"A number of years since I put a quantity of ground pepper into a tumbler of water; and, a few days afterwards, found a thin scum spread over the surface. Within a few days more, I perceived, on examining this scum with a microscope, that it exhibited an immense number of living animalcules. Two or three days after, examining the same scum again, I found not the least appearance of life. After another short period, the scum was replenished with living beings again; and, after another, became totally destitute of them. This alternate process continued, until the water became so fœtid as to forbid a further examination. The conclusion which I drew from these facts was, that the first race of animalcules, having laid their eggs, died; and were succeeded in a short time by a second, and these by a third.

"The fœtor, which arose from the putrefaction of these ephemeral beings, differed in one respect from that which is produced by the decay of larger animals. Although it was perceptible at a small distance only, and perhaps less loathsome than the smell of a corrupted carcase, it was far more suffocating. When the effluvia were received into the lungs, it seemed as if nature gave way, and was preparing to sink under the impression. A pungency, entirely peculiar, accompanied the smell, and appeared to lessen the vis vitæ in a manner different from any thing which I had ever experienced before.

"The scum, which covered this pepper-water,

was in appearance the same with that which in hot seasons is sometimes seen on standing waters, and abounds on those marshes exposed to the sun. To the production, and still more to the sustenance of animalcules, vegetable putrefaction seems to be necessary, or at least concomitant; the nidus, perhaps, in which the animalculine existence is formed, or the pabulum by which it is supported.

"Whatever instrumentality vegetable putrefaction may have, I am inclined to suspect, for several reasons, that animalculine putrefaction is the immediate cause of those diseases, whatever they are, which are justly attributed to standing waters. It will, I believe, be found universally, that no such disease is ever derived from any standing waters, which are not to a considerable extent covered with a scum; and perhaps most, if not all of those which have this covering, will be found unhealthy. The New England lakes, as far as I have observed, are universally free, even from the thinnest pellicle of this nature; are pure potable water; are supplied almost wholly by subjacent springs; and are, therefore, too cool, as well as too much agitated by winds, to permit, ordinarily, the existence of animalcules."

This idea, however plausible it may appear, is, like many other theories that are raised, unable to stand the test of strict examination. Now, in the Western part of Upper Canada, where these diseases are rather prevalent, there are very few lakes or ponds of standing water,

and these few are all composed of pure potable water, as free from scum as any water in the same situation can possibly be. They have, in fact, their source of supply in springs, which in the hottest part of the Summer season remain perfectly cold, and of course free from animalcular putrefaction. The very reverse of this is the case in the Eastern parts of Upper Canada, and throughout the greater part of the Lower Province, where these disorders are wholly unknown.

In Canada, the weather is always coldest when the sky is bright and clear, and the wind in the North West quarter. Snow seldom falls while the mercury remains below Zero. Some idea may also be formed of the severity of the frost, from the fact, that water thrown to any considerable height into the air, becomes completely chrystalized before it returns to the ground. In Upper Canada we seldom have any rain during the Winter; but, when it does fall, it is invariably accompanied by a keen frost. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the forests on these occasions. As the rain falls the trees, it becomes immediately congealed; and, when a shower continues for any considerable length of time, the trunks, limbs, and boughs of the trees, are so completely covered with ice and hung about with icicles, that the forest seems to be transformed into an innumerable assemblage of glass chandeliers, reflecting in their beautifully cut pendants and festoons the rays of light, with every colour of the rainbow. At night, when the moon

upon

beams descend on the scene, and illuminate it with her broad sheet of silver light, another transformation may be witnessed. The tops of the trees appear to be embossed with pure gold; pearls and amethysts seem strewed about in the greatest profusion; the green-sward, with the skill of a cameleon, is arrayed in virgin whiteness, and, when contrasted with the sober gloom of the shadow of the trees, and associated with the other beauties which surround it, produces one of the most delightful specimens of Winter-scenery that imagination can conceive.

In Summer the Meteorological phenomena of this country are no less brilliant and wonderful. During the months of June, July and August, the Aurora Borealis illumines our skies, our woods, our fields, our dwellings, and, I think I might say, our very souls: For no man, who is not insensible to the last degree, can possibly resist the influence which such a phenomenon is calculated to exercise over the mind of the enchanted spectator. We are generally apprised of its appearance by the crackling, hissing noise which it makes. The clouds which rest on the Eastern horizon, begin to explode, first from the North and then from the South; they flash from one extremity of the heavens to the other; and, spreading wide their blazes, meet in the centre, where they appear to rest for a moment, and then suddenly dart from each other with the swiftness of lightning. They exhibit every variety of shade, from the deepest crimson to the palest yellow.

Although the flashes have at first a trifling appearance, they generally increase in size till the whole sky from the North, East and South, to the vertical centre of the concave, is covered as with the blaze of fire-works. I have frequently sat in the open fields, to watch the ever-varying motions of this singular phenomenon. Its appearance is grandly sublime; and, in the absence of the different orbs of light which hang in the firmament of Heaven, conveys to my imagination some faint idea of the glory that shall be revealed, when

Sun, and moon, and stars decay,

And time this earth itself removes ;

and when those who, by the mercy of God, have escaped from destruction, shall live in that place of which St. John has given this beautiful description: "And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine on it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb was the light thereof."

The remarkable meteorological phenomena, of which I subjoin an interesting account from the Montreal Herald, occurred at a period when I did not reside in that city:

"The astonishing appearances which the past week has exhibited, will make it long remembered by the inhabitants of this district; and Tuesday last will be classed by after ages with the celebrated dark Sunday which happened in 1785. A series of awful events have occurred, equally impressive to the mind of the illi