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writer thus attempts their analogy: “Spiders are geometricians, as are also bees, whose cells are so constructed as with the least quantity of material to have the largest sized spaces and the least possible loss of interstices; the mole is a meteorologist; the nautilus is a navigator, for he raises and lowers his sails, casts and weighs anchor, and performs other nautical evolutions; while the whole tribe of birds are musicians. The beaver may be called a builder or architect; the marmot is a civil engineer, for he not only constructs houses and aqueducts, but also drains to keep them dry; caterpillars are silk-spinners; wasps are paper-manufacturers; the indefatigable ants are day-labourers; the monkey, a rope-dancer; dogs are hunters; pigs, scavengers; and the torpedo and eel are electricians.

THE LONDON DOCKS.

PART I.

Seemingly boundless is the region of the docks, and the visitor who sets out with ever so definite an idea of the course he intends to pursue, will constantly find himself allured from his path. He passes a door from which issues a delicious fragrance of spice, and he turns in to explore it. At the top of a stone staircase he finds an enormous floor piled with bales of cinnamon and boxes of nutmegs. Here and there are great heaps, which, on close inspection, prove to be cloves. Others of a brilliant sienna colour, he finds to be heaps of mace. The floor above this is stored with Peruvian bark. This is an article used principally in the preparation of quinine, though it is imported in such quantities as to render it difficult to believe that it can all be used medicinally.

PART II.

On another floor of the same building may be found bundles of Pimento sticks and Malacca canes, a great store of mother-of-pearl, a heap of delicate richly-tinted

"ear-shells," and a quantity of ivory. There are elephants' tusks and teeth, one of which latter is larger than a brick, and weighs fourteen pounds. Passing out of this building, we find ourselves strolling down an enormous shed with little black boards, hung at intervals and bearing the names of vessels. Beneath these boards

are goods lying ready for shipment, and these are at least as varied as the imports. Here are pickles and blacking, a cartload or so of Bath bricks, and scores of anvils. Here is a peal of church bells and a chest of drawers, a rocking-horse and a mangle, besides boxes, and bales, and barrels innumerable.

"THE GLOBE" Newspaper.

KNOWLEDGE.

It would be of little avail to the peace and happiness of society, if the great truths of the material world were confined to the educated and wise. The organization of science thus limited would cease to be a blessing. Knowledge secular and knowledge divine, the double current of the intellectual life-blood of man, must not merely descend through the great arteries of the social frame; it must be taken up by the minutest capillaries before it can nourish and purify society. Knowledge is at once the manna and medicine of our moral being. Where crime is the bane, knowledge is the antidote. Society may escape from the pestilence and may survive the famine, but the demon of ignorance, with his grim adjutants of vice and riot, will pursue her into her most peaceful haunts, destroying our institutions, and converting into a wilderness the paradise of social and domestic life.

INSTINCT OF ANTS.

DR. BREWSTER.

Dr. Franklin was of opinion that ants can communicate their ideas to each other; in proof of which he related the following fact: Having placed a pot contain

ing treacle in a closet invested with ants, these insects found their way into it, and were feasting very heartily when he discovered them. He then shook them out and suspended the pot by a string from the ceiling. By chance, one ant remained, which after eating its fill, with some difficulty found its way up the string, and thence reaching the ceiling, escaped by the wall to its nest. In less than half an hour, a great company of ants sallied out of their holes, climbed the ceiling, crept along the string into the pot, and began to eat again. This they continued until the treacle was all consumed, one swarm running up the string while another passed down. It seems that the one ant had in this instance conveyed news of the booty to his comrades, who would not otherwise have at once directed their steps in a body to the only accessible route.

KIRBY AND SPENCE.

ON THE MATERIALS USED FOR PERFUMERY.

PART I.

The exquisite pleasure we enjoy from the smell of sweet flowers is alone sufficient to account for the love of perfumery. Flowers pass away so quickly that we naturally desire to preserve their sweetness as long as we can, and in accomplishing this, our perfumers succeed admirably. It happens that the perfume of most flowers depends upon the presence of an oil, which is peculiar to the plant, almost every sweet-scented plant having its own particular oil; and, what is of more importance, these oils belong to a class called essential or volatile, because they become volatile, or evaporate, when heated.

PART II.

The common or fixed oils, on the contrary, such as olive or linseed, will not evaporate. This may be easily illustrated, thus: if a piece of writing-paper be touched

with a fixed oil, or grease, it leaves a stain, which, upon being held before the fire, will disappear altogether. Now, if any plant has a particular smell or taste, it is generally found that its essential oil is the cause of this; and that, consequently, if we extract this we really obtain the essence.

PROF. ARCHER.

COVERING OF ANIMALS.

The covering of different animals is as much to be admired as any part of their structure, both for its variety and its suitableness to their several natures. We have bristles, hair, wool, furs, feathers, quills, prickles, scales ; yet in this diversity, both of material and form, we cannot change one animal's coat for another without evidently changing it for the worse: taking care, however, to remark that these coverings are, in many cases, armour as well as clothing, intended for protection as well as warmth. The human animal is the only one which is naked, and the only one which can clothe itself. This is one of the properties which renders man an animal of all climates and of all seasons.

PALEY.

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S FIRST ALARM.

It happened one day about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition; I listened, I looked around me, I could hear nothing, nor see anything. I went up to a rising ground to look farther, I went up to the shore, but it was all one; I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the very print of a foot-toes, heel, and every part of a foot: how it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least

imagine. I had no sleep that night; the farther I was from the occasion of my fright, the greater my apprehensions were; which is something contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the usual practice of all creatures in fear; but I was so embarrassed with my own frightful ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing but dismal imaginations to myself, even though I was now a great way off it.

DEFOE, "Robinson Crusoe."

ANIMALS OF INDIA.

The tiger stands foremost among the wild animals of India, where it attains to its greatest strength and beauty. It is found all over the country, but its chief haunt is the jungle. Hence it is most common in the Sunderbunds, and in the Terai. The lion, leopard, panther, hyæna, wolf, bear, lynx, and jackal, are the other important beasts of prey. Wild elephants are numerous in the forest zone at the base of the Himalaya Mountains, in Assam, Chittagong, Coorg, and especially in Ceylon. The rhinoceros is found in the same districts as the elephant, and also near the Sunderbunds.

There are many species of the ox tribe in India. The most common is the zebu, or Brahmin bull, which has a hump on its shoulders. It is frequently saddled for riding, or harnessed to a carriage.

The wild buffaloes of India are very fierce animals.

The stag, elk, antelope, and deer of various kinds are abundant. Apes and monkeys innumerable harbour in the woods, and some species infest the towns. The orang-outang occurs sparingly. Herds of wild asses run over the desert, and troops of wild dogs infest the

towns.

Crocodiles are common in all the great rivers. The streams, banks, and inlets of Malabar swarm with alligators. Venomous reptiles are very numerous.

HEWITT, "Geography of the British Colonies."

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