26 NETHER LOCHABER. 



analyses of one of the smaller and commoner class of comets that 

 was visible for a short time in the month of June last. Avoiding 

 technical details, which might be uninteresting to some of our 

 readers, we may simply mention that on testing the nucleus of this 

 comet with the spectroscope, Mr. Huggins found that it was resolved 

 into three broad " bands," precisely similar to the results obtained 

 on examining with the same wonderful instrument such carbon as 

 follows the transmission of electric sparks through olefiant gas. 

 The conclusion arrived at by Mr. Huggins is, that the nucleus of 

 the comet in question consisted solely of volatilised carbon. This 

 paper of Mr. Huggins is altogether a most interesting one, and we 

 may have something more to say about it on a future occasion. 



The following is a translation somewhat freely rendered of an 

 old Irst or St. Kilda song, the solitary island home of a score or two 

 of hardy inhabitants, and by all accounts a happy and hospitable 

 race too, who cling with an unquenchable love to their lonely rock, 

 as if it were a perfect paradise, ocean-girt and storm-beaten though 



it be 



' ' Placed far amid the melancholy main. " 



Except another specimen given in a small collection of Gaelic 

 songs, edited by the late Eev. Mr. M'Callum of Arisaig, the 

 original of the following is the only St. Kilda song that we have 

 met with. Our copy was procured in this way : Some years ago 

 we were dining on board H.M. Revenue cruiser " Harriet," Captain 

 M'Allister. Going ashore on a fine moonlight night, one of the 

 seamen who rowed our boat sang the song, which we had JIG 

 hesitation in at once declaring to be of St. Kilda origin, which the 

 man admitted was the case, he having picked it up many years 

 before from an old woman who had spent some time on the island. 

 Of the air, we can only remember that it was a wild, irregular sort 

 of chant, very different from the soft low airs to which our main- 

 land songs are for the most part sung, with the refrain or burden 



