﻿is the light that has left the stars ages and ages ago, so immensely great 

 is the distance it has to travel to reach us. We are told of Stars whose 

 distance is so great that their light takes 350,000 years to reach usjit the 

 rate of 12,000,000 of miles every minute. But the people are not 

 generally aware of these beautiful scientific calculations, brought home to 

 them as they are to their very doors. Think of the amazing mental and 

 manipulatory skill exerted by Foucault to prove, by direct experiment 

 that the rays of light travel twenty-two yards in the fifteen-millionth part 

 of a second ! Artizans ! is not this enough to fire you with additional zeal 

 in your various avocations ! Think of the astonishing accuracy with which 

 the observations of astronomers are conducted ! Some slight variations in 

 their fractional calculations have been found to have their origin in 

 " upheavals and depressions of the land" on which their Observatory has 

 stood ; and thus we are led to imagine that the instruments in use by them 

 have been disturbed by natural causes. This is a very different thing, and, 

 therefore, must not be confounded, with the case of the bad workman who 

 finds fault with his tools. In fact, it may seem that the senses of the 

 astronomers have recently been preternaturally exalted ; for Mr. Lowe of 

 Nottingham, if the newspapers be correct, has an " Earthquake Pendulum" 

 in use at his Observatory; and it is said that, by its means, Mr. Lowe on 

 one occasion detected "a sensible movement of the Earth from W.KW. 

 to E.S.E.," succeeded by "an almost constant movement," though less 

 "sensible," for the space of "two hours during the following midnight." 

 This, again, must not be confounded with the case of any ordinary indi- 

 vidual having his nervous system unstrung by hours of anticipatory 

 watching, for astronomers are well used to this kind of thing ; neither must 

 it be mistaken for an instance of one of those interesting psychological 

 phenomena produced by what is known as the art of Electro-Biology, for 

 these are in consequence of the influence which one person may have over 

 the mind of another under certain conditions, and of the exercise of which 

 we have no evidence at all in the case under consideration. Again, how 

 interesting are some of the accounts of the phenomena experienced in the 

 higher regions of the atmosphere ! A well-known astronomer says, in the 

 "Leisure Hour," that the Earth, seen from the balloon, "did not present 

 a concave or cup-shaped appearance, according to the popular belief," and 

 afterwards, in the same publication, the same gentleman says that the 

 Earth " appears as a concave surface." But mark the reason : — it is in 

 No. 647. " The plane of the earth offers another delusion to the 

 " traveller in air." We know of few questions more interesting than one 

 which naturally arises in the mind after reading these statements. It is 

 this.: — How is it that, in the first case, the experience of other aeronauts is 

 negatived, without any idea of delusion in the matter ; and, in the second 

 instance, nine months afterwards, when their experience and evidence is 

 confirmed, it is an optical "delusion" directly ! Interesting as this is, 

 there are other things : — speculations, avowedly such. Here is one. The 

 astronomer just spoken of, who is our own appointed and accredited 

 Magnetic and Meteorological Superintendent, says, in the only pamphlet 

 we have seen bearing his name, that "In the ascent on July 17, the air 

 " was found to be charged with negative electricity ;" and the speculation 

 is, whether, at higher elevations, any electricity at all would have been 

 found, or "whether it would have changed to negative." The author 

 says that " it is impossible to say." Now here is a thing that has been 

 said, and read, too, by thousands lately : — " When the moon is overhead 

 it is difficult for us to conceive that if a cannon ball was fired at us from 



