Mr Milne's Prize Essay on Comets. 353 



unnatural or unlikely, that Comets may bo the resideuce of beings wide- 

 ly different from tho!>e ivbich fall within the narrow sphere of human 

 observation. What though these beings, from the peculiarities of their 

 situation, be endowed with neither lungs, nor eyes, nor the feelings 

 which afford the sensations of heat and cold, like unto our bodily or- 

 gans ? Does this want imply either any improbability as to their exist- 

 ence, or even any inferiority, compared with ourselves, in the scale of 

 creation? Most certainly not: For, if we estimate the intelligence of 

 beings by the knowledge which their place in tho universe is fitted to 

 impart, we are compelled to regard the Cometary inhabitants as of an 

 order even superior to the creatures of the Earth. When, for example, 

 they find themselves passitig through the midst of the satellites, those 

 small bodies which we can scarcely discern with telescopes^— or when 

 they are brought so close to the planet Saturn, that they can examine 

 the wonderful phenomenon of his rings even with the naked eye, — or 

 when at the perihelion passage, they are able to observe every thing ou 

 the surface of tiie Sun, that great luminary, the mysterious source of 

 life, and light, and energy to the system ; — what spectacles of delightful 

 contemplation must they enjoy, and what means of attaining an acquaint- 

 anctr with the works of Nature, infinitely greater than any which we 

 shall ever command ! Traversing, as they do, the whole extent of that 

 system of which the Earth forms so insignificant a member, and direct- 

 ing their course far beyond its known limits into those regions of space, 

 whose dark and unfathomable nature it will for ever baffle human pe- 

 netration to explore, the beings who Imve their abode on Comets must 

 be familiar with many impoitant truths, of which we can obtain only a 

 i^w casual glimpses, and witness such glorious and sublime displays of 

 the manifold wonders of creation, as must afford to them the noblest 

 conception of that Almighty Being, by whose wisdom they were con- 

 structed, and by whose power they are still sustained. 



On the Use of Ligatures and Bleeding in Causes of Poisoning. 



In a memoir, read lately by Dr Verniere to the French Aca- 

 demy of Sciences, on Certain Methods of treating all Cases of 

 Poisoning, the author commenced with mentioning the experi- 

 ments in which Magendie succeeded in completely suspending 

 absorption in a dog, by producing an artificial plethora^ by 

 means of the injection of tepid water into the veins. Proceed* 



JULY SEPTEMBER 1828. ' % 



