"The three first stanzas."

Joseph Addison.

"The twelve last are to my purpose."

"The four first acts."-Sheridan.

"The two last groups."-Prof. Whitney.

"The two first requisitions."-Thomas Hughes. "The two first parliaments of William."

kings."-Macaulay.

"The five last scenes."-Moore.

66

"Her six first French

The two first sheets of his poem."-Sidney Smith.

The three first days of their sitting."-Swift.

The two last housekeepers."-Thackeray.

'The three first acts of his Hamlet."-Dickens.

"The four greatest names in English poetry are almost the four first we come to."-Hazlitt.

"The two first years."-Charles Kingsley.

"The four first."-Izaak Walton.

"The first lines of the Iliad."-Fielding.

"The two last may enter Carleton or any other house, and the two first are limited to the opera."—Byron.

"The three first generations."-Edward Everett

"The two next lines in that ode."

"Procure a transcript of the

ten or twenty last lines."-Johnson.

"The two first days."―Irving.

"The two first years."-Bancroft.

"The four first centuries."-Prescott.

"The three first of his longer poems."-Southey.

Prof. March says Forma (first) and other (second, other) are sometimes used in the plural describing a class, and are then arranged as descriptives, (qualifying adjectives following limiting adjectives ) : tha theo forman gebedu, the three first players; twegenothre wanfulle, two other malefactors. So in other languages: hepta tas eschatas, Latin, septem novissimus, the seven last [plagues], (English Bible, Rev. xv, I.; XXI, 9); I read to Albert the three first cantos of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," ("Queen Victoria, Life in the Highlands," p. 46); our two eldest children, same, pp. 76, 234); two other keepers (same, p. 70); in den sechs ersten Conjugationen, in the six first conjugations (J. Grimm, D. G. I., 1038); les onze premiers chapitres, the eleven first chapters (Renan, Hist. Sem. Lang, 1, 27); las dos primeras partes, the two first parts (Don Carlos, quoted in Motley, R. D. R. III. 193); las cuatro primeras, the four first, (Don Quixote, 352); i dieci primi libri, the ten first books (Diez 3, 436). N. B.

The

MIRACULOUS CROSSES SEEN IN THE SKY. (pp. 397, 527, j.) query relative to Crosses, other than that claimed to have been seen by Constantine, A. D. 312, not having been answered as yet, I will submit for your readers the following record, taken from Brewer's new work, "Dictionary of Miracles":

Achius, king of the Scots, and Hungus, king of the Picts, saw a cross in the sky the night before their engagement with Athelstane. As they won the victory they went barefoot to the kirk of St .Andrew, and vowed to adopt the cross as the national emblem. See Leslie's

Alonzo saw a cross in the sky before the battle of Ourique, A. D. 1139. Christ, suspended on the cross, promised the Christian king a complete victory over the infidels. After the battte, Alonzo assumed for the royal device, on a field argent five escutcheons azure, charged with five bezants, in memory of the five wounds of Christ. See Butler's "Lives of the Saints."

A cross was seen in the sky soon after the inauguration of St. Cyril, A. D. 386. St. Cyril wrote a description of this phenomenon to the emperor Constantine, and his letter is inserted in the works of Sozomenês, Theophanês, Eutychius, John of Nice, Glycas, and others. See Cave's "Life of Cyril.”

A cross was seen in the sky when Julian attempted to rebuild the temple. We are told that the work was arrested by earthquakes, lightnings, and fire from the ground. Then we are told that crosses

were miraculously attached to the garments of the Jews, engaged in the building, and a luminous cross, enclosed in a circle, appeared in the clouds. See St. Gregory of Nazianzen, "Oration IV, against Julian."

A cross was seen in the sky at Mignè, the diocese of Portiers, at the close of the Jubilee, while a cross was being planted in the cemetery, Dec. 17, 1826. It was luminous and seen in the clouds by some three thousand persons, appearing to be in length about forty feet, and the cross-bar about four feet. Mgr. de Bouillé, Bishop of Portiers, published an account of it, and received two briefs from Pope Leo XII on the subject. The Bishop fixed the third Sunday of Advent for the annual celebration of the phenomenon. "Lives of the Saints."

See Guerin's

When St. Ouen on his return to a journey from Spain, was in the midst of the country not far from Louviers, his horse stopped and refused to move. Astonished at his unusual behavior, St. Ouen lifted his eyes to heaven, and there saw above his head, a luminous cross, very brilliant, the light of which shone all around. God told St. Ouen, at the same time, that He had destined that spot for His service, and wished to be honored there. St. Ouen traced a cross on the ground, and left some relics there, and then continued his journey, meeting with no further resistance. A church and monastery were afterwards built upon the spot, which went by the name of "La Croix St. Ouen." See L'abbé Pécheur's "Annales du Diocese Soissons."

A cross was seen in the sky by Waldemar II of Denmark, betokening his victory over the Esthonians, A. D. 1219. The king, like Constantine, adopted the cross as a standard, which was called the Danebrog or Danish Cloth, and instituted the Order of Danebrog in commemoration of this vision. This legend is differently told in some Scandinavian chronicles. Some say the Danes lost the fight and another immediately dropped from the sky to supply its place. See Drs. Chrichton and Wheaton, “Scandinavia."

EAVES-DROPPER. The following account is given of the origin of the term " eaves-dropper." At the revival of masonry, in 1717, a curious punishment was inflicted upon a man who listened at the door of a masonic meeting, in order to hear its secrets. He was summarily sentenced "to be placed under the eaves of a building while it was raining hard, till the water ran in¦under the collar of his coat and out at his shoes." The penalty was inflicted on the spot, and the name has continued ever since. J. H. H. DEM.

SPEED OF MAN AND HIS INSTRUMENTS. The following table gives the various ways of going a mile and the time required. The bicycle stands fourth as regards the time taken to cover a mile :

A REMARKABLE NUMBER.

Attention was drawn in the newspapers,

two or three years ago, to some of the singular qualities of the number 142,857. It was then pointed out that this number, when multiplied by any number up to 6, reproduces it own digits: the results being successively :

(2) 285,714; (3) 428,571; (4) 571,428; (5)

714,285; (6) 857,142.

When 7 is the multiplier the result is 999,999. This is as far, I think, as the investigation went at the time. It has since occurred to me to experiment further, and I multiplied by all the numbers up to 45, and then by various higher numbers. This led to the following observa

tions :

If the digits of any multiple of 142,857 be separated into sets of six, measured from the right hand, and these sets of six be added together, the final result will always reproduce the original digits, unless 7 be a factor, in which case the final result will always be 999,999. An example will illustrate this: Let us multiply 142,857 by 1,373,625. The result is 196, 231,946,625. Separating into sets of six, and adding 196,231 to 946,625, we have 1,142,856, which by the same operation becomes 142,857. But if we multiply 1, 371,624, which has 7 as a factor, the result is 196,231,803,768; and the addition of the two sets of six digits produces 999,999. I have raised the original number as high as the twelfth power, producing a row of sixty-two figures. The observation is uniformly true up to this point, and presumably so ad infinitum.

The factors of the number 142,857 are 3 X 3X 3X II X 13 X 37. They may be re-arranged, for convenience of multiplying, as IX III X 117. The six digits themselves can be placed at the points of a hexagon, and it will be found that the results already spoken of always preserve the hexagonal order, though one of the other digits may take the lead.

There is probably a number of eight digits that can be arranged at the points of an octagon, with similar or more surprising results. Has such a number been discovered? Perhaps some of our mathematicians can pursue the inquiry.-RICHARD H. THORNTON in New York Evening Post. J. H. H. DEM., Rochester, N. Y.

"TOO THIN." The phrase, "too thin," is generally thought to be American "slang." It has been stated in an English publication that it was an "Americanism." Yet it has a most reputable English paternity. Lord Eldon used it in an opinion delivered in the case of Peacock vs. Peacock (16 Ves. 49, etc.) where he says: "I cannot agree that reasonable notice is a subject too thin for a jury.” (QUID in N. Y. Evening Post.) J. H. H. DEM.

THIRTEEN AT DINNER. (p. 49, 9. 125.)

Some one in France has taken the trouble to compute the statistical probability of the supposition that if "thirteen sit down to table" one of them will die within the following year. From this computation it appears that if the average of the company is 10 years there ought to be 134 persons present instead of 13 to make death probable; that if the average age is 15, there ought to be 131 present; and the following figures follow as a mathematical sequence for 20 years, 129 persons; for 25 years, 124 persons; for 30 years, 119 persons; for 35 years, 112 persons; for 40 years, 103 persons; for 45 years, 90 persons; for 50 years, 73 persons; for 55 years, 54 persons ; for 60 years, 35 persons; for 65 years, 25 persons; for 70 years, 17 persons; for 721⁄2 years for the average age, there would be a probability that one of the would die within a year.

13 at a table J. H. H. DEM.

or, as

EDELWEISS. (p. 101, p. 244; p. 189.) Lovers of the Edelweiss who may in late years have noticed that it is no longer so common as it was among the mountains of Switzerland will be glad to hear that specimens of it have recently been found on mount Tacoma it is otherwise called, Mount Ranier, in Washington Territory, at the height of 6,000 feet above the level of the sea; and, near at hand, flourishes another Alpine favorite, the vanilla-scented männertreu. A quarter of a century ago the edelweiss grew plentifully but a few hundred feet above Zermatt; now, owing to the thoughtless greed of the Swiss peasantry and the rapacity of cockney tourists, it is only to be seen upon the higher and more inexcessible summits of the Alps.

G. H. B., Boston, Mass.

RELATIVE Height and WEIGHT OF MEN IN GOOD HEALTH. The late Dr. John Hutchinson, during his practice, obtained the weight and height of upwards of five thousand men, and prepared a tabular statement, of which the following is an extract, showing the relative height and weight of sound, healthy men:

The above table may be taken as the standard of mean healthy weight, being the result of 2,650 observations, and the individuals observed upon were men in the prime of vigorous life, accustomed to use great muscular exertion, such as sailors, soldiers, firemen, policemen, watermen, cricketers, Oxford and Cambridge rowers, and the like.