Mrs. Marcet

“ Frederick brought home a lump of these icy pillars on the spade, and my uncle laid aside his letters, to shew, he said, how much pleasure he felt when he saw us in pursuit of knowledge. As soon as he looked at our pillars, he said, “In that sort of spongy soil where you found them, these icy crystals are formed so immediately under the surface, that only a thin crust of earth remains over their tops; and the film of clay, which sticks to the bottom of the column, shews you that the frost has not penetrated below it, but that the earth beneath continues soft. ”

“ In examining these organic remains, the skill of the botanist and zoologist has discovered that several of the plants and animals are entirely different from any with which we are at present acquainted; and a vast field of inquiry has thus been opened in those departments of nature.
I asked my uncle whether these remains are regularly distributed through the whole of those series in which they are so numerous. He likes that I should ask him questions; he says it doubles his pleasure in giving information, when he sees people really alive to what he tells them. ”

“ Each of the last three nights the thermometer has been below the freezing point—last night it was 28°. The ground is hard, and grass, trees, and shrubs, are quite white. Nothing can be more beautiful—each blade of grass sparkling with gems, every branch and spray covered with delicate crystals, and the leaves of the fir-trees hanging like little miniature icicles.
I asked my uncle where the frost comes from. “It is in fact,” said he, “frozen dew; when the ground is cooled down to 32°, the dew deposited on it is congealed, and becomes hoar frost. ”

“ I reminded him that he had not told me why the moisture should sometimes freeze into flakes of snow, and sometimes into the pretty little round balls of hail.
“I waited,” he replied, “till you asked that question; for information is always best remembered when the want of it is felt. If the particles of moisture in the atmosphere are small, and if they are slowly congealed, they form themselves into flakes of snow, as I have already mentioned; but when the moist vapour rapidly collects into large drops of rain, and when these are suddenly frozen, they become hail.” ”

“ The blue fly bends its pensile stem
Light o’er the skylark’s nest.
Grace repeated that pretty stanza of Montgomery’s; and when I asked her if she knew what was meant by “its crimson gem,” she replied, “Yes, Mamma told me that the buds of trees are called gems, from the Latin word gemma.” My uncle added that here the term is poetically applied to the flowers while yet unclosed—though it is only leaf-buds to which botanists give that name. ”

“ Hamlet’s grief and horror at the death of his father, and at his mother’s baseness, are beautifully and naturally expressed. He feels as a virtuous and honourable man, but he feels also as a son; and in those contending feelings lie the great interest of the piece. ”

“ Those that are deprived of food by the snow covering the ground, sleep till it melts. The white bear lives on the sea shore in summer, and on islands of ice in autumn, and he does not fall asleep till the ice, being thickened and raised too high above the water, is no longer the resort of his chief prey, the seal. His means of obtaining food continuing longer, a much severer cold is requisite to deaden in him the call of seeking it, than in the black bear who devours vegetables ”

“ BERTHA’S VISIT. Dec. 1st.—Colonel Travers, who every day tells us something curious that he has seen in his travels, has been describing the cultivation of the pepper vine in the East Indies. In July, at the beginning of the rainy season, from eight to twelve shoots are planted round some tree chosen for their support; as they grow up they must be tied to its stem, and in dry or hot weather they are watered. They begin to bear in six years; in ten, they are in full perfection, and continue so for twenty years more, when they die. ”

“ The habit of writing this journal has been indeed of very great use to me, and I have to thank you, dear mamma, for desiring me to do it. I am afraid Marianne will not be much interested as yet by the present subject, for want of my uncle’s explanations; but when I am once more with you and her, I will try to give her at full length the details of what he has told us; and I am sure that she will then like it for his sake.
We have just had another little chapter on the changes in the globe. ”

“ The wheat-fields look greener than ever; the buds of the lilac and sycamore are swelling, and the woodbine leaves are actually bursting open. The flower-buds on the mezereon, which Mary showed me last September, are now opening; and a few scattered flowers, which are quite blown out, shew us their pretty pink faces, and promise a delightful smell. But, more than all, the snow-drops have already appeared, and in the sheltered spots there are many bunches of them quite opened. It is the most innocent, modest looking little flower ”

“ They now look healthy and have fine swelling buds, as if they would soon be in a very flourishing state. He has found that the way to manage this rose is to plant it in a sandy loam, and to keep it very closely nailed to the wall, just like the Morella cherry.
I take great pleasure in watching the progress of the garden. The peach blossoms are really opening, and are lovely. The gardener has been very busy protecting them from the harsh winds, and from rain and hail, by woollen nettings stretched completely over them. But my uncle is always trying some pretty experiments ”

“ I shall mention only one more feature of this charming spot: the garden was sheltered by a large Pimenta grove; and, as you are acquainted with this beautiful species of myrtle, which produces the allspice, you may imagine how delightful I must have found its fragrance, and its shade, in that sultry climate. ”

“ In examining the surface of the earth, a person would at first imagine that the confused variety of mineral substances he saw, was the result of mere chance; but if in different places he should find the same substances constantly linked together—if, for instance, in traversing the different coal districts, he were to find sand, clay,{199} chalk, freestone, coal, limestone, sandstone, slate, and granite, succeed each other with tolerable uniformity, he would soon perceive that there was something like system in their arrangement. ”

“ After I had puzzled in and out of the question, and that our play was ended, my uncle{40} told me that sponges, of which there are now known more than a hundred different species, are found in a multitude of places, on the shores of both the old and new Continents. “Those most valued in the arts,” said he, “are inhabitants of the Mediterranean, and part of the Indian Ocean; two small kinds of sponge thrive even on the frozen shores of Greenland; and forty species have been discovered on the coasts of Great Britain. ”

“ The cold produced by this radiation of heat from the earth, is always less if any substance be interposed between it and the sky; not only a solid body, but even a fog, or clouds, have this effect, because they intercept the heat, and perhaps again send back a portion of it to the earth; and this, he added, is the reason why a bright clear night is generally colder than a cloudy night.
I asked my uncle if that was also the reason that such slight substances, as straw or mats, are found to protect tender plants from cold? ”

“ My aunt told us that the Chinese, by whom great numbers are consumed, usually hatch them by artificial heat. The eggs are placed in boxes of sand, upon a brick hearth, which is kept at a proper degree of warmth, during the process; and the ducklings are fed with boiled rice, crabs, and cray-fish for a fortnight. They are then supplied with an old stepmother, who leads them where they can find food; being first put into a boat which is to be their constant habitation, and from which the whole flock, perhaps three or four hundred, go out to feed, and return at command. ”

“ I asked my uncle, if the reason why the ice occupies more space than the water was, that those spicula or crystals, from their shape,{88} and from shooting in various directions, cannot lie so closely together as the minute particles of water.—
“Yes,” said he, “you are perfectly right—a proof of this is, that it requires great power to compress water in the smallest degree; while the hardest ice, if pounded, may be easily forced into a smaller space.” ”

“ These marine remains are chiefly corallines, madrepores, and a great variety of sea-shells, of species still existing in the Red Sea. Some of the islands are thirty feet above high-water mark; a circumstance which, he says, makes it difficult to account for the process of their formation. When a pillar of coral rises to the surface of the sea, birds, of course, resort to it; the decay of fish-bones, and other remains of their food in time produces a soil, which is followed by vegetation, and then it quickly assumes the appearance of a little island, covered with a solid stratum of earth. ”

“ I have in latter years often wondered how my mother’s plain good sense could be so blinded by partiality, that she never even tried to conquer my absurd fancies, and, by forcing me into obedience, to teach me to be useful ”

“ In summer, therefore, snow may be formed at a great elevation, as people who have ascended in balloons have more than once witnessed, but it again becomes rain in its descent; whereas, hail, for the reason I have given you, has been known to come down in the hottest months of the year. ”

“ January 1, Sunday.—My uncle read to us the “Song of Moses,” after the escape of the Israelites from Pharaoh and his host. He then said; as nearly as I can recollect, “This beautiful composition is not only a thanksgiving for their memorable deliverance, but it contains also precise prophecies of the downfal of the nations of Palestine, with the settlement of the Israelites in their room; and of the establishment of the temple on Mount Zion, with the ultimate destruction of all idolatry. ”

“ I afterwards asked my uncle if the American fruits were very late in ripening, as the blossoms are so long kept back by winter.
“No,” he said, “the summer is very warm, though the winter is long and severe; and, as animals become more sensible to heat, after being previously exposed to cold,—for the same reason that your hands glow on coming into the house after having been rubbed with snow—so vegetables seem to be excited to a greater degree of energy by the previous intense cold. ”

“ Nothing could have been better calculated to keep alive the spirit of gratitude to the bountiful Author of those mercies; and that nothing could be more consistent with the feelings of the human mind, has been exemplified by the practice of every age and nation, in the anniversary observances of religious, national and domestic events.”
16th.—The frost still continues; and instead of being miserably cold, as I expected, I almost enjoy it. There is not much wind, and the air feels dry and clear. We take long quick walks in the bright part of the day while the sun shines. ”

“ Coral was formerly thought to be a vegetable, and even the celebrated Tournefort considered it to be a marine moss; but it is now known to be the production of a race of animals, of which it seems as much a part as the shell is of the snail. Most of the islands in the South Sea are coral rocks covered with earth. My uncle says that late voyagers have asserted that the bays and harbours of many of these islands have been observed to be gradually closing up, by the progress of these extraordinary creatures ”

“ Winter, season of death, is the time of the sleep, or the torpor of nature; insects without life, reptiles without motion, and vegetables without verdure. The inhabitants of the air destroyed; those of the water inclosed in prisons of ice ”

“ There are continual instances of this in the northern parts of Europe; and the poor frozen person, if indulged by his companions in closing his eyes for a few minutes, seldom opens them again. He does not, however, die immediately, my uncle says: it is even thought by some, that as long as the same temperature continued, he would sleep like the dormouse, deprived of all vital action.
My aunt said, she wondered whether human creatures could be revived, after having been many days frozen, provided similar means were used for their recovery that are employed to restore a frozen limb. ”

“ Gertrude, will you be contented to remain here in acknowledged embarrassment, shut up from the world, and endeavouring with me to save and to pay; or, will you for a time return to your father and mother? You know they will receive you with open arms; and you can there have the comforts so necessary to you and our poor little children. I really think it will be the wisest course to ask an asylum from them ”

“ During one or two slight frosts, which lasted for only a day or two, it slept constantly; and I think I may say, from all our observations, that whenever the thermometer, which my uncle has attached to the cage, falls to 42°, the dormouse becomes inactive; and if it falls any lower, he remains insensible. When the warmth of the room rises to 47° he is affected by the slightest touch, and is sure to waken in the evening and to eat heartily of his store, which I keep supplied with nuts, biscuits, and a little milk and water. ”

“ In these dreary plains a pretty little species of marmot is found; it is called the “Prairie-dog,” from a supposed resemblance of its cry to the hurried barking of a dog. The habits of this animal are so social, that they live together in burrows which are called “Prairie-dog villages,” and which sometimes spread to the extent of many miles; the entrance of each burrow is through a small mound of earth, of a foot or eighteen inches high, on the summit of which the little animals sit and bark, and flourish their tails; but they plunge in, on the least appearance of danger. ”

“ In short, almost every kind of fruit tree has its peculiar family of grubs, which, in their larva state, prey on the sap, the leaves, or the flower-buds; and it is to prevent this that my uncle is going to destroy them by that gas wash.
Among various enemies of the apple-tree, he shewed me in particular the apple aphis, or American blight, which was not known in this country till the year 1787. It is a very minute insect, covered with a long, cotton-like wool; and fixes itself in the chinks and rough parts of the bark. ”

“ Farmers sometimes, in expectation of this effect of frost, sow their wheat in very rough ground in autumn, in order that the clods, being pulverised by it, may close round the roots of the young plants; and these benefit by it as drilled corn does by landing—that is, having the earth laid up by the plough against the little seedlings when they have grown to some height. In mild winters farmers are disappointed in this; but my uncle says it is but a lazy mode of farming, and deserves to be disappointed. ”

“ My uncle told us that turbots, soles, and other{21} flat fish, are not furnished with an air-bladder, because they never quit the bottom of the sea; and Colonel Travers, to prove that some fish are not intended to sink very far below the surface, mentioned the following curious circumstance. When a whale is attacked by a sword-fish, he immediately dives; and the sword-fish, not being calculated by Nature to bear the enormous pressure of the sea at very great depth, is obliged to withdraw his weapon;—if he cannot speedily extricate it, he dies. ”

“ Nothing, however, is more certain than that they are all varieties produced by the cultivation of a plant which grows wild on the sea-shores of Europe, and which, in its external appearance, is as different from any of those, as they are from each other. These alterations become so strongly fixed by habit, that they continue in the plants that spring from the seeds of each variety ”

“ We were delighted with the beautiful situation where they had fixed their dwelling; close to a fine stream, and surrounded by a shrubbery of Fuchsia, mixed with peach and apple-trees, pears, figs, vines, and strawberries, rue, mint, radish, and Indian cress, besides oats, were all growing in the greatest profusion; and the sea abounded with fish. ”