many stepping-stones to those behind, who, in their turn, hauled up the clusters over whose backs they had so unceremoniously vaulted." "How awful!" cried Mrs Seymour; "I never heard of any modern catastrophe of such fearful extent; where did it occur?"

"The vicar doubtless alludes to the terrible earthquake of Messina, or perhaps to that of Lisbon."

"I neither allude to the one nor to the other," cried Mr Twaddleton ; "and yet, in some respects, the catastrophe which I have described resembled that of Lisbon; for during the dreadful disaster human beings were seen to take advantage of the confusion to murder many of the inhabitants, and to pillage their territories, and what is still more horrible, to devour their remains with a relish worthy of a Cyclops." (20.)

"For goodness' sake!" cried Mrs Seymour, "tell us at once where this terrible event occurred."

"In a fine Cheshire cheese!" exclaimed the vicar, "which had furnished abundant food to the miniature republic of mites that occupied its deep ravines and alpine heights. I think now," continued the reverend gentleman, "I am amply revenged for the allegorical jokes in which Mr Seymour has so often indulged at my expense."

"I am well satisfied," said Mr Seymour; "for by repeating your allegory to my children, I shall be enabled to convey a striking lesson of wisdom. They will learn from it that there is not any pursuit, however exalted, that may not be assailed by the weapons of ridicule, especially when wielded by those penurious philosophers whose ideas of utility are circumscribed within the narrow limits of direct and immediate profit."

"It is too true," cried Mrs Seymour, "that we are all apt to depreciate those branches of knowledge which do not bear directly upon the comforts or necessities of life; and the applications of geology are, perhaps, so remote as scarcely to be discovered by the mass of mankind."

"There I must differ with you," replied her husband: "to say nothing of the practical advantages which have accrued to the miner, the engineer, and the architect, from this study, it has been the means of bringing hundreds of acres into cultivation in districts where never a blade of grass had before grown (21); while to the philosopher, engaged in inquiries relative to former conditions of our globe, fossils are like medals to the antiquary, recording on blocks of marble, in hieroglyphics as intelligible as those which Major Rawlinson has deciphered on the slabs of Nineveh, the history of a former world and of that gigantic community with which it pleased the Almighty to people it before the creation of man."

If the truth may be told, the vicar's geological hostility arose from that science having shaken the faith of the antiquary in the Druidical

origin of rock basins and other supposed remains of that mysterious priesthood. Mr and Mrs Seymour and the vicar had by this time arrived at the Wernerian Temple, where, having discussed several points connected with its objects, Mr Twaddleton gave an account of Major Snapwell, whose history created considerable interest, and determined Mr Seymour to call at Ivy Cottage, and invite its inmate to the Lodge.

"Toм, do you remember that I told you a few days ago," said Mr Seymour, "that, by giving a revolving body a peculiar spinning motion, certain effects were produced, which I should on some future occasion take into consideration ?"

"To be sure I do," replied Tom.

"Well, then, attend to me."

Mr Seymour took a marble, and, placing it on the ground, gave it an impulse forward by pressing his fore-finger upon it; the marble darted forward a few paces, after which it rolled back again.

"That is most extraordinary!" cried Tom: "the marble came back to your hand, as it were, of its own accord, and without having met with any obstacle."

"And you, no doubt," said Mr Seymour, "regard it as contrary to the well-known law, that a body once put in motion, in any direction, will continue to move in that direction until some foreign cause oppose it." "It really would appear so."

"It is, however, far otherwise; the force which I imparted to the marble communicated to it two kinds of motion; the one projecting it forward, the other producing a rotatory motion round its axis, in a direction opposite to that of its rectilinear course; and the consequence was simply this, that when the former motion, on account of the friction of the marble on the ground, was destroyed, the rotatory motion continued, and, by thus establishing an action in an opposite direction, caused the marble to retrograde.* If, however, you will fetch your hoop, I will demonstrate the fact on a larger scale."

Tom accordingly produced the hoop; and Mr Seymour projected it forward, giving to it, at the same instant, a spinning motion in an *This movement is well-known to billiard-players.

opposite direction. The hoop proceeded forward to a certain distance, when it stopped, and then ran back to the hand.

"Let me beg you," said Mr Seymour, "to treasure this fact in your memory; you perceive by it how greatly the progressive direction of a body may be influenced by a rotatory motion around its axis; and, indeed, the theory of the rifle gun (22) is easily deduced from it. It will also explain the effect which a rotatory motion produces in steadying or disturbing the direction of a projectile. It is for such a reason that the balancer constantly whirls round his balls or oranges, as he throws them into the air, with the intention of catching them again; and that in playing at Bilboquet, or cup and ball, you find it necessary to give a spinning motion to the ball in order to catch it on the spike-but we will consider that subject presently. I shall also present you with a new missile which has lately found its way into the toyshops, termed tho BOOMERANG. It is used by the natives of Australia, and has the curious property when skilfully directed, after striking the desired object, to return to the thrower (23). I am now desirous of laying down a few propositions upon the subject of rotation, the knowledge of which is essential for the explanation of the motions of revolving bodies."

Mr Seymour proceeded to state that every body had three principal axes upon which it might revolve, but that the shortest was the only one upon which it could permanently and steadily rotate; that should it, in consequence of the impulse given to it, begin to spin upon any other than the shortest axis, it would, during its revolutions, be constantly showing a tendency to approach it; whence it followed that, under such circumstances, it would be unsteady and wabbling in its motions.

In order, however, to make this proposition intelligible to the children, Mr Seymour performed the following simple experiment.

2

Having tied some string to a common curtain ring,* as represented

*This experiment will be more readily performed by substituting one of those elastic bands, used for tying up letters.

by figure 1, he twisted it round by means of his thumb and finger, until it acquired considerable velocity, when the ring was seen to rise gradually into the position represented by figure 2. Thus, in the simplest manner, was a revolving body shown to exchange its longer for its shorter axis.

The children declared that they perfectly comprehended the subject; and Tom observed that, in future, whenever he wished to make a ball spin steadily, he should take care to make it turn on its shorter axis. (24.)

"You are quite right, Tom," said Mr Seymour; "and the skilful bowler at cricket, in order to give his ball a steady axis of rotation, always holds it with the seam across so that the tips of his fingers may touch, and he takes care to hold it only with such a grasp as may be sufficient to steady it, for by a turn even of the wrist it may be made to proceed unsteadily; and this leads me to consider another equally important proposition, viz., that the axis of rotation should coincide with the direction in which it is moving forward, or, in other words, with its line of motion. Now, where this is not the case, it is evident that the unequal action of the air will cause the body to deviate from its straight course, since its two sides, having different velocities (the rotatory and progressive motions conspiring on one side, while they are in opposition on the other), will be differently affected by such resistance; the resistance, of course, increasing with the velocity. It is upon this principle," continued Mr Seymour, "that Sir Isaac Newton has explained the irregular motion of the tennis-ball.”

"But do explain to us, papa," said Louisa, “why it is so necessary to spin the ball in order to catch it on the spike."

66 Rotatory motion, my dear, when directed according to the principles I have endeavoured to enforce, will always steady the course of a body. In playing at bilboquet, your object is so to throw up the ball that its hole may descend perpendicularly upon the spike which is held for its reception; and in order to accomplish this, you make the ball spin upon an axis, at the extremity of which is the hole; the consequence is obvious."

Louisa observed, that she well remembered an allusion to this game in Miss Edgeworth's Essays on Education; and that, unless she was much deceived, the advantage to be gained by spinning the ball was referred to centrifugal force, and its effect in preserving the "parallelism of motion."

"I do not recollect the passage," answered her father; "but I will admit that the centrifugal force is indirectly instrumental to the effect, although, in my view of the subject, it is more philosophical to refer it at once to the creation of an appropriate axis of rotation, and to the permanence of that axis maintained by rapid motion.”*

* A beautiful application of the Gyroscope to the purposes of astronomy has lately been made, enabling observations

of the stars to be carried on in a ship tossed to and fro by the waves.-ED.