Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 31 May 1894, Page 3

Notes and Events.

The weather for the last few days has been moist, to put it in a mild form, and dreary has been all our surroundings. In fact the downpour has every right to be described as rain, and has caused the more consideration as here " the rain it raineth every day " is not applicable, the previous beautiful weather offering a strong contrast to that which we have just experienced. A very excellent authority informs us that rain is derived from the evaporation of water, partly from the land, but chiefly from the ocean. At a given temperature, only a certain amount of aqueous vapour can be contained in a given volume, and when this amount is present the air is said to be saturated. If the air is then cooled below this temperature, a part of the vapour will be condensed into small drops, which, when suspended in the atmosphere, constitute clouds. Under continued cooling and condensation, the number and size of the drops increase until they begin to descend of their own weight. The largest of these, falling fastest, unite with the smaller ones they overtake, and thus drops of rain are formed whose size depends on the thickness and density of the cloud and on the distribution of electrical stress therein. The requisite ascent of air may be occasioned either by convection currents, a cyclone circulation, or the upward deflection of horizontal curvents by hills or mountains ; and rain may be classified as convective, cyclonic, or ovographic according as the first, second, or third of these methods is brought into, operation to produce it, In some regions rain falls more or less evenly throughout the year. In others hardly any rain falls at all. There is a tiact of the Atlantic ocean called " The Rains," on account of the calms and almost incessant rains. At times rain gets coloured, and we read of a rain of blood. Thi3 is occasioned by the fall of fragments of red algro, or the like, raised in large quantities by the wind an I thus precipitated. Yellow rain is produced in like manner by the pollen of the fir trees. To rain " like cats and dogs " is not, however, caused by these animals being raised by the wind, which would be " enough to make a cat laugh," but is simply a very old expression to signify a down-pour of rain violently and in cessantly. Poor old pussy, she generally gets dragged into old and quaint sayings, in all times and in all countries. People are said to live "a cat and dog " life, that is when they disagree ; the same words " cat and dog " means in " faro " the occurrence of two cards of the same denomination out of the last three in the deck ; in coal mining a clunchy rock, in nautical matters a tackle for hoisting an anchor, and also for a great many other curious purposes. The cat appears in many figures of speech. "To let the cat of the bag," is a very common expression and has been curiously instanced in certain matters quite lately. It infers to disclose a trick, to let out a secret. The origin ot it is said to have been a trick practised by country people of substituting a cat for a young pig and bringing it to market 1 in a bag to sell to some one thoughtless enough to " buy a pig in a poke." The purchaser sometimes thought, however, of opaning the bag before the bargain was concluded, and thus let out the cat and disclosed the trick. ! " Enough to make a cat speak or 1 laugh " is something astonishing or out of the way. Thus " Old liquor is able to make a cat speak, and man dumb," or as in Nicholas NicUeby " Talk Miss ! It's enough to make a Tom cat speak French grammar, only to see how she tosses her head." With one more illustration we must conclude. "To turn a cat-in - pan," is what do you think ? to make a sudden change of party in politics or religion from interested motives. The phrase is explained as obtained , from the French turner cote en peine i (to turn sides in trouble.) In the ; Vicar of Bray we find it used. j ; When George io pudding-time came o'er, And moderate men looked big, sir, I I turned a cat-in-pan once more, And so became a Whig, sir.