Page images
PDF
EPUB

say, however (speaking within bounds), that three or four barbarous instances of cruelty occurred weekly. The usual way was for the terrified culprit to be held down by four others, and thus flogged on the bare flesh. The whip, when "well laid on," as the planters term it, produces exactly the same effect as if one was to cut the parts in scores with a knife, so well is the whip used. Some experienced drivers will, at each stroke, cut out a piece of flesh; and, after the flogging is over, then comes the rum and salt pickle, on the application of which the lacerated victim writhes and contorts himself in dreadful agony.

I am told by a friend of mine, now established in Edinburgh, who was upwards of two years a book-keeper on Greenside estate, TreJawney, that it was a common custom on that estate to bring out, every Monday morning, those hospital negroes who had sore legs, &c., and to have them severely flogged, for no earthly reason whatever than to induce them to go to their work, and to prevent others taking refuge in the hospital!

An overseer is extremely jealous of strangers speaking to the slaves; and woe betide even a junior book-keeper if he should be heard to drop a word of commiseration! For merely speaking a few words to a negro one afternoon I was debarred from the breakfast-table of the whites for several weeks.

The planters of Jamaica, and their underlings, live in gross and openly avowed profligacy. Their general conversation, in short, is one long detail of disgusting obscenity. At the dinner-table each endeavours to outstrip his neighbours, in going the greatest length with the details of their licentiousness. Hoaryheaded men, on the confines of eternity, are quite as much depraved as the youngest, and more hardened. To enter into any description of such conduct would be to outrage decency. Suffice it to say, that many overseers do themselves seduce the young girls under their charge, and actually boast at table of their facility in doing so. The book-keepers are recommended by the overseer, in a strain that almost amounts to a command, to take black girls for their housekeepers, alias mistresses. The overseer at Llandovery used to say that not a single packet letter came from the proprietors in England in which the small increase of Mulattoes, children of the bookkeepers by female slaves, was not complained of; and whether by orders of the proprietor or attorney I cannot say, but I solemnly declare that rewards, in the shape of articles of dress, were openly held out to those book-keepers whose mistresses should have children, and thus add to the stock of the estate!

From what fell under my own observation, and from the conversations I had occasionally with the slaves, who are particularly shrewd in contending for their rights, I am persuaded that imminent danger attends the continuance of the system.

The slaves have among them a confident hope of emancipation from the British Government; and my impression is, that should that hope be destroyed, or much longer deferred, they will rise and take it themselves.

My conscientious belief is that immediate emancipation may safely take place, and that any substitute for that measure, under the pretence of education, or further preparation, will be quickly followed by the most frightful results.

THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG.

rolling of the r's-and if, upon his repeating this three or four times, the intruder should not retire, he flies to another bush; yet if he be approached very gently, so that he should not be frightened, he will sometimes show himself and sing within a couple of yards of the spectator, when the wonderful distension of his throat will be very obvious, and when it is impossible not to admire the lightness and elegance of his form, and the amazing long hops he frequently takes from bough to bough. -Field Naturalist's Magazine.

No. XI.

NOVELS CONCLUSION.

THE characteristic trait of the nightingale's song consists in his very superior powers of execution; he has an infinite variety of the most beautiful and complex rolls and quavers, all of which are delivered with a perspicuity and richness of tone peculiar to himself. The best description, however, would convey but an inadequate idea of the musical powers of the nightingale; he must be heard to be duly appreciated. His song is generally wild and unconnected, like that of the thrush; but when he joins his notes a little, as he sometimes though rarely does, nothing can be conceived more exquisite. His habit also of singing MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE during the calm stillness of the night, when OF THE CLASSICS. almost without a competitor, adds considerably to the effect. To hear him, however, in perfection, we should ramble along the margin of a wood on a fine spring morning; when, after a passing shower, the sun bursts forth in all his splendour, and nature smiles in all her vernal loveliness; when drops of water glisten through the opening leaves, and every breeze wafts fragrance: then it is the feathered choristers are heard in all their melody; the thrilling music of the thrush; the deep-toned mellow warble of the blackbird; the whistling of the willow-wren and blackcap, loud and clear; the charming, ever-varied song of the little garden warbler, rising and falling in softest, sweetest cadences on the enraptured sense; with the joint chorus of a thousand little throats, each striving to excel the rest in harmony; while the murmuring of the turtles, and the pleasing call of the cuckoo, serve to furnish variety, and to give an exquisite finish to the whole, then it is the nightingale is heard to advantage; high over all the rest he makes the woods re-echo to his song of joy.

A SERIOUS observer must acknowledge, with regret, that such a class of productions as novels, in which folly has tried to please in a greater number of shapes than the poet enumerates in the Paradise of Fools, is capable of producing a very considerable effect on the moral taste of the community. A large proportion of them, however, are probably of too slight and insipid a consistence to have any more specific counteraction to Christian principles than that of mere folly in general; excepting, indeed, that the most flimsy of them will occasionally contribute their mite of mischief, by alluding to a Christian profession in a manner that identifies it with the cant by which hypocrites have aped it, or the extravagance with which fanatics have inflated or distorted it. But a great and direct force of counteracting influence is emitted from those which eloquently display characters of eminent vigour The nightingale may easily be distinguished and virtue, when it is a virtue having no basis from all other British songsters by the wonder- in religion; a factitious thing resulting from fully clear and distinct manner in which he the mixture of dignified pride with generous executes an endless variety of most compli- feeling; or constituted of those philosophical cated and inimitable shakes and quavers. His principles which are too often accompanied, in song, indeed, is quite unlike that of any other these works, by an avowed or strongly intiBritish bird, and many of his most frequently mated contempt of the interference of any rerepeated notes are known to the London ligion, especially the Christian. If the case is dealers by particular names. Thus, one that mended in some of these productions into is universally admired, is that which is com- which an awkward religion has found its way, monly called by them " sweet-jug," from a it is rather because the characters excite less fancied resemblance in the sound. It is a note interest of any kind, than because any which that he frequently utters, and may be tolerably they do excite is favourable to religion. No expressed thus,-huep, huip, huipp, hueep, reader is likely to be impressed with the digheep, hueep, hueep, chuck, chuck, chuck; the nity of being a Christian by seeing, in one of former part to be pronounced very slowly, in these works, an attempt to combine that chaa kind of half whisper, half whistle; the latter racter with the fine gentleman, by means of a part, "chuck," is repeated about a dozen most ludicrous apparatus of amusements and times, and so quick and distinct as to set all sacraments, churches and theatres, morning imitation at defiance: sometimes, instead of prayers and evening balls. Nor will it, perchuck, it is terminated by a kind of roll, re-haps, be of any great service to the Christian sembling tottle-tottle-tottle; this sudden tran- cause, that some others of them profess to exsition from high to very deep notes has an ex-emplify and defend, against the cavils and tremely pleasing effect. Other remarkably fine notes have been likened to the words water-bubble, whitlow, &c. This mode of illustrating the song of a bird may perhaps at first sight appear unnecessary, but it is the only method in which a just idea can be given; and if by this description the bird should be immediately recognized by those who had not before heard it, as I conceive it would, the object is, of course, accomplished.

When the nightingale is singing, concealed in a bush, he will not suffer himself to be approached too near; and, though he does not immediately fly, he ceases to sing, and signifies his displeasure by a peculiar croak-resembling the word curre, pronounced with a

scorn of infidels, a religion of which it does not appear that the writers would have discovered the merits had it not been established by law. One may doubt whether any one will be more than amused by the venerable priest, who is introduced probably among libertine lords and giddy girls, to maintain the sanctity of terms, and attempt the illustration of doctrines, which these well-meaning writers do not perceive that the worthy gentleman's college, diocesan, and library, have but very imperfectly enabled him to understand. If the reader even wished to be more than amused, it is easy to imagine how much he would be likely to be instructed and affected by such an illustration or defence of the Christian religion as the writer of a

fashionable novel would deem a graceful or admissible expedient for filling up his plot. One cannot close such a review of our fine writers without melancholy reflections. That cause which will raise all its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on the last and most solemn day the world has to behold, and will make them great for ever, presented its claims full in sight of each of these authors in his time. The very lowest of those claims could not be less than a conscientious solicitude to beware of every thing that could in any point injure the sacred cause. This claim has been slighted by so many as have lent attraction to an order of moral sentiments greatly discordant with its principles. And so many are gone into eternity under the charge of having employed their genius, as the magicians their enchantments against Moses, to counteract the Saviour of the world.

Under what restrictions, then, ought the study of polite literature to be conducted? I cannot but have foreseen that this question must return at the end of these observations; and I am sorry to have no better answer to give than before, when the question came in the way, inconveniently enough, to perplex the conclusion to be drawn from the considerations on the tendency of the classical literature. Polite literature will necessarily continue to be a large department of the grand school of intellectual and moral cultivation. The evils, therefore, which it may contain, will as certainly affect in some degree the minds of the successive pupils, and teachers also, as the hurtful influence of the climate, or of the seasons, will affect their bodies. To be thus affected is a part of the destiny under which they are born in a civilized country. It is indispensable to acquire the advantage; it is inevitable to incur the evil. The means of counteraction will amount, it is to be feared, to no more than palliatives. Nor can these be proposed in any specific method. All that I can do is, to urge on the reader of taste the very serious duty of continually recalling to his mind, and, if he be a parent or preceptor, of cogently representing to those he instructs, the real character of religion as exhibited in the Christian revelation, and the reasons which command an inviolable adherence to it.

DESCRIPTION OF MOUNT ÆTNA

AND ITS ERUPTIONS.

THE great crater itself may be described as a cup, or hollow at the top of a conical hill, rising equally on all sides. The hill is composed chiefly of sand and ashes, thrown up from the mouth at different periods; and at present it is ten miles in circumference, and a quarter of a mile in height. The crater presents the appearance of an inverted cone, the inside of which is covered with salts and sulphur of various colours; it is oval in its figure, shelving down from the aperture. Sir W. Hamilton, 1769, calculated the circumference at two miles and a half; Mr. Brydone, 1770, at three miles and a half; Mr. D'Orville, 1727, at three or four miles. In 1788, Spalanzani, who visited this phenomenon, describes the inner sides as terminating in a plain of half a mile in circuit, in the centre of which is a circular aperture of five poles in diameter, contained within the cavity, apparently in a state of ebullition. Several stones that he threw in fell dead as into a thick paste; but those that did not fall into the

top, or bursting through the sides of the mountain; a complete liquid mass of melted mineral matter, running like a river, and destroying the face of nature wherever it comes.

matter made quite a different sound, a cir-
cumstance which led him to conclude that
the bottom was solid. Reidsdel observes, that
no sound at all was produced by throwing
stones into the gulph, but he heard a roaring The explosions of Ætna have been recorded
like the sea. The crater stood to the east, with from a very early period. Diodorus Siculus
one opening, which no longer exists. Mr. mentions eruptions of it 500 years before the
D'Orville tells us that he and his companion, Trojan war, or 1693 years before the Christian
having fastened themselves by ropes, held by æra. This is that which drove, he says, the
men at the top, went down the shelving sides Sicani from the eastern part of Sicily, which
to the very mouth of the gulph. They beheld they then inhabited. Thucydides mentions
a conic mass of matter in the middle, to the three eruptions, of which the second was the
height of about sixty feet, the base, as far as most remarkable. It happened the second
they could trace it, nearly 800 feet, from year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, when
which small lambent flames and smoke issued Phædon was archon of Athens, and when the
in every direction. While they were there, army of Xerxes was defeated by the Atheni-
the north side of the mountain began to throw ans, at Platea. Both the victory and eruption
out flames and ashes, accompanied by a bel- are recorded in an ancient inscription on the
lowing noise, on which they retired. Strabo Oxford marble. During this eruption, Am-
describes the top of the mountain as a level phinomus and Anapis, two Sicilian youths,
plain, with a smoking hill in the centre. Spa-rushed into the midst of the flames, and saved
lanzani as bifurcated, for he saw another emi- the lives of their aged parents, at the immi-
nence a quarter of a mile distant, with ano- nent peril of their own, on which account a
ther crater, though not of equal dimension. temple has been consecrated to their memory.
M. Houel speaks of three eminences, 1782,
like an isosceles triangle, only two of which
could be perceived from any distance, in the
midst of which is the principal crater, in dia-
meter about sixty feet. According to Fazello,
there was a hill produced in 1444, which fell
into the crater after an eruption, and mingled
with the melted mass. Borelli writes that the
summit of the mountain rose up like a tower,
and, during the eruption of 1669, fell into the
crater. The whole structure and appearance
of the mountain is thus evidently subject to
great changes.

The stones ejected from Etna are granitic, or calcareous, surrounded with columns of basalt, which M. Dolomien terms "prismatic lava." Spalanzani supposes the shore to be volcanic for twenty-three miles. The same writer observes that there is on Etna a great scarcity of water, owing, as he imagines, to the rain's falling on scoriæ, in which it sinks for want of those various argillaceous strata which retain it in other mountains. Others aflirm that the mountain is well watered, that there are intermitting springs which flow during the day only, and stop in the night, a fact which may arise from the melting of the snow, which ceases as the night comes on; that there are streams always pouring from the side of the mountain, unquestionably originating in some permanent source; that there are poisonous springs, fine salt springs, &c.

An approaching eruption of Mount Etna is indicated various ways. There is at first an increase of the white smoke issuing from the top of the crater, intermingled with volumes of black smoke in the centre. These are attended by slight explosions, and followed by red flashes, or rather streams of fire, perpetually increasing in number, and growing in dimension, till the whole becomes one entire black column, highly electrical, illuminated by frequent lightnings, and attended by occasional thunder. These phenomena are followed by showers of red hot stones and ashes: the former projected often to a great distance, and the latter wafted sometimes by the winds, and carried 100 miles, setting fire to buildings, and destroying the face of vegetation. Recupero tells us that he had known rocks thrown up to the altitude of 7000 feet. M. Houel saw one of these stones, which had been projected from the mouth of Etna, whose weight was not less than sixteen tons. It is generally three or four months before the lava makes its appearance, boiling over the

The third eruption mentioned by Thucydides occurred in the year before Christ, 425, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, and desolated part of the Catanian territory. He mentions it in the third book on the Peloponnesian war, in these words:"About the spring of the year à torrent of fire overflowed from Mount Etna, in the same manner as formerly, which destroyed part of the lands of the Catanians, who are situated at the foot of that mountain, which is the largest in all Sicily. It is said that fifty years intervened between this flow and the last which preceded; and that, in the whole, the fire has thus issued thrice since Sicily was inhabited by the Grecians."

THE COCOOY, QUEEN BEETLE.

THIS astonishing insect is about one inch and a quarter in length; and, what is wonderful to relate, she carries by her side, just above her waist, two brilliant lamps, which she lights up at pleasure with the solar phosphorus furnished her by nature. These little lamps do not flash and glimmer like that of the fire-fly, but give as steady a light as the gas light, exhibiting two perfect spheres, as large as a minute pearl, which affords light enough in the darkest night to enable one to read print by them. On carrying her into a dark closet in the day time, she immediately illuminates her lamps, and instantly extinguishes them on coming again into the light But language cannot describe the beauty and sublimity of these lucid orbs in miniature, with which nature has endowed the queen of the insect kingdom.-New York Advertiser.

RAPID FLIGHT.

THE rapidity with which the hawk and many other birds occasionally fly, is probably not less than at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles an hour; the common crow twentyfive miles an hour; a swallow, ninety-two miles an hour; and the swift three times greater. Migratory birds probably about fifty miles an hour.

Printed by J. HADDON and Co.; and Published by J. CRISP, at No. 27, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, where all Advertisements and Communications for the Editor are to be addressed.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

bears some resemblance to that of a large ship inclined upon its keel; its length is about thirty-one yards; and its weight has been computed at nearly 1800 tons. A little earth on its top affords nourishment to a few small trees.

AMONG the antiquities of this and other | logists say, a broken fragment from some | about twelve feet over its base. Its shape countries are many remains of art for which after generations find it difficult to account. Their origin is sometimes dependent on long-lost secrets, and they only serve to exercise the wonder and the speculations of posterity. The above engraving represents an instance in which nature has played a similar part. The huge mass called the Bowder Stone is found nearly opposite to Castle Crag, in a most romantic part of Cumberland, It rests on some fragments of rock, and and the difficulty is to guess how it came lies almost hollow; the road winding there. It would seem to be, as the geo-round its eastern side, which projects

neighbouring crags, the veins and general
character of the stone being precisely
similar. It is not, however, in such a
situation as it would occupy had it simply
fallen from those crags; and if there ever
was a generation of men who could
amuse themselves by removing it to its The whole scene is vast, wild, and
present station, they must have been fel- precipitous. Its chief features are sub-
low-tenants of this world with the Mam-lime hills and crags, so irregularly situ
moth and Leviathan.

ated that the emission of any loud sound occasions the most tumultuous reverberations. "It is utterly impossible," says a popular writer, "for a lively imagina

tion; unused to the delusion, to experience it without a momentary belief that he is surrounded by the unseen spirits of the mountains reproving his intrusion into their sacred recesses in vocal thunder." The universal uproar produced amidst these eminences by a burst of laughter has been most characteristically delineated by Wordsworth in the following lines:

"'Twas that delightful season, when the broom,
Full flower'd, and visible on every steep,
Along the copses runs in veins of gold:
Our pathway led us on to Rotha's banks;
And when we came in front of that tall rock

Which looks towards the east, I there stopp'd

short,

And traced the lofty barrier with my eye
From base to summit: such delight I found
To note in shrub and tree, in stone and flower,
That intermixture of delicious hues
Along so vast a surface, all at once,
In one impression, by connecting force
Of their own beauty, imaged in the heart.
-When I had gazed, perhaps, two minutes space,
Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld

*

That ravishment of mine, and laugh'd aloud.
The rock, like something starting from a sleep,
Took up the lady's voice, and laugh'd again :
That ancient woman, seated on Helm-crag,
Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,
And the tall steep of Silver-how, sent forth
A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,
And Fairfied answer'd with a mountain tone :
Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky
Carried the lady's voice; old Skiddaw blew
His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds
Of Glamarara southward came the voice;
And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.
Now whether (said I to our cordial friend,
Who, in the hey-dey of astonishment,
Smil'd in my face) this were, in simple truth,
A work accomplish'd by the brotherhood
Of ancient mountains, or my ear were touch'd
With dreams and visionary impulses,
Is not for me to tell; but sure I am,
That there was a loud uproar in the hills;
And while we both were listening, to my side
The fair Joanna drew, as if she wish'd
To shelter from some object of her fear."

SKETCH OF DR. PALEY.

"HE never seemed to know," says his son, "that he deserved the name of a politician, and would probably have been equally amused at the grave attempts made to draw him into, or withdraw him from, any political bias." He would employ himself in his Natural Theology, and then gather his peas for dinner, very likely gathering some hint for his work at the same time. He would converse with his classical neighbour, Mr. Yates, or he would reply to his invitation that he could not come, for that he was busy knitting. He would station himself at his garden wall, which overhung the river, and watch the progress of a cast-iron bridge in building, asking questions of the architect, and carefully examining every pin and screw with which it was put together. He would loiter along a river, with his angle-rod, musing upon what he supposed to pass in the mind of a pike when he bit, and when he refused to bite; or he would stand by the sea-side, and speculate upon what a young shrimp could "With the mean by jumping in the sun.

[ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

handle of his stick in his mouth, he would move about his garden in a short hurried step, now stopping to contemplate a butterfly, a flower, or a snail, and now earnestly engaged in some new arrangement of his flower-pots." He would take from his own table to his study the back-bone of a hare or a fish's head; and he would pull out of his pocket, after a walk, a plant or stone to be made tributary to an argument. His manuscripts were as motley as his occupations; the workshop of a mind ever on the alert: evidences mixed up with memorandums for his will; an interesting discussion brought to an untimely end by the hiring of servants, the letting of fields, sending his boys to school, reproving the refractory there one of his children's exercises-in anomembers of an hospital; here a dedication, ther place a receipt for cheap soup. He would amuse his fireside by family anecdotes-how one of his ancestors (and he was praised as a pattern of perseverance) separated two pounds of white and black pepper which had been accidentally mixed-"patiens pulveris," he might truly have added; and how, when the Paley arms were wanted, recourse was had to a family tankard which was supposed to bear them, but which he always took a malicious pleasure in insisting had been bought at a

sale

"Hæc est

Vita solutorum miserà ambitione gravique;" the life of a man far more happily employed than in the composition of political pamphlets, or in the nurture of political discontent. Nay, when his friend Mr. Carlyle is about going out with Lord Elgin to Constantinople, the very head-quarters of despotism, we do not perceive, amongst the multitude of most characteristic hints and queries which Paley addresses to him, a single fling at the Turk, or a single hope expressed that the day was not very far distant when the Cossacks would be permitted to erect the standard of liberty in his capital.

"I will do your visitation for you (Mr. Carlyle was chancellor of the diocese), in case of your absence, with the greatest pleasureit is neither a difficulty nor a favour.

“Observanda-1. Compare every thing with English and Cumberland scenery-e. g., rivers with Eden, groves with Corby, mountains with Skiddaw; your sensations of buildings, streets, persons, &c. &c.; e. g., whether the Mufti be like Dr. —, the Grand Seignior, Mr.

minutely from morning to night-what you "2. Give us one day at Constantinople do, see, eat, and hear.

"3. Let us know what the common people have to dinner; get, if you can, a peasant's actual dinner and bottle: for instance, if you see a man working in the fields, call to him to bring the dinner he has with him, and describe it minutely.

*

*

*

*

*

*

"4. The diversions of the common people; whether they seem to enjoy their amusements, and be happy, and sport, and laugh; farmhouses, or any thing answering to them, and of what kind; same of public-houses, roads.

"5. Their shops; how you get your breeches mended, or things done for you, and how (i. e., well or ill done); whether you see the tailor, converse with him, &c.

"6. Get into the inside of a cottage; describe furniture, utensils, what you find actually doing.

"All the stipulations I make with you for doing your visitation is, that you come over to Wearmouth soon after your return, for you

will be very entertaining between truth and lying. I have a notion you will find books, but in great confusion as to catalogues, classing, &c.

7. Describe minutely how you pass one day on ship-board; learn to take and apyly funar, or other observations, and how the midshipmen, &c., do it.

66

8. What sort of fish you get, and how dressed. I should think your business would be to make yourself master of the middle Greek. My compliments to Buonaparte, if you meet with him, which I think is very likely. Pick up little articles of dress, tools, furniture, especially from low life-as an actual smock, &c.

"9. What they talk about; company.

"10. Describe your impression upon first seeing things; upon catching the first view of Constantinople; the novelties of the first day you pass there.

"In all countries and climates, nations and languages, carry with you the best wishes of, dear Carlyle, "Your affectionate friend,

"W. PALEY." Such was Paley. A man singularly without guile, and yet often misunderstood or misrepresented; a man who was thought to have no learning, because he had no pedantry, and who was too little of a quack to be reckoned a philosopher; who would have been infallibly praised as a useful writer on the theory of government, if he had been more visionaryand would have been esteemed a deeper divine, if he had not been always so intelligible; who has been suspected of being never serious because he was often jocular, and before those, it should seem, who were not to be trusted with a joke; who did not deal much in protestations of his faith, counting it proof enough of his sincerity (we are ashamed of noticing even thus far insinuations against it) to bring arguments for the truth of Christianity unanswered and unanswerable-to pour forth exhortations to the fulfilment of the duties enjoined by it,

the most solemn and intense-and to evince his own practical sense of its influence, by crowning his labours with a work to the glory and praise of God, at a season when his hand was heaviest upon him-a work which lives, and ever will live, to testify that no pains of body could shake for a moment his firm and settled persuasion, that in every thing, and at every crisis, we are God's creatures, that life is passed in his constant presence, and that death resigns us to his merciful disposal.Quarterly Review.

REVIEWS.

A TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY. By Sir JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL, Knight Guelp., F.R.S., &c. &c. Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, Vol. XLIII.

IF our readers have never yet interested

themselves in astronomy, they have now an opportunity of acquainting themselves with that science, through the medium of a volume which is almost equally suited to the tastes of a literary and a scientific reader. The perspicuity with which this distinguished writer conveys his valuable instructions is such as to clear him entirely from the charge of empi ricism which has in former times marked the students of the more profound physical sciences. He brings down the truths and discoveries which he has elaborated, by means of great

research, and great scientific learning, to the level of almost every capacity, and fits them for the reception of such as are but very partially instructed in the subject. A few specimens of these distinguishing traits, as exhibited in the volume before us, will be more atisfactory than any description of ours. The following remarks respecting the moon will be read with interest, considered not merely as peculations, but, in most instances, as facts attested by mathematical proof.

vious phenomena of the heavens, he has the which we can form no conception from any ana-
following most elegant and interesting pas-logy offered by our own system, may be circula-
sages.
ting.
"Enormous Distances of the Stars.-In the pro-
portion of 200,000 to 1, then, at least, must the
distance of the nearest fixed star from the sun
exceed that of the sun from the earth. The latter
distance, as we have already seen, exceeds the
earth's radius in the proportion of 24,000 to 1;

"Saturn's Rings.-The rings of Saturn must present a magnificent spectacle from those regions of the planet which lie above their enlightened sides, as vast arches spanning the sky from horizon to horizon, and holding an invariable situation among the stars. On the other hand, in the regions beneath the dark side, a solar eclipse of fifteen years in duration, under their shadow, must afford (to our ideas) an inhospitable asylum to animated beings, ill compensated by the faint light of the satellites. But we shall do wrong to judge of the fitness or unfitness, of their condition from what we see around us, when, perhaps, the very combinations which convey to our minds only images of horror, may be in reality theatres of the most striking and glorious displays of beneficent contrivance.

"The generality of the lunar mountains present a striking uniformity and singularity of aspect. They are wonderfully numerous, occupying by far the larger portion of the surface, and almost universally of an exactly circular or cup-shaped form, foreshortened, however, into ellipses towards the limb; but the larger have, for the most part, flat bottoms within, from which rises centrally a small, steep, conical hill. They offer, in short, in its "The small Planets. No doubt the most rehighest perfection, the true volcanic character, as markable of their peculiarities must lie in this it may be seen in the crater of Vesuvius, and in condition of their state. A man placed on one of Breislak's map of the volcanic districts of the them would spring with ease sixty feet high, and Campi Phlegrei, or those of the Puy de Dome, sustain no greater shock in his descent than he in Desmarest's of Auvergne. And, in some of does on the earth from leaping a yard. On such the principal ones, decisive marks of volcanic planets giants might exist; and those enormous stratification, arising from successive deposits of animals, which on earth require the buoyant ejected matter, may be clearly traced with power-power of water to counteract their weight, might ful telescopes. What is, moreover, extremely sin. gular in the geology of the moon is, that although nothing having the character of seas can be traced (for the dusky spots which are commonly called seas, when closely examined, present appearances incompatible with the supposition of deep water), yet there are large regions perfectly level, and apparently of a decided alluvial character.

The moon has no clouds, nor any other indications of an atmosphere. Hence its climate must be very extraordinary; the alternation being that of unmitigated and burning sunshine fiercer than an equatorial noon, continued for a whole fortnight, and the keenest severity of frost, far exceeding that of our polar winters, for an equal time. Such a disposition of things must produce a constant transfer of whatever moisture may exist on its surface, from the point beneath the sun to that opposite, by distillation in vacuo after the manner of the little instrument called a cryophorus. The consequence must be absolute aridity below the vertical sun, constant accretion of hoar frost in the opposite region, and, perhaps, a narrower zone of running water at the borders of the enlightened hemisphere. It is possible, then, that evaporation on the one hand, and condensation on the other, may, to a certain extent, preserve an equilibrium of temperature, and mitigate the extreme severity of both climates.

culation there is no end.
there be denizens of the land. But of such spe-

and, lastly, to descend to ordinary standards, the

earth's radius is 4000 of our miles. The distance of the nearest star, then, cannot be so small as 4,800,000,000 radii of the earth, ΟΙ 19,200,000,000,000 miles! How much larger it may be we know not.

"The only mode we have of conceiving such intervals at all is by the time which it would require for light to traverse them. Now light, as we know, travels at the rate of 192,000 miles per second. It would, therefore, occupy 100,000,000 seconds, or upwards of three years, in such a journey, at the very lowest estimate. What, then, are we to allow for the distance of those innumerable stars of the smaller magnitudes, which the telescope discloses to us? If we admit the light of a star of each magnitude to be half that of the magnitude next above it, it will follow that a star of the first magnitude will require to be removed to 362 times its distance to appear no larger than one of the sixteenth. It follows, therefore, that among the countless multitude of such stars, visible in telescopes, there must be many whose light has taken at least a thousand years to reach us; and that when we observe their places, and note their changes, we are, in fact, reading only their history of a thousand years' date, thus wonderfully recorded.

"Enormous Dimensions of Comets. It remains to say a few words on the actual dimensions of comets. The calculation of the diameters of their heads, and the length and breadths of their tails, offers not the slightest difficulty when once the elements of their orbits are known, for by these we know their real distances from the earth at "Double Stars.-But it is not with the revoluany time, and the true direction of the tail, which tions of bodies of a planetary or cometary nature we see only foreshortened. Now, calculations round a solar centre that we are now concerned; instituted on these principles lead to the surpris- it is that of sun around sun-each, perhaps, acing facts that the comets are by far the most companied with its train of planets and their satelvoluminous bodies in our system. The fol- lites, closely shrouded from our view by the splenlowing are the dimensions of some of those dour of their respective suns, and crowded into a which have been made the subjects of such in- space bearing hardly a greater proportion to the quiry :-The tail of the great comet of 1680, imenormous interval which separates them, than the mediately after its perihelion passage, was found distances of the satellites of our planets from their by Newton to have been no less than 20,000,000 of primaries bear to their distances from the sun leagues in length, and to have occupied only two itself. A less distinctly characterized subordinadays in its emission from the comet's body; a de- tion would be incompatible with the stability of cisive proof this of its being dashed forth by some their systems, and with the planetary nature of active force, the origin of which to judge, from their orbits. Unless closely nestled under the the direction of the tail, must be sought in the protecting power of their immediate superior, the sun itself. Its greatest length amounted to sweep of their other sun in its perihelion passage 41,000,000 leagues, a length much exceeding the round their own might carry them off, or whirl whole interval between the sun and earth. The them into orbits utterly incompatible with the tail of the comet of 1769 extended 16,000,000 conditions necessary for the existence of their inleagues, and that of the great comet of 1811, habitants. It must be confessed that we have "Telescopes must yet be greatly improved be- 36,000,000. The portion of the head of this last here a strangely wide and novel field for speculafore we can expect to see signs of inhabitants, as comprised within the transparent atmospheric entive excursions, and one which it is not easy to manifested by edifices or by changes on the sur-velope, which separated it from the tail, was face of the soil. It should, however, be observed, 180,000 leagues in diameter. It is hardly conavoid luxuriating in. that, owing to the small density of the materials ceivable that matter once projected to such enorof the moon, and the comparatively feeble gravi- mous distances should ever be collected again by tation of bodies on her surface, muscular force the feeble attraction of such a body as a cometwould there go six times as far in overcoming the a consideration which accounts for the rapid proweight of materials as on the earth. Owing to gressive diminution of the tails of such as have the want of air, however, it seems impossible that been frequently observed. any form of life analogous to those on earth can subsist there. No appearance indicating vegetation, or the slightest variation of surface which can fairly be ascribed to change of season, can any where be discerned.

[ocr errors]

"The Fixed Stars.-Now, for what are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of space? Surely not to illuminate our nights, which an additional moon of the thousandth part of the size of our own would do much better, If there be inhabitants in the moon, the earth must present to them the extraordinary appear-reality, and bewilder us among vain conjectures. nor to sparkle as a pageant void of meaning and ance of a moon of nearly two degrees in diameter, exhibiting the same phases as we see the moon to do, but immoveably fixed in their sky (or, at least, changing its apparent place only by the small amount of the libration), while the stars must seem to pass slowly beside and behind it. It will appear clouded with variable spots, and belted with equatorial and tropical zones corresponding to our trade-winds; and it may be doubted whether, in their perpetual change, the outlines of our continents and seas can ever be clearly discerned.'

"Nebula.-The nebulæ furnish, in every point of view, an inexhaustible field of speculation and conjecture. That by far the larger share of them consist of stars, there can be little doubt; and in the interminable range of system upon system, and firmament upon firmament, which we thus catch a glimpse of, the imagination is bewildered and lost. On the other hand, if it be true, as, to say the least, it seems extremely probable, that a phosphorescent or self-luminous matter also exists, disseminated through extensive regions of space, in the manner of a cloud or fog-now assuming the wind, and now concentrating itself like a capricious shapes, like actual clouds drifted by Useful, it is true, they are to man as points of cometic atmosphere around particular stars; what have studied astronomy to little purpose who can exact and permanent reference; but he must we naturally ask is, the nature and destination of this nebulous matter. Is it absorbed by the stars suppose man to be the only object of his Creator's in whose neighbourhood it is found, to furnish, by care, or who does not see, in the vast and won-its condensation, the supply of light and heat? derful apparatus around us, provision for other or is it progressively concentrating itself by the have seen, derive their light from the sun; but ing the foundation of new sidereal systems or of races of animated beings. The planets, as we effect of its own gravity into masses, and so laythat cannot be the case with the stars. These, insulated stars? It is easier to propound such doubtless, then, are themselves suns, and may, questions than to offer any probable reply to them. perhaps, each in its sphere, be the presiding Meanwhile, appeal to fact, by the method of conWith respect to some other of the most ob-centre round which other planets, or bodies of stant and diligent observation, is open to us; and,

« PreviousContinue »