ever why a comet should produce such an influence; but it will perhaps be more satisfactory to refute it by showing that it is not in conformity with observed facts. M. Arago has given a table, in which he has exhibited in one column the temperatures of the weather at Paris for every year, from 1735 to 1801 inclusive; and in juxta position with these he has stated the number of comets which appeared, with their magnitude and general appearance. The result is, that no coincidence whatever is observable between the temperatures and the number or appearance of comets. For example, in 1737, although two comets appeared, the mean temperature was inferior to that of the preceeding years, during which no comet appeared. The year 1765, in which no comet appeared, was hotter than the year 1780, which was marked by the appearance of two comets; and the temperature was still lower in the year 1785, in which two comets appeared; while on the other hand the temperature of the year 1781 was greater, which was likewise marked by the appearance of two comets.

This question, of the supposed connection between the temperature and the appearance of comets, has been completely sifted by M. Arago. He has given not only the general temperatures, but also a table of the years of greatest cold-of the years in which the Seine has been frozen over, and also of the years of the greatest heatand he has shown that the corresponding apppearances of comets have been varied without any connection whatever with these vicissitudes of temperature.

We should have hoped that the absurd influences attributed to comets would, at least in our times, have been confined to physical effects, in which the excuse of ignorance might be pleaded with a less sense of humiliation. But will it be believed that within a few years, persons could be found among the better classes of society, and holding some literary and professional station-who could attribute to the influence of comets every prevalent disease, local or general, by which, since the commencement of the Christian era, not the human race only was afflicted, but even the lower species of animals?

The splendid comet of 1811 was, on the continent, considered as the immediate cause of the fine vintage of that year, and the produce was distinguished as the wine of the

comet. But with us still more extraordinary effects were ascribed to that comet. In the "Gentlemen's Magazine" for 1818, we were told that its influence produced a mild winter, a moist spring, and a cold summer: that there was not sufficient sunshine to ripen the fruits of the earth; that, nevertheless (such was the cometic influence,) the harvest was abundant, and some species of fruits, such as melons and figs, were not only plentiful, but of a delicious flavor; that wasps rarely appeared, and flies became blind, and died early in the season.

So recently as the year 1829, a work appeared upon epidemic diseases, by Mr. Forster, an English practitioner, in which it is asserted that, since the Christian era, the most unhealthy periods have been precisely those in which some great comet appeared; that such appearances were accompanied by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and atmospheric commotions, while no comet has been observed during healthy periods. Not contented, however, with the influences formerly attributed to comets, Mr. Forster, says M. Arago, has so extended, in his learned catalogue, the circle of imputed cometary influences, that there is scarcely any phenomenon which he does not lay to their charge. Hot seasons and cold, tempests, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hail, rain, and snow, floods and droughts, famines, clouds of midges and locusts, the plague, dysentery, the influenza, are all duly registered by Mr. Forster.; and each affliction is assigned to its comet, whatever kingdom, city, or village, the famine, pestilence, or other visitation, may have ravaged., In making thus, from year to year, a complete inventory of the misfortunes of this lower world, who would not have foreseen the impossibility of any comet approaching the earth, without finding some portion of its inhabitants suffering under some affliction; and who would not have granted at once, what Lubienietski has written a large work to prove, that there never was a disaster without a comet, nor a comet without a disaster!

Nevertheless, even the credulity and ingenuity of Mr. Forster were in one or two cases at fault, to discover corresponding afflictions for some of the most remarkable comets; that of the year 1680, for example, which was not only one of the most brilliant, of modern times, but the one which, of all others, approached nearest to the

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earth. The utmost delinquency with which he can charge this comet, was that of producing a cold winter, followed by a dry and warm summer, and of causing meteors in Germany." To the comet of 1665, he ascribes the great plague of London; but he does not favor us with any reason why Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris, not to mention various English towns and villages, were spared from its malign influence.-The crowning absurdity, however, is the effect imputed to the comet of 1668. It appears, according to Mr. Forster, that the presence of this body made "all the cats in Westphalia sick!"

CLOUDS AND LIGHTNING.

CLOUDS are collections of vapors suspended in the atmosphere, and rendered visible. This is the common definition; but this requires defining over again, to render it intelligible. But the subject itself is not fully understood, and we shall not at the present time attempt a better definition than they who have gone before us.

The height of clouds is not usually great. Many travellers have found the summits of high mountains to be quite above and free from them. It is found that the clouds which are most highly charged with electricity (the substance which, when emitted, we call lightning) descend nearest the earth. Some of them have been known to come within half a mile of the earth's surface, and occasionally even much nearer. During a tornado in Kentucky, on the fourth of June 1812, the cloud appeared to the inhabitants to touch the ground; and the same phenomenon has been observed at différent periods and in different countries. In general, however, clouds are but a mile above the earth's surface. Many suppose it is the electrical fluid of clouds which renders them visible; and their shape is obviously referrible to this cause. The uses of clouds are evident; but besides being the receptacles of rain, hail, and snow, they serve the purposes of a screen between the earth and the sun's scorching rays, which would otherwise, in some instances, be so powerful as to destroy the grass and many tender vegetables. They serve, too, as receptacles to the electric fluid, and whether

that fluid rushes from the clouds into the earth, or from the earth into the clouds, its effects are sometimes terrible.

LIGHTNING.-The most extraordinary effects of the electric fluid are said to have been observed in Java, in the East Indies, in Aug., 1772. About midnight a bright cloud was observed apparently resting upon a mountain in the district of Cheribou; and several reports were heard like those of a gun. The people who dwelt on the upper part of the mountain, not being able to fly fast enough, a great part of the cloud, eight or nine miles in circumference, detached itself under them, and was seen at a distance rising and falling like the waves of the sea, and emitting globes of fire so luminous that the night became as light as day. The effects were astonishing. Every thing was destroyed for twenty miles round. Houses

were demolished, plantations buried in the earth; and two thousand one hundred and forty people, besides fifteen hundred head of cattle and a vast number of horses, goats, &c. lost their lives.

Lightning was looked upon as sacred both by the Greeks and Romans, and was supposed to be sent to execute vengeance on the earth. Hence persons killed with lightning, being thought hateful to the gods, were buried by themselves, lest their ashes should pollute those of other people. All places struck with lightning were avoided, and fenced round, from an opinion that Jupiter had either taken offence at them, and fired upon them the marks of his displeasure, or that he had by this means pitched upon them

as sacred to himself.

We smile at these superstitious notions; and yet there are individuals among us even now, who entertain opinions not a whit more rational. We are well acquainted with one individual who holds that it is wrong to use any efforts to secure ourselves from the effects of lightning, because, he says, it is a kind of practical defying of the Creator. And yet this same individual is not wanting, beyond the majority of mankind, either in good sense or intelligence. Credulity is not by any means confined to the weak minded and the ignorant. We confess, ourselves, that not a little mischief, as well as much good, is done by lightning rods; but the fault is, not that rods if properly erected, fail to protect us and our property-in a manner, too, of which we have as good a right to avail ourselves, as of our houses

in a severe hail storm-but because they are not properly erected, are not high enough above the roof of the building, are not properly pointed, &c. They should always be put up under the eye of a workman who thoroughly understands the principles of electrical science.

When a cloud, highly electrified, passes near to some elevated body, as a steeple, a tree, or house, a quantity of the electrical fluid sometimes flies from it in the form of a spark or body of light, which occasions an explosion. The gleam of light, we call lightning; the explosion, thunder. The lightning or electrical fluid leaves the cloud, because the latter is overcharged with it; and it goes to the earth because that has much less, and sometimes very little. We ought to have said that there is always a tendency in this fluid to come to an equilibrium. It happens occasionally, that a cloud has not its full proportion of it, and the earth, or something over which the cloud passes, has more than its average proportion. In that case, the electricity goes from the earth to the cloud, or strikes upward, as some call it, instead of downward. But this, though well authenticated, is by no means an every day

Occurrence.

The electric fluid, in its passage from one body or place to another, follows some bodies much more readily than others. These bodies are called conductors, and those which it follows most readily are called good conductors. Among these last are metals, living bodies, (especially the fluids of human bodies, as blood, milk, &c.) and green trees. Non-conductors are bodies, or substances, which this curious fluid will not readily follow. Some of these are glass, amber, sulphur, resins, wax, silk, feathers, cotton, wool, hair, oil, dry vegetable substances, &c.

It is on the ground that metals are good conductors that lightning rods are erected. The lightning usually follows the rod, and descends to the earth, without injuring the building. But we may also observe that if green trees are good conductors, it is not a good practice for people to stand under them, or leave beasts of burden under them, as many are accustomed to do, in a thunder shower. ter, by far, to stand in the open road or field. The safest place in a building is in its middle, as far removed as may be from the sides of the room, and in a chair; or what would be far better, on a feather bed. But with a good

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