CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES WITH SUITABLE REFLECTIONS.

THE MOON.

THE twenty-third number of Harper's Family Library is appropriated to the "Sacred Historo of the World, as displayed in the Creation and subsequent events, to the Deluge, by Sharon Turner." It is a valuable volume, and such as cannot but be read with profit, mental and moral. We annex a brief and interesting extract: The substance of the moon is more known to us than that of the brighter luminary. Its volume is forty-nine. times greater than that of the whole earth. There is ground for supposing that all is solid at its surface, for it appears, in powerful telescopes, as an arid mass, on which some have thought they could perceive the effects and even the explosions, of volcanoes. There are mountains on the surface of the moon, which rise to the height of nearly two miles: and it has been inferred. that it has deep cavities, like the basins of our seas.

Men on board a ship, while lying in the moonlight with their faces exposed to the beams, often have their muscles spasmodically distorted, and their mouths drawn awry; others have been so injured in their sight as to lose it for several months. "Fish hung up all night in the light of the moon, when eaten next day, has occasioned violent sickness and excruciating pains." The Baptist missionaries mention, that he who has slept in the moonlight is heavy when he awakes, and as if de prived of his senses.-This corresponds with what Plu tarch notices:-"Every body knows, that those who sleep abroad under the influence of the moon are not easily waked, but seem stupid and senseless."

Plutarch's notices are: The moon has some influence on flesh meat corrupts sooner in the moonlight than in the sun-nurses generally are cautious of exposing their infants to the moonbeams. It is also said that most carpenters refuse trees cut in full of the moon as softer

-farmers usually thrash their wheat in the wane: it is then drier and bears the flail better; in the full it is moist and bruised-dough leavens sooner in the full—

Of all the sciences cultivated by mankind, astronomy is acknowledged to be, and undoubtedly is, the most sublime, the most inte. resting, and the most useful.

at this time most dew falls. Hence the poet Aleman calls the dew" the daughter of the air and of the moon." -Plutarch's Sympos. lib. iii. quest. 6. I observe that Mr. Edmonstone, who had lived thirty years in the forests of Demerara, remarks that trees cut in the full moon split, and the wood soon rots.

The aerolites, or great stones that fall occasionally from the air, are either consolidated in the atmosphere, or come to us from the moon, which many philosophers think probable. Mr. Harte calculates that a body projected from the surface of the moon with the velocity of 6,000 feet in a second, would be carried beyond the attraction of its mass as now ascertained; that is, a force capable of projecting a body a little more than a mile and a half in a second. But cannon balls have been impelled half a mi e in a second. Therefore, a projectile force three times greater than that of a cannon, would move a body from the moon beyond the point of equal attraction, and cause it to reach the earth. Bu a force equal to this is often exerted by our earthly volcanoes and subterraneous steam. Notes to La Place, vol. ii. p. 429. Hence, there is no impossibility of their coming from the moon; but yet I think the ærial consolidation more probable.

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES;

Self-cducated men.-Ferguson.-Influence of accident in directing pursuits (Continued from page 56.)

FERGUSON'S attention having thus been turned to the mechanism of time-pieces, he now began to do a little business in the neighborhood as a cleaner of clocks, by which he made some money. He was invited also to take up his residence in the house of Sir James Dunbar, of Durn, to whom he seems to have made himself useful by various little services for which his ingenuity fitted him. Among other things he converted two round stones upon the gateway, into a pair of stationary globes, by painting a map of the earth upon one, and a map of the heavens upon the other. "The poles of the painted globes," he informs us, "stood towards the poles of the heavens; on each the twenty-four hours were placed around the equinoctial, so as to show the time of the day when the sun shone out, by the boun

dary where the half of the globe at any time enlightened by the sun was parted from the other half in the shade; the enlightened parts of the terrestrial globe answering to the like enlightened parts of the earth at all times. So that, whenever the sun shone on the globe, one might see to what places it was setting, and all the places where it was then day or night throughout the earth." Having been introduced to Sir James's sister, Lady Dipple, he was induced at her suggestion to attempt the drawing of patterns for ladies' dresses, in which he soon became quite an adept. "On this," says he, "I was sent for by other ladies in the country, and began to think myself growing very rich by the money I got for such drawings; out of which I had the pleasure of occasionally supplying the wants of my poor father." He still continued, however, his astronomical studies, making observations on the stars, as usual, with his beaded threads, and delineating on paper the apparent paths of the planets as thus ascertained. So excited would he become while thus engaged, that he often conceived, he says, that he saw the ecliptic lying like a broad highway across the firmament, and the planets making their way in "paths like the narrow ruts made by cart-wheels, sometimes on one side of a plane road, and sometimes on the other, crossing the road at small angles, but never going far from either side of it."

He does not appear to have ever given his heart to painting, and notwithstanding his success, he even made various attempts to escape from it as a profession altogether. When he had only been about two years in Edinburgh, he was seized with so violent a passion for the study, or at least the practice, of medicine, that he actually returned to his father's, carrying with him a quantity of pills, plasters, and other preparations, with the intention of setting up as the Esculapius of the village. But it would not do. Of those who took his medicines very few paid him for them, and still fewer, he acknow. ledges, were benefitted by them. So he applied again to his pencil; but, instead of returning immediately_to Edinburgh, fixed his residence for a few months at Inverness. Here he employed his leisure in pursuing his old and favorite study of astronomy; and having disco. vered by himself the cause of eclipses, drew up a scheme

for showing the motions and places of the sun and moon in the ecliptic on each day of the year, perpetually. This he transmitted to the celebrated Maclaurin, who found it to be very nearly correct, and was so much pleased with it that he had it engraved. It sold very well, and Ferguson was induced once more to return to Edinburgh. He had now a zealous patron in Maclaurin, and one extremely disposed to assist him in his philosophical studies.

His mind was now becoming every day more attached to philosophical pursuits; and, quite tired, as he says, of drawing pictures, in which he never strove to excel, he resolved to go to London, in the hope of finding employment as a teacher of mechanics and astronomy. Having written out a proof of a new astronomical truth which had occurred to him, namely, that the moon must move always in a path concave to the sun, he showed his proposition and its demonstration to Mr. Folkes, the President of the Royal Society, who thereupon took him the same evening to the meeting of that learned body. This had the effect of bringing him immediately into notice.

In 1763 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; the usual fees being remitted, as had been done in the cases of Newton and Thomas Simpson. He died in 1776, having for many years enjoyed a distinguished reputation both at home and abroad; for several of his works had been translated into foreign languages, and were admired throughout Europe for the simplicity and ingenuity of their elucidations. Of his Dialogues on Astronomy, Madame de Genlis says, "This book is written with so much clearness, that a child of ten years old may understand it perfectly from one end to the other,"

The faculties of distinct apprehension and luminous exposition belonged, indeed, to Ferguson in a pre-eminent degree. He doubtless owed his superiority here in a great measure to the peculiar manner in which he had been obliged to acquire his knowledge. Nothing that he had learned had been set him as a task. He had applied himself to whatever subject of study engaged his attention, simply from the desire and with the view of understanding it. All that he knew, therefore, he knew

thoroughly, and not by rote merely, as many things are learned by those who have no higher object than to master the task of the day.

It was, as has been stated, the accident of the roof of his father's cottage coming down, while he was a child, that first turned Ferguson's attention to mechanical contrivance. Such are the chances which often develope genius, and probably even give it in part its direction and peculiar character.

EDUCATION

From an Address of the Rev. W. C. Larrabee. EDUCATION is a very comprehensive term. It includes the whole course of physical, moral, religious, and scientific instruction and discipline. Its power is exerted both on the body and the mind. Physical education consists in that system of corporeal discipline, by which the powers of the body are brought to perfection, and its faculties fully developed, and by which we acquire vigor and health, with a constitution suited to the active business of life. This is best promoted in early life, by free indulgence in the unrestrained sports, and innocent amusements of childhood, The constitution is much injured by restraint, and especially by want of exercise in the open air.

Moral education must be commenced in early life. That system of instruction and discipline, which gives us a sensitive knowledge of the distinction between right and wrong; which fixes in the mind a sacred regard for the immutable principles of truth, justice, and moral integrity, and which erects in the soul a strong fortification against irregular and vicious habits, can never be successfully commenced, after an individual is old enough to be brought under the influence of our higher seminaries. The foundation of the moral character must be laid under the inspection of the watchful parent. The affectionate, yet keen eye of the mother must detect in the cradle the propensities which need restraint, and discover the various developements of the disposition. It is too late to reform a child when he is old enough to enter an academy or college. The moral character has, by this time, become so firmly established, ed, that material changes in the habits cannot be expected