waving motion of the rope continues after the hand which produced it has been removed; in the same way the waving motion of the water continues after the wind has ceased to blow, and even passes onwards to those parts of the sea where the wind has not blown at all. The waves also, when they strike the shore, travel back with diminished motion, precisely like the waving motions of the rope, and by meeting the waves coming from the open sea, raise them higher from the collision. Dr. Arnott observed, in the eastern ocean, an instance of "waves of extraordinary magnitude rolling along during a gloomy calm, and therefore with unbroken surface, appearing like billows of molten lead. It was afterwards ascertained that at that very time, about a hundred miles to the north-east, four of the finest ships of the India Company were perishing in a storm.”

VARIETY OF COLORS IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS.It is a mistaken opinion that the colors of wild animals are uniform, while those of domesticated animals are diversified, though in a wild state, the diversity is less striking. Much of this depends on the attention paid to the propagation of peculiar domestic breeds when any remarkable colored variety has been accidentally produced. It is thus that the breed of white mice and flap-eared rabbits is continued, whereas in a wild state these peculiarities would probably soon be lost. I may mention two facts regarding diversity of color among innumerable others which have struck me. mon geometric spider of our gardens (Epeira diadema, WALCK.) is so varied that scarcely two individuals, even of the same brood, are found alike, varying in shade from silver-grey to deep chocolate-brown, and

The com

from pale-yellow to brick-red. Again, the eggs of the sparrow (Passer domesticus, RAY) vary so much that the boys in Kent imagine them to be of different species according as they find their nests in trees, in ivy, or under the tiles of a house. Sometimes these eggs are nearly uniform in color, with no markings. While at other times they are thickly or sparsely streaked, and spotted with greyish black on a greenish or blueish white ground. It has been recorded by Mr. Young, that a blackbird, and also a linnet, have been observed to become white in consequence of fright, in the same way as the human hair has been known to become grey in a single night through grief. That food, however, will sometimes produce striking changes of color, appears from the fact of madder (Rubia tinctoria) tinging the bones of animals fed upon it of a red color, and by alternating this with other food, from week to week, the bones will exhibit concentric circles of white and red. (BELCHIER, in Phil. Trans. 1736, and Comment. de Reb. Lips.)

FEBRUARY.

HOAR-FROST AND THAW.-That the interior temperature of the earth, at least in places at no great depth, in this country, is seldom below 48° Fahr. is proved by the non-freezing of springs during hard frost, as well as by hoar-frost, and snow lying longer unmelted on dry cow-dung and pieces of wood than on grass and gravel walks, which are more rapid conductors of the heat passing from the interior of the earth. But in cases where the sun's heat can act in conjunction with the heat of the earth, the effect produced is often remarkable. We observed a striking instance of the latter during last winter. A heavy hoar-frost had been deposited during the night on a grass field, bounded by a brook, which had undermined the bank and produced all along what is called in the north a scar-brae, and by the French an escarpment. As soon as the sun rose, it acted in conjunction with the interior heat of the earth, on the upper edge of this escarpment, and produced a rapid thaw of the hoar-frost for about two feet all along as if a stream of hot water had passed over it, while the grass beyond remained untouched.

The disappearance of frost, and the melting of the snows, accompanied with copious rains, are intended by

nature to loosen the soil for the expansion of the roots of plants, and, at the same time, to supply the fluids which are to form the sap. Where chalk, lime-stone, or marble, abounds either in rock masses, or diffused through the soil in form of sand or gravel, the thaws of this season tend to disintegrate the more compact portions, and set free their carbonic acid, which being washed down to the roots of plants by rain, constitutes an important portion of their nutriment, or at least serves as a stimulant to excite the absorbent orifices of the fibrilla to imbibe nutritive juices.

There cannot be finer subjects for the microscope than the crystals of water, of which snow and hoar-frost are composed; and if beauty, as has been maintained, consist in regularity amidst variety, snow-flakes, seen by aid of the microscope, must be considered highly beautiful. Their variety is endless, but the principal forms are stars of lamellar, spicular, or pyramidal crystals, from one-third to one-thirty-fifth of an inch in diameter.

grow,'

"*that

ALLEDGED GROWTH OF STONES.-It would appear, from Mr. White's using the word " he adopted the current opinion respecting the growth of stones, which, it is probable, originated with the celebrated French naturalist, Tourneforte. He inferred that rocks grow, from observing, when travelling in the Levant, that names cut in the famous grotto of Antiparos in the Grecian Archipelago, appear a few years afterwards in alto relievo. Linnæus also laid it down as a first principle, that, "stones grow;" while "vegetables grow and live; and animals grow, live, and feel."

* Nat. Hist. of Selborne, Lett. iv.

But except in the case of depositions of stony matter from an aqueous solution, such as occasions the relieving of the names cut in the rock at Antiparos, and the incrustation of wigs, birds' nests, birch brooms, and other things exposed to its influence, which I have seen at Matlock in Derbyshire,-stones and rocks may more correctly be affirmed to decrease than to increase, subjected as all those which are uncovered must be to the repeated action of rains and frosts. In the beds of rivers, and the basin of the sea, the incessant motion of the water must, in the same way, produce a constant wearing down into sand of the hardest rocks and stones which are there deposited.

MOUNTAINS.

Come, hie we to the mountains: O! once more

I long to swathe me in the streaming mist,

That wreathes its tresses beautifully hoar
Upon the crested mountain—to be blessed

We

With still sweet solitude, where the stream is kissed By woods that bend them o'er it lovingly; And,-free to rhyme and ramble as I list,To wander 'mid the thousand thoughts, that lie Slumbering by lonely lake, or vision'd in the sky. REV. J. G. CROSBIE. We have loved mountains since our childhood. can picture now in our imagination, as vividly as if it lay before us, though it is far distant, a magnificent ridge of mountains heaving their peaks through mid-air, like the azure ruins of a summer cloud which the winds had strewed on the horizon,—a scene, which in our youth, was ever in view, and day by day charmed us into admiration. In fact, we are acquainted with no object in nature more fitted than mountains to awaken emotions of sublimity, and raise the thoughts to God, which ought to