Litchfield enquirer., 1833-04-25

Assure opens in the rock, from half an inch, to six inches in width, and extending near eighty feet in length! This Assure is full of bees Their numbers are so great, that in the summer time they hang out in huge clusters for several feet above and be- low the Assure, in its whole length. A short distance above are two other cracks, containing earth, in which grow some little chinquapin bushes, and these are covered with the bees. They frequently go of in huge swarms, like barrel or hogshcad in bulk, and are often compelled to return, finding no place large enough to contain them. In the spring, previous to com mencing their labors, the dead bees, rem- nants of combs, and cleanings of the habit ations, which are brought out and dropped by them, make winrow of a foot in height the whole length of the opening.
 7T0 make rancid Butter svcet.-Churn the butter with sweet fresh milk, in the proportion of about 3 lbs. of the former to half gallon of the latter. This simple experiment was lately tried by citizen of this town, and we are authorised to say that it proved entirely successful. The state of the market in relation to this arli- cle at present, renders the knowledge of some purifying and simple process, like the above, very desirable; and we are sure many others will be induced to try it. Fredericksburg Ea.) Herald F,on. F2int's Lectures on Natural History.
 EXTRACTION. NATURAL EXPLANATION OF SPECTRES.
 There exists between light and all the bodies of nature very sensible power ot attraction, which gives birth to an infinite number of remarkable phenomena. Light bends out of its direct course, in passing through transparent body. Philosophers call this property refraction, and the body through which the light passes, medium Descartes was the first who made known the precise laws of refraction, laws sought for to no purpose by Calico, Kepler, and the other sages of former centuries. How 1 ever conlended for by Snellius and others, this discovery belongs entirely to Des- cartes, the noble rival of Newton in many branches of physics, and who remains alone in his comprehension of most Of the scien- ces, in which the genius of Newton had not found scope.
 Light forms an angle in passing from one medium into another. Such is the cause of twilight. The first rays of the sun, pass ing through the rarer medium beyond into the denser medium of the atmosphere, are infected by it, and cause, that the dawn precedes the sun in the horizon.
 A staff, placed obliquely in the water appears to our eyes as if it were broken
 because the rays from the immersed DOT ton of the staff pass obliquely from thu
 water to the air and in this way give al / illusive aspect to it. Aristotle, of whom as philosopher, the world talks so mnct was ignorant of the cause of this pheno menon. You have the advantage at pres cnt of knowing more than Aristotle.
 Suppose the basin in the midst of ; garden drained dry, your vision would di rectly strike the centre of that basin. Fiji it again with water. The rays from you eye would np longer reach the same point
 but, in TenfGfing the water, would change their direction d6wnwards towards a per pendicular, and would reach the bottom O the basin ut point less distant from you HE cAdCI COutVuIl lNWOuiu H.&zySesy ""o' the rays passed from the VI btcsihe at
 mosphere, that is to say, from denser t' a rarer medium. They then diverge iron the perpendicular, incline towards the air and change the apparent position of ob
 jects in the other direction. Those ray that follow perpendicular direction expe
 rience no refraction. as we can see by th experiment of plunging staff perpendicu larly in the water.
 The discovery of the precise laws of re } fraction enables us to account, in natura manner, for many seoming mysteries, O. which various superstitions are based. Alp partitions may, in this way, have Lad thei f cause in nature. The Scotch may thu
 have seen ghosts wander in the thick fog of Lego. The superstilious of the pas days, and of all countries, may in this wa , have encountered phantoms, whom thei fears and imagina,ions enlarged to super human dimensions. Their own images
 reflected from the water in peculiar state . of the atmosphere, may have been th f ghosts they saw. More than one person f not believing in ghosts, walking at evenin
 twilight amidst the misty air of marshes 3 has seen shadowy form walking noar hin 1 and keeping pace with him.
 , (. Father Chasles, jesuit, relates as ! eve witness, that he saw at Besancon