which also exceed in number those of former years, the Registrar repeats what he has often said before, that marriages increase ’when the substantial earnings of the people are above the average; and the experience of a century, during which the prosperity of the country, though increasing, has been constantly fluctuating, shews that it is prudent to husband the resources of good times against future contingencies.  Workmen, if they are wise, will not now squander their savings.’  Are we to infer from this, that a bad time is coming?

I have at times given you some of our post-office statistics, let me now send you a few from America.  The postmaster-general reports to Congress, that in the year ending last June there were within the United States 6170 mail-routes, comprising a length in the aggregate of 196,290 miles; of post-offices, 19,796; of mail-contractors, 5544.  The distance travelled in the year over these routes was 53,272,252 miles, at a cost of 3,421,754 dollars, or rather more than six cents per mile per annum.  On more than 35,000,000 of these miles the service is performed by coaches, and ‘modes not specified;’ the remainder by railway and steam-boat.  There were six foreign mail-routes on which the annual transportation was estimated at 615,206 miles.  The gross receipts of the post-office department for the year amounted to 6,786,493 dollars, being an increase of nearly a million over the preceding year.  If, after this, we can only get Ocean Penny Postage, we will give the republican postmaster work to do that shall add some score of pages to his report.

You will perhaps remember my telling you, some time ago, of the discussion that had been going on in the United States respecting a prime meridian.  Something has now come of it.  The committee appointed by Congress to consider the subject, have recommended ’that the Greenwich zero of longitude should be preserved for the convenience of navigators; and that the meridian of the National Observatory—­at Washington—­should be adopted by the authority of Congress as its first meridian on the American continent, for defining accurately and permanently territorial limits, and for advancing the science of astronomy in America.’  This decision, though it may disappoint those who consider it derogatory to the national honour to reckon from the meridian of Greenwich, is nevertheless the true one.  In connection with it, the Americans intend to bring out a nautical almanac.

Another topic from the same quarter is, that Professor Erni of Yale College has been making an interesting series of experiments on fermentation—­a process of which the original cause has never yet been satisfactorily explained, and is still a moot-point with chemists.  They tell us it is one by which complex substances are decomposed into simpler forms, as some suppose, by chemical action; others, by development of fungi, different in different substances.  Among the experiments, it was observed that the yeast of