24 
the vallies below, one should naturally 
conclude that the inference would be 
undeniable, that the earth was, and it 
only, the source of its own heat. The 
sun (and never Persian. worshipper 
mentioned his name more devoutly), 
has, like other deities, been some- 
what degraded by his devotees. He 
has been represented as growing 
weak, old and feeble. It has been 
stated, that, for six thousand years, he 
has been affording us heat and nourish- 
ment, and that, heat being only matter, 
this expenditure has considerably dimi- 
nished his storehouse of this article 
of vitality. As a consequence of this, 
had it not been for the occasional visits 
of kindness from those erratic wanderers 
of space, the Comets, who go occasion- 
ally to replenish his diminished activity, 
we should long ago have had Apollo’s 
threat fearfully executed : 
I the skies forgo, 
And bear the lamp of heav’n to shades below. 
If this is not the age of miracle, this 
more than miraculous dispensation of 
heat, for such a length of time, should 
have led us, long ago, into inquiries for 
some other magazine of that essential 
quality apart from the sun. This, I am 
persuaded, will only be found in the 
earth and its atmosphere.* 
How the rays of that luminary, 
“which gladdens heaven and earth,” 
elicit heat from whatever object they 
touch ; how their action is increased by 
a vertical direction, and diminished by 
a diagonal, remains yet to be explained 
by the researches of a Sir Humphrey, or 
some other fortunate experimentalist, 
in this Juminous path of discovery. 
Having stolen,Promotheus-like,““Jove’s 
authentic fire,” and fixed it on the earth, 
it behoves us next to apply our inqui- 
ries to its influence on the weather. How 
the accumulation of summer heat con- 
tributes to the lengthening out of our 
autumnal warmth, how the expenditure 
of caloric, in thunder-storms, wastes our 
atmospheric stock of this commodity, 
and how strong currents of wind dissi- 
pate its increase wherever they blow; 
as thesé are the effects of every day’s 
* We conceive that our correspondent, 
on the main, is right in his conjecture. That 
the rays of the sun act only as the stimulant, 
that attract or excite (in a’ greater or less 
degree, however), not only by revolutionary 
position, but. according to incidental cir- 
cumstances connected with the state of the 
atmosphere ; and’ that ‘the matter of heat 
is in the earth itself.—Eb. : 
Lunar Rainbows. 
[Feb. I, 
occurrence, their causes and conse- 
quences upon the present hypothesis 
will be familiar to all. 
I am now writing by a good fire-side, 
where little more than a week ago such 
an appendage to the comfort of the 
room would have been thought alto- 
gether superfluous. On the 10th ult. 
a strong gale of wind set in from the 
north-east, it increased during the night 
and during the succeeding day, until its 
impetuosity became so irresistable as to 
demolish several new built dwellings, 
factories not roofed in, and trees of all 
dimensions, some uprooting, and some 
breaking the trunks from the roots alto- 
gether. My reason for mentioning this 
is suggested by the effect it has pro- 
duced on the weather. From a fine 
Michaelmas summer, and exuberant 
vegetation, we are plunged at once into 
the “ seer and yellow leaf,’ our water 
became ice, and our rain snow. Win- 
ter, instead of gently treading on the 
heels of autumn, has vaulted upon his 
shoulders in the meridian of his 
strength. To account for this sudden 
transition, the foJlowing arguments sug- 
gest themselves on the above theory of 
the production of heat. The surface 
of the earth being the prolific mother 
of this quality, and the atmosphere 
around her nothing more than a flannel 
waistcoat to preserve and keep it in, 
it follows, that whatever retards its in- 
crease under that covering, or rends it 
asunder, causes an extravagant ex- 
penditure of heat then to take place. 
The tempest. above referred to com- 
pletely effected this purpose; for the 
space it ravaged, and the cold of the 
upper regions, rushing down to supply 
the vacancy so occasioned, we are left 
to expect the desolation of winter with — 
potatoes yet in the soil, and fruit upon 
the branches, denuded of all their leaves. 
W. Hampson. 
—=— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Sir: 
N addition to the instances of the 
rare and beautiful phenomena of the 
lunar,rainbow, mentioned in your last 
number (pp. 404—6) permit me to in- 
form your readers that there was one 
seen at Kenilworth on the morning of 
the 15th Febuary 1813, about half-past 
5 o’clock. (This was about 3 hours 
before the time ‘of full moon.) Its co- 
lours were the same as those of the 
solar rainbow, but ltss bright. Aris- 
totle tells us that he was the first who 
ever noticed the lunar rainbow, ae 
that 
