are also a number of other fiery meteors. Fire-balls, in all the glare of terrific magnificence, are sometimes seen to rush across the hemisphere. Falling stars are observed to shoot with astonishing rapidity; the Ignis-fatuus, Will with-the-wisp, or Jack-with-a-lanthorn, as it is called, glides along by the sides of hedges or ditches in moist situations, and sometimes takes up his abode among the graves of the dead, or is seen in the neighbourhood of dunghills; but these, as well as the fiery Dragon, the skipping Goat, the Dart and the Lamp, with every other appear ance that the unsubstantial and airy form may assume, may all be accounted for on the principles of electricity.

WATERY METEORS.

"Ye mists and exhalations that now rise*
From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's GREAT AUTHOR rise:
Whether to deck with clouds th' uncoloured sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance HIS praise.”

IN the regions of the air a variety of watery meteors are formed. Here are fogs, the creation of those collec tions of vapours which chiefly rise from fenny moist places, These become more visible as the light of day decreaseth, and uniting with those that rise from the waters, so as to fill the air with their humid particles, are called mists. Sometimes, especially in the summer months, our morning walks sparkle with pellucid drops, and transparent globules bang pendant from every leaf in the form of pearly dew.

In the atmosphere the balancings of the clouds are preserved till these swimming lakes are commissioned to dis charge their contents, not in deluging torrents confined to particular spots, but in refreshing showers widely spread

abroad

Dr SHAW describes a remarkable Ignis-fatuus, which he saw in the Holy Land, when the atmosphere was so uncommonly thick and hazy, that the dew on the horses' bridles was remarkably clammy and unc tuous. This meteor is sometimes globular, then in the form of the flame of a candle, presently afterwards it spreads itself so much as to involve the whole company in a pale harmless light, and then it would contract itself again and suddenly disappear; but in less than a minute it would become visible as before, and running along frout one place to another with a swift progressive motion, would again expand itself, and cover a considerable space of ground.

broad in the form of drops of rain.-Here, too, that wonlerful phenomenon snow takes its rise, which is said to be omposed of such vapours as are frozen while the particles. re smali*; and hail, which is rain frozen, as hoar frost is aid to be of the dew. Water-spouts may be reckoned among the number of watery meteors, but having already een noticed in my paper on the Wonders of the Ocean, shall pass them over, and proceed to the consideration of few of the most remarkable

CELESTIAL APPEARANCES.

THE wonderful and beautiful colours which we observe in he clouds, is owing to their particular situation to the sun, and the different modifications under which they reflect is light. The various appearances and fantastic figures they assume, probably proceed from their loose and voluble texture, revolving into any form by the force or activity of the winds, or by the electricity contained in their substance. But of all the celestial appearances we can behold, what can be compared to the beauty of the rainbow! What a majestic and stupendous arch does this wonderful phenomenon present to our view, and how beautifully is it tinged in regular order, by all the primogenial colours in naturel,

Yet this gorgeous arch is instantaneously erected, and at no expense; the commission is sent forth, and it springs into existence, merely by the operation of the sunbeams on the watery particles that float in the atmosphere‡.

Sometimes too we have lunar rainbows, but these shine with inferior lustre, and what. more can we expect from the reflected light of a body, such as the moon, that shines itself by reflection. Halos are supposed to be occasioned by

Q Q 3

the

* Snow is confessedly one of the most curious productions of nature. ELIHU, speaking of the glorious and incomprehensible works of the Deity, says: "Great things doeth he, which we cannot comprebend for be saith to the SNOW, be thou on the earth." Dr GREW observes, that many parts of it are of a regular figure; for the most part so many little rowels or stars of six points, and are as perfect: and transparent ice as we see in a pond.

Viz. Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.

The rainbow, it n ust be observed, is always seen in an opposite direction from the sun, and that it is occasioned by the reflection and

the refraction of the light of the sun or moon on the frozen particles that surround them in frosty weather; and what are called parhelia or mock suns, and paraselenes or mock. moons, are only representations by reflection of the face of the true sun or moon from some of the clouds, which are placed at a convenient distance to produce the effect. THE USES OF ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA, METEORS, &c.

"Why hover snows, and wanton in the air,
Fall by degrees and clothe the hoary year?"

"The winter is as needful as the spring,

The thunder as the sun-a stagnant mass
Of vapours breeds a pestilential air."

WITHOUT entering upon the vast utility of the winds in the world of art, with the many purposes to which they are made subservient and applied in navigation, agricalture, manufactures, trade, and commerce; or recapitulat ing what I have already said respecting their vast import in the preserving the equilibrium and salubrity of the atmosphere, I would briefly observe, that the wind may be said to act the important part of Nature's great husbandman, by scattering abroad the reproductive principles of a multitude of plants; and instead of that imaginary water-bearer which the ancients traced out among the stars, the eye of modern philosophy has discovered, in the operations of the wind, a real Aquarius in the heavens, bearing about his precious treasures, and dispensing them where most wanted.

Electricity is indeed a most powerful agent in nature, and we are probably but acquainted as yet with a small proportion of its wonderful effects, but from what we do know, we have reason to conclude, that the benefits to be derived from this all-pervading principle, are numerous as the appearances it puts on are infinite as its extent. Since the phenomena produced by this fluid have been ob served with attention, the true cause of thunder and light

ning

refraction of his rays at a certain angle or distance from the eye of the spectator, must be evident to every person who has tried the experiment of the silly boy in the fable, and gone in pursuit of the tressures at the end of it.

* Physicians, it has been remarked, have joined Electricity to their art, and there are examples of its having cured paralytic limbs,

ning seems to be ascertained*, a means has been invented by which houses, ships, and other buildings may be secured from its ravages, and places of the greatest safety in thunder storms pointed out; but what are the evils experienced from thunder storms when put in competition with the advantages to be derived from them. What would the atmosphere, it may be observed, become, but for the winds; but notwithstanding the blessings derived from those wholesome ventilations what would become of the atmosphere itself, were it not for the loud-roaring thunder, the forked lightning, and all the other varieties of electrical phenomena, which purge the air of those noxious substances that are continually mixing with it, and purify by fire the upper regions, where so many light inflammatory substances are arrested in their courset. Were it not for the beneficial operations of the electric spark, which is always ready at the command of its maker to kindle these combustible materials before they become sufficiently accumulated to involve the whole in one universal conflagra

tion

As the motion of light is almost instantaneous, and that of sound is at the rate of a league in 40 pulsations, the distance of thunder may be casily ascertained; for if we can count 13 pulsations betwixt the flash and the sound, the thunder will be about a mile off. Since I commenced the writing of this paper I have met with several interruptions, and, in one of them, happening to be engaged at a back window, where I beheld the rain pouring down in perhaps the greatest torrents I had ever witnessed in such a situation, all on a sudden a vivid flash seemed to burst up from behind a house, upon whose top my eyes were fixed at the time, followed by an instantaneous and tremendous peal of thunder. I immediately communicated my thoughts, as to my conviction that the thunder had broke in the neighbourhood; and it turned out that it had actually done so on the roof of a house, in rather a low situation, about the distance of 130 yards from the place I was sitting.

See page 332 and 378, Vol. I. Cheap Mag.

There appears to be a continual circulation going on in the atmosphere, by which the inflammable air generated between the tropics is made to ascend by its lightness to the upper regions, where, by the motion of the earth, it is urged towards the poles; hence, the inflammatory exhalations continually arriving and taking fire as they approach, are made to form those beautiful appearances called northern and southern lights, which, although they are oft invisible by the thickness of the weather, at other times amuse the inhabitants even of our climate in clear frosty weather; and these merry dancers, as the vulgar call them, are no doubt of infinite service to the people

tion, the world, it is probable, would long ere now have been destroyed by fire. There is no occasion (accord ing to the opinion of some theorists) for calling in the aid of a comet to complete this work of destruction. The Almighty has only to suspend the operations of his fiery meteors, and the elements will soon become sufficiently inflammatory to catch fire by a single spark, so that, in fact, those terrific monitors of the gazing crowd, instead of being certain indications that an incensed Deity is about to in flict the effects of his hot displeasure on a guilty world, ac cording to the language of philosophy and the whispers of religion, are rather convincing tokens that His mercy is not yet clean gone, that the LORD has not forgotten to be gracious.

:

The use of fogs and of mists on the tender herbs in the absence of rain, is well known to the grazier and agricul turist; and so sensible was the good man of the land of Uz of the importance of what some may reckon among the inferior kinds of watery meteors, (although it is the surest and most universal which the wise Ruler of the World makes use of to render the earth fruitful) that, when he asks the question: "Has the rain a father?" he does not forget to add "Who has begotten the drops of the dew? f From the clouds proceed not only those fertilizing showers that drop down fatness, and the windy currents that to a surprising degree agitate the air in warm climates, but by intervening betwixt the earth and the scorching rays of the sun, they serve as screens to protect from injury the grass and tender herbs, and also act the part of conducting mediums by which the electric fluid is conveyed not only from the atmosphere to the earth, and from the earth to the atmosphere, but from one end of the heavens to the other.

Of all the blessings poured out of the treasures of provi dence, there is none perhaps of which man is more sensible than that of rain. What an alteration on the face of the earth does a seasonable shower produce! No wonder that the Psalmist when contemplating such a scene, breaks out in such language as this: "Thou visitest the earth and

waterest

of the polar regions, by imparting a lengthened, if not an uninterrup ed supply of that light and cheerfulness of which they would other wise be deprived during their protracted winter.