ter our councils of state and strive to improve the race by public labors, as to seek for glory, and, filled From the crown to the toe, top-ful marshall hosts, envenomed by hate, to the battle field. But is this her place? Can she not in some other way exercise a nobler power? Can she not, ought she not, to use the influence which her mental nature is destined to exercise upon man, in a more proper and natural way? Her thoughts and feelings will find utterance in the maturity of the child, whose mind and character have been formed and moulded by her care. If a woman is what a woman should be, her aspirations and her longing for perfection cannot fail to move and even control the one to whom she is joined, to action more effective and more powerful than any thing done by her in anothway could be. Thus with her " proper motion" would she assume her true position in society and truly elevate it. Yours, PRO BONO PUBLICO. THE IMPORTANCE OF MATHEMATICAL STUDIES. After all, I must distinctly caution such of my readers as may commence and terminate their astronomical studies with the present work (though of such,-at least, in the latter predicament,I trust the number will be few), that its utmost pretension is to place them on the threshold of this particular wing of the temple of science, or rather on an eminence exterior to it, whence they may obtain something like a general notion of its structure; or, at most, to give those who may wish to enter a ground-plan of its accesses, and put them in possession of the pass-word. Admis sion to its sanctuary, and to the privileges and feelings of a votary, is to be gained only by one means,- sound and sufficient knowledge of mathematics, the grand instrument of all exact inquiry, without which no man can ever make such advances in this or any other of the higher departments of science, as can entitle him to form an independent opinion on any subject of discussion within their range. It is not without an effort that those who possess this knowledge can communicate on such subjects with those who do not, and adapt their language and their illustrations to the necessities of such an intercourse. Propositions which to the one are almost identical, are theorems of import and difficulty to the other; nor is their evidence presented in the same way to the mind of each. In teaching such propositions, under such circum stances, the appeal has to be made, not to the pure and abstract reason, but to the sense of analogy,- to practice and experience; principles and modes of action have to be established, not by direct argument from acknowledged axioms, but by continually returning to the sources from which the axioms themselves have been drawn; viz. examples; that is to say, by bringing forward and dwelling on simple and familiar instances in which the same or similar modes of action take place; thus erecting, as it were, in each particular case, a separate induction, and constructing at each step a little body of science to meet its exigencies. The difference is that of pioneering a road through an untraversed country, and advancing at ease along a broad and beaten highway; that is to say, if we are determined to make ourselves distinctly understood, and will appeal to reason at all. As for the method of assertion, or a direct demand on the faith of the student (though in some complex cases indispensable, where illustrative explanation would defeat its own end by becoming tedious and burdensome to both parties), it is one which I shall neither willingly adopt nor would recommend to others. Sir J. F. W. Herschel. CAUSES OF THE CURVATURE OF THE ISOTHER MAL LINES. The most important causes that contribute to the curvature of the isothermal lines so much to the north on the western shores of Europe and America, are essentially as follows: In the northern temperate zone, south-west and north-east winds prevail. The former come from the equatorial districts, and partially bear the heat of the tropics towards colder regions; this warming influence of the south-west winds is, however, most marked in those districts which are the most exposed to south-western currents of air, and thus we see why it is that the western shores of great continents become warmer than the eastern coasts, and that the isothermal lines in Europe, which is actually only a peninsular prolongation of the Asiatic continent, and on the western shores of North America, ascend further to the north than in the interior of Asia, and on the eastern shores of North America. A second cause, to which Europe owes its relatively warm climate, is this, that in the equatorial region it is bounded towards the south, not by a sea, but by an extensive continent, Africa, whose vast extent of desert and sand renders it extremely hot when exposed to the vertical solar rays. A warm current of air rises continually from the glowing hot sandy wastes, to descend again in Europe. Finally, the current known by the name of the Gulf Stream contributes considerably to make the European climate milder. The origin of this current is to be sought for in the Gulf of Mexico, where the water is at a temperature of 310. Issuing from the Gulf between Cuba and Florida, the stream at first skirts the American shores, and then, as it comes into higher latitudes, turns with decreasing temperature eastward towards Europe. Although the Gulf Stream does not actually reach the shores of Europe, it nevertheless distributes its heated waters, under the influence of the prevailing south-west winds to the European waters, as is proved by our finding, on the western shores of Ireland and on the coast of Norway, the fruits of trees that grow in the hot zone of America; the west and south winds remain, therfore, long in contact with a sea water, who se temperature between 45 and 50 degrees of latitude, does not even in January sink below from 100,7 to 9°. Northern Europe is thus separated by the influence of the Gulf Stream from the circle of polar ice by means of a sea free from ice; even at the coldest season of the year the limits of polar ice do not reach the European shores. Whilst all circumstances thus combine to raise the temperature in Europe, many causes contribute in Northen Asia to lower the isothermal lines very considerably. In the south of Asia, there are no extensive districts of land between the tropics, but merely a few peninsulas comprised within this zone; the sea, however, does not become so much heated as the African deserts, partly because the water absorbs rays of heat to an incomparably smaller extent, and partly also because a great quantity of heat goes off in the latent state, owing to the constant evaporation of water from the surface of the sea. The warm currents of air, which, rising from the basin of the Indian Ocean, would convey the heat of the tropics to the interior and north of Asia, are impeded in their course by the huge mountain ranges in the south of Asia, whilst the land, which gradually flattens towards the north, is left exposed to the north and north-east winds. While Europe does not stretch far northward, Asia penetrates a considerable way into the Arctic Sea, which, deprived of all those heating influences by which the temperature of the European seas is raised, is almost always covered with ice. In every direction, the northern shores of Asia penetrate the wintry limits of the polar ice, the summer boundary of which is only removed for a short time and at a few places from the coast; that this circumstance, however, must considerably lower the temperature, will be casily understood when we consider how much heat becomes latent by the fusion of such masses of ice. The considerable depression of the isothermal lines in the interior and upon the eastern shores of North America, depends in part upon the south-west winds, which, not being sea, but landwinds, are therefore unable any longer to diffuse the milder inuence they exert upon the western shores. Whilst the European shores are washed by warmer waters, cold sea-currents come from the north and south towards the eastern shores of North America. Such a current, coming from Spitzbergen, passes between Iceland and Greenland, and then combines with the currents that come from Hudson's Bay, and Baffin's Bay, passes down the coast of Labrador, past Newfoundland, and empties itself finally in the Gulf stream at 44° N. lat. This artic current bears the cold of the polar regions, partly by the low temperature of the water but chiefly by floating icebergs, into the southern districts, and thus becomes a main cause of the considerable depression of the isothermal lines on the eastern coasts of America.-Müller's Physics and Meteorology. THE FREE SCHOOL LAW OF NEW YORK. The result of the vote of the people of New York, on the question of adopting a law for the universal establishment of Free Schools, to be supported by a tax upon property, is an instructive comment upon the short-sightedness and timidity of our statesmen, who fear to go ahead of the people, in the advancement of needed and well-understood reforms. What could have possessed the legislature with the apprehension that the people were opposed to free schools? How glorious an opportunity they thus threw away of demonstrating their own capacity to judge of the public mind, its capacities and tendencies, by venturing upon a grand reform on the sole ground of its actual merits. The Superintendent of Common Schools, Hon. Christopher Morgan, Secretary of State, has issued his congratulations to the people, on the triumphant issue of the reference of the act to the people. Its adoption has been carried" by a majority strongly indicative of the popular apprehension of the great interest involved in the issue submitted." Let the politicians learn henceforth that "the popular apprehension of a great interest," is at least as far seeing as their own, and as safely to be trusted for the integrity of its expression. The Superintendent proceeds: "The whole number of votes cast for the new law is 249,872, and the whole number against it, 91,951, showing a majority of 157,921. The unequivocal sanction thus afforded to the princi ple of the universal and free education of the youth of the State, affords additional grounds of reliance on the efficacy of our republican institutions to accomplish the important objects for which they were designed, and demonstrates the entire confidence which may at all times safely be reposed in the intelligence and virtue of an enlightened community." There is a great want of simplicity, and a cumbersomeness of machinery established by the act, which will require skilful legislation to amend and make practicable. But the principle has been established, once and forever, that in all the common schools of the State of New York, instruction is forever free to every pupil. Who shall estimate the results? Statesmen, ministers, philanthropists, must deepen their calculations, if they would keep pace with the reality. The Independent. OF THE NUTRITIVE VALUE OF SALT. The account of the experiments given below may be of some service to those teaching Physiology. It is copied from the Quarterly Review of Practical Medicine and Surgery. "Monsieur Plouviez recently presented a memoir to the Academy of Medicine, (French) detailing the results of a series of experiments he has been engaged upon, with the view of determining the part that salt plays in alimentation. To insure accuracy, he had to make choice of persons who led regular lives, continued their habitual mode of alimentation, took the salt at a meal it is not usually taken at, viz., in the morning, (with milk) and were weighed before, after, and during the intervals of the experiments. He found more than twenty-five persons who fulfilled these conditions; but he does not detail the experiments made upon these, as the results only differed in some shades from those observed upon himself. Some of the persons experimented upon increased in weight from 1.02 to 5.51 lbs. in thirty days, and that only from the use of from .21 to .35 of an ounce of salt. Others increased from 11.02 to 22.04 lbs. in three or four months. Some acquired more strength and vigor, without any of the inconveniences of excess of nutrition, while others suffered from all the inconveniences of plethora, until the regimen was changed. The nutritive power of the salt was always most observable in feeble, lymphatic subjects. The experiments would at first seem to support the opinion of those who state that 1 lb. of salt will produce 10 lbs. of flesh; but if the regimen is continued from five to ten months or more, the progressive increase of weight is no longer |