same kind as macaroni and vermicelli, but being strained through long narrow holes, comes to us in the form of ribands, from Italy. LOUISA. How are wafers made?

MOTHER. Wafers are composed of flour, isinglass, and a very small portion of yeast. This mixture is coloured, and then spread out in very thin cakes on tin plates, dried on a stove, and cut out into wafers.

HELEN. Pray, mamma, what is isinglass? You say, it is used in making wafers.

MOTHER. It is, my dear, and for many other purposes.

LOUISA. Yes, for jelly and blancmange.

HELEN. And more largely for fining wine, beer, and other fermented liquors.

MOTHER. Isinglass is a substance obtained from the sounds and air-bladders of fish. The coarser kinds, used in breweries and other

manufactories, are made from the intestines of fish. The preparation is simple;-After cleansing the sounds from the sea-water, they are put for a few minutes into lime-water, that all the oily parts may be absorbed; they are then again washed, cleaned, and rolled into round forms of the thickness of the finger; dried in this state, and, being pulled off in little strips, the isinglass appears in the shape in which we buy it.

HELEN. Is not some particular fish used for making isinglass?

MOTHER. Originally, isinglass was made only from the sounds and air-bladder of the sturgeon, which abounds in the Caspian Sea and the river Volga; and the Russians long kept the secret of manufacturing it. But isinglass is now made in London, as I have already stated, from the sounds and intestines of fish generally. It is

true that the strongest isinglass is prepared from the starred sturgeon, which is caught in the Caspian, to the amount of 300,000 to 400,000 every year; as is also the best caviar, a food made from the roes of the sturgeon, and much used by the Russians.

LOUISA. Well! I shall never like jelly again! How nasty! The intestines of fish!

MOTHER. Make no rash resolves. Many things, besides isinglass, are drawn from equally unpleasant substances. What think you of the spermaceti, which you ate so eagerly, last winter, to ease your cough?

LOUISA. Mixed with sugar-candy, it was very good. Besides, nothing could be whiter and cleaner.

HELEN. And yet I fancy you would turn up your nose at the thought of eating the brains of a whale!

LOUISA. To be sure I should.-Why do you laugh, Helen?

HELEN. Because I have read that spermaceti is produced from the brains of a particular kind of whale.

MOTHER. You are nearly right, Helen; yet not quite. Spermaceti is found in a cavity in the whale's skull, but distinct from the brain. It is fluid, while the animal is alive; but after its death, it is found in solid fat lumps, of a whitish colour. The whale from which it is obtained is distinguished from the common whale by a bunch upon his back. Besides its uses in medicine, for coughs, internal bruises, and many similar purposes, spermaceti is made into candles, which bear its name, and are considered as a medium between wax and tallow candles.

LOUISA. By-the-by, when I come to think

C

of it, what a dirty thing honey is first swallowed by bees, and then by us!

MOTHER. Your description is certainly not very inviting. Suppose, rather, that we should call honey the syrup of flowers, drawn from the opening buds by the trunk, or proboscis, of the industrious bee, and thus borne home to the waxen cells.

LOUISA. Now I like honey again.

MOTHER. So much then, my dear child, you find depends on description.

LOUISA. If honey be the juice of flowers, what then is wax?

MOTHER. Wax has been determined by an attentive naturalist (Reaumur) to be the farina, or pollen, of flowers, which is eaten by the bees, and converted by an animal process into wax. All wax is of one colour, however variously coloured the farina from which it is