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HARD WICKK S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



not the wettest or windiest in this corner of the globe, 

 or that the year of fewest sun-spots is not, for these 

 are times of atmospherical disturbance depending on 

 the brightening and tarnishing of the sun, whose cold 

 patches must variously impinge, and quite distinct 

 from the conception of years. Now according to 

 Symons the wettest and most uncomfortable years 

 to joint and sinew in Great Britain have been 1836, 

 1841, 1848, 1852, and i860; but it is at once plain 

 that these have not in the highest degree affected the 

 price of wheat, whereas the influence of the windy or 

 •weather years 1846 and 1872 in displacement is, as 

 might be supposed, marked. We ought also to have 

 the statistics of other corn-producing countries, and a 

 knowledge of import and export, to perfectly eliminate 

 all disturbing elements ; but as it is, the agreement 

 ef the two series of figures will to the unprejudiced 

 mind appear very close ; and since these are far more 

 extensive than any Sir William Herschel can be 

 supposed to have had at his disposal, it will be to no 

 purpose quoting, as is too often done, his views on 

 this subject ; while we place the laurel on the shrine 

 of his genius, and claim him as the patron and 

 instigator of such researches. Carrington's diagram, 

 on which the designer set little value, may be 

 mentioned ; what this chiefly shows is not how the 

 Corn Laws came to be repealed in the afore- 

 mentioned year 1846, but how the price of wheat was 

 exaggerated during our wars with Bonaparte between 

 1 790 and 1820. The drop in the price of corn in this 

 country comes in the hollow of the monetary waves 

 between the epoch of most and fewest sun-spots, and 

 in a less degree perhaps between that of fewest and 

 most ; but this matter, as we shall see, is less curious ; 

 nor is it very clear that the remarkable falls in price 

 are due to home produce. There was a remarkable 

 one in 1743 and 1744. 



The task is done. As I watch from my window 

 the Wain, the reaping-hook of the north, move in its 

 nightly course around the pole until it stands upon its 

 handle, I recall the cornfields of the dog-days in their 

 coat of many colours tissued with sleepy poppies, blue- 

 bottles and cockles, pheasant's-eyes and poor man's 

 weatherglass. How I love them, for there have 

 wandered the enchantresses of fame. The devotee of 

 Delphi, the athlete, silly thing, with a bosom on fire 

 like Vulcan's, chanting to the cold and fruitless 

 moon : the more devilish Canidia, grown old and 

 ^g^y > Clorinda at hide and seek in some ivy-entwined 

 cypress ; the witch of Endor, who seems to have found 

 out how to clench matters with the bottomless pit ; 

 perhaps some Assyriologist may yet inform us how : 

 besides which all those fairer stars who with love and 

 song broke the bars of death. Well, I have seen the 

 universe of suns look lovelier certainly on the corn 

 lands of Castile than here in the Midlands, and the 

 mystery of philters and ribbons I scarcely comprehend ; 

 at hand is but a well-thumbed Collier's English 

 History, which when a dunce at school so 



monopolized the shining hours, wherewith to renew 

 these forbidden delights, and here the page. " The 

 close of 1857 was a gloomy time in the commercial 

 world. Mad speculation having plunged the traders 

 of America into difiiculties, the effect was severely felt 

 in Europe. Many long-established houses of business 

 failed. Those that were working without capital, on 

 accommodation-bills, speedily fell ; and in the crash 

 more than one of the banks came down, ruined by 

 those to v/hom they had advanced money with reck- 

 less imprudence. It was the old story of 1720 and 

 1797, of 1825 and 1847, told over again — men rich in 

 paper, dreaming that they are rich in gold." Softly, 

 these epochs of the sun already quoted would appear 

 to be an index to our dear wheat, our dear barley, our 

 dear oats, our discontent and our panics. The 

 puppets of history, they are all here, black as the 

 damning drops from the archangel's pen, and the 

 shock I received at the discovery caused me to fling 

 book and paper aside as if all the suns had turned on 

 me their batteries ; while before my eyes, conjured up 

 by the figures, undulated in lean and hungry proces- 

 sion, the Mad Parliament, very doubtlessly; the 

 Black Death ; Wat Tyler and Jack Straw ; Jack 

 Cade ; the Defence of the Faith and the Suppression 

 of the Monasteries ; the Rack and Bonfires ; Ship 

 Money ; the Headsman ; the Plague and Great Fire ; 

 the South Sea Bubble. I can no more ; let the 

 intelligent reader recount if any be absent, and should 

 he doubt my numbers let him count the grains of 

 corn in the field until he find the error, for here is no 

 superstition, no conjunction of heavenly bodies, no 

 comets that come and cease to be. The morning 

 breaks and our sun arises and shines as it has shone 

 and will shine. The glory of Sepharvaim, of On, 

 of Baalbec is departed, their corn-overseers have 

 vanished, but here in my hand I hold their " Mene, 

 Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," safe and sure. Froude 

 the historian seems to think that Christianity is no 

 longer any use, and enquires. What next ? But though 

 it be scientifically possible to call to account the man 

 of destiny and star-born hero, how about our wars in 

 the Middle Ages, feline and fanatical, and now-a- 

 days waged with an eye to the balance of power ? 

 Are we to encourage free trade or protection ? 



A. H. SWINTON. 



"MY METHOD." 



I HAVE been so often asked in what way I 

 managed to preserve my botanical specimens 

 with more than usual of their natural colour and form, 

 that I think it may interest some of your readers who 

 are collectors, to know the method I pursue. 



I tried many devices before I succeeded in any 

 way to my own satisfaction. At the best of times 

 the beautiful blossoms must lose much of their form 

 and brilhant colouring, and will even with the greatest 



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