When my aunt went in, she found him just going to read prayers to his son; she begged of him to go on, and she says nothing could be more touching than the scene—the weak but solemn voice of the pious old man; the calmness and devotion in the countenance of the son, and the gleam of hope that shone over Madeleine’s subdued and sad countenance.
26th.—Now that winter has really begun, we make a circle round the fire after dinner; and we are so comfortable and happy there that I am often sorry when the time comes for leaving the room.
We have various amusements; on some days we each invent little tales which are to turn on some circumstance that is first agreed upon; at other times we have some of those question plays in which you discover, by a particular set of questions, the thoughts of another person. One of our favourite occupations is doing arithmetical questions in our heads. We have often used a multiplier of three or four figures, which I assure you makes it hard work. My uncle and aunt now and then join in this; and being of course very ambitious to outdo them, we all get into a sort of fever of exertion which makes it very diverting, and the conqueror very triumphant.—Then we compare the different methods which we took, and each person finds out what caused their mistakes. I am afraid I am oftener behind in the race than most of the party, for beside their being much better arithmeticians than me, I am so afraid of being wrong, that I do not speak out in time even when I have my answer ready and right.
I must tell you one of the questions we had this evening; it was proposed by Caroline. In one of the vignettes to Bewick’s birds, there is a man preparing to fasten himself to a team of birds which are to convey him to the moon; the team is wedge-shaped, and the birds are harnessed together in rows, each of which increases by one, from the single bird that acts as leader. Now, supposing that the man weighs ten stone, and that each bird can raise five pounds, how many rows of birds are necessary for his flight?
27th, Sunday.—My uncle again took up the judgments inflicted on the Egyptians. He said that if they were considered with reference to that particular nation, it appeared that there was a peculiar meaning in some of those calamities, which would not have applied so well to any other people. He told us that they paid an idolatrous reverence to many of the inferior animals, and worshipped, as superior gods, the ox, the cow, and the ram. Among these, the Apis and Mnevis are well known; the former, a sacred bull adored at Memphis, and the latter at Heliopolis. There were also a cow and heifer, which had similar honours, at Momemphis.—These judgments were therefore very significant in their execution and object; as the Egyptians not only saw their cattle perish, but, what was still more dreadful, they saw their deities sink before the “God of the Hebrews.” This satisfactorily explains what is said in Numbers: “Upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments[8]”; and these events had doubtless a useful influence, though not a lasting one, on the minds of the Israelites, to whom the gods of the Egyptians must at that time have appeared very contemptible.
“I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail:” this judgment, he told us, was also particularly adapted to the Egyptians. The rain and hail that were foretold must have appeared of all things most incredible to the Egyptians; for in Egypt little or no rain ever falls, the want of it being supplied by dews and by the overflowing of the Nile; and when they witnessed this storm of hail, “such as had not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof,” and accompanied by “mighty thunderings,” and fire that ran along the ground, what dread and amazement they must have felt! Pharaoh had received warning of these terrific prodigies, which the deities of Egypt could not avert; and even the fire and water, which had been held sacred by the Egyptians, were now employed they found as passive instruments of their punishment. Besides the formation of the hail, which was so uncommon in that country, its falling so miraculously on the day, and in the district foretold, must have overwhelmingly convinced them of the impotence of the creatures which they worshipped, and of the boundless power of the Almighty.
I asked my uncle at what season these plagues had happened, and why the injury to flax and barley were particularly mentioned.
“The season,” said he, “is not expressly stated; but as the departure of the Israelites was on the 15th of the month of Abib, which corresponds with the beginning of April, we may suppose that the seventh plague (of hail) was sent about the beginning of March, so as to leave time for the three succeeding plagues. This idea is confirmed by travellers, from whom we learn that the barley harvest in Egypt is reaped in March, and the wheat in April; and it explains why ‘the barley was in ear,’ though not yet fit for reaping; and ‘the wheat and the rye were not grown up.’ Abib means the month of the young ears of corn.
“Their barley must have been a grievous loss, as the principal beverage of the Egyptians was made from it; but scarcely any thing could have distressed them more than the loss of their flax, because the whole nation wore linen garments, and the priests never put on any other kind of clothing. This linen was manufactured from that fine flax for which the valley of the Nile was famous, and was in great request in other countries also; for though the Egyptians did not trade abroad themselves, yet they readily disposed of it to foreign merchants.”
28th.—A question of mine this morning, though it exposed my ignorance, gave me an opportunity of perceiving how much light is thrown by general knowledge on the difficult parts of Scripture history; and, indeed, on all other history. I had asked how it was that the locusts, independently of their coming at the appointed moment, could have been called one of the miraculous plagues, as they were so common in Egypt. I saw my cousins looking a little surprised, but they are so good-natured that they never laugh at my mistakes.
My uncle explained to me that I was wrong in supposing that locusts were common in Egypt. “They are very abundant,” he said, “in the neighbouring regions of Arabia, which has been proverbially called their cradle, but the Red Sea appears to be an effectual barrier against their molesting the Egyptians. They seldom succeed in crossing any great extent of water; for though they frequently migrate into very distant countries, yet their habit of often alighting on the ground is fatal to them in traversing the sea.
“There is another circumstance that saves Egypt from the visits of these dreadful insects; when they take wing they are obliged to follow the course of the wind, and in that country, you know, the winds blow six months from the north, and six months from the south; but, at the time spoken of, an east wind prevailed ‘all day and all night;’ and the whole face of the country in the morning was covered with the locusts. This strong easterly wind, which enabled them to cross the Red Sea, was plainly preternatural; and we are told distinctly that ‘before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.’
“There are in Scripture ten names for locusts. The species mentioned here is called Arbah, which imports multiplicity; a very just name, indeed: for their prodigious numbers almost defy calculation; and the famous Dutch naturalist Leuwenhoek asserts, that every female lays upwards of eighty eggs. When a cloud of these insects alights upon the ground, the devastation they create is dreadful. Adanson, in his voyage to the western coast of Africa, says, that they devoured to the very root and bark; and that there was something corrosive in their bite, which prevented the trees from recovering their power of vegetation for some time. They even attacked the dry reeds with which the huts were thatched. Another traveller tells us that in Cyprus, as he went from Larnica to a garden at about four miles’ distance, the locusts lay above a foot deep, on several parts of the high roads, and millions were destroyed by the wheels of the carriage. Dr. Shaw says, that he saw them in such multitudes in Barbary, in the middle of April, that in the heat of the day, when they formed themselves into large bodies, they appeared like a succession of clouds darkening the sun: in June the new broods made their appearance; on being hatched, they collected together in compact bodies of several hundred yards square; and marching directly forward, climbed over trees, walls and houses, ate up every plant in their way, and let nothing escape. The inhabitants made trenches and filled them with water; they also placed quantities of combustible matter in rows and set them on fire; but in vain, for the trenches were quickly filled up and the fires extinguished by the vast numbers that succeeded each other.
“Strong winds, which can alone free a country from this plague, have several times blown large swarms over the central part of Europe, and even to England; and it was a ‘mighty west wind,’ which formerly carried them away from Egypt and cast them into the Red Sea.” I asked if these insects were really eatable, as St. John is said to have lived on locusts in the wilderness?
“As it is well known,” said my uncle, “that locusts have in all ages been eaten in the east, and are still esteemed a great delicacy in Barbary as well as in the south of Africa, some commentators have endeavoured to prove that St. John did eat them in the wilderness. But the word translated locusts, signifies also pods or seed-vessels of trees. The pods of some of the Robinia and Gleditsia tribes are considered in Syria to be sweet and nourishing; and it is, I believe, generally supposed that they were the food alluded to in the Gospels.”
29th.—In our genius conversation to-day, several people were mentioned on each side: Mary quoted a passage from Johnson’s Lives of the Poets respecting Denham, who, he says, was “considered at Oxford as a dreaming young man, given more to cards and dice than to study;—he gave no prognostics of his future eminence, nor was suspected to conceal, under sluggishness and idleness, a genius born to improve the literature of his country.” “Of Swift, too,” continued Mary, “there appears no early proof of genius or diligence; for when at the usual time he claimed a bachelorship of arts, he was found by the examiners too conspicuously deficient for regular admission—and at last obtained his degree by special favour; a term used, as Johnson says, in the university of Dublin, to denote want of merit.” It is probable, therefore, that new circumstances combined together afterwards to bring out the powers possessed by these celebrated men; and I am sure, mamma, this little perpetual argument serves to bring out several very entertaining biographical facts.
Haydn, the famous composer, was the son of a wheelwright; such an employment was not likely to lead to the cultivation of music, and we might be tempted to consider him as a natural genius; but it appears that his father played on the harp, and on holidays used to accompany his wife while she sang. Whenever this little domestic concert took place, the child, with two pieces of wood in his hands, to represent a violin and a bow, pretended also to accompany his mother’s voice; and to the very close of his life, this great musician used to perform with delight the airs which she had then sung. A cousin of theirs, a schoolmaster, came to see them, and being well pleased with the boy’s talents, proposed to educate him. His parents accepted the offer; and at school, having discovered a tambourine, an instrument which has but two tones, he succeeded in forming a kind of air, which attracted the attention of all who came to the school-house. He was then taught to sing at the parish desk, and was soon noticed by Reüter, who tried him with a difficult shake, and who was so delighted with the child’s execution, that he emptied a plate of cherries into his pocket. He was eight when admitted to the choir of St. Stephen, at Vienna, and from that time practised above sixteen hours a day. “In all this,” says Mary, “we see the natural effect of circumstances, and no mark of what is called absolute genius.”
30th.—Colonel Travers was not present at our conversation about the locusts; but on its being alluded to this evening, he told us that he had once seen a flight of those creatures which contained such an incredible multitude, that nothing could have persuaded him of the fact, if he had not been an eye-witness to it himself.
Instead of going by sea to India, he went overland, that is, through part of Turkey, Arabia, and Persia; and, in 1811, he happened to be at Smyrna, in Asia Minor, when this extraordinary flight of locusts occurred. He says that for several days stragglers had been passing, but at last the main body came, and in such a dense column, as not indeed to obscure the sun, but to produce a curious quivering light. He thinks the lines in which they appeared to fly were about one foot asunder, and that locust followed locust at the distance of three feet. They came in a steady, undeviating direction from south to north, and continued to pass, without any diminution of their numbers, for three successive days and nights. The breadth of this prodigious column was at least forty miles, for a messenger who had been dispatched by the consul to the pasha of Sardis, passed through them all the way, both going and returning. Caroline immediately produced the map of Asia Minor, and we found that Sardis is fully that distance from Smyrna, and that its direction is just at right angles to the direction of their flight.
My uncle was greatly interested by the Colonel’s account of this remarkable swarm, and proposed that we should endeavour to make some estimate of the number of locusts of which it consisted. We all took out our pencils and went to work. In the first place, the breadth of the column was 40 miles, or 70,400 yards; and as their ranks were a foot apart, we have 211,200 for the number of locusts at each foot of elevation. Colonel T. was then examined as to the entire height; he thinks it must have been much above 300 yards, for on looking upwards with his pocket telescope, he could see them like little specks glittering in the sun. We contented ourselves with the 300, and taking them also at a foot apart, there were of course 900 locusts in height, by which we multiplied the former number, and the product was 190,080,000. Now, mamma, for the length of the column: he says there was a gentle breeze from the southward, with which, and their own velocity, he thinks that they were travelling at the rate of about seven miles in an hour, and that they succeeded each other at an average distance of three feet. In each mile, then, there were 1760, and in seven miles, 12,320, which, multiplied by 72, the number of hours in the three days which the flight continued, gives 887,040 for the number in each line of the column; and this, finally multiplied by the 190 millions, gives the almost inconceivable total of 168,608,563,200,000 in this one swarm of locusts!
“I should like to know,” said Mary, “the exact size of these creatures.”
The Colonel said that he could not answer exactly, without referring to his journals, which were in town, but that he imagined they were about the same size as a large grasshopper: “But why do you want their exact dimensions?”
Mary said she would have tried what sized mountain they would have made if they were all heaped together. Frederick, who is a great collector of grubs and insects, immediately brought down some dried grasshoppers, but they were very small; and after much consultation, it was agreed to assume two inches for the length, and a third of an inch for the breadth and thickness of a locust. In a short time, Mary announced, as the result of her calculation, that the whole quantity would amount to 4818 millions of cubic yards.
“But in order to compare this huge mass with some tangible standard,” said my uncle, “let us see what proportion it bears to the largest pyramid of Egypt. According to the measurement of Dr. Greaves, the base of the pyramid of Cheops is 693 feet, and its perpendicular altitude is 499 feet.”
We again went to work, and Mary was again first with the answer, that her heap of locusts was 1030 times larger than the pyramid!
“Well, Bertha,” said my aunt, “you and I will try what sort of a girdle the Colonel’s locusts would make for the earth, supposing them to be placed close together; but what shall we assume for its circumference?”
My uncle said we might take 24,800 miles; and with my kind aunt’s assistance, I had the pleasure of astonishing the party with the information, that this great swarm of locusts would have encircled the globe with a band of a mile and an eighth wide!
If these locusts had alighted any where in a body, I suppose they would have destroyed every thing; as it was, Colonel T. says, the stragglers did a great deal of mischief throughout the country, and he mentioned a laughable story of the wife of an English merchant at Smyrna, with whom he was acquainted. This lady was very fond of her garden, and on the approach of the locusts she and her maids had spread sheets and table-cloths over all her choice flower-beds to protect the plants. Poor woman! she went to bed priding herself on her ingenuity, but when the morning came, she found all gone—not only the flowers, but the linen also totally demolished.
In answer to a question from my uncle, he said he had not been able to learn whether any great proportion of these locusts had penetrated into Russia and Europe, but he knew that myriads had perished in the sea of Marmora and the Euxine. In the gulf of Smyrna he had himself seen a ridge of their dead bodies, which was two feet high, and which had been washed up along the whole extent of the beach by the waves. The smell was most noxious, polluting the air for several miles inland; and this, he thinks, may partly account for the plague which occurred in the following spring. There is a saying in that country, but for the truth of which he does not vouch, that every seven years Arabia sends a swarm of those destructive insects into Asia Minor, though very rarely of such magnitude as that of 1811; and that every locust-year is succeeded by a plague-year of more or less severity.
Wentworth asked him if he had ever seen locusts used as food; and he replied that they are eaten in a great many parts of the world, and cooked in a great variety of ways. In some countries they are stewed, or fried, or made into soup, or salted and preserved; in others they are ground, mixed up with flour, and baked into cakes; but he had frequently seen the Arabs eat them without any preparation whatever, merely pulling off the head, wings, and legs, just as we eat shrimps.
My uncle and he continued to converse on the subject for some time, and I learned one more fact for you,—that their flight produces a sort of indistinct, tumultuous sound, something like the rustling noise of flames. The Colonel says this noise made his horse very uneasy, which no doubt was greatly increased by the locusts incessantly striking against him. In riding to Bournabat, where the English merchants have country houses, he crossed their line of flight; and in order to save his face, he was obliged to keep his hat on the side of his head, against which they pattered like a shower of hail. It appears that they never turn to the right or to the left, but fly straight forward, as if following one supreme leader, or rather as blindly impelled by some irresistible influence.
“How truly,” exclaimed my aunt, “it is said of them in the Bible, ‘The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.’”
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON:
Printed by William Clowes,
Stamford-street.
Abib, Hebrew month of, ii. 4
Abstraction, iii. 155
Adjutant bird, iii. 30
Agriculture, i. 85,
98
Albacore, i. 7
Albatross, i. 6
Ancient Manuscripts, iii. 182
Anglesea druids, iii. 227
Antiparos grotto, iii. 42
Antique remains, i. 119,
140
Ants, ii. 65, 289
Apennines, i. 199
Aphis, purveyor to the ant, ii. 245, 290
Aqueduct near Llangollen, iii. 214
Arbutus, native country of, ii. 262
Areca palm, method of climbing, i. 289
Ariel, ii. 30
Arithmetic, i. 24,
80,
203,
307
Arno, vale of, i. 200
Atonement, ii. 270, 276
Auvergne, i. 208
Australian forests, i. 155
Baal-worship, ii. 216—iii. 229
Babylon, i. 100
Balaam and Balak, ii. 214, 229, 243
Baltimore bird, i. 143
Bamboo, i. 243
Bangor, iii. 214
Barbadoes flower fence, ii. 164
Bark, i. 152
Basket-maker, i. 57,
73
Baya, or Bengal grossbeak, i. 78
Beads of the Haram, ii. 211
Bear, polar, or white, ii. 89
Bedahs of Ceylon, ii. 23
Bees, i. 287—ii. 204, 253
Bel, Belus, Baal, Bali, Pali, i. 263—ii. 47, 218—iii. 229
Bengal grossbeak, i. 78
Betel-nut palm, i. 289
Bettws bridge, iii. 217
Bible, difficult passages in, i. 168,
191,
295—ii. 16—iii. 58
... integrity of the text, iii. 39
Bird-catchers of St. Kilda, i. 159
Bonito, i. 7
Boobies, i. 13
Borrowing from the Egyptians, ii. 17
Brazil, i. 46,
65,
152
Breakfast things, where from, ii. 207
Breda, mineral waters, i. 162
Brunel’s tunnel imitated from the Teredo, ii. 254
Buds, ii. 182, 237—iii. 1
Budding, iii. 106
Butterflies, emigration of, iii. 147
Cabbage family, all from one species, ii. 239
Cairn, iii. 229
Canada Letters, ii. 226, 230, 282—iii. 172
Catechumens and Fideles, i. 91
Caliban, ii. 31
Camels of Italy, i. 201
Canova, i. 270
Caoutchouc, iii. 167
Capping verses, ii. 44
Caterpillars, cotton and silk cocoons, iii. 193
... veil woven by, i. 284
Cat, sagacity of, iii. 124
Celts and Elf-bolts, i. 141—iii. 189
Ceremonial worship, ii. 132
Ceylon buffaloes, i. 293
Ceylonese story, ii. 22
Chibouque, or Turkish pipe, ii. 18
Children’s prayers, i. 92
Christian dispensation, iii. 176
... hope, iii. 197
Christianity, characteristics of, i. 71
Christmas customs, ii. 46
Cloth manufactory, iii. 81
Coal, iii. 115, 140
... spontaneous combustion of, iii. 175
Coal-money, iii. 190
Coffin, Mount, on Colombia river, iii. 112
Commandments, or “The Ten Words”, ii. 122
Commerce, ii. 209
Comparative anatomy, iii. 96
Corals, ii. 61
Cork-tree, i. 182
Cormorants trained to catch fish, ii. 15
Cottages, English and Brazilian, i. 44
Cows, i. 43
Cricket, torpid occasionally, ii. 91
... mole, iii. 61
Crows, i. 266
Crystals, ii. 85
Cushites, or shepherd-kings, i. 262
Cypress, deciduous, i. 231
Dairy, i. 138—iii. 89
Date-palm, i. 189,
198
Davy, the musician, ii. 2
Deane forest, i. 45,
56—iii. 115
Decalogue, ii. 122
Delta formed by alluvial deposit, iii. 26
Deluge, ii. 241—iii. 14
Deuteronomy, iii. 2
Dew, i. 77—iii. 207
Dispensations, Christian, iii. 176
... Levitical, iii. 150
... Patriarchal, iii. 132
Dolomieu, ii. 12
Dolphin, i. 9
Dongola, i. 274
Dormouse, ii. 89, 129, 181
Dress, neatness of, i. 122
Druids, i. 119—ii. 47—-iii. 225
Ducks of Asia Minor, ii. 11
Early rising, i. 95
Easter, ii. 276
Egyptian plagues, i. 308
Elephant, ii. 119
... fossil, iii. 71
Elf-bolts and Celts, i. 141—iii. 189
Ephod, ii. 79
Epistles of St. Paul, i. 191
Falcon, Persian, iii. 205
Fancy, iii. 156
Farmer Moreland, i. 41,
69—iii. 195
Fata Morgana, i. 220,
233—iii. 172
Fernhurst, arrival at, i. 17
Festivals of the Jews, ii. 7—iii 74
Fideles and Catechumens, i. 91
Fieldfares, i. 260
Fire-flies, i. 34,
78
Fish caught by diving, ii. 15
... air-bladder of, ii. 20
Flexible iron-pipes, ii. 255
Flexible cups and spoons, ii. 211
Flying fish, i. 6
Forest of Deane, i. 45,
56—iii. 115
Forests of Australia, i. 155
... Brazil, i. 47,
152
... Europe, i. 179
... submarine, iii. 34
Franklin and Bessy Grimley, i. 75,
125,
235
Frost, ii. 77, 81, 94, 99, 120—iii. 73
Fruitieres of Switzerland, iii. 88
Fruit-trees, experiments on, ii. 196, 202
Futurity, ii. 279
Garden, Bertha’s, i. 129,
137,
174—ii. 287—iii. 100, 125, 192
Gas-wash to destroy insects, ii. 196
Genius, i. 268,
270,
314—ii. 2, 12, 32
Geology, classification, series, &c., ii. 198
... strata, dip, &c., ii. 220
... alluvial formation, ii. 235
... changes in the surface of the globe—deluge, ii. 241
... secondary formations—organic remains, ii. 247
... specimens of all the series—organic remains, ii. 265
... conglomerates, ii. 280
... trap rocks, iii. 4
... vallies—diluvium, iii. 15
... alluvial changes—ravages of the sea—blowing-sands, iii. 25
... change of level of the sea, iii. 33
... petrified sands, stalactites, iii. 41
... volcanoes, iii. 49
... organic remains, iii. 69, 96
... coal, peat, iii. 115
... vegetable remains, iii. 140
Gipsies, ii. 57, 69
Glass, plate, manufacture, iii. 43, 45, 56
Gloucester cathedral, iii. 139
Glow-worm, i. 34—iii. 196
Goat-sucker, iii. 203
Good Friday, ii. 270
Goshen, land of, i. 262
Grampus, i. 9
Grasses, i. 171—iii. 126
Gravel-walk, effect of frost on, ii. 83
Grenier, Mont, i. 125
Grossbeak, i. 78,
94
Gulf-stream, i. 10
Gum-lac, i. 143
Guyton de Morveau, ii. 13
Habit, force of, in plants, ii. 140, 191, 223
Hail, formation of, ii. 115
Halcyon, i. 178
Hamlet, ii. 102
Harvest-home, i. 69,
85
Hawking in Persia, iii. 204
Haydn, the composer, i. 314
Hebrides, Hertford’s Letters from, i. 37,
58,
87,
119,
132,
140,
157
Herculaneum manuscripts, iii. 182
Hoar-frost, ii. 77
Holyhead, iii. 232
Honey-bird, i. 288
Hope, iii. 198
Horse, courage and power of, iii. 11
Hottentots, iii. 32
Humming-bird, i. 164
Ice, ii, 77, 85—iii. 73
Iceland moss, i. 30
Ichneumons, iii. 193
Imagination, iii. 154
Inclined plane, iii. 211
Indigenous plants of Great Britain, ii. 262
Industrious miller of Breda, i. 162
Insects, ingenuity of, ii. 245, 290—iii. 121, 149, 173, 191, 193
Islay Island, antique remains, i. 140
Israelites, i. 262—ii. 17, 34, 67, 183
Japhet’s descendants, i. 227
Jay, i. 246
Jews, their dispersion, iii. 93
Jewish festivals, ii. 7—iii. 75
Joseph’s character, i. 238
Juan Fernandez’ Isle, ii. 58
Kapiolani, heroic woman of the Sandwich Islands, iii. 63
Kelek, raft on the Tigris, i. 83
Kilda, St., Isle, i. 157
Kingfisher, i. 177
Lac, gum, i. 143
Lady-bird destroys the hop-aphis, ii. 190
Lace, machines for singeing, iii. 215
Laplanders, i. 212
Leaven, ii. 6
Leaves, fall of the, i. 298
Lethargic animals, ii. 89, 129, 181
Levitical dispensation, iii. 150
Leviticus, ii. 131
Lewis Isle, Druidical remains of, i. 119
Lincolnshire, submarine forest, iii. 34
Light-houses of Holyhead, iii. 233
Lion, conflict with a horse, iii. 12
Locusts, i. 311,
316
Looking-glass silvered, iii. 57
Looking-glasses (in Exod. xxxviii. 8), iii. 58
Love of God, the governing principle, iii. 20
Love your enemies, i. 134
Luminous sea-water, i. 4,
133,
282
Lumley, Mr., his history, i. 104,
194
Madeleine’s history, i. 247,
306
Madeira, singular deposit of sand, iii. 28
Malaria of Rome, i. 200,
202
Malt, ii. 135
Mammoth, iii. 70, 101
Man-of-war bird, i. 6
Manuscripts, ancient, iii. 182
Marmot, ii. 109
Mason wasp, ii. 149
Maté of Paraguay, ii. 212
Mauritia palms, inhabited by the Indians, i. 187
May-day customs, iii. 77
Memory, iii. 65
Mexican volcanoes, iii. 50
Migration of butterflies, iii. 147
... swallows, iii. 145, 158
Mirage, i. 218
Mirrors, iii. 57
Mississippi, ii. 114, 125—iii. 145
Mona marble, iii. 237
Monsters of ancient fable, iii. 103
Moses, character of, i. 275—ii. 193
... prophecies of, iii. 38, 52, 90
... the two songs of, in Exod. xv. and in Deut. xxxii., ii. 66—iii. 110
... his exhortation and death, iii. 2
Mosses, i. 258
Mozart, ii. 32
Mummers, ii. 48
Mummy from Egypt, i. 284
Narrative of Mrs. P., ii. 146
New South Wales trees, i. 155
Nisan, Hebrew month of, ii. 4
North Rona Isle, i. 59
Northwich salt-mine, iii. 212
Norway, i. 43—ii. 64
Numbers, book of, ii. 184
Oats and wheat, mode of growing, ii. 274
Organic remains, ii. 248, 265—iii. 69, 96, 140
Palms, i. 187,
198,
289—iii. 165
Paddy, cultivation of, ii. 8
Palimpsest Manuscripts, iii. 186
Papyrus, i. 279
Parable, ii. 229
Parys coppermine, iii. 228
Paraguay tea, ii. 212
Passover, ii. 3—iii. 74
Patriarchial dispensation, iii. 132
Paul, St., how to read his Epistles, i. 191
Pear-tree, transplanted, iii. 123
Pearl fishery, ii. 22
Pen, ancient term for hill, iii. 187
Penrhyn slate-quarries, iii. 218
Peony, Chinese, i. 32
Pepper, white and black, ii. 1
Petrels, i. 4,
7,
8
Persian spoons, ii. 210
Pharaoh’s heart hardened, i. 295
Phaëton, or Tropic-bird, i. 3
Pin-making, iii. 138
Plagiary in poetry, ii. 73
Plagues of Egypt, i. 308
Plants, distribution of, iii. 6
... migration of, ii. 262
... naturalize by habit, ii. 140, 191, 223
Play of capping, ii. 44
... questions, ii. 39
... stories, ii. 106
Polish given to glass, iii. 56
Pontcysylte aqueduct, iii. 214
Potatoe, i. 32,
117,
304—ii. 192
Practical hints on self-government, iii. 200
Prairie dog, ii. 128
Prickly pear hedges, i. 27
Psalms, i. 148—ii. 49
Question play, ii. 39
Questions, arithmetical, i. 204,
307
Radiation of heat and cold, ii. 78, 102, 137—iii. 209
Rafflesia, enormous flower of, iii. 8
Railways, iii. 222
Rapid flight of birds, iii. 162
Red-sea, passage of the Israelites, ii. 34
Rein-deer, i. 29,
214
Resistance to injuries, i. 134
Resurrection, ii. 276
Rhinoceros, ii. 232
Rice, ii. 8, 140, 143
Rivers that form alluvial deposits, ii. 235—iii. 26
Rona, North, i. 58
Rooks, ii. 260
Roses, ii. 9—iii. 106
Rose-beads, ii. 211
Rumbdé, ii. 187
Sabbath, origin of, i. 51
Sacrifices, ii. 4, 131, 137, 270—iii. 133, 150
St. Kilda, Hebrides, i. 157
St. Paul’s epistles, difficulties in reading, i. 191
Salt plain and cliffs, i. 63
Salt-mine, iii. 212
Sandwich isles, ii. 144—iii. 62
Sarana lily, eaten, ii. 213
Scouler’s voyage, ii. 58, 112
Sea, change of level, iii. 33
... form of the bottom, iii. 286
... water, simple method of ascertaining the salt it contains, i. 12
... luminous, i. 4,
133,
282
... weed, i. 11
Seal-cutting, iii. 221
Shakspeare, ii. 29, 102
Sheep-shearing, iii. 195
Shem and Japhet’s descendants, i. 227
Siberian flexible cups, ii. 211
... fossil elephant, iii. 71
Sin-offerings, ii. 138
Sinai, Mount, ii. 68
Sky, isle of, i. 88
Slate-quarries of Penrhyn, iii. 218
Snow, ii. 115
Solan-goose, i. 159
Sparrow, i. 178—iii. 146
Spicula of ice, ii. 87, 96
Spider, i. 283
Sponge, ii. 39
Spring, the advance of, ii. 182, 187
Springs, i. 286
Staffa island, i. 37
Staffin, Loch, i. 89
Staffordshire vallies, iii. 189
Stalactites, iii. 42
Starling, red-winged, i. 142
Stockholm, i. 115
Stories, i. 73,
105,
222—ii. 22, 107, 146
Story-play, ii. 106
Stove for Palms, i. 187—iii. 165
Strawberries irrigated, iii. 125
Straw-plait for the Florence hats, i. 201
Sunday, when instituted, i. 51
Suspension bridges, iii. 231, 234
Swallows, iii. 47, 143, 158, 203
Tabasheer, i. 240
Tailor-bird, i. 80
Talipot-tree, i. 290
Taste, iii. 250
Tendrils, iii. 95
Teredo, ii. 254
Thaw, ii. 120
Thy kingdom come, explained, i. 117
Tigris river, boats, i. 83
Tillandsia moss, i. 232—ii. 286
Titmouse, ii. 134, 203
Toad enclosed in plaster of Paris, ii. 92
Tobacco, ii. 93
Toddy-bird, i. 79
Torpid animals, ii. 89, 130
Toucan, i. 49
Trallhätta cataract, ii. 64
Trees of North America, i. 183,
231
... European, i. 179,
198
... of New South Wales, i. 155
... of Brazil, i. 152
Tree-ferns, iii. 140, 165
Tunnel, suggested by the Teredo, ii. 254
Turkish pipe, iii. 18
Unicorn, ii. 231
Unleavened bread, ii. 6
Urim and Thummim, ii. 80
Valleys colder than hills, ii. 101
Vegetables brought from the East, i. 31
Venice, iii. 85
Vine-culture, South of Europe, i. 197
Vinegar, made from ants, ii. 65
Volcanoes, iii. 49, 63
Voyage to England, i. 1
Walker, Dr., habits of plants, ii. 141, 191, 223
Water, viscidity of, i. 8
Watering plants by a dropping syphon, iii. 123
Wells, Dr., frost and dew, ii. 76, 137, iii. 207
Welsh roads, iii. 216
West the painter, i. 269
Whale catching, ii. 21
Wheat, i. 303—ii. 274
Wren, parental courage of, iii. 23
Yule-clogs, ii. 47
Zafferonee caravanserai, i. 222