these lofty eminences also serve to break the violence of the winds, and produce a great variety of plants and wholesome fruits which would not thrive in the valleys or on the plains. They contain useful metals and fossils, and from them proceed the sources of many rivers produced by the melting of the snow, by rains, and different watery exhalations. The stones which are in the earth serve to build walls and make glass. The uses of metals are extremely various; we need only consider the many tools they furnish to our workmen, and artists, the numerous utensils and the furniture that are made of them, and the many ornaments and conveniences we derive from them. We also obtain great advantages, from the solidity and weight of these bodies.

The great utility of minerals is generally known. Volcanoes and earthquakes, however they may sometimes devastate a country, are useful and necessary; and we must impute it to our ignorance if there are many things whose use we cannot discover. When we see certain phenomena in nature which are sometimes prejudicial, we should always remember that God only permits them to happen for the perfection and good of the whole; and rightly to judge of his works, we must not consider them partially, but take a wide and extensive survey of all the parts of a whole, and examine them both separately and combined. We shall then find that many things which we thought were injurious, are on the contrary of an incontestible utility; and others which appear superfluous, we should find to be necessary to the perfection of the whole, and their removal would occasion a chasm in the empire of nature. How many things are there which appear to us insignificant and of little worth, because from our ignorance we are not acquainted with their use and true worth? Give a magnet to a man unacquainted with its virtue, and he will disregard it entirely, or consider it with indifference; but inform him that by means of this little instrument the greatest quarter of the globe was discovered, and that men securely traverse the ocean with no other guide, his opinion will immediately change, and he will prize as

And this instance is ap

much as he before contemned it. plicable to thousands of cases, where we despise the means, because we are ignorant of the end, where we disregard the object because we do not know its use. Lord the earth is full of thy goodness; all is arranged with wisdom! May we consider it as our chief duty to apply ourselves more and more to know thee; and to pay thee that just tribute of gratitude and love which we owe thee for the various blessings we derive from the earth.

JULY XIII.

Phases of the Moon.

IT has been ascertained by attentive observation, that the moon has a peculiar motion round the earth from west to east; for after having been between our earth and the sun, she retires from under that body, and continues to fall back towards the east, changing from day to day her place of rising. In fifteen days she will have reached the most eastern extremity of the horizon, at the time we see the sun set; she is then said to be in opposition; in the evening when the sun retires, she rises above our horizon; and sets in the morning as the sun rises. If she then continues to traverse he circle which she has begun round the earth, and the half of which she has accomplished, she will visibly remove more from her point of opposition with the sun, and will gradually approach nearer to him; we shall then see her later than when in opposition, till by degrees she will only be seen a little before sun-rise. This revolution of the moon round the earth explains why she rises and sets at different times, and why her phases are so diverse and yet so regular. Nobody is ignorant that a globe illuminated by the sun, or by a torch, can only receive its light immediately upon one side. We are readily convinced that the moon is a sphere which receives its light from the sun; when therefore she is in conjunction, that is, placed between the sun and us, her illuminated half is turned towards him, and her dark part

towards us; consequently, at that time she is invisible to us; she then rises and sets with the sun in the same regions of the sky, and is called new moon, or the conjunction. But when the moon retires from under the sun, and passes back towards the east, her dark side is not then entirely turned towards us: a small portion, a slight border, of the illumiminated disc comes in view; and we see this luminous border upon the right, near the setting sun; and the horns of this crescent turn towards the left, or facing the east. As the moon removes further from the sun, she becomes more visible; and at the end of seven days, when arrived at a quarter of her course round the earth, she displays more and more of her illumined side, till at length we see the half of it. The luminous part is then turned towards the sun, and the dark part reflects no light upon us. This luminous part is exactly half the lunar sphere: the half of this half is then a quarter of the whole sphere, and it is in reality this quarter which we see; and the moon is then said to be in her first quarter.

In proportion as the moon becomes more distant from the sun, and the earth advances between them, a greater surface of that part of the moon which is directed towards us becomes luminous. At the end of seven days, reckoning from the first quarter, she is nearly in opposition with the sun, and her whole disc is illumined, and visible to us. She then rises in the east precisely at the time the sun sets in the west, and we have a full moon. As early as the next day, the enlightened half is turned a little from us, and we no longer see the moon at the full. The light gradually leaves the western side, extending itself to the half which is turned from the earth: this is the decrease of the moon, and the farther she advances forward, the more her dark part increases, till at length half of it is turned towards the earth, and consequently half her luminous side; she has then the form of a semi-circle, and is in her last quarter.

By the admirable harmony which subsists between the revolution of this planet upon its axis, and its course round

the sun. it happens that the moon always presents to us the same half-sphere that she has shown from her first creation. During the lapse of so many ages, she has, in one regular and constant course, completed her revolution in twentyseven days and eight hours. Regularly and at the same periods she has enlightened at one time our nights, and at another those of more distant climates.

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From the revolutions of the moon, let us turn our attention to those of terrestrial objects. Sometimes health, pleasure and affluence, with a thousand other advantages, concur to render us happy, and a luminous tract marks our progress through life. But a reverse happens and ere the sun that rose upon us in the morning with joy and gladness sinks beneath the western ocean, our light is obscured, and nought remains but the bitter remembrance of departed pleasures; hope no more gilds our bosom, and all our thoughts are turned to sorrow. Yet this change is highly useful to the mind; it teaches us the uncertainty of worldly blessings, softens and ameliorates our hearts, and raises in our souls a fond desire after that happy country where the free mind shall rejoice in its existence, and live for ever increasing in purity and all perfection.

JULY XIV.

Mineral Waters.

WHETHER We consider mineral waters in respect to their formation, or to their utility to man, they are doubtless highly valuable and important. But men are generally too inattentive to such subjects; and the places where these sources of life and health flow in abundance are often the scenes of very different occupations than those of singing praises to the Creator, and pouring forth the sentiments of gratitude for such choice blessings.

The sources of common salt are richly deserving of our attention; it is probable that they owe their origin to the mineral salt which the waters dissolve in the earth.

The

mineral hot springs are equally remarkable. They are very numerous; and the water of some of them is so hot, that they require several hours to become cool enough to be used as a bath. It is a curious question, whence their heat is derived. It cannot be from the sun, because in that case the waters would only be hot in the day-time, whilst exposed to the sun-beams; and they would become cooler on the approach of night, and during the winter. The most natural solution of this question is, that the waters, by passing through soils containing sulphurequs, pyritic, and metallic substances, acquire their great degree of heat. Medicinal waters, particularly those which are acidulous, are produced by dissolving and mixing with the minerals that they pass over. They are generally found in places where there is abundance of iron, copper, sulphur, and carbon. Hence their taste and effects are various, according as they are more or less impregnated with these bodies. They are bitter when they contain the juices of bitter roots, salts, and copper; they are cold when impregnated with sal ammoniac, nitre, alum, &c. or when they issue from the bed of a rock. Unctuous and bituminous substances impart to them a degree of oiliness; and sulphur combined with an acid renders them sulphureous. Let us then admire the inexhaustible riches of that Divine goodness which has prepared for the benefit of man so many unfailing sources of health. Mineral waters may answer many other purposes, but certainly their great and chief use is the preservation and health of man. Let us then, and more particularly those who have experienced the salubrious effects of these springs, rejoice and be thankful for the numerous blessings of Heaven: and you that are able, endeavour to imitate the purest of all Beings by making your riches the sources of life and consolation to the needy and afflicted children of poverty.