ANTIQUITY OF REFINED SUGAR.
It appears from the accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland, published from the originals in the Exchequer, that in the year 1329, loaves of sugar were sold in Scotland at the price of 1s. 9-1/2d. (more than an ounce of standard silver) per lb. Stow's Survey of London states sugar refining to have been commenced in England about 1544; and upwards of four centuries since we find Margaret Paston writing to her husband from Norwich thus:—"I pray, that ye will vouchsafe to send me another sugar-loaf, for my old one is done."
CLEARNESS OF THE SKY AT THE CAPE OF
GOOD HOPE.
An observer states that in forty-two successive days at the Cape, there were only three in which he could not see Venus in broad daylight. Sir John Herschel assures us that he has written a letter by the light of an eclipse of the moon. Under these circumstances, the starry heavens presented a brilliance, of which the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere can have no conception; the line from Orion to Antinous being remarkably rich and brilliant, and appearing as a continuous blaze of light; with, however, a few patches of the sky destitute of stars.