THE WEATHER. No. 1. No term is more familiar to every body than the term air. But if an uninstructed person were asked what the air was, his first answer would probably be, that it was nothing at all. This hand, he might say, which is now plunged in water, on being drawn out of the water is said to be lifted into the air-which means merely that there is nothing, or only vacancy, around it. In other words, he might say, the air is just the name that is given to the empty space, which is immediately over the surface of the earth.

A little reflection, however, or a question or two more, would probably raise some doubts as to the correctness of this philosophy. If the air be nothing, it might be asked, what is the wind? Or what is it, even when there is no wind, which makes very light substances wave or flutter on being swiftly drawn through the air, or, when they are merely dropped from the hand, detains them on their way to the ground? Or, to take another illustration from the commonest experience, who is there that has not seen a bladder distended or swollen with air? If the air be nothing, how comes a portion of it to present such palpable resistance to pressure, when thus confined?

The truth is, the air in which we walk is as much a real and substantial part of our world as the earth on which we walk. Empty space would no more do for our bodies to live in, than it would for our feet to tread upon. The atmosphere, that is the case of air in which the solid globe is enveloped, is composed of matter as well as that solid globe itself. As the one is matter in a solid, so the other is matter in a fluid state. It is merely a thinner fluid than the water, which also rests upon and encompasses a great part of the earth; but as fishes exist and can only exist in their ocean of water, so do we exist and can only exist in our ocean of air.

The weather is another term with which every body is familiar. But the weather is merely the state or condition of the air. Heat and cold, moisture and drought, wind and calm, all make themselves felt by ús principally in and through this element. The study of the weather is but the study of the variations of the air.

Man is so dependent upon the weather, not only for his comfort but even for his subsistence, that to be able to ascertain its coming changes has naturally always been to him an object of extreme solicitude. When we are very desirous to attain any end, we are easily deluded by whomsoever or whatsoever promises to help us in reaching it. The weather is one of the subjects upon which the credulity of mankind, thus excited, has in every age been taken plentiful advantage of; and, indeed, it seems to be the one of all others over which superstition and imposture have succeeded in establishing the widest and firmest dominion. We have outlived most of the other fond beliefs of more ignorant times; the love of money, though as strong and as universal a passion as ever, blinds nobody now to waste his time in the attempt to discover a solvent for turning all metals into gold; the desire of long life no longer keeps our me dical chemists busy in experimenting how to extract or compound an elixir of immortality; these hopes have passed away from the imaginations both of men of science, and of the multitude. Even the predictions which astrology pretends to draw from the positions and movements of the stars as to the fates of individuals and kingdoms, although they have still their readers, have lost much of the old faith which used to reverence them almost as direct intimations from heaven. But the prognostications of the same vain science which are published every year on the subject of the weather continue to be not only bought but believed in, almost as much as they were in the darkest ages, by hundreds of

thousands, even in our own comparatively enlightened England. Moore's Almanac' still sells a quarter of a million, of copies. If this were the proper place it might not, perhaps, be difficult to point out the causes which have kept this particular superstition alive so long after so many others have perished, and been nearly forgotten; but it will be more to the present purpose to state in a few words the grounds on which it may be confidently pronounced to be to the full as visionary and absurd as any of those which it has survived,

The weather, as we have remarked, is but another name for the state of the air, as to heat or cold, dryness or humidity, rest or motion, and perhaps one or two other similar particulars. The causes, therefore, which influence the condition of the air in these respects are those that occasion the variations of the weather; and these variations cannot be foretold unless we could calculate and measure the exact force of all those influencing causes. There is plainly no other way of arriving at the knowledge in question. To pretend to divine it, as the almanac makers affect to do, from the movements of one or two particular stars, is as idle as it would be to attempt to discover what wind should blow on a certain day in December by the motion of a bit of straw or paper thrown up into the air in the preceding January. Even if it were proved, which it by no means either is or is likely to be, that the positions of the heavenly bodies in question really exerted any effect whatever upon our atmosphere, and if the amount of that effect could be calculated, the ascertainment of it would be of no use, unless we could also ascertain the force of all the other operating influences. Without this we are, at the best, merely in the condition of the man who should attempt to describe the whole of a large building from the in spection of one of the bricks brought from its ruins. Were our almanac prophets, therefore, even to take the trouble of going through any calculation to get at the information with which they favour us, it would not be the more valuable or trustworthy on that account. But it is almost needless to remark, that they do not pro ceed through their work of solemn quackery and fraud with so much form and ceremony. The "dull, though mild," "fair and frosty," "mild for the season," "frosty and more fair," "rain, perhaps hail," "windy, perhaps rain," and other phrases of their cheating trade, which they scribble at intervals, along the calendar, are come at by an easier process than even the simplest or shortest calculation-being in fact, with the exception of course that some regard is had to the general character of the different seasons, put down merely at random. There is not an individual among all those by whom the oracle is consulted, who might not in half an hour manufacture quite as good a calendar of the weather for himself.

Even the most accomplished science, in truth, has as yet made comparatively but very little way into this most difficult subject. The principal properties of the air, both chemical and mechanical, have indeed been ascertained. The apparently simple element has been separated into its two component ingredients of nitrogen and oxygen. Its weight has been taken. Its elásticity, or capability of compression and expansion, has been measured. Instruments have been invented for detecting the quantity of heat, or of moisture, or of electricity, with which it may at any particular moment be charged. But the knowledge of all these different circumstances and properties enables us to do but little in predicting the coming changes of the weather. The property of the air, from the observations of which intimations of this kind have hitherto been chiefly derived, is its weight; and even this can only tell us at most, what the weather is to be for a few hours forward, and does not always speak to us to that extent either verv certainly or very precisely.

[Nightingale.]

A Nightingale, that all day long
Had cheer'd the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
lle spied far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,

And knew the glow-worm by his spark,
So, stooping from the hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, right eloquent:-
Did you admire my lamp, quoth he,
As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 'twas the self-same Power Divine
Taught you to sing, and me to shine,
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night.

The songster heard his short oration,
And warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.

Hence jarring sectaries may learn
Their real interest to discern;

That brother should not war with brother
And worry and devour each other;
But sing and shine with one consent,
Till life's poor transient night is spent,
Respecting in each other's case,

The gifts of nature and of grace.

Those Christians best deserve the name, Who studiously make peace their aim; Peace, both the duty and the prize,

Of him that creeps and him that flies.

State of Europe in the Dark Ages.-In less than a cen tury after the barbarous nations settled in their new conquests, almost all the effects of knowledge and civility, which the Romans had spread through Europe, disappeared. Not only the arts of elegance, which minister to luxury, 04 and are supported by it, but many of the useful arts, without which life can scarcely be considered as comfortable, were neglected or lost. Literature, science, and taste, were words little in use during the ages which we are contemplating; or, if they occur at any time, eminence in them is ascribed to persons and productions so contemptible, that it appears their true import was little understood. Persons of the highest rank, and in the most eminent stations, could not read or write. Many of the clergy did not understand the breviary which they were obliged daily to recite; some of them could scarcely read it. The memory of past transaetions was, in a great degree, lost, or preserved in annals filled with trifling events or legendary tales.-Dr. Robertson's Introduction to History of Charles V.

COWPE.R.

Remarkable Detection of Fraud.-A few years ago an important suit, in one of the legal courts of Tuscany, depended on ascertaining whether a certain word had been erased by some chemical process from a deed then before the court. The party who insisted that an erasure had been made, availed themselves of the knowledge of M. Gazzer, who, concluding that those who committed the fraud would be satisfied by the disappearance of the colouring matter of the ink, suspected (either from some colourless matter remaining in the letters, or perhaps from the agency of the so!vent having weakened the fabric of the paper itself beneath the supposed letters) that the effect of the slow application of heat would be to render some difference of texture or of applied substance evident, by some variety in the shade of colour which heat in such circumstances might be expected to produce. Permission having been given to try the experiment, on the application of heat the important word reappeared, to the great satisfaction of the court. -Babbage, on the Decline of Science.

London Mile-stones.-The various roads from London are now measured from ten or eleven different places, two, three, and even four miles distance from each other. The catalogue is curious. Hyde Park Corner and Whitechapel Church; the Surrey side of London Bridge and Westminster Bridge; Shoreditch Church; Tyburn Turnpike; Hol born Bars (long since removed); the place where St. Giles's Pound formerly stood; the place where Hicks's Hall once stood; the Standard, in Cornhill, of which no other tradition remains, its exact site being unknown; and the Stones'end, in the Borough, which moves with the extension of the pavement. Thus the actual distance of any place cannot be known without minute inquiry and local knowledge of London. "The easy remedy," says Mr. Rickman, from whose admirable Statement of Progress in the Population Inquiry for 1831,' this is taken, "consists in adopting the mileage of the Post-office, when it shall have been re-measured from the new site of that office, the frontage of which grand centre of communication could not be more appropriately adorned than by an obelisk which would become a LONDON STONE, in imitation of that which stood in the Forum of ancient Rome. The vicinity of St. Paul's, th most conspicuous object in London, recommends the new Post-office especially for this purpose; and turnpike-road trustees would not refuse to accommodate to it their mile-stones, under the direction of the road-surveyor of the Post-office."

HOLIDAY WALKS.-No. 2.

GREENWICH.

THE walk to Greenwich is not the most attractive of the walks in the environs of London. It is almost a continued street from each of the bridges; and though the road is wide, and the houses occasionally pretty, the holidaymaker may become impatient for the green fields, and weary of the bustle from which he appears unable to escape. The best mode of visiting Greenwich is by water. For two shillings and sixpence, four persons may take a boat at London Bridge and be landed close to the Royal Hospital; and every day, except Sunday, passage-boats are constantly plying at Tower Stairs, by which passengers are taken for sixpence each. The Thames, covered with the vessels of all nations, may fitly prepare the mind for visiting the palace of those veterans who have sailed under the British flag during many a year of tempest and of battle. Now you will pass alongside the hulk of some immense ship, destined to be broken up, of whose former pride the waterman will tell you some stirring tales, and you may think of these fine lines of Campbell, which stir the heart "as with a trumpet:"

"Britannia needs no bulwark,

No towers along the steep;`

Her march is o'er the mountain waves,

Her home is on the deep."

even her proudest victories. In the meantime, the domes and colonnades of Greenwich will rise from the shore, and impress your mind with a magnificence of which the architecture of England presents few examples;-and you will feel an honest pride when you know that few of the great ones of the earth possess palaces to be compared with the splendour of this pile, which the gratitude of our nation has assigned as the retreat of its wounded and worn-out sailors.

When you land, you will not indeed realize the poetical rapture of Dr. Johnson-you will not literally exclaim,

"Struck with the seat which gave Eliza birth,

I kneel and kiss the consecrated earth :"

but you may recollect, with reverence, that Greenwich was a favoured place of this Queen. It was here that Elizabeth might daily behold the real strength of her island empire; and here, as her navy sailed beneath her palace-walls, she might bestow upon her fleets that encouragement which, under the blessing of God, enabled her to effect the destruction of that "Invincible Armada," vainly destined, by the ambition of a haughty king, to make England

"Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror."

The greater part of the buildings of the Royal Hospital of Greenwich are stone; the architecture is of the Roman character, rather plain in its general details, but

dimensions, from the material of which it is executed, from its porticoes, its splendid domes, and its long colonnades. The whole of the buildings are open to the river. On a fine day, the old pensioners may be seen standing about in groupes, or taking a solitary walk in

(17.)-The quantity of corn raised per acre varies, of course, according to the soil. The produce of wheat on some spots amounts to 6 quarters, in others to 13 quarter per acre; but 2 quarters for wheat, 4 for barley, and 4 for oats, may be stated as a fair average return. The average weight of a bushel of good English wheat is about 58 lbs.; in bad seasons it does not exceed 56 or 57, but in good years it is found to weigh from 60 to 62, and in some spots 64 lbs. It yields 43 lbs. of flour for standard wheaten bread, or 46 lbs. for household bread. The culture of rye and buck wheat in England has, of late years been much diminished. The quantity of hops annually raised is very fluctuating, but may be computed at an annual average of 20,000,000 of pounds.

(18.)—The climate of England is that of an insular country, subject to rain, and exempt from the severity of heat or cold that is felt in similar latitudes. Westerly winds, the most prevalent of all, are one of the chief causes. All the coast of Lancashire is flat. The west coast being the most hilly and mountainous, and exposed to the Atlantic, is more rainy than the east, where the country is more level, and the expanse of adjacent water less considerable. During the six winter months, from October to March, the mean temperature of the central part of England is commonly between 42 and 43 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. In December, January, and February, it is generally below 40°: in July and August 62 to 65°. The mean annual temperature, noon and night, of the central part of England, is about 50. The greatest heat seldom exceeds 80°, and the cold of December or January is rarely below 20° or 25°. In mild situations in Devonshire and Cornwall, the winter temperature is 3, 4, and even 5 degrees higher than in London. Penzance is the spot in England least visited by severe cold. The average quantity of rain in the north-west of England, particularly in Westmorland and Lancashire, is 45, 50, and sometimes 60 inches, while the average of the kingdom at large is from 30 to 40. The prevalent winds are the west and south-west. (19.)-The total length of the paved streets and roads in England and Wales is estimated at 20,000 miles, and that of all other roads at about 100,000 miles. The average annual expenditure thereupon may be taken at a million and a half sterling, being at the rate of 121. 10s. per mile. In 1823, the total extent of turnpike roads in Great Britain was 24,531 miles, whereof the annual income was 1,214,716., and the debt 5,200,000. In the same year the total length of canals in Great Britain, including those under five miles, was 2,589 miles.

(To be continued.) INSCRIPTIONS.

SIR WILLIAM JONES, describing his visit to the small Island of Johanna, near the eastern coast of Africa,

says, "I surprised the natives by reading to them aloud an Arabic inscription over the gate of a mosque, and still more when I entered it, by explaining some sentences which were written very distinctly on the wall, signifying that the world was given us for our own edification, not for the purpose of raising sumptuous buildings; life for the discharge of moral and religious duties, not for pleasurable indulgences; wealth to be liberally bestowed, not avariciously hoarded; and learning to produce good actions, not empty disputes.' We could not," adds Sir W. Jones, " but respect the temple even of a false prophet in which we found such excellent morality."

The religion of the Mahommedans forbids their ornamenting their walls with pictures or representations of the human form; but their practice of decorating not only their places of worship, but their private houses and apartments, with religious and moral sentences, extracted from the Koran, or the writings of their philoso phers, has always appeared to us a custom founded both in good taste and wisdom. If we recollect right, Miss Edgeworth, in some part of those numerous and admirable works with which she has delighted and improved the world, founds an interesting and useful story upon the effect which the simple inscription of "waste not, want not," over the door of a servants'-hall, had upon a child, on whose after-life that single sentence produced a permanent and most happy influence; and is it not obvious that a serious and profitable reflection might often be excited by the sight of a sentence applicable to the circumstances in which a man finds him self at the moment? Is it not more than probable that he might be encouraged to do a generous deed, or be deterred from doing a cruel or unkind one, if his eye were suddenly arrested by a strong appeal to his feeling or his understanding? It has often struck us, that not only the servants'-hall, or the nursery, the dressingroom of the fine lady, or the hall or gallery of the country house, but the tradesman's parlour and the cottager's kitchen, might be made to shed rays of moral light from their walls, by a selection of inscriptions, chosen with judgment, and arranged with taste. If it served but the purpose of turning the attention of the accidental loiterer from himself to his fellow-creatures; if a me lancholy and despairing mood could be roused to a cheerful hope; if a feeling of discontent could be checked and subdued, even for the passing moment,― it would be an effect that the upholsterer has not, we suspect, often succeeded in producing. This plan was adopted by the wise and benevolent Oberlin, the pastor of Waldbach, of whose extraordinary efforts in the cause of public instruction we shall give an account in a future number.

A companion that is cheerful, and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning; nor men, that cannot well bear it, to repent the money they spend when they be warmed with drink. And take this for a rule: you may pick out such times and for a little than a great deal of money; for "Tis the company such companions, that you may make yourselves merrier and not the charge that makes the feast."-Izaak Walton.

When we read the lives of distinguished men in any department, we find them almost always celebrated for the amount of labour they could perform. Demosthenes, Julius Cæsar, Henry the Fourth of France, Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Franklin, Washington, Napoleon,different as they were in their intellectual and moral qualities, -were all renowned as hard-workers. We read how many days they could support the fatigues of a march; how early they rose; how late they watched; how many hours they spent in the field, in the cabinet, in the court; how many secretaries they kept employed; in short how hard they worked.-Everett's Discourse.