the granting these licences was infinitely more perilous to the morals and to the social interests of the community than it was in his power to depict. Let the Bench concede these licences, and the publicans would be rushing to the Court in thousands, asking that their houses might have the like licence granted to them, and thus be converted into so many dancing saloons. Where was the evil to stop?—and at what point was its progress to be arrested? Let them look at their prisons-see the immense amount of juvenile depravity and crime which was there developed. Let them next look at the over-crowded state of their lunatic asylums-so much over-crowded, indeed, was that for their own county of Middlesex, that the magistrates had been compelled to commence the erection of another to meet the exigencies; and then let them inquire of themselves what did these facts indicate. Why, they went to prove that there were agencies at work in society which corrupted the morals, gave vitiated tastes and propensities, stimulated crime, and promoted insanity; and he asserted with confidence, that those agencies chiefly had their origin in such places as were now about to be brought before that Bench as those to which the music and dancing licence should be granted. Should, then, the privilege be conceded to them, the agencies to which was to be attributed the vast accumulation of the evils he had pointed out, would receive an increase and an impetus in proportion to the number of licences granted. The learned magistrate then referred to the efforts made by individuals and societies to improve the moral condition of men. He said there were the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, the Sailors' Home, and there was a church for the sailors, of which the foundation-stone had been laid by his Royal Highness Prince Albert, the common object being to improve the moral and spiritual condition of their sailor population, and to render them a virtuous body of men. But what could be done in furtherance of these ends, if places which held out attractive inducements of a baneful tendency, like these music and dancing places, were to be created in the neighbourhood, under the sanction of the Bench?

We repeat the question-how could the objects of the Society be promoted if these licences were granted? The state of things in the neighbourhood of Shadwell, and all along the banks of the Thames, is awfully revolting already, even though there have hitherto been but two public-houses actually licensed for music and dancing within the whole of the East London District. But at the sessions no fewer than 16 or 17 new applications were made by publicans residing in Shadwell and St. George-street for these licences. In this latter street alone there were as many as seven new applicants!

To the honour of the Middlesex magistrates, the whole of the applications were refused. It must not, however, be imagined that there are no such scenes perpetrated as these' licences were sought to legalise. No "long rooms" are expressly provided by publicans for sailors.

In these resorts music and dancing, without a licence, are as constant as the day; or, rather, as the night; during which unblushing enormities are practised.

Well might Mr. Wilks express himself "astounded" at the number of publicans who applied. The facts, as presented on this occasion, reveal, in a measure, the system at present in powerful action to demoralise and ruin sailors and landsmen. These publicans had, doubtless, combined together. Several eminent counsel had been retained at heavy fees. Attorneys must have prepared the briefs; and, to do this, they must themselves have received instructions. Had the brewers, or their collectors, any hand in the affair? It is certain that their interests all lie this way. Once obtain a licence for music and dancing, and a public-house rises in value; rents increase, and sales become more profitable. All this springs from the fact, that different sets of men seek, by concerted measures, to pander to the worst passions of besotted drunkards and unhappy profligates, in order that money may the more freely be extracted from the unwary and the vicious. How additionally imperative, then, becomes the moral obligation, that the philanthropic and religious community should strengthen every effort directed to snatch the sailor from the fangs of these destroyers of mankind. If money can be, and is, so liberally spent in devising means by which to demoralise and to ruin men, surely the money necessary to carry into successful action the means by which they may be morally elevated and saved will not be withheld.

While the Directors of this Society express their sincere thanks to the Middlesex Bench of Magistrates, for the noble stand they have thus made against any further legalisation of a great moral evil, they at the same time entreat every one anxious to stem the torrent of iniquity that rolls along the banks of the Thames, to assist the effort to raise the moral character of the mercantile navy, and thus free all our sailors from the polluting pleasures that are still so abundantly and so artfully prepared for their ruin.

MARINE PHENOMENA.

NO. III.

The natural colour of the ocean, as essentially composed, and when unmodified by extrinsic circumstances, is a property which, most obvious as it is of all others at first sight, furnishes in itself no small source of pleasurable sensation to the voyager. By landsmen, green is considered the tint most calculated to refresh the eye, or least apt to weary: but the sailor is still more strongly convinced in favour of deep blue, which perhaps, indeed, from its transmitting no direct rays of red or yellow, may have the advantage in this respect. The colour of the sea, unlike that of rivers and lakes superficially depending on the sky, is the result, not of simple reflection, but of refraction

in the dense medium constituted by its diffused salts, where all but the blue rays are absorbed in the absence of any bottom to intercept those of greater subtlety. The sky over the ocean is, it has been observed, comparatively less blue than that towards land, and of a paler azure; since the watery vapours collected near the coast transmit the blue rays to us more freely. The deep fixed indigo of the main surface continues almost irrespectively of the floating clouds above it; deepening, however, with the compression or the wrinkles of a breeze, and softened at the distant line of horizon into that exquisitely-delicate tint, hence called ultra-marine, which varies, according to the light, from the hue of the "forget-me-not" up to that of transparent opal. The true tinge of the sea is best noticed by looking through a tube or orifice, such as the ship's rudder-trunk; while that of the sky is naturally intenser in degree when seen between the openings or past the white edges of the sails. Objects floating within sight below the surface, the blade of an oar or the body of a fish, reflect back the absorbed rays of yellow or red, and appear visibly green; so that, even from the highest mastheads, a shark or smaller fish can be discovered as it swims past the vessel.

The various accidental tints of portions of it, however, both in and out of soundings, bring into stronger contrast that of the great main ocean, and might, on a large and well-figured terrestrial globe, be represented with interesting effect. The brown or green sea along a coast-the Red Sea, coloured by its bottom or by animal matter-the Yellow Sea, by clay in solution, are familiar to most. The blue of the Mediterranean, embraced by its pure, violet-tinted atmosphere, is of a lighter and more shifting character, more in harmony with the sky and air, than that of the solemn tropical waters, over which the heavenly vault looks more pale and unearthly, while the distances seem smaller to the horizon. Within soundings, where the depth is not great, the colour is affected by the quality of the bottom. "Fine white sand, in shallow water, yields a greenish grey or apple green, deepening with the depth of water or decrease of light: yellow sand, in soundings, gives a dark green; dark sand, blackish green; rocks, a brownish or blackish; and loose sand or mud, in a tideway, a grayish colour." Not only from these causes, probably, but from foreign admixture, as well as weaker refractive power, does the well-known sombre green prevail, even in the deepest parts of the "narrow seas." The local varieties, however, which here and there occur with apparent caprice, and irrespective of such influences as those already mentioned, are still more illustrative of the boundless fertility of nature, when, as it were, required to relieve the otherwise monotony of her effects. In the western Atlantic, in the parallel of the island of Dotninica, or about 15 degrees north, is a large space, where the water, although of course very deep, is constantly milky. Another remarkable anomaly is found in the abrupt transitions of the Greenland sea from blue to green, the former of which tints was supposed by the earlier discoverers to denote the vicinity of ice, the other an open passage. These alternations were seen by later voyagers, especially in high latitudes, about the meridian of London, to lie near each other in long bands or stripes upon the open surface of the ocean, chiefly towards north and south, varying with greater or less suddenness, and from a few miles to leagues in breadth. Lines of pale green, olive green, and clear blue were fallen in with during a quarter of an hour's sailing; at other times the shade was nearly grass green, with a shade of black; and the separation of the two colours was frequently as definite as the rippling of a current. In this green water the whale was known to prefer seeking for food; while, on account of the greater obscurity,

it was there more easily caught, so that the fishers generally resorted to these localities. Captain Scoresby's observations proved that some yellow substance was held in suspension to give this peculiarity of hue; and on microscopic analysis of dissolved snow, which had been stained orange by such a substance, he ascertained the cause to be analogous with that which in other latitudes occasions the phosphorescence of the waves. The melted water was found full of semi-transparent globules and fine hair-like substances; different species of small medusæ, possessing the property of decomposing light, and in some cases showing distinctly the colours of the spectrum. Whether these were luminous or not, it was impossible to say, from the absence of darkness during the long polar day; but in no case do we remember having heard of this latter phenomenou to any extent in the Arctic seas; nor do the medusæ of the tropical waters, on the other hand, seem to communicate any foreign tint to the ocean, except in one case, to be mentioned immediately.

In about the year 1796 or 1797, the Dutch captain, Stavorinus, when commanding an East-Indiaman, steering for the Channel of Mamala, between the Laccadive and Maldive islands, on the south-western coast of India, met with a very singular appearance in the colour of the sea. During the day they had observed the water to be darker and browner than usual, without that azure clearness it always has in the open sea. With the approach of evening it gradually assumed such a degree of whiteness as, when the short twilight was fading, to have become perfectly like milk, increasing in paleness till nine o'clock, when it looked as if covered by a white sheet, or like a flat country at night overspread with snow. The horizon was not distinguishable, except to northwest, where the line of separation between sea and sky was only discernible from the latter being somewhat dark and gloomy. No bottom was found with a line of 150 fathoms. The water was transparent in a vessel, but tasted less briny and bituminous than ordinary. The same appearance was observed by the English captain, Newland, in the same part of the ocean, with this difference, that he saw it intermixed with black stripes, running in a serpentine direction through the whiteness. He also distinguished animalcula in it, by putting a glass with some of the water in a dark place, and holding his hand close over it. From the 30th of January till the 3rd of February, the thermometer standing generally about 72 degrees, Captain Stavorinus and his ship's company continued to see this phenomenon every evening and night; each time, however, decreasing in vividness, till it was no longer perceptible. He, too, succeeded in tracing the cause in what he calls "very minute mussels, of the same shape and appearance as those we vulgarly call long-necks, which adhere to timber that has been long in the water, and to the curiously-beautiful shells floating on the surface of the water from the Red Sea with currents (nautilus). The rapidly-varying and shooting motion of these animals occasioned, in my opinion, this circumstance."

The same phenomenon has been remarked in the seas between Amboyna and Banda (Philippine Islands). It is called by the Dutch the white water, and occurs twice a year in the seas around Banda; the first time, at the new moon in June; the second, at new moon in August, not having altogether subsided during the interval. Very few fish are caught while it lasts, but afterwards so much the more: the fish do not like the water, and from its clearness they more easily see the boats and tackle. It has also been observed to rot the bottoms of vessels allowed to lie much in it; while it throws up ashore great quantities of slime, filth, and different species of mollusca. It is dangerous for small craft to be at sea in the night where it comes; since,

though the air may be calm, the sea always rolls with heavy surges, enough to overset them. This "milk-sea" has generally been supposed to originate from the Gulf of Carpentaria: it has been by some attributed to sulphureous marine exhalation, condensed at the surface; by others to the myriads of animalcula. To the southward of Amboyna it appears in the form of stripes; and westward, more in heavy rollings of the sea. The more tempestuous the weather proves, the more it rains; and the harder the south-east tradewind blows, the more this white water is seen. Probably a similar provision is thus furnished for those larger mollusca on which the sperm whale of the Pacific feeds, to that made in the north for the whale of Greenland.

A phenomenon resembling the last in some particulars has been met with in a different part of the Indian Ocean-that vast repository and arena for the more singular marine wonders, whether aqueous or meteoric. It is known by English seamen under the name of "the ripples," and an account of it will be found in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal some time back. It generally takes place with a sudden calm and oppressive atmosphere at night or evening. Electric tokens of disturbance are discernible in the distance, and the horizon glimmers with sudden coruscations, followed by a hollow murmuring sound, which increases gradually till the crews of ships thus overtaken have supposed themselves in the vicinity of breakers. The light in the distance seems to approach, brought vividly out by the darkness of the sea, which becomes agitated, and appears to indicate the furious burst of a hurricane, in spite of the stillness overhead. All at once, with a tremulous motion of the smooth water alongside, the tumultuous line of fire, foam, and noise reaches the vessel, which reels to the shock; the spray rises over her bulwarks, and the whole rushes past like a torrent toward the opposite horizon. This strange disturbance is repeated again and again, as soon as the first has died away; the roar and hiss each time generally diminishing, and the luminous appearance less intense; the air all the while still, but suffocating, the sails not even flapping to the masts. Its effect is appreciated in the greater freshness and coolness of the morning, and the breeze which succeeds; but hence some of those groundless accounts of new rocks or shoals given by timid navigators, who have happened to be thus surprised by the phenomenon partially taking place, and while they had yet steerage-way for making off from the fancied breakers.

The Bethel Pulpit.

"DANGER CANNOT TEACH!"

A Sermon by the REV. HUGH M'NEILE, M.A., preached on behalf of the Liverpool Mariners' Church Society.

(Concluded from page 244.)

Oh, my brethren, it is difficult to make the merits of such a case as this strikingly apparent to your minds. The nature of the urgency of the case, the temptations and the snares to which seamen are exposed on shore, is a subject I cannot enter into before such an assembly. The details of it, in the only language in which they can be adequately conveyed, are altogether too