GLEANINGS.
SILK.—It has been found by experiment, that a silk covering tonna the face and head, acts as a protection against malaria and febrile contagion. If, as it is
supposed, the noxious matter is conveyed through the lungs, it may not be diffi cult to account for the operation of this very simple preventive. It is well known that the nature of these poisons is such, that they-are easily decomposed, and that by feeble chemical agents. Now, it is probable, that the heated and compound
gas which proceeds from the lungs, and which forms an atmosphere within the gauze veil of silk, may have power.to decompose the miasma in its passage to
the mouth ; or it may be true that the mechanical texture of the silk covering prevents the transmission of any deleterious substance ; or that silk possesses the property of acting as a non-conductor of miasmata, as well as of electricity. Whatever may be the cause, the effect, in all the experiments hitherto made, has proved certain ; and it surely is worthy of trial, -since the application is simple, and within every body's reach.—From a Correspondent.
USE OP Mouts.—The most unnatural of all persecutions that ever was raised in a *country is that against the mole, that innocent and blessed little pioneer
who enriches our pastures annually with the first top,dressing, dug with great
pains and labour from the fattest of the soil beneath. The advantages of this top-dressing are so apparent and so manifest to the eyes of every unprejudiced
person, that it is really amazing how our countrymen should have persisted, now
nearly half a century, in the most manly and valiant endeavours to exterminate the moles from the face of the earth. If a hundred men and horses were em ployed on a common sized pasture farm, say of from 1500 to 2000 acres in raising and driving manure for a top-dressing of that farm, they would not do it so effectually, so neatly, or so equally, as the natural number of moles on that farm would do of themselves.—Quarterly Journal of Agriculture; article " Mole-catching," by the Ettrick Shepherd. MORAL Uses or, RE.—Let no man doubt that Voltaire and his disciples, like all men and all things that live and act in God's world, will one day be found to have "worked together for good." Nay that, with all his evil, he has already accomplished good, must be admitted in the soberest calculation. How much do we include in this one little word—he gave the death stab to modern superstition! That horrid incubus, which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, is passing away; with all its racks and poison-chalices, and foul sleeping-draughts, is passing away without return. He who sees even a little way into the signs of the times, sees well that both the Smithfield fires and the Edinburgh thumbscrews (for these too must be held in remembrance) are things which have long, very long, lain behind us ; divided from us by a wall of Centuries, transparent indeed, but more impassable than adamant. For, as we said, Superstition is in its death-lair : the last agonies may endure for decades or for centuries ; but it carries the iron in its gad, and will not vex the earth any more. That, with Superstition, Religion is also passing away, seems to us a still, more ungrounded fear. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there'and will reappear. On the whole, we must repeat the often-repeated Saying, that it is unworthy a religious man to view an irreligious one either with alarm or aversibn ; or with any other feeling than regret, and hope, and brotherly commiseration. If he seek Truth, is he not our brother, arid to be pitied If he do not seek truth, is he not still our brother, and to be pitied still more ? Old Ludovicus Vives has a story of a clown that killed his ass because it had drunk up the moon, and he thought the world could ill spare that luminary. So he killed his ass, ut lunam redderet. The clown was well-intentioned, but unwise. Let us not imitate him ; let us not slay a.faithful servant, who has carried us far. He has not drunk the moon ; but only the reflection of the moon, in his own poor water-pail, where too, it may be, he was drinking with purposes the most harmless.—Foreign Review, No. VI. THE OAK—An -interesting volume might be formed, entitled the "History of the Oak." The first mention that we know of this tree is that ancient of days, the "Oak of Mamre," under which Abraham sat in the heat of the day; and that it was an oak, one of the fathers, Eusebius, tells us, as it remained an object of veneration even in the time of Constantine. We should note all the celebrated querci of antiquity ; the, use, value, strength, duration, 8cc. of its timber ; the infinite variety of purposes to which its various parts are applied by the mechanic, the dyer, the artisan ; the insects, which amount to hundreds of species, that live, and have their being on the oak ; the vegetables it nourishes, ferns, lichens, mosses, agarics, boleti, Fic.; the saw-dust, apples, gall-nuts, acorns, leaves, and innumerable et cetera of Britaia's guardian tree. However highly the Druids might venerate the oak, and make it the emblem and residence of their deity ; yet the intrinsic value of this tree was unknown to our remote forefathers. AU their knowledge of its virtues was probably included in its uses for hulloing, its acorns for their swine, and, perhaps, its bark for preserving the skins which they used. Modern ingenuity and necessity have brought its various qualities into notice, or our oak would have received such honours as in days of darkness were conferred upon inanimate things. Attica considered the olive as the gift of her tutelary goddess, and some benevolent saint would have been lauded and hymned for having endowed the oak of Britain with such extensive virtues for the good of mankind—Journal of a Naturalist.
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