the end but from the centre, the very part where it is most extended. The force by which this propulsion from the greater diameter is produced has been called the centrifugal force, and is found, both by experiment and calculation, to increase with the distance from the centre in the same manner as the gravitating force decreases. If the earth revolved with the same velocity as the mop, proportioned to its size, and its central attractive force were not proportionably greater, all other things being equal, the sea would be in the same manner projected from the equatorial regions. so determined, that although it has sufficient. power to accumulate a greater body of water, it does not sufficiently neutralize the gravitation of the planet as to eject it from the surface. The level of the sea, however, is disturbed by centrifugal force, and a larger body of water is accumulated at the equatorial than any other regions of the terrestrial surface.

water maintains its level unless disturbed by the interference of other forces. It is scarcely possible to imagine how great a confusion and disorder would result from the suspension of this law, if but for an hour. The invariability of the law gives to man the power of binding that vast element, water, to his service, and of making it subservient to his wants. It flows through the channels he cuts in his lands, and drains or irrigates his fields at his pleasure; it spouts from his fountains, falls in graceful sheets over the little barriers he constructs, moves the machinery he invents to lessen his daily toil, and brings to his cities the produc-But the centrifugal force at the earth's equator is tions of neighbouring or remote countries, depositing them at the very threshold of his barns and warehouses. But this element, so beneficent, so docile, is only under control because its Creator has placed it under a law compelling it always to seek | the lowest depression, and in all its reservoirs to maintain its level. Even with the protection of this law, accidental causes sometimes momentarily overpower the continued agency of gravitating force, and, escaping from its appointed channels, it spreads with desolating power over cultivated districts and pealous towns.

What has been said prepares the mind to appre ciate another instance of adaptation, in that proportion which exists between the masses of water and the height of those mountain ranges in the tropics which form the summit-peaks of dry land. There is no self-evident reason why the mountains of the Cordilleras should have been no higher than they are. The force that raised them might have been a thousand times greater. If such had been the elevation of this vast range, the seas on both sides of the coasts of America would have been raised by their attraction, and the ports of Japan and of France would have been left dry. Hence, it appears that in the distribution of land and water, the height of mountains is an element of calculation as well as the centripetal and centrifugal forces.

It is easy to understand why water and other liquids maintain their level. There is a powerful attractive force in every body, drawing every particle towards the centre. This attraction acts upon fluids in the same degree as upon solids; but as the component parts of all liquids are less closely united, and have a less restrained motion among each other, the effects of the attraction upon them are more perceptible. If no other force than terrestrial gravitation acted upon the water of the ocean, it would have exactly the same form of surface as the globe itself, the outline of which, as is well known, only differs from a right sphere in a slight depression of the poles, and a corresponding The long continuance of the wind from one extension at the equator. This bulging of the quarter will frequently occasion a disturbance of the equatorial diameter is by geologists attributed to oceanic level in a particular locality. There is on the diurnal revolution of the earth, the accumula-record a remarkable instance of this in the effects tion there of water by centrifugal force, and the consequent deposition of a thicker mass of sedimentary matter. But, whether this be the cause or not, the form is similar to that which would be taken by a viscid or fluid body turning on its axis. In consequence of the rotation of the earth on its poles, every point of the surface describes a circle in one solar day. But it must be evident, from an inspection of a terrestrial globe, that a place situated upon the equator describes the larger circle; in fact, the circle of rotation has its maximum at the equator, and diminishes with the distance from that line till it vanishes at the poles.

If we observe the effect of a rapid rotatory motion upon a fluid body, and apply our observations to the result of diurnal rotation upon the waters of the ocean round the equator, we shall discover one of the most important deviations from the universal law, that the surface of water takes and retains a constant level. A simple illustration is obtained in trundling a mop; When it is dipped into the sea by a sailor and turned round with a rapid motion by two strings attached to the stick, resting upon the gunwale of the vessel, it swells out in the middle and has a form very similar to that of the earth. But, as the mop revolves, the water with which it is saturated flies off, not from

of a storm in November 1824. This tempest appears to have commenced on the coasts of England and Holland, and to have then extended itself along the coasts of Norway, Sweden, and Russia. On the 18th and 19th of the month it was most violent. At Stockholm, vessels were driven from their moorings and suddenly overwhelmed. At Udivalla the sea was raised eight feet above its ordinary level, and ships were washed upon the land to a distance of 4000 feet from their anchorage. But at no place were the effects more violent than at St. Petersburg. The bridges of the Neva were washed away, the houses in the lower part of the. town were inundated to the depth of ten feet, and a brig, washed on shore, was wrecked in the street of the Grand Perspective. The loss of life during the storm cannot be calculated, but must be counted by thousands.

The sea frequently breaks its bounds, and flows in a huge wave over both neighbouring and distant shores, during violent volcanic eruptions. Thus, at the time of the destruction of Catania, it made an inroad on the coast and did much damage. So also, during the great earthquake at Lisbon, the water of the ocean was elevated in a huge wave extending hundreds of miles from the site of direct disturbance.

No. 89.

A FAMILY JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTION AND RECREATION.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1853.

life. A similar trial awaits those upon whom the keen and vigorous blasts of sorrow and disappointment have been suffered to blow. Who that has lived long enough in the world to know that "han is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward" but has felt this sinking of spirit and prostration of energy, bodily and mentally, before they have been acclimated to the new circumstances in which God, in his providence, has placed them ?-when the strong can no longer boast of their strength, nor the wise of their wisdom, but when a sickening ague of recklessness, despair, and desolation urges them to exclaim, "It is better for me to die than to live ?"

trary. It was liberal, certainly, in the senior partner to make her a present of twenty pounds, as he did by the hands of Mr. Nelson; but it was a sort of undisguised and vulgar charity, coupled also with what she judged to be coarse and unfeeling dictation as to her own private affairs which embittered the gift, acceptable as it might otherwise have been. Even Mr. Nelson's disinterested kindness, though it relieved the afflicted lady of what would have been a burdensome duty, appeared to her something like uncalled-for interference; and though it was at her request he had sought out for her the lodgings at the Grove," she entered them prepared to dislike them. His advice, too-and what could he advise but humble confidence in the widow's Friend, combined with energetic effort ?-seemed almost harsh. It is easy enough, she might have thought, to sit in a comfortable study, and write such a letter as this; but does he suppose I have no sensibility? And to tell me how much relief I should obtain by self-exertion! How am I to exert myself? how? But we will not dwell longer on this state of feeling; nor should we have cared to expose it at all

cred-but for the sake of some grief-stricken one, who, in turning to this page, may see that no strange thing has happened, or is happening, in the heart-sickness which follows hard upon the wreck of her earthly joys. We turn now to another chapter in our history.

We have done scant justice to Mrs. Grafton in a former chapter. While her husband was yet alive, though visibly, even to her, sinking rapidly into death, she bore up bravely under the pressure of present and anticipated evil. But the time of reaction came, when every hope seemed to be buried in her husband's grave, and even the voice of maternal affection was faintly heard. In proportion to her former strength was then her weakness; "the grasshopper was a burden," and peevish fretfulness gained a miserable ascendancy.for sorrow, real sorrow, in all its phases, is saUnder the influence of this distemper of mind, the whole world seemed to her disordered fancy to be intent upon her degradation and destruction. The partners of her husband were tyrannous and malignant; her friend Mr. Nelson was cold-hearted and unfeeling; her children were tiresome; her landlady was insolent and neglectful; her former acquaintances were exultant at her downfall. All things and persons, in fact, were seen through a distorted medium. Doubtless, there is in the world selfishness enough-and more than enough -and indifference to distress which does not touch ourselves. It is quite instructive to note how sensibly we-that is, the world in general-can preach to any afflicted brother or sister the duty of resignation, and the wisdom of making efforts, and so forth. But, after all, the world is not so bad a world that sympathy is quite banished; and our friend Mrs. Grafton was not altogether the outcast object she morbidly imagined herself to be.

Bertie had left home a week or two ago for the 'Academic Institution;" Mrs. Davis had relented towards her poor nervous lodger, had withdrawn her angry notice to quit, had scolded her maid-ofall-work, and banished her canary to the remotest region of her queendom, where, if he piped his heart out, she said, Mrs. Grafton wouldn't be disturbed by his noise. Poor lady! no wonder she was a little fidgetty, considering; and she, the speaker, wouldn't be the one to set up a bird, though it was her own darling pet, against a Christian and a widow: she knew what it was to be a widow, she said, and she hoped she was a Christian too; if she wasn't, she ought to be.

Mrs. Grafton had also received a visit from the man of business, who had managed her affairs and brought them to a close. It was a disheartening close. A few score pounds, besides the plain and necessary furniture of three small rooms, which had been providently secured from the house-wreck by Mr. Nelson, was all that remained from the proceeds of the sale after the payment of private debts. This was the entire fortune of one who for years had known of straitened circumstances only by report; the income of two months of her former prosperity exceeded it in amount.

The worst of it is, that kindness and considera tion do not always go together, or, at any rate, that the help and advice we incline to give is often just that which is least desired. For instance, there was the speedy breaking up of Mrs. Grafton's establishment, and the dispersion of her household goods-we had nearly written "household gods." Doubtless this was needful enough; but the way in which the senior partner and Mr. C. urged its necessity, and pressed it to its accomplishment, was anything but soothing to the poor widow. There was, again, the sending Bertie to school; as We have said that this was disheartening; but far as it went, it was kind perhaps; but then, to almost anything is better than uncertainty. Mrs. allow the mother no voice in the matter, no choice Grafton's energies had been weakened by long dis in the boy's destination and time of leaving home use, but they were not destroyed; and, now that this seemed to be insulting to the mother's she knew the worst, her very exigencies roused her understanding as well as reflective on her help- to exertion. It may be that the acclimating fever lessness and poverty. There was, also, the express- of mind had attained its crisis, and taken a favoured intention of the partners to take Bertie into able turn; and it may be also that He who gives their establishment when his school-days were power to the faint, and increases strength to them over: but this was without reference to his own that have no might, was not far off, and that, inclinations, or deference to his mother's intentions therefore, a change, marvellous to witness, was or thoughts; and this, in her estimation, was arbi-wrought in the otherwise desolate one.

The

hideous nightmare of indolent grief passed away; | Blanque, and they live in one of the great houses and if the waking thoughts were sad, they were, at least, coherent.

In the same morning paper, and in close proximity with the above advertisement, might perhaps "But I cannot tell you how much happier dear have been seen a spirited eulogium on the extra-mamma is than she was at first; and she says that ordinary merits of a young lady who had received her walks every day make her stronger too. Mamthe beggarly salary of a hundred guineas a month ma does not say so, but I think Mrs. Blanque is a only, and had therefore thrown up her engagement proud sort of lady; for one evening, when we were in disgust; but she was not a daily governess. going for a walk, we met her, and she did not stop Let this pass, however; it was not Mrs. Blanque, to speak to mamma, only she made a kind of a of Blank House, alone who considered sixpence little bow, as much as to say, 'Yes, I see you; but three-farthings (nearly) an hour to be a liberal I am not going to take any notice of you-you are remuneration for the services of any lady whose only a governess.' Mamma did not mind it, only qualifications were extensive knowledge, moral though; and she says the little girls are very good, excellence, and aptitude to teach little girls. and quick at learning.