs'-lard. Apple and pear trees thus protected gave no signs of the attacks of these animals, though their feet marks were abundant on the snow beneath them§. 28. WATERSPOUT ON THE LAKE OF NEUFCHATEL. On the 9th of June, at nine o'clock in the morning, the weather being moist and the thermometer at 64° F., a waterspout was seen at Neufchatel, on the other side of the lake, about a league from the port. From a fixed black cloud, about eighty feet above the surface, descended perpendicularly a dark grey cylindrical column, touching the surface of the lake. Much agitation was seen at the foot and top of the column, a dull heavy sound was heard, and the waters of the lake were seen to mount rapidly along this sort of syphon to the cloud, which gradually became white as it received them. After seven or eight minutes had elapsed a north-east wind pressed upon the column, so that it bent in the middle, still however raising water, until at last it separated. At the same moment the cloud above, agitated and compressed by the wind, burst and let fall *Bib. Phys. Econ., 1829. Journal des Forets, 1829. Recueil Industriel, xiv. 81. a deluge of rain. This appearance was neither preceded nor followed by any lightning or explosion; the column was vertical and immobile, no rotary movement being observed*. 29. MIRAGE OF CENTRAL INDIA. The following account of the Indian mirage is from Colonel Tod's Ragasthan. It is only in the cold season that the mirage is visible. The sojourners of Maroo call it the see-kote, or castles in the air.' In the deep desert, to the westward, the herdsmen and travellers through these regions style it chittrám, the picture;' while about the plains of the Chumbol and Jumna they term it dessasúr, the omen of the quarter.' This optical deception has been noticed from the remotest times. The prophet Isaiah alludes to it when he says and the parched ground shall become a pool;' which the critic has justly rendered and the sehráb shall become real water.' Quintus Curtius, describing the mirage in the Sogdian desert, says that for the space of four hundred furlongs not a drop of water is to be found, and the sun's heat being very vehement in summer, kindles such a fire in the sands that everything is burnt up. There also arises such an exhalation that the plains wear the appearance of a vast and deep sea,' which is an exact description of the chittrám of the Indian desert. But the sehráb and chittrám, the true mirage of Isaiah, differ from that illusion called the see-kote, and though the traveller will hasten to it in order to obtain a night's lodging, I do not think he would expect to slake his thirst there. When we witnessed this phenomenon, at first the eye was attracted by a lofty opaque wall of lurid smoke, which seemed to be bounded by or to rise from the very verge of the horizon. By slow degrees, the dense mass became more transparent, and assumed a reflecting or refracting power; shrubs were magnified into trees; the dwarf khyre appeared ten times larger than the gigantic amli of the forest. A ray of light suddenly broke the line of continuity of this yet smoky barrier, and, as if touched by the enchanter's wand, castles, towers, and trees were seen in an aggregated cluster, partly obscured by magnificent foliage. Every accession of light produced a change in the chittram, which, from the dense wall that it first exhibited, had now faded into a thin transparent film broken into a thousand masses, each mass being a huge lens, until at length the too vivid power of the sun dissolved the vision; castles, towers, and foliage melted like the enchantment of Prospero into thin air.' But the difference between the sehrab or chittrám and the see-kote or dessasúr is, that the latter is never visible but in the cold season, when the gross vapours cannot rise, and that the rarefaction which gives existence to the other destroys this whenever the sun has attained 20° of elevation. *Bib. Univ., June, 1830. A high wind is alike adverse to the phenomenon, and it will mostly be observed that it covets shelter, and its general appearance is a long line, which is sure to be sustained by some height, such as if it required support. The first time I observed it was in the Jesipoor country: none of the party had ever witnessed it in the British provinces. It appeared like an immense walled town, with bastions; nor could we give credit to our guides when they talked of the see-kote, and assured us that the objects were inerely castles in the air. I have since seen, though but once, this panoramic scene in motion, and nothing can be imagined more beautiful. It was in Kotah, just as the sun rose, whilst walking on the terraced roof of the garden-house of my residence, as I looked towards the low range which bounds the sight to the south-east, the hills appeared in motion, sweeping with an undulating or rotatory movement along the horizon, trees and buildings were magnified, and all seemed a kind of enchantment. Some minutes elapsed before I could account for this wonder, until I determined that it must be the masses of a floating mirage, which had attained its most attenuated form, and being carried by a gentle current of air past the tops and sides of the hills while it was itself imperceptible, made them appear in motion. But, although this was novel and pleasing, it wanted the splendour of the scene of the morning, which I never saw equalled but once. This occurred at Hissar, on the terrace of James Lumsdaine's house, built amidst the ruins of the castle of Fero, in the centre of one extended waste, where the lion was the sole inhabitant, that I saw the most perfect specimen of this phenomenon. It was really sublime. Let the reader fancy himself in the midst of a desert plain, with nothing to impede the wide scope of vision; his horizon bounded by a lofty black wall encompassing him on all sides; let him watch the first sunbeam break upon this barrier, and at once, as by a touch of magic, shiver it into a thousand fantastic forms, leaving a splintered pinnacle in one place, a tower in another, an arch in a third, these in turn, undergoing more than kaleidoscopic changes until the fairy fabric' vanishes. Here it was emphatically called Hurchuna Raja ca poori, or the city of Raja Hurchuna,' a celebrated prince of the brazen age of India. The power of reflection shewn by this phenomenon cannot be better described than by stating that it brought the very ancient Aggaroa, which is thirteen miles distant, with its fort and bastions, close to my view. The difference, then, between the mirage and the see-kote is that the former exhibits a horizontal, the latter a columnar or vertical stratification, and in the latter case likewise, a contrast to the other, its maximum of translucency is the last stage of its existence. In this stage it is only an eye accustomed to the phenomenon that can perceive it at all. I have passed over the plains of Meerut with a friend who had been thirty years in India, and he did not observe a see-kote then before our eyes; in fact so complete was the illusion, that we only saw the town and fort considerably nearer. Indeed, whoever notices while at sea the atmospheric phenomena of these southern latitudes, will be struck by the deformity of objects as they pass through this medium; what the sailors term a fog-bank is the first stage of our see-kote. I observed it on my voyage home, but more especially in my passage out. About six o'clock on a dark evening, while we were dancing on the water, I perceived a ship bearing down with full sail upon us so distinctly, that I gave the alarm in expectation of a collision; so far as I recollect, the helm was instantly up, and in a second no ship was to be seen. The laugh was against me. I had seen the 'Flying Dutchman,' according to the opinion of the experienced officer on deck, and I believed it was really a vision of the mind; but I now feel convinced it was either the reflection of our own ship in a passing cloud of this vapour, or a more distant object therein refracted *. 30. VILLAGE LIGHTED BY NATURAL GAS. The village of Fredonia in the western part of the state of New York presents this singular phenomenon. I was detained there a day in October of last year, and had an opportunity of examining it at leisure. The village is forty miles from Buffalo, and about two from lake Erie; a small but rapid stream called the Canadaway passes through it, and after turning several mills discharges itself into the lake below; near the mouth is a small harbour with a lighthouse. While removing an old mill which stood partly over this stream in Fredonia, three years since, some bubbles were observed to break frequently from the water, and on trial were found to be inflammable. A company was formed, and a hole an inch and a half in diameter, being bored through the rock, a soft fetid limestone, the gas left its natural channel and ascended through this. A gasometer was then constructed, with a small house for its protection, and pipes being laid, the gas is conveyed through the whole village. One hundred lights are fed from it more or less, at an expense of one dollar and a half yearly for each. The flame is large, but not so strong or brilliant as that from gas in our cities: it is, however, in high favour with the inhabitants. The gasometer I found on measurement collected eighty-eight cubic feet in twelve hours during the day; but the man who has charge of it told me that more might be procured with a larger apparatus. About a mile from the village, and in the same stream, it comes up in quantities four or five times as great. The contractor for the lighthouse purchased the right to it, and laid pipes to the lake; but found it impossible to make it descend, the difference in elevation being very great. It preferred its old natural channels, and bubbled up beyond the reach of his gasometer. The gas is carburetted hydrogen, and is supposed to come from beds of bituminous coal: the only rock visible, however, both here, and to a great extent on both sides along the southern shore of the lake, is fetid limestone †. * Silliman's Journal, xvii. 398. + Brewster's Journal, 1830, p. 265. 31. SINGULAR NATURAL SOUND. In the autumn of 1828, when on a tour through Les Hautes Pyrenées,' says a recent traveller, I quitted Bagneses de Luchon at midnight, with an intention of reaching the heights of Porte de Venasque-one of the wildest and most romantic boundaries between the French and Spanish frontier, from the summit of which, the spectator looks at once upon the inaccessible ridges of the Maladetta, the most lofty point of the Pyrenean range. After winding our way through the deep woods and ravines, constantly ascending above the valley of Luchon, we gained the Hospice about two in the morning, and after remaining there a short time, proceeded with the first blush of dawn, to encounter the very steep gorge terminating in the pass itself, a narrow vertical fissure through a wall of massive and perpendicular rock. It is not my intention to detail the features of the magnificent scene which burst upon our view, as we emerged from this splendid portal, and stood upon Spanish ground-neither to describe the feelings of awe which riveted us to the spot, as we gazed, in speechless admiration, on the lone, desolate, and (if the term may be applied to a mountain) the ghastly form of the appropriately named Maladetta. I allude to it solely for the purpose of observing, that we were most forcibly struck with a dull, low, moaning, Æolian sound, which alone broke upon the deathly silence, evidently proceeding from the body of this mighty mass, though we in vain attempted to connect it with any particular spot, or assign any adequate cause for these solemn strains. The air was perfectly calm; the sky was cloudless; and the atmosphere clear to that extraordinary degree, conceivable only by those who are familiar with the elevated regions of southern climates; so clear, and pure indeed, that at noon a bright star which had attracted our notice through the grey of the morning, still remained visible in the zenith. By the naked eye, therefore, and still more with the assistance of a telescope, any waterfalls of sufficient magnitude would have been distinguishable on a front base, and exposed before us; but not a stream was to be detected, and the bed of what gave evident tokens of being occasionally a strong torrent, intersecting the valley at its foot, was then nearly dry. I will not presume to assert, that the sun's rays, though at that moment impinging in all their glory on every point and peak of the snowy heights, had any share in vibrating these mountain chords; but on a subsequent visit, a few days afterwards, when I went alone to explore this wild scenery, and at the same hour stood on the same spot, I listened in vain for the moaning sounds: the air was equally calm, but the sun was hidden by clouds, and a cap of dense mist hung over the greater portion of the mountain*.? N. M. Mag. xxx. 341. |