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tracted to such a length, that the crowd which waited outside for Masaniello's return, began to get alarmed, and to show symptoms of suspicion and uneasiness. On hearing this Masaniello stepped to the window, and by a single word hushed the miscreants to silence. He took the opportunity of showing to the viceroy the wonderful and perilous influence which he had established over the populace by manifesting their immediate and implicit obedience to his commands. He gave a signal with his hand, and instantly all the bells in the city began to toll; he waved his hand once more, and their knell instantly ceased. He lifted his arm, and the multitude raised deafening shouts; he placed his finger on his lips, and the assembled thousands became mute and motionless as statues. Such an exhibition produced the designed effect; the viceroy felt it necessary to recognise the title of so potent a demagogue; he not only saluted him as captain-general of the populace, but placed a gold chain round his neck with his own hands, and proclaimed him Duke of St. George.

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July 12th. The hopes of peace were baffled by the increasing malady of Masaniello; he was haunted by a morbid terror of death, dreading particularly the banditti, and the nobles by whom he believed them to be instigated. He could only sleep for a few minutes at a time, keeping his attendants in constant excitement, by springing from his troubled slumbers and exclaiming, Up, up, there can be no rest for us until we are masters of Naples !" He received food only from the hands of one of his relations, and he frequently expressed a belief that he would eventually be deserted by the fickle populace, ignominiously slain, and that his body would be exposed to insults as gross as those which had been offered to the remains of Caraffa. Agitated by these apprehensions, he no longer received applications and petitions in the market-place, but posted himself at the window of his own cottage, in his fisherman's dress, with a loaded blunderbuss at hand. A body of the Lazzaroni surrounded the house as guards and executioners of his will; two secretaries prepared his answers, sentences, &c., and in all of these Masaniello continued to manifest an implacable hatred of the aristocracy.

July 13th. The business of this day was the installation of Masaniello in the cathedral, and the solemn ratification of the articles of peace arranged between him and the viceroy. During the ceremony the marks of Masaniello's madness first became obvious to the spectators; he frequently interrupted the reading of the articles by captious and even absurd objections; at the conclusion of the ceremony he was with difficulty restrained from throwing off his robes, and assuming his old dress in the presence of the whole assembly. The multitude, however, still adhered to him, and their acclamations succeeded for a time in restoring his equanimity.

July 14th.-The insurrection had now lasted a week; a second Sunday had dawned, and the distractions of Naples seemed to have become worse than ever. Masaniello's insanity now began to be manifest to the multitude; he gailoped through the streets half-naked, invited the cardinal and the Duke of Arcos to sup with him, jumped into the sea with his clothes on, continued to swim about for an hour, and drank at supper twelve flasks of strong wine. The intoxication which ensued, produced the only sound sleep he had enjoyed since his elevation.

July 15th.-Insurrectionary violence was now beginning to grow weary of its own excesses. The populace had nothing to do; for all who could be regarded as enemies of the public cause were removed. Masaniello's insane freaks, sometimes ludicrous and

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always mischievous, tended greatly to abate the popular enthusiasm in his favour; a new conspiracy was formed for his destruction, in which many who had been his most ardent supporters were included. His despotic power, which he frequently manifested by various acts of tyranny during the day, seemed still too formidable to be resisted. But towards evening he drew his sword, cut furiously at all around him, and became so outrageous that his friends were obliged to bind and secure him during the night.

July 16th.-Early in the day Masaniello escaped from the friends who detained him in custody, and rushed into the church of Del Carmine, during service before a crowded congregation. When the solemnity was concluded, Masaniello ascended the pulpit with a crucifix in his hand, harangued them in a desponding mood, complaining that he was betrayed and deserted. As he grew warm with the fervour of discourse, his insanity began to break out; at length his language and his gestures became so outrageous that the priests removed him by force from the pulpit. He then applied to the cardinal for protection, offering to resign all his authority to the viceroy, and the prelate persuaded him to retire into an adjoining cloister. The conspirators soon burst into his place of refuge, exclaiming, "Health to the king of Spain and death to Masaniello!" For a moment his former energies were rallied; he turned round to the assassins, and in a tone of firmness exclaimed, "Do my faithful subjects seek me? Here I am." The words had scarcely passed his lips when he received the fire of four muskets in his bosom; he had only time to exclaim, "Ungrateful traitors!" as he fell. He was a dead man ere his head touched the earth.

The crowded congregation, in the church of Del Carmine, learned the fate of the popular favourite without emotion. Those who had followed shouting in his train on the preceding day, patiently stood by while his head was cut off to be borne as a trophy to the viceroy. His body was dragged through the streets by a rabble of boys, among whom the nobility freely flung pieces of money, and was then cast into one of the city ditches.

July 17th. The death of Masaniello does not conclude his " strange eventful history." On the morning after his murder a vast crowd of the Lazzaroni assembled, sought out his dishonoured remains, and carried them in melancholy procession to the cathedral; there his body was arrayed in royal robes, decorated with a crown and sceptre, and treated with all the respect due to a deceased sovereign. His funeral was celebrated with the utmost pomp; thousands of armed men followed the hearse, testifying their respect and sorrow; as the body sunk into the grave the assembled multitude burst into a passion of tears, prayers, and lamentation, and the memory of the unfortunate fisherman was long held in the highest veneration by the mob of Naples.

Thus, in the short space of ten days, Masaniello was raised from indigence and obscurity to the height of power; then suddenly slain as a wild beast and dragged through the city with ignominy, yet finally buried as a prince and almost worshipped as a saint.

The civil war soon broke out afresh, but the Neapolitans, after their first enthusiasm had cooled, proved unable to resist the might of the Spanish monarchy. Torn in sunder by internal tumults, insulted by their leaders, betrayed by their favourites, and plundered by banditti, they were glad to purchase peace upon any terms, and to submit to a government still more oppressive than that against which they had taken up arms.

HISTORY OF THE OLIVE TREE, AND THE MODE OF PREPARING THE OIL.

No. II

THE cultivation of the Olive has always been particularly attended to by the husbandmen of Western Asia and Southern Europe. It was formerly, and at the present day, propagated both by cuttings and by grafts; the latter method is referred to at some length

in Romans xi. 17—24.

There was a law at Athens that the Olive-tree must be planted nine feet from another man's ground, because it is said to spread its roots further than other trees.

Virgil, describing the various ways which Nature has ordained for the propagation of trees, says, that Olives are increased by truncheons, that is, by cutting or sawing the trunk or thick branches into pieces of a foot or a foot and a half in length and planting them; whence a root, and soon after a tree, was formed. He goes on to express his astonishment at their great vitality:

E'en stumps of Olives, barred of leaves and dead,
Revive, and oft redeem their withered head.

In another place, he says, that these trees, Unlike vines, when once they have taken root and braved the winds, require neither pruning-hooks nor rakes; the land itself, after being ploughed, affords sufficient nourishment, and so productive are the plants that it would almost seem as if the fruit in full maturity were really turned up by the ploughshare.-Georgics, II. 420.

But little alteration has taken place in its culture. It is still propagated by grafts, or by suckers and truncheons, and it is still the custom to deposit stones in the trenches for encouraging moisture about the roots, as described by Virgil.

Its successful cultivation may be taken as no uncertain test of the industry and security of the country that produces it; its delicate constitution, if the term may be allowed, and the long period that must elapse before it will bear fruit, demands all the care and patience of the labourer. If once the original stock is destroyed, as frequently happens during a war, a whole generation must pass away before the new plants come to maturity, and unless property is pro-tected and the labourers have some interest in the

soil, it may not be reproduced for centuries. Under the paternal government of Greece it is daily adding to the riches of the country, while in Egypt it has gradually disappeared, nor have they been able to revive its cultivation. "Of many thousand young Olive-trees," says Prince Puckler Muscau, in a recent letter to this country, "which Ibrahim Pasha caused to be distributed gratis some years ago, hardly one remains, because they were carelessly planted and still more carelessly looked after."

The Olive, in the Western world, (says Gibbon,) followed the progress of peace, of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that useful plant; it was naturalized in those countries, and at length arrived into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the neighbourhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and experience.

The Olive grows readily in our own country by cuttings, or it may be grafted on the privet.

With protection during frost, (says Mr. Loudon,) it may be maintained against a wall in the latitude of London. Some trees so treated produced a crop in the garden of Camden House, Kensington, in 1719, and in Devonshire some trees have stood the Winter for many years, as standards, though without ripening their fruit. Large plants are frequently imported from Genoa along with orange and pomegranate trees.

This subject affords an opportunity of saying a few

words upon the mutual action and reaction of vegetable upon animal, and of animate upon inanimate matter. By tracing the food of animals through all its conditions, we find that no substance or being is isolated or self-dependent-that the same element is gradually developed from inert matter to vegetable life-from vegetable to animal life-and that its apparent death is merely its transition from one condition to another. It was observed by a native of Marseilles that the Olive, in its wild state, is propagated by kernels that have undergone the digestive process of animals, and more particularly of birds. It was further observed that, by this process, the fruit was deprived of its natural oil, and thus rendered permeable to the moisture of the soil, the excrement of the animal at the same time serving for manure, and probably the soda which that contains, by combining with the portion of the oil that has escaped digestion still further ensuring germination; the continuance of the species being thus produced by the very means that would seem to have destroyed it. The digestive process is so powerful, that, some physiologists," says John Hunter, "will have it, that the stomach is a mill-others, that it is a fermenting vat-others again, that it is a stew-pan-but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat, nor a stew-pan-but a stomach;" its action, however, is so powerful, that the handles of knives swallowed by jugglers have been dissolved, and the edges of the blades been acted upon by the gastric juice; yet the principle of life in the kernels of the Olive is still more powerful, resisting all chemical action except that which is favourable to germination *.

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Olive oil was, perhaps, the first, certainly the chief object of the early commerce of the Levant. As vast quantities of it were made by the ancient Jews, it became an article of exportation. The demand for it in Egypt led the Jews to send it thither, and the prophet Hosea, xii. 1, upbraids his degenerate nation with the folly of their conduct, when, in the decline of their national glory, they carried the produce of their Olive-plantations into Egypt as a tribute to their ancient oppressors, or as a present to conciliate their favour, and obtain their assistance in the sanguinary wars which they were compelled to wage with the neighbouring states.

It was also carried into Egypt by the Greeks; Plutarch tells us that Plato defrayed the charges of his travels by selling oil in Egypt.

The relative value of this tree, as comparea with other productions of the soil, may be seen by the oath which the Athenian youths were required to take at the age of eighteen. "My endeavours to extend the dominions of Athens shall never cease while there are wheat, barley, vineyards, and olive-trees

* One more instance of the reaction that animals exert upon vegetable life. The formation of the finer soils immediately upon the surface of lands is chiefly to be attributed to the digestive process of the common earth worm. Swallowing with its food a considerable quantity of earth below the ground, it deposits this upon the surface in a state admirably adapted for vegetation. This little gardener "earths up" the delicate roots of plants from which the mould has been washed away by rains, and is continually preparing a fresh soil to receive their seeds. It has been lately proved by actual observation, that the superficial stratum of a field is entirely changed in this manner every few months, and that pieces of pottery that have been thrown away as rubbish, are buried, in the course of a few years, to the depth of several inches. There is no room left to adduce other examples, but it requires no painful labour to follow nature ourselves through this or any of her paths: it is true that we have no opportunity in this country of observing whole reefs of rocks, secreted by one class of animals as bone is secreted in the human body. (see Saturday Magazine, Vol. III., p. 219,) and the surface of these rocks broken down into a rich and impalpable mud by another class, both lower in the scale of creation than the common earth worm. But there are changes going on before the eyes of all, so beautiful and yet so simple, that it seems strange that our attention is not more frequently arrested by them-and seeing them, that our minds can remain insensible to the perfect wisdom they evince.

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without its limits." At Athens there was a separate | ripe, the trees are well beaten, and the Olives are market called the "oil market," and a small trade picked up from amongst the grass by women and These are was carried on in the fruit itself, for, according to a children, and collected into small sacks. law in force," all olives are exportable, but other balanced on each side of an ass or mule, and carried fruits are not; so that the archon shall openly curse at once to the proprietor of the mill, with whom the the persons that exported them, or else be fined 100 fruit is bartered for a certain quantity of oil. The drachmas," (31. 4s. 7d.) proportion of fruit for oil depends upon the abundance of the harvest, and the period of the season; the fruit that is first gathered being dry, and unproductive compared with that collected later in the season, which swells even till it bursts, and lets the oil run away. At the beginning of the season of 1835, 28 occas* of fruit were exchanged for 5 occas of oil, or nearly three gallons; but later in the season, only 24 occas, or even less, were given for the same quantity. The weighing of the little sacks as they come in is not the least curious part of the ceremony. The countryman not placing implicit confidence in the master of the machines, invariably brings his own the same scales with him, while the latter pays deference to the honesty of the other by weighing a second time with his scales, and it is not considered etiquette for the buyer to stand very near the sack for fear he should be tempted to give it a slight lift upwards with his foot. One sack weighed 53 occas, and another after that 46 occas.

The oil and unripe fruit in a pickled state are chiefly brought to England from Languedoc, Leghorn, and Naples; the best oil is from Leghorn, and the best pickles from Genoa and Marseilles. The Ionian islands are very rich in oil. The average product of the harvest of Zante is from 4400 to 4500 barrels, and that of Corfu in 1835 was reckoned at 80,000 or 100,000 barrels, and was valued at 2,000,000 dollars; but it must be observed that the trees bear well only every second year, and 1835 was the productive year. Strangers visiting the Ionian islands in Autumn are apt to think that currants are the chief produce, as at that time the whole of the country is engaged in the currant harvest, and the ports are crowded with vessels anxious to obtain the first fresh fruit. The trade in oil, however, is the most valuable, but as it is carried on constantly, and the oil is quietly embarked all the year round, it does not come so directly under the notice of strangers.

The process of expressing the oil is very interesting. Before the invention of mills it was obtained by pounding the fruit in a mortar; in Exodus xxvii. 20, we read of " pure olive-oil beaten for the light." It was also obtained by treading them with the feet in the same way as they crush grapes in many places at the present day, as at Xeres in Spain for our sherry wine; so in Micah vi. 15, "Thou shalt tread the olives;" but the feet appear to have been armed with metallic shoes; "Let him dip his foot in oil; thy shoes shall be iron and brass."-Deut. xxxiii. 24, 25.

To illustrate the preparation of oil, as it is carried on at the present day, we shall conclude with a description of some Olive-mills at Athens.

About half a mile from Athens, on the road to the port, and on the skirts of the great Olive-grove, are a row of low cottages built of mud, but not ill-looking, in which may be seen the rude and simple machinery which constitutes their olive-mills. They commence work about the beginning of November. Some of the fruit falls of itself before the season commences, and is either trodden under foot or washed away by the rains; but when there is a sufficient quantity

The fruit is now shot out into a large square bin, in a corner of the building, like wheat in a granary, and close to this bin is the little mill for crushing

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chines are of two kinds, the one in common use has | In this manner twenty-eight occas of fruit produce only one stone attached to a perpendicular beam eight, nine, or ten occas of oil. The water takes up which rotates with it. A horse is attached by traces most of the colouring matter of the fruit, and flows to a horizontal pole which runs through the centre of away from the cottages like rivulets of blood, dyeing the stone, and to a stick on the other side by a rein the ground for some little distance of a deep and ingeniously tightened, so that the horse most un- beautiful crimson. The refuse of the fruit comes from willingly pulls itself along when once the machine is the press in square hardish masses, that are placed set in motion. The improved machine has two before the fire, where they soon become quite dry, smaller stones further removed from the central and serve for fuel to heat the water that is so conbeam, which does not rotate with them, but is made stantly required in the various processes. The oil, fast to the roof of the building. These are much which is of a beautiful light-green colour, is removed more effective than the other as they describe larger from the trough into a large jar close to the press, circles, but require more moving power. The object and after depositing any water or dirt, is poured into of the mill is only to crush the Olives, no oil what- skins, having the hair upon the inside. These are ever being expressed. A sufficient quantity of fruit weighed before being carried away to the proprietor's being thrown in from the bin at hand, the machine house; a common sized one weighed sixty occas. is set in motion, and a man goes before the horse, At the proprietor's house it is poured into large with a long pole armed with iron, to push the fruit earthenware jars, four or five feet in height, which in the path of the wheel. After a few rounds, about are let into the ground, so that the short necks are two gallons of boiling water is poured in to assist the alone seen above the surface. Here it remains for at action of the stone, and more added as required, till least two months, till all impurities are deposited, but the whole mass acquires the consistence of a coarse it still retains a greenish colour, never seen in the paste. It is now put into a large jar and carried to oil consumed in England, and which makes it less the press, where one of the men kneads it with more offensive to the prejudices of those unaccustomed to hot water into a thinner paste, and as often as its use, as it appears more like, what it really is, an he fills the shallow dish before him, empties it agreeable vegetable juice, rather than a gross animal upon a square cloth of the same coarse and thick oil. material as the capotes or cloaks of the country, and of such strength as to bear the greatest power of the press without bursting. Another man immediately forms the paste with his hands into a square flat mass, folds up the cloth neatly, ties it with a string attached to each, and places it in the press before him, and so on to the number of sixteen or seventeen. The press is now turned down by means of a hand-lever, and when more power is required, a rope is carried from the lever to an upright rotary beam at some little distance, which two men turn round with great rapidity; this part is very amusing. The men make it rather a sport than work, and there is almost a snake-like elegance in their large halfclad and swarthy limbs, as they chase each other round the central beam with extraordinary velocity. The effects of their labour are soon seen. The oil and water run down the sides of the pile of cloths in crimson rivulets into the trough before the press, which, though rudely hewn out of one log of wood, is constructed upon the knowledge of the relative specific gravities of oil and water. It is divided into two parts by a partition that does not come to the top of the trough, but is about two inches below the level of the sides, so that when the oil and water run together into one part, it allows the oil, which is lighter than the water, and consequently floats on the surface, to flow over into the other division of the trough, while the water sinks to the bottom and is conveyed away by a pipe carried upwards on the outside, to the level at which they wish to maintain the water within the trough.

When the press is screwed down as far as possible, it is loosened; hot water is thrown upon the pile to wash off any oil that may remain upon the cloths, which are now removed and the paste within kneaded, but without unfolding the cloths. More boiling water is poured upon each, and they are again placed in the press, to be again removed to undergo for a third time the same operations, till no oil remains.

Sometimes the supply of oil falls short, as was the case in November, 1835, when there was scarcely any old oil to be purchased in or near Athens. In November, 1834, the old oil sold for one drachma (rather more than 84d.) an occa (34 pints), but at the same time in the following year, the same quantity could scarcely be bought for 24 drachmas (about 1s. 8d.) The presses were consequently crowded with purchasers, but the new oil is almost unfit for the purposes of burning, as it gives a most wretched light.

To keep a press and mill in constant work, to receive the fruit, send away the oil, and attend to the coppers for boiling the water, requires six men. These are paid in oil; it is, in fact, but one continued series of bartering, fruit for oil, and oil for labour, till the produce is carried into the city to be retailed, but the oil being of universal use makes it a most convenient medium of exchange.

The above description answers to the method by which oil is prepared in all parts of Greece and the Ionian Islands, and does not materially differ from the same operations as performed throughout Southern Europe.

The fresh ripe fruit eaten with bread is by no means unpleasant, and when preserved by being sprinkled with salt, is almost the only food allowed to the poorer Greeks during Lent. The oil too enters into all their dishes, nor are they satisfied with it in the pure inodorous and nearly insipid state that we obtain it in this country, but prefer it, especially the lower classes, after it has acquired a rank odour and rancid taste. I have known Greek servants, when offered fish that had been fried in fresh oil, to suit the fastidious palate of an Englishman, refuse to eat it until they had given it a flavour, by cooking it over again with their own rancid oil; but the decided preference that, under similar circumstances, a Chinese would show for castor oil is still more peculiar. It is, however, to be regretted, that a prejudice against pure olive oil exists at our own tables, for, when taken in small quantities, especially with vegetables, its use is as natural, and its effects as salutary, as those of melted butter are artificial and pernicious. G. F. F.

THE SEASONS. I. WINTER.

accuracy,—an accuracy which has no parallel in the computations of time, and distance, and magnitude, which occur in the ordinary affairs of life.

The moon, as being our nearest neighbour in the

THE changes of the seasons, and the varied phenomena consequent thereon, is a subject well deserving the most patient investigation. We believe, how-regions of space, has in all ages been an object of ever, that there is no department of human knowledge, interesting and instructive as it is, respecting which a greater degree of error prevails. Almost everything relating to the weather, to the alternations of heat and cold, to the origin of dew and rain, hail, snow, frost, and storms, is encumbered with popular errors. Many of these errors are of great antiquity, and may be traced to defective information respecting what, in the present day, are considered some of the most simple laws of nature. Other errors originated in the absurd rites and superstitions of idolatry; whilst

a third class, and that probably the most numerous, is the offspring of the pretended science of astrology, which, to the credit of the present times, is rapidly falling into the contempt it always merited.

As most appropriate to the period of the year in which we are writing, we shall endeavour to explain some of the causes and the effects of the atmospherical changes commonly incident to WINTER, which by their constant recurrence are rendered familiar, but which on that very account are probably less attentively studied, and less perfectly understood than. other phenomena which happen at longer and more uncertain intervals.

First of all, let us notice the lowness of temperature, or the coldness of the weather, which is the most

remarkable characteristic of Winter.

There is no fact in philosophy more satisfactorily established, than that the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, is the medium through which the Creator and Preserver of the universe displays the ordinary operations of his providence towards that portion of his dominions, which is allotted to man for a temporary habitation. The air, in which, as in a seamless garment, our planet is enveloped, and which accompanies it in its diurnal and annual revolutions, is generally supposed to be about 45 miles in height. This elevation, great as it may appear when compared with that of our highest mountains, or the greatest altitude attained by the balloon, (4 miles,) is not equal to one-eightieth part of the earth's semidiameter. If we suppose the dark line in the annexed figure to indicate a part of the earth's surface,

the faint line will denote the extreme limits of the atmosphere as already mentioned, the proportions being about one-twentieth of an inch on a globe of eight inches in diameter.

It can hardly be doubted, that the sun (independently of its heating and light-giving properties,) the moon, the planets, and comets also, exercise some kind of influence upon our globe, which, as we may reasonably imagine, bears a direct proportion to the relative sizes, distances, and movements of the respective bodies. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine what is the precise character of the mutual influences which we suppose to subsist among the members of that system to which the earth belongs. Nor ought this to be matter of surprise. We may rather wonder that so much is known, respecting bodies so remote. By the aids of modern science, the sizes, distances, and periodical revolutions of the planets, and their attendant satellites, have been ascertained with almost incredible

peculiar interest and of unwearying observation; giving occasion, however, to opinions so wild and chimerical, that we find it difficult to believe in the sanity of those by whom they were promulgated. It is unquestionable that the moon exercises a specific influence over the atmosphere and the ocean; but it has also been asserted, and is very generally believed, that its influence is equally extraordinary upon the animal creation; and particularly upon the bodies and minds of mankind, those affected by mental derangement having thereby acquired the name of

lunatics.

From

There are some very curious facts connected with this subject; respecting which, however, it must be confessed that our knowledge is exceedingly limited. The most we can do is carefully to note the effects ; the cause is at present veiled in uncertainty. the testimony of those who have paid attention to such matters, it would seem that the moon-beams possess a cold-producing agency. In France it has been noticed that so late in the Spring as April and May, the leaves and buds of plants, exposed to the full moon, on a clear night, have been frozen, whilst the temperature of the surrounding air has been several degrees above the freezing point. In warm climates, and especially on board ship, instances have frequently occurred, where persons who incautiously, or the face exposed to the moon's rays, have had their through ignorance, have slept in the open air with muscles distorted, their mouths drawn awry, and their sight seriously injured. In some cases these effects have remained for several months; and in others, the individuals thus exposed, have sustained a temporary loss of reason; resembling those labouring under the stupefying effects of narcotic poisons. It ought to be known that fish, which are hung out of doors to dry, if placed in moon-light are thereby rendered unwholesome. It may not be so in every case; but on several occasions we have witnessed the most alarming symptoms result from eating fish which had been so exposed. One case we remember in which a whole family, consisting of six persons, was placed in imminent danger from the cause just mentioned.

Many other effects, equally remarkable as those referred to, and which are supposed to depend on the moon's influence, could be enumerated; but these hints must here suffice.

It has been stated that the periodical changes peculiar to the different climates of the earth, are effected through the agency of the atmosphere; but in this important work it performs only the part of an auxiliary; the sun, as the source of light and heat, being the primary cause of those changes.And let it not be supposed that the relative intensity of the sun's rays, or, in other words, their heating property, as experienced at different periods of the year, is occasioned by the earth's nearer approach to, or greater distance from, the sun. Strange as it may appear, the earth, during the period of Winter in this country, is many millions of miles nearer the sun than it is in Summer. Other causes operate, therefore, in producing the variations of temperature on which the aspects of the seasons depend; and the principal of these is the position of the earth with reference to the direction of the sun's rays, and as a consequence of that position, the alternate increase and decrease of the period of day-light.

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