MISCELLANEA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 106, 5 August 1846, Page 3

MISCELLANEA.

The Visitors of Kew Gardens. — la a report by Sir William Hooker on the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, dated December, 1844, the following passage occurs : — ' With the fact before me that the vast stores of the British Museum are freely opened to the public, and visited by thousands of persons in a day with impunity, or comparative impunity to the collections, I did not hesitate, on my arrival here, to have it announced that the grounds should be thrown open from one to six'o'clock, with free admission to the hothouses and greenhouses, without the ceremony

of conductors; and the public have taken ample advantage of this privilege, and prize it highly ; the number of visitors annually increasing, till so many as 15,000 persons have frequented the garden during the past twelvemonths. The experiment was considered by many a dangerous one ; but it has been pursued now for nearly four years, and, thanks to the diligence and attention of those employed in the garden, with little or no damag* to the plants, nothing worth recording ; and this being the case, it becomes easy to show the benefit accruing to the establishment itself, and to the public, by such an act of liberality. The institution gains friends and numerous contributors to its already unrivalled stores ; and it is impossible to see so many visitors of all classes frequenting this noble garden, without a conviction that, while educated and scientific individuals cannot fail to derive instruction from such an assemblage of well- arranged and skilfully-cultivated productions, including the useful and the ornamental, the minds of the middle and lower ranks are enlarged and enlightened by a display of all that is most beautiful and lovely in the vegetable creation ; and thus a gradual improvement must ensue in the habits and morals of the people. The philanthropic reader will duly appieciate such an additional testimony to the general harmlessness of crowds admitted freely to public places. Queen Victoria now governs India as much as she does England ; and this is a great fact by no means adequately impressed on the public mind. Steam navigation, perhaps, will be the most efficacious means for bringing it home to our bosoms and consciences. Bombay is now distant about as many weeks as it was months in 'times gone by. The voyage and journey thither seem about to become a holiday trip to the enterprising tourists who are resolved to the make "the most of a long vacation. They rush to Marseilles, embark for Malta, glance at Alexandria and the needle of Cleopatra, visit Cairo, and mount the pyramids, cross the desert, call at Aden, steam through the far-famed Straits of Babel Mandel, splash along for a delicious fortnight over the Indian Ocean, and inscribe their names in an album at the caves of Elephanta, literally within less than fifty, days ! Such expeditions, growing into general fashion, may serve to remind us of our perils and responsibilities with respect to the glorious Orient. — Lclectic Review for July,

-Oisaepotwtmewt. — Men are very seldom iisaDgoi&ted, except when their desires are immoderate, or when they suffer their passions to overpower their reason, and dwell upon delightful scenes of future honours, power, or riches, till they mistake probabilities for certainties, or wild wishes for rational expectations. If such men, when they awake from these voluntary dreams, find the pleasing phantom vanish away, what can they blame but their own folly \ — Dr. Johnson.

The Immensity of the Universe. — The space in which the systems composing the universe move is illimitable. Were we to attempt to assign its limits, what could we imagine to be beyond ? The nnmber of worlds is infinitely great ; it is inexpressible, indeed, by numbers. A ray of light traverses 180,000 miles in a second of time. A year comprises millions of seconds, yet there are fixed stars so immeasurably distant, that their light would require billions of years to reach our eyes. We are acquainted with animals, possessing teeth, and organs of motion and digestion, which are wholly invisible to the naked eye. Other animals exist, which, if measurable, would be found many thousands of times smaller, which, nevertheless, possess the same apparatus. These creatures, in the same manner as the larger animals, take nourishment, and are propagated by means of ova, which must, consequently, be again many hundreds of times smaller than their own bodies. It is only because our organs of vision are imperfect, that we do not perceive creatures a million times smaller than these. What variety and what infinite gradations do the constituents of our globe present to us in their properties and their conditions 1 There are bodies which are twenty times heavier than an equal volume of water: there are others which are ten thousand times lighter, the ultimate particles of which cannot be known by the most powerful microscopes. Finally, we have starlight — that wonderful messenger which brings us daily intelligence of the continued existence of numberless worlds, the expression of an immaterial essence which no longer obeys the laws of gravitation, and yet manifests itself to our senses by innumerable effects. Even the light of the sun — with the arrival of which upon the earth inanimate nature receives life and motion — we cleave asunder into rays which, without any power of illumination, produce the most important alterations and decompositions in organic nature. We separate from light certain rays, which exhibit among themselves a diversity as great as exists amongst colours. But nowhere do we observe either a beginning or an end.— Liebig's Letters on Chemistry (Second Serie s.)

Danger to 3r. Peter's at Rome. — A letter from Rome contains the , following : — "One of the most splendid monuments of Catholic art, the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, inspires serious alarm in the minds of the architects of this city. For a long time past, the cupola has been cracked in many places, ; and ten arches of iron, weighing 60,000 kilogrames, have been placed so as to prevent its fall. It has just been discovered, that the lanternino, above which rises the cross which crowns the edifice, is cracked through and: through. The numerous lightning conductors, which had been erected by Pope Pius VII., for the protection of the edifice, remove all idea of this mischief having been the effect of a thunder storm. The lanternino is being surrounded by heavy iron chains, to prevent the cracks from extending. The restoration of the ancient Basilica of St. Paul on the Ostia road, and which was destroyed by fire some years since, is almost complete. — Galignani's Messenger.