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PART III. 

 COLLECTANEA. 



Art. I. General Subject, 



The Circular System extended to Events and to the Creation of Organised 

 Beings. — The Stoics (who were ignorant of the power which electricity 

 possesses of giving life, as it were, to the four elements of matter) resolve 

 air, earth, fire, and water into each other; and as magnetism is said to have 

 the faculty of suspending gravitation, so they imagined (as nature delights 

 in circles and ellipses) that there existed a quality which had the power of 

 suspending the progress of events ; and which, after a certain era, caused 

 them to revert into their respective original channels : as water resolves 

 into vapour by heat, and vapour resolves into water by cold. So that every 

 accident and event was supposed to be bound perpetually to recur; the 

 same number and description of plants, insects, birds, and animals again to 

 ornament and adorn the earth ; and the same beings, feeling their prior 

 passions, again to exercise the same virtues and vices, and to be liable to 

 the same calamities and disorders to which they were subject in their state 

 of antecedence. {Buckets Beauties of Nature.) 



Dissection by Insects. — Mr. Carpenter having had many specimens of in- 

 sects destroyed by the T^rmes pulsatorium, it occurred to him that their 

 destructive powers might be turned to account, in making some delicate 

 dissections for the microscope, and accordingly he placed a few of them in a 

 pillbox, with the heads of three dead flies. On looking into the box some 

 time after, to see how they had proceeded in their anatomical operations, 

 he found they had completely cleared the interior of some of the eyes from 

 all the blood-vessels, leaving the lenses in the corner most beautifully trans- 

 parent ; thus evidencing how useful they might be made in exceedingly fine 

 dissections. {GiWs Tech. Rep.) 



Bounties of Winter. — Sir, In my walks at this season of the year, when 

 there has been little but snow and bare branches to look at, I have been 

 frequently greeted by the fine glowing leaves of the oak, " tenacious of the 

 stem,'* which show, amid the dark objects around them, like flames of fire; 

 and this has put me upon thinking, why it is that the young trees retain 

 their leaves so much longer than the older ones. I cannot answer this 

 question to myself satisfactorily ; perhaps some of your readers will answer 

 it for me. That the old trees keep their lower leaves to the last, may very 

 probably be owing to their being less exposed to the elements, but the 

 younger are many of them golden to the very crown, though in situations 

 not a whit more sheltered than their aged brethren. Talking of bare stems 

 and branches, by the by, how very much people neglect the beauties of 

 winter ! What infinite grace there is in the leafless birch 1 what majesty in 

 the oak ! what rough, strong, mossy wealth in the walnut tree ! It is very 

 interesting to study their characters in this state, when you may discern the 

 real disposition of a tree as clearly as if it had drunk wine ; in which, they 

 say, there is truth. I hope, however, it is not cdnfined to wine ; for, truly, 

 I remain. Sir, &c. — E. K. Feb. 7. 1829. 



Grew's Theory of Colours in Plants. — Grew, whose work on vegetable 

 anatomy is well known, was a close observer of nature; and in noticing the 



