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    AN ESSAY ON THE CAUSE OF RAIN AND ITS ALLIED PHENOMENA . By G . A . Itowell , Honorary Member of the Ashmolean Society . —Oxford : Published and sold by the author , No . 3 , Alfred-street , St . Giles . The -writer of this essay is oiie of the working classes—^ -a paper-hanger , with small opportunities of leisure , but who husbands them for scientific uses . The theory which has procured .. ; him , workman as he is , honour among scientific men , and membership in a scientific society :, occurred to him in early youth ; and the idea has strengthened , and grown , and ripened into maturity and manhood .

    " At first a spark Deep buried in his soul then blazed abroad , Wakening- a sfiirit able to support , Even to the end , the energy of faith . " Such a mind is to be treated with respect , and the perserveraiice that it exemplifies must necessarily command it . The author ' s notions first assumed literary shape in si paper read' at a meeting of the Ashmolean Society , 1839 , containing Conjectures on the Cause of Kain , Storms , the Aurora , and Magnetism ; witli a . suggestion for causing Rain at will . " This suggestion , as . might have been expected , alarmed tlie timid , perhaps

    provoked the smile of the contemptuous . His plan for producing rain consisted in raising electric conductors to the regions of the clouds by the aid of captive balloons . To carry , ¦ ou t this project , Mr . Rowell was induced tO : make scientific investigations on the subject of rain , and particularly in regard to electricity . The existing theories of evaporation appeared to hirn to be unsatisfactory-He learned , however , from them that ice requires 140 deg . of heat to convert it into water . He found it , however , difficult to believe that particles

    of ice , when surrounded by a freezing atinos 2 ? here , can absorb enough heat , not only to convert them into water , but to make them upwards of 800 times lighter than that fluid , which they must be to render them buoyant in air , even in its lower stratum . At the height of three miles the air is 1 , 716 times lighter than water , and its temperature as low as 9 deg . of Fahrenheit 5 -while the expansion of steam from boiling water is not more than 1 , 800 times . Now , IMfr . Rowell thinks that a true theory would meet ail cases .

    Connected with Mr . Rowcll ' s argument is the question , whether electricity be or , not material ? This question he debates with much modesty , but decides it in the affirmative . According to him , electricity occupies space , howover small , and is not therefore merely a condition or force , but an effect , lie is not sure , however , that it is ponderable ; at all events , its weight is unappreciable . One ground that he gives for his assumption that electricity occupies space , is , that a body may be charged with electricity , under the pressure or the atmosphere , but tlmt no . charge of any consequence -can be retained on any body in

    vacuo , or in highly rarihed mr . Thin , he states , appears to demonstrate that electricity is sufficiently gross to be pressed on and restrained by the pressure of the atmosphere . Moreover , the results of lightning , or the electric spark , seem to show that something passes . A certain degreo of intensity being obviously necessary to overcome the resistance of the air , there must be something to bo resisted . In like manner , the results of eleotricity in motion tend to prove the same , as

    its passage is free and rapid through conductors , if of sufficient capacity ; but if too small , they arc heated , fused , or dissipated , -while non-conductors are invariably more or less damaged . Its not also the electric spark the effect of the compression of the air , from the real passage of electricity through it , since the intensity of the light is in accordance with the density of the air in which it is produced P - —another proof of the materiality of the electric fluid , it being inexplicable otherwise by what the compression is produced . However , no satisfactory test can , ho applied , and no amount of elec-

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    belief that a bullet gains velocity after leaving the muzzle of a piece . He concludes with an inquiry into the nature and true causes of the expansion of the bullet into the grooves , and the " American feed bore system . This , like the sections preceding , are as interesting to the well informed , or would-be well-informed general reader , as we have before stated them to be necessary to the generality of professional officers and the large body of embryo riflemen who are now digesting Information of all kinds on the subject .

    tasseHed cap , their loose trousers-blue , with red edgings , and a red waistcoat , with jacket slung on hussar fashion . Thet women ' s heads were covered vsitb . white kerchiefs * bordered with aied stripe or hem , thrown loosely on ; and they wore purple polkas trimmed with red , ' purple " brilp , " or petticoat , and their opankes laced with scarlet . All the peasantry on this coast * from Fiume _ inclusive , ¦ wear , not shoes , but the opankes , which is made of a sort of untanned ( but otherwise prepared ) hide , tied on with thongs , the sole projecting beyond the foot , and admirably suited to protect it on these stony hillsi

    Zara is now the provincial Austrian seat of Government , and is said to contain 2 , 000 employes in a population of 5 , 000 or 6 , 000 . One of the most interesting portions of the work before us , is the description of the remains of Diocletian ' s Palace at Bua ; but our space will not permit of Its citation . The ruins of Salonse , alsbj invite attention , but we are compelled to refer the reader to the book . The information given of Eagusa is the most valuable :- — ** Ragusa , the last of the middle-age republics ; the little free state , which boasted Cadmus and Hermione its progenitors , the Lacedemonians as its founders ,

    the Romans as its colonists ; which counted Greek emperors ^ Slave bans , Norman dukes , Hungarian kings , Spanish potentates , Turkish sultans at different epochs , the popes always as its protectors ; the parent of Gondola , Palmotta , and Giorgi ; the fosterer of a school of Latin , Italian , and Slave ¦ writers , which flourished through , four or five centuries ; the scene of the fatal earthquake in the seventeenth century ; the oligarchical republic , whose protracted history is epitomised in its four names , Epidaurus of the Greeks and Romans , Rausium of the Byzantmes ^ Dubrownlk of tie Slaves , and Ragusa of all the rest , in more modern'times ; which retained its own form of Government from

    its earliest days quite into the nineteenth century and some yearsjbeyond the term allotted to its powerful Venetian rival , surrendering at last to the gigantic power of Napoleon I ., after so many centuries of independence . " The state of society in Albania is painted in dark colours . Nothing apparently can be worse . The account of Scutari is amusing : — "By this time it was dftrk ; and when , for nearly another hour , we kept on still traversing the same kind of pavement as before , now between high walls , now among gravestones , still seeing no houses , I at length inquired with much naivete , and to the guide ' s no small amazement , when we should reach Scutari , and received for answer , to my no less astonishment , that it had been Scutari ever since ¦ we left the

    Bazaar ! Where , then , were the houses ? . Lowxoofed and wide-spread , they were completely concealed from our ken , as ire passed along , by their garden , or ,, more strictly speaking , orchard walls , within which each was enclosed . Thus widely does Scutari differ from AntiYtui ; the latter remains aa it was when a Christian town , but the former , cramped by no city walls , and-arranged after Turkish notions , has all the air of an Oriental city transplanted into Europe . In short , I seemed to be always in the suburbs . And , as no artificial light from that . glory of modern civilisation , gas , or even , from the more primitive lamp or candle , assisted the eye to dispel its illusion , so neither , though we were actually penetrating into a city of many thousand inhabitants , and the capital of a pashalic , did the ear reveal its proximity . "

    A TREATISE ON BIFL . E PROJECTILES—in which the apparent anomalies and contradictions exhibited in the penetration of elongated rifle bullets are accounted for , &c By John Boucher , formerly of the « th Dragoon Guards . —C . and E . Layton . We hope to may still say this brochure comes most opportunely . For though— . the imperial vultures having re-partitioned Italy , and English diplomacy having happily no foothold in the arrangement—the Mercadets of London and all Europe will he in ecstasies at the hopes long de-r ferred of preying upon the succulent class of victims usually forthcoming in times of

    peace;though the sound of the armourer ' s forge be stilled for awhile;—though Admiralty officials . may let fleets rot untroubled , and War Office clerks slay then * tens of thousands a la mode;—though the exposure of Sir' John Pakington ' s shameful practice in re . Trotrnan ' s anchor will fall on dull ears;— -though the aristocracy of Britain and their flunkeys will spare no pains to damp the military spirit just evoked among our people in spite of them ;—we hope we may still see the self organisation of the people , for their own defence , take rank among accomplished facts . The time of peace is the Fencible ' s time of preparation . In peace time alone __ or at least deliberately—notwithstanding the incredibly short time in which they can master

    company drill and manual exercise ^—can they become accomplished shots . In peace time alone can they hope to overcome the gravest obstacle to the forniation of a real national guard—we mean the engineering difficulty of procuring the kifi . es : a difficulty that , had the war continued , would soon have assumed such proportions as to neutralise , or at least dwarf" the proportions of all g rand schemes for voluntary national defence . By all means we hope that , whatever sport may be made of peaceful soldiers- —playful soldiers , holiday soldiers , &c . &c . —our embryo National Guards will decline the invitations they will receive to stand " as they were . "

    Mr . Busk lias gathered , as far as the book market goes , the cream of the trade due to the rifle movement , but has barely touched upon the philosophy ot rifle shooting , which , after all , must be skimmed , if not fathomed , by all aspirants Who would be prominent members of rifle clubs in other respects than the vanities of uniform or the mechanism of drill . The author is clearly a man wlio has not the pernicious , though easy-going , habit of taking anything for granted . His tract , which is not a long , one , evinces considerable research into the science of projectiles , and his investigations below the foundations of prevalent dogmas tend to show that these are sometimes loose and sometimes

    untenable . We are not about to favour the readers of a weekly newspaper with such an essay on the subject as should fairly treat the more interesting and important points discussed by the author ; but in these times of military fervour all should know that among practical men there are very grave doubts whether the Minie is the queen of weapons at all , notwithstanding , the fact that the national storehouses groan with different varieties of that arm . The delay of our red-tapists to adopt novelties is xio less remarkable than the impudent tenacity , with which they refuse to acknowledge the progress of invention . When they have been forced to make one move they seem to us to lay

    The barbarism of the Montenegrins has many illustrations fn this volume ; but with too many a set off in the practice of the Turks . The history <> f Ragusa , with which this production concludes , is remarkably interesting . Its relations with Venice ivre treated in a fair and liberal spirit 5 it derived from them , no doubt , signal advantages ; among them a higher i * ate of civilisation and commercial prosperity . The inherent evil of Ragusan institutions was their exclusively aristocratic nature , This , howover , did not exclude literacy eminence . The slave poets of Ragusa are greatly celebrated :

    down like exhausted prize pigs , who look doterrained never to rise again . Mi * . Boucher is a practical man , and a neat experimentalist . As an objector to the finality of the Mini 6 shot ho is in very good company ; and ho has done ¦ more than object , for ho has devised a form of projectile which looks so well in theory that wo wouid fain hear more of it . The difficulty , he believes , resolved itself into the production of a oylindro-oonoidol bullet , with a flat surface for its base and the centre of gravity in the fore part . The difficulty was not of course to find a shot thnt should meet these

    they were , too , the earliest who wrote in that tongue . Zuccari . a native historian , mentions how one of the Narentan princes , in the tenth century , was induced to protect the Ragusans by their ballads . , Poetry was brpught to perfeotion about 1610 by Giovanni Gondola , member of an illustaoue and patrician family . , His groat work is the Qsraanid , " a poem , in twenty-two cantos , of sevorol-hundred lines each , and which has beon ranked with Task ' s «« Jerusalem . " The poets of Ragusa ore otoofly religious : and it is remarkable ibr its adherence to the Church ,, which hm beea undoviating .

    requirements , but in tracking ana hunting down the theory through the maze of practical and scientific obataolos that surround it , and which have beon too much for many of the eminent military men vrho , with ample convictions that something was wanting , have not boon able to discover what that " sometiung was . " An ingenious ineohanioal engineer , Mr . Ileseltino , with this viow , among others , patented , in 1854 , a shot , with which we have seen excellent practice at long ranges , but was baffled * of course , in the slight attempts he made to introduce it , by the . strong defences of routine . The author next attacks the common

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    Sm- THE LEAPEU [ "No . 4 S 6 . Jply 10 , 1859 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 16, 1859, page 846, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2303/page/18/