which the proportion was remarkably below this-two minima, in fact—namely, from midnight to 1 o'clock, when the deaths were 83 per cent below the average, and from noon to 1 o'clock, when they were 20 per cent below. From 3 to 6 o'clock, a.m. inclusive, and from 3 to 7 o'clock P.M., there is a gradual increase, in the former of 233 per cent above the average, in the latter of 5 per cent. The maximum of death is from 5 to 6 o'clock A.M., when it is 40 per cent above the average; the next, during the hour before midnight, when it is 25 per cent in excess; a third hour of excess is that from 9 to 10 o'clock n the morning, being 17 per cent above. From 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. the deaths are less numerous, being 16 per cent below the average, the hour before noon being the most fatal. From 3 o'clock P.M. to 7 P.M. the deaths rise to 5 per cent above the average, and then fall from that hour to 11 P.M., averaging 6 per cent below the mean. During the hours from 9 to 11 o'clock in the evening there is a minimum of 6 per cent below the average. Thus the least mortality is during midday hours, namely, from 10 to 3 o'clock; the greatest during early morning hours, from 3 to 6 o'clock."

<<
OPERATION OF MIND.- THE GREAT BOOK."

Mr. Samuel Warren says: "I do not know how to express it, but I have several times had a transient consciousness of mere ordinary incidents then occurring having somehow or other happened before, accompanied by a vanishing idea of being able to predict the sequence. I once mentioned this to a man of powerful intellect, and he said, 'So have I.' Again, it may be that there is more of truth than one suspects it the assertion which I met with in a work of M. de Quincey's, that forgetting-absolute forgetting-is a thing not possible to the human mind. Some evidence of this may be derived from the fact of long-missed incidents and states of feeling suddenly being reproduced, and without any perceptible train of association. Were this to be so, the idea is very awful; and it has been suggested by a great thinker that merely perfect memory of every thing may constitute the great book which shall be opened in the last day, on which man has been distinctly told that the secrets of all hearts shall be made known; for all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv. 13.)

An old man, in describing the sensations he felt at drowning, when he was with difficulty recovered, said he had the ringing of bells in his ears, which increased as consciousness was becoming less; and he felt as if "all the bells of Heaven were ringing him into Paradise!"_"the most soothing sensation."

DEATH BY LIGHTNING.

Few persons who have not inspected a human body struck by lightning have an idea of the mode in which the stroke effects a sudden termination of life. The visible alterations in the frame afford a striking contrast to the ordinary ravages of what is termed disease. The machinery of the body appears nearly perfect and unscathed; yet in none of the multitudinous forms of death is the living principle so summarily annihilated.

DEATH BY COLD.

It

The immediate cause of death by cold is apoplexy. The heart is arrested and paralysed in the exercise of its office, and no longer supplies the brain with arterial blood. Nor is the blood thrown with sufficient force to the extremities. accumulates, therefore, in the large vessels proceeding immediately from the main spring, and there is no ingress for the blood returning from the brain. The large sinuses, therefore, become overgorged, and apoplexy follows.

When the cold has not been severe enough to destroy life entirely, it mutilates the extremities, and mortification ensues from a want of circulation. The Lascars, who arrive in this country from India in the winter season, are very prone to this effect of a climate so much colder than their native one, as the records of the city-hospitals abundantly prove.-Sir Henry Halford.

COLD FAVOURABLE TO LONG LIFE.

Sir Henry Halford was informed by the Russian Ambassador, Baron Brunow, that there was a level country of about 100 leagues square, sloping to the south, on the borders of Siberia, where a year rarely passed in the course of which some person did not die of the age of 130. The question asked, of course, was, "Can you depend upon your registers there?" To which the reply was: Any body who knows the practices of the Greek Church will tell you that the bishops are more careful of their registration there, if possible, than your parochial clergy are in Great Britain."

In the year 1835, there died in the Russian empire 416 persons of 100 years of age and upwards; the oldest was 135 years, and there were 111 above 110 years old.

HYPNOLOGY; OR, HOW TO PROCURE SLEEP.

Dr. Binns, in his Anatomy of Sleep, recommends the following means of procuring Rest. Let the person turn on his left side, place his head comfortably on the pillow, so that it exactly occupies the angle a line from the head to the

shoulder should form; and then, slightly closing his lips, let him take rather a full respiration, breathing as much as he possibly can through the nostrils. Having taken a full inspiration, the lungs are then to be left to their own action, that is, the respiration is neither to be accelerated nor retarded. The patient should then depict to himself that he sees the breath passing from his nostrils in a continuous stream; and the very instant that he brings his mind to conceive this apart from all other ideas, consciousness and memory depart, imagination slumbers, fancy becomes dormant, thought subdued, the sentient faculties lose their susceptibility, the vital or ganglionic system assumes the sovereignty, and he no longer wakes, but sleeps. This train of phenomena is but the effect of a moment. The instant the mind is brought to the contemplation of a single sensation, the sensorium abdicates the throne, and the hypnotic faculty steeps it in oblivion.

CAUSES OF TRANCE.

Dr. Sir Henry Holland, in his Medical Notes, observes that, * as respects magnetic sleep or trance in all its alleged shapes, there is no well-authenticated fact making it needful to believe that an influence is received from without, beyond those impressions on the senses which are capable, according to the temperament and other circumstances of existing disordered as well as healthy actions, throughout every part of the nervous system, and especially in the sensorial functions."

MORNING DREAMS.

The old notion of the "Somnia vera" of approaching dayMorning dreams come true," is interpreted by the physical state of sleep being then less perfect trains of thought suggested follow more nearly the course of waking associations, and the memory retains them; while earlier and more confused dreams are wholly lost to the mind.

NATURE OF SLEEP.

It is not uncommon to hear persons attribute the sleeping of "guilty creatures" to hardness of heart, or recklessness. This is an error, referable to ignorance of the nature of sleep, and of the fact "that all degrees of excitement in the parts of the brain and spinal marrow, associated with the nerves of the sensitive system, are followed by proportional exhaustion. The only limit to this law is the capability of bearing in those parts. Exhausted by mental excitement, the criminal is often awakened for his execution; and the soldier, both by mental and bodily excitement, sleeps by the roaring cannon.”—Dr. Philip.

The Animal Kingdom.

STRUCTURE OF MAN.

ONE of the most splendid results of Comparative Anatomy is that Man is no longer regarded as though he were distinct in his anatomy from all the rest of the animal creation; but his structure is perceived to be an exquisite modification of many other structures, the whole of which have been recognised as modifications of one and the same general pattern. Every one of the 260 bones which may be enumerated in the human skeleton can be unerringly traced in the skeletons of many hundred inferior animals; and the human anatomist of our day begins to comprehend the nature of his own structure in a way never dreamed of by his predecessors.-Samuel Warren, D.C.L.

In the Human Skeleton there are commonly enumerated 260 Bones, which present every variety of size and figure. But all these varieties may be reduced to three classes: the long and round, as the bones of the upper extremities; the broad and flat, as the bones of the skull; or the short and square, as the separate bones that compose the vertebral column. The long bones are adapted for motion, the flat for protection, and the square for motion combined with strength. Accordingly, the long bones are moulded into lengthened cylinders, and form so

many levers, exquisitely constructed and combined. In the employment of the flat bones for the covering of some of the more tender and delicate organs, as the brain and spinal cord, the form of these bones adds to their strength, as in the vaulted roof of the skull; while in the construction of the vertebral column, composed of the short and square bones, which are so adjusted as to afford a limited range of motion with a great degree of strength, so many and such opposite purposes are effected by means so simple yet so efficient, that no fabric constructed by human ingenuity approaches the perfection of this admirable piece of mechanism.

PECULIARITIES IN THE HAND.

Nothing is more remarkable, as forming a part of the prospective design to prepare an instrument fitted for the various uses of the Human Hand, than the manner in which the delicate and moving apparatus of the palm and fingers is guarded. The power with which the hand grasps, as when a sailor lays hold of the rope to raise his body in the rigging, would be too great for the texture of mere tendons, nerves, and vessels; they would be cracked were not every part that bears the pressure defended with a cushion of fat, as elastic as that which is in the foot of the horse and the camel. To add to this purely passive defence, there is a muscle which runs across the palm, and more especially supports the cushion on its inner edge; it is this muscle which, raising the edge of the palm, adapts it to lave water, forming the cup of Diogenes. In conclusion, what says Ray? "Some animals have horns, some have hoofs, some teeth, some talons, some claws, some spurs and beaks; man hath none of all these, but is weak and feeble, and sent unarmed into the world ;— why, a hand, with reason to use it, supplies the use of all these!" -Sir Charles Bell, F.R.S., on the Hand.

HEADS OF ENGLISHMEN.

The following is a comparative estimate of the dimensions of the Head of the inhabitants in several counties of England:

The male Head in England, at maturity, averages from 6 to 78 in. in diameter; the medium and most general size being 7 inches. The female head is smaller, varying from 6 to 7 or 73 in., the medium male size. Fixing the medium of the English head at 7 inches, there can be no difficulty in distinguishing the portions of society above from those below that

measurement.

London. The majority of the higher classes are above the medium, while amongst the lower it is very rare to find a large head.

Spitalfields Weavers have extremely small heads, 62, 63, 63 in. being the prevailing admeasurements.