Galen gives the following account of the phenomenon of a _honey shower_: “I have sometimes known in the season of summer a great quantity of honey to be found upon the leaves of trees, shrubs, and certain herbs, so that the country people said, jesting, ‘Jupiter has rained honey.’ A cold night, as for summer, had preceded (for it happened in summer); but the temperature of the former day had been hot and dry. It was thought, therefore, by those who were skilled in nature, that an exhalation from the earth and waters, finely attenuated and concocted by the heat of the sun, had been condensed and collected by the cold of the succeeding night. This phenomenon occurs rarely with us; but it takes place frequently in Mount Lebanon every summer.” (De Alim. Facult.) See also Fragmentum Theophrasti (de Melle, ed. Heinsius.) Ernestus Faber states that the honey here described is the manna of cedars. (De Manna Ebræorum, 12.) A wine prepared from honey and aromatics is much commended by an intelligent writer on dietetics as possessing more heat and dryness than any other species of wine, and improving the appetite and colour. (Anonym. Tract. de Cibis ap. Ermerins Anecdota Græca, p. 237.) Our author has given one method of preparing the hydromel, or honied water. Different modes are described by other authors. Thus, Mesue recommends seven parts of water to one of honey. It appears from Hippocrates, however, that it was taken more or less diluted. Pliny and Dioscorides make mention of hydromel prepared by mixing two parts of water with one of honey. This seems to have been the strongest hydromel. A species of hydromel carefully prepared, and kept for a considerable time, was esteemed a delicious beverage. Ludovicus Nonnius compares it to the mead used by certain nations of the north. They prepare it with hops and yeast, so that it is made to emulate the nature of wine. The Greeks and Romans did not make use either of hops or yeast. In imitation of Galen, who, under the head of honey (de Simpl.), treats also of _sugar_, we shall give a brief account of the latter in this place. The _saccharum_, then, which is mentioned by Theophrastus (Frag. l. c.), Dioscorides (ii, 104), Galen (l. c.), Strabo (Geogr. xv), Pliny (H. N. xii, 17), and other ancient authors, was a natural concretion forming on various reeds, but more especially upon the bamboo cane (_bambusa arundinacea_.) The bamboo is noticed by Herodotus (Hist. iii, 98), and by Ctesias (Photii Lex.) Moses Chorenensis, a writer of the fifth century (Geogr. Armen.), is the first who makes mention of sugar procured from the cane by boiling. SECT. XCVII.—ON SLEEP.