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about forty pulsations may be felt whilst the sound travels the space of one league.*

Lightning does not always proceed in a right line from above downwards, but often in a serpentine or zig-zag direction, and sometimes does not flash till very near the ground. The electric matter which reaches the earth, or takes fire near it, never fails to strike; but it has not always force enough to reach us, and, like an ill-charged bomb, is spent in the air without doing any injury: but when the combustible vapours reach the ground they often occasion. great damage. However, as uncultivated tracts of land, deserts, and places where there are no habitations, form the greatest part of our globe, the thunder may often peal, and the lightning's flash pierce the earth, void of harm. The course of lightning is very singular and uncertain, and depends upon the direction of the wind, the quantity of exhalations, and various other causes. It passes wherever it meets with combustible matter, as when gunpowder is lighted the flame runs along the course of the train, firing every thing in its way.

We may judge of the force of the lightning by the astonishing effects it produces: such is the ardency of the flame that it consumes all combustible bodies; it even melts metals but often spares the substances contained in them when they are sufficiently porous to admit of a free passage through them. It is owing to the amazing velocity of the lightning that the bones of animals are sometimes calcined without the flesh being at all injured; that the strongest buildings are thrown down, the trees torn up by the roots, or cleft, the thickest walls overturned, and stones and rocks broken and reduced to powder. To the sudden rarefaction and violent agitation of the air, produced by the intense heat and velocity of the lightning, may be attributed the death of those animals that are found suffocated without any appearance of having been struck by lightning.

Let us then meditate in silence upon the awful and sublime appearance of a storm; when we see the black clouds. gather, and the sun withdraw his light, as if to hide himself

Perhaps it may assist those who are not accustomed to this kind of calculation to be aware that sound passes about one thousand feet in one second of time; so that if twenty seconds can be counted between the clap and the flash, the placewhere the thunder is generated is distant twenty thousand feet.-E.

from the contending elements, let us remember it is the Lord Omnipotent who bows the heavens, and comes down with darkness under his feet.' The winds rush from the four corners of heaven, and the storm thickens; but God himself is in the whirlwind, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.' At his command the clouds retire, and the thunder and red lightning disperse. Hearken attentively to the sound of his voice, to the terrible sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and darts his lightning unto the ends of the earth.' But though his countenance be lifted up in wrath, and his storms strike terror into a guilty world, his beneficent hand is mercifully extended to all who prefer the sweets of religion and the purity of innocence to the empty and insignificant pursuits of thoughtless folly, or the more baneful practice of iniquity and continued dissipation.

JULY IX.

The Ants.

THE ants, as well as the bees, may be considered as a little commonwealth, having a peculiar government, laws, and police. They live in a sort of town, divided into various streets, which lead to as many magazines. Their industry and activity in collecting and using the materials which they want for their habitation is admirable. They all unite together to dig the earth and carry it away from their retreat; they collect a great quantity of grass, straw, sticks, &c. with which they form a heap, that at first seems very irregularly constructed, but a closer examination discovers much art and skill. Beneath the domes or little hillocks that cover them, and which are always so contrived as to throw off the water, there are passages which communicate together, and may be considered as the streets of their little city.

But what is still more remarkable is the care which the ants take of their eggs; they convey them with the utmost solicitude from place to place, nourish their young, and remove with the tenderest anxiety every thing that might hurt them. Their painful toils to procure provisions during the summer are chiefly for the preservation of their young; for

the ants themselves require no food during the winter, being nearly in a state of insensibility or sleep till the return of the spring. As soon as their young come out of the eggs, the ants are busily employed in feeding them, and undergo much labour in the precious charge. They have generally several habitations, and they transport their young from one to any other they may wish to people. According as the weather is cold or hot, wet or dry, they bring their chrysals nearer to the surface of the earth, or remove them farther downward. In mild weather they bring them near the surface; and sometimes after a shower of rain place them where they may receive the warmth of the sun-beams; or after a long drought they lay them in the dew; but as the shades of night deepen, or rain and cold set in, they again take up their little ones, and carry them low down into the earth.

There are several varieties of these insects: the woodants only inhabit forests or bushes, and do no harm to the fields of these there are two species, one red, the other black. Some of them settle in the ground, in dry soils, generally choosing those places where they find roots of firtrees or birch. Others inhabit old trunks of trees above ground, and sufficiently high 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 materials to shelter them from snow and rain.

The field-ants are also red or black, like the others, but they are smaller in size; they either live among the corn or in the soil of the field. When the weather is dry they bury themselves pretty deep; but as soon as it becomes rainy, they raise their habitations, according as there is more or less moisture, and when it diminishes they return to their subterranean dwellings. Ants are also furnished with wings, and towards the autumn they are seen to fly in swarms over ditches and ponds.

Some people may perhaps think that these mischievous ants can deserve no portion of our attention, when they do so much injury to our fields, by their subterranean works making the ground hollow, and preventing vegetables from growing. Other complaints are also alleged against them; they are enemies to bees and silk-worms, and are supposed to injure flowers and young trees. Hence the ants are gene

rally exterminated whenever they are found. But whatever are their powers of doing mischief, they certainly, as a link of the great chain of animal nature, claim our attention, and are worthy of our observation. They supply various birds with food, and afford a very useful example of industry, whilst their parental affection for their little ones is highly worthy of imitation. Thus we still find that every work of God is excellent and worthy of our admiration, however insignificant or injurious, upon a superficial examination, they may appear. The supreme Creator, by whom all things exist, has created nothing without design, nothing that has not its particular use and destination. The trees have not a leaf, the fields a single blade of grass, nor the flowers a stamen, that is useless.'

JULY X.
Hail.

HAIL is nothing more than drops of rain, which, being congealed in the air, fall in a spherical, oblong, or angular form. Should it seem strange that vapours freeze in the atmosphere during the warmest season of the year, we must consider that even at the time of the greatest heat, the upper region of the atmosphere is very cold. If this were not the case, how could the highest mountains remain covered with snow during the summer? In the hottest regions of America it is so cold on the top of very high mountains that there is a danger of being frozen, if any one is so adventurous as to climb their lofty summits; and we should have snow in the middle of summer, if it did not melt dur. ing its fall before it arrived at the ground. When the particles of snow unite, the drops being to congeal; and as during their descent they pass suddenly through warmer regions of air, before the increase of temperature has had time to operate, they are completely frozen.

It might on the contrary be supposed, that the cold would diminish in proportion as they pass through warmer air; but what takes place in winter, when cold water which which has been exposed to the open air is brought into a warm room? It freezes and becomes ice, which would not have been the case if it had been taken into a cold room,

And this is exactly the case with hail; when cold bodies suddenly pass into a warm medium, their cold augments to such a degree that they are converted into ice. Saline particles diffused through the atmosphere contribute to this effect: hence we must not be surprised that storms are not always accompanied with hail; for to produce it, a quantity of saline vapours is necessary to occasion the drops of water to freeze more instantaneously. Though hail is most frequent in summer, it falls also in the other seasons; for as saline exhalations exist in every season of the year, there may be hail in winter, spring, or autumn, as well as in

summer.

The size and form of hail are not always alike: bailstones are sometimes round, at others concave and halfspherical, and often conical and angular; their usual size is that of small shot, though sometimes they are much larger. This difference in their figure and bulk may depend upon accidental causes, such as winds, especially those which are boisterous: and a particle of hail may meet in its fall with substances with which it unites, and thus its volume become increased; and sometimes several small particles unite and form one large hail-stone.

When the hail is of a very large size, it often causes immense damage to the harvest, fruits, vines, and buildings. But this by no means entitles us to consider it as a curse or a judgment of God; for if the violence of this meteor sometimes lays waste our fields and breaks our windows, the ravages it occasions are nothing in comparison of the advantages which it produces. It cools the air during the fervent summer heats, and when it dissolves fertilizes the earth: hence we have no reason to fear its falling from the clouds, but should rather consider its beneficial consequences, and and glorify that heavenly Being who, in the midst of hail and of storms, still worketh our good, and provideth for our felicity.

JULY XI.

The Utility of Storms.

WE ought always to consider the phenomena of nature in such a light as to impress upon our minds the wisdom and

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