Mr. Innes's Correction in the Nautical Almcmac for 1 8S3. 1 35 



and elementary principles out of which it was originally 

 formed. 



Sleep has been said to be the image of death. But it is 

 only a transient suspension of some of the functions of life. 

 Tiie exercise of function fatigues the organs, and hence they 

 require a period of repose. Such is sleep, which lasts only 

 till the fabric is recruited. Hybernation might be said to 

 be the image of death also ; but it depends entirely on tem- 

 perature. When the temperature sinks to a given degree, 

 hybernation begins; and when it rises again to the same degree, 

 the exercise of function is resumed. But if death once super- 

 venes, its dominion is perpetual; and its empire not to be es- 

 caped from. It is "the undiscovered country from whose 

 bourn no traveller returns" — the "cheerless night that knows 

 no morrow," 



Omnes una manet nox. 



Et calcanda semel via lethi. — Hor. Ode 28. lib. i. 



that is, as regarded in a physiological light; for the morning 

 that is yet to "dawn on the night of the grave" we are not 

 taught to look forward to as a consequence resulting from 

 the established order of things, but as an event emanating 

 from the^a^ of the Almighty*. 



Thus the phaenomena of life and of death are plainly and 

 palpably distinct. They are opposite, and irreconcilable, and 

 cannot be mistaken. Life composes, death decomposes; life 

 rears a fabric, death destroys it; where life extends, the inte- 

 grity of the fabric is maintained ; where life ends, decomposi- 

 tion with putrefaction begins. Such is the victory achieved 

 by death, and the inevitable doom of every thing that lives. 



Ruckinge Rectory, Kent, April 26th, 1830. P. Keith. 



XV. On the Statement in the Nautical Almanac for \SS3, of 

 the Time of Beginning of the Solar Eclipse of the I6th of 

 July in that Year; together with the correct Times of that 

 Eclipse, computed for Gree?i'wich. By George Innes, Esq. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Annals. 

 Gentlemen, 



TN the Nautical Almanac for 1833, I find the begi7ining of 

 -*■ the solar eclipse of the 16th July, stated to be at IG*" 5™. 

 It appears to me probable that the units and fraction of a 

 minute have fallen out in printing. About ibur years ago, I 

 calculated the times of the above eclipse for Edinburgh and 

 Greenwich Observatories, using Uelambre's tables of the sun, 



• [John V. 'JS. vi.39, 40. Kom. vi. 23. 1 Cor, xv. 3fi, 44,51.— Ei.ir.] 



and 



