merely tells us what we may expect natural objects will do under certain circumstances."]

A cause of a Phenomenon being independent of human will is called a Force, and the stone falls by the force of Gravitation, or that natural law which compels every material object to approach every other material object. A single Force may produce a great number of Phenomena.

Nature being revealed to us by Objects, and by means of Phenomena, we have got already two Branches of Science extending from such Roots; viz., NATURAL HISTORY, the Science of Objects; and NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, the Science of Phenomena.

Both of these Branches have been subdivided thus:

Zoology, referring to Animals
Botany, referring to Plants

Biology.

Natural History

Physics.

Natural Philosophy

Phenomena without essential change of the Objects.

Chemistry. Phenomena with change of the Objects. Physiology. Phenomena of animated Objects. These two great divisions comprehend, in their extended senses, all that is known respecting the material world.

We have spoken of Objects. Objects occupy Space. What is Space? Space is magnitude which can be conceived as extending in three directions— Length, Breadth, and Depth. MATTER occupies portions of Space, which is infinite. Matter, when finite, is termed a body or object. The general properties of Matter are Magnitude, Form, Impenetrability, Inertia, 'Divisibility, Porosity, Elasticity, Compressibility, Expansibility.

Matter is present in Nature in three conditions. We find it as a SOLID, a LIQUID, and a GAS. We shall explain the various properties of Solids, Liquids, and Gases in their proper places (in Physics). To test the actual existence of Matter in one or other of these forms our Senses help us. We can touch a Solid, or taste it and see it. But touch is the test. We have said that Matter possesses certain properties. We will examine these briefly. The two which belong to all material bodies are Impenetrability and Magnitude. You cannot, strictly speaking, penetrate Matter. You can find the form of an object by touch or sight, but you cannot penetrate it. You will think you can drive a nail or a screw into a board, but you cannot ; you only displace the fibres of the wood by the screw. Take water as a very common instance. Water is Matter, for it occupies a certain space. Water is impenetrable, for if you put your hand or foot into a basin full of it, it will overflow, thus proving that you displace, and do not penetrate it. It is almost impossible to compress water.

Divisibility is another quality of Matter; and when we attempt to show how far Matter can be divided, the brain refuses to grasp the infinity. A pin's head is a small object, but it is gigantic compared to some

PROPERTIES OF MATTER.

5

animals, of which millions would occupy a space no larger than the head of a pin. These tiny animals must contain organs and veins, etc., and those veins are full of blood globules. Professor Tyndall informs us that a drop of blood contains three millions of red globules. So these infinitesimally small animals must have millions of globules in their blood also. Thus we see to what an extent, far beyond our Senses' power to grasp, Matter can be divided.

But there is something even more astonishing than this. It is stated that there are more animals in the milt of a single codfish than there are men in the world; and that one grain of sand is larger than four millions of these animals! each of which must be possessed of life germs of an equal amount, which would grow up as it grew to maturity. This carries us back again, and

"Imagination's utmost stretch

In wonder dies away."

Or take other interesting facts. One hundred threads of the silkworm must be placed side by side to make up the thickness of a line (-) about th of an inch; and metals can be drawn out to such exceeding fineness that twelve hundred of the fine wires will occupy only the space of one hundred silkworms' threads, or one millimetre.

Porosity is another attribute of Matter, for in all Matter there are pores, or spaces, between the particles. Sometimes such openings are plainly visible; in very "solid" bodies they are, to a great extent, indistinguishable. But we know that the spaces exist, because we can compress the particles together.

Inertia is also a general property of Matter, and the meaning of the term is "inactivity," or passiveness—a want of power in an object to move, or when moving, to stop of itself. It will come to rest apparently by itself, but the resistance of the air and the friction of the ground, or the attraction of the earth, will really occasion the stoppage of the object. We will speak more fully of Inertia presently. Elasticity and Expansibility are evident in fluids and gases.

We have thus introduced our readers to some of the most evident facts connected with Matter. The various Forces and Phenomena of attraction will be fully considered farther on; at present we are about to show our readers how they may first profitably study Science in the open air for themselves, and we will give them our experience of the Book of Nature.

CHAPTER II.

SCIENCE IN THE OPEN AIR-APHIDES-EVAPORATION BY LEAVES-AN AQUARIUM-THE CATALEPTIC FOWL-NEEDLE POINTS AND THORNS GRISNEZ-CRYSTALS-ICE ON

-MICROSCOPIC

AQUARIUM-CAPE

THE GAS LAMPS.

SOME years ago we were staying in Normandy, not far from the town of C, enjoying, in the midst of most cordial hospitality, the peacefulness

Fig. 1.-Ants engaged in extracting aphides from a rose-tree (highly magnified)

of country life; and my kind hosts, with me, took great pleasure in having what we called "a course of science in the open air." The recollections of that time are some of the pleasantest in the whole course of my life, because all our leisure was intelligently occupied. Each of us set himself to provide the subject of some curious observation or instructive experiment; one made

EVAPORATION OF WATER.

7

a collection of insects, another studied botany. In the daytime we might have been seen examining, under a magnifying glass, the branch of a rosetree, from which the ants were endeavouring to extract the aphides (fig. 1). At night we admired through the telescope the stars and planets that were visible; or if the sky was not clear, we examined under a strong magnifier grains of pollen from flowers, or the infusoria in a drop of stagnant water. Frequently some very insignificant object became the occasion for some scientific discussion, which terminated with an experimental verification.

I recollect that one day one of us remarked that after a week of dry weather a stream of water had nearly dried up, although sheltered by thick trees, which necessarily impeded the calorific action of the sun; and he expressed surprise at the rapid evaporation. An agriculturist among the company, however, drew his attention to the fact that the roots of the trees were buried in the course of the stream, and that, far from preventing the evaporation of the water, the leaves had contributed to accelerate it. As the first speaker was not convinced, the agriculturist, on our return to the house, prepared an experiment represented in fig. 2. He placed the branch of a tree covered with foliage in a U-shaped tube, the two branches of unequal diameter, and filled with water. He placed the vegetable stem in the water, and secured it to the tube by means of a cork covered with a piece of india-rubber, and tied tightly to make it hermetically closed.

At the commencement of the experiment the water was level with A in the larger branch of the tube, and level with B in the smaller, naturally rising to a higher point in the more slender of the two. The evaporation of the water caused by the leaves was so active that in a very short time we beheld the water sink to the points C and C.

* It is well known that ants, by touching the skin of aphides, extract therefrom a secretion of viscous matter, which nourishes them. They will frequently carry off the aphides to their habitations, and keep them there; thus one may say they keep a cow in their stable.

Thus did the excellent method of seeking the cause of phenomena by experiments often lead us to interesting results. We had among us many children and young people who had reached the age of ardent curiosity. We took pleasure in pointing out to them the means of studying natural science; and we were not long before feeling convinced that our lessons out in the fields had much greater success than those given between the four walls of a class-room. Insects were collected, and preserved

by being carefully placed in a small bottle, into which was let fall a drop of sulphuret of carbon ;* the insect was immediately asphyxiated, and we

* The preservation of insects, and their preparation for collections, necessitates some precaution. Entomologists are in the habit of spreading them out on a small board, and arranging the legs and antenna by means of large pins. The wings should be dried by placing them on strips of paper, which preserves them. These precautions are indispensable if it is wished that the insects in a collection should retain their distinctive characters. Worms and caterpillars can be raised in pots filled with earth, if carefully covered over with muslin or wire gauze with very fine meshes. The process of hatching may give rise to many interesting observations.