Waste. 
[August, 
446 
the origin of the planets was such as the nebular hypothesis 
teaches, no such shape as the one we have supposed is 
possible. 
As the matter stands a very great part of the earth’s 
surface is useless, from its low temperature. We have the 
region about the South Pole, roughly speaking, 3000 miles 
in diameter. We have smaller, but almost equally desolate, 
districts in the Northern Hemisphere, such as the greater 
part of Greenland, Novaya Zemlya, Spitzbergen, Wrangel’s 
Land, &c. All these perpetually glaciated regions are worse 
than non-existent, because they exercise an injurious effeCt 
upon plant-life — in Europe as far, occasionally, as lat. 40° 
N. ; in Asia down to the Himalayas and the Valley of the 
Yellow River; and in North America sometimes even to 
Texas and Mexico, where the redoubted “ Norther ” comes 
down “ sword in hand.” In South America, not to speak 
of the deplorable climate of Tierra del Fuego under a lati- 
tude not greatly differing from that of Britain, destructive 
snowstorms at times ravage the Pampas up to 35 0 S. lat., if 
not beyond. Similar calamities have been known in the 
Orange Free State as far as 28° S. lat. So that the belt of 
territory, within which the vegetable and animal wealth of 
the country is never liable to devastation by snowstorms and 
night-frosts, is very little broader, even at the sea-level, than 
the torrid zone, whilst the spots which have a permanently 
mild, but not tropical, climate are few indeed. This unsa- 
tisfactory state of things— unsatisfactory as limiting the 
earth’s productivity and the population it can support— is 
due evidently not so much to the quantity of heat furnished 
by the sun as to the manner in which it is wasted by a 
number of natural processes. 
We will, in conclusion, pass in review a single day of that 
kind of weather known as “ black spring,” and which is 
seldom entirely absent in the months of April and May. 
For the accuracy of our description we need appeal only to 
the memory of any careful observer. On such a day the 
sun rises in a cloudless sky, and shows a hoar-frost, if not 
upon roofs, rails, &c., yet upon the grass and the buds and 
blossoms of the trees. Could all vegetation be kept in the 
dark, or in diffused light, until this frost had melted away 
little harm would ensue. But under the influence of the 
sun it thaws rapidly, and the injury done is proportionate to 
the change of temperature to which the buds are exposed. 
Did the sun now continue shining, however, the earth would 
regain some of the heat of which it has been robbed in the 
night. But about 9 a.m. black clouds appear, and rapidly 
