Oltaitings.
VEGETATION ON THE MOON'S SUBPACE.—On the surface of the moon are seen numerous streaks or narrow lines, about a hundred in number, which appear, perhaps, more like long narrow furrows than anything else. Sometimes they spread themselves on the lunar disc in stright lines ; some- times they are seen slightly curved ; in every case they are shut in be- tween stiff parallel borders. It has often been supposed that these fur- rows, the true nature of which has remained hitherto unknown, represent the beds of ancient dried-up rivers, or rivers that have not yet ceased to flow. Other astronomers think they are streams of lava which have been vomited by lunar volcanoes, and which reflect the light of the sun with more intensity than the adjacent regions. M. Schwabe, a German astro- mer, endeavours, however, to give them another explanation. He has published in the Astronotnisehe Naehriehten some facts which tend to show that these lines are the result of a vegetation on the surface of the moon. According to the author, if the surface of the moon be examined attentively with a good telescope and a proper illumination, we discover between the lines or luminous furrows of the high mountain called Tycho, and on different other points, a quantity of very delicate parallel lines of a greenish tint, which were not visible some months before the observation, and which disappear a few months after, to return again in the proper season. These lines, which are darker than the adjacent parts, are clearly the result of vegetation ; and it is this vegetation which makes the sterile parts of the moon appear as bright luminous streaks. According to M. Schwabe, these lines of vegetation are more particularly visible in the very bright par's of the moon which are circumscribed by the mountains Hipparcus, Alba- tegnius, Werner, fitceffier, Maurolycus, Gemma-Frisius, Piccolomini, Catharine, Aboufeda, Regio-Montarius, Hell, Gauricus, Wurz-Elbauer, Hein.sius, and Count Wilhem.—The Photographic News.
NAPOLEON'S ESCAPE FROM ELBA.—A correspondent of Notes and Queries says:—" Your recent articles upon Napoleon's sudden escape from Elba recall to me a singular story connected with that event, which I have often heard from the lips of the party himself, to whom the circumstances occurred. My informant was a late dignitary of the church, and formerly in constant personal attendance upon George M. A few weeks previous to Napoleon's escape my friend, exhausted with a fatiguing walk on the beach at Brighton, had seated himself one day under the lee of a boat for a short repose. Pre- sently, two foreigners, walking from two different directions, met on the other side of the boat. The one had evidently just landed, and the other had met him (in this a secluded part of the beach, where they deemed them- selves secure from all listeners), to receive a report of the state of prepara- tions on the other side of the water for the execution of some great design. The latter began by asking how things progressed, and was told in reply that all was now ready for the " coup ;" that the Minister-at-War had so stationed the regiments on which he could confide, and so completed all ar- rangements, that there could be no obstruction to the march from the coast to Paris, and that everything being now prepared, the sooner the event came off the better. The parties then separated in different directions (un- conscious of the third party, who, all the while, had been esconced under the other side of the boat) ; the one apparently for reimbarkatMn ; the other to despatch intelligence to head-quarters at Elba. The court, or some of the Ministers, happened to be at Brighton at the time, and my friend, without a moment's delay, communicated the circumstance to Lord Liver- pool and Lord Castlereagh, who treated the whole with ridicule, or pre- tended to do so, and nothing more was heard of the affair till the papers an- nounced the realisation of all that my friend had overheard."
ScIErrinC HOAXPS.—Sitting down, in all gravity, to define our term, we found it not so easy as we expected to say what a hoax is. The learned have discussed the word in that first of What-note, the Notes and Queries; and the suggestion of Tillotson seems to find most favour, namely, that hocus-pocus, from the first word of which hoax is a cornption, was itself a corruption of the Hoc eat corpus of the mass. But definition by etymology is digging at the foundation of a house to find out the name of the tenant. What then is a hoax, on none but above-ground considerations ? Is it a successful attempt to deceive, without any motive but fun ? This would throw out a very famous instance,pe Foe's story of the apparition of Mrs. Veal, written to sell Drelincourt on Death. That precise circumstantiality —inimitably narrated—of the washed silk gown in which the dead lady ap- peared to the living one who did not know that her friend had had her gown washed, convinced all the ladies, not only that the story was true, but that the evidence was for them alone to judge of. Come now, don't you pretend to know about washed silk, said a lady to her husband, when he laughed at the ghost. Again, do the intention and the success constitute the hoax, even though the story should happen to be true ? When Flam- steed was pestered by an old woman to know where her lost bundle of linen was, he drew a square in a circle, and, after pondering the diagram, pro- nounced that the stars said it was in a certain ditch—and there it was found, to the horror of the poor Astronomer-Royal, who could in no wise persuade his client that it was all luck. We believe it to be the law that a person who on April-fool Day speaks the truth by accident, intending to de- ceive, is himself ruled to be the fool. Again, Pons, the comet finder, wrote to his friend Baron Zach, in despair, saying that the comets were all gone, and that he had not had one for many months. Zach, who was a slyjoker, an astronomical Voltaire, wrote back that he had seen the sun clear of spots for just as long a time ; but that his friend might be sure that the comets and the spots would return together. And so he, Zach as aforesaid, lived quietly on in the happiness of having quizzed a Mend ; but his placid en- joyment became quite a sensation when, a few months afterwards, Pons wrote again in triumphant rapture to tell him that he. was quite right, for that there had come two large spots on the sun and a comet the next even- ing. Suppose it should turn out that the spots hare some connexion with comets. Who would have supposed they have anything to do with the magnetic state of the earth ? And yet this is proved, and, as Dogberry says, will go near to be thought so shortly. Should solar spots and comets be in some concatenation accordingly, which was hoaxed, Zach or Pons ?— Maetnillan's Magazine, No. 3.
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