The Sun enters the sign Aquarius at 11 m. past 2 in the morning on the 21st day of January. If the reader happens to look into the Nautical Almanack, or any other work of the same kind, he will see that it states that this event will happen on the 20th day, at 11 m. past 14, which requires the following explanation :

The natural day is either civil or astronomical; the civil day, in this and many other European countries, begins at midnight; but the astronomical day commences at any place when the Sun's centre is on the meridian of that place, and its hours are not reckoned in two twelves, but from 1 to 24. As the civil day begins at 12 at night, and the astronomical day at 12 the following noon, it is evident the latter is behind the former 12 hours; so that what I call 10 o'clock this morning, October 6th, is called, by astronomers, the 22d hour of October 5th; and 3 o'clock, civil time, to-morrow morning the 7th, will be, by astronomers, reckoned the 15th hour of the 6th day of October. Hence, 11 m. past 14 of the 20th of January will be 11 m. past 2 in the morning of the 21st.

Of the Time of the

TABLE

Sun's Rising and Setting every fifth Day.

The Moon will enter its first quarter at about 45 m. past 6 in the evening of the 7th; it will be full at 15 m. past 1 in the morning of the 15th; it enters its last quarter at 15 m. past 4 in the afternoon of the 21st. It is at change, or what is called New Moon, at 50 m. past 8 in the morning of the 28th.

On the 12th day, at 44 m. past 6 in the morning, the Moon will eclipse the star marked 1 in the con

stellation Taurus, when the star is 14' south of the Moon's centre. On the 15th, at 17 m. past 7 in the evening, the Moon will eclipse in the constellation Cancer, at the time that the star is 13′ south of the centre of the Moon.

Mercury will be in his superior conjunction at 9 in the evening on the 11th day of this month, that is, the Sun will be between that planet and the Earth. For the conjunctions of a planet seen from the earth, or supposed to be seen from the earth, are either superior or inferior; thus, when a planet is seen on the same circle of latitude with the Sun, but beyond that luminary, the conjunction is superior; when the planet is seen between the Earth and Sun, the conjunction is inferior.

On the 30th, at I in the morning, the planet Jupiter is in quadrature with respect to the Earth and Sun; that is, he is at the distance of 3 signs from each. TABLE

Of the Eclipses of Jupiter's first Satellite, which may be seen in the Month of January.

On the 18th, the immersion and emersion of the second satellite will be visible with a proper glass; the former takes place at 45 m. past 2 in the morning, and the latter at 11 m. after 5; and, on the 25th, the immersion of this same satellite into the shadow may be seen at 18 m. past 5 in the morning.

The Naturalist's Diary.

An icy gale oft shifting o'er the pool

Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream.

EVERY season has pleasures and beauties peculiar to itself: and even the winter, however cheerless it may

appear to some persons, fulfils also, in this respect, the benevolent designs of the great Creator. What can be a more agreeable spectacle than to see a light hoary frost whitening the tops of the trees, and all nature, as it were, clothed in a dazzling mantle of snow? Were there no winter, neither the spring, nor summer, nor autumn, would display such a variety of beauties; for the earth itself would lose those rich stores of nourishment and fertility, to which even the winter so copiously contributes.

No more our park-like fields display
The beauties of their summer day;
No more the trees their foliage fling,
Redundant o'er the crystal spring;
No more, in rich Mosaic spread,
The spotted cowslip waves its head
O'er violets sweet of deepest blue,
And strawberry-cups half filled with dew;
Nor where the broom hangs o'er the rill,
Up springs the golden daffodil.

How different now the cherished scene!
Now the pale snow so pure, so sheen,
Cold winding sheet of nature, throws
Below, around, its sad repose;

Swollen, dark and stained, and half congealed,

A sullen sound the waters yield;

The stately elms damp, mussy, brown,

Rude skeletons of beauty, frown;

And clouds, by no bright sunbeam broke,
Seem one dull canopy of smoke.

If aught remain of loveliness,

Of summer's charm in winter's dress,
'Tis in those lightsome shrubberies seen,
Where the young fir's undying green
Peeps out the cumbering snow between;
'Tis in those laurels bright and bare,
Shaking their stainless load in air;
'Tis in those shining hollies found,
With coral berries studded round;
And those proud oaks, upon whose breast
The saffron leaves still love to rest.
And there is something too of brightness
In that smooth plain's unsullied whiteness,
That tires the eye, yet soothes the soul
With its unstained unbroken whole.

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Of the uses of snow something has been said in our two former volumes; we shall now speak more at large on this interesting subject. All those who inhabit. parts of the earth exposed to snow, agree in considering it as one of the means employed by nature to give plants more strength, and make them expand with more vigour. Several are even persuaded that winters, producing no snow, presage a bad harvest, and a feeble state of vegetation; and they ascribe its influence to the salts, which they say exist in congealed water.. That, after a very severe and cold winter, plants should be stronger and more active in proportion as they may have been covered with snow, is proved by the experience of every one engaged in agriculture. The cause is simple and natural. All plants are capable of supporting cold in a greater or less degree. There are some which cannot be exposed to the temperature of melting ice without perishing, while there are others in which the most intense cold makes no alteration. Each plant has certain limits as to its resistance of cold, a certain temperature beyond which it cannot go, without the danger of being frozen and destroyed. The earth, as is now well known, has heat accumulated in its interior parts: this heat is perceived in all subterraneous places of sufficient depth to prevent the external heat or cold from entering. Snow is a bad conductor of heat, cold penetrates it with difficulty; and its temperature, when it melts, is zero. When the earth is covered to a considerable depth with snow, the cold of the atmosphere, in contact with it, tends to cool its mass; the internal heat of the earth tends to warm it. Throughout the mass of snow there is a strong contest between the heat and cold; a portion of the snow is melted and carried to zero, the medium temperature, wherein the plants are situated.

The snow has the properties of keeping the plants it covers at the temperature of melting ice; of preserving them from the influence of a greater cold; of supplying them with continual moisture; of prevent

ing a great number perishing, and still more from languishing; and, consequently, of imparting more strength and vigour to vegetation. It appears, then, that we may explain a part of the influence snow has upon vegetation, without having recourse to the salts. or nitre which it is said to contain, but which analysis. and experiments have proved do not exist. It has also been demonstrated by experiment, that snow is oxygenated water; that, in the germination of seeds in particular, the presence and contact of oxygen are ab-· solutely necessary for the plant to expand; and that, in proportion to the abundance of oxygen, the more rapidly the seeds will grow.

Most plants, permitted to attain their perfect maturity, shed on the earth a part of their seeds, which, thus abandoned and exposed to the action of cold, are covered and preserved by the snow. At the same time they find, in the water the snow produces by melting, a portion of oxygen, which has a powerful effect on the principle of germination, and determines the seeds, which would have otherwise perished, to grow, to expand, and to augment the number of plants that cover the surface of the earth.

6 A very considerable number of the plants we have the art of appropriating for our nourishment and wants, are sown from the end of September to the end of December. Several of them germinate before the cold commences its influence upon them, and changes the principle of their life. The snow which covers the rest, acting on their germs by its oxygenation, compels them to reward the trouble of the farmer and gardener, and multiply the quantity of useful productions.

The influence of snow on vegetation cannot be better summed up, than by saying that, in the first place, it protects the plants and the seeds from the violence of the frost; in the second, furnishes them. with a continual moisture; and in the third, makes a greater number of seeds to germinate.'-(See Gent. Mag., vol. lxxxiv, part 2, p. 544.)

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