366 Atmosphere in Houses. 



1813, when one of our nut-eating wild animals, probably by way 

 of a winter store, deposited a few nuts under its protecting cover. 

 In the course of the following summer, a single nut having 

 escaped the teeth of the destroyer, sent up its verdant shoot 

 through the hole in the centre of the procumbent millstone. 



One day I pointed out this rising tree to a gentleman who 

 was standing by ; and I said, " If this young plant escape de- 

 struction, some time or other it will support the millstone, and 

 raise it from the ground." He seemed to doubt this. 



In order, however, that the plant might have a fair chance of 

 success, I directed that it should be defended from accident and 

 harm by means of a wooden paling. Year after year it in- 

 creased in size and beauty ; and when its expansion had entirely 

 filled the hole in the centre of the millstone, it began gradually 

 to raise up the millstone itself from the seat of its long repose. 

 This huge mass of stone is now 8 in. above the ground, and 

 is entirely supported by the stem of the nut tree, which has 

 risen to the height of 25 ft., and bears excellent fruit. 



Strangers often inspect this original curiosity. When I meet 

 a visiter whose mild physiognomy informs me that his soul is 

 proof against the stormy winds of politics, which now-a-days set 

 half the world in a ferment, I venture a small attempt at plea- 

 santry, and say, that I never pass this tree and millstone without 

 thinking of poor old Mr. Bull, with a weight of eight hundred 

 millions of pounds round his galled neck; — fruitful source of 

 speculation to a Machiavel, but of sorrow to a Washington. 



Walton Hall, June 1. 1842. 



Art. V. On the Atmosphere in Houses. By R. Lymburn. 



The necessity of keeping up the atmosphere in houses to a pro r 

 per degree of moisture, and of varying the degree of moisture 

 according as growth, or ripening, or fruiting is wanted in the 

 same plant, or according to the different necessities of different 

 plants for that aliment, has been frequently and ably pointed out 

 in the Magazine. On this account it has become a great desi- 

 deratum, to be able to ascertain how far the air in houses is 

 below the point of saturation. The method pointed out by Pro- 

 fessor Thomson, in his Treatise on Heat, is so simple and easily 

 understood, and so accurate (the professor says, on repeated 

 trials he has found the results more correct than from Daniel's 

 hygrometer, or Jones's thermometer converted into a hygrome- 

 ter), that I have thought it might interest such of your readers 

 as have not the benefit of reference to that work to have it de- 

 tailed ; the more so as I do not recollect to have ever seen it 



