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Original Correspondence.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON MAGAZINE.

BI, I beg to suggest the following lines as an appropriate motto to your Magazine.

Your obedient servant,

A WELL-WISHER.

"Si quid novosti rectius istis
"Candidus imperti: Si non, bis utere mecum."

Horatii Epist: Lib. 1-6.

If you know any thing better than these, frankly communicate your know. ledge; but if not-use these with me.

[Our well-wisher is thanked. We shall avail ourself of his suggestion.-ED. C.) M.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON MAGAZINE.

MR. EDITOR, Ever since I read the Propectus and Plan of your Ceylon Magazine, I have consented to be a Subscriber to it, for I said this monthly paper will be a very good thing if the gentlemen who write it do what they say they will, at any rate it will not be a very bad thing like many weekly papers that are written in different places. Sir, I have conti nued to Subscribe and I have also never refused to pay for it ever since it was printed, and so I think, Sir, I have a right to tell you what I and some other Singhalese think of your Ceylon Magazine. I think there are some good things in it, and I think there are some things in it too that are not so good, but I do not mean to offend you or the learned gentlemen that write them. I only wish you, Mr. Editor, to know what you carnot know unless you are told,-I mean the opinion of the native Subscribers and read. ers of your Ceylon Magazine. We think your paper is filled too much with Europe country writing, I mean with Essays, Stories and Poetry. The Essays and Stories we hear from those who understand properly, are good, and some of the Poetry too, although some of it is not so good. Now I dare say Eu. rope gentlemen like all that, and so they ought if it is good, and they do not ask anything else, although I hear some of them say there is too much writing of one sort in your Magazine. But, Mr. Editor, Sir, should not a Ceylon Magazine have also something about CEYLON in it? I know there were some "Poetical Sketches" of this island, but I never understood them. There have been one or two good papers about things of our island and a great deal about the Tamils, which is also good, so much, but we ask for something more,-some writings about ourselves, about what we are and also too about what we ought to be and what we might be, and how we are to be that

This is what we desire and are anxious to have, and will you not give it to us? I think you or some of the other writers will do it now you know I have written all this for you to read and I have said all I can think about just now. Mr. Editor, you must feel kindly what I have said to you in this paper and not take offence with

A NATIVE SUBSCRIBER

[We have not taken offence at our Subscriber's letter. We have stood up. kindlier criticism then his. The Projectors of the Ceylon Magazine never expected to please all, and we imagine there are very few Periodicals, if any, which do not 66 contain some things that are not SO good.' Still the paucity of articles in our Maga: touching Ceylon, is not to be denied. The Ceylon Magazine is open to all. It has never been shut against a worthy article save once, which, we regret was partly our own fault, partly the authors. If those who can write about Ceylon would write, there would be no lack of interesting papers, and we must confess that we are disappointed at finding so few laborers in the field. What are the Singhalese scholars and professors at Cotta doing? Where are the literary of the Ceylonese? Let them come forward and put their shoulders to our wheels.-ED. C. M.]

ON THE COOLING INFLUENCE OF A CLEAR NIGHT,

BY THE REV. J. G. MACVICAR, M. A.

SIR,-It occurs to me that it might give additional value to your periodical if there appeared in its pages now and then, a paper on some branch of popular Science. There are few subjects that find more readers at home. But at the same time the papers adapted whether for Europe or North America, would not often do for republication here. In fact, even in those scientific researches which are intended to be most general, there is often much that is local. And in the papers and treatises of the North-west there is generally much matter which though given out as if universally true, is yet quite unsuitable to us who reside in a latitude and climate so different from that of the regious referred to. In treatises on general science, the subject plainly ought to be divested of all that is merely local or incidental, and the doctrines which are given out as principles ought to be universally true, wherever matter acting according to the laws of motion is found. But this rule is observed only by the Mechanician-The experimental philosopher violates it in almost every experiment; and the consequence is, that our systems of physics and of chemistry are not general or cosmical systems but more frequently merely classified statements of local phenomena. For instance, it is laid down in every scientific

work as a leading fact in the properties of water that it boils at 212° of Fab. And every one in forming a scientific notion of the nature of water, is thus betrayed into the belief that this is one of its characteristics, that it boils at 212. In point of fact, however, this is no characteristic of water at all-It is just as much in the nature of water to boil at 112 or 312 as at 212° Its boiling point depends entirely on the amount of pressure upon its surface, But because human creatures, who are curious about such matters, usually live in large towns which are generally located where food is found, that is, in plains Dear the level of the sea, and because at this particular distance from the top of the superincumbent atmosphere, water happens to boil at 212 it is given out as something quite characteristic of water that it boils at 212°. At the top of Adam's Peak however, it will boil before it reaches 200°, and while it is so cold, that however briskly it may bubble, it would be incapable of cooking many ordinary articles of food or even of making good Coffee. And in a vacuum or wherever the pressure of the incumbent atmosphere has been remored, it will boil with the beat of the hand. Now this is only one of numberless instances of the same kind which infect almost all our scientific treatises (except those which are purely mathematical.) They mix up wha, is merely local, particular and accidental, with what is catholic and cosmical and consequently give a very confused account of substances. Science, instead of being nearly perfect as the uninitiated are tempted to believe from the eulogistic language generally made use of when speaking of it, is still only in its infancy. There is no reason to doubt, or rather let us say there is every reason to hope, that some future generation will look with as much contempt on our chemistry as we do on the chemistry of the ancients.

Certain steps have been made however which can never be overthrown or need to be retraced-Men of genius occasionally arise who have been gifted with the power of seeing things as they are, at least down to a certain depth -And by them step after step has been made until now that we may safely say that we know a few things in natural philosophy.

Such a man was Dr. Wells, and such is the characteristic of the discoveries which he has left behind him in his Essay on Dew-The principles which he there advances to account for the coldness of clear nights and the phenomena of dew and hoar frost, are applicable not to Europe only, or to Europe and America together, but hold good universally wherever there are land and water, air and clouds or clear sky.

In this climate there are many fine illustrations of his Theory which are all the more interesting in consequence of the monotony, generally speaking, of its meteorology-Nor are they altogether uninteresting in an economica point of view-Few persons, for instance, suspect that the surface of the soil and the plants growing on it in the neighbourhood of Colombo, are exposed to a range of temperature of upwards of 100 degrees, namely, from 160 to 52; yet such is the fact. At present a Thermometer laid on the surface of the ground

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in the Cinnamon garden will rise under the influence of the sun shine to 160μ and indeed much higher, provided it be small and well insulated from the breeze and colder bodies around. While on the 2d January, during the night, it fell in a similar situation to 52 and on the preceding night still lower. No wonder then it is so difficult to raise most crops from seed in the open field in this country. It will readily be granted that few plants could be expected to survive such a range of temperature-In Europe, indeed, there are. ranges as great, but with this difference, that the heat occurs only at one season when the agriculturist has prepared for it by having all his fields clad by crops, while the extreme cold occurs after a long interval when he is equally prepared for it. In this climate again, both extremes may occur within twenty. four hours.

With regard to the statement which has just been made as to the high temperature of the soil, the reader will not be surprised at it-The wonder rather is that it should not be greater, since the same temperature has been frequendy observed far from the line both North and Scuth, as for instance at the Cape of Good Hope on the one hand, and in Scotland on the other, where the sun shines not otherwise than obliquely at every season, while here be passes right through the Zenith twice a-year shiping perpendicularly down, and consequently with all the force of which he is capable. But I believe there are not many of the inhabitants of this quarter who are aware that the temperature of the surface of the ground ever falls so low as 52°. Nor is this to be wondered at since the Thermometer suspended at a height convenient for observation is seldom seen below 70. It often happens, however, that the surface of the ground is many degrees colder than that of the air even a few inches above it. And this is the primary fact on which the great depression of the ground-thermometer and all the phenomena of dew are to be explained-on which, indeed, they have been already beautifully explained by Dr. Wells in his theory of dew already referred to.

In order to the cooling of the ground, or of the vegetation upon it, many de grees below that of the incumbeut air, it is only necessary that the night be clear and the ground or herbage be freely exposed to the sky. After such a night it is always found that a great degree of cold has existed; and the phenomenon is to be thus explained.

All bodies whatever are constantly giving off heat. There is consequently an universal interchange of heat between all bodies-Every body is constantly giving and taking heat; and in order that the temperature of any body be sustained, it is essential that it take as much as it gives. Now suppose one plot of ground with the foliage of forest trees over it, and another wholly exposed to the open sky, the former, according to the view that has been advanced, will not be cooled so much as the latter, because though the heat (supposing both equally warm in the evening) will be given off in equal quantities, yet the

beat of the shaded field in radiating upwards will strike the foliage above it, which being thus warmed, will return the heat it receives, back to the ground again. The field exposed to the open sky, on the other hand, while it gives off as much as the other, receives no return, for the sky is very cold compared even with the coldest regions of the earth's surface. The same result will happen if instead of foliage over head there be clouds. In that case just as in the case of the forest, the heat given off from the ground during the night warms the clouds, and they, being thus warmed, return the heat to the earth again, and so on till morning, when of course no indications are to be observed of that degree of coldness on the surface of the earth which usually follows & clear night.

In temperate climates, and especially in Great Britain where agriculture has been so much attended to, great use is made of this principle for the protection of seedlings and delicate blossoms. And in this climate it might be immediately turned to account in cooling water, especially during this monsoon, when the sky is often very clear, and the cold produced by evaporation might be combined with that to be obtained by free exposure in a flat dish to the open sky. Mean time, however, I proposed to myself no more than to state the principle-which some in this neighbourhood may indeed consider in no other light than an argument in self-defence, since when I mentioned that the Thermometer laid on the ground in the Cinnamon garden fell during the night of the 24 January to 52°, every one to whom I made the statement looked at me as if there were some mistake. The subject may easily be prosecuted in future papers however should it prove interesting,

BRITAIN'S FLAG.

"The flag that's braved a thousand years

"The battle and the breeze."

Go forth a pilgrim, wander o'er

The earth's e'er changing face:

From North to Southern Pole explore
Each Kingdom, clime and race.
And there, O! man, when thou hast been,
Say, cati aught nation brag,
Or ocean boast it ne'er hast seen
Unfurled, Britannia's Flag.

Go, pilgrim go, and let thy way
Be o'er the trackless deep,
Midst barren rocks, far, far away
Where storms their empire keep.

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