"What are those dreadful guns?" in

quired the young lady.

Perhaps it was this peculiar atmosphere which erased her words, as it were, as soon

to keep my cheek quite close to her, to catch the precious tones.

"Guns! "cried the page laughing, a laugh as she had uttered them, that compelled me peculiar (I hope) to water-kelpies. "That's only the tinpaniem of your ear a-busting, bless yer. It'll get wuss and wuss, and the top of your 'ed will be like to fly off, as it seems to you, before we gets to the bottom. A-comin' up, you'll like it better."

"Dear girl," whispered I, in tones of comfort, "you will find it some relief to lay your head upon my shoulder."

She did so, and I caught her broken tones inquiring what was that dreadful thing that kept beating against the bell, as though it wanted to get in among us. "I hope and trust, my good boy," said she, addressing the page with sudden animation, "that it is not that electrical eel!"

“They pump the air through india-rubber tubes," I answered.

"How wise you are," said she admiringly; "how nice it must be to know everything." Very nice," said I; "please to tell me, therefore, what name you bear in the upper

66

world. I have read of sirens and mermaids How dare you touch that lady's dress," cried I with excessive indignation, as the scientific page made a sudden snatch at her petticoats.

"They was a-gettin' into the water, that's why," returned the youth with sulkiness. "Don't you go a-hollering at me. It's my duty to take care of all as comes down here, and I have my orders about their petti

I do believe, if I had not had fast hold of that boy by his buttons, that he would have fallen off his seat into the water, in a parox-coats." ysm of mirth, and left us without any protector. "Lor' bless ye, miss," replied he, when he got breath enough to do so, "that's the beating of the hair-pump, that is: if that was to stop for arf a minute, it would be all Hookey with us in this 'ere bell."

66

Hookey!" ejaculated the terrified young creature. "What dreadful language he does use!--You haven't got a waterproof coat on, have you, sir?"

I trembled as the dear girl made this extraordinary inquiry, for I thought that terror was depriving her of reason. agine that a Mackintosh would save us, ever so many fathoms under water as we now were!

66

"My good boy," said I, “here is half-acrown for you. I am sorry I spoke so loud, because water conducts sound with great facility, and they may have heard me up above. All that passes among ourselves here should be respected, as being of a private nature.”

"Mum is the word," observed the page, and he winked with an air of supernatural and lotte Elizabeth-for it is needless to say that submarine cunning at the unconscious Charthe enchanting young mermaiden was she.

Almost immediately afterwards, we began to ascend; every instant the guns fired with Could she im-less distinctness, and we became more like our usual selves. But during the few minutes that we had been immersed, I had experienced a complete metamorphosis-I had "suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange; to the Diving Belle. I had descended fancy free, I arose a captive

"Alas, no,” said I, thinking it best to humor her; “I left my waterproof coat up above, and also my umbrella."

The rest of the courtship was of the ordinary description, and terminated in the usual

"I asked," returned she, "because I seem to breathe nothing else but india-rubber." way.

ANECDOTE OF DR. JOHN BROWN.-When John | hand, saying, "My brother, I understand you Brown, D.D., first settled in Haddington, Scot- are opposed to my settling at Haddington." land, the people of his parish gave him a warm "Yes, sir," replied the parishioner. "Well, and and enthusiastic reception; only one of the mem- if it be a fair question, on what grounds do you bers of that large church and congregation stood object to me?" "Because, sir," said he, "I out in opposition to him. The reverend doctor don't think you are qualified to fill so eminent a tried all the means in his power to convert the post.' "That's just my opinion," replied the solitary dissenter to unity of feeling which per- doctor; “but what, sir, is the use of you and vaded the whole body, but all his efforts to obtain me setting up our opinions in opposition to a an interview proved abortive. As Providence whole parish?" The brother smiled, and their directed, however, they happened one day to friendship was sealed forever. "A soft answer meet in the street, when the doctor held out his turns away wrath.”

From The Spectator.

pursue the subject. Or again, going still THE SEAS AND SNOWS IN MARS. farther away from the centre of our own sit. THERE are, perhaps, no other scientific in- uation in the Universe-what was the secret terests so absorbing as those which open of the delight with which the existence of glimpses to us of the possible conditions of double and different-colored suns moving life in the other worlds which man can never round each other was first recognized? Surely hope to penetrate, except by the sense of it was the surprise to the imagination of so vision. When, about ten years ago, Dr. new a situation as the (possible) inhabitants Whewell exerted himself to persuade us that of any planet of one of these suns would octhe stellar and planetary universe is a spirit- cupy. They would sometimes have, we arual desert, with the sole exception of the lit- gue, a blue day and a red day following each tle planetary oasis inhabited by man, his hy- other, like our day and night,—the blue sun pothesis was received, not so much with rising as the red sun set. Sometimes they incredulity as with intellectual resentment. would have a partially white day, caused by The interest which astronomy excites half the mingling of the two lights, with, perhaps, consists in the pleasure of conceiving the great a blue early morning and a red afternoon; variety of intellectual conditions which the and a double noon, as each sun separately observed differences of situation would intro- comes to the meridian. All these complexiduce into the life of a human emigrant. How ties of outward influence would probably enthe wealth of moons would affect the inhabi-gender corresponding complexities of inteltants of Jupiter, whether it has stimulated lectual and moral culture, and the inhabitants their scientific powers, supposing them to of such worlds may be conceived with a literhave scientific powers, in the same proportion ature and a science as far superior to our own in which one single moon has stimulated our as the variety of their physical influences is own,-whether the four moons figure four greater. And whatever new stellar fact astimes as much in Jovian poetry and mythol- tronomy discovers for us, the avidity with ogy as one single moon in ours what effect which we seize on it half depends on the asthe frequent lunar eclipses have had on their sumption that there are minds like or supeastronomical progress,—what the consequence rior to ours, to be influenced by the new conof the enormous weight which the great bulk ditions thus presented to our imagination; of Jupiter gives to both inanimate and ani- so that Dr. Whewell's cruel hypothesis, mate bodies, may be on Jovian architecture though it did not touch the interests called and Jovian gymnastics,-whether the very scientific, would, if it could be proved, rob short days and nights, of less than five hours astronomers of half the fascination of their each, tend to intellectual activity or despair, study. to fast or slow life, haste or dawdling,-all The fascination of this half-belief, of course, these questions, unanswerable as they are, increases as the conditions under which disare part and parcel of the acute interest with tant worlds exist are known to be really akin which we investigate the Jovian astronomy. to our own. Dr. Whewell had no difficulty Who can help interesting himself profoundly in alarming men's imaginations about life in in the same way about the Saturnian rings? Saturn, Uranus, or even Jupiter. He showed Do the inhabitants of the two rings (if any) how dismal it would be for us, how little light communicate across the very inconsiderable and heat get thither from the sun, how very distance of 1,790 miles?-a telegraph across little firm footing there might be in worlds it would not be so long as the Atlantic tele- with a density very little greater, or even less graph. Can the Ringers, as we may call (in the case of Saturn, less by nearly onethem, get at the inhabitants of the ball-it is half), than water. He suggested that cork not so far from the interior ring as it is round worlds or wood worlds were unlikely; that the circumference of our own Earth and probably the small weight meant fluid worlds; what may be the ethnological relations of the and so, by very skilfully appealing to the EngRing-races and the Saturnian globe-races? No lish objection to damp, he pretty effectually doubt these are all to us insoluble questions, threw a wet blanket on the ardor of analogiand yet the mere fact that we can and do put cal reasoning in the case of the planets besuch questions to ourselves is the secret of yond Mars. But Dr. Whewell obviously felt half the intensity of interest with which we himself that he had no very good case against

the existence of beings even organized exactly as no one cares to believe that a planet is at like ourselves in Mars. Mars, though not this moment inhabited, but only to believe absolutely the nearest of our planetary neigh- that it is prepared for the dwelling-place of bors, is certainly-(of course, excluding the rational beings. But with regard to the exMoon, which is in many respects a world far treme cold of Mars, the assumption is probamore different in physical condition from the bly quite unwarranted. A recent astronomer Earth than the proper planets)-more within asserts that "water would not remain fluid our range of observation than any other at- even at the Martial equator, and alcohol would tendant of the sun. Venus, no doubt the freeze at the temperate zones." Probably no next of the planets to the Earth going sun-assertion was ever less well grounded. The wards, is often nearer to the Earth than Mars, calculation is made on the principle that Mars whose orbit envelopes our own, can ever be; but the difficulty of observing a planet which is so bright that all the imperfections of our instruments are exaggerated, and which, when at its nearest point to us must usually be observed at a low altitude, are so great, that we know less about Venus than about almost any other of the planets except Mercury. Mars, which can be observed, and has quite recently been closely observed by Mr. Lockyer, of Wimbledon, within the very moderate distance of about fifty millions of miles, is at present the only planet into the secrets of whose physical, as distinguished from purely mechanical structure, we can at present hope to peep. We know all about it that we know of any other planet, and a good deal more as well. We know that the day and night of all the four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, are nearly of equal length, and considerably more than double the days and nights of the more distant and more elaborately moonlit (or ringlit) planets. We know that they are, all four, much heavier, bulk for bulk, than the bigger planets, the little Mercury being much the heaviest in material of the four; we know that they all have atmospheres of greater or less density; and we know very little more about any of them except Mars. But of Mars the observations of Messrs. Beer and Mädler, in 1830, 1837, and 1841, had already given us a good deal of fresh knowledge, which Mr. Lockyer's admirable drawings, from observations made during the last autumn, have partly confirmed and partly supplemented.

Dr. Whewell's case against Mars chiefly consisted in its presumed cold, and in a general improbability argument derived from the vast number of ages during which the Earth, which is more favorably situated with regard to heat-had remained certainly untenanted by man. Of course to the last argument there is no reply, and no need for reply,

is so much farther from the sun that the intensity of his rays is there only four-ninths of their intensity here. That is true. But then so much more depends on the collecting effect of a thick atmosphere than on the mere intensity of the sun's rays, that water will freeze on Mount Blanc, where the mere rays are certainly much intenser, while it is summer heat in the valleys below. Accordingly, if the Martial atmosphere be only slightly denser than our own, the dimunition in intensity would be in great measure compensated. So much for à priori reasoning. Now what is the fact? The polar snows of Mars can be distinctly seen. A white spot of excessive brilliancy at the pole, which diminishes as the summer draws on, and enlarges again with winter, has been observed by many astronomers in Mars. How is this compatible with water freezing at its equator and alcohol at its temperate zone? Mr. Lockyer watched the south pole of Mars throughout last autumn. Early in last August the southern hemisphere of Mars would be entering on the season which corresponds with us to our May. In about a month's time, between August and September, he saw the white spot at the southern pole of Mars dwindle from about twenty degrees to ten degrees. In other words, the snow melted-for that this phenomenon is caused by the melting of the snow is scarcely doubted-from about eighty degrees south latitude up to ninety degrees south latitude, as the summer heat came on. The white spot was stationary, if not beginning to extend again before the observations ceased, nearly three months after the polar snow had begun to dwindle. This is a very remarkable confirmation, and even extension, of Beer and Mädler's observations. They noted the decrease, but no decrease so rapid as that observed by Mr. Lockyer.

Mr. Lockyer's observations are also very interesting on the forms of what we may fairly

call the oceans and inland seas of the south- less, as the polar snows certainly extend furern hemisphere and equatorial regions of ther; but by no means less in proportion to Mars. The observations are so clearly de- the lessened power of the solar rays. The fined and agree so well in general outline, density of the rocks and geological strata is with all that have been made for the last very nearly the same, and the peculiar red thirty years, that it is at least quite certain color of the planet has sometimes been asthat they are permanent features of the planet, cribed to a preponderance of red sandstone. and not merely bands of clouds. It is assumed The weight of bodies there is nearly half what that the permanent dark surfaces,-many of it is on our Earth, so that muscular Chriswhich, of exceedingly remarkable shapes, tianity, if it exist there, produces much have now been verified again and again by greater apparent effects for the same amount successive observers, represent either seas, of effort. The whole condensation of society or permanent rifts and chasms in the planet, may be greater, since the surface of the planet -seas, of course, being much the more likely, is one-quarter only of the surface of the Earth -while the brighter regions indicate the more-a moral advantage, as we conceive it, to perfect reflection of light from the surface of which only Americans, with their quantitacontinents or land, the permanently dazzling spots being confined to the polar snows. If this be so, we can assert that several very remarkable seas, including inland seas, some of them connected, and some not connected by straits, with still larger seas, are now defined in the southern hemisphere, in which (as is the case also with the Earth) water seems to be much more widely spread than in the northern hemisphere. There is, for example, a southern sea exceedingly like our Baltic in shape. And there is another, and still more remarkable sea, now defined by the observations of many successive observers, near the equator, a long straggling arm, twisting almost in the shape of an S laid on its back from east to west, which is at least a thousand miles in length and a hundred in breadth, as if a channel as wide as that between Liverpool and Dublin existed in equatorial Africa, and ran inland for a thousand miles or more. The masses of land in Mars appear to be least unbroken in the northern hemisphere, but it is long since we have had any good opportunity of observing the northern hemisphere of Mars, as its year is so nearly equivalent to two earthly years, that it continually returns into proximity with the Earth, with the same southern pole towards us. The improved instruments of the last generation have therefore been employed as yet successfully only on the southern hemi-casion to add a few particulars thereunto. sphere.

There is every reason, then, to think that human life on Mars might be very much like human life on the Earth. The light cannot be so bright, but the organs of sight may be so much more susceptible as to make the vision quite as good. The heat is probably

tive ideas of civilization, will be blind. It would appear at present that there is less sea and more land in proportion, on Mars than on the Earth; but of this we are scarcely yet competent to judge; and if it be so, this is, we fear, a disadvantage to our Martial neighbors, as the sea has always proved anything but "dissociating," as Horace calls it, in the later stages of civilization. Finally, the Martialites (if Martialites there be) have probably no moon, but get an additional half-hour in every diurnal revolution to make up for this disadvantage, and their year is twice as long as ours; so that their thoughts and actions have probably a longer stroke, as we may say; that is, they have less temptation to be constantly taking stock of their progress.

From Chambers's Journal.

SCIENCE AND ARTS FOR JANUARY. ELECTRICIANS enlivened their Christmas holidays by talking about Mr. Gassiot's latest experiments, which formed the subject of a paper read before the Royal Society. As the former experiments by the same persevering gentleman have been repeatedly noticed in this Journal, particularly those in which luminous effects were produced in glass vacuum tubes, we may with propriety take oc

Mr. Gassiot's present battery consists of three thousand five hundred cells, filled with salt water, by which he obtains an extraordinary continuity of action, and surprising effects. One of the most remarkable takes place when the ends of the wires which connect the battery with the vacuum tube dip into water.

ment will have arrived for shutting down the furnace, and running off the metal. This would be as beautiful an application of a philosophical fact to practical uses, as that of optical rotation in the preparation of sugar and saccharine fluids.

When slightly dipped, a disk of brilliant light | gas as it rises; and when the color peculiar appears in the middle of the tube, remaining to it appears in the instrument, then the mostationary, dazzling the eyes of the beholder. Plunge them a little deeper, and another disk marches out, so to speak, from the electrode at the end of the tube, and takes up a position by the side of the first; and so with every successive plunge, until not fewer than thirteen disks of light occupy the central Anatomists and physiologists have long space. This is a very striking experiment; questioned as to the reason why the stomach one that fascinates the eye while it interests does not digest itself during life. The gastric the mind. As Professor De la Rive of Geneva juice is so powerful that it will dissolve steel has shown, the passing of electric currents and other hard substances, while it is perthrough vacuum tubes seems to afford a means fectly harmless upon the stomach itself; exfor explaining the appearance of aurora bo- cept after death, and then one part of the reales and some other cosmical phenomena. operation of decomposition is the eating away Meanwhile, Mr. Gassiot is pursuing his ex- of the stomach by its own secretion. John periments, and the visitors to his next elec- Hunter was one of those who examined into trical soirée may anticipate an unusual treat. the question, and he came to the conclusion At the same meeting of the Royal Society, that the stomach was protected by its “living Professor Tyndall announced that further in- principle." This is not a satisfactory concluvestigation had confirmed his views as to the sion for those who believe that in the progrelation between radiant heat and aqueous ress of physiology a more definite answer vapor. This is a subject which we noticed would one day be found, and many ingenious some months ago, when first brought forward. experiments have been tried, in the hope of The meaning of it is that aqueous vapor is solving the question. Among the latest are proved to act a most important part in the those of Dr. Pavy, described in a paper read interception of radiant heat; so much so, at a recent meeting of the Royal Society. that the said vapor in the atmosphere inter- Having a dog with a fistulous opening into its cepts eighty times more heat than the air it-stomach, he introduced the hinder parts of a self. From this, Professor Tyndall shows living frog, and the ear of a living rabbit, that the stratum of air, say ten feet in thickness, nearest the surface of the earth may be regarded as a blanket; for the aqueous vapor therein contained, by preventing terrestrial radiation, keeps the earth warm. As was stated on a former occasion, the perfume of flowers floating on the air serves to economize the warmth of the bed beneath. We thus see that this apparently dry subject has important relations to chemistry, meteorology, and horticulture; and we are glad to hear that Professor Tyndall is at work on a book in which the whole of the interesting question will be discussed and published.

We hear that spectrum analysis, which, as many readers know, is a beautifully refined experiment, is likely to be applied in the great wholesale hardware manufactory-Sheffield. In the casting of steel, it is essential that certain gases injurious to the metal should be allowed to fly off, and it is always a delicate question as to when they are completely got rid of. This question, it is said, may be answered by observing the spectrum of the

and found that in each case the process of digestion did actually begin. Hence, it is a mistake to suppose that the gastric juice will not act on the living substance, and the popular notion that a frog swallowed by accident or design will live for years in the human stomach, is proved to be as fallacious as popular physiological notions commonly are. Dr. Pavy has varied his experiments, testing one set of results by another arrived at in a different way, and the conclusion he comes to is, that as the blood in a state of health is always alkaline, so the alkalinity of the blood circulating through the coats of the stomach neutralizes the action of the acid, or gastric juice. And seeing that the taking of food into the stomach excites a greater flow of blood to that organ, the protection is most active at the very time that the gastric juice is poured out in greatest quantity for the process of digestion.

Some time ago, a chemist pointed out that it would be easy to detect fraud in woven goods by means of a simple test-that is, by dipping samples of the articles into a chemi