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calities. The best bait for them are small break upon the ear of night, are calculated dace and roach, which are usually obtained to produce an effect upon the mind never for that purpose with a casting-net. On to be forgotten. the Broads, towards six in the evening, you will frequently see a couple of men in a boat busily engaged in making fast to the weeds one end of a long line. Their boat is then thrust off, and the line paid out for forty or fifty yards, when it is sunk by a weight. Along it, at intervals of every three or four feet, a series of strings is fastened, to each of which a hooked bait is attached. These are all allowed to lie on the bottom, and, as eels generally move about between dusk and midnight, the greater part are sure to be taken before morning. Thirty or forty hooks are usually attached to a single line. Early next morning the men return to take up their primitive snares; and no small task it is for the captured eels will have wriggled round the weeds or dug themselves into the mud; so that, unless caution be used, it is more than probable the lines will be broken and the greater portion of the spoils lost.

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The nearest Broad to Norwich, Surlingham, is five or six miles from that city. It is not very extensive, averaging about a hundred acres. Its communication with the river Yare is by a series of small channels, as is also the case with Rockland Broad, about two miles lower down. Some decent shooting and first-rate fishing are still to be had here, although the near neighbourhood of the railway has greatly affected them for the worse. Surlingham Broad is a frequentlyvisited spot by the botanist, inasmuch as that rare fern, Polypodium calcareum, grows in abundance on one of its reedy islands. In the summer time, every channel is lined with the tall stems and blooms of the flowering rush, the yellow iris, the arrow-head, and the water-plantain. The greater portion of every Broad is aglow with white and yellow water-lilies, peeping out of cool leaves, and underneath which you might fancy" Sabrina fair" to be sitting, were it not that the water is too shallow! With the exception of Hassingham Broad, — privately preserved, there are no other Broads between Norwich and Yarmouth. " Breydon Water," as it is commonly termed, where the Yare and Waveney join previous to their debouchure into the sea, may rank as one, although it is so affected by the tides that it cannot be classed among the fresh-water lakes. In the winter there is some splendid shooting to be had here, and not bad fishing during the summer. But, to get into the "Broad district" proper, you must go up the river Bure, which also empties itself into the sea at Yarmouth. This river is more sinuous than any other, owing to the general flatness of the country through which it passes. Considering this, however, the scenery is tolerably diversified and agreeable.

Another way of taking eels, and by far the more ingenious, is that known as "babbing," or bobbing." A series of large worms are strung on cobbler's worsted and coiled into a knot. This is fastened to the end of about six feet of strong cord, and a weight is attached about three inches above the bait. The line is then tied to the end of a stout hazel-pole; and, provided with this simple tackling, about nine o'clock in the evening you row to a part of the river or Broad where there is a tolerably clear bottom. Having made fast the boat, and, of course, lit a pipe as a preliminary, you gently let down the line until you feel the bottom with the weight. It is then drawn up again until the bunch of worms just trails on the ground. Many minutes will not have elapsed before you feel an electrical sort of jerk travelling down the pole into your right arm. Another tug, more powerful than the Travelling up the Bure, in a north-westformer, and quickly, but without any pluck- erly direction, you reach Filby Broad, at a ing, you raise the line over the boat, and in distance of about five miles from Yarmouth. flops a big eel! I have known a couple of This spot has long been famous for its wild "babbers" to take as many as four or five duck, mallard, and teal; its neighbourhood stone of eels in a single night. No small to the coast making it a splendid shelter for amount of practice is required to drop your these birds. Its fishing is not less abunprey into the boat. If the eel happen to be dant, and although this Broad only extends unusually large, the chances are that you tug over an area of 160 acres, its narrow and at him so strongly that, when you lift him sinuous character makes it appear much out, the impetus carries him over the boat, larger. It is divided from Ormesby Broad, and drops him in aqua pura on the other -preserved on account of its being the side! I have enjoyed few sports more than main water supply to the town of Great "babbing." The clear starlight overhead, Yarmouth, by a narrow road-bridge. the sighing and soughing of the wind among With the exception of those at Barton and the reeds, the ripple of the water against Wroxham, there is no Broad in Norfolk so the boat, and the strange sounds which picturesque. Indeed, were the vegetation

a little less English, you might easily im- With these associated floral and other riagine yourself upon one of the Italian lakes! ties, it is not surprising that the LepinopHorsey Mere, although only a few miles tera should be equally various, or that the distant from Filby, as the crow flies, is a entomologist should make his best captures long way by water, and you will have to in such a neighbourhood. The principal leave the Bure once more to reach it. Still Broad through which the river Bure passes higher up is Hickling Broad, the largest is that at Wroxham, about seven miles disand most extensive in the county, being tant from Norwich. The water is deep above three miles in circumference. Its enough here for an annual regatta to be bottom is gravelly over its entire area, so held, which is always a source of attraction that pike and perch literally swarm in it. to Norwich people. Walter White has But, with the exception of the deep chan- given a lively description, in his "Eastern nel running through its midst, along which England," of one of these "water-frolics," the tan-coloured barges sail, Hickling Broad as they are locally termed. Indeed, a man is so shallow that a man might wade all over who has seen this sheet of water, with its it without sinking lower than the armpits. rich frame-work of fine old trees, is not Returning to the Bure again, you pres- likely soon to forget it. The effect is conently reach South Walsham and Ranworth siderably heightened by the light river Broads. Both are exceedingly picturesque, yachts, with their snow-white sails, and by and each is connected with the main river the concourse of people who attend the by long reedy channels. The latter Broad was, until quite recently, a successful duck decoy; whilst the former is famous for its eels, perch, and tench, as well as for its neighbourhood to a magnificent ruin, that of St. Bennett's Abbey. South Walsham Broad is divided into two sheets, connected by a strait termed The Weirs." The further portion is richly wooded down to the very water's edge. The last time I was out on these Broads, during the present summer, the "salt-water tide," as the natives term it, had flowed higher up the river than usual, and the surface of the water was literally covered in some places by pike, of from two to eight pounds weight, which had died in consequence. These periodic "salt tides" do immense harm to the fresh-water fish.

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Leaving the Bure, and sailing up the Ant, the next Broads we come to are those of Barton and Irstead, which, in magnitude, approach nearest to Hickling, but are far more picturesque. These Broads are also connected with each other by a narrow strait of water. Both possess great attractions for the botanist on account of their many rare plants. Nowhere, perhaps, do perch attain the size they do here, three and four pound fish being quite common in the deeper parts. The swampy margins of these Broads are pea-green with the little marsh fern, Polypodium thelypteris, whilst great thickets of the royal flowering fern, Osmunda regalis, truly so called, - seven and eight feet high, give to the shores almost a tropical appearance! In the evening the aromatic odours of the sweet gale, whose arboraceous underwood covers the turf, are wafted over the lake with delightful effect. The bladder-wort also, always a rare botanical prize, is tolerably common here.

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regatta.

Besides the above-mentioned Broads, there are minor ones at Salhouse, Belaugh, Ludham, Mautby, and a dozen others smaller still, which more or less fringe the coast from Winterton to Happisburgh. The most economical and the most effective way to explore these regions unknown to Cockneydom would be to hire a yacht for a fortnight with a man to sail it. Then, to your heart's content, you might shoot, fish, botanise, or sketch. Anchoring at a different place each evening, fresh scenes and objects new would always be met with. Occasional visits to scattered villages, with their round and square towered churches, rich in archæological treasures, would form an agreeable relief. Altogether, in these not far-off" Wilds of Norfolk," I dare promise the adventurer a treat such as he is not likely to get anywhere else in the whole of old England.

From Fraser's Magazine.

LANDS AND SEAS OF ANOTHer world.
BY R. A. PROCTOR, B. A., F. R. A. S..

AUTHOR OF 'SATURN AND ITS SYSTEM,' &c. &c.

AT a recent meeting of the Astronomi Society a globe was exhibited by Mr. Brow ing, one of the Fellows, on which lands seas were depictured as upon an ord terrestrial globe. By far the larger part of these lands and seas were laid down as wellknown entities, respecting which no more doubt is felt among astronomers than by geographers respecting the oceans and continents of our own earth. Yet the world which is represented by Mr. Browning's globe is one which is never less than one

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undred and twenty times farther from us than our own moon.

had revealed to him the satellites of Jupiter, was able to detect any features of interest It is rather singular that the planet Mars in the nearer planet. More than half a cen-the orb which is represented by Mr. tury, indeed, appears to have passed, after Browning's globe-is the only object in the invention of the telescope, before anythe whole heavens which is known to ex- thing was detected which led to the suspicion hibit features resembling those of our earth. that Mars has permanent markings upon his Astronomers have examined the moon in surface. In the beginning of March, 1666, vain for such features: she presents an arid Cassini, with a telescope 16 feet in length, waste of extinct volcanoes, dreary moun- but very far inferior in power to many tain scenery surrounding lifeless plains (the modern tubes not one quarter as long, seas of the old astronomers); an airless noticed features sufficiently remarkable to hemisphere of desolation, in fact, which has enable him to determine roughly the rotano counterpart on the terrestrial globe. tion-period of the planet. Not many days The planets Jupiter and Saturn, orbs which later our own countryman, the talented Dr. far transcend our earth in mass and volume, Hooke (who had detected spots on Mars in which are adorned with magnificent systems 1665), made two drawings of Mars which of subsidiary bodies, and which seem in will bear comparison with all but the best every respect worthy to be the abodes of modern views. These drawings were taken nobler races than those which subsist upon by means of a telescope no less than twelve our earth, afford no indications which jus- yards long. At the end of the same month tify us in asserting that they resemble the observers at Rome, using Divini's glasses, earth in any of those points which we are constructed a drawing of Mars, which accustomed to regard as essential to the aroused the wrath of Cassini; for,' says wants of living creatures. Nearly the whole he, these observers represent the spots of the light which we receive from these they saw as small, far apart, remote from splendid orbs is reflected, not from their the middle of the disc, and the eastern spot real surface, but from vaporous masses sus- less than the west, whereas by observations pended in their atmospheres. It is indeed doubtful whether anything has ever been seen of the real surface of either planet, save perhaps that a small spot has here and there been faintly visible through the dense overhanging mantle of vapour. And strangely enough, the two small planets, which present in other respects the most marked contrast to the giant members of our system, resemble them in this point. Venus and Mercury seem both to be protected from the intense heat to which they would otherwise be exposed through their proximity to the sun, by densely vaporous envelopes, which only permit the true surface of the planets to be faintly seen, even under the most favourable conditions. The planet Mars, however, discloses to us his real surface, and this surface presents indications which cannot reasonably be doubted to result from the existence of continents and oceans, resembling those of our earth in all essential features. Moreover, that wonderfully delicate instrument of research, the dectroscope, has confirmed these indicarons in a manner which hardly suffers any further dubiety to rest upon their meaning. We do not think that our readers will find a brief record of the process of discovery oh has culminated in the construction of Martial charts and globes, otherwise than interesting.

It does not appear that Galileo, when he applied to Mars the same telescope which

made on the same day at Bonomia, I know that there were two very large spots close to each other, in the midst of the disc, and the eastern bigger than the western.' Certain it is that Cassini deduced from his observations a nearly correct rotation-period, while the Roman observers gave a period only one-half the true one, having apparently been deceived by a certain resemblance which exists between two opposite hemispheres of the planet.

In 1704-1719 Maraldi made a series of observations of Mars, and two of his drawings are easily recognisable. In one there is seen a triangular or funnel-shaped spot, running nearly north and south, which is doubtless the feature called the Hour-glass Sea' by modern astronomers. In the other there is an elbow-shaped spot which powerful modern instruments have broken up into two important 'seas.'

Sir W. Herschel, however, was the first who attempted a systematic examination of Martial features. His object was rather a singular one; in fact, it will hardly appear, at first sight, what relation can exist between that object and the features of Mars's surface. Herschel wished to ascertain whether the length of our day is constant. He considered that by watching the rotation of some other member of the solar system he might be set upon the traces of any change which may be taking place in our earth's motion of rotation. He soon found that

(as has been already indicated) Mars is the only planet available for this purpose, as being the only planet whose surface bears recognisable marks. He set himself therefore to construct a series of pictures of the planet.

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pictured is to be taken as representing what the observer actually saw. For while there are large and well-marked features corresponding with those seen in other drawings, there are a multitude of light streaks and patches which one might well suppose to Herschel was not very successful, how- represent merely the general effect preever. We have heard his pictures described sented to the observer by parts of the plan'caricatures' of Mars. Their defects et not rendered quite so distinctly visible are not due, of course, to any want of care as the rest. Then, again, on a rough comor skill in this eminent observer, but to the parison of several views, whether taken on imperfect definition of his large reflectors. succeeding days or belonging to different It has been said of these instruments that years, one does not find the sort of resemthey would bunch a star into a cocked hat,' blance which one would be led to expect. and, therefore, it can readily be conceived It is not a little singular that these pecuthat they were wanting in that extreme ac- liarities, which would lead one at first sight curacy of definition which would alone suf- to attach little value to Dawes' drawings of fice to present the surface-details of so dis- Mars, are precisely those which enable us tant an object as the planet Mars. And by to assign to them their real importance. a singular accident Herschel was not even It is well known that Mr. Dawes was averse successful in determining the rotation-pe- to long and tedious mathematical processes. riod of Mars with the accuracy which might Where his observations required such prohave been deduced from his long series of cesses, he left the work to be done by othobservations. In comparing views taken at ers. Content with doing that which none an interval of two years, he accidentally could do so well as he, he left the interpreomitted one rotation, so that the Martial tation of his observations where this reday, as determined by him, was two min-quired mathematical computation of any utes too long. complexity to those whose tastes led them The next series of observations which de- to care more for work of that sort. Now, serves special comment, is that taken by when a series of observations has been made Messrs. Beer and Mädler, in the years upon a globe continually varying in its pre1830-1837. They used an instrument about sentation towards the eye, it is a much four inches in aperture, and rather more more difficult and laborious process than than five feet in focal length. With this might be supposed, to reduce all these obinstrument, which in less experienced hands servations in such a way that the real conwould have been wholly inadequate for ob-figuration of the globe shall become known. servations of such difficulty, they construct- Just as our earth in travelling round the ed an admirable series of views, which they sun bows first one pole then the other tosubsequently combined in a 'chart of Mars.' wards him, and, by rotating on its polar They also obtained a close approximation axis, brings different countries in succession to the length of the Martial day, which they under his rays, so Mars presents a continfound to consist of 24h. 37m. 23-8s., a re-ually varying configuration to the observer sult not differing much more than a second from the true value!

We pass over a number of excellent drawings which have been made by Kunowski, Delarue, Lockyer, Nasmyth, the Padre Secchi, and other observers, to describe the exquisite drawings which were constructed by the eagle-eyed Dawes, in 18521864. This eminent observer, whose loss astronomy has lately had to deplore, made use in 1852 of an exquisite 63-inch refractor from the celebrated Munich works. He described this instrument to the present writer as absolutely perfect.' Later observations he made with a fine refractor 84 | inches in aperture.

The first peculiarity which strikes one in examining Dawes' views of Mars, is the multiplicity of the details which they contain. One begins to doubt whether all that is

on earth. Nay, there is an even greater complexity in the latter variations, because the earth itself, from which we observe Mars, is not at rest. Thus it becomes a perplexing problem to educe, from a mere series of eye-transcripts of the planet, the real features which exist upon his globe. But when this has been carefully done, it clearly becomes possible to determine how far those eye-transcripts may be trusted. If we see that the varying figures presented by the same feature are due merely to the varying presentation of the planet, we not only learn that that feature exists on the planet, but we have satisfactory evidence of the skill of the observer who has made the drawings.

Now, when Mr. Dawes' drawings are tested in this way, it is found that they accord in the most satisfactory manner.

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Features which present no apparent resem- | Herschel I. (Sir W.) Continent. blance are found to resolve themselves into tween Dawes Continent and Herschel Conthe same well-marked ocean or continent, tinent flows the Hour-glass Sea, termed when each is brought to the centre of the in the chart Kaiser Sea, the large southplanet's disc. One singular instance of ern ocean out of which this sea flows this is worthy of notice. We have spoken being denominated Dawes Ocean. of a long sea running north and south on tween Mädler Continent and Dawes ConMars's globe, which was represented by tinent flows Dawes Strait, connecting a Maraldi as a dark_triangle, and which, as large southern ocean and a northern sea, seen in modern telescopes, has seemed to named after Tycho. Herschel Continent merit the name of the Hour-glass Sea.' is separated from Secchi Continent by HugThis sea appears in many of Mr. Dawes' gins Inlet, flowing from a large southern drawings, and on account of its extent and sea termed Maraldi Sea. In like manner peculiar figure, there is in most cases very Bessel Inlet, flowing out of Airy Sea (a little difficulty in recognising it. But in northern sea), separates the Madler and explaining his tracings to the present writer, Secchi Continents. Between Dawes Ocean Mr. Dawes pointed out the existence of a and Delarue Ocean there lie two large isldark marking near the border of the disc ands, Phillips Island, lying within the Mar(in two or three drawings) which he com- tial tropics, and Jacob Island, lying in the pared to the leg of an old-fashioned table. southern temperate zone. Dawes Ocean It appeared as a double curve resembling separates into four large seas extending Hogarth's line of beauty.' Now, when northwards. Large tracts of land lie bethe requisite calculation and construction tween these seas, but whether they are islhad been gone through, it was found that ands or not is uncertain, as their south pothis mark, brought to the centre of the disc, lar extremities are never very clearly deassumed the exact figure of the Hour-glass fined. In Delarue Ocean there is a small Sea, and a comparison of the position of island which presents so bright and glisthe marking with the position of the Hour-tening an aspect as to suggest the probabilglass Sea in another drawing, reference be- ity of its being usually snow-covered. It ing made to the planet's rotation in the interval, left no doubt that the Table-leg Sea' and the Hour-glass Sea' were one and the same.

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The numerous details in Mr. Dawes' drawings being shown in this way to correspond to real features on the planet's surface, it became feasible to construct a chart which should represent all these features exactly as oceans and continents are represented in the maps of hemispheres which usually accompany terrestrial atlases. This has been done, and two charts have been constructed, in which all the features detected by Mr. Dawes find a place. For convenience of reference, these features have received the names of those astronomers whose researches have added in any way to our knowledge of this interesting planet. These names we shall make use of in giving a very brief sketch of the Martial oceans and continents; in other words, a brief treatise on areography.

is called in the chart Dawes' Snow Island. Three seas, separated by lands of doubtful extent, reach from Delarue Ocean towards the south pole. We have mentioned the northern seas Tycho and Airy. These are connected, and form, with a third sea, named Beer Sea, a continuous fluid_zone around the northern polar regions. In the zone of land which separates this sea from Schröter Sea, there lies an extensive sea or lake named after Delambre.

seas.

One of the most singular features of the Martial globe is the prevalence of long and winding inlets and bottle-necked These features are wholly distinct from anything known on our own earth. For example, Huggins Inlet is a long forked stream, far too wide to be compared to any terrestrial river, extending for about three thousand miles from its two-forked commencement, near Airy Sea, to the point at which it falls into the Maraldi Sea. Bessel Inlet is nearly. as long. Another inlet, called in Each pole of Mars is capped by a polar the chart Nasmyth Inlet, is yet more recap, which varies in extent according to markable. Commencing near Tycho Sea, the progress of the Martial seasons. Around it flows to the east, running parallel to that each polar cap there is a polar sea- -the sea and Beer Sea. It then turns sharply northern sea being termed in the charts southwards, and, expanding, forms Kaiser Schröter Sea, the southern Phillips Sea. Sea. Oudemann's Inlet connects (apparThe equatorial regions of Mars are mainly ently) two bell-shaped seas; but it is not occupied by extensive continents. There quite clear whether these seas are separated are four of these-viz., Dawes Continent, or not by an interval of land from Beer Mädler Continent, Secchi Continent, and Sea. The bottle-necked seas or lakes are

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