The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-12-27 00:00:00

A CHANGE IN THE ECLIPTIC or THE EARTH.

iTATE OF TRADE

MANCHESTER.—During the week very little business has
been done, as the buyers of printing cloths appear determined
not to give the current rates, although 27-inch power-loom
printers have receded full 3d. per piece in the last two or
three weeks. Wide cloths still maintain their price, and
makers are working to order. Very large orders have been
given in anticipation of good news from the east by the next
overland mail. Domestic cloth is still in good demand ; in-
deed it is better to sell than for several years previously, and
most of the manufacturers of this article are working to order.
Water twist has been sold at -Id. to 4cl. per lb. less, but this th
cannot be quoted as the average price. Things are, upon the any
whole, considering the season of the year, rather improving Mill
than otherwise. The country trade continues flat, as very days s
few buyers have visited us this month. 27-inch power-loom brated.
printers may be quoted as follows :-27-inch 66's 4s. 3d. to c)vepesp
4s. 9d. ; and 72's, 4s. 9d. to ss. 3d.—Manchester Advertiser, sc.
of Saturday.
toe ecliptic is ..-.Ming -,1111
BLACKBURN.—There is a decided improvement in thr

cite inten
" It is ev

trade of this town, and it is with pleasure
working class have begun to reap the advantage of the

the earth

change in t
night.

We take the following article from the New York Daily
Mail of the 30th ult. It is stated to be the production of an
eminent scientific gentleman connected with Yale College.
The statements are made with all seriousness and gravity :
" There is certainly some extraordinary change going on
in the solar system. Whether the result will be a speedy
dissolution of the present harmonious arrangement, is of
course known only to Him who instituted the laws which
govern the courses of the stars. For some time my atten-
tion has been directed to the rapidly developing phenomena,
and I have been assisted in my observations by gentlemen
eminent for their scientific attainments. And within a few
lays I have had placed in my bands a paper from the cele-
rated astronomer, Hanff, of Berlin, detailing his own dis-
veries, and indicating that the subject is beginning to es-
- noiong the scientific of Europe.
of the earth's axis with

ent that the incur
Ther

is now a neater approach to
a coincidence of the equator and ecliptic than has ever before
been known. Since the autumnal equinox the obliquity in
curse has sensibly dimini,hed ; and if no counte-
atervenes, there will soon be a perceptible
and in the relative lengths of day and

The change is so great already, that many intricate calcu-
lations for the present year will be found inaccurate. Some
of the important calculations of the Nautical Almanac will be
soon found perplexing to the mariner as he takes hii obser-
vations. And some of these heretofore highly useful tables
in the American Almanac, founded on the bearings of some
of the fixed stars as well as planets, will prove entirely un-
safe, if the progress of the change continue. An experienced
and intelligent shipmaster, a day or two since, casually ob-
served to me, that on a recent voyage from the East Indies,
when he had sailed about six degrees to the north of the

equator—the region from which the North Star is usually
first seen after crossing the line, the haze rendering it invisi-
ble while nearer the horizon—he was astonished and per-
plexed in his observations. The unusual variation of his
chronometer from the time indicated by stellar observation
led him to doubt the accuracy of his former faithful guide.
Should these changes continue, a variation in the latitude
of the North Star will soon be apparent to the most casual
observer ; at these points of time, April 15, June 16, August
28, and December 24, when all true timekeepers should agree
with the sun, the chronometer will be found essentially va-
rying ; and many other very important results will be deve-
loped. An attentive and accurate observer in the high
latitudes, even at the next solstice, cannot fail to recognise
various astonishing phenomena.
But the changes going on in regard to the earth are less
remarkable perhaps than those which are affecting some of
the other planets. The poles of Venus, to all appearance,
are now elevated full 35 degrees, and she seems to be chang-
ing from her former clear radiance to a colour approaching
that of Mars ; the change in this particular, however, is as
yet slight, barely perceptible, under close observation, to the
naked eye. By the aid of a powerful glass there may be
perceived what appear to be waves of fire rolling over her
disc. This appearance 1 have watched with much interest;
it commenced some months since, on the southern limb,
and gradually advanced over the whole breadth, till the pla-
net was completely enveloped. The motion of this planet in
her orbit, too, seems to be retarded, as though she were
under the influence of some new power of attraction.
Herschel has the appearance of having greatly diminished
in size, and has failed to reach a given point of its orbit at
the usual time ; and in short, seems to have broken the bonds
which have connected it to the solar system, and commenced

its course as a member of some remote celestial retinue

Saturn also is assuming an unwonted aspect. To all ap-
pearance, there is a mighty conflagration going on in the
hitherto dark line which divides her rings. To such an ex-
tent has it already attained, that in one or two places the
whole breadth has assumed the appearance of ragged ranges,
glowing as if they were red hot iron, and throwing a lurid re-
flection upon the adjacent portions of the ring.
The changes seem also to extend beyond our system. The
beautiful star Betelgnese, in the constellation Orion, has va-
ried to such an extent: from the vernal to the autumnal equi-
nox of the present year; gat its distance may be ascertained.
It seems to be approaching the solar bounds."

ERUPTION OF MOUNT ETNA.

(Extract of a letter, dated Palermo, December 1.)

The day before yesterday, passing along the Marina, or
public walk that skirts the exquisitely beautiful bay of Pa-
lermo, and casting my eye over the range of the Madonian
mountains, and beyond the picturesque hills of Termini, I
saw testing above the snowy ridge of hoary-headed old Etna
(which lies literally east of sunrise from here) a long line of
feathery whitish cloud, which, from its peculiar tree-like
shape, I knew at once to be smoke from the volcano. Ac-
cordingly, towards night, when the sun had dropped down
into the bay of Mondello, a deep-red lurid glare became dis-
tinctly visible at the foot of the column of smoke, and all the
world was then aware that the volcano was in active opera-
tion.

This has continued ever since, dimly discernible by day in
a pillar of cloud of that peculiar form which an eye, expe-
rienced in eruptions, instantly perceives to be the vapour from
a crater—and more conspicuous by night in a body of deep-
red fire, of the apparent size of an ordinary haycock, but
brightening and lessening fitfully with the swells and lulls of
the blast of the fiery furnace.

Telescopes have been much in requisition of nights, since
Tuesday, and many persons say they see the showers of red-
hot rocks rising and falling in the air above the crater, but I
myself have as yet seen nothing more than what I have de-
scribed above, and this much is as clearly visible to the
naked eye as is the outline of the Surrey hills from the
cockney mountain of Highgate.
The air-line distance of Mount Etna from Palermo (which
in the vulgar vernacular is commonly called the distance as
the crow flies) is above ninety English miles, and to any one
unfamiliar with the marvellous translucency of the Sicilian
atmosphere it might seem almost incredible that a mere
smoke in the air could be discerned a hundred miles off, yet
true it is that never when on board a steamer have I seen the
smoke out of its own chimney more plainly when the smut
was falling on my own very nose than I see from hence the
column rising out of old Vulcan's chimney on Mount Etna.
To-day I watched it, from the rocky heights of Belmonte,
for an hour or more before sunrise. At first, while quite
dark, only the fire was visible, like a great bonfire, or furze
burning on a mountain top, save that it was in colour of a
deeper red. But with the first faint touches or coming day
the smoke became gradually visible, and more and more dis-
' tinctly marked, streaming along due north, till it stood over
the islets of Volcano and Lipari, where it brought up with a
round turn. as we tell the marines, and thence swept away
eastward towards the further Calabria. As the rosy tints of
the rising sun came up behind the smoke or vapour (which,
by the way, is much more steam than smoke), it was illumi-
nated with the ruddy light, and assumed the gorgeous ap-
pearance of a prodigious blazing cloud, flaming in the fore-
head of the eastern sky, until it gradually faded into the light
of common day. At this time, too, the delicately pencilled
crescent of the waning moon became undistinguisbable from
the brightened light of the surrounding sky ; but the volcanic
vapour soon again became visible, stretching its fantastic but
exquisitely picturesque form along the horizon, iu the tamer
character of cloud-like smoke, and much resembling the
cloud vomited forth from the funnel of a gigantic steamer.
As you may not be aware of the precise shape of a crater,
I think it is as well to tell you that it is exactly like the wash-
hand basin in the dressing cabin of the said steamer, when
the stopple at the bottom is pulled out to let off the water
you have used in washing. The basin itself resembles the
crater, oommonly so called, at the very bottom of which is
the huge funnel-shaped bottomless-pit, that spouts forth
smoke and steam, with hot stones, black mud, grey ashes,
and streams of many-coloured lava. The outer basin, com-
monly called the crater. or cup, as aforesaid, varies in differ-
ent volcanoes, from a hundred yards to a quarter of a mile
deep. The depth of the fiery funnel itself, Empedocles (of
mortals) only knows, and he, though he threw back his slip-
per, by way of wishing the world good luck, never returned
to tell.

The height of Etna is the best ascertained of any lofty
mountain in the world. Cacciatore, the present Astronomer
Royal at Palermo, and our countrymen, Sir John Herschell
and Captain Smyth, the celebrated trigonometrical surveyor,
by processes entirely independent of and unknown to each

other, all fixed it at 10,874 feet English, not differing a fathom
in the three computations. So exact a coincidence, in a case
in which several compensations had to be allowed for, must
necessarily have been partly accidental ; but, as Dr. Wollas-
ton said of it, the accident was one upon which no three fools
could by any possibility have stumbled. It is worth ob-
serving that Etna, which is more than twice as high as Vesu-
vius (about twice and a half), has not half so large a cone of
clinkers and ashes at the top, nor is its crater any thing like
so large or deep as that of Vesuvius, which latter is in fact
quite a model volcano, as if made for show. Generally, in
volcanos, the height of the cone and depth of the crater are
in the inrerse ratio of the whole height of the mountains to
which they belong. It would seem as if the expansive forces
within the volcano, having a greater vertical height to work
through before they reach the surface, either do not eject the
scoriae and ashes so far, or in so great quantity, or perhaps
both these circumstances combine to render the hollow co-
nial cup at the top small in diameter and shallow in depth in
proportion as the general elevation of each volcanic mountain
is greater.

V
The present great eruption of Etna (it is at this moment
darning away with undiminished brilliancy and grandeur) is
the first that has been visible at Palermo since 1822. In-
telligence travels slowly in Sicily, and we have not had any
authentic advices from the scene of action. The weather is
indescribably delicious, like a May of the best quality in
England. Sitting on the rocks, the cold hour before sunrise
this morning was perfectly pleasant. The flowers and many
fruit trees are in full blom, and the newly-dropped lambkins
are frisking in the fields. E. J.
P.S. I have just seen a letter from Riposto, within fifteen
miles of the crater. The hurly-burly began its pother on
Sunday night. The smoke that afternoon, and the drying up
of the springs, betokened that Enceladus was getting tidgetty ;
and in the dead of the night the mountain heaved and quivered
like the midships of a three-decker, when she pours her first
broadside into the ribs of the enemy. A roar succeeded
louder than a thousand train of artillery, and myriads of red
rocky fragments shot up to the heavens. No lava had yet
begun to flow. Many persons here saw, or thought they saw,
it floating down the flanks of the mountain to-day ,• but, as I
do not tax my imagination for my facts, on this head I can
at present tell nothing. But you may--
With fancy speed on golden wing,
To sunny climes of classic lore ;
Where poets touched the trembling string,
And still delighted shepherds sing
On Italy's enchanted shore !
Sicilia's vales shall greet thine eyes
Where Etna's fires sublimely rise,
Tinging the evening skies with flame!
Or midnight glories widely shed
In grand—yet soul-subduing dread—
Or hide in clouds his towering head
From young Aurora's
purple shame!

FERTILITY OP Olllo.—From Piketon onward to Ports-
mouth, we had the Scioto river frequently in sight on our
right, having crossed it in a ferry-boat, which took over the
the stage, by a line suspended high across the stream, and a
frame-work with two sheaves and two running ropes, which,
under the guidance of the boatman, caused the boat to be
carried across without oars or steam, but merely by the force
as at Wheeling, though by a more simple and
process even than that. Nothing could exceed
oltehfsesti;e:xrcriuelit'rysei'no.ett: the country, or the beauty of the landscape.
The bottom lands of the valley were completely overflowed,
plain, as we looked down upon it from the
overhanging hills along which we passed, looked
lit'leijooonlevof Egypt, during the inundation of the Nile.
portion of Egypt, during the inundation of the Nile.
1s in that country, so in this,
nksd dee
sides
hotpefl
the river leaves, when it sub-
sides, a rich layer of alluvial soil, which renders manure
wholly unnecessary, and none is therefore used. Yet, such
is its fertility, that in no part even of the new states of the
west, does corn ever grow to such a height, and in such
exuberance, as here. Fields of corn, with the stalks rising to
a height of 18 feet, are common all over the valley • and in
some particular spots, it has been known to reach the extra-
ordinary height of 25 feet ! A single gallon of corn is deemed
sufficient to plant an acre ; and an hundred bushels is the
usual return ! Wheat also, in the drier lands, produces 30,
40, and 50 bushels per acre ; the average in England being
only 26; and as this is the great corn and timber country of
the west, the logs and cabins of settlers, and saw mills worked
by water, for grinding corn and sawing timber, are here
abundant. Certainly, except on the banks of the Nile, Ido
not remember ever to have seen such appearances of extreme
fertility as here in this lovely valley of Scioto:---ditieking.
ACM'S Aatter;ca, Third ories.