then rainy weather to the 28th, the rest of the month frosty; 1786, frost and snow till January 7, then a week mild with much rain, the next week heavy snow, and the rest mild with frequent rain; 1787, first twenty-four days, dark moist mild weather, then four days frost, the rest mild and showery; 1788, thirteen days mild and wet, five days of frost, and from January 18 to the end of month dry windy weather; 1789, thirteen days hard frost, the rest of the month mild with showers; 1790, sixteen days of mild foggy weather with occasional rain, to the 21st frost, to the 28th dark with driving rains, and the rest mild dry weather; 1791, the whole of January mild with heavy rains; and lastly, 1792, "some hard frost in January, but mostly wet and mild."

There is nothing certainly in this record to suggest that any material change has taken place in our January weather during the last eighty years. And if we had given the record of the entire winter for each of the years above dealt with the result would have been the same.

We have, in fact, very striking evidence in Gilbert White's account of the cold weather of December, 1784, which he specially describes as "very extraordinary," to show that neither our severe nor our average winter weather can differ materially from that which people experienced in the eighteenth century. "In the evening of December 9th," he says, "the air began to be so very sharp that we thought it would be curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer; we therefore hung out two, one made by Martin and one by Dolland" (sic, presumably Dollond), "which soon began to show us what we were to expect; for by ten o'clock they fell to twenty-one, and at eleven to four, when we went to bed. On the 10th, in the morning the quicksilver in Dolland's glass was down to half a degree below zero, and that of Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees above zero, sank quite into the brass guard of the ball, so that when the weather became most interesting this was useless. On the 10th, at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dolland's glass went down to one degree below zero!" The note of exclamation is White's. He goes on to speak of "this strange severity of the weather," which was not exceeded that winter, or at any time during the twenty-four years of White's observations. Within the last quarter of a century, the thermometer, on more than one occasion, has shown two or three degrees below zero. Certainly the winters cannot be supposed to have been ordinarily severer than ours in the latter half of the last century, when we find that thermometers, by well-known instrument makers were so constructed as to indicate no lower temperature than four degrees above zero.

Let us return, after this somewhat long digression, to the levelling action of rain and rivers.

If we consider this action alone, we cannot but recognise in it a cause sufficient to effect the removal of all the higher parts of the land to low levels, and eventually of all the low-lying land to the sea, in the course of such periods as geology makes us acquainted with. The mud

banks at the mouths of rivers show only a part of what rain and river action is doing, yet consider how enormous is the mass which is thus carried into the sea. It has been calculated that in a single week the Ganges alone carries away from the soil of India and delivers into the sea twice as much solid substance as is contained in the great pyramid of Egypt. "The Irrawaddy," says Sir J. Herschel, "sweeps off from Burmah 62 cubic feet of earth in every second of time on an average, and there are 86,400 seconds in every day, and 365 days in every year; and so on for other rivers." Nor is there any reason to fear or hope that the rains will cease, and this destructive process come to an end. For though the quantity of water on the surface of the earth is probably undergoing a slow process of diminution, small portions of it year by year taking their place as waters under the earth,* yet these processes are far too slow to appreciably affect the supply of water for a period far longer than that during which (in all probability) life can continue upon the earth.

When we consider the force really represented by the downfall of rain, we need not greatly wonder that the levelling power of rain is so effective. The sun's heat is the true agent in thus levelling the earth, and if we regard, as we justly may, the action of water, whether in the form of rain or river, or of sea-wave raised by wind or tide, as the chief levelling and therefore destructive force at work upon the earth, and the action of the earth's vulcanian energies as the chief restorative agent, then we may fairly consider the contest as lying between the sun's heat and the earth's internal heat. There can be little question as to what would be the ultimate issue of the contest, if land and sea and air all endured or were only so far modified as they were affected by these Sun-heat would inevitably prevail in the long run over earth

causes.

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Those whose custom it is to regard all theorising respecting the circumstances revealed by observation as unscientific, may read with profit an extremely speculative passage in Newton's Principia relating to the probable drying up of the earth in future ages: "As the seas," he says, are absolutely necessary to the constitution of our earth, that from them the sun, by its heat, may exhale a sufficient quantity of vapours, which, being gathered together into clouds, may drop down in rain, for watering of the earth, and for the production and nourishment of vegetables; or being condensed with cold on the tops of mountains (as some philosophers with reason judge), may run down in springs and rivers; so for the conservation of the seas and fluids of the planets, comets seem to be required, that, from their exhalations and vapours condensed, the wastes of the planetary fluids spent upon vegetation and putrefaction, and converted into dry earth, may be ultimately supplied and made up; for all vegetables entirely derive their growths from fluids, and afterwards, in great measure, are turned into dry earth by putrefaction; and a sort of slime is always found to settle at the bottom of putrefied fluids; and hence it is that the bulk of the solid earth is continually increased; and the fluids, if they are not supplied from without, must be in a continual decrease, and quite fail at last. I suspect, moreover, that it is chiefly from the comets that spirit comes, which is indeed the smallest but the most subtle and useful part of our air, and so much required to sustain the life of all things with us."

heat.

But we see from the condition of our moon how the withdrawal of water and air from the scene must diminish the sun's power of levelling the irregularities of the earth's surface. We say advisedly diminish, not destroy; for there can be no question that the solar heat alternating with the cold of the long lunar night is still at work levelling, however slowly, the moon's surface; and the same will be the case with our earth when her oceans and atmosphere have disappeared by slow processes of absorption.

The power actually at work at present in producing rain, and so indirectly in levelling the earth's surface, is enormous. We have shown elsewhere that the amount of heat required to evaporate a quantity of water which would cover an area of 100 square miles to a depth of 1 inch would be equal to the heat which would be produced by the combustion of half a million tons of coals, and that the amount of force of which this consumption of heat would be the equivalent corresponds to that which would be required to raise a weight of upwards of one thousand millions of tons to a height of 1 mile. When we remember that the land surface of our earth amounts to about fifty millions of square miles, we perceive how enormous must be the force-equivalent of the annual rainfall of our earth. We are apt to overlook when contemplating the silent and seemingly quiet processes of nature-such as the formation of the rain-cloud or the precipitation of rain-the tremendous energy of the forces really causing these processes. "I have seen," says Professor Tyndall, "the wild stone-avalanches of the Alps, which smoke and thunder down the declivities with a vehemence almost sufficient to stun the observer. I have also seen snow-flakes descending so softly as not to hurt the fragile spangles of which they were composed; yet to produce from aqueous vapour a quantity which a child could carry of that tender material demands an exertion of energy competent to gather up the shattered blocks of the largest stone avalanche I have ever seen, and pitch them to twice the height from which they fell."

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VOL. XXXV.-No. 208.

24.

Carità.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.

T

HE news which had produced so sudden and startling an effect upon the inmates of No. 7 had been known early in the morning of the same day to the inmates of No. 8. This it was which had prevented either of the young men from paying their ordinary visits; but the wonder was that no rumour should have reached at least the kitchen of Mr. Beresford's house of the sad news which had arrived next door. Probably the reason was that the servants were all fully occupied, and had no time for conversation. The news

had come early, conveyed by Mr. Sommerville personally and by post from the official head-quarters, for Mr. Meredith was a civil servant of standing and distinction. There was nothing extraordinary or terrible in it. He had been seized with one of the rapid diseases of the climate, and had succumbed like so many other men, leaving everything behind him settled and in order. It was impossible that a wellregulated and respectable household could have been carried on with less reference to the father of the children, and nominal master of the house, than Mrs. Meredith's was; but perhaps this was one reason why his loss fell upon them all like a thunderbolt. Dead! no one had ever thought of him as a man who could die. The event brought him near them as with the rapidity of lightning. Vaguely in their minds, or at least in the wife's mind, there had been the idea of some time or other making up to him for that long separation and estrangement-how, she did not inquire, and when, she rather trembled to think of, but some time. The idea of writing a kinder letter than usual to him had crossed her mind that very morning. They did not correspond much; they had mutually found each other incompatible, unsuitable, and lately Mrs. Meredith had been angry with the distant husband, who had been represented as disapproving of her. But this morning, no later, some thrill of more kindly