receive Christ Jesus, the unspeakable | gift of God; must implicitly yield itself to the guidance of the Sacred Spirit, by whose gracious influence alone, what in human nature is dark can be enlightened, what is grovelling raised, and what is polluted purified; the man must become a partaker of the faith that receives the kingdom of God as a little child, that will enable him in true repentance to fall at the feet of a forgiving Father, to submit to his authority and rest in his love, and live in continual intercourse with him. When this course is established and maintained, growing dignity and excellence will adorn the spirit and character; and daily advances will be made in preparation for the in`heritance of the saints in light, of which daily anticipations will be cherished. "When one that holds communion with the skies,

Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise,
And stoops to converse with us meaner things,
'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide,
They tell us whence its treasures are supplied."

As uncle Barnaby closed the above quotation, he rose and left the room. As I mused awhile on his sentiments and his character,

"I'll tell you what, Samuel," said my cousin Frank,, "my uncle Barnaby

himself is a noble man." "I think so too,'" was my reply, "and I wish we could be like him. We must seek such excellences from Him who gives power to them that believe to become the sons of God."

although it was the leading feature in that of the Saviour of the world, and is still the leading characteristic of his religion; while there is no vice, on the contrary, against which the denunciations are so frequent as pride. Our conduct in this instance is certainly rather extraordinary, both in what we have embraced and in what we have rejected; and it will surely be confessed we are somewhat unfortunate in having selected that one as the particular object of approbation which God had already selected as the especial mark at which he aims the thunderbolts of his vengeance.-R. Hall.

PROGRESS OF THE GLACIERS.

PROFESSOR Hugi has recently made servations upon the movement and rate some interesting experiments and obhe noted the position of numerous loose of progress of the glaciers. In 1829 blocks lying on the surface of the lower glacier of the Aar, relative to the fixed rocks at its sides. He also measured

the glacier, and erected signal-posts on it. In 1836 he found every thing altered ; many of the loose blocks had moved off, and entirely disappeared, along with the he had hastily erected, to shelter himself ice that supported them. A hut, which and his companions, had advanced 2184 feet; two blocks of granite, between which it stood, then eight feet apart, had been separated to a distance of 18 feet, the beams and timbers had fallen in between them, and the nails and pieces of iron, used in fastening them, exhibited not the slightest trace of rust. A mass of granite, containing 26,000 cubic feet, originally buried under the snow of the firn, which was now converted into glacier, had not only been raised to the surface, but was elevated above it, in the air, upon two pedestals, or pillars, of ice; so that a large body of men might have found shelter under it. A signal-post, stuck into a mass of granite, had not only made as great an advance as the hut, but the distance between the two had been increased 760 feet by the expansion of the glacier. The mass of the glacier had grown or increased near the point where it begins to descend 206 feet: lower down there was less augmentation perceptible. The advance of the icefield of the Mer de Glace is calculated at between 400 and 500 feet yearly, and for eight or ten years past, the mass of the glacier has been sinking and retiring gradually.-Hand Book of Switzerland.

MOSS.

Ir is a very striking and remarkable phenomenon of the visible creation, that every part of it, so far as is known to us, should be full to overflowing with something in a living or growing state. The earth, the air, and the waters swarm either with animals and animalcula, or with numberless forms of vegetable life; which, though not like ourselves endowed with consciousness, nor, in some points of view, with sensibility, are unquestionably of indispensable importance in the great scheme of universal being, designed and called into existence by the wisdom and power of God.

But, though the fulness of life in the world is so striking as to attract the attention of the most incurious, error and prejudice are too commonly prevalent respecting circumstances of great interest, when well understood, as may here be briefly illustrated. The microscope proves that the waters swarm with animalcula, invisible to the naked eye, and affording so much nourishment to larger animals, that several species, such as the herring, the salmon, and even the whale, seem to require little else for their

d, Capsule with the orifice covered by the beaked veil, the pod containing the sporules or seeds.

e, Veil, inner side.

subsistence; and hence the food they lived upon was long, and is among many now, an unexplained mystery. The fact of the waters being thus full of life is therefore undeniable; and, by reasoning analogically, it has been concluded, that the same is true of the air, which is consequently affirmed to swarm with invisible insects and other minute creatures.

This is not true, however, of the atmosphere as it is true of the waters. The minute animals which swarm in water are chiefly such as are covered with transparent or translucent crustaceous shells, somewhat similar in composition to those of shrimps or lobsters, and so specifically heavy that they could not float in the air, and consequently could not fill it. But independently of this negative consideration, we can see, when a bright ray of light streams through an apartment, or a shaded corner of a wood or of a garden, that

"The gay motes which people the sunbeams" show no sign of life, and consist of minute particles of dust, shreds of hair, down, cotton, wool, and similar inanimate

F

matters, swept away from the surfaces of things by the passing breeze. A gnat, a fly, or a bird, may indeed float across this sunbeam; but the occasional appearance of these creatures would not entitle us to say that the air swarmed with them, as the waters are proved to swarm with animalcula. The grand test of the microscope, also applied to the motepeopled sunbeam, or to any other portion of the atmosphere, invariably proves that no animalcula invisible to the naked eye exist there, and that, so far as animal life is concerned, the air is barren and blank, with the exception of such as are obvious and visible.

If this be true of the minute insects and animalcula themselves, it holds still more strongly of their eggs, which have also been asserted to float about in the air, and thus to spread blight and devastation over fields, orchards, and gardens. Now it has recently been shown, by the profound and accurate researches of M. Ehrenberg, of Berlin, that the eggs of minute insects and animalcula are, in a very extraordinary degree, proportionally large in comparison with the mothers that lay them; and we know that all eggs are specifically heavier than the animals which are hatched from them. If, therefore, the insects and animalcula are too heavy to float in the air without the aid of wings, or, as in the case of the spider, without the floating support of a gossamer thread, much less will the still heavier eggs float on the air, or be carried about with the winds.

Now, though all this, contrary to popular opinion and belief, is demonstrably true of minute animalcula and their eggs, which are not, and cannot, from their weight, be diffused through the air, it is just the contrary with respect to certain classes of the vegetable creation. Nobody, indeed, ever dreamed of plants, however minute, floating about in the air, living and growing, without root, and non-stationary; though it would be as correct to affirm this of minute plants as of minute animals invisible to the naked eye. But that the seeds of the plants in question are diffused very extensively, and in extraordinary profusion, through most, if not through all parts of the atmosphere hitherto observed, is proved by numerous facts strikingly interesting and remarkable.

The city of Glasgow is chiefly built of a beautifully white freestone, called by geologists the new sandstone of the coal

measures; and as the great demand for this as a building stone has exhausted the supply near the surface in the immediate vicinity of the city, the quarries have been, in some instances, worked to the depth of from fifty to perhaps two hundred feet. Now the stone which is detached from the very heart of the solid rock at this depth, where it has lain atleast since the deluge, might not be supposed to contain seeds capable of vegetating; yet, after houses are built of this stone, the walls, within a few months, and sometimes within a few weeks, exhibit patches and streaks of a green colour, as if they had been painted; and it is worthy of remark, that in spots where water drips or streams down from the eaves or roof, the green becomes deeper and denser, showing that it is either derived from the water, or developed thereby. The celebrated Linnæus described this green, paint-looking substance as a species of crow-silk (Byssus); but it was afterwards experimentally proved by the German naturalist, Hedwig, and by Mr. James Drummond, now the government botanist at the Swan River, that it is only the first stage of the vegetation of a number of species of common mosses; and that under circumstances favourable to their growth the paint-looking green would acquire leaves, and go on to perfect seeds (Sporula).

We have thus shown that these seeds, or sporules, as botanists call them, must either have been in the stone dug from the heart of the solid rock, or in the rain water that had moistened the wall where the vegetation is observed. may now bring forward some curious facts to prove that the moss sporules, or seeds, are derived from the rain water, rather than from the stone.

We

If the moss sporules, or seeds, were in the stone, they would be entirely destroyed by the stone being made red-hot. Now, though the writer is not aware that this experiment has been tried with the Glasgow building-stone, it is tried every day in the similar instance of bricks employed in building, on which also the green paint-like substance arising from the vegetation of mosses makes its appearance, though not so remarkably as on the white stone, owing to circumstances that will afterwards be stated.

In the vicinity of London, and elsewhere, it is one of the commonest circumstances, though it may be overlooked by non-botanical observers, to see the

top of a brick wall that has been built for some time, with a thick vegetation of mosses, such as the wall screw moss (Tortula muralis), and the hygrometer moss (Funaria hygrometrica), in every stage of growth, from the first speck of vegetation to the full-grown fruit or sporule-bearing plants. Now, before this crop of mosses appeared on the top of the brick wall, the sporules or seeds must have been sown there, as they could not exist in the bricks after they were burned in the kiln. On the sides of the walls the mosses are but sparingly, if at all, seen to grow, because, unlike the soft porous freestone of Glasgow, that readily imbibes water, the bricks are comparatively smooth and hard, and, therefore, it is only on the top of the wall that the seeds or sporules can well lodge till they vegetate. Even on the top of the walls they are observed at first chiefly in small holes or crevices, till the rotting of successive generations of them forms a thin layer of soil, which is annually extended, and affords a still better place for subsequent crops to grow in.

If it should be thought by any that the instance of the moss vegetating on bricks, strong though it be, is not quite conclusive as to their derivation from sporules or seeds floating in the atmosphere, there is a striking fact, and one new to botanists, which is still more conclusive in support of the inference contended for, as shall now be stated.

It must be apparent to all, that the deck of a ship is the last place where any manifestation of vegetable life might be looked for. One might almost as well expect to see plants springing up on the floor of an uncarpeted room, constantly trodden over, and daily swept or washed down. The tar and pitch, also, which are always more or less spread over the deck of a ship, are inimical to vegetable life; the creasote which these contain tending to kill all plants by coagulating their mucilaginous juices, and clogging up the circulation of their sap. Yet, notwithstanding all these unpropitious circumstances, and apparent impossibilities, the universally diffused moss, sporules, or seeds, as readily exhibit their presence, and vegetate in the form of the green paint-looking substance, on the often-paced and daily-scrubbed deck of a ship, in certain cases, as on the stone walls of the houses in Glasgow, and the tops of the brick walls near London. It was necessary to say, "in

|

certain cases," for the phenomenon does not occur on the decks of all ships, nor at all times. For the purpose of bringing forward the vegetation of the seeds or sporules of moss, moisture and warmth are indispensable, and consequently the vegetation will never be developed in dry, frosty weather. The phenomenon of the vegetation of mosses, accordingly, is seen most strikingly on the decks of ships during the rainy season in the tropical latitudes; and it does not appear to depend in any degree upon the proximity or remoteness of land, but is as profuse at one thousand miles from land as when the ship is in harbour.

Do not, then, these particulars prove beyond all doubt, that the moss seeds or sporules are floating every where in the atmosphere, even a thousand miles from land, and that they are carried down by rains, and lodged on every spot of the earth's surface, ready to spring into vegetation and verdure? Even the barren deserts, there can be little question, would soon be covered with these abundant tiny mosses, were it not that the sand wants the requisite moisture for their germination-a consequence, it would appear, of the original anathema, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," Gen. iii. 17.

All this, it may be said, is pretty strong proof of the moss sporules being diffused abundantly through the atmosphere; but why not prove their existence there more decidedly, by the aid of the microscope, as is done with respect to the minute insects and animalcula in water? It may be stated, in reply to this, that the experiment, though presenting considerable difficulty, is not impossible, for the sporules might be detected by the microscope in rain water caught before it fell on a wall, or the like. The writer, however, is not aware that any attempt has been made to ascertain this. One of the great difficulties which stand in the way is, the extreme minuteness of the moss sporules, some species of these being described when scattered from the pods, as resembling smoke or vapour; and the non-botanical reader may be referred for an analogous example, to the sporules or seeds of the common puffball, which are too fine to be called dust even by illiterate observers.

Another extensive group of plants similar in their manner of diffusion to mosses, but very different in appearance, is known to botanists by the name of

lichens, and some of the species are popularly termed liverwort, stone-raw, cud-bear, and Iceland moss (Cetraria Islandica). The sporules of these lichens must be similarly diffused in the atmosphere with those of mosses, if we may draw the inference from their great profusion, and the universality of their dispersion. Lichens do not appear, like mosses, to require any crevice or hole for their sporules to lodge in order to vegetate, for several sorts will fasten upon the smoothest and hardest stones and rocks, and even on the still smoother bark of trees. There are few trees indeed of several years' standing, and still fewer stones and rocks, in exposed situations, whose surfaces are not incrusted and mottled with innumerable lichens, some exhibiting little more than black lines, like small Hebrew characters, (Epegrapha Hebraica,) others in broad leather-like patches, and others in tufts, like a bundle of small grey twigs without leaves.

One of the final causes of the profuse dispersion of mosses and lichens appears to be the production of soil for the growth of larger plants. The process of this formation on rocks, stones, and the tops of walls, appears to be the following:the mosses and lichens which vegetate from sporules, rarely, in the first instance, get beyond the earliest stage of growth before they are starved for want of moisture; and there being no soil for even their very small roots to take hold of, they perish and rot, leaving a barely perceptible layer of decayed vegetable matter, as the beginning of the soil about to be formed. The next sporules which lodge and vegetate on this thin layer of soil have, of course, the advantage of some little earth, scanty though it be, to strike their minute roots into; and, in consequence of this advantage, their growth, though still feeble, is superior to that of the first crop, and when dry weather comes to destroy them, their decayed materials add more than as much again to the first layer of soil that has been formed.

It sometimes requires many generations of vegetating mosses before any of them arrive at mature growth, so as to produce pods of ripe sporules; and in situations which are too dry, they never do arrive at this stage of maturity; but, notwithstanding, they continue to grow and decay, and add to the accumulating soil till a layer is produced of sufficient

depth for grasses and other plants to spring up and take root.

Another apparent final cause of the very general growth of these plants is, to cover portions of ground which would otherwise lie bare and barren. The illustration of this point would require as much space as has already been devoted to the vegetation of mosses and lichens, and it would prove of no less interest in developing the goodness of the all-wise God; but, for the present, room cannot be spared for more than one or two instances.

On the damp banks of ditches, and similar places, there are often vacant spots of earth left, after the other portions of the soil, especially where it is exposed to the sun, are clothed with grass and other herbage. On the bank least exposed to the sun, and even in spots where its rays never come, Hooker's shining