unnecessary and useless encumbrances. But let
all such disconsolate persons take comfort.
Although the September pull is expected to be a
little less strong than the pull or March, there
is a third party, one  Ã†olus, who may think proper
to have a voice in the matter; and if he
vote on the same side with Phoebus and Diana,
the tide will be a plumper.

Meanwhile, expectant observers of this tidal
feat may like to hear a few particulars of the
nature and manner of the pull in question.

In vast and profound Oceans, and on their
coasts, it is observed that the waters rise and
sink alternately twice a day. For six hours or
thereabouts, they rise, spreading over the
shores; this is called the flux, the waters are
said to flow, the tide is rising. For a short
space of time, a few minutes only, they repose
in equilibrium, neither rising nor sinking, which
is termed high water; after which they subside
again for about six hours, which is called the
reflux, or ebb-tide; at the end of which period
and a similar short repose denominated low
water, they flow again. And so on, throughout
all time. During the flow of the tide, the waters
of rivers are swollen, and are driven backward
to a distance from their mouth varying with the
inclination of their bed. In rivers that run
through a level country, as the Thames, the tide
mounts a considerable way inland; while, in
mountain streams which rush headlong into the
sea down a rapid slope, the tide may only influence
the small portion that lies between high
and low water mark. During the reflux, the
liberated streams recommence the task of pouring
their contents into the bed of the sea.

The principle on which the theory of the tides
is founded, is simple; because it is universal
in its application, and admits of no exception
whatever. No plea, no excuse, can exempt
anything from submitting to its sway. A few
hard words, easy to explain and easy to understand,
are the only impediment to its being
readily comprehended by the popular mind.

Anacreon's bacchanalian ode, to the effect,
" the clouds drink the dew, the rivers drink the
clouds, the sea drinks the rivers, the sun drinks
the sea, the moon drinks the sun; everything in
heaven and earth drinks; therefore why should
not I drink?" becomes a rough description of
the system of Nature, as far as we know it, if,
for the word " drinks," we substitute " pulls,"
or " draws." The Newtonian force of Universal
Gravitation or Attraction is believed to be the
law by which the framework of the universe
is held together. Attraction, which is only a
Latin word for " pulling to," is the game which
is unremittingly played by every particle of
created matter. Every material body, great
or  small, attracts every other material body.
It is a constant struggle which body shall annex,
appropriate, draw, all other bodies to itself;
in this, the strongest body gains the victory.
The earth is a ball; an apple on a tree-top is
also a ball; but if the apple's hold on the branch
be loosened, the big ball soon pulls the small ball
to itself, and keeps it, until some stronger force
than the earth's attraction—such as the arm of
a man or the jaw of a hog—robs the earth of
the apple it had taken to itself.

There are two conditions to this law of
attraction which it is necessary to know. First:
The Attraction exerted by a body is directly
proportional to its mass. In simpler language,
the larger and more solid a body is, the harder
it pulls, at equal distances. An object a
hundred miles away from the Sun, is pulled much
more violently than the same object a hundred
miles away from the Earth; while the pull it
will receive a hundred miles away from the earth
is considerably stronger than that it would
experience if suspended a hundred miles above
the Moon. All this, for the reason that the mass
of the Sun is much greater than that of the
Earth, and the mass of the Earth much greater
than that of the Moon.

How large is the disproportion of the masses
of the Sun and the Earth, may be briefly
mentioned: they are to each other as the sum of
1,400,000 is to 1. The Sun is fourteen
hundred thousand times as big as the Earth.
But abstract numbers impress the mind faintly.
A professor at Angers, in France, wishing
to give his pupils a tangible idea of the
comparative sizes of the Earth and the Sun, set
them to count the number of average-sized
grains of wheat contained in the measure called
a litre (about a pint and three-quarters). They
found ten thousand. Consequently, a decalitre
  or ten litres) would contain a hundred thousand
grains, and a hectolitre (or a hundred litres) a
million. A hectolitre contains a trifle more
than a three-bushel English corn-sack. The
professor then heaped together one hectolitre
and four decalitres of wheat, containing in all
1,400,000 grains. Taking a single grain and
placing it opposite to the heap, he said," This
is the volume of the Earth, and that is the
volume of the Sun."

The disproportion of magnitude and weight
is much less between the Earth and the Moon
than it is between the Earth and Sun. In
comparison with the size of our globe, our satellite
is not so contemptibly little as our globe is in
respect to the great centre of the Solar System.
The mass of the Moon is eighty-four times less
than that of the Earth. It would take eighty-
four Moons put together to make one Earth. To
follow out the French professor's illustration, if
we pile a heap of eighty-four oranges, and place
a single orange opposite to the pile, we may say,
"This is the mass of the Moon, and that is the
mass of the Earth."

But, another condition is mixed up with the
question of attraction; for, secondly, the force
of gravitation is in inverse proportion to the
square of the distance; in other words, a body's
attractive force diminishes in proportion to the
square of the distance. The square of any
number is that number multiplied by itself;
49 is the square of 7, and 81 is the square of 9.
Therefore, the attraction exerted by a body, as
the Moon, on an object at the respective
distances of 7 and 9 miles away from it, will be