more than a shoreless ocean, at the bottom of which he creeps along. It is an envelope or covering for the distribution of light and heat over the surface of the earth; it is a sewer into which, with every breath we draw, we cast vast quantities of dead animal matter; it is a laboratory for purification, in which that matter is recompounded, and wrought again into wholesome and healthful shapes; it is a machine for pumping up all the rivers from the sea, and for conveying the water from the ocean, to their sources in the mountains; it is an inexhaustible magazine, marvellously stored. Upon the proper working of this machine depends the well-being of every plant and animal that inhabits the earth. How interesting, then, ought not the study of it to be! An examination of the uses which plants and animals make of the air is sufficient to satisfy any reasoning mind in the conviction that when they were created, the necessity of this adaptation was taken into account. The connection between any two parts of an artificial machine that works into each other, does not render design in its construction more patent than is the fact that the great atmospherical machine of our planet was constructed by an architect who designed it for certain purposes; therefore the management of it, its movements, and the performance of its offices, cannot be left to chance. They are, we may rely upon it, guided by laws that make all parts, functions, and movements of this machinery as obedient to order and as harmonious as are the planets in their orbits. Any examination into the economy of the universe will be sufficient to satisfy the well-balanced minds of observant men that the laws which govern the atmosphere and the laws which govern the ocean are laws which were put in force by the Creator when the foundations of the earth were laid, and that therefore they are laws of order; else, why should the Gulf Stream, for instance, be always where it is, and running from the Gulf of Mexico, and not somewhere else, and sometimes running into it? Why should there be a perpetual drought in one part of the world, and continual showers in another? Or why should the conscious winds ever heed the voice of rebuke, or the glad waves ever' clap their hands with joy?' To one who looks abroad to contemptate the agents of nature, as he sees them at work upon our planet, no expression uttered, or act performed by them is without meaning. By such a one, the wind and rain, the vapour and the cloud, the tide, the current, the saltness, and depth, and warmth and colour of the sea, the shade of the sky, the temperature of the air, the tint and shape of the clouds, the height of the tree on the shore, the size of its leaves, the brilliancy of its flowers, each and all may be regarded as the exponent of certain physical combinations, and therefore as the expression in which Nature chooses to announce her own doings, or, if we please, as the language in which she writes down or elects to make known her own laws. To understand that language and to interpret aright those laws is the object of the undertaking which we now have in hand. No fact gathered from such a volume as the one before us can therefore come amiss to those who tread the walks of inductive philosophy; for, in the handbook of nature, every such fact is a syllable; and it is by patiently collecting fact after fact, and by joining together syllable after syllable, that we may finally seek to read aright from the great volume which the mariner at sea as well as the philosopher on the mountain-each sees spread out before him. There have been examined at the Observatory more than a million of observations on the force and direction of the winds at sea. The discussion of such a mass of material has thrown much light upon the circulation of the atmosphere; for, as in the ocean, so in the air, there is a regular system of circulation. Before we proceed to describe this system, let us point out the principal belts or bands of wind that actual observation has shown to exist at sea, and which with more or less distinctness of outline, extend to the land also, and thus encircle the earth. If we imagine a ship to take her departure from Greenland for the South Shetland Islands, she will, between the parallels of 60° North and South, cross these several bands or belts of winds and calms nearly at right angles, and in the following order. (1) At setting out she will find herself in the region of southwest winds, or counter-trades of the north-called counter, because they blow in the direction whence come the tradewinds of their hemisphere. (2) After crossing 50°, and until reaching the parallel of 35° N., she finds herself in the belt of westerly winds, a region in which winds from the south-west and winds from the north-west contend for the mastery, and with nearly equal persistency. (3) Between 35° and 30°, she finds herself in a region of variable winds and calms; the winds blowing all around the compass, and averaging about three months from each quarter during the year. Our fancied ship is now in the horse-latitudes.' Hitherto winds with westing in them have been most prevalent; but, crossing the calm belt of Cancer, she reaches latitudes where winds with easting become most prevalent. (4) Crossing into these, she enters the region of north-east trades, which now become the prevailing winds until she reaches the parallel of 10° N., and enters the equatorial calm belt, which, like all the other wind-bands, holds fluctuating limits. (5) Crossing the parallel of 50° N., she enters where the south-east trades are the prevailing winds, and so continues until the parallel of 30° S. is reached. (6) Here is the calm belt of Capricorn, where, as in that of Cancer, she again finds herself in a region of shifting winds, light airs, and calms, and where the winds with westing in them become the prevailing winds. (7) Between the parallels of 35° and 40° S., the north-west and south-west winds contend with equal power for the mastery. (8) Crossing 40°, the counter-trades,-the north-west winds of the southern hemisphere, become the prevailing winds, and so remain, as far as our observations at sea extend towards the south pole. Such are the most striking movements of the winds at the surface of the sea. But, in order to treat of the general system of atmospherical circulation, we should consider where those agents reside which impart to that system its dynamical force. They evidently reside near the equator on one side, and about the poles on the other. Therefore, if, instead of confining our attention to the winds at the surface, and their relative prevalence from each one of the four quarters, we direct our attention to the upper and lower currents, and to the general movements back and forth between the equator and the poles, we shall be enabled the better to understand the general movements of this grand machine. Thus treating the subject, observations show that from the parallel of about 30° or 35° North and South to the equator, we have, extending entirely around the earth, two zones of perpetual winds, viz., the zones of north-east trades on this side, and of south-east on that. With slight interruptions, these winds blows perpetually, and are as steady and as constant as the currents of the Mississippi River, always moving in the same direction, except when they are turned aside by a desert or a rainy region here and there to blow as monsoons, or as land and sea breezes. As these two main currents of air are constantly flowing from the poles towards the equator, we are safe in assuming that the air which they keep in motion must return by some channel to the place toward the poles whence it came, in order to supply the trades. If this were not so, these winds would soon exhaust the polar regions of atmosphere, and pile it up about the equator, and then cease to blow for the want of air to make more wind of. This return current, therefore, must be in the upper regions of the atmosphere, at least until it passes over those parallels between which the trade winds are usually blowing on the surface. The return current must also move in the directions opposite to that wind the place of which it is intended to supply. These direct and counter currents are also made to move in a sort of spiral or loxodronic curve, turning to the west as they go from the poles to the equator, and in the opposite direction as they move from the equator towards the poles. This turning is caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis. Now if we The earth, we know, moves from west to east. imagine a particle of atmosphere at the north pole, where it is at rest, to be put in motion in a straight line towards the equator, we can easily see how this particle of air, coming from the very axis of diurnal rotation, where it did not partake of the diurnal motion of the earth, would, in consequence of its vis inertia, find, as it travels south, the earth slipping from under it, as it were, and thus it would appear to be coming from the north-east, and going towards the south-west; in other words, it would be a north-east wind. The better to explain, let us take a common terrestrial globe for the illustration. Bring the island of Madeira, or any other place about the same parallel, under the brazen meridian; put a finger of the left hand on the place; then moving the finger down along the meridian to the south, to represent the particle of air, turn the globe on its axis from west to east, to represent the diurnal rotation of the earth, and when the finger reaches the equator, stop. It will now be seen that the place on the globe under the finger is to the southward and westward of the place from which the finger started; in other words, the track of the finger over the surface of the globe, like the track of the particle of air upon the earth, has been from the northward and eastward. On the other hand, we can perceive how a like particle of atmosphere that starts from the equator, to take the place of the other at the pole, would, as it travels north, and in consequence of its vis inertia, be going towards the east faster than the earth. It would therefore appear to be blowing from the south-west, and going towards the north-east, and exactly in the opposite direction to the other. Writing south for north, the same takes place between the south pole and the equator. Such is the process which is actually going on in nature; and if we take the motions of these two particles as the type of the motion of all, we shall have an illustration of the great currents in the air, the equator being near one of the nodes, and there being at least two systems of currents, an upper and an under, between it and each pole. INVOLUTION. (1) What is the square of 384? (5) Find the cube of 987. (6) Find the square of 2. (7) What is the cube of 1? (8) Find the square of . (9) Add together the squares of,,, and 01, and express the result decimally. KING CHARLES II. IN THE OAK. (From the History of the Great Rebellion,' by Lord Clarendon.) e'-quip-age, the furniture of a horseman; attendance dis-cern', to see clearly de-sign'-ed, intended for a particular purpose fi-del'-i-ty, faithfulness [Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon, was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II., having accompanied the latter in his exile during the Protectorate of Cromwell. His chief work is the History of the Great Rebellion,' the events of which were either witnessed by himself or communicated by Charles II. He was afterwards ungratefully treated by the latter, and died in exile at Rouen, 1674, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.] But THOUGH the king could not get a body of horse to fight, he could have too many to fly with him; and he had not been many hours from Worcester, when he found about him near, if not above, four thousand of his horse. There was David Lesley with all his own equipage, as if he had not fled upon the sudden; so that good order, and regularity, and obedience, might yet have made a retreat even into Scotland itself. there was paleness in every man's looks, and jealousy and confusion in their faces; and scarce anything could worse befall the king than a return into Scotland, which yet he could not reasonably promise to himself in that company. But when the night covered them, he found means to withdraw himself with one or two of his own servants, whom he likewise discharged when it begun to be light; and after he had made them cut off his hair, he betook himself alone into an adjacent wood, and relied only upon Him for his preservation who alone could, and did, miraculously deliver him. When the darkness of the night was over, after the king had cast himself into that wood, he discerned another man, who had gotten upon an oak in the same wood, near the place where the king rested himself, and had slept soundly. The man upon the tree had first seen the king, and knew him, and came down to him, and was known to the king, being a gentleman of the neighbour county of Stafford, who had served his late majesty during the war, and had now been one of the few who resorted to the king after his coming to Worcester. His name was Careless, who had had a command of foot, about the degree of a captain, under the Lord Loughborough. He persuaded the king, since it could not be safe for him to go out of the wood, and that, as soon as it should be fully light, the wood itself would probably be visited by those of the country, who would be searching to find those whom they might make prisoners, that he would get up into that tree where he had |