When Halley's comet was expected in 1835, a shoemaker of Leicester, named Joseph Mills, set about tracing the path of the heavenly visitor through the heavens. This he did by drawing its orbit upon his house floor, from which he made a diagram that more accurately represented the course of the comet than any that had been previously published. On being questioned how he had calculated the disturbing forces, so as to come so near the truth; he replied that he could not tell, further than he had performed it by the common rules of arithmetic.
DECLINE OF SCIENCE.
In January, 1842, a poor fellow was taken before the authorities of Paris for begging in the streets. He had studied the science of cookery under the celebrated Carême, and was the inventor of the delicious Saumon truffé à la broche. He was in the last garb of want, and attributed his poverty to the decline of cookery from a science to a low art! It has been observed that cooks, in nine cases out of ten, after ministering to the luxury of the opulent, creep into holes and corners, and pass neglected out of the world.
VARIABLE CLIMATE OF TEBREEZ.
Tebreez is celebrated as one of the most healthy cities in Persia, and it is on this ground alone that we can account for its being so often rebuilt after its repeated demolition by earthquakes. It is seldom free even for a twelvemonth from slight shocks; and it is not yet so much as a century since it was levelled to the ground by one of those terrible convulsions of nature.
Sir John Malcolm, when he visited this place, was more surprised at its salubrity, from knowing the great extremes of heat and cold to which it is subject; having obtained from a friend who had resided there during the whole of the preceding year, a most accurate diary of the various changes of its climate.
"From this, it appeared that on the 20th of October there was a heavy fall of snow, which did not, however, remain long upon the ground: the weather again became mild, and there was no excessive cold until the middle of December, from which period, until the end of January, Fahrenheit's thermometer, when exposed to the air at night, never rose above zero; and in the house at mid-day it was seldom above 18°.
"January was by far the coldest month. During it, the water is described as becoming almost instantaneously solid in the tumblers upon the dining-table, and the ink often freezing in the ink-stand, although the table was close to the fire. For at least a fortnight, not an egg was to be had, all being split by the cold. Some bottles of wine froze, although covered with straw, and many of the copper ewers were split by the expansion of the water when frozen in them.