lightning may fall millions of times without doing any real mischief. The course of the lightning is very singular, and it is always uncertain. It depends on the direction of the wind, the quantity of exhalations, &c. The lightning goes wherever it can meet with combustible matter, as, when a grain of gunpowder is lighted, the flame runs along the train, and sets every thing it meets on fire. We may judge of the prodigious force of the lightning, by the wonderful effects it produces. The heat of the flame is such, that it burns and consumes every thing that is combustible. It even melts metals; but it often spares what is contained in them, when they are of a substance not too close to leave the passage free. It is by the velocity of the lightning, that the bones of men and animals are sometimes calcined, while the flesh remains unhurt that the strongest buildings are thrown down, trees split or torn up by the root, the thickest walls pierced, stones and rocks broken and reduced to ashes. It is to the rarification, and violent motion of the air, produced by the heat and velocity of the lightning, that we must attribute the death of men and animals found suffocated, without any appearance of having been struck by lightning. Let us reflect seriously on these strange and dreadful phenomena. We behold a heavy black cloud: It is the tabernacle of the Most High. It descends towards the earth. It is the Lord who "bows the heavens, and comes down with dark<6 ness under his feet." The wind rises, the storm begins, but God himself is in the whirlwind, and "walketh upon the wings of the wind." At his command the clouds disperse, and the thunder, lightning, and hail, are seen to fly. "Listen at"tentively tentively to his voice, and the sound that goeth 66 out of his mouth. He directeth it under the "whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends "of the earth." But if his dreadful lightnings terrify the universe, his beneficent hand abundantly provides for all his creatures. JULY IX. THE ANTS. THE ants, as well as the bees, may be con sidered as a little commonwealth, which has its peculiar government, laws, and police. They live in a sort of town, divided into several streets, which lead to different magazines. Their acti"vity and industry, in collecting and using the materials they require for their nest, is admirable. They all join in digging the earth together, and in carrying it home. They collect a great quantity of grass, straw, wood, &c. of which they make a heap. It appears at first sight very irregularly formed; but through all this apparent disorder, much art may be discovered when examined more attentively. Under the domes, or little hills which cover them, and which are always so formed as to let the water run off, there are galleries which communicate with one another, and sidered as the streets of this little city. But what be con may is particularly admirable, is the care which the ants take of their eggs, of the worms when they come out of the chrysalis when formed. They convey them carefully from one place to another. They feed their young, and remove, with the tenderest solicitude, every thing that H 2 might might hurt them. They even attend to preserving a proper degree of warmth about them. Their painful labours in summer-time, when heaping up provisions, have scarce any object but the support of their young, as they themselves require no food in winter, being asleep, or insensible, till spring. As soon as their young are out of the egg, they employ themselves in feeding them; and it still costs them more trouble. They generally have several houses, and they convey their young from one habitation to some other which they wish to people. According as the weather is hot or cold, dry or rainy, they bring their chrysalis near the surface of the earth, or remove them from it. They bring them to the surface in mild weather, and even sometimes after rain, lay them in a bright sun, or after a long drought, in a gentle dew. But at the approach of night, rain, or cold, they take up their little ones in their paws, and carry them so low down into the earth, that it is sometimes necessary to dig above a foot deep in order to find them. There are several sorts of these insects : The wood-ants never lie but in forests or bushes, and do no harm to fields. There are two species of these, the red and the black. Some settle in the ground in dry soils, and generally choose places where they find roots of fir-trees or birch, to make their habitations. Others live on old trunks of trees above ground, high enough to be out of the reach of its moisture. They make themselves apartments in the cavities of the trunk, and cover them with straw and other things, to shelter them from snow or rain. The field-ants are also both black and red as well as the others, but they are smaller. They settle either in the corn or the field. When the wea ther ther is dry, they bury themselves pretty deep; but as soon as it becomes rainy, they raise their. « 'habitations higher and higher, according as there is more or less damp; and when it abates, they never fail of returning to their subterraneous apartments. It is also to be observed, that the ants acquire wings; and that, towards autumn, they are seen to fly in swarms over ditches and other water. But, are these mischievous insects worthy our attention, spoiling, as they do, our fields and meadows! By their subterraneous works they make the ground hollow, tear it up, and prevent the plants and roots from growing. They are reproached more still. They are enemies to the bees and silk-worms; and they; are supposed to hurt the flowers, and particularly the young trees. It is said, they devour the buds and shoots; and that, getting under the bark of trees, they gnaw them to the quick. For this reason, the ants are destroyed wherever they are found. If the ants gathered honey, though at the expence of a million of other creatures, they would be highly valued, but, because their labours hurt some useful plants, we think ourselves authorised to destroy them. Suppose even that in reality they do us some harm, are they therefore less worthy our attention? Do none deserve our observation, but such as are useful to us? Let us banish this prejudice. Even the ants may afford us instruction and amusement. The form of their limbs, their industry, their indefatigable labour, the police of their republic, their tender care of their young, and perhaps a thousand other qualities, which we are not ac quainted with, might convince us of the wisdom of that great Being, who is their Creator as well as ours. For of all the works of God, there H 3 there is not one which has not its use, and is not worthy of admiration, however useless, or even hurtful, it may appear at first sight. The su preme Creator, by whom all things exist, has created nothing without design, nothing that has not its use and purpose. The trees have not a leaf, our meadows have not a blade of grass, nor our flowers a fibre, that is useless.. JULY X. THE HAIL. HAIL is nothing but drops of rain, which, freezing in the air, fall in pieces of a spherical, oblong, or angular form. It appears extraordinary, that, in the very warmest seasons of the year, vapours should freeze in the atmosphere. We may consider that even in the greatest heats, the upper region of the air is cold to a sensible degree, and full of snow. If it was not so, how could the highest mountains remain the whole summer covered with snow. In the hottest parts of America, it is so severely cold on the highest mountains, that there is continual danger of being frozen; and of course, it would snow from this extreme cold in the upper region of the atmosphere in the very middle of summer, if the snow did not melt in falling before it reaches the ground. But when these particles of snow collect together, the drops begin to freeze; and, as in falling, they go rapidly through warmer regions of air, it happens, that before this warmth can have penetrated through them, their cold increases, so as to be entirely frozen. It might be |