Miscellanies. 349 



be a well established fact, that a whale can suspend respiration for 

 twenty minutes, and sink to the depth of an English mile in the 

 ocean. This fact is very familiar to whalemen, and is frequently 

 observed by all who sail in regions of the ocean occupied by whales. 



Instruction of children. — From a report by Mr. Langton of 

 Manchester, it appeared that in a population of 200,000, there are 

 50,000 children, of whom two thirds between the ages of five and 

 fifteen, are educated at common schools, and one third receive no 

 instruction whatever, while in Prussia and several of the German 

 States, all children of every class between seven and fourteen, are 

 by law obliged to attend school, and it appears by statistical returns 

 that they generally do so. 



Age of Peat Mosses. — Prof. Babbage brought forward a plan 

 for ascertaining the age of Peat Mosses by annual layers of the trees 

 found in them. If for instance, there were two wide rings separa- 

 ted by a narrow one, it would show that at some period, two years 

 of favorable growth had been divided by one unfavorable year ; and 

 it is possible that by observing similar rings in some very old trees 

 still standing, we might be able to ascertain the period of their growth 

 to have been the same as that of the timber found in bogs or moss- 

 es. This subject, as far as regards the growth of trees was ably il- 

 lustrated by Mr. Alexander C. Twining, in a notice in this Journal, 

 Vol. xxiv, p. 391. There can be no reason to doubt that this opin- 

 ion is v/ell founded, and we have now lying before us decisive evi- 

 dence, that ligneous layers were deposited of a very different thick- 

 ness, in different seasons, in ancient as well as in modern times. 

 We allude to a section of a fossil tree from Antigua, which we have 

 caused to be cut and polished ; its diameter is eleven inches by six, 

 and its surface about sixty square inches. It presents the annual 

 layers with the most perfect distinctness, as much so as recent wood 

 of any kind whatever. These layers vary in thickness from one 

 fourth or one third of an inch, to one fifteenth or even one twentieth 

 of an inch ; there are about fifty layers, indicating, according to com- 

 mon opinion, the same number of years, and in some parts several 

 thin layers, and in others several thick ones succeed each other, and 

 in other parts thick and thin alternate, indicating all the variety of 

 seasons that exists now on the earth. 



Heat. — Prof. Whewell at the conclusion of an able paper upon 

 heat, remarked that the sun is, from day to day, pouring upon the 

 earth a quantity of heat ; this, as it descends by the conducting pow- 



