space would be described in each case before the effect was produced.

When a body is projected in any direction not perpendicular to the horizon, another kind of effect is produced by the action of gravity. In this case, it deflects the body from the line of its projectile motion, and causes it to describe a curve, concave towards the earth. Thus, when the action of gravity is considered as acting in parallel lines, and the resistance of the medium through which the body moves is not taken into the account, the curve which is described by the combined effects of these two motions is a parabola, situated in the vertical plane passing through the centre of the earth and the line of its projectile motion. The effect of gravity upon a body thus projected is measured by the curvature of the line it describes, or the space through which it is caused to deviate in a given time from the line of its projectile motion, which constitutes the tangent to the first point of the curve.

A slight acquaintance with the phenomena of the physical world furnishes us with numerous examples of all these effects; and amply proves that the power which imparts weight to bodies, oscillation to the pendulum, and stability to the ocean, which accelerates the descent of bodies in perpendicular lines, and deflects them when projected obliquely, is strictly analogous to that which regulates the motions of the planetary system. It was the effect of this power upon a projectile that constituted, in the mind of the great investigator of the laws of gravitation, the first link of that chain which not only binds the earth to the heavens, but mutually connects all the bodies in our system with each other. It was this effect which first caused him to stretch his thoughts beyond the confines of this narrow sphere, and fix himself, as it were, in the centre of the solar system, there to contemplate the simplicity of the law which

regulates, and admire the harmony of the motions which characterize, the revolutions of the celestial orbs.

[To be continued.]

The Naturalist's Diary

For SEPTEMBER 1819.

How sweetly nature strikes the ravished eye
Through the fine veil, with which she oft conceals
Her charms in part, as conscious of decay!

SEPTEMBER is, generally, accounted the finest and most settled month in the year. The mornings and evenings are cool, but possess a delightful freshness, while the middle of the day is pleasantly warm and open. October also frequently partakes the character of its precursor. A morning's walk' at this season is replete with gratification to the admirer of Nature's beauties. What a magnificent phenomenon is every day exhibited in the rising of the Sun! yet how common is the observation, that indolence and the love of sleep prevent a great part of mankind from contemplating this beauteous wonder of the creation! What numbers are there, in high life especially, who prefer a few more hours of sleep to all the pleasures of a morning walk!-See some reflections on this subject in our last volume, p. 234.

Oh, busie folly! Why do I my braine
Perplex with the dull policies of Spaine
Or quick designs of France? Why not repaire
To the pure innocence of th' country aire,

And neighbour thee, dear friend? Who so dost give
Thy thoughts to worth and virtue, that to live
Blest, is to trace thy ways. There might not we
Arme against passion with philosophie;
And by the aide of leisure, so controule
Whate'er is earth in us to grow all soule?

HABINGTON.

Rural scenery is now much enlivened by the variety of colours, some lively and beautiful, which are assumed, towards the end of the month, by the fading

leaves of trees and shrubs. These appearances are very striking even in our own fine forests, but cannot be compared with the magnificent scenes presented to the eye of the enraptured traveller in the primeval woods which shade the equinoctial regions of Africa and America. See T.T. for 1817.-This remark applies also to Asia. No country, perhaps, on the globe unites so many advantages for the sustenance and propagation of animal and vegetable life as Hindostan, whence its products of both are extremely numerous and singularly luxuriant. Those extensive districts which are still in a state of nature, where not sandy deserts, are overgrown with thick forests of stately height, composed of a great variety of timber trees, of which the teak supplies the place of the European oak in its fitness for the purposes of house and ship-building. In these woods a number of creeping plants of extraordinary size and length run from tree to tree in festoons, connecting the whole into one mass of verdure. The river banks and marshy grounds are covered with impenetrable thickets, or jungles, as they are called, the secure resort of game and beasts of prey. In such situations. the bamboo reed grows, the most useful for economical purposes of all the natives of hot climates. In the tropical latitudes the family of palms abound, rearing high in the air their naked trunks, crowned with green tufts of light and spreading foliage. Nothing can surpass the beauty and fragrance of the flowering shrubs that decorate the groves; and the skilful botanist alone can reckon up and describe the numerous fruit-bearing trees, and the plants which serve useful purposes in rural economy or the arts'.

The following lively picture of an Indian forest, by the late Mr. Pennant, has a particular reference to Ceylon, though in many of its features it applies to all the tropical countries of the east:

1

Aikin's Geographical Delineations, vol, ii, pp. 38, 39.

'An Indian forest is a scene the most picturesque that can be imagined: the trees seem perfectly animated; the fantastic monkeys give life to the stronger branches; and the weaker sprays wave over your head, charged with vocal and various plumed inhabitants. It is an error to say that nature has denied melody to the birds of hot climates, and formed them only to please the eye with their gaudy plumage. Ceylon abounds with birds equal in song to those of Europe, which warble among the leaves of trees, grotesque in their appearance, and often laden with the most delicious and salubrious fruit. Birds of the richest colours cross the glades, and troops of peacocks complete the charms of the scene, spreading their plumes to a sun that has ample powers to do them justice. The landscape, in many parts of India, corresponds with the beauties of the animate creation: the mountains are lofty, steep, and broken, but clothed with forests, enlivened with cataracts of a grandeur and figure unknown to this part of the globe.

'But to give a reverse of this enchanting prospect, which it is impossible to enjoy with suitable tranquillity; you are harassed in one season with a burning heat, or, in the other, with deluges of rain; you are tormented with clouds of noxious insects; you dread the spring of the tiger, or the mortal bite of the naja.'-Indian Zoology.

Scenes like these on the South American continent are well depicted in the following lines from the "Missionary,' a poem, in the description of a valley near the Andes:

Summer is in its prime;-the parrot-flocks
Darken the passing sunshine on the rocks;
The chrysomel1 and purple butterfly
Amid the clear blue light are wandering by;

The chrysomel is a beautiful insect, of which the young women of Chili make necklaces.

The humming-bird, along the myrtle bowers,
With twinkling wing, is spinning o'er the flow'rs,
And all the farther woods and thickets ring,
So loud the cureu' and the thenca sing.

Check'ring, with partial shade, the beams of noon,
And arching the grey rock with wild festoon,
Here, its gay net-work and fantastic twine,
The purple cogul3 threads from pine to pine,
And oft, as the fresh airs of morning breathe,
Dips its long tendrils in the stream beneath.

There, through the trunks, with moss and lichens white,
The sunshine darts its interrupted light,

And, 'mid the cedar's darksome boughs, illumes,
With instant touch, the Lori's scarlet plumes.

The silent and gradual progress of maturation is now completed; and human industry beholds, with triumph, the rich productions of its toil. The vegetable tribes disclose their infinitely various form of fruit; which term, while, with respect to common use, it is confined to a few peculiar modes of fructification, in the more comprehensive language of the naturalist, includes every product of vegetation, by which the rudiments of a future progeny are developed and separated from the parent plant.

Partridges (tetrao perdix) are in great plenty at this season of the year: they are chiefly found in temperate climates, but nowhere in such abundance as in England. Partridges pair early in the spring: about the month of May, the female lays from fourteen to eighteen or twenty eggs, making her nest of

1

Birds of Chili, remarkable for the melody, richness, and compass of their notes.

2 The thenca (turdus Thenca) is considered by Molina as a variety of the Virginian thrush (turdus Polyglottus), called the Four-hundred-tongues, from the variety of its notes.

3 A most beautiful climbing plant. The vine is of the size of packthread: it climbs on the trees without attaching itself to them: when it reaches the top, it descends perpendicularly; and as it continues to grow, it extends itself from tree to tree, until it offers to the eye a confused tissue, exhibiting some resemblance to the rigging of a ship.-Molina.