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And they who round their brow the jasmine wreathe And pluck the orange bloom, may sigh to breathe The scent of dewy cowslips far away.—E. H. W.

THE SONG OF AUTUMN.

I HAVE painted the woods, I have kindled the sky, I have brightened the hills with a glance of mine eye;

I have scattered the fruits, I have gathered the

corn,

And now from the earth must her verdure be torn.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all-away! away!

No more from the depth of the grove may be heard
The joy-burdened song of its fluttering bird;
I have passed o'er the branches that shelter him
there,

And their quivering drapery is shaken to air.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all-away! away!

Plead not, the days are yet sunny and long,
That your hues are still brightening, your fibres still
strong;

To vigor and beauty, relentless am I—
There is nothing too young or too lovely to die.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all-away! away!

And I call on the winds that repose in the north,
To send their wild voices in unison forth;
Let the harp of the tempest be dolefully strung-
There's a wail to be made, there's a dirge to be

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AUTUMNAL DREAMS.
WHEN the maple turns to crimson
And the sassafras to gold;
When the gentian's in the meadow,
And the aster on the wold;
When the noon is lapped in vapor,
And the night is frosty cold:
When the chestnut-burs are opened,
And the acorns drop like hail,
And the drowsy air is startled

With the thumping of the flail,With the drumming of the partridge And the whistle of the quail:

Through the rustling woods I wander,
Through the jewels of the year,
From the yellow uplands calling,
Seeking her that still is dear:
She is near me in the autumn,
She, the beautiful, is near.

Through the smoke of burning summer, When the weary winds are still,

I can see her in the valley,

I can hear her on the hill,

In the splendor of the woodlands,

In the whisper of the rill.

For the shores of Earth and Heaven
Meet, and mingle in the blue:
She can wander down the glory
To the places that she knew,
Where the happy lovers wandered
In the days when life was true.

So I think, when days are sweetest,
And the world is wholly fair,
She may sometime steal upon me
Through the dimness of the air,
With the cross upon her bosom

And the amaranth in her hair.

Once to meet her, ah! to meet her,
And to hold her gently fast

Till I blessed her, till she blessed me,-
That were happiness, at last:
That were bliss beyond our meetings
In the autumns of the Past!

-Bayard Taylor.

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE..
"Patience is the key of Content."-Mahomet.
To cheer, to help us, children of the dust,
More than one angel has Our Father given;
But one alone is faithful to her trust,-

The best, the brightest exile out of Heaven.

Her ways are not the ways of pleasantness;
Her paths are not the lightsome paths of joy;
She walks with wrongs that cannot find redress,
And dwells in mansions Time and Death destroy.
She waits until her stern precursor, Care,

Has lodged on foreheads, open as the morn,
To plough his deep, besieging trenches there,
The signs of struggles which the heart has borne.
But when the first cloud darkens in our sky,

And face to face with Life we stand alone, Silent and swift, behold! she draweth nigh,

And mutely makes our sufferings her own.

Unto rebellious souls, that, mad with Fate,
To question God's eternal justice dare,
She points above with looks that whisper, "Wait,-
What seems confusion here is wisdom there."

To the vain challenges of doubt we send, No answering comfort doth she minister: Her face looks ever forward to the end, And we, who see it not, are led by her.

She doth not chide, nor in reproachful guise
The griefs we cherish rudely thrust apart;
But in the light of her immortal eyes

Revives the manly courage of the heart.

Daughter of God! who walkest with us here,
Who mak'st our every tribulation thine,
Such light hast thou in Earth's dim atmosphere,
How must thy seat in Heaven exalted shine!

How fair thy presence by those living streams
Where Sin and Sorrow from their troubling cease!
Where on thy brow the crown of amaranth gleams,
And in thy hand the golden key of Peace!

-Bayard Taylor.

BRIEF LITERARY NOTICES.

Footprints on the Road. By CHARLES KENT, Barrister-at-Law. London: Chapman & Hall. The series of papers, sketches, and essays which Mr. Charles Kent has put together under the fanciful heading of Footprints on the Road, constitute pleasant and profitable reading for the sea-side, for autumnal evenings, or for any leisure hour. work of fiction may be more amusing and exclting, but, once perused, it is forgotten; whereas these very pleasant and instructive sketches leave a permanent impression on the mind, and furnish new materials for thinking.

A

Leonardo da Vinci, the artist; Pierre Béranger, the song-writer; Christopher Columbus, the navigator; Napoleon Bonaparte, the art- collector; Walter Raleigh, the adventurer; Thomas Raikes, the Bond-street lounger; Robert Herrick, the English Anacreon; Charles Braganza, the exiled prince; Eustace Budgell, the essayist; Leigh Huat, the town poet; Bardana Hill, the quack; Douglas Jerrold, the wit; Edmund Waller, the court-poet; William Napier, the soldier-annalist; Henry Howard, the poet-knight; Eliot Warburton, the traveller; Charles Stuart, the royal fugitive; John Keats, the English Hylas; Agathocles, the Eleusinian; Arcadian Memories, the Mayers; Thomas Moore, the poet-wit; Galileo Galilei, the astronomer; W. M. Thackeray, the satirist-humorist; and, lastly, Stepping Stones, the men of letters, present a bill of fare so various and so choice, that it would be hard if there were not something to please almost every taste.

But the volume will derive a permanent and most affecting interest from the sad termination, just now announced, of the writer's brilliant career. What bade fair in the morning to be the proudest day of his life, witnessed his accidental and sudden death. But although thus prevented from personally vindicating his claims to the most striking discovery of modern times, the world will take care of his memory; and the name of Speke, whilst it will long suggest a melancholy reflection, will always rank with the very highest in the noble roll of British adventure.-London Quarterly.

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Stimulants and Narcotics, their Mutual Relations By FRANCIS E. ANSTIE, M.D., M.R.C.P., etc. Lon. don: Macmillan & Co. 1864. The volume on this subject which Dr. Anstie has produced is one of remarkable interest to the general as well as to the professional reader. Ignoring the doctrine of a vital force, and maintaining Coleridge's idea of life, that it is a tendency in a body to individuation, as the only peculiar and unvarying condition by which it can be described, he points out the nervous system to be the necessary requisite of individuation, as a mechanism by which a relation, most intimate and constant, between the parts united in the individual whole is upheld. The standard of life," he goes on, is a certain and exact balance of various forces, developed with a certain constant relation to material tissue arranged in a definite manner; to say that we increase such life or vitality' in one part of the organism by destroying this balance, is a contradiction of terms. And the standard of function in an organ is the accurate Mr. Kent is philosophical as well as entertaining. discharge of such an amount and kind of work as It is one of his theories that greatness is peculiar may help to maintain this healthy adjustment of rather to the eye than to the individual; so also power and of matter in the organism; to say, then, there are observable, looking to the past, epochs of that an organ exhibits an increased activity merely almost simultaneous growth of various branches because it is seen to be under the influence of exof human knowledge, and the manner in which he traordinary powers, and to present a new arrangeelucidates these two propositions is especially in- ment of matter, is incorrect." To assume, then, structive. Mr. Kent's sketches are, also, as in his according to the common doctrine, that all mental poems, so life-like that one can scarcely tell wheth- excitement, increased sensibility, pain, convulsive er the pen or the pencil is at work. Witness dear muscular action, considerable increase of secretion, old Pierre Jean Béranger, "the dearest old face in and increase of the heart's action are caused by, the world, the simplest form, the kindliest feat- and proofs of, a stimulant action upon the organism ures;" "excellent honest Mr. Thomas Raikes," is erroneous. The cause of such effects must be a the gossiper and lounger, still dear to his contem- devitalizing action. And hence those agents which poraries; and the sketches of Leigh Hunt in his produce any of these effects, so far from possessing latter days, of Douglas Jerrold, and of Thackeray, claims to be stimulants as they are usually consid in the latter of which are many curious personal ered, are rather devitalizing agents, or causes of revelations. Whether the reader turns to these, loss of nervous power. Such agents must be or to sketches and essays of older date and more described as narcotics. A stimulant being an ancient flavor, we can assure him he will not feel agent having the power of exciting the action of disappointed in either the character or quality of the nervous system is determined by its effects the article, and if genius were a thing of traffic, tending, one and all, to restore the healthy standwhich it is not, he would at the conclusion forth-ard of some vital process or processes. Such are with command a new supply.

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Dr. Anstie's important views as to the nature of stimulants and narcotics, which he well supports What Led to the Discovery of the Sources of the by numerous illustrative facts and cogent reasonNile. By JOHN HANNING SPEKE, Captain in Herings. In the course of his argument he discusses Majesty's Indian Army. Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons. 1864. Those who have read the Journal of the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile will find this additional volume equally full of interesting information, although without the one element of deep interest which the great geographical discovery imparted to that work. The account of the Somali race, an aggregation of savage and jealous tribes never explored by Europeans before the dangerous attempts described in these pages, will be found especially attractive.

the doctrine that stimulation is followed by a proportionate depression, and denies that any depres sion at all follows true stimulation as a consequence of it. As a necessary conclusion from his views of the relation of stimulant and narcotic, he also denies that the one or other effect being caused by the same medicine according to the dose in which it is given, is to be attributed to the one being an intensified form of the other, as is commonly believed. But space does not permit us to dwell on these and other points; nor on the inter

esting and valuable researches on the action of alcohol, ether, and chloroform, which form the latter part of the volume. Nor can we do more than refer to the history of the doctrine of stimulus and the extensive bibliographical references the work also contains, to the benefit of the student. The book, we may add, is published in a handsome form.-Popular Science Review.

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The Married Life of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, Mother of Louis XIV. and Don Sebastian, King of Portugal. By MARTHA WALKER FREER. London. 1864. These volumes, which Miss Freer modestly calls "Studies," are a most interesting and important contribution to our historical literature. They are devoted mainly to the life of the notorious queen of Louis XIII., and it would have been as well if Miss Freer had published the story of Don Sebastian in a separate work. In the year 1612, called Tannée des magnificences, because of its splendid festivities, proclamation was made throughout Paris of the betrothal of the Infanta Marie Anne Mauricette to Louis XIII., King of France. The youth of the bridegroom elect had been spent under most inauspicious influences. The prema ture death of Henry IV., and the wrangling and jealousies of the advisers of Marie de Medici, deprived him of all chance of a judicious training. Instead of an education befitting his royal dignity, was confined to a corner of the Louvre, the object at one time of his mother's indulgent weakness, at others the victim of her caprice and passion." His companions were of very inferior rank, and his days were spent in playing on the spinnet, hunting rabbits in the gardens of the Tuileries, turning ivory, drawing, and snaring birds. His physician, who was constantly in waiting, kept a marvellous diary of the sayings and doings of the young king, in which are recorded "the names of the viands served daily on the royal table, and the number of times his Majesty coughed and sneezed during the twenty-four hours." This diary is quite a curiosity in its way. The following are specimens: 'March 28th, Good Friday.-Heard a sermon at two o'clock; after dinner his Majesty entered his coach and visited the Franciscan and Feuillantine monasteries. He then went to the Tuileries, where he tasted a bunch of white grapes. He returned to the Louvre at a quarter to seven, and supped upon almond milk and milk gruel, eating the backs of two large soles. His Majesty said, 'I eat this fish because there is nothing else.' Again: "November 20th.-After supper his Majesty went to bed at nine o'clock. At eleven, he suddenly rose on his knees, with eyes wide open, and though asleep, called out loudly, 'Hé jouez! jouez!'" Such records are valuable, not only as giving us a glimpse behind the scenes, but as solving the mystery "why the son of Henry IV. grew up to become the most timid, miserable, suspicious, and self-distrusting monarch who ever filled a throne." The early lot of the Infanta was more auspicious. She was "a fair and bonny child," the darling of all who knew her, and especially of her mother, the gentle Marguerite of Austria. Her governess was the Condesa de Altamira; but her time was spent mainly with her mother, whose premature death was the calamity of the Infanta's life. An episode in her courtship is worth transcribing. When the Duke de Mayenne, the ambassador of Louis XIII., took leave of her, "he requested that she would send some

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message to the king, her consort." "Give his Majesty assurance," promptly replied Dona Ana, "that I am very impatient to be with him." Oh, Madame !" interposed the Condesa de Altamira, 'what will the King of France think when he is informed by M. le Duc that you are in such a hurry to be married? Madame, I entreat you, show more maidenly reserve!" "Have you not always taught me to speak the truth, Madame? I have spoken, and shall not retract," retorted the young queen, pettishly. In the year 1615 the royal pair were married at Bordeaux, with great splendor. The married life thus splendidly inaugurated, and yet so unhappily spent, Miss Freer describes with interesting detail in her two volumes. Louis was an indifferent husband, and Anne, courted by the love-sick Richelieu, the brilliant Buckingham, and the subtle Mazarin, was not the most prudent of wives. Jealousies and embitterments were the natural issue of such relations, and the king died in the belief that his queen had done him vital injury. Miss Freer has done good service by her patient and judicious researches, and these volumes will doubtless tend to strengthen her already distinguished reputation as a historian.-London Quarterly.

Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, et Madame Elisabeth. Lettres et Documents inédits, publiés par F. Feuillet de Conches. Vol. I. Paris: Plon. The interest which belongs to the history of Louis XVI. and his family appears to be steadily increasing, and it is remarkable to notice how strong a reäction has set in against the revolutionary party. Count d'Hunolstein's volume, which we had occasion to examine a little while ago, has, we understand, met with an amount of popularity quite unprecedented, and the reading portion of the public turn from it only with the greater zest to the more detailed work of M. Feuillet de Conches. This thick octavo, the first of a series of four, contains the results of investigations prosecuted during twenty years by one of the most determined autograph-collectors we ever heard of. M. Feuillet de Conches has had the good fortune to obtain access to the State-paper offices of France, Sweden, Austria, and Russia. Many private persons also have allowed him to transcribe documents preserved amongst their family treasures; and, finally, purchases made at public auctions have added their quota to the work before us. The introduction contains a summary of the reign of Louis XVI., including an account of the reforms which he brought about, and the obstacles he had to overcome in accomplishing them. The character of the monarch is admirably sketched in a few lines. The queen's reputation is vindicated against the abominable attacks of contemporary pamphleteers, and the principal persons of her entourage, such as Madame de Lamballe and the Duchess de Polignac, receive their due share of attention. The letters -two hundred and sixty-six in number-extend from May 8th, 1770 (the date of the dauphiness's arrival at Strasburg), to February 13th, 1791. They comprise communications from M. de MercyArgenteau, M. de Simolin, and other statesmen; to each letter is prefixed a summary of its contents; and a variety of biographical and historical notes are added, among which we may name one on the scandalous affair of the diamond necklace (pp. 156-169), and another on Madame de Raigecourt (pp. 207-208).—Saturday Review.

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The Poems of BAYARD TAYLOR. Boston: Tick- | very modest, unpretentious volume, yet no one nor & Fields. 1865. A new and very beautiful who begins it will want to lay it aside till he has edition, in blue and gold, with a striking likeness finished it. The letters are familiar" in style of the author. The collection contains many poems and thought, and yet model letters: simple, inwhich we do not recollect to have seen before. structive, comprehensive, full of thought, and the While we do not recognize the highest order of fruit of close observation, a ripe judgment, and of poetic genius in any of them, we judge them on the cultivated tastes. The volunie cannot fail to be whole far above the ordinary level of poetry. Few eminently popular.. American poets who have written as much have written as well. We extract two brief poems in our poetry department as fair specimens, and add here the lines which preface the volume:

"TO MY FRIENDS.

66 Shall this an emblem be of that blue sky

Wherein are set the golden stars of song?
Drops the reluctant world its doubting cry,

To give me room among the shining throng?

"Ah, vain the question! "Tis enough to know
. My heart in song has blossomed and has bled:
Has learned with love of living bards to glow,
And touched the garments of the laurelled dead.
"You also, friends, that wear the Artist's crown,
Or, wearing not, the crown to others bring,
You do not ask my measure of renown,

But wait, content to hear, as I to sing.

"Your love upholds me in the silent days,

And in the tuneful nights I give to Art; These leaves are yours, to whom their speech betrays The changeful fancy and the changeless heart.-B. T." Twice-Told Tales. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, A new edition. Complete in two volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865. These volumes are also in the blue and gilt style which is so popular, and is really fitting for such works, and beautiful. Nothing that we might say could add to the reputation of these Tales. Originally published in magazines and annuals, they attracted no special attention at the time,-if we except the "Rill from the Town Pump," and perhaps a few others: nor did the first collected volume of the Tales attain to sudden favor. But since the two volumes were issued in 1851, they have grown in public favor; and we are glad to welcome them in this new and beautiful dress.

The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea. By CAPTAIN MAYNE REID. With illustrations. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865. Still another thrilling tale by this justly popular juvenile writer. A portion of this story is a little too horrible to be healthy reading for the young. With this single criticism we recommend it to our youthful readers.

The Gypsies of the Danes' Dike. A Story of Hedge-Side Life in England, in the year 1855. By GEORGE S. PHILLIPS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864. Barrow's life-like and thrilling pictures of gypsy life and character in Spain and England, which appeared some years since, awakened no little interest in this strange and 'little known people. The author of this volume enjoyed a good opportunity to study the gypsies of England, and he has contrived by means of a story the "characters, incidents, and actions represented in it are, for the most part, fictitious"-to give the reader an insight into the customs, habits, and character of these wild dwellers out of doors. Portions of the book are exceedingly interesting.

Familiar Letters from Europe. By CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON, late President of Harvard University. Boston Ticknor & Fields. 1865. A

SCIENCE.

Sir Roderick Murchison's anniversary address to the Royal Geographical Society contains a large amount of information on the progress of geographical exploration and discovery in all parts of the world, from the Admiralty and Ordnance surveys of our own country, to the exploits of Russian travellers in the far east, the ascent of mountains in New Zealand, and arduous walks in the interior of Africa by adventurous Englishmen. Among particulars worthy of notice, we find that new islands have appeared in the Caspian Sea, and eruptions of the mud-volcanoes on its shores have taken place: an examination of the Sea of Azof shows that though the amount of sediment and detritus poured into it by the Don and other rivers is very large, the depth of the water is not diminished so rapidly as had been supposed: a suggestion has been made which, it is hoped, the Admiralty will act on for the exploration of the southern coast, bays, and rivers of New Guinea, a country of which very little is known: it is thought that explorations could be well carried on from the new settlement of Cape York in North Australia, between which and New Guinea there is but a narrow channel. The scheme for a railway from Buenos Ayres to Chile across the Andes is still talked of, and with hopes of success, as the highest pass to be traversed is not more than six thousand feet; and the interesting discovery has recently been made, that from the great lake of Nahuel-Huapi, on the eastern side of the Cordillera, there is a continuous water-communication with the Atlantic, by rivers that cross Patagonia-an important fact, from a trading point of view. In Africa, a young German traveller is on his way from Morocco to Timbuctoo, under the auspices of the Geographical Society; and concerning the interior of that great continent, Sir Roderick remarks, that the latest discoveries confirm his former suggestion, that the central portions of Africa constitute a great plateau, occupied by lakes and marshes, from which the waters escape by cracks or depressions in the subtending older rocks, and that it has been in that condition during an enor mously long period. Recent explorations confirm this view, and "strengthen" Sir Roderick "in the belief that Southern Africa has not undergone any of those great submarine depressions which have so largely affected Europe, Asia, and America during the secondary, tertiary, and quasi modern periods. It is unquestionably a grand type of a region which has preserved its ancient terrestrial conditions during a very long period, unaffected by any changes except those dependent on atmospheric and meteoric influences." And here, Sir Roderick asks: "If, then, the lower animals and plants of this vast country have gone on unchanged for a very long period, may we infer that its human inhabitants are of like antiquity? If so, the Negro may claim as old a lineage as the

Caucasian or Mongolian races." This, however, is an inquiry which cannot be decided till we get further information: The Nile question, which has excited of late a good deal of controversy, is to be settled, if possible, by another expedition, which is to be sent out to explore the White Nile.— Chambers's Journal.

Samarcand. The most interesting communication during the last session of the Royal Geographical Society was from M. Vámbéry, a Hungarian traveller, who had recently penetrated, in the disguise of a dervish, through the territory of the Turcomans, to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand, in Central Asia, travelling through districts which had not been visited by a European since the days of Marco Polo. After several years of preparation in a Mohammedan college, he joined, at Teheran, in March, 1863, a company of poor pilgrims who were returning to Tartary from Mecca. They crossed the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea on board a Turcoman, corsair, and landed at Geumushtepe (the Silver Hill), a camp of about two thousand tents of the Tamut tribe. From this place he visited the ruins of the wall built by Alexander the Great, which begins on the shores of the sea near this place, and stretches about one hundred miles inland in the form of an embankment, dotted with turrets and fortifications. Continuing with the party, in a northerly direction, eastward of the Caspian, he passed the river Attrek, and after crossing the Hyrcanian Desert, a horrible journey of twenty-two days, reached Khiva at the beginning of June. The present condition of the country, of which Khiva is the capital, he described as most wretched. The next place he visited was Bokhara, distant ten or twelve days' journey, on camels, from Khiva. On the road his party, to avoid a band of Turcoman robbers, were obliged to seek refuge in the desert of Djan-batiran (the Life-destroyer), where for six days they suffered horribly from thirst, and lost two of their number. The city of Bokhara occupies more ground than Teheran, but it is not so populous. Some of the palaces and mosques are built of stone; but the large, clumsy turrets produce a disagreeable impression. The whole khanat of Bokhara he estimated to comprise two million souls, including Persian slaves. The reigning prince is Moozaffar ed-din, son of the khan who murdered Conolly and Stoddart. He is a man of good disposition, but is forced, for political reasons, to commit many tyrannical and barbarous acts. After spending a month in Bokhara, M. Vámbéry proceeded, full of anticipation, to the renowned city of Samarcand. He travelled for six days through a thickly-peopled and well-cultivated country, and was greatly surprised at the quick succession of towns and villages on the road. But in Samarcand he was much disappointed. He found the capital of Timour in a state of decay, and, although he saw a few remains of its ancient glory, was convinced that the ancient reputation of the place was greatly exaggerated. The most remarkable of the ancient edifices were the medresses, or colleges, one of which, erected by the wife of Timour, a Chinese princess, was a most splendid building; but the magnificent portico, one hundred feet high, inlaid with mosaic in the form of roses, is now all that remains of it. The palace of Timour he described as very interesting, especially his tomb and a huge block of greenstone, the base of his throne, which must have been derived from

some distant country, although how it was conveyed to the place it is now difficult to surmise. M. Vámbéry terminated his narrative with his arrival at Herat in October. An account of his travels is now preparing for publication.-Leisure Hour. Autographs of the Sun.-Prof. Selwyn submitted a collection of collodion sun-pictures to the Astronomical Society, taken at Ely in 1863-4, some of which were six and five-eighth inches in diameter. Mr. Stewart had noticed in the sun-pictures taken with the Kew heliograph, that the faculæ belonging to a spot almost always appeared to the left of that spot, the motion due to the sun's rotation being across the picture from left to right; but Professor Selwyn has not confirmed this, but believes that the faculæ surrounded the spots equally. Professor Secchi, at Rome, has observed clear indications of the whirling action of the spots similar to the cyclones of the earth, and Professor Selwyn points the attention of observers to the importance of this question, and whether the whirling of the spots was in an opposite direction in the two opposite hemispheres, that is, contrary to the hands of a watch in the northern, and with them in the southern, as has been observed on the earth. In the year 1863 Schwabe counted one hundred and twenty-four groups of spots. Mr. Howlett noticed some remarkable changes in a spot on January 25th, which he saw actually take place whilst his eye was at the telescope.

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Meteors.-Mr. Herschel, in a paper on the state of meteoric science, has given a new theory respecting the frequency of shooting-stars, when the earth is moving from aphelion to perihelion, and their rarity in the opposite direction. This difference is very considerable, as Dr. Schmidt finds that on an average of four hundred and seventy meteors which are seen annually at Athens, four hundred are observed during the last six months of the year, and seventy during the first half. The minimum takes place in February, when only five are seen, and the maximum in August, when one hundred and eighty-eight on an average were visible. Mr. Pritchard illustrates the principle of Mr. Herschel's theory by supposing a flat umbrella at, rest and rain falling on it from all directions, when the drops will be spread equally on its surface; but if it be carried forward, more drops will fall on its an terior than its posterior surface. So long, then, in a similar manner, as any particular horizon of the earth is going in the same direction as the earth's orbital motion, an additional number of meteors will be met with, the opposite point of the earth being comparatively sheltered. In northern latitudes, therefore, more meteors will be visible near the autumnal than at the veral equinox. The case will be inverted in the southern hemisphere, and it is to be hoped that data will not be wanting in order to test the truth of this ingenious theory. It is founded on the principle, however, that meteors fall without preference from all directions; but from Mr. Greg's observations it would appear that there are ephemeral swarms of meteors which proceed from a common source. Mr. Herschel has calculated the relative number of meteors which should fall at any particular latitude, and finds that his theory agrees very exactly with observation. It is to be noticed, that not only ordinary shootingstars, but also fire-balls and aerolites and starshowers, are more abundant in autumn than in spring, Mr. Greg finding that the proportion of the first six months of the year to the last half is as

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