Minnesota weekly times., 1856-11-22
A Rich Lecture ON Astronomy.


the following letter to the Portland Transcript
and Eclectic, descriptive of matters and things in
that part of the country. Our readers will enjoy
his amusing report of the lecture on astronomy: :
Mister Edditer: Perhaps in a letterary pint
of view our town haint been so fOrred she orter
While pollyticks and the millingtary interest has
been carrder furder perhaps than in any other
place on airth, yet exceptin my own case, lttera-
toOr haint gone beyond coarse hand ritin' an the
single rule of three. Ferlosofy has been quoted
in this market below pork; syence haint compared
with cyder, string beans has ginerally sot higher
than astronomy, letters led trigernometry, and
the tables is turned bottom side under. Syence
is ris !! ....
We've got Lie see um! The cry of Letters
is begun, the tree of nollidge has sprouted, in
terect biles over matter-that ere interlect which
has been dormouse is naom raoused like a sleepy
lion gittin' away from Jordan.
The fust lecture of the season was gin last night
by James Peabody, who's bin one quarter to an
academary.
General Subiek-StrOnomy.
Pertickeler do-COmics.
haint TINA to gin you more'n a digestive or
facsimelar of the Letter
Jemes begun by obsarvin that eff any body sup
posed that the stars warn't a heap bigger than
| they looked, they was almighty behind hand.
Why, says he, there's that leete sinner called
Satan, says he, don't look bigger than letter,
and yet, according to Herklys = who knows the
heavingly bodies jist as easy as know father
'tis sumwhat larger than the hull county of OK
ford. An he leetlest star you can pick OUT is as
big as a cart wheel.-At this pint Dea Elderberry
| ris and said this was goin too fur, twas regeler
| blaspheeme, contrary to scriptur and agin COM
mon sense. Then he tuck his hat an cleared, fust
| spittin aout his terbacker cud, as q testimony
| agin the doctrine.
After spcakin of the milky way-which he said
was longer than the Cumberland or Oxford
| canawl-an the moon, which the nnlarned con-
| sidered to be green cheese, but which syence
demonstrated to be jacker-lantern a large
scale, the lecterer proceeded to the pertickeler
part on his subject:
Comics or BlaSi,, Stars.
Comics, says Jemes, says he, are of two kinds,
| the tame and the wild. The fust is peacable =
tother aint. The fust ones are made of old moons
aint fit for service, and is called by the Oned-
dicated shootin stars, but we of the schools call
em metres. This difference led the speaker to
| remark that larnin is everythin.
The wild kind, says Jemes, is different crittur,
being composed of kinebelous matter, hyfolution
gass, oxside of cast iron, an salts of harmonic
makes it highly salvage and onsartin. They fust
| appeared about Deuteronomy, or perhaps little
later in the year six, and was diskivered spontane-
| ously from Portland observatory and Pompeys
pillow in Rooshy. They are pesky things, says
he, oilers gettin up wars, hurrykanes and airth-
faster than a rale rode, but never reaching any
where's in pertickeler. Mighty onsartin, tEey ar,
cant be depended on. Father Miller engaged one
to do pcrtickeler job in '43, but it probably got
better farms somewhere else, and that ere job re-
mains ondone to this day.
But naon, says Jeems, we comes to consider
thar tails. Them, says he, is rael numerous.
U H. ~ l.
he tails of all the plants in the cderal heavings
wouldn't make one for fust rate wild comic.
Longer than the magnetic paragraph and wider
than Sebago pond, thay stretches aout over the
universal kanerpy in the unlimeted nugacity of
| ether, now sweeping down among the elongate
concavites of diurnnl convexties, and anon sorein
upwards till lost in the CRATE hyperion!
Jeems was soc used up by this peroararion, he
had to be carried home on cheer. This morn
ing, however, he was as well as could be expected,
and eff convalescence don't set in, he'll be abaout
in q day or two. E. SPIKES.