expressed, that the truth should be explained to her who had suffered most from the grievous misconception. For some time afterwards, the colonel remained buried in grief; but rage at the villain who had deceived him, by degrees gained the ascendancy over more depressing feelings, and restored him for the time to his wonted energies. Avoiding the sight of his poor wife, he left his house, mounted his horse, and took the way to Alicant, determined to wring the truth from the wretch's heart. He was not long in finding Don Pedro, and in explaining his business. The heartless, hardened traitor, only laughed at the charge. "How could you be so silly, colonel," said he sneeringly, "as to imagine I would take the trouble to plead any man's cause? I loved the girl myself, and for myself I spoke." "Wretch!" exclaimed Cazalla; why then accept the trust which I was mad enough to give you?" "Oh, my good colonel, all stratagems, you know, are fair in love. I never had confidence, I confess, to speak my mind till I saw you coming forward." "Draw, infamous villain," cried the colonel, almost exasperated to madness, “draw, if you would not be beat like a dog on the public walk!” Don Pedro retained his coolness. "There is no occasion for that, colonel. Only let us retire a little way, where we may be more comfortable." They did so, and fought.

On that night Colonel Cazalla was conveyed to his home, wounded in the chest by the sword of his adversary. Don Pedro also was wounded, and much more seriously to appearance. But, alas! the colonel's proved the more permanent injury. His unfortunate lady was rendered almost frantic by the event, which she understood only to arise from a casual quarrel. For many months Cazalla lay on a bed of sickness. Ere he arose, Baltazara Perez was in her grave! Though ignorant of her father's intent to visit Cazalla, which maidenly pride could not have permitted her to sanction, she blest the occurrence afterwards, when it proved the means of assuring her of her lover's unbroken faith and truth. But it could not avert her doom. Consumption

had laid its withering hand upon her, and she sank into the tomb, happy, and breathing wishes of happiness for Cazalla and those around her. Of the encounter of the colonel with De Rivar, and its consequences, she died in ignorance.

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Nearly two years,' continued my friend, 'have passed since that event. Cazalla still lives, but his lungs sustained a fatal injury by the wound, and he is wasting away by degrees. Nothing, in truth, but the unparalleled care and devotion of his wife could have so prolonged his days. That matchless creature has long known the whole truth from her husband's own lips, but the disclosure changed not her feelings towards him. He tells her now, that he would fain live for her sake; but it is obvious, nevertheless, that the expected approach of death gives him no pain. Alas! for that wretched deception. Three of the noblest-hearted beings that ever breathed, fated to perish by it! For Inez lives only on her husband's looks; her whole soul is bound up in him; and when the thread of his existence snaps, hers is too closely entwined with it to sustain the shock. Surely, surely these three unfortunates will yet be happy together in a world to come!'

A silence of some minutes followed this recital.

'And the scoundrel—the villain !'—said I, after a long breath.

'Don Pedro de Rivar recovered, and still lives. Many of the friends of Perez and Cazalla would have again called him to account, but both the colonel and the old man forbade it. And they have done well to leave him to his own feelings and public odium. For, though he long endeavoured to brave the matter out, he found it impossible ultimately to endure the aversion and hatred of all around him. He has been compelled to shut himself up in his house, and there lives almost a prisoner. Men will scarcely even take his money for the necessaries of life, much less associate with him.'

'It is a deplorable condition,' said I; 'but who can pity him?'

POPULAR FALLACIES ABOUT THE MOON.

THE laborious researches of M. Arago respecting the supposed influence of the moon on the state of the weather, and on animal and vegetable bodies, have tended materially to clear up a subject on which there has long prevailed much prejudice and superstition. These re

searches were ably reported in two articles in the Monthly Chronicle, and from them we propose to lay some instructive and amusing particulars before our readers. The Influence of the Moon on the Weather forms the subject of the first article. From a very early period, meteorological phenomena were supposed to be connected with the lunar motions; nor was this supposition unnatural, considering the obvious and undeniable, though at the same time mysterious, influence of the same planet on the tides. Originally, however, the moon and other heavenly bodies were regarded more as signs than causes, as far as atmospheric phenomena were concerned; but in course of time these signs degenerated into a most absurd system of rules, having no real foundation in nature.

The following, for example, is one of the axioms regarding the moon's influence: If the horns of the lunar crescent, on the third day after new moon, are sharply and clearly defined, the weather may be expected to be fair during the ensuing month.' The absurdity of this is made apparent by the plain argumentation subjoined. "The lunar crescent is produced by a peculiar relation of position which subsists between the aspects of the moon presented to the sun and the earth. If only half the hemisphere which receives the sun's light be presented towards the earth, the moon is exactly halved; if a quarter of the hemisphere be turned to the earth, the moon is a crescent, and its age is then nearly four days. When its age is less

than two days, therefore, less than an eighth of its illuminated hemisphere is presented to our planet, and consequently it appears as a very thin crescent. It is evident that these effects, if seen through perfectly transparent space, could not alter with circumstances; and that, in the same position of the moon, with respect to the earth and sun, the crescent must be at all times equally sharp and distinct. But when the moon is

viewed, as it is by us, through an atmosphere from thirty to forty miles high-that atmosphere being liable to be more or less loaded with imperfectly transparent vapours-it will be seen with more or less distinctness, according to the varying transparency of the medium through which it is viewed. The fact, therefore, of the crescent appearing distinct and well defined, or obscurely with the points of the horns blunted, is merely a consequence of our atmosphere being at one time more pure, clear, and transparent, than at another.'

Another axiom of lunar meteorology declares, that 'if on the fourth day the moon project no shadow, we are to expect bad weather during the month.' In this instance, also, the moon simply serves as an instrument to determine the humidity of the air; for as the quantity of light reflected from the moon must be always the same, its intensity on reaching our earth, or, in other words, its power to produce a shadow, must be determined by the amount of vapours in the atmosphere which it passes through. The proposition, therefore, is identical with the last; and only means, that when 'the atmosphere in the west, a little after sunset, on the fourth day of the moon, is loaded with humidity, the weather during the month will be bad.' These two propositions, accordingly, couched under such seemingly profound terms, signify no more than that we shall always have bad weather during any given month, if the atmosphere in the western horizon is vapoury for an hour or two, on a certain evening, towards its beginning a proposition most superlatively lame, impotent, and inconclusive.

The ingenious writer of these papers, after exhibiting the fallacy of such axioms as these, proceeds to examine the justice of the very common notion, that 'a change of weather accompanies a change of the moon.' The long train of scientific reasoning which follows on this subject would occupy too much of our space, and we shall content ourselves, therefore, with stating the conclusion to which the writer arrives. From all that has been stated, it follows then, conclusively, that the popular notions concerning the influence of the lunar phases on the weather have no foundation in theory, and no correspondence with observed facts. That the moon, by her gravitation, exerts an attraction on our atmosphere, cannot be doubted; but its effects are either too small in amount to be appreciable in the actual state of meteorological instruments, or they are obliterated by other more powerful causes, from which they have not yet been eliminated.' The notion, therefore, that a change is to be looked for at full and new moon, venerable as that notion is from its antiquity and the universality of its acceptation, receives no countenance from the results of scientific inquiry.

The supposed influence of the moon is not confined to the weather. Gardeners in some countries have an idea that the red moon kills the young shoots of plants. The red moon is that which is full between the middle of April and the close of May. Now, in charging such a moon with an injurious effect on plants, the accusers simply mistake a sign for a cause. Plants are killed frequently at that season as if by frosts, though, on the nights when the death takes place, a thermometer in the open air may stand many degrees above the freezing-point. Observing this to be the case, gardeners can see no cause for the evil done to the plants but the lunar light, which they notice to be always keen and strong at the period. But, in reality, the state of the atmosphere is the true cause of the injury to the vegetables. On clear and unclouded nights, substances on the earth's surface lose heat by radiation, while the