An _irregular_ one is equally good in law, and may be contracted in various ways, as above explained. This law, though _at first sight_ likely to lead to great abuses, really works well in practice; and prevents the occurrence of those distressing cases, which not unfrequently happen in England, of seduction under promise of marriage, and subsequent desertion. SCOTUS. _Smock Marriages_ (Vol. vii., p. 191.).--According to Scotch law, the marriage of the father and mother legitimises all children _previously_ born, however old they may be. This is called legitimisation _per subsequens matrimonium_, and is not unfrequently taken advantage of by elderly gentlemen, who, after having passed the heyday of youth, wish to give their children a position, and a legal right to inherit their property. Like the rule as to marriage above explained, it is derived from the Roman or civil law. There are very few, I should rather say _no_, legal fictions in the Scotch law of the nature alluded to by your correspondent. SCOTUS. _Sculptured Emaciated Figures_ (Vol. v., p 497.; Vol. vi. _passim_).--In Dickinson's _Antiquities of Nottinghamshire_, vol. i. p. 171., is a notice with an engraving of a tomb in Holme Church, near Southwell, bearing a sculptured emaciated figure of a youth evidently in the last stage of consumption, round which is this inscription: "Miseremini mei, miseremini mei, saltem vos amici mei, quia manus Domini tetigit me." J. P., JUN. _Do the Sun's Rays put out the Fire_ (Vol. vii., p. 285.).--It is known that solar light contains three distinct kinds of rays, which, when decomposed by a prism, form as many spectra, varying in properties as well as in position, viz. luminous, heating or calorific, and chemical or actinic rays. The greater part of the rays of heat are even less refrangible than the least refrangible rays of light, while the chemical rays are more refrangible than either. The latter are so called from their power of inducing many chemical changes, such as the decomposition of water by chlorine, and the reactions upon which photographic processes depend. The relative quantities of these several kinds of rays in sun-light varies with the time of day, the season, and the latitude of any spot. In general, where the luminous and heating rays are most abundant, the proportion of chemical rays is least; and, in fact, the two seem antagonistic to each other. Thus, near the equator, the luminous and calorific rays being most powerful, the chemical are feeble, as is shown by the length of time required for the production of photographic pictures. Hence, also, June and July are the worst months for the practice of photography, and better results are obtained before noon than after.