in their manners, could live together in | you all must. Be persuaded, give your any sort of harmony, it would be hard to say, except it was an instinctive feeling, that the chance of prey, which each member of this community had, was thereby greatly increased. Thus man, who, in his uncivilized condition, is vindictive and selfish, in exchange for the benefits that result from the social compact, gives up his resentments into the hands of the magistrate, and learns to moderate his feelings of self-interest. We ought to remember that every revengeful emotion, or selfish desire, is directly opposed to the fundamental principles of social welfare, and political order. THE SECRET OF DYING GLADLY. xi. 13. BELIEVERS, behold here the secret of dying! "These all died in faith," Heb. Bad men die reluctantly: life is extorted from them as if by main force. The believer dies willingly; his will is sweetly submitted to his Father's will: he makes it a religious act to die. Just as Jesus himself commended his human soul to his Father, saying, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," Luke xxiii. 46; so his believing disciple commends his soul to Jesus, and through him to the Father. Here, I repeat, is the secret how to die happily. To those who know not that secret, it is a fearful thing to die. It is a serious matter for any. But to the worldly-minded and ungodly, if not past feeling, to die must be as one of the heathen philosophers (Aristotle) confessed it, "of all formidable things the most formidable." Only mention a neighbour's death in a gay circle lo! you have thrown a gloom over the whole assembly; all are evidently sorry that the topic was introduced. The ancient Romans would not mention death in plain words, if they could avoid it, but only by circumlocution and implication. The heathens, at this day, in like manner, "shun all conversation on death, as most repugnant to their feelings;" I quote the words of an eye-witness, "they account it the height of cruelty to speak of the probability of a sick friend's death, even to his relatives." Even serious christians are often in bondage through fear of death. It is such a venture; a mistake may be so fatal; to go before God is so awful; judgment will bring to light such secrets; that many think, How can I die? Yet soul to Jesus now; do it again from day to day; and then, when your dying day is come, again approach the Saviour, and say, "Lord, I hear thee calling for my spirit; I see the wagons sent to fetch me home to thee; in the hand of death I recognise thy hand of love: thou askest for my soul; take it, for it is thine. Do with it what thou wilt, I have given it to thee to be washed in thy blood, and sanctified by thy Spirit; I am sure thòu wilt do it no harm!" Does a thought here arise, and what shall become of my poor body? Why, even if, like Stephen's, it were battered and bruised with stones murderously hurled, even though it were burning at a stake, or tortured on a rack, you need not mind; look but that the soul be safe; and then, whatever may become of the body, Jesus will take care of thy dust and ashes. The remains of his faithful servants are to him the most precious parts of this material earth. They form a pledge of his final coming. For if your souls are truly his, he will hereafter raise up your bodies glorious, incorruptible, immortal, like unto his own. Phil. iii. 21.-Hambleton. FECUNDITY OF THE ONION. - It was recently stated that a gentleman in Lancashire had raised 8000 ounces of onions, from 12 ounces of seed. Mr. Crossley, the engineer of the Macclesfield canal, residing at Bollington, having seen this statement, was induced to weigh his own crop, when he discovered, that from two ounces of seed, the produce was the amazing quantity of 2496 ounces, or 156 pounds, being nearly double the produce of the former in proportion to the quantity of seed sown.-Gloucester Journal, Oct. 27, 1832. CONFORMITY TO CHRIST.-Internal conformity unto the habitual grace and holiness of Christ is the fundamental design of a christian life. Rom. viii. 29. xii. 2. 1 Pet. ii. 22.-Dr. Owen. JOHN DAVIS, 56, Paternoster Row, London. Price d. each, or in Monthly Parts, containing Five Numbers in a Cover, 3d. W. TYLER, Printer, 4, Ivy Lane, St. Paul's. ON THE NEST OF A SPECIES OF WASP. THE habitations of many of the insect tribe are celebrated for their ingenuity and beauty. Exquisite and elaborate as are the nests of birds, the most curious and skilfully-woven yield to the superior claims of the productions of these little masterbuilders, nor can the laborious efforts of human industry match some of theirs; witness, for example, the buildings of the termites of Guinea, and other parts of Africa, (termes fatalis, before which, as a learned writer observes, "the pyramids of Egypt and the aqueducts of Rome would lose all their celebrity, and dwindle into nothing." In our own island, we are not without examples of the skill of insects in architecture, of great interest. The bee and the ant have been extolled for their industry and their works in all ages, and still continue to create undiminished admiration. Nor is that tyrant of the insect world, the wasp, less skilful than the bee in the form VOL. III. Nest of a Species of Wasp from South America. ation of its nest, which displays the most beautiful workmanship. The labours of the wasp, like those of its cherished relative, the bee, are directed to the preservation of its progeny; it is for the sake of their young, while in the caterpillar or grub state, that both raise their fabric of hexagonal cells. The fabric, however, which the wasp produces, differs in many points very essentially from that of the bee; it is of an irregularly oval figure, and consists of combs, or layers of hexagonal cells, placed horizontally, one above the other, the cells being on the under surface of each stratum, which is supported by strong pillars, arising from the one below; thus twelve, fifteen, or twenty layers, are regularly disposed, the whole being enveloped in an external covering. The sketch at the end of this article may convey an idea of the disposition of the cells, with the supporting pillars. The whole of this beautiful structure is D tion of the material of which it is compacted; and what is this material? Paper, well wrought and firm paper! Of all the paper-manufacturers, the wasp is the oldest; long before man had discovered the important process, taught by Him who is perfect in wisdom and knowledge, this little insect had been making an article, which, now that it is among the products of human art, is most intimately connected with the well-being of society, and the spread of religion and science. rendered doubly interesting by a considera- | ternal structure, and the situation of this ingenious fabric, demand our admiration, its internal structure is still more interesting and wonderful. Six stout layers, or floors, stretch horizontally across, having cells of the usual hexagonal figure, (but of small size,) on their lower surface, the upper being a smooth platform. These platforms are not, however, flat; on the contrary, they are concave, like a watchglass, on their smooth or upper aspect, the under or celled one being consequently convex, having the centre protruding suddenly like a cone, which is smooth, without cells, and perforated at the apex, with an aperture corresponding to that of the external envelope, so as to give access from story to story. No verbal description, however, will convey so good an idea as the prefixed sketch, which we have copied from nature, and which faithfully represents the internal arrangement of the stories and their pendent cells, a portion of the outer envelope being purposely cut away. The contemplation of the beautiful and ingenious, in the works of the lower animals, which are guided by unerring instinct in their labours, should lead on the thoughts to Him, who has appointed the ways of all, and ordained every creature to fulfil its place in creation. M. The wasp manufactures, if we may use the word, the paper fabric of its nest from the same materials as are employed by man, namely, vegetable fibres. The fibrous parts of decayed wood, or other such substances, it detaches by means of its jaws, and then masticates them into a pulp, by the addition of a sort of viscid saliva; which pulp, or papier-mache, it spreads on the part requiring it, by means of its jaws, tongue, and legs, walking backwards while thus assiduously engaged at its occupation. The nest of the common wasp, as is well known, is placed in holes in the earth, generally in a sheltered sunny bank, often also in the thatched roof of buildings, &c. In the beauty, firmness, and skill of its fabric, the common wasp of our island, much as its labours are to be admired, is far below many of its foreign brethren. We have now before us the pensile nest of a small species from South America, which exceeds any thing of the kind we have ever examined. Its shape, which may be best conceived from the sketch at the head of our paper, is that of two cones, a larger and smaller, united at their bases. The external wall is composed of firm, tough, white paper, thicker than a stout card, which bears writing-ink without its running, and is smooth and of uniform consistence. This exquisite nest is attached to the branch of a tree, from which it hangs, with the aperture for the admission of the colony at the lower apex. The situation thus chosen, in addition to the position of the aperture, together with its smallness, (for it is not capable of admitting any thing much larger than the body of the insect,) renders the nest impregnable by such enemies as would be likely to covet the larvæ for food; and, indeed, the strength of the fabric itself is a security against the attacks of birds, snakes, or even small mammalia. The total length of the nest is nine inches; the diameter, at the widest part, (where the bases of the cones join,) six. If the ex LETTER TO THE EDITORS. VILLAGE LIBRARY-LUNAR RAINBOW. GENTLEMEN,-In the village of Adderbury, which is pleasantly situated on the road leading from Oxford to Banbury, about 19 miles from the former place, and three from the latter, and which, according to the last census, contained a population of 1,358 souls, are two of those useful institutions, Village Book Societies. One is supported by the clergyman, and the principal inhabitants, who pay an admission fee of fifteen shillings, and an annual subscription of ten shillings; and the other is intended for the poor, who receive their books, through the kindness of a lady, on paying a subscription of one penny per month. The first library consists chiefly of voyages and travels, natural history, ancient history, biography, works on the arts and sciences, &c.; but all political books, as well as those worse than useless publications, novels, are excluded. There are also some of the peviodicals, which tend so much to the improvement of the present age, taken in monthly. The other library is composed of a judicious selection of the volumes published by the Religious Tract Society, and also of a number of others of a similar kind and tendency. The book-case, containing the first library, is kept in a school-room, which is used on sundays for the sunday-school, and, during the week, is appropriated to the education of poor girls, who belong to Adderbury and its hamlet, Milton. The books are exchanged on mondays and wednesdays, when the secretary (who acts gratuitously) or one of the committee, goes to unlock the library for the purpose, at half-past six o'clock in the evening. This, then, brings me to the principal object of my present communication. On monday evening, the 17th of November last, as the members of the Adderbury Book Society were at their library, they had the gratification of witnessing that rare phenomenon of nature, a lunar iris, or rainbow. It was visible for about ten minutes, between seven and eight o'clock. The moon had passed the full on the day preceding, had then arisen upwards of two hours, and was shining in majestic splendour. The iris was formed by the refraction of the moon's rays from a cold drizzling mist, or rain, which was falling at the time to the west of the spectators; the moon, of course, being to the east of them, or in the opposite direction. The arch was perfectly formed, and presented a faint white, occasionally tinged with the colours of the solar rainbow. The writer of this article has had the pleasure of seeing two of these unusual occurrences; the other happening in June, 1833, while he was returning from Deddington to this village, between ten and eleven o'clock, after attending a lecture on optics, delivered by a gentleman, who was then lecturing in this neighbourhood, and who had that evening introduced the subject of lunar rainbows in the course of his lecture, and had spoken of the rarity of their appearance. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1783, there is an account of them, communicated by Marmaduke Tunstall, Esq., who states that Aristotle is said to have observed two of these remarkable phenomena. Dr. Plot also mentions the circumstance of Aristotle's seeing two; but adds, that these were all he observed in upwards of fifty years. Plot states this in his Natural History of Oxfordshire, chap. 1, par. 7, where he describes an iris lunaris, as seen by himself at Oxford, on the 23d of November, 1765, about seven o'clock in the evening. There is another mentioned by a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine," for August, 1688, as being seen at Stoke Newington. C. F. ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE. No. 2. THE HOUSEHOLD-PUMP AND BAROMETER. 66 na Ir was long supposed by philosophers, that water rose in a pump because ture abhors a vacuum," or, in other words, because there can be no empty space. This dogma being received as a principle, it was stated, that as the air contained in the cylinder of a pump was exhausted by suction in the progress of raising the piston, the water must necessarily occupy its place. It was, however, accidentally discovered, in the early part of the 17th century, that water could not be raised in a pump when the sucker or piston was more than thirty-two feet above the surface of the water. va But The shortest and least troublesome way of explaining this phenomenon was, to state, that nature did not abhor a cuum to a greater height than thirty-two feet. This explanation, if such it may be called, satisfied a great many persons who esteemed themselves philosophers. the celebrated Galileo entertained some doubt of the truth of the dogma, and suggested to Torricelli, who had been his pupil, that some other cause might probably be found, which would be more satisfactory. Torricelli commenced the investigation, and, after having performed a series of experiments, was led to suspect that water could not rise in an exhausted tube to a greater height that thirty-two feet, because it then exactly counterpoised the pressure of a column of atmospheric air, having a base of the same dimensions. But this explanation being correct, mercury ought to rise in an exhausted tube to the height of about thirty inches, for mercury is about thirteen and a half times hea vier than water. Torricelli made an experiment to prove if it were so, and the experiment succeeded. The same experiment may be easily tried by the reader. Take a glass tube, having one end hermetically sealed, and, filling it with mercury, place the open end in a cup containing the same metal, being careful that no air shall enter the tube. It will be found that the mercury will remain suspended in the tube to the height of about thirty inches from the surface of the metal in the cup, and will there remain stationary. In this position the mercury in the tube exerts exactly the same pressure upon that in the cup, as the atmosphere itself. It is therefore evident, that by determining the pressure of the mercury upon a base of any extent, we shall discover the pressure of the atmosphere. In this way it has been proved that the atmosphere has a pressure of about fifteen pounds upon every square inch. The principle of the household or lifting pump may be further illustrated by an allusion to the following diagram. W represents the well from which the water is to be drawn. V is a valve at the end of the cylinder opening upwards: and A is a valve in the piston, also opening upwards. Both these fit the openings closely when the pump is at rest, but are easily moved by a pressure from below. To explain the process by which the pump has the power of raising water, let us imagine the piston to be brought to the bottom of the cylinder. As the piston is drawn up, a vacuum is left in the cylinder beneath, for the air cannot rush in, as the valve A only opens upwards. But the usual pressure is exerted on the surface of the water, and as there is no air in the cylinder to oppose it, the water rises, and occupies the place from which the air has been excluded. When the piston is forced downwards, the lower valve V, is closed, and the resistance of the water opens the upper valve A, through which it, of course, rushes. When the piston is again elevated, the water is drawn upwards, and makes its escape through the spout. As the pressure of a column of water, thirtytwo feet high, is exactly equal to the pressure of an atmospheric column of the same base, water cannot be ever raised in a pump to a greater height. Torricelli's discovery, as soon as it was known, excited the attention of all the philosophers in Europe. Various opinions were formed, and many of them were, without investigation, unhesitatingly expressed. At first the general opinion was opposed to the accuracy of his deductions, and the ancient dogma was preferred. It was, however, suggested by Descartes and Pascal, that if the suspension of the mercury in the tube was really due to the pressure of the atmosphere, the mercurial column ought to decrease when taken to a place at any considerable height above the level of the sea, as it would then have a less column of air to support. Perier, the brother-in-law to Pascal, who resided in the mountainous district of Auvergne, was engaged to try the experiment, which he did by observing the height of the mercury at the bottom of the Pay de Dome, a volcanic mountain, and at several heights as he ascended. By this series of observations, he discovered that the height of the mercurial column was governed by the column of atmospheric air it had to support; for it descended in proportion to the height above the level of the sea to which it was carried. We have not, however, any occasion to ascend a high mountain to prove the truth of Torricelli's theory. The experiment that Perier performed with considerable labour on the Pay de Dome, we may make in our closets, with the assistance of an air-pump. Take a tube hermetically sealed at one end, and filling it with mercury, invert it over a cup containing the same metal in the manner already mentioned, and the mercury will immediately fall to that height at which it exactly balances the pressure of the air. Then place the apparatus under the receiver of an air-pump, and as the |