--_A Subaltern in America.--Blackwood's Magazine._
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SONNET--NOCHE SERENA.
How tranquil is the night! The torrent's roar
Dies off far distant; through the lattice streams
The pure, white, silvery moonshine, mantling o'er
The couch and curtains with its fairy gleams.
Sweet is the prospect; sweeter are the dreams
From which my loathful eyelid now unclosed:--
Methought beside a forest we reposed,
Marking the summer sun's far western beams,
A dear-loved friend and I. The nightingale
To silence and to us her pensive tale
Sang forth; the very tone of vanish'd years
Came o'er me, feelings warm, and visions bright;
Alas! how quick such vision disappears,
To leave the spectral moon and silent night!
_Delta of Blackwood's Magazine._
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ARTS AND SCIENCES.
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THE BEECH TREE.--A NONCONDUCTOR OF LIGHTNING.
Dr. Beeton, in a letter to Dr. Mitchill of New York, dated 19th of July,
1824, states, that the beech tree (that is, the broad leaved or American
variety of _Fagus sylvatiea_,) is never known to be assailed by
atmospheric electricity. So notorious, he says, is this fact, that in
Tenessee, it is considered almost an impossibility to be struck by
lightning, if protection be sought under the branches of a beech tree.
Whenever the sky puts on a threatening aspect, and the thunder begins to
roll, the Indians leave their pursuit, and betake themselves to the
shelter of the nearest beech tree, till the storm pass over; observation
having taught these sagacious children of nature, that, while other
trees are often shivered to splinters, the electric fluid is not
attracted by the beech.
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