THE ATMOSPHERE. II. ANY substance immersed in a heavy fluid, in addition to those horizontal pressures which, acting equally in opposite directions, produce no tendency to horizontal motion, sustains also certain vertical pressures, whose effects not being thus neutralized, produce in it a tendency to upward motion, equal to the weight of fluid it displaces. Our bodies then being immersed in the air, sustain, each, an upward pressure equal to the weight of air which they displace. Why then, it may be said, are we not conscious of that upward pressure? The answer is obvious; Because the weight of the body exceeds the weight of the air it displaces. The downward pressure, exceeds the upward pressure; and we are, therefore, only conscious of weight., This, however, is not only true of the aggregate of the upward pressures upon different parts of the body, but each in particular. If, for instance, we imagine the body to be divided into any number of slender vertical columns, then the upward pressure upon that portion of its surface which forms the base of any one of these columns will equal the weight of a column of air of precisely the same dimensions; the downward pressure of the column will equal its weight, and, therefore, will exceed the upward pressure; we shall thus be unconscious of any upward pressure upon the surface spoken of; and the same is true of every other portion of the surface of the body. If we could by any means lighten the substance of our bodies, so as to render them lighter than the air they displace we should immediately ascend and float in the air. This seems to be in a great measure the case with birds; their bodies are exceedingly light, probably not much heavier than the air they displace, and they have also probably the power of rendering them still lighter in comparison with it by distending the cavity of the chest, or some other hollow portions of the body, without, at the same time, admitting any portion of the external air*. Birds stand in this respect pretty nearly in the same relation to the air, that fishes do to the water. Fishes have the power to expand certain portions of their bodies, so as to cause the quantity of water they displace to exceed their own weights, or be less than them, according as they wish to rise to the surface of the water, or to sink to any required depth beneath. Some of them would seem to have the power of carrying this expansion still further, so as to pass from the water into the air, and displace a quantity thereof, weighing nearly the same with themselves; these are called Flying-fish. In the same manner, there are certain birds which would seem to be able so to contract their dimensions, as to sink in water to any depth they may wish. We may easily construct bodies lighter than the air they displace; the upward pressure of the air upon such bodies will then exceed their weight, and they will ascend in it. It is upon this principle that balloons are made. Certain fluids may be artificially produced which are greatly lighter than the air they displace. These fluids are of the kind called gases, or elastic fluids. If a light vessel, capable of containing one of these fluids ―as, for instance, a bag of glazed paper, or of thin silk-be filled with that fluid, and then left to itself, it will immediately begin to ascend, provided the weight of the vessel be not such, as, together with Which if they did, the air so admitted would increase the weight of the whole by precisely the same quantity by which the air externally displaced was increased. that of the fluid within it, to equal or exceed the weight of the air displaced. Fluids lighter than the air may be obtained from a variety of different substances, and in a variety of different ways. The gas commonly burnt in our streets is a fluid of this kind; and large silken bags filled with this gas, displace a quantity of air whose weight is greater than their own weight, and are for that reason made to ascend by the upward pressure of the air. Bags so filled with gas will carry with them a weight nearly equal to the difference between their own weight and that of the air which they displace. Not only, however, can we make artificially other liquids lighter than the air, but we can make any one portion of the air lighter than the rest. This we may do by heating it. All bodies expand or increase their dimensions by the application of heat, and of all bodies the air is probably that which expands most readily, or is most sensitive to the variations of heat. If we take any portion of the air around us, and expand that air, by the application of heat, over a larger space, then will it displace a portion of the surrounding air, greater than itself in bulk, and the result will be, that on the principles we have explained, it will be made to ascend. This expansion of certain portions of the air, and their consequent ascent through the surrounding air, is a process which we observe to be continually going on around us. The smoke which ascends through our chimneys, is air rarefied by the heat of the fire, and carrying with it small portions of unconsumed coal. The operation takes place, however, on a much more magnificent scale under the influence of the sun. Within the tropics, where its power is greatest, the air is continually undergoing rarefaction, and is thus rendered lighter than that on either side of them; it is, therefore, weighed up, and made continually to ascend by the pressure of that air, which as continually occupies the space which it leaves. As the heated air ascends, it loses its heat, and therefore contracts its dimensions, and moving off towards the poles eventually descends to the earth's surface, to return again to the equator in its turn. Thus, there is a continual circulation of air kept up between the polar and equatorial regions of the earth; combining with the rotation of the earth to constitute that prevailing direction of the wind towards the tropics, so well known to sailors under the name of the Trade Wind †. Similar effects to these, produced on the surface of the earth by local variations of temperature, constitute winds. Thus a sudden fall of rain or snow, at any particular spot, may there so increase the weight of the air, as to make it weigh up all the surrounding air; high winds will be the result, having on the earth's surface a direction from the spot where condensation has thus taken place. We may We have shown it to be possible, that the air which surrounds us may be a heavy fluid, exercising great pressure upon the surface of our bodies, attended by all the phenomena observable in other cases of fluid pressure, and yet we ourselves be altogether unconscious of that pressure. be living in a fluid at the bottom of an ocean, as we see fish to be living in the sea, receiving large quantities of it at every instant into our bodies, and exhaling it, as we observe a current of water to pass through the gills of fishes, and yet perceive but few of its properties, scarcely even be made aware of its existence. Accordingly, philosophers reasoned and speculated for two thousand years on the subject of the atmosphere before they discovered that it was See Saturday Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 6. material, a fluid, and had weight. This is easily explained; there are no direct observations which lead us to the conclusion that air has weight. There is, indeed, little or nothing in the phenomena which establish that conclusion, to guide us to the connexion between those phenomena and the question of atmospheric pressure. A link is wanting. The theory of hydrostatic pressure establishes that link. Thus a man, ignorant of the principles of hydrostatics, can perceive no relation between the ascent of water in a tube by suction, and the weight of external air. But let him acquire a knowledge of the principle, that a heavy fluid cannot rest until the pressure upon every point in the same horizontal plane is the same, and this connexion is at once established. Thus it was that philosophers endeavoured in vain, for some two thousand years, to account for the ascent of fluids by suction, until, hopeless of a solution, they pronounced it to be an anomaly—a freak of Nature-an unaccountable antipathy which she had taken to an empty space. They asserted, for instance, that when the air was removed from a tube, one end of which was immersed in water, Nature, abhorrent of a vacuum, thrust the water immediately into it, to fill up the vacant space; and that she did this, notwithstanding the opposite tendency of the water to descend by reason of its weight. It having, however, happened to some engineers at Florence to discover that water could not be raised in a pump, suck out the air as much as you would, above the height of thirty-two feet, this principle of the utter abhorrence of Nature for a vacuum was found to require some qualification; and its limits were accordingly fixed by Galileo*, at 32 feet. One Torricelli, a pupil of Galileo, doubting the explanation of his master, reasoned upon the question somewhat in this way. Since by the absolute removal of the air above it, a column of water can be supported at the height of thirty-two feet, and no higher, it would seem that the force, whatever it may be which supports it, should be precisely equal to the weight of such a column; and that, therefore, that force would not probably have supported so high a column, had the liquid been some other, heavier than water, so that the abhorrence of Nature would not in the case of a heavier liquid extend so high as thirty-two feet. He tried mercury; and he found that, however perfect the vacuum made above its surface, it would not stand at above twentyeight or thirty inches. This column of mercury, he then ascertained to be precisely of the same weight with a column of thirty-two feet of water, of the same diameter. Hence, therefore, it became apparent to him, that the cause, whatever it was, was subject to this law, that it should always develop a force equal to the weight of the liquid supported, whatever that liquid might be. This abhorrence of nature for a vacuum was therefore no freak, but like every other developement of her energies in unorganized matter, the subject of a fixed and invariable law. Reasoning further upon his experiment, and applying to it certain principles of hydrostatics, which had by that time become known, he at length perceived its connexion with the external pressure and weight of the atmosphere, arrived at its true explanation, and constructed the Barometer †, by which we are enabled to measure, at any time, the exact pressure of the atmosphere upon a given surface at the place where we make our observations; and which, whether we consider it in reference to the importance, and ex See Saturday Magazine, Vol. II., p. 59. + See Saturday Magazine, Vol. IV., pp. 12, 13; 63, 64. treme accuracy of its indications, or the remarkable simplicity of its construction, deserves to be ranked among the most perfect of our instruments. [Abridged from MOSELEY on Mechanics applied to the Arts.] MANY persons have been injured by the imposing name of PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy, when it is employed in promoting good morals, in cultivating liberal arts, in strengthening social union, in contemplating the works of creation, and thus leading man to acknowledge and adore the Supreme Being, is a noble science: it is noble, because the nature of man, and with the relations he bears to his true; and true, because consistent and corresponding with fellow-creatures, and to his Maker. But that which assumes the name of Philosophy, and under this mask injures morals, dissuades from mental improvement, disunites society, discerns not the wisdom of God, either in the earth or the heavens, and discourages men from paying the tribute of gratitude to their universal Father, such a because contrary to the nature of man, and his several relasystem of doctrines is detestable, because false,—and false, tions to society and God. Real Philosophy we should cherish and love; it is the friend of man, being the source of wisdom, the origin of many comforts, and the handmaid of religion. That which comes under its borrowed name, which puts on a semblance of what in fact it is not, and which if we are compelled to call Philosophy, we must, if we would against which we are to guard, that the credulous and speak properly, term false Philosophy; that is the evil innocent may not be betrayed by the deceits, the forgeries, and enchantments of this visored impostor.— BISHOP HUNTINGFORD. THERE is in the very taste and feeling of moral qualities, a pleasure or a pain; and the argument is greatly strengthened by the adaptation to that constitution of external nature, more especially as exemplified in the reciprocal influences which take place between mind and mind in society. The first, the original pleasure, is that which is felt by the virtuous man himself; as, for example, by the benevolent, in the very sense and feeling of that kindness whereby his heart is actuated. The second is felt by him who is the object of this kindness; for merely in the and distinct enjoyment. And then the manifested kindconscious possession of another's good-will, there is a great ness of the former awakens gratitude in the bosom of the latter; and this, too, is a highly-pleasurable emotion. And lastly, gratitude sends back a delicious incense to the benefactor who awakened it. By the purely mental interchange of these affections, there is generated a prodigious amount of happiness; and that, altogether independent of the gratifications which are yielded by the material gifts of liberality on the one hand, or by the material services of gratitude on the other. Insomuch, that we have only to imagine a reign of perfect virtue; and then, in spite of the physical ills which essentially and inevitably attach to our condition we should feel as if we had approximated very nearly to a state of perfect enjoyment among men; or, in other words, that the bliss of Paradise would be almost fully realized upon earth, were but the moral graces and charities of Paradise firmly established there, and in full operation. Let there be honest and universal good-will in every bosom, and this be responded to from all who are the objects of it, by an honest gratitude back again; let kindness, in all its various effects and manifestations, pass and repass from one heart and countenance to another, let fidelity and affection in all the domestic virtues take up their secure and lasting abode in every family; let the succour and sympathy of a willing neighbourhood be ever in readiness to meet and to overpass all the want and wretchedness to which humanity is liable; let truth, and honour, and inviolable friendship between man and man, banish all treachery and injustice from the world; in the walks of merchandise, let an unfailing integrity on the one side, have the homage done to it of unbounded confidence on the other, insomuch, that each man, reposing with conscious safety on the uprightness and attachment of his fellow, and withal rejoicing as much in the prosperity of an acquaintance, as he should in his own, there would come to be no place for the harassments and the heart-burnings of mutual suspicion, or resentment, or envy.-CHALMERS. there be a universal courteousness in our streets, and let THE PEARLY NAUTILUS, THE inhabitant of this singular shell had long been sought after with eagerness by naturalists, and it is only within these few years that its true nature has been ascertained. We are indebted for this know ledge to the researches of Mr. Bennet, who, while engaged in a voyage among the Polynesian Islands, captured a specimen containing a living animal, which was brought to England, and is now deposited in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The Nautilus, although an inhabitant of a shell, belongs to that order of molluscous (soft-bodied) invertebral animals, to which the name of Cephalopoda has been given, from two Greek words, meaning head and foot, because their organ of motion, or foot, is attached to the head. THE PEARLY NAUTILUS. Showing the Animal, and a Section of its Shell. We have already* described two species of this order, namely, the Cuttle-fish, and the Argonaut. The Nautilus, although in its general conformation agreeing sufficiently with these to be placed in the same order, still differs in many material points. In the case of the Cuttle-fish, the shell is completely hidden by the fleshy portions of the animal; and although the Argonaut possesses an external shell, it is simple in its formation, not being formed into chambers like that of the Nautilus. The use of these cells to the animal we are now describing is at present not well understood, but they are supposed to be employed by their inhabitant for the purpose of rising or sinking in the water at will. The body of this Cephalopode, it will be seen, only occupies the outer cell of its habitation, its increased size having rendered it too large to remain in that preceding it. If, as the animal deserted its smaller tenements, one after the other, they had been filled up with solid matter, the shell would have become too cumbersome for its owner; so that we here have another proof of the providing care of the Creator. We shall describe, in Mr. Bennet's own words, the capture of this interesting object. "It was on the twenty-fourth of August, 1829, (calm and fine weather, thermometer at noon 79°, in the evening, when the ship Sophia was lying at anchor in Marakini Bay, on the south-west side of the island of Erromanga, one of the New Hebrides group, Southern Pacific Ocean, that something was seen floating on the surface of the water, at some distance from the ship; to many it appeared like a small dead tortoise-shell cat, which would have been such an unusual object in this part of the world, that the boat which was alongside of the ship at the time, See Saturday Magazine, Vol. I., pp. 232 and 236. was sent for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the floating object. "On approaching near, it was observed to be the shell-fish commonly known by the name of the Pearly Nautilus; it was captured and brought on board, but the shell was shattered from having been struck with the boat-hook in taking it, as the animal was sinking when the boat approached, and had it not been so damaged, it would have escaped. I extracted the fish in a perfect state, which was firmly attached to each side of the cavity of the shell." The hood has been stated by Dr. Shaw, as being "of a pale, reddish-purple colour, with deeper spots and variegations," the colour, however, as it appeared in this recent specimen, was of a dark reddish brown. itself having been brought to this country, there is Although this is the only instance of the animal but little doubt of its having been frequently taken, but as the shell was the object of the captors and not its inhabitant, the latter has been thrown away as useless. An officer in his Majesty's Navy, found a Nautilus in a hole in a reef of rocks, near an island on the eastern coast of Africa; the mantle of the fish, BEAK OF THE NAUTILUS. like a thin membrane, covered the shell, which was drawn in as soon as it was touched, and the elegant shell was then displayed. "I and others," says the same informant, "when it was first seen, did not notice it, regarding the animal, as the membrane enveloped the shell, merely as a piece of blubber, but having touched it by accident, the membranous covering was drawn in, and we soon secured our beautiful prize." He Rumphius, a German naturalist, appears to have "When he been acquainted with its habits; he says, thus floats upon the water, he puts out his head, and all his barbs, and spreads them on the water, with the poop of the shell above water: but at the bottom he creeps in a reverse position, with his boat above him, and with his head and barbs upon the ground, making a tolerably quick progress. keeps himself chiefly on the ground, creeping sometimes also into the nets of the fishermen: but after a storm, as the weather becomes calm, they are seen in troops floating on the water, being driven up by the Whence one may infer that agitation of the waves. they congregate in troops at the bottom. sailing, however, is not of long continuance, for having taken in all their tentacles, they upset their boat, and so return to the bottom." This WOULDST thou know the lawfulness of the action which thou desirest to undertake, let thy devotion recommend it to Divine blessing: if it be lawful thou shalt perceive thy heart encouraged by thy prayer; if unlawful, thou shalt find thy prayer discouraged by thy heart. That action is not warrantable which either blushes to beg a blessing, or having succeeded, dares not present a thanksgiving.QUARLES. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE HIGHWAYMAN THE following singular anecdote is preserved in the family of the late justly-celebrated Dr. Sharp, archbishop of York, and grandfather of that highly-benevolent, useful, learned, and eminent man, the late Granville Sharp, Esq. It was his lordship's custom to have a saddle-horse attend his carriage, that, in case of fatigue from sitting, he might take the refreshment of a ride. As he was thus going to his episcopal residence, and was got a mile or two before his carriage, a decent well-looking young man came up with him; and, with a trembling hand and a faltering tongue, presented a pistol to his lordship's breast, and demanded his money. The archbishop, with great composure, turned about, and looking stedfastly at him, desired he would remove that dangerous weapon, and tell him fairly his condition. "Sir! Sir!" with great agitation cried the youth, "no words, 'tis not a time, your money instantly. Hear me, young man," said the archbishop, you see I am an old man, and my life is of very little consequence; yours seems far otherwise. I am named Sharp, and am archbishop of York; my carriage and servants are behind. Tell me what money you want, and who you are, and I will not injure you, but prove a friend. Here, take this, and now ingenuously tell me how much you want to make you independent of so destructive a business as you are now engaged in." "Oh sir," replied the man, "I detest the business as much as you. I am-but-but -at home there are creditors who will not stay; fifty pounds, my lord, indeed, would do what no tongue besides my own can tell." 'Well, sir, I take it on your word; and, upon my honour, if you will, in a day or two, call on me at what I have now given you shall be made up that sum.' The highwayman looked at him, was silent, and went off; and, at the time appointed, actually waited on the archbishop, and assured his lordship his words had left impressions which nothing could ever destroy." Nothing further transpired for a year and a half or more, when one morning a person knocked at his grace's gate, and with a peculiar earnestness desired to see him. The archbishop ordered the stranger to be brought in. He entered the room where his lordship was, but had scarce advanced a few steps before his countenance changed, his knees tottered, and he sank almost breathless on the floor. On recovering, he requested an audience in private. The apartment being cleared, "My lord," said he, "you cannot have forgotten the circumstance at such a time and place; gratitude will never suffer them to be obliterated from my mind. In me, my lord, you now behold that once most wretched of mankind; but now, by your inexpressible humanity, rendered equal, perhaps superior, in happiness to millions. Oh, my lord," tears for a while preventing his utterance," 'tis you, 'tis you that have saved me, body and soul; 'tis you that have saved a dear and much-loved wife, and a little brood of children, whom I tendered dearer than my life. Here are the fifty pounds, but never shall I find language to testify what I feel. Your God is your witness; your deed itself is your glory; and may heaven and all its blessings be your present and everlasting reward! I was the younger son of a wealthy man; your lordship knows him; his name was My marriage alienated his affection, and my brother withdrew his love, and left me to sorrow and penury. A month since, my brother died a bachelor and intestate. What was his is become mine, and by your astonishing goodness, I am now at once the most penitent, the most grateful, and the happiest of my species." O. N. LET not the quietness of any man's temper, much less the confidence he has in thy honesty and goodness, tempt thee to contrive any mischief against him; for the more securely he relies on thy virtue, and the less mistrust he has of any harm from thee, the greater wickedness will it be to entertain even the thought of doing him an injury.--BISHOP PATRICK. THERE are some vices which carry a sword in their hands, and cut a man off before his time.-JEREMY TAYLOR. Ir is a great consolation to the true Christian under the assaults and indignities of his enemies, that he has thus an opportunity given him of bestowing that forgiveness on his fellow-creatures, which is the pledge and condition of his own pardon from his Creator. PERSEVERING INDUSTRY. A BRICKLAYER in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, named Joseph Austin, had often looked with a longing eye upon a bit of waste ground by the road-side. He used to think what a nice place it would be for a house; and as soon as he fell asleep at night, he dreamt that he was at work there, with his bricks and trowel. At length he applied to the manor court, and obtained permission to build on the spot, upon paying a quit-rent to the lord of the manor, of six-pence a year. Austin was at this time forty-two years of age; he had a wife and four children, and his whole stock of worldly riches amounted to fourteen shillings: but men who really deserve friends are seldom long without them; and a master for whom he usually worked at harvest, sold him an old cottage for nine guineas, which he was to work out. Austin had for some time, in his leisure hours, been preparing bats, a sort of bricks, made of clay and straw well beaten together, and not burnt, but dried in the sun. He went to work with these bats and the materials of the old cottage. As he had to support himself and his family by his daily labour, this building could only be carried on when his regular day's work was done: he often continued it by moonlight, and heard the clock strike twelve, before he desisted from an occupation in which his heart was engaged; this too, when he had to rise at four the next morning, to walk to Cambridge, nearly four miles distant, to his work, and return in the evening. If his constitution had not been unusually strong, he must have sunk under these extraordinary exertions. In fact, his frame of body appears to have been as invincible as his spirit. When the building was one story high, and the beams were to be laid on, the carpenter discovered that the timber from the old cottage would not serve for so large a place. This was a severe disappointment: but not discouraged by it, he immediately covered the walls with a few loads of haulm, to protect them from the weather, and began to build a smaller place, in the same manner, at the end; working at it with such perseverance, that he could get his family into it within four months after the foundations were laid. This great object being accomplished he went on leisurely with the rest, as he could save money for what was wanting: after five years, he raised the second story, and in ten, the house was tiled and coated. In this manner did Joseph Austin, with singular industry and economy, build himself a house, which he began with only fourteen shillings in his pocket. During that time, he buried four children, and had a wife and four more to maintain. The money that it cost him was about fifty pounds, the whole of which was saved from the earnings of daily labour. EXTRACT FROM AN EPISCOPAL ADDRESS OF BISHOP DOANE, OF NEW JERSEY, AMERICA. institutions, too little reference to Him who is the only I VENTURE to say that there is, in our political and civil source and security of whatever is good in them. I enter apologies for it. The fault exists, and is to be regretted. into no discussion of the causes of this deficiency, or of the What is still more to the purpose, it is, so far as may be to be obviated. "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the reproach," and will be the destruction "of any people." Already it begins to be felt that, from the want of a pervading religious principle, the institutions which have cost so much, and promised so well, fail of their expected result; and wise and good men of all parties, and of every name, unite in the conviction, that, unless, as a nation, we seek the blessing of the Holiest, the best hopes of humanity must suffer disappointment. There is but one escape from this result; in national repentance, national humiliation, national submission to Christ. As individuals we ourselves must do our part, by turning truly to the Lord. A public Christian recognition of our dependence on Him as a nation, and of our duty, as a nation, towards Him, will have its weight with others; and may prevail, if we pour out our hearts before Him, in winning, through the intercession of the divine Saviour, that blessing, without which all we do is vain. IT is among the wicked maxims of bold and disloyal undertakers, that bad actions must always be seconded with worse, and rather not be begun than not carried on, for they think the retreat more dangerous than the assault, and hate repentance more than perseverance in a fault.-Icon Basilike. DRUIDICAL TEMPLE, NEAR KESWICK, IN CUMBERLAND. Time-honour'd pile! by simple builders rear a, 66 THE Druidical Circle represented in the accompanying plate, is to be found on the summit of a bold and commanding eminence called Castle-Rigg, about a mile and a half on the old road, leading from Keswick, over the hills to Penrith,-a situation so wild, vast, and beautiful, that one cannot, perhaps, find better terms to convey an idea of it than by adopting the language of a celebrated female writer, (Mrs. Radcliffe,) who travelling over the same ground years ago, thus described the scene. "Whether our judgment," she says, was influenced by the authority of a druid's choice, or that the place itself commanded the opinion, we thought this situation the most severely grand of any hitherto passed. There is, perhaps, not a single object in the scene that interrupts the solemn tone of feeling impressed by its general character of profound solitude, greatness, and awful wildness. Castle-Rigg is the centre point of three valleys that dart immediately under it from the eye, and whose mountains form part of an amphitheatre, which is completed by those of Borrowdale on the west, and by the precipices of Skiddaw and Saddleback, close on the north. The hue which pervades all these mountains is that of dark heath or rock, they are thrown into every form and direction that fancy would suggest, and are at that distance which allows all their grandeur to prevail. Such seclusion and sublimity were indeed well suited to the dark and wild mysteries of the druids." These temples of the druids, though all in a circular form, (supposed to have been emblematic of the Deity,) present three varieties, which Dr. Stukeley classed as follows. The round temples, simply, he called temples, and such he considered to be the one at Rollrich, in Oxfordshire, and which also resembles this. Those with the form of a snake annexed, as that of Abury, in Wiltshire, he called serpentine temples, or Dracontia, by which they were denominated of old; and those with the form of wings annexed (as he supposed Stone-Henge to have been); those he called Alte, or winged temples. The one here represented is of the first, or simple class, and consists, at present, of about forty stones of different sizes, all, or most of them, of dark granite, the highest about seven feet, several about four, and others considerably less; the few fir-trees in the centre are, of course, of very modern growth. The form may, with more propriety, be called an oval, being thirty-five yards in one direction, and thirty-three yards in another, in which respect, it assimilates exactly to that of Rollrich; but what distinguishes this from all other druidical remains of a similar nature, is the rectangular enclosure on the eastward side of the circle, including a space of about eight feet by four. The object of this is a matter of conjecture;-by some it is supposed to have been a sort of Holy of Holies where the Druids met, separated from the vulgar, to perform their rites, their divinations, or sit in council to determine controversies; others consider it to have been for the purposes of burial, probably it might have been intended for both. That the Druids also performed their worship in the seclusion of groves is a fact generally stated in history. The Isle of Anglesey, formerly covered with wood, was a celebrated sanctuary for them; and it is more than probable that these circular stone temples, in the midst of elevated moors or plains, were places at which the people from the surrounding districts were at stated times assembled either for the purposes of justice, or for determining upon affairs affecting the welfare of the community, and which meetings were also accompanied with the performance of religious ceremonies. That the earliest temples and altars were formed of stones, rough and unhewn, is we believe admitted by all writers. Numerous passages may be quoted from the Old Testament in allusion to it, but one amongst the rest may be noticed more particularly; viz., Exodus xxiv. 4: "And Moses rose early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel." It appears also that, in patriarchal times, they planted groves as temples for worship, and in hot countries this was done, as well for convenience in summer season as also for magnificence. Abraham we read "dwelt long at Beersheba, where he planted a grove, and called upon the name of the Lord," and in these groves were also erected temples of stone. The patriarchal mode of worship passed over all the western world, and is supposed to have been introduced into this country by the neighbouring Celtæ or Gauls, or by the Phoenicians, who traded hither for tin. However this may be, when the Romans invaded Britain, they found the Druids presiding over and conducting the worship of the country; acting also as judges and arbiters in all differences and disputes, both public and private. It is from Cæsar, and other Roman writers, that most of the information we have respecting them is de-. rived, for they had no written rules or regulations either as to their religion, their science, or their laws. The accounts therefore furnished by these historians of the religion and customs of the Druids, written principally from mere report, and under an hostile impression towards them, are not altogether to be relied upon; indeed, the barbarities ascribed to them, in the ceremonial of their religion, are so much at variance with their high and acknowledged character in learning and general science, that one cannot but imagine them to be highly exaggerated, if not altogether fabulous. The best authorities on the subject of the Druids seem to agree in the following description of them. They were the first and most distinguished order amongst both the Gauls and Britons; they were chosen from the best families, and the honours of their birth, joined with those of their function, procured them the highest veneration amongst the people. They were versed in astrology, geometry, natural philosophy, politics, and geography; they were the interpreters of religion, and the judges of all affairs indifferently; they were the instructors of the youth, and taught by memory, as they never allowed their instructions to be written. Their garments were remarkably long, and when employed in religious ceremonies they always wore a white surplice. They generally carried a wand in their hand, and wore a kind of ornament enchased in gold, about their necks, called the Druid's egg; they are also represented with a hatchet in their girdle, used for the cutting of the mistleto. They believed in the immortality of the soul, and worshipped one Supreme Being. They attached a degree of sanctity to the oak, and wore chaplets of it in their religious ceremonies. They were deeply versed in astronomy, and computed their time by nights and not by days, and all their great solemnities, both sacred and civil, were regulated by the |