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strange visitor. He seemed to be a perfect reservoir of knowledge, and it poured from his mouth as if it had been water. His voice was low and musical, very much like the gentle flute-stop in an organ; but occasionally, when some bold conception required more power of utterance, it would swell out to a full diapason. For three whole hours I had been sitting, without motion, completely enraptured with his eloquence, at least when my flesh did not crawl under the apprehension that I might be actually conversing with a spirit. If he is a man,' said I to myself, more than twenty times, he is the most learned and wonderful man living.'"

"Who could have thought otherwise?" said the second sleeper, as the first paused a moment to get himself into an easier position.

"Had you never heard of him before?" said the friend next to me, who had scarcely closed his mouth from the beginning.

"Never," said the Professor; "he came as suddenly upon me, as if he had dropped from a passing

comet."

"Was his language entirely American, or did his speech betray him a foreigner of great parts and education?" This question was put by the only fat, sleek-haired Anthony in our company.

"All I can now say of his language is, that it seemed to be the refined essence of all language. So far as I could tell, with such astonishing fluency did he speak, he might have been the author of half the dialects on earth. I never was so perfectly enchanted. When he made his first pause, I thought my elbows had grown fast to the table.

"But, gentlemen," added the Professor, "the evening is growing late, and I think we would do well to adjourn the remainder of this narrative."

"The treaty, the treaty!" ejaculated four voices at a stroke.

"You were to reserve nothing; and if you keep back a syllable, you will have an alliance of four powers to battle with."

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'Besides," said Sir Anthony, "I have been striving in every way to divine what possible connection all this can have with the falling of that oak, or poplar."

"You are a better critic, Sir Anthony," replied the linguist, "than your classical namesake, but not so prudent. You will gain nothing by pressing this particular criticism. Bubbles will not bear touching."

"Let them break, then," said the fat gentleman. "It is a great part of my business to break bubbles and boiled puddings."

"Perhaps you can break this one without my assistance. Who do you think was this personage?"

"There can be no great risk in supposing, in a general way, that he might be some European refugee, some lord or scholar, who, finding no peace at home, had sought an asylum in the Hesperia of

modern times. I should think him a man of great genius," added Sir Anthony.

All nodded assent to the sagacious observation of their corpulent brother.

"Well, gentlemen," remarked the man of words and sentences, and sometimes of a little fun also, "I am sorry to do any thing to make you proud of your penetration. But I have promised to reserve nothing. I have been telling you the story of a ranting maniac, who, several years ago, traversed the western wilderness, dealing out his delusions through every part of the country."

"Was not that bell for supper?" said the critic, inquiringly.

"Very likely," rejoined the Professor, "but you recollect the treaty. Besides, gentlemen, you must not feel too proud of your sagacity, not enough to render you in the slightest degree uneasy. The fact is, you have not been half so much deceived as I was. And a word or two more will finish my little story.

"This Scuti, this philosopher, this magical knowall, was nothing but a little dried up country doctor, who, in the want of practice, had taken to reading works of every possible description. His mind, having been once deranged by the delirium of a western fever, had never recovered its natural balance. His memory, as is that of most insane persons, was really astonishing. His eyes projected, almost to disfiguration, from their sockets, evincing the most wonderful powers of language; and in this respect he was the most remarkable man, I have always thought, either dead or living. He could skim the surface of as much learning in a three hours' talk, as would have amazed a senate, or a sanhedrim. His mania consisted in a firm persuasion, which had grown up gradually from a very small beginning, that he was to be a great restorer of the past, and a revealer of the future. He steadily maintained, that he was a Jew by descent, his family having been originally among the tribes settled in western Scythia; and to this circumstance, he said, he was indebted for his cognomen. More than that, he was of the house royal; and he made a great parade of historical knowledge, in tracing back his lineage to the ancient kings of Judea.

"For this latter fact he quoted the authority of his father, who, in the absence of his eldest son, had communicated the darling secret to a sister. The proof of it was a flesh-mark of a great lion on his body; and it was by this same figure of a lion that the genealogy was followed back to the days of the captivity, and even farther.

"But his own experience, he said, furnished a still stronger testimony. This consisted of numerous dreams and visions. At one time he was walking across a large forest. The trees bowed to him as he passed; and then fell prostrate to the earth, the wildness of sad and sudden ruin. At the farther

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side of the forest stood a temple, gorgeous, and something after the pattern of King Solomon's. On reaching it, the gates and doors flew open without assistance. Wherever he roamed through the long galleries and chambers, secret doors, apparently never before opened, would fly back against the wall, as if pressed by some sudden impulse. In one large room, fitted up like a library, were seven immense folio books lying upon a long table. Each book was sealed with seven powerful seals. As he approached, the seals snapped, the books opened, and seven voices from the seven books spake to him of things which he was not now allowed to utter. As he was about to retire, the books closed again; and a strong voice, from a cherub carved or embossed on the wall, commanded him to take the books home with him, and power should be given him to open their seven seals. On attempting to raise the first book, he found his strength insufficient; and then the cherub came down from the wall, and handed him the seven books, whereupon they became as light in his hand as so many feathers.

"On returning through the place of the forest, he was commanded by a voice, as from the first seal of the first book, to plant a small twig in the centre of the field. The twig instantly became a tree, and grew up to such extraordinary dimensions, that it seemed to cover with its branches the whole world.

"You will see, then, Sir Anthony, the connection between my story and the falling of that mighty tree, which just resounded over hill and valley. But to repeat all his visions, his dreams, his ecstasies, his inspirations, his flights and ascensions, his airy travels through the trackless paths of imagination and fancy, would rouse the old mystics from their graveyard slumbers, and eclipse the Arabian prophet himself of his glory. I have read the works of Pinel, and Worcester, and Bichot, and Dr. Upham, on mania; but not one of these great writers has given account of a more extraordinary case of monomania, than that of the eloquent little shadow of the chimney corner.

"But I had almost forgotten to tell you the singular termination of my acquaintance with this gentleman. One evening, a little before twelve, and just as he was winding himself up for another two hours' run, he again alluded, perhaps for the thirtieth time, to the miraculous evidences of his mission. Having studied him pretty thoroughly, and learned all I expected to of his malady, with much sincerity I told him, that, on one condition, I was ready to become his disciple, and we would turn the world after us, and rout the Mormons from Nauvoo. All I desired was, that he would engage to bring me a few of those big books, which the cherub gave him in the temple; and, as an immediate demonstration of his calling, I would be glad to see the mark of the big lion on his body. The first would be particularly

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gratifying to my antiquarian notions, and the second would keep my faith warm till his return.

"It is getting late,' said the spectre, as he glided toward the doorway; and from the moment he bade me a good evening-though the evening was entirely gone-I never saw him more. But no character is better known in the west; and the smile of recollection would play upon many a countenance, could his picture be hung up in all the public places through our extensive valley."

Such was the story of the worthy Professor. We all presented him our thanks for the instruction and entertainment it had afforded us. He assured us all that it contained not a particle of fiction. We saw in it, therefore, the condition to which one erroneous conception may reduce its possessor. One of the company passionately affirmed, that it was more or less the condition of all narrow men; and that he would spurn to be the devotee of any one idea, if it were as big as Mount Taurus. The mind evidently needs the exercise of various action; and the most wide and liberal expansion of our mental faculties, is the surest safeguard to its sanity.

But a very different moral was drawn by Sir Anthony, who, as we were returning to the cottage, and as if to make amends for his late discomfiture, very sagely remarked, that, in the flippant, gaudy, superficial learning of modern times, he had himself seen more than one KNOWING DOCTOR.

LABOR CONQUERS ALL THINGS. SIR WILLIAM JONES, by patient study, became the greatest linguist of his times. He could read twenty-eight languages; and some of them were among the most difficult in the world. Unlike the "learned blacksmith" of our day, he could not only read these languages, but, in several of them, his proficiency was unrivaled by the most learned of those who spoke them as their vernacular tongues. The following is the list of languages with which he was familiar, left us in his own hand: English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish, Tibetian, Palí, Derí, Pahliar, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese. It should be remembered, too, that, during the greater part of his life, he was principal justice of one of the largest provinces of the British empire, to whom more than fifty millions of beings were daily looking for a faithful administration of the laws. How truly was it said, that labor conquers all things!

It is a fine saying of Lord Coke, that every man who is successful in his profession is under an obligation to benefit society. If this precept were faithfully observed, what a world we should soon have!

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THE EARTH-AS A PLANET.

BY PROFESSOR WATERMAN.

MR. EDITOR,-The heat of the summer months, and absence for a time from the scene of my regular duties, must be my apology to the fair readers of the Repository, for the irregularity of appearance of the late numbers of this series. These obstacles no longer existing, I trust to be more punctual hereafter. Before, however, entering upon the main subject of the present number, permit me to correct an error in the number for July-an error the result of frequent interruptions while writing. It is found near the top of the second column, page 214, in the illustration drawn from a person riding. The sentence reads thus: "If a person riding along a road, should select any object close by, to which he should make reference, all objects around it would appear in motion, those beyond moving in a direction opposite to his own," &c. The matter of fact is, that the objects beyond would appear moving in the same direction, and not in a contrary one. The error, though one of fact, does not materially vitiate the illustration in the case applied. It is best, however, to correct it, even if it be late. We now proceed.

The EARTH, and every thing connected with it, is peculiarly interesting to us; because it is our home. We may speculate and investigate as much as we please in regard to other worlds. But they are still intangible. We may be convinced that they are composed of matter-obedient to the same general laws which govern the same species of created existence here. We may measure and weigh them. We may ascertain the altitude of their mountains, and the brilliancy of their noon-day-the length of their twilight, and the variety of their seasons; yet, after all, the mind feels not that confidence in all these results that it does in those which are reached more strictly by the senses. It is different when we speak of the Earth. With its rocks, its rivers, its oceans, its mountains, we are familiar by direct contact. If any fact is alledged in regard to their existence, sight and touch stand ready in an instant to verify, or prove it false. And yet there is danger of our falling into very great errors in regard to the Earth itself: not so much, perhaps, when viewed alone, as when viewed in its relations to other worlds. Our earliest ideas concerning it relate to its stability. We see the sun arise and set. The glorious sisterhood of the midnight sky follow his example. In summer the sun marches boldly toward the zenith, and sends forth his rays with a giant's strength. In winter he keeps near the horizon, as if his courage had forsaken him; and his sickly beams make but little impression upon the glittering palace of the Frost King. Such are our first and strongest impressions. And it takes long and weary hours of abstraction before we can unsettle these ideas of

sense, and feel that we have been deceived; that that which we regarded as ever at rest, giving forth its orders to the innumerable yet obedient coursers of the sky, was in reality wheeling like them in space, and as a servant obeying the orders of that sun which we deemed a subordinate to itself! Such ideas, it is true, are taught us at the outset of our geographical studies. But all subsequent research seems to contradict these unwelcome truths. And even if we do receive them intellectually, sense and reason ever afterward maintain an unequal conflict in regard to their right to a habitation in the mind. To so great an extent is this true, that even when the assent of the understanding is reluctantly obtained, the thoughts seem still to centre upon previously received error. In what remains, I must ask my fair readers to endeavor, at least for the time being, to feel that the Earth is no longer what the senses have always taught them it was-stationary; but, unsustained by foundation or pillars, it is really floating in empty space, like a bubble in the air.

The ancients held some very singular and curious ideas in relation to the Earth. They supposed that its surface was a vast plain, longer in one direction than it was in the other. Hence the early geogra phers applied the term longitude, or length, to the east and west direction, and latitude, or width, to the north and south-the distance east and west being supposed greater than that north and south. The theory of Cosmas Indopleustes was based upon this general idea, which his own imagination embellished at pleasure. The following outline of it I extract from a recent writer on astronomy: "This theorist maintained that the Earth was an immense plain, surrounded by an impassable ocean. A conical mountain was supposed to be situated toward the north, and the sun and stars to perform their diurnal revolutions round it, the sun having an oblique motion. By this wild conjecture he explained the unequal length of day and night, and the variation of the seasons; and accounted for the motions of the heavenly bodies, by the assertion that they are carried round in their courses by celestial spirits."

The theory of Ptolemy was perhaps more philosophical, but much more intricate and difficult of comprehension, and as far removed from truth. This theory, which, from the name of its principal expounder, was called the Ptolemaic theory, is at once so singular and so unwieldy, and withal such a perfect curiosity, that I shall be pardoned for introducing the following somewhat lengthy account of it from the pen of the philosopher and astronomer, Dr. Dick. Says he: "Most of the ancient astronomers supposed that the Earth was a quiescent body in the centre of the universe, and that the planets revolved around it in so many different heavens, which were nearly concentric, and raised one above another in a certain order. The first or lowest sphere was the moon, then Mercury, and next in order, Venus, the

sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and then the sphere of the fixed stars.. They found it no easy matter to reconcile the daily motion, which carries the stars from east to west, with another peculiar and slow motion, which carries them round the poles of the ecliptic, and from west to east, in the period of 25,000 years; and, at the same time, with a third motion, which carries them along from east to west in a year, around the poles of the ecliptic. They were no less at a loss how to reconcile the annual and daily motions of the sun, which are directly contrary to each other. An additional difficulty was found in the particular course pursued by each individual planet. It required no little ingenuity to invent celestial machinery to account for all the variety of motions which appeared among the heavenly orbs. After the first mobiles, or powers of motion, they placed some very large heavens of solid crystal, which, by rolling one over another, and by a mutual and violent clashing, communicated to each other the universal motion received from the primum mobile, or first mover; while, by a contrary motion, they resisted this general impression, and, by degrees, carried away, each after its own manner, the planet for the service of which it was designed. These heavens were conceived to be solid; otherwise, the upper ones could have had no influence on the lower to make them perform their daily motion; and they behooved to be of the finest crystal, because the light of the stars could not otherwise penetrate the thickness of these arches applied one over another, nor reach our eyes. Above the sphere of the fixed stars were placed the first and second crystaline heavens, and above these the primum mobile, which carried round all the subordinate spheres. They imagined that the primum mobile was circumscribed by the empyreal heaven, of a cubic form, which they supposed to be the blessed abode of departed souls. Some astronomers were contented with seven or eight different spheres; while others imagined no less than seventy of them wrapped up one within another, and all in separate motions. They no sooner discovered some new motion or effect, formerly unknown, than they immediately set to work and patched up a new sphere, giving it such motions and directions as were deemed requisite. Cycles, epicycles, deferents, centric and eccentric circles, solid spheres, and other celestial machinery, were all employed to solve the intricate motions of the heavens, which seemed to baffle all the efforts of human ingenuity. * It would be no easy task to describe how their epicycles could be made to move through the thick crusts of crystal of which their spheres were made. They, however, found some means or other to extricate themselves from every difficulty, as they always had recourse to geometrical lines, which never found any obstacle to their passage on paper. To make all the pieces of their machinery move with as much smoothness and

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as little inconsistency as possible, they were forced to delineate certain furrows, or to notch on the arches certain grooves, in which they jointed and made the tenons and mortises of their epicycles to slide."*

Such was the complicated and absurd system which, with little variation, held the world spell-bound till the days of Copernicus. He first broached the idea that the Earth was itself a sphere, and the sun the fixed centre around which it revolved. The apparent revolution of the stars led him to the former conclusion-a conclusion which the varying elevation of the poles in different latitudes, and the circumnavigation of the Earth fully confirm. The facts stated in a former number, in relation to the sun and planets, confirmed his mind in the latter conclusion.

Considered as a planet, the Earth revolves around the sun in an elliptic orbit, at a mean distance from the sun of 95,000,000 miles. The eccentricity amounts to 1,618,000 miles; consequently, the Earth is twice that distance, or 3,236,000 miles nearer the sun in one part of its orbit than at its opposite point. One singular fact meets us here. This eccentricity is continually diminishing, or, in other words, the Earth's orbit is becoming more and more nearly circular! Why is this? and what will be the ultimate result? These are extremely interesting questions. But the pages of the Repository are unsuited to investigations, such as would be necessary to their solution. Results are all we can offer. It has been ascertained, then, that the eccentricity will go on diminishing until it is reduced to nothing, when the orbit will become perfectly circular. A reverse movement will then commence, and progress until the eccentricity reaches its maximum point, whence it will again return to zero. Thus a slow but constant oscillation is going on. And the sun is either approaching or receding from the centre of the orbit continually. Vast periods of time are required to complete a single oscillation. For this great discovery the world is indebted to the immortal La Placea man whose giant mind seemed perfectly familiar with the mechanism of the heavens. By the aid of analysis he discovered that such must be the fact, if the theory of gravitation proposed by Newton were

true.

The Earth's mean rate in its orbit is about 68,000 miles per hour. Its velocity, however, varies in different parts of the orbit. In January it amounts to 69,600 miles per hour; while in July it is only 66,400. The reason of this is to be found in the fact, that at the former time, the Earth is at its perihelion, or nearest approach to the sun; and, consequently, the sun's attractive influence being greater, causes an acceleration of motion. A very simple experiment will illustrate the operation of this cause. If you attach a button to the end of a piece of thread, and then swing it in the air, permitting the thread

Scenery of the Heavens, pages 45, 46.