to a constant diligence in study; they wholly deliver us from a credulous simplicity, and most strongly fortify us against the vanity of skepticism; they effectually restrain us from a rash presumption, and easily incline us to a due assent, and perfectly subject us to the government of right reason. While the mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible matter, it distinctly views pure forms, conceives the beauty of ideas, and investigates the harmony of proportions; the manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved; the affections composed and rectified; the fancy calmed and settled; and the understanding raised and excited to more divine contemplations."

Many will consider the above as the language of an enthusiast, for the science of mathematics is not without its detractors. It has been represented as a science which blunts all the tender feelings of our nature, and renders those who cultivate it vain, arrogant, and presumptuous; as destroying all relish for works of taste and imagination, hardening the heart against every truth but those of the demonstrative kind, and, conse quently, as having a tendency to lead men to infidelity and atheism. Dr. Johnson seems to have been tinctured with these opinions. "It was the great praise of Socrates," he observes, "that he drew the wits of Greece, by his instruction and example, from the vain pursuits of natural philosophy to moral inquiries; and turned their thoughts, from stars and tides, and matter and motion, to the various modifications of virtue and the relations of life." He pursues this thought still further, and illustrates it by a story which he tells of one Gelidus, a mathematician, who was so absorbed in

his speculations, that, when his servants came to acquaint him that a house was on fire, and the whole neighborhood in danger of being burnt, he only replied, "that it was very likely, for it was the nature of fire to act in a circle." He even divests this philosopher of the common feelings of humanity, and makes him as insensible to the wants of his family as to the distresses of his neighbors. This, however, is but a specimen of Johnson's illiberal feelings towards the professors of a science for which he happened to possess no taste. A great and comprehensive genius excludes none of the sciences; they all contribute, by various means, to adorn and improve human life, and consequently are all deserving of esteem and patronage.

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METEOROLOGY may be defined as that department of physical science which treats of atmospherical phenomena. The word meteor has, in our language, been almost exclusively confined to those luminous bodies which are seen occasionally in the atmosphere, and whose appearance and motion have not yet been reduced to any definite law. In Greek, however, the word meteora was indiscriminately applied to all bodies, whether luminous or opaque, that appeared in the atmosphere; and the term meteorology is still used in the same, and even a more extended, signification. It denotes the investigation, not merely of those atmospheri

cal phenomena that are of comparatively rare occurrence, and may be more properly denominated meteors, but of the various changes, also, that are observed to take place in the state of the atmosphere itself. But for this extended application of the word, the subject would be comparatively uninteresting, and could with little propriety be dignified with the appellation of a science.

To the first class of atmospherical phenomena belong those luminous bodies that occasionally appear in the sky, and have been denominated meteors, or shooting stars. These bodies appear to be of different magnitudes, and even of various forms, though this last circumstance may, perhaps, be the effect of optical deception. In general, they seem to be globular, continuing visible only for a few seconds, and moving with great velocity. Their course is, on some occasions, in a straight line, and on others, curvilinear, rendered more distinct by the tail, or luminous train, which they leave behind them; and before disappearing, they are sometimes separated into several smaller bodies, accompanied with an explosion resembling thunder, more or less loud in proportion to their magnitude and distance. These explosions are followed sometimes by a shower of solid bodies, of a stony or metallic substance, some of which appear luminous in their descent after the explosion, and have been taken up before they had time to cool. We have already alluded to the subject of these meteorites in another part of this volume.

Another meteoric appearance is known by the name of the ignis fatuus, Jack-with-a-lantern, and Willwith-the-wisp. It is generally seen in dark nights, over

boggy and marshy ground, but generally in motion, at the height of five or six feet, skipping from place to place, and frequently changing, both in magnitude and form. On some occasions, it is observed to be suddenly extinguished, and then to reappear at a distance from its former position. Those persons who have endeavored to examine it closely have found, that it moves away from them with a velocity proportioned to that with which they advance a circumstance which

has had no small influence on the fears of the ignorant and superstitious. Dr. Derham once saw an ignis fatuus in a boggy place, between two rocky hills, in a dark and calm night. He approached by degrees within two or three yards of it, and thereby had an opportunity of viewing it to the best advantage. It kept skipping about a dead thistle, till a slight motion of the air-occasioned, as he supposed, by his near approach — caused it to jump to another place; and as he advanced, it kept flying before him. He observed it to be a uniform body of light, and concluded it must consist of ignited vapor. These appearances are very common on the plains near Bologna, in Italy, where they sometimes flit before the traveller on the road, saving him the expense of a torch on dark nights. Sometimes they spread very wide, and then contract themselves; and sometimes they float like waves, and appear to drop sparks of fire. They are more frequent, in that quarter, when the ground is covered with snow than in the heat of summer, and shine more strongly in rainy than in dry weather.

A meteoric appearance of the same kind is sometimes met with, at sea, during gales of wind, and,