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THE QUARTER. The Fall of the Leaf, the movement among birds of passage, and those changes
of weather which denote the breaking-up of summer, are main features of an English
autumn. Leaves fall the most readily, of which the stalk is connected by a small joint to the
tree; they are, as it were, pinched off by an act of growth, and there remains in their place
a carefully formed scar. The change of colour in the leaves is produced by a chemical action
of the oxygen of the air, or by the working of an acid formed by the plant's growth upon the
chlorophylle or green colouring matter. M. Martens, the latest writer on the subject, considers
that in plants there are but two fundamental colours, whether of the leaf or flower, namely, blue
and yellow; that the union of the two produces green, and that all reds and other colours are
produced chemically during the process of development, and are reds, violets, &c., either of the
blue or yellow series, though the result sometimes of a blending of the two.

It has been said, that heat and cold upon the surface of the earth are caused not so much by the direct
rays of the sun, or by its nearness (for it happens to be nearest to us in our winter time); but by the
gradual warming of the substance of the earth, as long as the days, during which it receives heat, contain more
hours than the nights, during which it cools,—and on its gradual cooling when the case is opposite. It is the
earth, therefore, itself that keeps us warm; and on the hottest day in July, the farther we rise from the body of
the earth, and the nearer to the body of the sun, the colder we become. But climate does not depend only on this
astronomical condition. Great winds of warm air from the equator to the pole, pass under and over winds of cold
air from the pole to the equator. The different temperature of land and water, the moisture of woods, the draughts
of air caused by the striking and the splitting of wind-currents upon hills and mountains, cause innumerable
varieties in the climate and the weather. Vapour in the air in certain states, and especially as fog or cloud, also
affects the temperature very sensibly. The "closeness of the air" in cloudy weather, is caused by the reflecting
back from the surface of the clouds of a considerable portion of the heat which, but for their obstruction, would
have radiated from the earth through space; they act mechanically, as blanket does when placed over the warm
body of a sleeper.
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CHRONICLE OF PROGRESS—The Days of Agincourt.—The Battle of Agincourt was fought on the twenty-
fifth of October, 1415.

This was the state of England in those times. Already in the seventh year of the reign of Henry the Fourth,
so many of our rustics had been swept away by pestilence and famine, killed in battle, or destroyed by accident
of war, that a law was made ordaining that "whoever had been employed at the plough, or cart, or any other
husbandry work, till he was twelve years of age, should be compelled to continue in that employment all his
life;" further, "that none who had not lands or rents of the value of twenty shillings" (equal in the present money
to ten pounds) a year should be permitted to put any of their sons apprentices to any other trade, but should bring
them all up to husbandry. This law was enforced by severe penalties.

In the thirty years of French war, depopulation went on at a fearful rate. In the last year of the reign of
Henry the Fifth there was a statute made concerning sheriffs, that "whereas by divers pestilences within the kingdom
and by foreign wars, there is not a sufficiency at present of gentlemen to fill these offices, it is therefore enacted by
this Parliament that the king may appoint sheriffs and escheators to continue more than one year."

In fourteen hundred and thirty-nine, by reason of scarcity, poor distressed people that were hunger-bitten
made themselves bread of fern roots, and used other hard shifts, till God provided remedy for their penury
by good success of husbandry.

In the twenty-fifth year of the war, the Cardinal of Winchester treating for peace, was ordered to urge "that
there have been more men slain in these wars for the title and claim of the crown of France, of one nation and
other, than bin at this day in both lands." Neither kingdom could bring more than ten thousand men into the
field. There followed upon all this the contest between York and Lancaster, fatal especially to persons of rank.
At the first Parliament of Edward the Fourth, the nobility of England consisted only of one Duke, four Earls, one
Viscount, and twenty-nine Barons, all the Lancastrian nobles being killed or outcast.

There are as many people now in London and its environs as there were then inhabiting all Britain.

On the Twenty-second of October, 1721, Peter I. first styled himself Emperor of all the Russias. To enlarge
the borders of the Russias was the care bequeathed by him to his successors.

A Hundred Years Ago.—OCTOBER, 1756.—On THE
SEVENTH, a great hurricane committed devastation
in the country. At Newcastle many houses were
blown down, others unroofed and scarcely a chimney
left standing; above forty keels, and several vessels from
London were either sunk or driven to sea, and many men
on board perished. In the open country, trees are said
to have been shivered to pieces, or blown up by the roots.
At Aldstone Moor, the people imagined the earth shook,
and therefore ran out for safety, but were driven by
the wind against banks and hedges, where they were
much bruised by the breaking of trees and fall of stones.
In many places hay and corn stacks were taken up into
the air and dissipated utterly. By the middle of this
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