156 THE EEASON WHY. 



' Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold. Every man may 

 see it ; mau may behold it afar off." JOB xxxvi. 



689. Why does- smoke ascend in a straight line in mild 

 andjine weather ? 



Because the air is still, and being dry and warm it does not chill 

 the smoke, nor drive it out of its course. 



600. Why do the wings of wind-mills turn round? 



Because the wind, striking at an angle upon the wings, forces 

 them aside ; and as there are four wings all upon the same angle, 

 and fixed upon the same centre, the oblique pressure of the wind 

 causes the centre to rotate. 



There is a world of miniature phenomena which has never been fully recog- 

 nised, in which we may see the mightier works of nature pleasingly and truth- 

 fully illustrated. 



When the wind blows into the corner of a street, and whirling around, catches 

 straw, dust, and feathers in its arms, and then wheels away, flinging the 

 troubled atoms in all directions, it is a miniature of the mightier whirlwind, 

 which wrecks ships, uproots trees, and levels houses with the earth. 



When a cloud of dust, on a hot summer's day, rises and flies along the thirsty 

 road, making the passenger close his eyelids, and dusting the leaves of wayside 

 vegetation, it is a miniature of the terrible simoom, which blows from the 

 desert sands, scattering death and devastation in its track. 



When steam issues from the tea-urn, and becomes condensed in minute drops 

 upon the window-pane, the miniature is of the earth's heat, evaporating the 

 waters, and the cold air of night condensing the vapours into dew. 



When grass and corn bend before the wind, and are beaten down by its force ; 

 when the pond forgets its calm, and rises in troubled waves, casting the flotilla 

 of natural boats that move upon its surface, in rude disorder upon its wii.dward 

 shore, the little storm is but a miniature of those great hurricanes which 

 wrecked a fleet in the Black Sea, and levelled the encampments of a mighty 

 army. 



When the snow that has gathered upon the house-top, warming beneath the 

 smr.es of the sun, slips from its bed, and drops in accumulated heaps from the 

 roof, it is a miniature of those terrible avalanches which in the Pyrenees bury 

 villages in their icy pall, and doom mau and beast to death. 



When the rivulet hurries on its course, and meeting with obstructions, leaps 

 over them in mimic wrath, overturning some little raft upon which, perchance, 

 a weary fly has alighted, it is a miniature of .those rapids on whose banks the 

 hippopotamus and the alligator yet live ; and where, though rarely, man may be 

 seen directing his raft over the troubled current, amid the rush of debris from 

 forests unexplored. 



And when, in a basin of the rivulet, two opposing currents meet, and form a 

 little vortex into which insect life and vegetable fragments coming within the 



