18G5.J Astronomy. ±.'61 



waters can be made before their final outflow into tbe river, a great 

 social, as well as a mere agricultural, benefit will have been conferred. 

 Our last topic is agricultural education. Tbe opening of tbe so- 

 called Albert Middle Class College, in tbe county of Suffolk, during 

 tbe past quarter, may be named under tbis bead, as contributing botb 

 a good example for otber counties, and directly to tbe work of general, 

 and therefore indirectly to that of agricultural, education. It has 

 however, been effectively shown by Mr. J. C. Morton, in a paper read 

 by him before the Agricultural Society of England, that the general 

 education of the farming class has during tbe past generation very 

 greatly advanced ; whereas the condition of their professional educa- 

 tion is not so satisfactory. The sons are not better farmers, though 

 they are better educated men, than their fathers were. Agricultural 

 progress has been owing to improved means and improved machinery, 

 to imported manures and cattle-foods, to land-drainage and better 

 machines for cultivation — not to increased skill or greater agricul- 

 tural knowledge. The object of tbe lecture was to induce tbe society 

 to exert itself in its own legitimate field for the promotion of profes- 

 sional agricultural education — not to throw its small contribution 

 to the subject into tbe great sea of general middle-class education, 

 where it will not be felt. The Agricultural Society has, however, 

 in the meantime, resolved to persevere in the experiment to which 

 it is committed ; and some 200Z. accordingly have been devoted for 

 the year in prizes to the sons of farmers who shall pass the best 

 examination, before the university local examiners, in certain branches 

 of a general education. 



It is to be hoped that hereafter the society may labour in its own 

 proper field as a professional agricultural body, offering prizes for 

 •agricultural proficiency, for knowledge of those branches of science in 

 which agriculture is especially interested, and for intelligence and 

 skill in the various departments of farm management. 



II. ASTKONOMY. 



{Including the Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society.) 



One of the most interesting lectures delivered at the Eoyal Insti- 

 tution this season was devoted to a retrospect of the latest dis- 

 coveries concerning tbe Sun's surface. The lecturer was Balfour 

 Stewart, F.B.S., and although much of the matter brought forward 

 has necessarily appeared from time to time in the pages of scientific 

 journals, and especially in our own, we are tempted again to place 

 it before our readers in a connected form, by giving a brief ab 

 stract of this valuable discourse. The speaker commenced by drawing 

 attention to the points of visual difference between our two luminaries 

 — the sun and the moon. The surface of the latter has been almost 

 as correctly mapped as that of our own globe, so that astronomers 

 have long known what parts of her were mountains, and what valleys ; 

 for it was comparatively easy to argue respecting a set of phenomena 



