temperament, and must be dealt with soothingly. Again, if I see one with a large blue, watery eye, and its accompanying complexion, I say to myself that all Mount Sinai could not wake that man up. I have seen men of that stamp, whom you could no more stimulate to action, than you could a lump of dough by blowing a resurrection-trump over it.
Men are like open books, if looked at properly. Suppose I attempt to analyze a man's deeds; I can do it with comparative facility, because I have in my eye the general outline of the man's disposition and mental tendencies. A deed is like a letter stamped from a die. The motive that directs the deed is like the matrix that moulds the stamp. You may know the mould from the impression made by the stamp. You must know what men are in order to reach them, and that is a part of the science of preaching. If there is any profession in the world that can afford to be without this practical knowledge of human nature, it certainly is not the profession of a preacher.—Abridged from the Christian Union.
| ASTRO-METEOROLOGY. |
By Prof. DANIEL KIRKWOOD, LL. D.
THE theory that shooting-stars, meteoric stones, and even comets, consist of matter, which has been expelled with enormous force from the solar surface, was proposed by Prof. Hackley, as long since as 1860.[1] A similar hypothesis in regard to comets has also been advanced by Prof. William A. Norton.[2] In the present paper, it is proposed to consider, first, the evidence derived from recent discoveries in favor of this theory;[3] and, secondly, the indications afforded by observed phenomena in regard to the history of certain meteoric streams:
1. The observations of Zollner, Respighi, and others, have indicated the operation of stupendous eruptive forces beneath the solar surface. The rose-colored prominences, which Janssen and Lockyer have shown to be masses of incandescent hydrogen, are regarded by Prof. Respighi as phenomena of eruption. "They are the seat of movements of which no terrestrial phenomenon can afford any idea; masses of matter, the volume of which is many hundred times greater than that of the earth, completely changing their position and form
- ↑ Proc. Am. Assoc, for the Advancement of Science, Fourteenth Meeting, 1860.
- ↑ Treatise on Astronomy, fourth edition. Appendix, p. 437.
- ↑ The view that the fixed stars, as well as the sun, expel meteoric matter to the inter-stellar spaces, may be regarded as merely an extension of the theory here stated.
