of the waters in the new channel, which
will result, he thinks, from the future state
of things. Knowing that the "piercing"
of the Isthmus of Suez has revived the
circulation of the atmosphere there, with all
its consequences of winds, rains, &c.,
throughout the whole length of the maritime
canal, M. Burel believes that a contrary
effect will take place here; namely, that the
Channel storms will be calmed when the
Strait shall be in part filled up. We confess
we do not understand the logic which
deduces such consequences from such premises.

The materials to form this recovered
territory are expected to be obtained,
principally, from the sea itself, by utilising the
currents of the Channel, and compelling
them to deposit the sands and earth with
which they are laden, by means of dykes and
breakwaters judiciously run out, of various
suitable lengths and breadths. When these
artificial shoals reach high-water level, they
are to be helped by planting them with
tough-rooted vegetables, and completed by
loading them with layers of stone rubbish,
with which the adjacent mainlands abound.
On these, a line of rails can be laid, which
will bring down rocky materials and
gradually push on the work, advancing in
the sea, little by little, exactly as the work
advances in the construction of railways on
land.

A really important point is, that the
greatest depth of water in the Channel,
between Etaples and Dunkerque on the
French side, and between Dungeness and
the North Foreland on the English side,
dees not exceed sixty-two mètres, or two
hundred and three feet and nearly a half.
But this depth of sixty-two mètres is
itself exceptional, only occurring in certain
long and narrow submarine gorges, which
would be easily filled up with stone along
a sufficient breadth. The mean depth to
be filled, is only twenty-eight mètres, or
not quite ninety-two feet: which is less
than the height of many of our public
buildings.

All this might be done, it is calculated,
in at least eight years; in twelve, at most.
The cost is prudently abstained from being
guessed at. Perhaps, in the end, M. Burel
may alter his plan into a lengthened imitation
of the breakwater at Cherbourg. If
men can make such a digue as that, four
kilomètres long, men can make one of
forty. It is a mere question of time and
money. Men have built the Pyramids of
Egypt, the Wall of China, St. Peter's at
Rome, and—most to the purpose—the
aforesaid digue; we may, therefore, assume
this much, safely: that men can build a
solid causeway from France to England,

WISE DOCTOR LEMNE.

Canon Kingsley has lately been explaining
facts in nature to the young, in a
charming book called Madam How and
Lady Why. His madam is young madam,
and his lady is a young lady not at all in the
style of her great-grandmother. Dr. Levin
Lemne, born three or four hundred years
ago, an ingenious physician practising in a
little town of Zealand, near the Dutch
coast, is no bad representative of Old Madam
How, and Old Lady Why.

Let us cull a few of his Whys and
Wherefores, as set forth in a book he
published explanatory of various occult
matters. Wise Dr. Lemne does not
recognise the possibility of doubt as to the
fact that in little men passions are quickest
and thought is most acute. The reason is,
that when their vital spirits and humours
are heated they have a smaller tenement
to warm, and therefore it is in less time
heated thoroughly. When a little man's
bile catches fire, he is like a little cottage
all in flames at once; but when a large
man's bile takes fire, it is like fire broken
out in one part of a great house that has
to spread from wing to wing. For the
same reason small men are quick-witted.
The small bodies are commonly dry, and it
is obvious that people who are of a dry
habit of body must catch fire more readily
and burn faster than moist folks.

Our characters depend on our humours,
their relative proportions, their temperature,
and the way in which they behave when
heated or in motion. Now some humours
are naturally cold, moist, thick, and take long
to warm thoroughly. But when once hot
—as every man knows who has eaten
porridge—they take long to cool. Others are
light spirits that heat quickly and rise into
vapour, and so on. But the sort of humour
that is to predominate in any man depends
on a good many things—as conjunction of
stars, birthplace, diet, education, habit of
life. Habit of life has great influence upon
the development of humours: so great,
says Dr. Lemne, that a way of life which
thickens the blood, makes men inhospitable
and inhuman, dead to the sense of
conscience or the sense of fear, without
religion and without human affections. The
people who suffer in this way from occupations