his nephew, Dr. Bradley, previous to his becoming our astronomer royal. We have now explained the general principle of the refracting telescope, (as applied to astronomical purposes,) which, from its superior portability, has almost entirely superseded the use of the reflecting telescope, which was originally superior in that respect to the refractor; and as they are rapidly growing into disuse, we shall not enter upon an explanation of the principles of their construction, but proceed to lay before our readers some of those magnificent spectacles exhibited to our view by the fine instrument just described. THE TELESCOPIC APPEARANCES OF THE When the earth is situated exactly between the sun and the moon, so that the former shall be setting in the west, when the latter is appearing in the east, then the moon is said to be full, because at that time the sun shining directly upon her disk, a full round orb is presented to our view. The unassisted eye can distinguish a number of irregular spots on her face, (or disk, as it is termed,) by their dark colour, from the brighter or more glaring parts; but by the aid of the telescope, the large dark shades are resolved into a number and variety of spots and lines, varying in form, lustre, and colour. The full moon, although a pleasing object to examine, falls far short in interest of the appearances of the same luminary when on the increase or decrease. The annexed engraving represents the telescopic appearance of the full moon. to that of our earth as to consist of mountains, &c.? This we will endeavour to make plain, recommending all who are possessed of a telescope, capable of magnifying at least forty times, to examine attentively the gradual increase of the illuminated portion of the moon's disk, for a few nights during the first or second quarter, and they will soon discover that there are real inequalities on her surface, which can be no other than mountains and valleys; for they will soon identify the shadows cast by the mountains to be in the exact proportion, as to length, which they ought to have according to the position of the sun with respect to the earth and the moon, from night to night: for instance, figure 1 of the cut below represents a small portion of the moon's disk with several of the Fig. 1. mountains as they appear on a certain night, when the moon is in her first quarter, as seen through a telescope of high magnifying power; and figure 2 shows the same mountains on the next Fig. 2. The varieties both of the forms and lustre of these appearances, are occasioned by the diversity and character of the mountains, the pits, and the seas or plains, which constitute the appearances themselves. It may be asked, How is it known that the surface of the moon is formed so analogous advanced towards the full, is getting more nearly opposite to the sun, and of course the shadows are diminished. At the full no shadows whatever are formed, and the mountains appear like very bright specks; but after the full, the shadows will again present themselves to view, but on opposite sides; that is, they will be thrown to the left, instead of being on the right, as shown in our cuts. The same objects are represented in our cut below, and marked a, b, c, denoting their position on the moon's surface. The prodigious inequalities on the surface of the moon are thus clearly made out, by looking at her through a telescope at any other time than when she is full; for then there is no regular bounding line between the dark and illuminated parts, which, if the moon was a perfectly smooth sphere, would be a well-defined concave oval line; but, on the contrary, it is always observed to be extremely ragged, and indented with deep recesses, and prominent points. The mountains near this edge first appear as small points, or islands of light, beyond the extreme edge of the enlightened part, which are their tops catching the sunbeams before the intermediate plain, and which, as the light advances, at length connect themselves with it, and appear as projecting from the general edge, casting long black shadows, as they should evidently do, when we consider that the sun is in the act of rising or setting to the parts of the moon so circumstanced, and (as before remarked) when the sun gains altitude, or what is the then the light falls upon the moon from be hind us, or in our line of sight, and the shadows shorten and disappear, and after the full they appear in an opposite direction. The foregoing cut represents the moon as shown in a telescope magnifying about sixty times when not far from the quadrature. The spots in the moon, of which there are many thousands, generally assume a circular or cup-shaped form, encompassing cavities, into which their shadows are thrown; but the larger of them have, for the most part, flat bottoms within, from which risescentrally a small steep conical hill. Now the only similar appearances on the surface of the earth are our mountains of volcanic character, as in the crater of Vesuvius; it is not too much, therefore, to conclude, that the lunar mountains may be of a volcanic nature. Besides, bright spots, supposed to be volcanoes, have been seen in the dark portion of the moon, emitting a light of such intensity as to illuminate the surrounding parts; and if the volcanic matter be thrown to nearly an equal distance around the crater, the circular form of the summits of the mountains may be accounted for. Near the edges of the moon, the spots assume an oval form, but this arises from their being foreshortened in appearance, being projected upon a sphere; the height of some of the mountains in question has been estimated at about two miles perpendicular. The moon turns upon her axis in the same time that she performs her revolution round the earth; consequently the same face is always presented to our view, with a very trifling exception, which arises from what is termed her libration. If there be inhabitants in the moon, the earth must present to them the extraordinary appearance of a moon two degrees in diameter, or about four times the size the moon appears to us; and for the above reason, the earth can only be visible to the inhabitants of one half of the moon, being for ever veiled from the other. What would be said of a traveller who, returning from the southern hemisphere, was to tell us of the existence of such a moon illuminating the nights of the regions he had visited; and that we, in order to witness it, must travel half round the world? But such must be the case with the inhabitants of one half of the lunar globe. UMBRELLAS. UMBRELLAS are of great antiquity; although they have scarcely been used in same thing, the moon approaches the full: England sixty years. Among the Greeks cording to his own report, was a sensible man; for he adds, that he persisted in carrying his umbrella for three months, till the people took no further notice of the novelty. Foreigners began to use their umbrellas; then the English; and the making of umbrellas soon became a great trade in London. Their use has much increased of late years, and materially benefited our silk market: and we doubt whether a Frenchman carries his parapluie with greater regularity than an Englishman does his umbrella. The improved manufacture of umbrellas has had some share in this change; for those of the last century were short, unsightly things, and did not combine the advantages of shelter and a walking-stick.Domestic Life in England. the umbrella was a mark of elevated rank, | between the door and their carriage." and one is seen on the Hamilton vases, in Much of this clamour was raised by the the hands of a princess. We find it hackney-coachmen and chairmen, who figured upon the ruins of Persepolis, the profited by an ill wind and rain, and age of which is lost in antiquity. The who feared the umbrella would supersede Romans used it, especially at the theatre, the coach or chair; but the coachmen to keep off the sun; for their playhouses had been similarly assailed by the waterhad no roofs, and the performances were men, upon the introduction of hackneyin the day-time. Notwithstanding this coaches; so manifold are the obstacles of antiquity, Coryate, the old traveller, de- self-interest to every step of public conscribes the umbrellas of Italy as rarities-venience. This footman, however, ac"made of leather, something answerable to the form of a little canopy, and hooped in the inside with divers little wooden hoops, that extend the umbrella in a pretty large compass. They are used especially by horsemen, who carry them in their hands when they ride, fastening the end of the handle upon their thighs.' These and other umbrellas only are described for keeping off the sun, a circumstance which may be explained by the comparative scarcity of rain in the countries wherein they were used. It might, however, have been expected that the frequency of rain in our island would have rendered the umbrella a very acceptable introduction from the continent. The reverse happened; and, a century and a half subsequent to Coryate's time, or about 1768, when umbrellas were first used in England, they were violently ridiculed by the vulgar. The first man who carried an umbrella in the streets of London was hooted for his folly; and few but the macaronis of the day, as the dandies were then called, would venture to display an umbrella, which was universally considered as a mark of effeminacy. About the same time coffee-houses were first established in the metropolis; and one of their earliest accommodations was, to keep a single umbrella, to be lent, as a coach or chair, in a heavy shower. The "Female Tatler" advertises"The young gentlemen, belonging to the Custom House, who, in fear of rain, borrowed the umbrella from Wilks's coffee-house, shall the next time be welcome to the maid's pattens." As late as in 1778, one John Macdonaid, a footman, who has written his own life, informs us that when he used a fine silk umbrella, which he had brought from Spain, the people called out, Frenchman! why don't you get a coach?' At this time, there were no umbrellas worn in London, except in noblemen's and gentlemen's houses, where there was a large one hung in the hall, to hold over a lady or gentleman if it rained, The above is the account generally given as to the introduction of umbrellas, and Jonas Hanway is said to have been the first who commonly used one; but in Gay's poem, called "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets," we find the following lines in the description of the effects of a shower of rain . "The tuck'd up sempstress treads with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides." THE SEPARATE EXISTENCE OF THE MIND. THE strongest of all human arguments, both for the separate existence of the mind, and for its surviving the body, is drawn from the strictest induction of facts. The body is constantly undergoing change in all its parts. Probably no person at the age of twenty has one single particle in any part of his body which he had at the age of ten; and still less does any portion of the body he was born with continue to exist in or with him. All that he before had has now entered into new combinations, forming parts of other men, or of animals, or of vegetable or mineral substances. Yet the mind continues one and the same. None of its parts can be resolved; for it is one and single, and it remains unchanged by the changes of the body. The argument would be quite as strong though the change undergone by the body were admitted not to be so complete, and though some small portion of its harder parts were supposed to continue with us through life. But observe how strong the inferences arising from these facts are, both to prove that the existence of the mind is entirely independent of the existence of the body, and to show the probability of its surviving! If the mind continues the same, while all or nearly all the body is changed, it follows that the existence of the mind depends not in the least degree upon the existence of the body; for it has already survived a total change of, or, in the common use of the words, an entire destruction of that body. But again, if the strongest argument advanced by those who would attempt to show that the mind perishes with the body, nay, the only argument be, as it indubitably is, derived from the phenomena of death, the fact to which we have been referring affords an answer to this. For their as sertion is, that we know of no instance in which the mind has ever been known to exist after the death of the body. Now, here is exactly the instance desiderated, it being manifest that the same process which takes place on the body more suddenly at death, is taking place more gradually, but as effectually in the result, during the whole of life; and that death itself does not more completely resolve the body into its elements, and form it into new combinations, than living fifteen or twenty years does destroy, by like resolution and combination, the self-same body. And yet after those years have elapsed, and the former body has been dissipated, and formed into new combinations, the mind remains the same as before, exercising the same memory and consciousness, and so preserving the same personal identity, as if the body had suffered no change at all. The facts referred to prove that the soul does exist apart from one body with which it once was united; and though it is in union with another, yet as it is not adherent to the same, it is shown to have an existence separate from, and independent of, that body. Here, then, we have that proof so much desiderated the existence of the soul after the dissolution of the bodily frame with which it was connected. The two cases cannot, in any soundness of reasoning, be distinguished; and this argument, therefore, one of pure induction, derived partly from physical science, through the evidence of our senses, partly from psychological science, by the testimony of our consciousness, appears fully to prove the possible immortality of the soul.-From Lord Brougham. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. the dust of our bodies discovers the vastAs the finding out the particulars of ness of the knowledge of God; so to raise them will manifest the glory of his power as much as creation. Bodies that have mouldered atoms, been resolved into the elements, into multitudes of away passed through varieties of changes; been sometimes the matter to lodge the form of a plant, or been turned into the substance of a fish or fowl, or vapoured up into a cloud, and been part of that matter which hath compacted a thunderbolt; tered by the winds, swallowed and condisposed of into places far distant, scatcocted by beasts;-for these to be called out from their different places of abode to meet in one body, and be restored to their former consistency in a marriage union, "in the twinkling of an eye," 1 Cor. xv. 52, is a consideration that may justly amaze us, and our shallow hend it. But is it not credible, since all understandings are too feeble to comprethe disputes against it may be silenced nothing can oppose, for which nothing by reflections on infinite power, which can be esteemed too difficult to effect, which doth not imply a contradiction in itself?-Charnock. THE GOSPEL. HE that believeth the gospel with hearty love and liking, as the most excellent truth, will certainly with the like heartiness believe on Christ for his salvation, 1 Thess. i. 5, 9, 10.—Marshal. JOHN DAVIS, 56, Paternoster Row, London. Price d. each, or in Monthly Parts, containing Five Numbers in a Cover, 3d. W. Tyler, Printer, Bolt-court, Fleet-street. AN ARAB SITTING BEFORE A CHIEF, ON HIS KNEE AND HEELS. SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS.-No. XX. "And David the king came and sat before the Lord."-1 Chron. xvii. 16. To sit, is with us no mark of respect, but rather of familiarity. Our reverence is manifested by standing or kneeling. But Niebuhr, in his Travels, furnishes us with a fact which is thought to illustrate this passage, and which is probably correctly applied. He says, that "in the presence of a superior an Arab sits, with his two knees touching each other, and with the weight of his body_resting upon his heels." So, perhaps, David sat, on the occasion here referred to. The humility he manifested on this occasion, reads a lesson to all the sons of pride, and especially to those who were once in humble circumstances, but on whose way Providence has smiled, by raising "the poor from the dust, and the needy from the dunghill." What christian, indeed, on reviewing all VOL. III. |