1828.] 



Varieties. 



541 



system commencing. The weakness of 

 this side, therefore, arises from this con- 

 genital disposition. To obtain the verifica- 

 tion of his theory, M. Lecomte has com- 

 pared the cases in which the foetus has 

 been in a position which he regards as pro- 

 per to determine the weakness of the left 

 system, with those in which it has been in 

 a contrary position, and he has found a 

 number which expresses positively the 

 ratio of the " droitiers" to the " ganchers." 

 To insure to children the free use of both 

 their hands, Mr. L. does not think it suf- 

 ficient to induce them, when at the age of 

 two or three years, to employ both hands 

 alike ; but, to compensate the defective state 

 in which the left system is at the moment 

 of the birth, it will be necessary to oblige 

 the babies to move that side only, con- 

 demning the right system to inaction. 

 Involuntarily, the very reverse is usually 

 done ; the nurses, in fact, have a custom 

 of carrying the children on the right arm, 

 in which position the infant has the whole 

 left side pressed against the bosom of the 

 nurse, which only increases the unfortu- 

 nate tendency it had at its birth. 



Logarithmic Cards. Our philosophical 

 readers will doubtless remember that, a few 

 years ago, a foreign mathematician, we 

 believe a Pole, of the name of Wronsld, 

 visited this country ; and it will hardly 

 have escaped their recollection with what 

 contempt certain proposals he made were 

 rejected by the very eminent secretary to 

 the board of longitude, who was no doubt 

 able to understand them although on this 

 subject there is an unusually wide differ- 

 ence of opinion, confirmed in great mea- 

 sure by the captious pertinacity with which 

 he has opposed some reasonings of Mr. 

 Ivory, from an accidental error in their nu- 

 merical expression, and by the bungling 

 method pursued in some of his popular illus- 

 trations of the celestial mechanics of La 

 FJace ; as it is supposed that no man would 

 involve or mystify any question or process, 

 of which he had in his own mind a due 

 conception. Be that as it may, without 

 presuming to decide on the merits of this 

 gentleman, we may express our regret at 

 the sneering, sarcastic, contemptuous tone, 

 so decidedly unbecoming all philosophical 

 discussion, and hostile to its spirit, which 

 he frequently thinks proper to assume, and 

 express our unfeigned sorrow that the 

 example he has set, or the irritation he has 

 occasioned, should have recalled into ex- 

 istence a spirit, of which, it was to be hoped, 

 the last traces would be found in the con- 

 troversy to which the writings of Newton 

 gave rise. Mr. Herapath is quite out of 

 ttie pale : to him we have always applied 

 the vulgar adage of " rope enough" the 

 proper, decorous, and silent forbearance of 

 the Royal Society supplied it, and he has 

 now most effectually hung himself; but 

 others, who should have been wiser, and 

 are capable of better things, are continual- 



ly " sparring,*' and the stream of philoso- 

 phical inquiry, which should have glided on 

 in tranquil majesty, is thus agitated by the 

 encounters of the insects which float upon 

 its surface. To return to Wronski ; while 

 other mathematicians, and our own highly- 

 gifted countryman, Mr. Babbage, in par- 

 ticular, have been publishing Logarith- 

 mic Tables, of unimpeachable accuracy, 

 but of considerable extent, Wronski has 

 arranged the logarithmic canon on a single 

 card, about the size of an octavo page 

 with this the logarithm to seven places of 

 decimals may be obtained for any number 

 while from cards of much smaller di- 

 mensions, the logarithms to four or to six 

 places of figures, enough for the common 

 purposes of life, may be found. The uti- 

 lity to all practical men of such a compen- 

 dious and portable table of logarithms is 

 evident enough the price of each card, 

 according to the purpose for which it is 

 designed, varies from about two shillings 

 to four the number of figures, conse- 

 quently, cannot be very great; so that here 

 a material source of error is cut off, an ad- 

 vantage, which all calculators must appre- 

 ciatebut of the ingenuity and skill dis- 

 played in the arrangement of this canon 

 by Wronski, we can find no better way of 

 conveying an idea than by saying, that all 

 other logarithmic works are, to this, what 

 numerical operations, before logarithms 

 were invented, are to the manner in which 

 they are now performed. 



Meteorology. An interesting and able 

 investigation into the supposed changes in 

 the meteorological constitution of the dif- 

 ferent parts of the earth, during the histo- 

 rical period, has been made by M. Schow, 

 Professor of Botany in the University of 

 Copenhagen ; and after an extensive exa- 

 mination of all that the ancients have left 

 us, connected with their botany and agri- 

 culture, compared with our present expe- 

 rience on those subjects, the author thinks 

 himself entitled to assume, that the climate 

 of Greece and Italy, like that of Palestine 

 and Egypt, has undergone no important 

 change since ancient times. But if, on 

 account of the later harvest, and the pos- 

 sible growth of the beech trees in the Ro- 

 man plains, we might be led to the opinion, 

 that formerly the climate had been a little 

 colder than now, the difference will hardly 

 come up to one or two degrees, and will 

 not be greater than might be occasioned 

 by the cultivation of the north of Europe. 



Antediluvian Footmarks We gave an 

 account, in a former number, of tracks of 

 footmarks of animals, which, from experi- 

 ments on living subjects, Professor Buck- 

 land regards as tortoises, found impressed 

 in many successive strata in a quarry of 

 sandstone, in Corncockle Muir, Dumfries- 

 shire ; and that, as far down as the quarry 

 had yet been worked, which is not less 

 than forty-five feet perpendicularly from 

 the^ top of the rock, similar impressions 



