weather is hot, and up stairs when it is cold. It has been said that the ant stores up in summer the food on which it lives in the winter, and many things have been stated in support of this opinion. We, however, doubt its truth. We doubt whether Solomon intends to convey this idea in his allusions to the ant. We rather think the ant becomes torpid through the winter. This is the view held by many modern naturalists, though it differs widely from the general opinion. That the ant does collect vast quantities of food is the general opinion in the east. Thus the eastern

proverb, What the ants collect in a year the monks eat up in a night.' But leaving this disputed point, look ye young friends in Sunday schools at the known habits of the ant, and oh, let not such a tiny creature put you to shame. The ants have but one object in view-the welfare of their whole community; so should it be in a Sunday school: let each keep his own place well occupied; aim to bless others, and show respect and affection to all around them. The ants allow of no delay in matters of duty: when the season most proper for work comes round, they labour, and tug, and strive, and put forth all the energies of their whole nature; so let it be with you. Avoid sloth; be industrious; determine to glorify God. Give yourself wholly to the concerns of the soul, and the interests of the church of Christ. The ants are patterns of industry, perseverance, and combined exertions; they assist the overburdened; they observe the fittest season for their object, and seize every favourable circumstance to help them thus they do wonders. Imitate them, and the God who gave them instinct will prosper you; and the blessed results of your holy exertions shall stand, when all the works of nature, and all the arrangements of providence are for ever dissolved.

:

INCREASE OF SUNDAY SCHOLARS.

Those of the Church schools are said to have increased, during four years, 287,283; and those of the General Baptist schools, 21,903 during the last year. The increase during the last year, among the Wesleyans, is, Sunday schools, 143, and 15,627 scholars. By the Minutes of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, just published, we see the entire number of their Sabbath scholars is 73,771, with 14,975 teachers.

The Moon is the nearest of all the celestial bodies to the earth, and is our constant attendant at all seasons. Its distance from the earth is only about 240,000 miles, which is determined from its horizontal parallax, or the angle formed by a line drawn from the centre, and another line drawn from the surface of the earth. Small, however, as this distance is, compared with that of the other planets, it would require 500 days, or sixteen months and a half, for a steam carriage to move over the interval which separates us from the lunar orb, although it were moving day and night at the rate of twenty miles every hour. Although the apparent size of the moon appears equal to that of the sun, yet the difference of their real bulk is very great; for it would require more than sixty-three millions of globes of the size of the moon to form a globe equal in magnitude to that of the sun. The reason why the sun appears so small when he is in reality so large a globe is this,--that he is removed 95 millions of miles from the earth, which is nearly 400 times farther than the moon. The diameter of the moon is 2,180 miles, and consequently, it is only

the forty-ninth part of the bulk of the earth. Its surface, however, contains fifteen millions of square miles, or about one third of the habitable parts of our globe; and, were it peopled as densely as England, it would contain a population amounting to four thousand two hundred millions, which is more than five times the population of the earth. When viewed with a telescope, the lunar surface presents a very interesting and diversified appearance. Mountains and plains, hills and vales, caverns and insulated rocks, diversify every portion of the surface of the moon; but they are arranged in a very different form from those of the earth. There are, indeed, some mountain ranges on the lunar orb somewhat resembling our Alps, and Appenines, and Andes; but one of the distinguishing features of the moon consists in hundreds of circular ranges of mountains, surrounding plains of the same shape. These plains are of all sizes, from a mile to twenty or thirty miles in diameter. Some of them are sunk nearly a mile below the general level of the moon's surface; some of them have one, and some of them two mountains in the centre of the plain. The plains are surrounded by the mountains as by a mighty circular rampart, and in many cases a cleft or opening may be perceived in the circular ranges, as if intended for a passage into the plain. The lunar mountains are of all sizes, from a quarter of a mile to four or five miles in perpendicular elevation. The mountains and cavities are distinguished by their shadows, which vary in length according to the increase or decrease of the moon. The best time for observing them with a telescope is about the period of half-moon, or two or three days before or after it. At the time of full moon the various objects now stated cannot be perceived, as the sun then shines perpendicularly upon the moon's surface, so that the shadows of the different objects cannot be distinguished.

There appear to be no oceans, seas, nor large rivers on the moon's surface as on the earth, nor clouds in its atmosphere; but if its surface be diversified with verdure and vegetation, it will present to an inhabitant a more diversified and romantic scenery than any we can contemplate on the earth. The circular plains and mountains will present three or four varieties of prospect, of which we have no examples on our globe. 1. A spectator near the middle of the plain will behold his view bounded by a chain of lofty mountains at the distance of five, ten or fifteen miles, according to the diameter of the plain; and

POPULAR ASTRONOMY.

205

as the tops of these mountains are at different elevations, they will exhibit a variety of mountain scenery. 2. When placed on the top of the central mountain, the whole plain with its diversified objects will be open to his view, which will likewise take in all the variety of objects connected with the circular mountain range which bounds his prospect. 3. A third variety of view will be presented in travelling round the plain, where the various aspects of the central mountain will present, at every stage, a new landscape and a diversity of prospect. 4. Another view, still more extensive will be obtained by ascending to the summit of the circular range, where the whole plain and its central mountain will be full in view, and likewise a portion of those regions which lie beyond the exterior boundary of the mountains. 5. A diversity of scenery will likewise be presented by the shadows of the circular range and the central mountain. When the sun is in the horizon, the whole plain will be enveloped in the shadows of the mountains, even after daylight begins to appear; and these shadows will grow shorter and shorter as the sun rises in the heavens, till the sides and tops of the mountains, and part of the plains be fully illuminated with the solar beams.

The moon presents always the same side to the earth, so that we never see its opposite hemisphere. This proves that she turns round her axis in the same time in which she moves round the earth. As the moon enlightens the earth in the absence of the sun, so the earth acts the part of a moon to the lunar inhabitants, (if any,) and presents to them a shining surface thirteen times larger than the moon does to us. Those who live near the middle of that hemisphere of the moon which is next the earth, will see the earth hanging in the zenith, or directly above their heads, apparently without any motion, and exhibiting sometimes the form of a crescent, sometimes that of a half-moon, and at other times that of a full enlightened hemisphere. Those who live on the opposite hemisphere of the moon will never see the earth nor enjoy its light; and, from the central parts of that hemisphere, they would have to travel 1500 miles in order to enjoy the sight. When it is new moon to us, it is full moon to the lunar inhabitants, and hence we see the dark portion of the moon's hemisphere sensibly enlightened, when the crescent of the new moon first begins to appear. This is usually termed 'the old moon in the new moon's arms,' which is owing to the

reflection of the light of the earth on the dark side of the moon.

The moon moves round the earth in twenty-seven days, eight hours, and is carried along with the earth round the sun every year; but the mean time from one new or full moon to another is about twenty-nine days, twelve hours. The annexed figure is intended to represent these movements. The small circle in the centre represents the sun; the large circle which surrounds it, GD B, the orbit of the earth; the larger globe on this circle with the meridians and parallels marked upon it, represents the earth, and the circle which surrounds it, the orbit of the moon. While the earth is pursuing its annual course round the sun, the moon is prosecuting its monthly course round the earth, and at the same time is carried along with the earth round the central luminary from which both derive their light and influence. The light of the moon has been calculated to be only the three hundred thousandth part of the light of the sun, so that it would require three hundred thousand moons to produce an intensity of light equal to what we enjoy at noon-day.

The moon forms a most beautiful and beneficial appendage to our globe. When the sun has descended below the western horizon, the moon lights up her lamp in the azure firmament, and diffuses a mild radiance over the landscape of the world. As the son of Sirach has observed

She is the beauty of heaven-the glory of the stars; an ornament giving light in the high places of the Lord.' She cheers the traveller in his journeys, the shepherd while tending his fleecy charge, and the mariner while conducting his vessel at midnight through the boisterous ocean. So that in this nocturnal luminary, as in all the other arrangements of nature, we behold a display of the paternal care and beneficence of that Almighty Being who ordained, the moon and the stars to rule the night,' as an evidence of his superabundant goodness, and of his mercy which endureth for ever.'

[The reply of Dr. Dick to some enquiries respecting a recent phenomenon in the Moon is in type.]

THE LUNGS.

The inhabitants of the earth discharge annually from their lungs 107,000,000 tons of water; a quantity which, if collected, would form a sphere nearly 2000 feet in dia

meter.