Tennyson - "The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson"

William Edmonstoune Aytoun - "The Bon Gaultier Ballads"

Guy De Maupassant - "A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales"

Father Chiniquy - "The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Botanic Garden

E >> Erasmus Darwin >> The Botanic Garden




The aurora borealis, or northern dawn, is very ingeniously accounted for
by Dr. Franklin on principles of electricity. He premises the following
electric phenomena: 1. that all new fallen snow has much positive
electricity standing on its surface. 2. That about twelve degrees of
latitude round the poles are covered with a crust of eternal ice, which
is impervious to the electric fluid. 3. That the dense part of the
atmosphere rises but a few miles high; and that in the rarer parts of it
the electric fluid will pass to almost any distance.

Hence he supposes there must be a great accumulation of positive
electric matter on the fresh fallen snow in the polar regions; which,
not being able to pass through the crust of ice into the earth, must
rise into the rare air of the upper parts of our atmosphere, which will
the least resist its passage; and passing towards the equator descend
again into the denser atmosphere, and thence into the earth in silent
streams. And that many of the appearances attending these lights are
optical deceptions, owing to the situation of the eye that beholds them;
which makes all ascending parallel lines appear to converge to a point.

The idea, above explained in note on l. 123, of the existence of a
sphere of inflammable gas over the aerial atmosphere would much favour
this theory of Dr. Franklin; because in that case the dense aerial
atmosphere would rise a much less height in the polar regions,
diminishing almost to nothing at the pole itself; and thus give an
easier passage to the ascent of the electric fluid. And from the great
difference in the specific gravity of the two airs, and the velocity of
the earth's rotation, there must be a place between the poles and the
equator, where the superior atmosphere of inflammable gas would
terminate; which would account for these streams of the aurora borealis
not appearing near the equator; add to this that it is probable the
electric fluid may be heavier than the magnetic one; and will thence by
the rotation of the earth's surface ascend over the magnetic one by its
centrifugal force; and may thus be induced to rise through the thin
stratum of aerial atmosphere over the poles. See note on Canto II. l.
193. I shall have occasion again to mention this great accumulation of
inflammable air over the poles; and to conjecture that these northern
lights may be produced by the union of inflammable with common air,
without the assistance of the electric spark to throw them into
combustion.

The antiquity of the appearance of northern lights has been doubted; as
none were recorded in our annals since the remarkable one on Nov. 14,
1574, till another remarkable one on March 6, 1716, and the three
following nights, which were seen at the same time in Ireland, Russia,
and Poland, extending near 30 degrees of longitude and from about the
50th degree of latitude over almost all the north of Europe. There is
however reason to believe them of remote antiquity though inaccurately
described; thus the following curious passage from the Book of
Maccabees, (B. II. c. v.) is such a description of them, as might
probably be given by an ignorant and alarmed people. "Through all the
city, for the space of almost forty days, there were seen horsemen
running in the air, in cloth of gold, and armed with lances, like a band
of soldiers; and troops of horsemen in array encountering and running
one against another, with shaking of shields and multitude of pikes, and
drawing of swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden
ornaments and harness."




NOTE II.--PRIMARY COLOURS.


_Cling round the aerial bow with prisms bright,
And pleased untwist the sevenfold threads of light._

CANTO I. l. 117.


The manner in which the rainbow is produced was in some measure
understood before Sir Isaac Newton had discovered his theory of colours.
The first person who expressly shewed the rainbow to be formed by the
reflection of the sunbeams from drops of falling rain was Antonio de
Dominis. This was afterwards more fully and distinctly explained by Des
Cartes. But what caused the diversity of its colours was not then
understood; it was reserved for the immortal Newton to discover that the
rays of light consisted of seven combined colours of different
refrangibility, which could be seperated at pleasure by a wedge of
glass. Pemberton's View of Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered that the prismatic spectrum was composed of
seven colours in the following proportions, violet 80, indigo 40, blue
60, green 60, yellow 48, orange 27, red 45. If all these colours be
painted on a circular card in the proportions above mentioned, and the
card be rapidly whirled on its center, they produce in the eye the
sensation of white. And any one of these colours may be imitated by
painting a card with the two colours which are contiguous to it, in the
same proportions as in the spectrum, and whirling them in the same
manner. My ingenious friend, Mr. Galton of Birmingham, ascertained in
this manner by a set of experiments the following propositions; the
truth of which he had preconceived from the above data.

1. Any colour in the prismatic spectrum may be imitated by a mixture of
the two colours contiguous to it.

2. If any three successive colours in the prismatic spectrum are mixed,
they compose only the second or middlemost colour.

3. If any four succesive colours in the prismatic spectrum be mixed, a
tint similar to a mixture of the second and third colours will be
produced, but not precisely the same, because they are not in the same
proportion.

4. If beginning with any colour in the circular spectrum, you take of
the second colour a quantity equal to the first, second, and third; and
add to that the fifth colour, equal in quantity to the fourth, fifth,
and sixth; and with these combine the seventh colour in the proportion
it exists in the spectrum, white will be produced. Because the first,
second, and third, compose only the second; and the fourth, fifth, and
sixth, compose only the fifth; therefore if the seventh be added, the
same effect is produced, as if all the seven were employed.

5. Beginning with any colour in the circular spectrum, if you take a
tint composed of a certain proportion of the second and third, (equal in
quantity to the first, second, third, and fourth,) and add to this the
sixth colour equal in quantity to the fifth, sixth, and seventh, white
will be produced.

From these curious experiments of Mr. Galton many phenomena in the
chemical changes of colours may probably become better understood;
especially if, as I suppose, the same theory must apply to transmitted
colours, as to reflected ones. Thus it is well known, that if the glass
of mangonese, which is a tint probably composed of violet and indigo, be
mixed in a certain proportion with the glass of lead, which is yellow;
that the mixture becomes transparent. Now from Mr. Galton's experiments
it appears, that in reflected colours such a mixture would produce
white, that is, the same as if all the colours were reflected. And
therefore in transmitted colours the same circumstances must produce
transparency, that is, the same as if all the colours were transmitted.
For the particles, which constitute the glass of mangonese will transmit
red, violet, indigo, and blue; and those of the glass of lead will
transmit orange, yellow, and green; hence all the primary colours by a
mixture of these glasses become transmitted, that is, the glass becomes
transparent.

Mr. Galton has further observed that five successive prismatic colours
may be combined in such proportions as to produce but one colour, a
circumstance which might be of consequence in the art of painting. For
if you begin at any part of the circular spectrum above described, and
take the first, second, and third colours in the proportions in which
they exist in the spectrum; these will compose only the second colour
equal in quantity to the first, second, and third; add to these the
third, fourth, and fifth in the proportion they exist in the spectrum,
and these will produce the fourth colour equal in quantity to the third,
fourth, and fifth. Consequently this is precisely the same thing, as
mixing the second and fourth colours only; which mixture would only
produce the third colour. Therefore if you combine the first, second,
fourth, and fifth in the proportions in which they exist in the
spectrum, with double the quantity of the third colour, this third
colour will be produced. It is probable that many of the unexpected
changes in mixing colours on a painter's easle, as well as in more fluid
chemical mixtures, may depend on these principles rather than on a new
arrangement or combination of their minute particles.

Mr. Galton further observes, that white may universally be produced by
the combination of one prismatic colour, and a tint intermediate to two
others. Which tint may be distinguished by a name compounded of the two
colours, to which it is intermediate. Thus white is produced by a
mixture of red with blue-green. Of orange with indigo-blue. Of Yellow
with violet-indigo. Of green with red-violet. Of blue with Orange-red.
Of indigo with yellow-orange. Of violet with green-yellow. Which he
further remarks exactly coincides with the theory and facts mentioned by
Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury in his account of ocular spectra; who
has shewn that when one of these contrasted colours has been long
viewed, a spectrum or appearance of the other becomes visible in the
fatigued eye. Philos. Trans. Vol. LXXVI. for the year 1786.

These experiments of Mr. Galton might much assist the copper-plate
printers of callicoes and papers in colours; as three colours or more
might be produced by two copper-plates. Thus suppose some yellow figures
were put on by the first plate, and upon some parts of these yellow
figures and on other parts of the ground blue was laid on by another
copper-plate. The three colours of yellow, blue, and green might be
produced; as green leaves with yellow and blue flowers.




NOTE III.--COLOURED CLOUDS.


_Eve's silken couch with gorgeous tints adorn,
Or fire the arrowy throne of rising morn._

CANTO I. l. 119.


The rays from the rising and setting sun are refracted by our spherical
atmosphere, hence the most refrangible rays, as the violet, indigo, and
blue are reflected in greater quantities from the morning and evening
skies; and the least refrangible ones, as red and orange, are last seen
about the setting sun. Hence Mr. Beguelin observed that the shadow of
his finger on his pocket-book was much bluer in the morning and evening,
when the shadow was about eight times as long as the body from which it
was projected. Mr. Melville observes, that the blue rays being more
refrangible are bent down in the evenings by our atmosphere, while the
red and orange being less refrangible continue to pass on and tinge the
morning and evening clouds with their colours. See Priestley's History
of Light and Colours, p. 440. But as the particles of air, like those of
water, are themselves blue, a blue shadow may be seen at all times of
the day, though much more beautifully in the mornings and evenings, or
by means of a candle in the middle of the day. For if a shadow on a
piece of white paper is produced by placing your finger between the
paper and a candle in the day light, the shadow will appear very blue;
the yellow light of the candle upon the other parts of the paper
apparently deepens the blue by its contrast; these colours being
opposite to each other, as explained in note II.

Colours are produced from clouds or mists by refraction, as well as by
reflection. In riding in the night over an unequal country I observed a
very beautiful coloured halo round the moon, whenever I was covered with
a few feet of mist, as I ascended from the vallies; which ceased to
appear when I rose above the mist. This I suppose was owing to the
thinness of the stratum of mist, in which I was immersed; had it been
thicker, the colours refracted by the small drops, of which a fog
consists, would not have passed through it down to my eye.

There is a bright spot seen on the cornea of the eye, when we face a
window, which is much attended to by portrait painters; this is the
light reflected from the spherical surface of the polished cornea, and
brought to a focus; if the observer is placed in this focus, he sees the
image of the window; if he is placed before or behind the focus, he only
sees a luminous spot, which is more luminous and of less extent, the
nearer he approaches to the focus. The luminous appearance of the eyes
of animals in the dusky corners of a room, or in holes in the earth, may
arise in some instances from the same principle; viz. the reflection of
the light from the spherical cornea; which will be coloured red or blue
in some degree by the morning, evening, or meridian light; or by the
objects from which that light is previously reflected. In the cavern at
Colebrook Dale, where the mineral tar exsudes, the eyes of the horse,
which was drawing a cart from within towards the mouth of it, appeared
like two balls of phosphorus, when he was above 100 yards off, and for a
long time before any other part of the animal was visible. In this case
I suspect the luminous appearance to have been owing to the light, which
had entered the eye, being reflected from the back surface of the
vitreous humour, and thence emerging again in parallel rays from the
animals eye, as it does from the back surface of the drops of the
rainbow, and from the water-drops which lie, perhaps without contact, on
cabbage-leaves, and have the brilliancy of quicksilver. This accounts
for this luminous appearance being best seen in those animals which have
large apertures in their iris, as in cats and horses, and is the only
part visible in obscure places, because this is a better reflecting
surface than any other part of the animal. If any of these emergent rays
from the animals eye can be supposed to have been reflected from the
choroid coat through the semi-transparent retina, this would account for
the coloured glare of the eyes of dogs or cats and rabits in dark
corners.




NOTE IV.--COMETS.


_Alarm with comet-blaze the sapphire plain,
The wan stars glimmering through its silver train._

CANTO I. l. 133.


There have been many theories invented to account for the tails of
comets. Sir Isaac Newton thinks that they consist of rare vapours raised
from the nucleus of the comet, and so rarefied by the sun's heat as to
have their general gravitation diminished, and that they in consequence
ascend opposite to the sun, and from thence reflect the rays of light.
Dr. Halley compares the light of the tails of comets to the streams of
the aurora borealis, and other electric effluvia. Philos. Trans. No.
347.

Dr. Hamilton observes that the light of small stars are seen
undiminished through both the light of the tails of comets, and of the
aurora borealis, and has further illustrated their electric analogy, and
adds that the tails of comets consist of a lucid self-shining substance
which has not the power of refracting or reflecting the rays of light.
Essays.

The tail of the comet of 1744 at one time appeared to extend above 16
degrees from its body, and must have thence been above twenty three
millions of miles long. And the comet of 1680, according to the
calculations of Dr. Halley on November the 11th, was not above one semi-
diameter of the earth, or less than 4000 miles to the northward of the
way of the earth; at which time had the earth been in that part of its
orbit, what might have been the consequence! no one would probably have
survived to have registered the tremendous effects.

The comet of 1531, 1607, and 1682 having returned in the year 1759,
according to Dr. Halley's prediction in the Philos. Trans. for 1705,
there seems no reason to doubt that all the other comets will return
after their proper periods. Astronomers have in general acquiesced in
the conjecture of Dr. Halley, that the comets of 1532, and 1661 are one
and the same comet, from the similarity of the elements of their orbits,
and were therefore induced to expect its return to its perihelium 1789.
As this comet is liable to be disturbed in its ascent from the sun by
the planets Jupiter and Saturn, Dr. Maskelyne expected its return to its
perihelium in the beginning of the year 1789, or the latter end of the
year 1788, and certainly sometime before the 27th of April, 1789, which
prediction has not been fulfilled. Phil. Trans. Vol. LXXVI.




NOTE V.--SUN'S RAYS.


_Or give the sun's phlogistic orb to roll._

CANTO I. l. 136.


The dispute among philosophers about phlogiston is not concerning the
existence of an inflammable principle, but rather whether there be one
or more inflammable principles. The disciples of Stahl, which till
lately included the whole chemical world, believed in the identity of
phlogiston in all bodies which would flame or calcine. The disciples of
Lavoisier pay homage to a plurality of phlogistons under the various
names of charcoal, sulphur, metals, &c. Whatever will unite with _pure_
air, and thence compose an acid, is esteemed in this ingenious theory to
be a different kind of phlogistic or inflammable body. At the same time
there remains a doubt whether these inflammable bodies, as metals,
sulphur, charcoal, &c. may not be compounded of the same phlogiston
along with some other material yet undiscovered, and thus an unity of
phlogiston exist, as in the theory of Stahl, though very differently
applied in the explication of chemical phenomena.

Some modern philosophers are of opinion that the sun is the great
fountain from which the earth and other planets derive all the
phlogiston which they possess; and that this is formed by the
combination of the solar rays with all opake bodies, but particularly
with the leaves of vegetables, which they suppose to be organs adapted
to absorb them. And that as animals receive their nourishment from
vegetables they also obtain in a secondary manner their phlogiston from
the sun. And lastly as great masses of the mineral kingdom, which have
been found in the thin crust of the earth which human labour has
penetrated, have evidently been formed from the recrements of animal and
vegetable bodies, these also are supposed thus to have derived their
phlogiston from the sun.

Another opinion concerning the sun's rays is, that they are not luminous
till they arrive at our atmosphere; and that there uniting with some
part of the air they produce combustion, and light is emitted, and that
an etherial acid, yet undiscovered, is formed from this combustion.

The more probable opinion is perhaps, that the sun is a phlogistic mass
of matter, whose surface is in a state of combustion, which like other
burning bodies emits light with immense velocity in all directions; that
these rays of light act upon all opake bodies, and combining with them
either displace or produce their elementary heat, and become chemically
combined with the phlogistic part of them; for light is given out when
phlogistic bodies unite with the oxygenous principle of the air, as in
combustion, or in the reduction of metallic calxes; thus in presenting
to the flame of a candle a letter-wafer, (if it be coloured with red-
lead,) at the time the red-lead becomes a metallic drop, a flash of
light is perceived. Dr. Alexander Wilson very ingeniously endeavours to
prove that the sun is only in a state of combustion on its surface, and
that the dark spots seen on the disk are excavations or caverns through
the luminous crust, some of which are 4000 miles in diameter. Phil.
Trans. 1774. Of this I shall have occasion to speak again.




NOTE VI.--CENTRAL FIRES.


_Round her still centre tread the burning soil,
And watch the billowy Lavas, as they boil._

CANTO I. l. 139.


M. de Mairan in a paper published in the Histoire de l'Academie de
Sciences, 1765, has endeavoured to shew that the earth receives but a
small part of the heat which it possesses, from the sun's rays, but is
principally heated by fires within itself. He thinks the sun is the
cause of the vicissitudes of our seasons of summer and winter by a very
small quantity of heat in addition to that already residing in the
earth, which by emanations from the centre to the circumference renders
the surface habitable, and without which, though the sun was constantly
to illuminate two thirds of the globe at once, with a heat equal to that
at the equator, it would soon become a mass of solid ice. His reasonings
and calculations on this subject are too long and too intricate to be
inserted here, but are equally curious and ingenious and carry much
conviction along with them.

The opinion that the center of the earth consists of a large mass of
burning lava, has been espoused by Boyle, Boerhave, and many other
philosophers. Some of whom considering its supposed effects on
vegetation and the formation of minerals have called it a second sun.
There are many arguments in support of this opinion, 1. Because the
power of the sun does not extend much beyond ten feet deep into the
earth, all below being in winter and summer always of the same degree of
heat, viz. 48, which being much warmer than the mildest frost, is
supposed to be sustained by some internal distant fire. Add to this
however that from experiments made some years ago by Dr. Franklin the
spring-water at Philadelphia appeared to be of 52 deg. of heat, which seems
further to confirm this opinion, since the climates in North America are
supposed to be colder than those of Europe under similar degrees of
latitude. 2. Mr. De Luc in going 1359 feet perpendicular into the mines
of Hartz on July the 5th, 1778, on a very fine day found the air at the
bottom a little warmer than at the top of the shaft. Phil. Trans. Vol.
LXIX. p. 488. In the mines in Hungary, which are 500 cubits deep, the
heat becomes very troublesome when the miners get below 480 feet depth.
_Morinus de Locis subter_. p. 131. But as some other deep mines as
mentioned by Mr. Kirwan are said to possess but the common heat of the
earth; and as the crust of the globe thus penetrated by human labour is
so thin compared with the whole, no certain deduction can be made from
these facts on either side of the question. 3. The warm-springs in many
parts of the earth at great distance from any Volcanos seem to originate
from the condensation of vapours arising from water which is boiled by
subterraneous fires, and cooled again in their passage through a certain
length of the colder soil; for the theory of chemical solution will not
explain the equality of their heat at all seasons and through so many
centuries. See note on Fucus in Vol. II. See a letter on this subject in
Mr. Pilkinton's View of Derbyshire from Dr. Darwin. 4. From the
situations of volcanos which are always found upon the summit of the
highest mountains. For as these mountains have been lifted up and lose
several of their uppermost strata as they rise, the lowest strata of the
earth yet known appear at the tops of the highest hills; and the beds of
the Volcanos upon these hills must in consequence belong to the lowest
strata of the earth, consisting perhaps of granite or basaltes, which
were produced before the existance of animal or vegetable bodies, and
might constitute the original nucleus of the earth, which I have
supposed to have been projected from the sun, hence the volcanos
themselves appear to be spiracula or chimneys belonging to great central
fires. It is probably owing to the escape of the elastic vapours from
these spiracula that the modern earthquakes are of such small extent
compared with those of remote antiquity, of which the vestiges remain
all over the globe. 5. The great size and height of the continents, and
the great size and depth of the South-sea, Atlantic, and other oceans,
evince that the first earthquakes, which produced these immense changes
in the globe, must have been occasioned by central fires. 6. The very
distant and expeditious communication of the shocks of some great
earthquakes. The earthquake at Lisbon in 1755 was perceived in Scotland,
in the Peak of Derbyshire, and in many other distant parts of Europe.
The percussions of it travelled with about the velocity of sound, viz.
about thirteen miles in a minute. The earthquake in 1693 extended 2600
leagues. (Goldsmith's History.) These phenomena are easily explained if
the central parts of the earth consist of a fluid lava, as a percussion
on one part of such a fluid mass would be felt on other parts of its
confining vault, like a stroke on a fluid contained in a bladder, which
however gentle on one side is perceptible to the hand placed on the
other; and the velocity with which such a concussion would travel would
be that of sound, or thirteen miles in a minute. For further information
on this part of the subject the reader is referred to Mr. Michell's
excellent Treatise on Earthquakes in the Philos. Trans. Vol. LI. 7. That
there is a cavity at the center of the earth is made probable by the
late experiments on the attraction of mountains by Mr. Maskerlyne, who
supposed from other considerations that the density of the earth near
the surface should be five times less than its mean density. Phil.
Trans. Vol. LXV. p. 498. But found from the attraction of the mountain
Schehallien, that it is probable, the mean density of the earth is but
double that of the hill. Ibid. p. 532. Hence if the first supposition be
well founded there would appear to be a cavity at the centre of
considerable magnitude, from whence the immense beds and mountains of
lava, toadstone, basaltes, granite, &c. have been protruded. 8. The
variation of the compass can only be accounted for by supposing the
central parts of the earth to consist of a fluid mass, and that part of
this fluid is iron, which requiring a greater degree of heat to bring it
into fusion than glass or other metals, remains a solid, and the vis
inertiae of this fluid mass with the iron in it, occasions it to perform
fewer revolutions than the crust of solid earth over it, and thus it is
gradually left behind, and the place where the floating iron resides is
pointed to by the direct or retrograde motions of the magnetic needle.
This seems to have been nearly the opinion of Dr. Halley and Mr. Euler.

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