was commenced in the year 1783. The border is ornamented with garlands of flowers. At the four corners are four large bunches of roses copied from paintings in water-colors, executed by Madame Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI., and comprising all the species of roses known in France towards the conclusion of the 18th century.

An Esquimau watching a Seal Hole. Few travellers have had so dreary a region to describe as Captain Lyon, and yet few books contain as much amusing matter as his. On the northern exploring expedition which he commanded, a few years ago, in search of a northwest passage into the Pacific ocean, he was brought into a more prolonged intercouse with the arctic Esquimaux than he desired; but, like a humane and sensible man, he made a good use of the opportunity, to make observations and inquiries, of which his readers enjoy the advantages.

And truly it is worth while occasionally to turn to a race like the Esquimaux, so shut out from most of the blessings which we most highly prize, that we may contrast our condition with theirs. We may feel rather more disposed to be grateful for our own privileges, more deeply realize our obligations, and better perform our duties.

What opportunities or inducements to intellectual advancement, or social improvement can a human being be expected to find, in circumstances like those of an Esquimau? See him seated under the mock shelter of a wall made of cakes of ice, on a surface of the same, wrapped, like a mummy, in the intricate coverings he or his ancestors have torn from the few furred animals they

have been able to seize, with nothing to look upon but a vast extent of unmelting snows, and his subsistence and that of his family for the day, depending on the appearance of a seal at the hole he has cut in the frozen pavement before him, and his skill in capturing or killing it. Think of his dwellinghow far from possessing the luxuries and even the comforts of our own! At best, it is but a hut of the smallest size and poorest construction, often formed wholly of blocks of ice, cemented together with water, frozen by the unintermitting cold, lighted with rude lamps of fish oil, and accessible only by creeping on all fours, through a narrow tunnel in a snow drift! Yet even there, our traveller tells us, the poor man and his little family are threatened by the white bear, which approaches to devour the inmates.

An Esquimau on snowshoes spearing a Seal. We have here another of that puny race, boldly venturing from the shore on snowshoes, to throw his spear into a sleeping seal; and the dreary scene around him contrasts as strongly with our southern landscapes.

Necessity trains the Esquimaux to great boldness and hardihood. Even the women sometimes venture from home, on the surface of the chilly waters, when they happen to be free enough from ice to allow their light canoes to float; and, with great skill and presence of mind, they pass from point to point, or island to island, of the desolate coasts which they inhabit. The men, however, perform the chief part of the active, out-door duties; are often compelled to expose themselves not only to the storms which sweep with relentles fury over the waste

Probably few of our readers are familiar with this beautiful little animal, and few of them will easily credit the assertion, that it is a native of the U. States, even as far North as some parts of New England. It is a diminutive, but most graceful species of the Jerboa; and so timid, so very small and so exceedingly active, that it seldom allows itself to be seen. When it has unwarily exposed itself to observation, its motions are so uncommonly quick, and the means of concealment usually so near at hand, that it commonly disappears before its form can be well distinguished; and it has been often mistaken for some other animal. We recollect to have seen a preserved specimen many years ago, which was killed in Connecticut, by a friend, who was a very close and constant observer of nature. He surprised it and its mate in their gambols under the shade of a bush in a field one day, in a retired situation; but, in consequence of their incessant and rapid movements, he was wholly unable to perceive what was their exact form, or even their size, until he killed one with his gun. It was then evident, that the light and graceful little creatures had been amusing themselves with a hop, or dance it might almost be called, round and round the bush, leaping with their long and slender hind legs, and their bodies in an upright position. Its figure approaches the human, and yet is destitute of the repul

sive and ridiculous aspects, one or the other of which is usually connected with such of the irrational animals as assume anything of the human attitude. It is in all respects one of the most diminutive and pleasing of the quadrupeds; and perhaps this notice, with the aid of a drawing, may direct the attention of some of our readers to it, and lead to the discovery of its haunts, within the compass of their rural walks.

Baptism of Bells at Tours.

A Roman Catholic journal, the Courrier d'Indre et Loire, of the 24th of December, gives a remarkable account of the christening of some bells, by the archbishop, at Tours. The feeling with which the Roman Catholic laity look on some of the ceremonies of the church may be judged of by the comments made by the journal which details the "baptisin:"

We have just been present at a signal parody on the fundamental rite of Christianity; a Pagan ceremony has just been celebrated by the ministers of Christ, in a chapel consecrated to his worship. The two bells presented to the hospital are baptized! This solemnity was conducted with great pomp by the archbishop, assisted by his clergy, and aided by the giver of the bells, who played the double part of father and godfather. A mass, distinguished by the union of admirable musical powers with the generous spirit of charity, and the edifying

scrmon, preceded the baptism; and then the ceremony commenced. The two bells were hung a little above the ground, in the midst of the chapel. A somewhat profaned coquetry presided at their toilet. They were dressed in gowns of rose-colored satin, with robes of lace, and trimmed with ribbons and flowers.

The archbishop (Monseigneur Morlot) solemnly approached those two innocent sisters. M. Viot Prudhomme, their godfather, and a distinguished lady, their godmother, were placed at their right hand. After the accustomed words, the archbishop proceeded to their purification par attouchements; their dresses were raised with due regard to decency, so as to expose the native material, and in this condition they received the holy anointing within and without. Then Monseigneur, pulling a ribbon, struck the clappers against the two bells in succession, which answered in different tones; the godmother did the same with perfect grace, and the godfather with his accustomed dexterity. All this accomplished, behold two christians more in the world, bearing these inscriptions, the one, "Je m'appelle Anna Valerie;" the other, "Je m'appelle Julie Caroline." It is with a lively sentiment of pity that we have witnessed this profane spectacle. A baptism of bells. The hospital demands for its inmates food, and care, and rest, and you give

them bells!

THE CAMEL.

So common has it now become for our countrymen to travel in Egypt, Syria, and some other parts of the East, that many have become familiar with this peculiar animal, and some of our readers may perhaps hereafter find themselves borne on his back among scenes attractive to every mind stored with knowledge and imbued with sound taste.

The following description we copy from a

late publication, the name of which we have accidentally lost:

The camel and dromedary are names given to two varieties of the same animal. The principal, and perhaps the only sensible dif ference by which these two races are distinguished, consists in this: that the camel has two bunches on his back, whereas the dromedary has but one; the latter, also, is neither so large nor so strong as the camel. This is the usually received opinion; but, according to some, " the difference between them is not that the one has two bunches on its back and the other only one: it is like the difference between a heavy cart-horse and a swift riding horse. The dromedary is much lighter, swifter, and quicker in its motions; but the Arabian camel and dromedary have both only one hump, though the camel of Bactria and other regions is said to have two." (Bonar and M'Cheyne's Tour.)

The word "dromedary" properly denotes a very swift species of camel, which the Arabs call "el heirie." By Strabo and Diodorus Siculus the name (fleet camel) was first applied to a single race of the species, remarkable for its speed; and we have corrupted the epithet thus acquired, into a denomination for the general race.

Of the two varieties, the dromedary is by far the most numerous-the camel being scarcely found, except in Turkey and the countries of the Levant-while the other is found spread over all the deserts of Arabia, the southern parts of Africa, Persia, Tartary, and a great part of the eastern Indies. Thus, the one inhabits an immense tract of country; the other, in comparison, is confined to a province: the one inhabits the sultry countries of the torrid zone; the other delights in a warm, but not a burning climate.

They seem formed for those countries where shrubs are plentiful and water scarce; where they can travel along the sandy desert without being impeded by rivers, and find food at expected distances: such a country is Arabia.

The camel travels several days without drinking. In those vast deserts, where the earth is every where dry and sandy, where there are neither birds, beasts, nor vegetables, where nothing is to be seen but hills of sand and heaps of stone, it travels, posting forward sometimes at the rate of twelve miles within the hour, without requiring either drink or pasture, and is often found to go six or seven days without any sustenance whatever. Its feet are formed for travelling on sand, and utterly unfit for moist or marshy places; the inhabitants, therefore, find a most useful assistant in this animal where no other could subsist, and by its means cross the deserts with safety, which would be impassable by any other method of conveyance.

"The hoof," says Mr. Kirby, "though not actually, is superficially divided. Considering the deserts of loose and deep sand that it often has to traverse, a completely divided

hoof would have sunk into the sand, while one entire below would present a broader surface, not so liable to inconvenience. Boys, when they want to walk upon the muddy shores of an estuary at low water, fasten broad boards to their feet, to prevent their sinking in the mud. I conceive that the whole sole of the camel's foot answers a similar purpose. Its superficial division probably gives a degree of pliancy to it, enabling it to move with more ease over the sands." (Bridgewater Treatise, ii. 203.)

The camel is easily instructed to take up and support his burden. The legs, a few days after they are produced, are bent under their belly; they are thus loaded and taught to rise. The burden is every day increased, insensibly, till the animal is capable of supporting a weight adequate to its force. The same care is taken in making them patient of hunger and thirst. While other animals receive their food at stated times, the camel is restrained for days together; and these intervals of famine are increased as the animal seems capable of sustaining them. Thus trained, they live five or six days without food or water; and their stomach is formed most admirably by nature to fit them for long abstinence. Besides the four stomachs, which all animals have that chew their cud, (and the camel is of the number), it has a fifth stomach, which serves as a reservoir, to hold a greater quantity of water than the animal has an immediate occasion for. It is of sufficient capacity to contain a large quantity of water, where the fluid remains without corrupting, or without being adulterated by the other aliments. When the camel finds itself pressed with thirst, it has here an easy resource for quenching it; it throws a quantity of this water, by a simple contraction of the muscles, into the other stomachs, and this serves to macerate its dry and simple food. In this manner, as it drinks but seldom, it takes in a large quantity at a time; and travellers, when straitened for water, have been often known to kill their camels for that which they expected to find within them.

It is also especially provided with a glandular cavity, placed behind the palate, which furnishes a fluid for the express purpose of moistening and lubricating the throat.

THE CONTRAST.

An exchange paper gives us facts like these:

Saxony, at the period of the reformation, and until she fell under the power of popery, occupied a lofty position among the states of Germany, and possessed the most important elements of national wealth and power; she has now sunk into insignificance, and has no weight in the balance of political power. On the other hand, Protestant Prussia has arisen from an obscure Duchy into a mighty kingdom, is the leading power of the Ger

man confederacy, and the very centre of the learning and civilization of the world, though her soil is sandy and sterile, and nature has done for her but little. Again:

Ireland refused to bow her neck to the yoke of his holiness. Pope Adrian stirred up Henry II to subdue her, that he might wring from her "Peter's pence," and was the first instigator of that "union" of which the Catholics now so loudly complainPopery is the blight of her prosperity-the withering curse of her children; but,

Scotland-across the channel, is full of churches, and schools, and colleges-the land of learning, liberty, exalted sentiment, and hallowed wealth-the glory of the British isles. Again:

In Protestant America every man sits beneath his own vine and fig tree, having none to make him afraid: peace and happiness. knowledge and love, liberty and prosperity everywhere abound. But,

In Catholic America, in Mexico, and throughout all the republics south of her, there are despotism and anarchy, desolation and misery in fair proportion with the universal ignorance and sottishness of the people.

The fairest portions of the world, Italy, Spain, Poland and South America, have, in the providence of God been allotted to Popery for its inheritance; these are the broad fields of the wealth it calls its own, and dispute its claims; and yet all these rich and fertile countries have been impoverishd, and made wretched by the mother of abomination's" No other countries of the world, ever enlightened by the gospel, have sunk so low on the scale of intelligence, wealth, and moral worth. Popery is their curse and ruin. It is a millstone hung upon the neck of all that is virtuous and lovely and of good report in Christendom. Soon may the mighty angel" take it up and cast it into the sea, "where it shall be found no more at all."

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A CHARCOAL ROAD.-The process of making such a road is described by a writer in the Cleveland Herald as follows:

Timber from six to eighteen inches in thickness, is cut twenty-four feet long, and piled up lengthwise in the centre of the road about five feet high, being nine feet wide at the bottom and two at the top, and then covered with straw and earth in the manner of coalpits. The earth required to cover the pile, taken from either side, leaves two good sized ditches, and the timber although not split, is easily charred, and when charred,

the earth is removed to the side of the ditches, the coal raked down, to a width of fifteen feet, leaving it two feet thick at the centre, and one at the sides, and the road is completed.

A road of this kind is now being made in the Cottonwood Swamp, near Blissfield in Michigan. From the writer above quoted we learn that about seventy rods are completed, twenty of which have been used for the last seven months; and as it is on the great thoroughfare West, and as in addition, on an average, sixteen heavy loaded teams, to and from an ashery, pass over it daily, it has been very well tried during the winter and spring, and yet there is now no appearance of ruts, but it presents an even, hard surface.

The Company making the road pay the contractors at the rate of $660 a mile. The road is said to become very compact and to be free from mud or dust. Hon. Elisha

Whittlesy, and Mr. Newton, an engineer who inspected the Blissfield road above mentioned, say they passed over it the morning after a rain.

"At each end of the different sections of the coal road the mud on the causeway was felly deep, where there was that depth of earth; and nearly or quite half axletree deep where the logs were broken; when on the coal road, there was not the least water standing, and the impress of the feet of a horse passing rapidly over it, was like that made on hard washed sand, as the surf recedes, on the shore of the lake. The water is not drained from the ditches, and yet there are no ruts or inequalities in the surface of the coal road, except what is produced by more compact packing on the line of travel. We think it is probable that coal will fully compensate for the deficiency of limestone and gravel in many sections of the West; and where a road is to be constructed through forest land, that coal may be used at a fourth of the expense of lime stone."

FOREIGN LANGUAGES.
Latin Extract.

The style and the character of Pliny the Younger present peculiar attractions to the reader of the language in which he wrote. We hesitate not to say, that we turn to his epistles with pleasure more pure and unalloyed than that afforded us by any other Latin writer in our library. Which of his countrymen has left us so many elegant expressions, so many thoughts worthy of remembrance, so

many sentiments with which a Christian may sympathize, with propriety and profit? At the same time, where else shall we find a view of the purer and more virtuous part of Roman society, so gratifying, so unalloyed with the degradation and the depravity of heathenism? Well may we wish that some writer might arise, able to depict and to commend his excellencies in a style like his own. Well may we regret that his writings are unknown in most of our schools and colleges, being supplanted, in part, by the shameless, corrupt and corrupting Horace, and some other writers more fit to be banished with him than to be made models for our sons.

We give below an extract from one of Pliny's letters, (Lib. V. Ep. 16,) as a specimen of his affectionate character, and his beautiful and pathetic style.

Letter of Pliny the Younger, on the Death of the
Daughter of Fundanus, in her 14th year.

C. Plinivs Marcellino Svos. Tristissimus haec tibi scribo. Fundani nostri filia minor est defuncta: qua puella nihil unquam festivius, amabilius, nec modo longiore vita, sed prope immortalitate, dignius vidi. Nondum annos quatuordecim impleverat, et iam illi anilis prudentia, matronalis gravitas erat; et tamen suavitas puellaris! cum virginali verecundia. Vt illa patris cervicibus inhaerebat! ut nos amicos paterno et amanter et modeste complectebatur ! ut nutrices, ut paedagogos, ut praeceptores, pro suo quemque officio, diligebat! Quam studiose, quam intelligenter lectitabat! ut parce custoditeque ludebat! Qua illa temperantia, qua patientia, qua etiam constantia novissimam valetudinem tulit! Medicis obsequebatur, sororem, patrem adhortabatur, ipsamque se destitutam corporis sui viribus, vigore animi sustinebat. Duravit hic illi usque ad extremum, nec aut spatio valetudinis, aut metu mortis infractus est; quo plures gravioresque nobis caussas relinqueret et desiderii et doloris. O triste plane acerbumque funus ! o morte ipsa mortis tempus indignius! Iam destinata erat egregio iuveni, iam electus nuptiarum dies, iam nos vocati. Quod gaudium quo moerore mutatum est! Non possum exprimere verbis, quantum animo vulnus acceperim, quum audivi Fundanum ipsum (ut nuita luctuosa dolor invenit) praecipientem, quod in vestes, margarita, gemmas, fuerat erogaturus, hoc in thura et unguenta et odores impenderetur.

Splendid Persian Rose Tree. From "Keppel's Journey, in 1824." Notwithstanding their poetic admiration of flowers, the Persians treat them with much neglect; still there are many which are beautiful and well worthy of notice. I am no