BERTHA’S VISIT. (continued 4)

Bees do not solely confine themselves to flowers; in collecting honey they are fond of the juices of fruits also, and for this reason my aunt recommended this bee enclosure to be placed very near the orchard which Franklin planted. With their tongue, which my aunt says is not a tube, as some people have supposed, but a real tongue, they lap or lick the honey, and convey it into the first stomach, which is called the honey-bag, and which, when full, is much swelled—it is never found in the second stomach. How the wax is secreted from the honey, or what vessels are employed for that purpose, is not yet ascertained. But my aunt shewed me the wax-pockets of the bee; by gently pressing the body, we could perceive on each of its four segments, two whitish flaps, of a soft membranaceous texture, in which the wax is placed.

There is another substance made by the bees, and called propolis; it is collected from poplar, birch, fir, and gummy trees like the taccamahaca. Bees have been observed to open the buds with their mandibles, so as to draw from them a thread of viscid matter; and then, with one of their second pair of legs, they take it from the mouth, and place it in the baskets on their hind legs. It is used in stopping every chink of the hive, by which cold, or wet, or insects, can enter; it gives a finish to the combs, and the sticks which support these combs are covered with it as well as the interior surface of the hive.

In collecting the pollen from plants, it has been observed that bees never mix the farina of different flowers; each is made use of in separate little pellets, and it is said that skilful botanists have been able to distinguish by the farina what flowers the bee had visited.

My aunt told me that she had read of a lady who had so constantly attended to her bees, and was so beloved by them, that they seemed to delight in flying round her and listening to her voice; they had no sting for their kind mistress, and when, after a storm, she gathered them up, wiped, and tried to revive them by the warmth of her hand, they gently buzzed their gratitude as they recovered. When she visited the hive, she caused no alarm; and if, on seeing them less diligent than usual, or ill or languid, she poured a little wine at the outside of the hives, they always expressed their thanks in the same manner.

Franklin’s new apiary, you see, has been of great benefit to me, for it led to a long conversation with my good aunt, who told me all those circumstances and many others in her usual clear way; and when we came home, she put into my hands a little book called Dialogues on Entomology, in which she says I shall find much useful information about bees and other insects.

24th.—At breakfast this morning my uncle received a letter from a brother of Colonel Travers, who you know is at Madras. It was written while he also was at breakfast, and Mr. T. mentions that there were then on the table eatables of different kinds, which had come from the four quarters of the globe.

This set us to consider from whence all the articles that were on our own table had been collected. Every one named something. The tea from China, the coffee from Arabia, West Indian sugar, Narbonne honey, the salt from Cheshire, and our home-made bread, butter, and cream. Then there were Coalbrook-dale cups and saucers, an urn from Birmingham, tea-pots and spoons of Mexican silver, a butter-vessel of Bristol glass, knives of Swedish steel, and an Irish table-cloth and napkins.

Frederick proposed that we should calculate the number of people that must have been employed in producing all these various articles. He began with salt, as one of the simplest things on the table, and he easily ran through the operations of digging it out of the mine, making the little baskets in which it is sold, and conveying them by land or by water carriage to Gloucester; nor did he forget the wholesale and retail dealers, through whose hands they passed before they were deposited with my aunt’s housekeeper. But my uncle reminded him that making fine salt was not only a far more complicated process than he seemed to imagine, but also that, unless he took into account the machines employed in every one of the operations, and even the tools requisite for making those machines, he would not be able to give a satisfactory answer to his own proposition. “The same remark,” he continued, “will apply to the production of everything else on the table: this roll, for instance, must not only include the labour of the baker, but that of the bolter, the miller, the reaper, the sower, and the ploughman, besides the manufacturers of all the implements they used. Or, take coffee, which, however simple the mere gathering of the berries and drying them in the sun may appear, can only be brought to this country through the complex operations of commerce, and by means of a ship, which of itself includes the combined efforts of a hundred different trades before she can proceed a single mile on her voyage.”

“How rich, uncle,” said I, “must any country become, where the people are employed both in agriculture and manufactures!”

“Yes,” he replied, “as long as they are well paid, or, in other words, as long as there is a demand for as much as they can produce. But you know, Bertha, the inhabitants of any country can only consume a certain quantity of food, or a certain quantity of clothes; and if the hands employed raise more corn, or make more goods than are wanted, they must be thrown out of work until the overplus has been called for, as no one will pay for what they do not want. Something else, you see, is necessary to enrich a nation besides agriculture and manufactures.”

“Oh yes! I know what you mean, uncle; I am sure—commerce—by which that overplus is sent to other countries, and exchanged there for things which we do want.”

“You are right, Bertha. The agricultural and manufacturing classes may furnish each other with the necessaries, and with many of the comforts of life; but, without the aid of commerce, they can never raise a nation to any great degree of wealth. Foreign commerce is the great spur to their industry; it opens a thousand channels to their activity, and mutually enriches both themselves and the countries to which they trade. But it does much more—it brings distant nations into contact with each other—it makes up for the partial distribution of soil and climate—it may be said to equalize the bounties of Providence, and it is the grand means of spreading knowledge and civilization to the most remote corners of the world.”

25th.—In consequence of our breakfast conversation yesterday on the productions of various countries, we invented a very amusing play in the evening, and I assure you that it was conducted with great precision.

Each person wrote on a bit of paper the name of some town, country, or province; these tickets were then shuffled together in a little basket, and whoever drew one out was obliged to give an account of some production, either natural or manufactured, for which that place was remarkable. This new-fashioned game was highly entertaining, for it brought out a number of curious bits of information which we had picked up, and which we might never have mentioned to each other, only from some such motive.

One of these was, that in Persia they have the art of carving spoons out of pear wood, which are so delicate and so thin, that the bowl of the spoon can be folded up like paper, and opened again. The handles too are so slender, that it is a particular accomplishment to carry them when full to the mouth in such a dexterous manner as to prevent their breaking. These delicate utensils are one of the accompaniments of men of rank, being only used by princes and noblemen when sipping their sherbet.

My aunt having drawn Siberia, said she had a nice match for Frederick’s wonderful spoons. In the province of Wiatka bowls and cups are made of the knobs which grow on the birch trees; they are yellow, marbled with brown veins, and when varnished are very pretty. But some of them are turned so extremely thin, as to be semi-transparent; and when put into hot water they become so pliant that they may be spread out quite flat without injury, as they return to their original shape in drying.

The ticket for Constantinople was next drawn, and produced a description of the rose beads which are so much prized by the Sultan’s wives, that they are usually called “Beads of the Haram.” Those poor ladies have so little employment, that they sit for hours passing these beads, when strung, through their fingers. They are composed of the petals of the rose carefully picked, and pounded into a smooth paste in an iron vessel; which makes them quite black, on the same principle, you know, mamma, that ink is made by mixing a preparation of iron with gallic acid, of which the rose petals contain a small quantity. When the paste is quite smooth it is made up into little balls, which are perforated for stringing, and then slowly dried in the shade. When they have become hard they are rubbed in the palms of the hands along with a little attar of rose, till quite smooth; and they always preserve their sweet smell.

Paraguay was on the next ticket, and Wentworth, who remembers all he reads, gave us a description of the famous tea of that country, large quantities of which are used in Chili and the states of Buenos Ayres. It is called Maté; and is made by boiling the leaves in an oval-shaped metal pot, about twice as large as an egg, on the hot embers in a brasier which stands at all seasons of the year in the middle of the room. When the water boils, a lump of burnt sugar is added, and the pot, being placed in a filagree silver stand is handed round; each person drawing the maté into his mouth through a silver or glass tube which is furnished at the lower extremity with a bulb pierced with small holes. The natives drink it almost boiling hot; and they have always some of this tea ready prepared, whether employed at home or in the fields. No one even departs on a journey without being provided with a quantity of the dried herb, as well as with a maté-pot, which is either carried in the hand, or suspended round the neck by a small chain if the person is on horseback. I was rather ashamed to confess that all these circumstances were new to me, as well as that the tree is a species of holly, the Ilex Paraguayensis; but you will tell me if they are correct.

Then came Kamtschatka, which produced an account of the Sarana, a species of lily that is universal in the eastern parts of Siberia, and almost covers the ground with its blossoms. The bulbs are gathered in August, and laid by for use; after being baked they are reduced to flour, and are not only used in soups and other dishes, but make the best bread of the country. Sometimes they are boiled and eaten like potatoes; and besides their own exertions in collecting them, the Kamtschatkans have a provident little mouse, which not only hoards them in its magazines, but has the sagacity to bring them out in sunny weather to dry. The natives search for and seize on these hoards, but they always leave some of the contents for their poor little purveyors. There are several species of this lily, from one of which the Russians produce a sort of wine.

We had afterwards the Apatea, or Hottentot bread, made from a parasite which grows on the roots of a Euphorbia at the Cape of Good Hope, and which has neither stem nor leaf—only a flower that produces a large round and excellent fruit; but I really have not time to describe any more of these interesting little scraps, for my aunt says I must go out and walk.

26th, Sunday.—My uncle read to us this morning the history of Balaam’s expedition with Balak, in order to curse Israel. This produced a long conversation; and I shall endeavour to give you an outline of what my uncle said.

“It appears from Scripture that there were two countries called Midian. That to which Moses had fled from the Egyptians was on the Red Sea; the other was on the River Arnon, near Moab; and as it was peopled by the descendants of Abraham and Keturah, we may suppose that the knowledge of the true God had been preserved there, though mixed with idolatrous corruptions. We know that in the days of Abraham, and long afterwards, there was a priesthood amongst the Canaanites, who preserved in great part the true worship.

“In the age of Joseph, there was a priest of On, and in the time of Moses, Jethro, a priest of Midian, whose daughters they married; and it cannot be supposed that either Moses or Joseph would have been allowed to connect themselves with idolaters.

“It is not surprising, therefore, that Balaam should address the Lord as his God, though his worship was probably debased by superstition. It appears, indeed, from several concurring circumstances, that he was a real priest and prophet of the ancient patriarchal religion; but he was the last: for it had at that time become so corrupt, that it was necessary to separate the Israelites from the rest of the world, in order to preserve their religion.

“We have other instances to prove that this mixture of idolatry with the true worship did not hinder God from revealing himself to a few individuals who followed that mixed religion, as Abimelech, and also Nebuchadnezzar. Another proof that the patriarchal religion had not been sufficiently forgotten for its language to have become obsolete, is, that Balaam’s expressions bear a strong resemblance to those used by the other prophets; and that the epithets which he applies to the Supreme Being are the same as those employed by Moses, Job, and other inspired writers.

“But Balaam, though a true priest and prophet, was unsound in heart, worldly, and mercenary. His selfish disposition and degenerate character were probably as well known to Balak as his high qualifications as a prophet were to the people; and both well fitted him for a tool in the hands of that artful monarch. It was customary among the heathen in those ages, at the beginning of a war, to devote their enemies to destruction with all the solemnities of religion; and, terrified by the recent victories of the Israelites, lest they should “lick up all, as the ox licketh up the grass,” he applied to the venal prophet in his distress. He knew Balaam’s eminence in the church, and his influence over the people; he knew that his interference might be purchased, and he bribed him to come and curse the invaders.

“Though Balaam was eager to obtain the proffered reward, and though he was flattered by the high opinion in which his blessings and curses were held, he well knew that they would be of no avail without the sanction of God. He, therefore, deferred giving any answer till he should have consulted the divine will; and when that will was made known to him, he at once refused Balak’s request, alleging that God had said to him, ‘Thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.’ This refers to the blessing given to Abraham, Genesis xii., and which was afterwards renewed to Jacob, Genesis xxvii. Balak, however, was not discouraged by the first refusal. He repeated his invitation along with promises of an unlimited recompense; and Balaam, having this time obtained the Divine permission, departed with the princes of Moab.”

I asked my uncle why he was now permitted to go, since his proposal to do so before had excited God’s displeasure?

“God often graciously stays the wicked in their sins,” said my uncle, “or warns us when our inclinations are evil; but if we obstinately persist in indulging them, he then leaves us to our own free-will, and abandons us to our foolish imaginations. Balaam had set his heart on the promised honours and rewards, and was unwilling to forego them, notwithstanding God’s distinct prohibition; so the foolish man was allowed to follow his inclination, to proceed in his own way, and to complete his own destruction. Just in the same manner, when the Israelites afterwards demanded a king to reign over them, God graciously condescended to expostulate with them, and to warn them of the consequences; but they persisted—and, therefore, ‘in his anger, he gave them a king.’

“But the fatal influence of covetousness and ambition, which made Balaam persist in desiring to go, soon led to his wishing to comply with Balak’s desire to curse Israel. That he went with this secret design, clearly appears from the angel’s saying, ‘Thy way is perverse before me.’ So you see that God’s anger was now kindled, not at his going, but because he went with a wicked intention. He was, however, suffered to proceed on his journey, in order to convince the surrounding nations that Balak’s cunning devices were useless in retarding the progress of the Israelites, or in defeating the purposes of the ‘Most High who ruleth in the kingdoms of men.’

“Balaam was afterwards also very blameable in offering sacrifice on heathen altars, in the high places of Baal, which he must have been aware was strictly prohibited.”

My uncle promised to take up this interesting subject again next Sunday; but on our way to church he told me that these events happened in the year 1451 B. C., and about two centuries and a half before the Trojan war.

27th.—Frederick asked several questions this morning about the worship of Baal, on which he had been pondering since our conversation yesterday.

“Baal,” said my uncle, “was the same as Bel or Belus. The name signifies Lord, and was originally applied to the Supreme Deity; but in after-times, when idolatry became intermixed with the true religion, several of the heathen gods, and particularly the sun, were worshipped under that name. It was not only the general appellation of the sun throughout the east, but it extended from thence over great part of the western world; and many remnants of the worship of Baal, both names and customs, are to be found at this day in the Hebrides and Western Highlands. Baal-tine, for instance, as Hertford mentioned in one of his letters, is an expression still in use—it means the fire of the sun; and several other vestiges of solar worship may be also observed there. The name given in Scripture to the temples of Baal signifies those high places inclosed within walls in which a perpetual fire was kept.”

Frederick asked why groves and high places were so positively forbidden in the Bible as places of worship? To this my uncle replied: “Because it was usual for those idolatrous nations to place their temples and altars in commanding situations, and to worship their false gods in the groves which were formed on those consecrated hills. Such places were well adapted to their mysterious rites, and the Israelites were enjoined to break their images and cut down their groves; and were farther commanded never to plant a grove near an altar dedicated to Jehovah. Peor, to which Balak took Balaam, was the most famous high place in Moab; and it was called Baalpeor, because there was a temple there dedicated to the worship of Baal.”

I asked my uncle why they selected hills for places of worship?

“Some learned men,” said he, “have fancied that it was in commemoration of the resting of the ark on the mountain of Ararat, where Noah himself, immediately after the deluge, erected an altar and offered burnt offerings as testimonies of praise and gratitude. Thus, as every sanctified high place was supposed to represent Mount Ararat, so the sacred groves were symbols of Paradise; gloomy caves became the representatives of the floating ark of Noah; and even islands acquired a sacred character, because the top of Mount Ararat had once been surrounded by the sea.”

28th.—Caroline and I have had a delightful walk to-day with my uncle, to a wild rocky valley, where the hill on one side appears as if a part had been violently torn away, and shews several layers, or strata, of different substances in the cliff. He pointed it out as a good example of stratification; and made us observe that the strata, though parallel to each other, were not parallel to the horizon, but more or less inclined to it. The angle of inclination between these strata and the horizon is called their dip.

“Now,” said my uncle, “if the strata dip in one direction, they must rise in the opposite direction; and if they continue to rise, that is, if their course is not interrupted or bent down, they must gradually approach the surface, and in some place or other they must shew themselves there. Look at that well marked stratum of reddish stone in the opposite cliff; though it is partially covered here and there by vegetation, yet you can easily trace it as it slopes upwards, till you see it actually arrive at the upper edge of the cliff. It is the same with all the strata, which lie either above or below it: you see they rise successively towards the surface; and if there be numerous other strata under the valley, and which therefore we cannot see, still they also will reach the surface further off. The place where any stratum makes its appearance on the surface is called its out-crop; and as they range themselves there in regular succession, you must at once perceive that in examining the surface, in a direction crossing the strata, you would find as complete a section of them as you now see in the face of the cliff, or as you could obtain by boring perpendicularly through them.”

He said a great deal more on this subject, and helped us to follow with our eyes several other strata to their out-crop. “This circumstance,” he added, “is of immense importance to the geologist; for if the strata were all horizontal, we should be ignorant of everything below the mere external crust of the earth. Sometimes, indeed, a deep well, or the workings of a mine, might reveal the nature of the interior for a few hundreds of feet or yards; whereas by examining the out-crop of the inclined strata, we can ascertain not only their succession, but their composition, for many miles in thickness. Another important consequence of this inclined distribution of the strata, is the variety of minerals which it enables mankind to obtain. If they were all horizontal, one country would be all marble, another all coal; but by this beautiful irregularity of nature, everything that is useful approaches the surface some where or other, and puts itself within reach of the industry of man.”

“Are all the strata, then, sloped at this useful angle of which you speak?”

“Oh no, Bertha,” my uncle replied; “they are inclined at every conceivable angle, from perfect horizontality in some places, to a vertical face in others.”

Caroline observed that even the strata at which we were looking did not all appear to have the same dip, and wondered what could be the cause of the difference. My uncle said she was quite right in the fact; the strata at the eastern end of the valley had evidently a more sudden dip than the rest. “But,” he continued, “it is to facts, my little geologists, that we must at first confine ourselves: though causes and theories are highly interesting, at present they would only bewilder you. Those numerous strata, however, will afford some illustration of what I told you a few days ago about formations. You see by the frequent repetitions of the same substances in the cliff, that the same strata are frequently repeated, and in the same order. When this order is once known, the geologist is no longer perplexed by the number of strata; each throws light upon the other, and the whole combination receives the name of a series or formation. By comparing several of these series together, a resemblance in relation and position will be observed between many of them, which will lead to a still greater simplification of the different classes.”

My uncle then changed the conversation; we begged of him to go on with his geology; but we could not persuade him; he said if we attempted to remember too much, we should lose the whole. “Will you then give us a little lecture on it every day?”

“I will with great pleasure occasionally converse on the subject with both of you, my dear children,” said he; “and in our walks, or whenever a proper opportunity occurs, I will endeavour to give you a few general ideas of the structure of the globe. Hereafter we may perhaps enter more minutely into the details of the science, and then it will be time enough to talk of daily lectures.”

March 1st.—My dear mamma has often laughed at me for my love of little coincidences; and I have now a new one to tell her. I very lately mentioned in my journal some remarks, made by Dr. Walker of Edinburgh, on the seasons of the flowering of foreign plants; and this morning my uncle happened to see in the newspaper the following extract from an address to the Agricultural Society of St. Helena by General Walker, who is the son of that ingenious doctor. My uncle desired me to read it, and said that these speculations are very useful to inquiring minds; they furnish hints, and they naturally lead to new experiments, which elicit new facts.

“The functions of plants, as well as animals, depend on the air in which they live. I have observed that those of St. Helena which have been brought from another hemisphere, are very irregular in their annual progress; many of them, in the developement of their foliage, have adopted the law of nature peculiar to the country into which they have been transplanted—others, more obstinate, remain faithful to their former habits, and continue to follow the stated changes to which they had been accustomed. They all appear to maintain a struggle either before they adopt the habits which belong to the seasons of their new country, or decide on retaining their relations with the old. In yielding to external circumstances, they appear to have different tempers.

“This is often observed in plants of the same species appearing to hesitate before they adopt the mode of performing their functions. And when their decision is made, we are at a loss to discover an adequate cause. For instance, an oak raised from English seed, loses its leaves in a St. Helena winter of 68°; yet it experiences nothing like the difference of temperature, which, by analogy, might be supposed to cause that change.

“It would add to the natural history of vegetation, and improve our knowledge of the geography of plants, were the facts concerning their habits and changes, under different temperatures, carefully collected.”

2nd.—Miss Perceval, with whom I recollect you used to wish me to be acquainted, has come to spend a few weeks here; and I shall now not only have the pleasure of knowing a person you like, but of taking many a botanising walk with her as the Spring advances. She seems very gentle, and so unwilling to put herself forward, that my uncle is obliged to reproach her for withholding the stores of knowledge which she possesses; and he generally leads the conversation to such subjects as will make her display them a little, in spite of her diffidence.

She disclaims all over-modesty, but says that such has been the progress of knowledge within the last ten years, and so greatly has it become diffused through all classes, and particularly amongst females, that she feels that almost everybody knows as much as she does; besides, she added, “I have lived so completely out of the world of late, that I have really much more to learn than to teach.”

She speaks of you, dear mamma, as of an old and valued friend; and I think she will be kind to me for your sake.

4th.—Miss Perceval has been so much interested by a letter which my aunt received yesterday from her friend in Upper Canada, that she petitioned for some of her former letters; and my aunt has permitted me also to see them, and to make some extracts for you, dear mamma.

During their progress in open boats up the St. Lawrence, Mrs. * * * soon began to feel the hardships of a Canada life; she and her family generally preferred sleeping on fresh hay, the beds at the inns were so full of vermin. Sometimes they even slept on the ground, sheltered from the night air only by an awning;—and more than once in their open boat under a heavy dew. She speaks of the farmers with great gratitude; whenever she stopped at their houses she was received with the kindest hospitality, and her children plentifully supplied with milk and good bread. Throughout her journal, which I wish you could read, and in all her letters, there is the most amiable disposition to make the best of everything, and to enjoy whatever little comfort she could find in her situation, without looking back on her former very different life. In October they settled at the town of Cobourg, near Lake Ontario, as a temporary residence while a house was building for them on the land they had obtained. She describes her house thus:—

“Cobourg, Oct 30.

“There are three rooms on the ground floor, and four above, but they are so small they are like little closets; we contrive, however, to squeeze into them, and though we shall be here two months, we can easily reconcile ourselves to these little inconveniences.

“There is a nice grassy place in front of the house, it is paled in, and the children can play in it with safety: that is one great comfort. We found some boards in the barn, and Mr. * * *, whose old tastes as an amateur mechanic are now very useful, has made temporary shelves and tables of them. We have at present neither table, chair, nor bedstead, the carriage of these articles was too expensive for us; but we have screws and all things ready, to make them when we are settled in our loghouse, for which I long as ardently as if it was a palace.

“Our bed-rooms have no doors, but we hang up blankets, which answer the purpose. Fortunately we have plenty of these, and the air is so dry that we do not suffer from the cold, though the nights are frosty, and not a fire-place in the house, except that in the kitchen. The frost has given the woods a grey look, instead of the beautiful orange autumnal tints they had before.

“Four years ago there were but two houses here; now it is a nice thriving town, with a neat church, a large school-house, and some very good shops, or stores, as they are called; and the houses are in general very neat.

“We have been visited by several respectable families. There is a gentleman here who was for twenty-five years engaged in the North-west, or fur trade, and during that time he never once returned to his family. He had left home at the age of thirteen, and underwent all kinds of adventures and hardships.—One winter, when their provisions fell short, he and his companions were obliged to eat their leather aprons, and even the leather of their shoes!”

“Cobourg, Jan. 1st.—We have been detained here longer than we intended; first by the illness of my eldest girl, and next, waiting for snow to make the roads fit for travelling; at present they are in such a state of roughness from the hard frost after the heavy rains of last month, that the jolting of either cart or waggon could not be borne. There are no covered carriages here. In winter, sleighs (sledges) are used, or waggons, which are neither very nice nor easy. They are very roughly made, with two seats placed across, one before the other, and have rather an odd appearance for gentlemen’s carriages.

“This new year’s day, I hope you are all as well and happy as I am; and I am sure it will give you pleasure to know, my beloved friends, that we could indulge ourselves by going to church on Christmas-day, and receiving the sacrament. Do not imagine that in this banishment, as I fear you still consider it, these duties are neglected; far from it; we have a church near us, and I thank God, the inclination to make use of it.”

5th, Sunday.—The subject of Balaam was continued this morning; and I took an opportunity of asking the meaning of the word parable, as it is used in Numbers xxiii. 7.

“It has more significations than one,” said my uncle, “in both the Old and the New Testaments. It sometimes implies that sort of address to the people, which, from its tone of authority as well as from its elevated language, seems to have been the effect of inspiration. Thus Balaam is said to have taken up his parable, when, contrary to his own wishes and in a style approaching to poetry, he uttered his sublime prophecies. The Psalmist also, after saying, ‘I will open my mouth in a parable,’ gives a rapid, but magnificent sketch of the wonders that God performed for the children of Israel. Secondly, we find it applied in the Greek Septuagint (1 Kings, iv. 32.) to those short sententious sayings of Solomon, which in the English version are called proverbs. And in Ecclesiasticus, our translators have rendered the same Hebrew word in some places by “parables,” and in others by “wise sentences.” Thirdly, in the Gospel it is used in the sense of an apologue or fable; a mode of conveying instruction, or of explaining certain doctrines, which our Lord thought proper to adopt; and which had been frequently employed by the Prophets in the Old Testament.

“It was in the first of these three senses,” continued my uncle, “that Balaam appears to have taken up his parable. Having stated why he had come to Moab, and having confessed that he could not curse those whom God had not cursed, he immediately prophesies the increase and power of Israel. ‘Lo, this people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.’ Had he not been inspired, how could he, on a distant view of a people he had never seen before, have discovered the peculiarities which distinguished the Israelites and their posterity to the latest ages? Their religion and government were then unknown; yet he foretold their entire separation from all other nations; and the present state of the Jews, and all history, confirm the truth of his prediction.”

I asked my uncle why Balak desired the prophet to go with him to another place to curse them?

My uncle said, “that it was the opinion of the heathens, that if one victim failed, or if the Deity was unpropitious at one place, he should be importuned by a repetition of the sacrifice elsewhere. Balaam, therefore, to gratify the king, repeated the same experiment a second and a third time; but still with the same disappointment.”

Caroline made some remark on these words, “He hath as it were the strength of the Unicorn;” and my uncle said, “it is not known with certainty to what animal the strength of Israel is here compared; some have supposed the unicorn to be a kind of single-horned antelope, others think that it is the rhinoceros; but if any of you will remind me of the subject some other day, we will endeavour to see which is the best founded opinion. Balaam afterwards compares the power of Israel to that of the lion; and both seem to allude to the victories by which the Israelites should gain possession of the land of Canaan. It is remarkable, that the inspired language of Balaam very much resembles that which Jacob had used in his predictions respecting Judah. Such is the harmony and connexion between the prophecies of Scripture.”

6th.—We were resolved not to defer the subject of the unicorn; and this morning we began by searching for as much light on the subject as our books could give us, that we might be the better qualified to discuss it with my uncle.

I found in Perceval’s Cape of Good Hope, that notwithstanding all the assertions he had heard of the existence of this animal in Southern Africa, he never met any person who had seen one. A horn, nearly three feet long, was indeed shewn him, as being that of the unicorn, but it evidently belonged to a large species of antelope. My uncle afterwards told us, that there is an antelope of this kind in the mountains of India, which the natives used to pretend had only a single horn; but since the conquest of Nepaul, those mountains have been visited by English officers, who have seen the animal alive with both its horns.

Frederick produced Mr. Barrow’s description of a drawing he had seen at the Cape, representing a single horn projecting from the forehead of an animal, which he says, resembles a horse, with an elegantly shaped body, marked, from the shoulders to the flanks, with longitudinal stripes or bands.

Mary had collected a great many facts about the rhinoceros; and she made it appear pretty clearly, that the allusion in Scripture to the strength and untameableness of the unicorn, are much more applicable to the rhinoceros than to any species of antelope, all of which are remarkably deficient in strength, and naturally timid. She found in some book, that the derivation of the Scripture name Reem, both in the Hebrew and the Ethiopic, implies erectness; and though the rhinoceros is by no means a very erect animal, yet his horn certainly is so, as it stands perpendicular to the face; and in that respect, it differs from the horns of all other animals. “The upright direction of the horn,” Mary said, “as well as the power and fierceness of the rhinoceros, would equally justify the metaphor in the Psalms, ‘my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn.’”

Caroline then brought forward her authorities to prove, that in Abyssinia the name of the rhinoceros signifies the beast with the horn, implying that it has but one; whereas, in Nubia, the name expresses horn upon horn. But as the Septuagint translates the word reem into monoceros or unicorn, we may suppose that if the rhinoceros had always two horns, the writers of the Septuagint, who probably must have seen the animal at Alexandria, at the exhibition given by Ptolemy Philadelphus, would not have called it monoceros.

We proceeded with our gleanings to my uncle, who seemed pleased with our industry. He observed, that notwithstanding the translation in the Septuagint, it was not quite certain that the reem or unicorn of the Hebrew Scriptures was always mentioned there as having but one horn; and he pointed out a passage in Deuteronomy, where horns in the plural are distinctly expressed. “But,” said my uncle, “it is classed with the behemoth and leviathan, which are supposed to be the elephant and crocodile, and the savage rhinoceros seems to be a more suitable companion to those huge and terrific creatures than the delicate antelope. Every body knows that there are two species of that animal, the R. unicornis, and the R. bicornis; and that the latter is only found in certain parts of Africa. The former, or one-horned species, is common not only in Abyssinia but all over Asia, and in Arabia is called by the name of reem, to the present day. Why then should we doubt that this untamed and destructive animal, which, in every respect, answers to the description in Scripture, should be the unicorn mentioned there; and having a horn, or horns, according to the different countries where the allusion was made?”

My uncle then shewed us Sparrman’s account of the two-horned rhinoceros, which he killed and dissected at the Cape. The longest horn, which is close to the nose, measured about eighteen inches in length, and seven in diameter. The uppermost horn was much smaller, and much worn, and the Hottentots told the Doctor, that these animals had the power of turning the long horn aside out of the way, while they employed the other in rooting up the plants on which they feed. But my uncle does not believe that there is any truth in this assertion.

7th.—I have just had a little geological lecture, and hasten to write the substance while it is fresh in my memory.

In examining the materials of which our great mineral masses are composed, we are immediately struck by the difference of the older formations, which proceeded from causes that have long ceased to operate, and those newer formations, the causes of which are still at work under our own observation.

Compared with the former, these recent formations are of very limited extent; they consist of the sand and stones that are accumulated on the sea coast by tides and currents; of the land washed away from one bank of a river, and thrown up on the opposite bank by the winding stream; of the earth and gravel, and fragments of rock, carried down by all rivers, and forming deposits at their mouths; and of the constant increase of marsh land, in consequence of the growth of aquatic plants. All these appear to have proceeded uninterruptedly from the period when our continents assumed their present form, and may be all designated by the general term alluvial. There are vast alluvial formations at the mouths of the Ganges, the Nile, the Mississippi, the Amazons, and other great rivers; and an evident change has been effected by these means in many sea-coast countries, of which there are innumerable instances.

The overflowing of the Rhine, the Arno, and the Po, formerly dispersed the soil they carried down over the neighbouring land; but ever since it has been confined within dykes, their deposits have not only elevated the beds of these rivers, but are also rapidly pushing forward their mouths into the sea. The low alluvial plains through which they run were themselves produced by ancient deposits; and the progress of this continually increasing formation may be easily estimated from various historic records. From Strabo we learn that Ravenna was situated, in the time of Augustus, at the head of a bay connected with the Adriatic, and that it had then a good harbour; yet it is now three miles from the coast. By comparing the old maps with the present state of the Duchy of Ferrara, which is flooded annually by the Po, it appears that the coast has gained from the sea 14,000 yards in breadth since the year 1604, giving an average of sixty yards for its advance per annum. And the town of Adria, which in ancient times was a sea-port, is now sixteen miles inland!

The same causes have produced similar effects along the branches of the Rhine and Maëse; and for many leagues from their mouths the country exhibits the singular spectacle of having its largest rivers held up by dykes at the height of twenty or thirty feet above the level of the land. The alluvial depositions on the north coasts of Friesland and Groningen, and the increase of land which they have effected, are very considerable: the first dykes were formed in 1570; and in only one hundred years afterwards, the deposits had accumulated to the extent of nearly three miles on the outside of the dykes. A large part of the United Provinces has thus been actually formed by materials washed down from the interior of Germany; and many populous cities now stand where the sea once rolled its waves.

8th.—Of the various buds which are beginning to open, none advance so rapidly as those of the peach blossoms. On the 14th of February I first observed a little streak of red at the tops of a few; they are now quite opened, and looked very pretty last week, when the ground was slightly covered with snow.

I must tell you a curious thing about buds. Early in January we had some little branches and twigs of several trees brought in, that we might see the state of the buds; and I put a few into a jug of water in my room, that I might examine them at leisure. Very soon afterwards, I perceived that the buds were beginning to swell; their scales gradually separated, and now there are some horse-chestnut leaves quite opened out, and displaying the beautiful manner in which they, and the embryo flower, were folded up and preserved within those scaly cases in the winter. I thought it very extraordinary that they should have been supported merely by water; but my uncle says that the principal nourishment of all plants is derived from water. The famous botanist Du Hamel reared an oak tree for eight years in water only; and a willow planted by Van Helmont in a pot, increased fifty pounds in weight in five years, though the earth, which had been accurately weighed, was only diminished by two ounces.

In my collection of branches there were some of lilac and of pear; and on each of these, the buds, which were hard, little greenish knobs when first put in the water, have now burst open and disclosed their cluster of miniature flower-buds.

We have all been most philosophically employed in dissecting and examining leaf-buds of various trees: for my own part, I think that I can distinctly see in most of them, that they proceed from the wood; and in some I could plainly trace the little communication that connects the wood and the bud. But my uncle says we must continue to study this subject for years before we can venture to form a decided opinion.

I intend to keep my branches in water as long as possible, that I may see what happens at last. On the living trees out of doors no leaf-bud has yet attempted to unfold its scales.

9th.—As we walked in the sheltered kitchen-garden this stormy day, Miss Perceval remarked what an alteration soil, climate, and culture can produce in the external characters of plants; and for remarkable instances of this, she says, we need not go farther than the kitchen-garden.

“There,” she said, “we find cabbage, cauliflower, kale, brocoli, and turnip-rooted cabbage; but who could ever imagine that all these were from the same original species? Nothing, however, is more certain than that they are all varieties produced by the cultivation of a plant which grows wild on the sea-shores of Europe, and which, in its external appearance, is as different from any of those, as they are from each other. These alterations become so strongly fixed by habit, that they continue in the plants that spring from the seeds of each variety; they are liable, however, again to degenerate into each other; and it is only by the art of gardening that they are preserved distinct, or that fresh varieties are produced.”

Miss Perceval made me examine the several young crops of cabbage of different kinds which had been sown at short intervals, during February and the beginning of March, that they might be ready for use in succession; and I find that, although she is such a great botanist, she does not at all despise the knowledge of garden vegetables and of their cultivation. Indeed, she says, that it is being but half a botanist, not to have a general knowledge of all the useful vegetables, with the principles of their cultivation, and their times and seasons.

Among the few plots of cabbage now in leaf, we found some rows of the large-ribbed species, in which there appeared to be several varieties; and in trying to make out the differences, I perceived an odd tail or appendage to some of the leaves. When I made Miss P. take notice of it, she was surprised, and said she had never before observed a similar circumstance in the growth of any cabbages. This curious appendage, which grows from the back of the principal rib, in its substance is like the foot-stalk of the leaves; and at the end it dilates into a sort of hollow cup like a funnel, with something of the appearance of the nepenthes, or pitcher plant.

11th.—I asked my uncle, after dinner what were those older causes, which he told us had produced such infinitely greater changes in the structure of the earth’s surface than any that are now going on.

“The more you learn,” he replied, “of the structure of the earth, and of the prodigious thickness of the strata, which once must have lain horizontally, and which have been since torn up and thrown into every angle of inclination, the more readily you will form an idea of the stupendous power with which that cause must have operated. The changes which are now in constant progress are very limited in their effects, and are entirely confined to the surface. The action of frost in crumbling the rocky tops of the mountains; and of rivers in carrying the fragments to the sea, and thus altering the outline of the coasts, I have already mentioned. Considerable changes are also produced by avalanches, by inundations, and by the unceasing action of the waves of the sea. But these changes are slow, and can never be very extensive. “The effect of volcanoes is greater; and, though many countries bear the traces of having been overflowed by vast torrents of lava, they are now confined to a comparatively small portion of the globe. But if they were far more numerous or extensive, volcanoes could not have raised up or overthrown the strata through which their apertures pass, still less could they have acted upon those immense regions which are not volcanic. The mind, indeed, is lost in astonishment at the means employed by nature in feeding these enormous fires from such prodigious depths; but still we must perceive how inadequate they are to account for the revolutions which appear to have shaken the earth to its foundations. The same reasoning applies to earthquakes; their consequences are awfully great in the adjacent country, but very far from being equal to explain the subversions which appear to have occurred in every corner of the world that has been visited.

“In short, all the greatest possible efforts of those causes that can be supposed to have taken place since the creation, cannot have inverted the strata, nor inclosed great quadrupeds in solid stone, nor imbedded bones, shells, and vegetables, in the middle of compact rocks, nor have deposited complete strata of shell-fish at the tops of the highest mountains; nor could they have swept away whole species of animals which once inhabited the earth; causes, which evidently extend through a limited space, and whose effects are only partial, could never have operated throughout the globe, to produce the general and amazing changes that we observe in all parts of it. To produce such a universal effect, the cause must have been not only powerful, but general.

“Sacred history alone furnishes us with the knowledge of this general and powerful cause—the Deluge. What physical means Providence employed to produce this great convulsion, have not been revealed to us, but that the whole globe must have been involved in its fury is everywhere apparent. The former bed of the ocean must have been lifted up; former continents must have been sunk; and the entire crust of the earth must have been rent, shattered, and tossed into every variety of position.”

12th, Sunday.—‘And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place.’

“The place alluded to here,” said my uncle, “was his own country, Mesopotamia. His prophecies having been delivered, the design of heaven was answered, and the instrument was thrown aside. The wicked Balaam was now left to pursue the schemes of his ambition; and they were intended to be as destructive to the Israelites as if he had even succeeded in cursing them. Josephus tells us, that Balaam informed the king that he could never subdue the Israelites, unless they should be disobedient to their God; and he instructed him how to make them so. This seems to be confirmed in Sacred History by Moses, who says that Balaam ‘caused the Israelites to commit trespass against the Lord,’ and also by St. John, in the second chapter of Revelations. The consequence was a severe plague which was inflicted on them as a punishment, and which swept off many thousand people.

“The history of this obdurate Prophet furnishes a deplorable instance of the weakness of the human heart, and of the obstinacy with which it clings to sinful passions, in spite of the most solemn warnings. Balaam could not forego the tempting offer of Balak, nor the allurements of his own ambition: after having been refused permission to go to that king, and after having been obliged to bless the people instead of cursing them, he endeavoured, by his mischievous counsel, to seduce the Israelites into idolatry. He expressed indeed a hope of dying the death of the righteous, but for that purpose he should have lived the life of the righteous. He was cut off by the avenging sword; and his end furnishes an awful example of the gradual progress of sin, and proves that extraordinary ‘gifts of the Spirit’ are not always accompanied by the genuine ‘fruits of the Spirit.’ When we possess extraordinary talents, or any peculiar gifts from Providence, we should consider them as so many temptations or trials, and pray the more humbly and strenuously for assistance to use them virtuously.”

My uncle then explained that to tempt, is an old English word, which signifies to try; it is frequently so used in all our old works, as well as in the Bible. The forty years’ temptation in the wilderness evidently means trial. Forty years long did I tempt and prove thee—that is, did I try thee. Again, in the text, “to take him a nation from amidst another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders,” Deut. iv. 34. The word “temptations” is undoubtedly put for trials; for the miracles wrought in Egypt were real trials both to the Egyptians and to the Israelites, who were thereby given the alternative of obedience, or of obstinate resistance. And St. Paul repeatedly tells us, that even good men are allowed to fall into trying circumstances, for the exercise and improvement of their virtue.

13th.—My aunt has been shewing me various species of the aphis to-day.

There are two distinct sorts which belong to the plum tree, one of a yellowish green, with a round short body; the other oblong, of a bluish green, enamelled with white. The same kinds are found on the gooseberry and currant; and the rose tree supports three distinct species.

There are some amusing circumstances told of the singular friendship that appears to subsist between these little animals and ants, with whom they share the honey they obtain, and are in return assisted and protected. I met this morning with an entertaining account of these facts in the Dialogues on Entomology, which my aunt lent me last month.

There is another species called the oak puceron, which bury themselves in the crevices of the bark when it is a little separated from the wood, and live at their ease on the sap. They are black, and nearly as large as a common house-fly. Their trunk is twice the length of their bodies, and it holds so fast by the wood, that, when pulled away, it frequently brings a small piece along with it. Ants are so fond of this species of puceron, that they are the surest guides where to find it; for whenever we see a number of ants upon an oak, and all creeping into one cleft of the bark, we may be certain, my aunt says, of finding quantities of oak pucerons there.

Mary, two or three days ago, raised the turf in different places in a dry pasture field, and shewed me clusters of ants gathered about some large grey pucerons. My aunt says that these earth pucerons draw the juices from the roots of plants, as the other species do from the stem and branches. It is imagined by some people, that they are only the common pucerons, which in winter creep into the earth to shelter themselves: but this is not the case, as they are usually met with in places distant from the trees or plants on which they might before have fed. And she says, that though many may be killed by the cold, yet numbers escape, and are found early in spring, sucking the buds of the peach and other trees.

14th.—I have not yet found the least difficulty in comprehending what my uncle tells us in our geological conversations. This is partly owing to the clearness with which he teaches; and partly to my immediately writing down the substance of it for you. The habit of writing this journal has been indeed of very great use to me, and I have to thank you, dear mamma, for desiring me to do it. I am afraid Marianne will not be much interested as yet by the present subject, for want of my uncle’s explanations; but when I am once more with you and her, I will try to give her at full length the details of what he has told us; and I am sure that she will then like it for his sake.

We have just had another little chapter on the changes in the globe. My uncle said, that extraordinary as the changes on its surface appear, yet when we have an opportunity of penetrating a little into the interior by means of deep mines, or of viewing a long section of the strata in cliffs or on bare mountains, then our ideas expand into a clearer conception of the extent and grandeur of its ancient revolutions. In examining the more elevated chains of mountains, or in following the beds of their torrents, we can perceive somewhat of its interior structure thus laid open to us.

The low and level parts of the earth, when penetrated to a great depth, generally exhibit parallel strata, composed of various substances, and most of them containing vegetable and animal, and innumerable marine productions. Similar strata, with the same kind of productions, compose the hills even to a great height; and sometimes the shells are so numerous, that an entire stratum seems to be formed of them. These shells are frequently in such perfect preservation, that they retain their sharpest ridges, and their tenderest forms. They are sometimes found incrusted in hard stone, and sometimes inclosed in loose sand or clay; and the nicest comparison cannot detect any difference between the texture of these shells, and those which now inhabit the sea. It is, therefore, fair to conclude, that they also must have formerly lived in the sea, and, consequently, that the sea must once have flowed over those places.

But we must not forget that in some countries none of these remains occur, for instance, in Cornwall, and the highlands of Scotland; while in others, not a well can be sunk, or a pit opened, without presenting them in abundance; as in the south-eastern counties of England. The reason of this difference will, I am sure, have suggested itself, if you recollect our former conversations: Cornwall is composed of the lowest series of rocks, which are therefore called primitive; and they, you know, must be entirely destitute of organic remains. The next series contains them very sparingly, but they abound in the three succeeding series, or what are called the secondary formations; though sometimes there are beds interposed, in which they are still rare. In examining these organic remains, the skill of the botanist and zoologist has discovered that several of the plants and animals are entirely different from any with which we are at present acquainted; and a vast field of inquiry has thus been opened in those departments of nature.

I asked my uncle whether these remains are regularly distributed through the whole of those series in which they are so numerous. He likes that I should ask him questions; he says it doubles his pleasure in giving information, when he sees people really alive to what he tells them.

He replied, that, in one respect, the regularity is surprising, for they are found, as it were, in families; each formation containing a collection of species often peculiar to itself, and differing widely from those of the adjoining one; so that at any two points, in similar formations, however distant, we are sure of meeting the same general assemblage of fossil remains. For instance, if the fossils found in the chalk of Flamborough Head in Yorkshire, or in the cliffs of Dover, or even in Poland, or Paris, be examined, eight or nine species out of ten will be found to be the same. Again, if collections of fossils from the carboniferous limestone, of any of the above places, are compared, they will be found to agree in the same manner with each other: but if you compare the collection from the chalk, with that from the limestone, you would not find one single instance of agreement; indeed very few appearances of it that could deceive even your unpractised eye.”

“I wish, uncle, I could make these curious comparisons with my own eyes.”

“So you shall, my dear Bertha. I have a few specimens of remarkable fossils, though I have no regular collection; and when we reach home, I will endeavour to shew you some instances of these facts, as they interest you and Caroline so much.”

15th.—I have made another extract from the Canada letters for my dear mamma.

“Loghouse, February 24th.

“Here we are at last; and though we must bear a good deal of inconvenience for some time, yet we feel all the enjoyment of being really at home.

“On Monday morning, Feb. 10, we left Cobourg, Mr. * * * * and I on one seat, with a little girl between us; the maid and the other two children on the seat before us, and our charioteer in front. We had blankets and cloaks to roll about our feet, and a basket of cold meat and bread. Another sleigh carried our bedding, trunks, and luggage, besides baskets of poultry and our two dogs.

“We travelled twenty miles that day very pleasantly; passing through miles and miles of forest. I was delighted with this new scene. Every now and then, we came to small clearings, with loghouses, and generally with a good stock of cattle and poultry.

“At four o’clock, we reached the inn; and we passed the night there very comfortably, sleeping on the floor in the sitting-room, where we spread our mattresses and blankets.

“Next day, our road lay through thick woods; indeed, it scarcely deserved that name, for it was merely a track through the snow where other sleighs had lately passed. We turned backwards and forwards through the crowded trees, and often had showers of snow from branches which our heads touched: the boughs of the beautiful hemlock pine were so loaded with it, and bent down so low, that we were obliged to lie down, to pass under them; and twice we were obliged to stop and cut a passage where trees had fallen across the way. We drove for nine miles through woods without seeing any habitation, except two Indian huts.

“When we arrived at the banks of the river, near the mills, we found that the ice had given way, so that the sleighs could not cross; and the miller’s boat could not ply, because there was still a broad border of ice on each side of the river. We sent a man across to beg of our friend Mr. ——, who was settled there, to send his oxen and sleigh to a part of the river called the Little Lake, two miles lower down; and we determined to walk across. This delay was very embarrassing, but our travels were nearly at an end, and that gave us spirits to proceed with vigour through the snow, which came far above our ancles. The friends who came from the opposite side to meet us, carried the two youngest children; the workmen carried our bedding, and every thing else was left at the mills. With this assistance we contrived to cross, and being soon packed into the sleigh, we proceeded in the shades of evening to our home, through nearly five miles of wood. Our loghouse was quite illuminated by the glare of the fires which had been prepared for us, and even if there had been no fire, we must have been warmed by the joy our friend shewed at seeing us here.

“The house was not quite finished, and we found it rather cold at night; but every day since we have made it more and more comfortable. Our books fill up one side of the parlour, and give it a comfortable look; and as it has two windows, one to the south, and one to the west, we have now the delightful warm sun shining in from ten till past five.

“This is really a pretty spot—even now, though the ground is covered with snow. The river is broad, and rushes by with great noise and rapidity, carrying down lumps of ice from the lake; it winds beautifully, and the banks are fringed with fine spreading cedars and lofty hemlock pines.

“We have been most prosperous in everything, voyage, journey, and health; and when I look back and think of all we have gone through since you and I parted, I cannot help feeling surprise, mixed with gratitude, to that merciful Being, who has watched over us and protected us all.”

16th.—I was talking to Mary after dinner, about the ant and the little puceron, and praising their mutual good feeling; but she said there were very few instances of such friendship among insects, and a great many of their hostility to each other. She mentioned the following fact, which will, I think, amuse Marianne.

The pierce-bois, or wood-boring bee, an inhabitant of warm countries, and distinguished by her beautiful violet wings, is remarkable for boring long cylindrical cells in decayed trees, or even in window frames. She first bores obliquely into the wood with her strong mandibles, and then follows the direction of the fibres, forming a hole or tunnel of more than a foot in length, and half an inch in diameter. At the inner end of this pipe she deposits an egg, along with a sufficient store of honey and farina, for the support of her future offspring; and covering it with a thin partition, made of the particles of wood she had scooped out and cemented together with wax, she proceeds to deposit another egg and another supply of provision; and so on till the whole pipe is full. I must also tell you, that from the innermost cell she had previously bored a small channel to the outside of the wood, as a kind of back door, by which the young produced from the first laid eggs should escape in succession, each of them instinctively piercing the partition in the right direction. But now, mamma, for my fact: there is a small species of beetle that watches the operations of the bee, and slily deposits its egg also in the cell. If this egg should escape the vigilance of the poor bee, it is hatched into a larva before her own eggs, and consuming all the food she had so industriously prepared, the right owner of the dwelling perishes.

The wood-boring-bee reminded my uncle of the teredo or ship-worm, which destroys the planks on ships’ bottoms, by piercing them in all directions; and he told us that the ingenious Mr. Brunel had himself stated to a friend of his, that it was from the operations of this worm that he had borrowed the method which has been adopted in forming the tunnel under the Thames.

Mr. Brunel observed that the teredo’s head is covered with a strong armour, through a little hole in which it perforates the wood first in one direction and then in another, till the arched way is complete; when it daubs both roof and sides with a kind of varnish. In like manner, Mr. B. conducts his operations in the tunnel; removing the ground in front, through the small apertures of a strong iron frame, which he calls the shield, in imitation of the teredo’s armour; and then constructing a circular arch of brick-work, with strong cement, so as to resist the utmost pressure of the water. The shield is then moved forward nine inches (the length of a brick), a fresh ring of brick-work is built, and a fresh portion of ground is excavated.

This curious anecdote led to another of the same nature, an ingenious contrivance borrowed from a lobster’s tail. On the other side of the Clyde, opposite the city of Glasgow, there was abundance of fine water, which it was desirable to convey across the river for the use of the inhabitants; but so as not to interfere with the shipping, and not to be contaminated with the salt water. Mr. Watt, the celebrated engineer, undertook to carry it in iron pipes fitted one into the other like the joints of a lobster’s tail, so that when laid across the river they should adapt themselves to the form of the bottom. He perfectly succeeded; these flexible pipes have been in use for twenty years, and the inhabitants have been admirably supplied with this necessary of life, through that great man’s happy power of observation.

17th.—My aunt has been very unwell for the last three days; she is now recovering, but still requires constant care. My cousins are most assiduous and tender nurses. They are attentive, without being officious, and they arrange the time of their attendance, so as to permit each to have some leisure for her own daily occupations. This gratifies my aunt particularly; I have frequently heard her say, that it is a duty of those who attend on the sick to be as cheerful as possible, and that nothing contributes to cheerfulness so much as employment. She thinks it no proof whatever of real sensibility, to lay aside all one’s usual pursuits because a friend or relation is ill; it only weakens the mind, and produces on the countenance that expression of anxiety which distresses or alarms the patient.

I do not know exactly what my aunt’s illness has been—her eyes have been so much affected, that she has been condemned for some time to total idleness, and hitherto she has not been permitted to listen to much reading or even conversation. I should have thought that a person who is so active in general, would have been doubly sensible of the weight of idle time. But her mind has such various stores of knowledge, deep and light, that she never can be in want of novelties to employ it; to-day I was allowed to stay with her for some time, and she repeated to me some beautiful moral reflections, as well as some lighter poetical compositions on which she had employed her mind last night. It is thus she beguiles the wakeful hours, and habituates herself to think more slightly of the sufferings which she sometimes endures.

19th, Sunday.—My dear aunt is certainly much better.—By her desire I was permitted to take care of her while the rest of the family went to church; and I was thus left sole guardian of this good patient, so precious to us all.

Immediately after they went away, she fell into a gentle slumber, and as I had not provided myself with a book, and was fearful of disturbing her by walking to the book-case, I sat quietly near the bed, so that I could watch her. For want of other employment I amused myself with comparing my former with my present life; and though on the whole they are very different, there is one point, dear mamma, in which they are perfectly similar—for the friends I am now with are, just like you, really and rationally religious. My reverie over, I repeated to myself some of our favourite sacred poetry, among which was Mrs. Barbauld’s address to the Deity. I then tried to recollect the various religious books I had read since I came here; and afterwards I endeavoured to arrange the knowledge which I had acquired not only from them but from my uncle’s conversations.

While I was engaged in these reflections, my aunt awoke, and having taken her medicine, she desired me to read to her some of the Old and New Testament; and then, as she insisted on it, I went out for a short time, leaving her maid in the room.

My mind, of course, dwelt on that good and amiable aunt, to whom I owe so much; and every turn I made in the garden brought me to some object that reminded me of the kind things she had said to me in our walks, and the many opportunities she had taken of giving my mind a right direction. Her religion is always cheerful, and she has the art of introducing little useful reflections into common conversation, so as to double the impression they make. Just where I was then sauntering, she had said to me only a few hours before she was taken ill, “You see that the embryo plant contained in this seed will not vegetate without heat and moisture—and so, my dear niece, our good dispositions, whatever they may be, will wither away without the continual help of Him who is ever ready to assist us, and to open our minds to the high views of a future state which He has set before us; nor, Bertha, can it be considered one whit more wonderful that we should hereafter change into a life of immortality, than that the larva should burst into a beautiful butterfly, or that these little black seeds should expand into luxuriant foliage, and deck their branches with splendid flowers.”

The wind had been very high all that morning, and many broken branches were scattered about the shrubbery: my aunt seemed to delight in the “wild music of the wind-swept grove;” and as we sheltered ourselves from the blast, she pointed out to me the numbers of minute insects that were enjoying their short day of existence, unmindful of its terrors; and the birds that were struggling through it with materials for their nests; and the bees who could scarcely withstand its power, yet were urged on by their instinctive industry to begin their winter’s store. “How that hoarse storm,” she exclaimed, “and all these tokens of the opening spring, remind one of the Almighty power and benevolence!”

I immediately quoted the well known line,

“Well applied, Bertha. In every department of nature we find sufficient proofs of that omnipotence and goodness. The astonishing force of an unseen agent, like the wind, comes home indeed to the feelings at this moment, and leads one to reflect on its wonderful causes and its beneficial effects; but when we view with the astronomer the countless stars and the regular movement of the planets in their orbits; or, with the chemist, trace the infinite variety of matter up to the different proportions in which a few elementary substances are combined; or if we examine the microscopic perfection of the commonest of these flowers; or the young leaves already formed and wrapped up for months in the buds; or the beautiful preparation of hard scales and downy net-work for the preservation of the young plant inclosed in the seeds,—the mind is absolutely lost in admiration!

20th.—For some days past, the rooks have been very busy, building their nests.—There are a few tall trees near this, which stand in a clump apart from the rest; Frederick says that the rooks have a fancy for them, and build there year after year. No creatures seem to be more attached to the place where they have lived; nor can any be more sociable, as they generally place several nests together. But their sociable disposition does not imply honesty towards each other; for when a pair are constructing their nest, one always remains to guard it while the other goes in search of materials, lest it might be pillaged by the neighbouring rooks. Frederick and I observed a transaction of this nature to-day; and it caused a great uproar, for the crime is always punished by expelling the thieves from the society.

White of Selborne says, they depart on foraging excursions in the morning, and return in the evening; and that, after the young have taken wing, there is a general desertion of the nest trees; but he says the families return in October, to repair their dwellings.

Among their favourite food is the grub of the chaffer-beetle, which, if allowed to multiply, would lay waste the corn-fields and meadows;—and yet how many mistaken people accuse these poor rooks of doing mischief!

Frederick contrived to get one of them to shew me, that I might know how to distinguish them from other species of the crow family. The rook is black, tail somewhat rounded, plumage glossy, the bill is more straight and slender, and its base is encircled by a naked white skin which is scaly, and takes the place of those black projecting feathers or bristles, which, in the other species of crow, extend as far as the opening of the nostrils.

Rooks, I am told, are birds of passage in France, but in England they are stationary. In Siberia, they are the forerunners of summer; and in France, they announce the approach of winter.

Now that they are busy building their nests, they make a noisy, hoarse cawing, which I have not yet persuaded myself to like; but it is agreeable to Mary and Caroline—I suppose, because it is united in their minds with the idea of spring.

21st.—After sitting a little time with my aunt, who, I am delighted to tell you, is much better, I had a botanising walk with Miss Perceval. What a very agreeable companion she is!

She told me that few countries, so limited in extent, comprise such a variety of plants as the British islands. Yet few of them are peculiar to these countries: those of our southern districts may be almost all found in France and Germany; those of Scotland are nearly common with the productions of Sweden and Denmark; and our elevated hills supply a vegetation similar to that of Norway and Lapland. The climate of Ireland varies so little from that of the corresponding parts of England and Scotland, that there is scarcely any difference in their native plants. She mentioned, however, two; the menziesia polifolia, or St. Patrick’s heath, and the saxifraga geum, with its varieties, which are found wild in Ireland only. I reminded her of the arbutus, but she seemed to doubt that it is a native of Killarney, which surprised me, as you told me that it was; and my uncle expressed the same opinion lately. On the contrary, she is inclined to believe the tradition, that the Monks of Mucross Abbey introduced it there from Spain—for, she says, trees are seldom found, in a state of nature, confined to one spot only: and it is well known that the arbutus does not grow naturally in any other part of Ireland; it grows, however, abundantly on all the shores of Spain, and from thence she thinks it may have been originally brought.

She gave me a very satisfactory reason why the native vegetable productions of Great Britain are inferior in number to those of countries on the continent; few seeds are furnished with the means of flying across the Channel so as to have naturalised themselves here. Where no sea intervenes, they are gradually but continually spreading from one place to another. On the road sides and in the corn-fields of France, Germany, and Holland, we see many plants which have been imported for our gardens; even in the Flora Danica there are many belonging to that small country, which are not possessed by us; and all the mountainous regions of Europe, though separated by a great distance, have several species in common, while we can boast of very few which are found in Great Britain only.

Miss P. told me, however, of some; for instance, the Isle of Man cabbage has not yet been observed in any other parts of the world than in that island, in the Hebrides, and on the north-western shores of England and Scotland. One of the most interesting of our British plants, she says, is pipewort; for in no part of the continent of Europe is it, or any individual of this genus, to be found; and, what is very remarkable, though all the other species of the family are inhabitants of the tropics, yet ours is found in one of the most northern of the Hebrides, and in a lake which is peculiarly cold.

It is the same among the cryptogamous tribes, such as lichens, fungi, and mosses. Though we think Britain rich in that extensive class, most of them are known in other parts of Europe, or in North America; and she says it is a singular fact, that the lower we descend in the scale of vegetation, the more universally are the individuals of those tribes dispersed over the surface of the globe. In Carolina, for example, a large proportion of the fungi are the same with those of France and Germany, while among what she calls the phenogamous plants, or those which have visible flowers, there are scarcely any that are common to Europe.

The mosses too, which have been received from the higher parts of North America, and from Kamtschatka, are almost all indigenous in Europe.

22nd.—I had often wished to see the contents of a set of nice little drawers under the book-cases on one side of the library; at last, to my great satisfaction, I have been allowed to examine the small geological collection which they contain. It consists of specimens of the different series of rocks, accompanied by the organic remains which distinguish them.

My uncle first shewed us some bits of hornblende, primary limestone, mica-slate, and granite, as specimens of the inferior order, or ancient primitive rocks, destitute of all organic remains, and having something of a crystalline appearance.

Next he shewed us the drawers containing the transition or submedial series, including grey wackè, transition limestone, quartz, common slate, and serpentine; they contain some specimens of the lowest scale of organized beings, such as zoophytes, madrepores, and testacea, but very sparingly, and all different from those now known.

Then came the medial order, or carboniferous rocks of old red sandstone, mountain limestone, and all the parallel strata of coal, slate-clay, and freestone, which he calls coal measures. He shewed us abundant remains in them of animals, but very few of which have any resemblance to existing species. Some of the limestone or marble specimens were polished on one side, so as to shew their beautiful veins and colours. On several bits of the coal and black slate, I saw the impression of leaves, branches, and seeds, but no shells, or any kind of animal remains: there was one perfect fern leaf, but my uncle says, of an unknown family, and a great many reeds. There was also, a flat block of greyish freestone, on which the regular scales of some seed vessel, like a very large fir cone, were deeply marked; and on another, I am sure I could distinctly trace the imbricated form and the spines of the common prickly pear of the Brazils. Indeed, my uncle thinks that all these vegetable remains seem nearly allied to the plants of tropical climates; and he says, it would be a most interesting employment for some naturalist to devote himself to the study of what might be called subterranean botany. These coal measures occupy several drawers; for besides the Staffordshire, Newcastle, and other coals, he has specimens of the seventeen coal beds of the forest of Dean, and a large collection of their organic remains, which he has taken great pains in arranging.

The next drawers contain the supermedial series, beginning with the magnesian limestone, new red sandstone, and red marl. There are very large districts of this formation in the central parts of England, and they include the great deposits of rock-salt, which is of so much importance, he says, to the empire. Considerable beds of gypsum are also found; but it contains no organic remains of either animals or vegetables. Above these,—for you no doubt have perceived what I forgot to mention, that my uncle began at his lowest drawer, in order to shew the lowest strata first,—above these, he showed me a collection of the lias and oolite strata, both of them impure limestones, but extremely rich in the number and variety of organic remains. These consist of ferns and flags, corals and zoophytes, shells of all kinds, univalve, bivalve, and multivalve; ammonites of all sizes, fishes of several species, and turtles and other amphibia unlike any of the species now known. To one of these amphibia has been given the name ichthyosaurus, which, my uncle says, means the fish-like lizard; it having the head of a crocodile and the back bone of a shark; he has only a small specimen, which stands over the book-case, but he says some have been found in the lias near Lyme, in Dorsetshire, three or four feet in length. And he told me that at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, the fossil remains of another extraordinary animal of the amphibious tribes was discovered, which has been called the monitor; no complete skeleton of it has yet been put together, but many of the detached parts must have belonged to an animal forty feet long, and twelve feet high!

The remainder of this numerous series consists of different strata of sands and clays, and various limestones, up to the chalk formation; and they contain a repetition of the fossils he shewed me in the lower parts of it. He frequently made me observe, that these fossils are all not only very widely distinguished from the families found in the carboniferous and transition series, but that there are also striking peculiarities in themselves according to the bed which they occupy.

We came next to the great chalk formation, with its wonderful deposition of flints in parallel layers; and then to the last, or superior order, consisting of gravel or sand, or of clay, which is in some places four or five hundred feet thick, and resting on the chalk. Its organic remains are highly interesting; but my uncle said he would not perplex our memories at present, by a minute examination of the specimens in his collection; he wished to give us general ideas, hereafter we may study the particulars. Before he closed his drawers, he shewed us, that below this upper formation all the remains of organic bodies were in a petrified or mineralized state; that is, the general structure and external form of the body has been preserved, but the original matter of which it was composed has entirely disappeared, and has been replaced by the substance of the mineral in which it was imbedded. On the contrary, in the strata which cover the chalk, the shells are merely preserved, and in such a state, that when the clay or sand in which they lie is washed off, they might appear quite recent, if they had not lost their colour and become more brittle. My uncle shewed us a few specimens of these, and also of some shells, which he says are peculiar to fresh water, but which are often found in alternate layers with the marine shells, as if they had been deposited by alternate inundations of fresh and salt water. And lastly, he shewed us some of the shells found in a horizontal stratum of gravel on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, about fifty feet above the sea, which are exactly the same with the shells at present existing in the sea on the same coast. Above all these regular strata, he says, there is in many places spread a confused covering of gravel, apparently formed by the action of a deluge, which had shattered and rounded the fragments of the rocks over which its torrents had swept.

In this gravel the remains of numerous land quadrupeds are found; many of them of species now unknown, such as the mastodon, and mammoth or fossil elephant, with varieties of the hyæna, bear, rhinoceros, and elk, but indiscriminately mingled with others, which still exist in the country.

I have taken a good deal of pains to acquire a clear idea of this order of the strata, with their vegetable and animal remains. My uncle did not shew them all at one time, we went over them by degrees, a little every day; but I have just summed them up altogether, to give you an idea of what I have seen.

24th, Good Friday.—Before we went to church to-day, my uncle spoke to us for a short time on the solemn event we were going to commemorate; and though my notes of what he said can be of little use to you, yet I am anxious to shew my dear mamma that I take still more pains to profit by what he tells us on this most important subject, than upon Geology or any thing else.

“You are all too well acquainted with Scripture,” said he, “not to know that the lesson which it everywhere inculcates, is, that man by sin and disobedience had fallen under the displeasure of his Maker, and that there was an invincible necessity, however inexplicable to our comprehension, that our Saviour should lay down his life to redeem us from that sin, and to procure for repentant sinners forgiveness and acceptance.

“That the death of Christ was the real and efficient sacrifice, of which the various offerings under the law were but the types or shadows, is evident from a crowd of passages in Holy Writ to which I have repeatedly drawn your attention. But as if to prevent the possibility of doubt on the subject, St. Paul emphatically tells the Hebrews that the High Priest entering into the Holy of Holies with the annual sin-offering was only ‘a figure for the time then present.’ And he distinctly adds, that Christ, not ‘by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, obtained eternal redemption for us.’

“The promise made to our first parents intimated a future deliverer, who should remove those evils which had been entailed on mankind by their misconduct. This was the assurance that became to the Israelites the grand object of their faith; and it was to perpetuate this fundamental article of their hope and belief, that a standing memorial both of the fall and of the promised deliverance was appointed. Now, what memorial could be more apposite, than that of animal sacrifice?—It connected in one view the two great events in the moral history of man, the Fall, and the Recovery: the death denounced against sin, and the death appointed for that Holy Intercessor whose blood was to be accepted as a final atonement.

“How true it is, that the ways and thoughts of God are not like those of men!

“Wonderful in every part of it, but chiefly in the last acts of it, was the awful scene of this stupendous expiation. That the author of life should himself be made subject to death—that his sufferings and humiliation should be the manifestation of his glory—that by stooping to death he should conquer death;—and that the height of human malice should but accomplish the purposes of God’s mercy!

“If you compare the whole chain of prophecies with the history of our Lord’s sufferings, you will find that it was not until they were fulfilled to the minutest point, that the patient Son of God, as if then at liberty to depart, said ‘It is finished.’—Yes, all that the wicked were destined to contribute to the general deliverance was finished.

“We cannot understand the mysteries of God; but we may easily perceive his goodness. We cannot discover his motives, but we have no difficulty in discovering his will. We cannot comprehend the actions of Providence, or the moral government of the universe; but we can have no uncertainty about the laws which should govern our own actions—they are clearly and forcibly stated in the Gospel; all that it imports a sinful being to know, to believe, or to do, all that concerns our fall and our redemption, everything that involves the greatest interests of the human race, is there unfolded. We cannot penetrate that inscrutable decree which rendered it unfit to pardon sin without vicarious atonement; but we may form some faint conception of the immense sacrifice that Christ made for us, in order to satisfy Eternal Justice. From the horror with which he contemplated his approaching death, and from the agony with which he prayed that the cup of bitterness might pass from him, we may surely infer that his sufferings were of no ordinary nature—that the sacrifice was, indeed, great. Yet in the depth of his anguish, his prayer was one of perfect resignation and devout humility—‘Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’

“Let us then learn, from his great example, how and where to seek for consolation when misfortune or misery overtakes us; let us pour forth our petitions with the same fervour as he did; and let us bow with the same submission in our hearts to the decrees of unerring wisdom.”

25th.—My excellent aunt came down stairs yesterday evening, and this bright cheering day she took a little walk with my uncle. Grace and I had the pleasure of accompanying them. Every thing seemed to sympathise with her recovery—all nature seemed to be reviving—buds opening, and young leaves bursting out; many branches of hawthorn in sheltered places quite green, and the young elms feathered with their pretty opening leaves. The glades in the forest were carpeted with primroses—the birds were building in every bush, and singing as they worked; the lambs were sporting about, and the pastures beginning to shew the little cheerful daisy—