1854] 



ON THE RISING OF WATERS IN SPRINGS BEFORE RAIN. 



141 



reflector might add to these lens of thousands more. Bui this, 

 seeing how few nights in a year are favorable for the highest 

 powers, must be the work of rears of perseverance. It would 

 be a worthy undertaking for the government of a great country, 

 to afford the means of multiplying such gigantic instruments. 

 Appli :atjon is to be made, in this direction, for a six-feet reflector 

 at the Cape of Good Hope, for the examination of the heavens 

 towards the southern pole. Lord Rosse, with his usual noble- 

 ness of liberality, will yield up his laboratory, machinery, and 

 men,' to the service of government, and is willing, mereover, to 

 give the direction and guidance of his master-mind. Will the 

 British nation be content with a refusal ? 



The range opened to us by the great telescope at Birr Castle, 

 is best, perhaps, apprehended by the now usual measurement — 

 not of distances in miles, or million of miles, or diameters of the 

 earth's orbit, but — of the progress of light in free space. The 

 determination, within, no doubt, a small proportion of error, of 

 the parallax of a considerable number of the fixed stars, yields, 

 according to M. Peters, a space betwixt us and the fixed stars of 

 the smallest magnitude, the sixth, ordinarily visible to the naked 

 eye, of 1 30 years in the flight of light. This information enables 

 us, on the principles of sounding the heavens, suggested by Sir 

 W, Hersehel, with the photometrical researches on the stars of 

 Dr. Wollaston and others, to carry the estimation of distances, 

 and that by no means on vague assumption, to the limits of space 

 opened by the most effective telescopes. And from the guid- 

 ance thus afforded us, as to the comparative power of the six 

 feet speculum in the penetration of space, as already elucidated, 

 we might fairly assume the fact, that if any other telescope now 

 in use could follow the sun if removed to the remotest visible 

 position, or till its light would require 10,000 years to reach us, 

 the grand instrument at Parsonstown would follow it so far, that 

 from 20,000 to 25,000 years would be spent in the transmission 

 of its light to the earth. But in the cases of clusters of stars, 

 and of nebula; exhibiting a mere speck of misty luminosity, from 

 the combined light perhaps of hundreds of thousands of suns, 

 the penetration into space, compared with the results of ordinary 

 vision, must be enormous; so that it would not be difficult to 

 shew the probability that a million of years, in flight of light, 

 would be requisite, in regard to the most distant, to trace the 

 enormous interval. 



But after all, what is all this, vast as the attainment may seem, 

 in the exploration of the extent of the works of the Almighty ? 

 For in this attempt to look into space, as the great reflector ena- 

 bles us, we see but a mere speck — for space is infinite. 

 Could we take, therefore, not the tardy wings of the morning, 

 with the speed of the mere spread of day, nor flee as with the 

 leaden wings of light, which would require years to reach the 

 nearest star, but, like unhampered thought, could we speed to the 

 farthest visible nebula at a bound, — there, doubtless, we should 

 have a continuance of revelations; and if bound after bound 

 were taken, and new spheres of space for ten thousand repetitions 

 explored, should we not probably find each additional sphere of 

 telescopic vision garnished with suns and nebulous configurations 

 rich and marvellous as our own ? If these views serve to enlarge 

 our conception of creative wonders, and of the glory and power 

 of the Great Architect of the heavens, should they not deeply 

 impress us in respect to the Divine condescension in regarding so 

 graciously this little, inferior world of ours? Animated with 

 the spirit of the Psalmist, we shall each one, surely, be disposed 

 appropriately to join in his emphatic saying — " When I consider 

 thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars 

 which thou hast ordained ; what is man, that thou art mindful of 

 him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest him ?" 



On Ihe Rising of Waters in Springs iramtditsMy b.fore Rain. 

 By Trof. J. Brotklesby.* 



My attention was particularly called to this phenomenon du- 

 ring the close of the summer of 1852, while residing a few 

 weeks in Rutland, amid the highlands of Vermont. In the west- 

 ern portion of the town is a lofty hill, rising to the height of 

 about four hundred feet above the Otter Creek valley. Near the 

 summit of the hill a small spring bursts forth whose waters are 

 conveyed in wooden pipes to the barnyards of two farm houses 

 situated on the slope of the hill ; the first being about one-fourth 

 of a mile distant from the spring, and the second nearly one- 

 third of a mile. At the latter house I resided. The waters of 

 the spring are not abundant, and during the summer months 

 frequently fail to supply the aqueduct. • Such was the state of 

 the spring when I arrived at Rutland ; for the summer had been 

 extremely dry, and the brooks were unusually low, and the 

 drought had prevailed so long that even the famed Green Moun- 

 tains had, in many places, began to wear a russet livery. The 

 drought continued, not a drop of rain falling, when one morning 

 a servant, coming in from the barnyard, affirmed that we should 

 soon have rain, as the water was now flowing in the aqueduct 

 the spring having risen several inches. The prediction was veri- 

 fied, for within two or three days rain fell to a considerable 

 depth. 



In a short time the spring again sunk low, and ceased to sup- 

 ply the aqeduct; but one cloudless morning, when there were no 

 visible indications of rain, its waters once more rose, flowing 

 through the entire length of the aqueduct, and ere twenty-four 

 hours had elapsed, another rain was pouring down. On inquiry 

 it was ascertained from the residents in the vicinity, that the phe- 

 nomenon was one of ordinary occurrence, and that for the last 

 twenty years the approach of rain was expected by the rising of 

 the spring. 



Interested by these facts, I sought for others of a like nature, 

 and requested through the public prints information on the sub- 

 ject from all who happened to possess it, and also upon collateral 

 points which were conceived to have important relations to this 

 phenomenon. I .was rewarded by the knowledge of only one 

 additional instance, existing in Concord, Massachusetts, where a 

 spring that supplies a certain brook is said to rise perceptibly 

 before a storm. Mr. Wm. Munroe, who lives near the stream, 

 kindly offered the following information, which is given below in 

 nearly his own words: — " Although I have frequently been in- 

 formed that the Dodge's brook, (so called,) after a dry time, and 

 when no water had run for some days, would begin again to run 

 when the clouds threatened rain, but before a drop had fallen ; 

 __ yet I cannot say that I have ever taken much pains to investigate 

 the fact. However, I perfectly recollect being at one time near 

 the brook when there had been a long drought. The clouds 

 threatened rain very soon — not a drop of water had run into the 

 brook for some days — not a drop had fallen from the clouds, and 

 no rain had occurred in the vicinity. The course of the brook is 

 across the road, I was standing in the road watching the brook, 

 and then saw a small stream in its bed flowing towards the river, 

 which is about fifteen rods distant from the road ; the sj>rino- 

 that supplies the brook is situated about half a mile from the 

 river, and is sometimes so powerful that I have known the brook 

 to overflow the road for the space of several rods ; I cannot say 

 that it is an established fact that the river always rises before a 

 rain, but I have good reason to suppose that it does." The pre- 

 ceding statements in respect to Dodge's brook are corroborated 

 by the son of Mr. Munroe, who writes thus : — The subject has 



* Proceedings of the American Association at Cleveland— Annals of Sci- 

 ence. 



