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                               BERTHA’S

                          VISIT TO HER UNCLE

                                  IN

                               ENGLAND.

                           IN THREE VOLUMES.

                               VOL. III.

                                LONDON:
                    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

                               MDCCCXXX.

                                LONDON:
                         Printed by W. CLOWES,
                           Stamford-Street.

                            BERTHA’S VISIT.

_April 1st._--The little buds of pear blossoms, which I told you had
enlarged so much, have this day blown out completely. They are, I do
think, a curiosity. They have been now about two months in water, but
they had lain dry so long before, that one might have thought no life
remained in them. The horse-chesnut leaves, which first came out, begin
to droop; but on one of the twigs there is a nice young shoot, at least
two inches long, which looks bright and fresh.

The lilac buds, I am sorry to say, have withered; but some of the ash
leaves have opened out finely: three of them, however, were curiously
twisted, and filled up with a cottony substance, which on examination
was found to contain a little greenish insect. Mary thinks it is the
aphis fraxina. What a long time the eggs must have remained there, for I
do not think an aphis could have found out this branch in my room.

_2d, Sunday._--Deuteronomy, the title of the fifth book of the
Pentateuch, is derived, I find, from two Greek words, which signify the
second law, or rather the repetition of the law. Mishnah, the name the
Jews give it, has nearly the same meaning. “Moses, in this book,” said
my uncle, “not only recapitulates the laws he had already ordained, but
makes several explanatory additions, and enforces the whole by the most
earnest and impressive appeals to the gratitude, the hopes, and the
fears of the people. To them it is principally addressed, as most of
what particularly related to the priests is omitted; and as it was drawn
up in the last year of their abode in the wilderness, we may suppose
that it was intended as a compendium for the benefit of the new
generation, who had not been present at the first promulgation of the
law.

“It is remarkable that, in the preceding books, Moses speaks of himself
in the third person; but in Deuteronomy he drops the assumed character
of an historian, and addresses himself to the nation in the animated
language of a prophet, and with the authority of their chieftain and
lawgiver. He begins by reminding them of the many circumstances since
their departure from Horeb, in which they had experienced the Divine
favour; and then contrasts the success and the victories that had marked
their progress, with the disobedience and ingratitude that had provoked
the Divine wrath. He frequently alludes to his own guilty conduct, and
to the inexorable decree by which he was debarred from accompanying them
to that land of promise, for which he had so zealously toiled. He dwells
on every circumstance that could improve their hearts, and earnestly
enjoins the succeeding judges of Israel to do strict justice, and to
inculcate the principles of obedience and piety. He rehearses the
commandments which he had delivered to the people direct from God; and
exhorts them by every possible argument to fulfil the terms of that
covenant, which the Lord had made with them. While he affectionately
urges their future obedience, and severely reproaches their past
misconduct, he loses no opportunity of unfolding the glorious attributes
of Jehovah, and dwells on His mercy and compassion, and on His promised
blessings. He then enters into a new covenant with the people; which
includes that previously made at Horeb, and ratifies all the assurances
long before given to Abraham and his descendants.

“The historical part of Deuteronomy contains a period of only two
months; and concludes the life of Moses that truly great man and
faithful servant of the Most High. His parting words to the people whom
he had so long and so anxiously governed, were expressed in a hymn that
is pre-eminent for the beauty and strength of its composition. It
briefly but pathetically reiterates his warning exhortations, and ends
with a repetition of the particular blessings promised to each tribe.
His race being now run, we are told by the writer who finished this
book, that Moses retired to the top of Mount Nebo, from whence he was
permitted to behold the land which the Lord had declared the seed of
Abraham should inherit; and he there died in the 120th year of his age,
and in the year 2552 of the world.”

The coming of Messiah is more explicitly foretold in Deuteronomy, my
uncle says, than in any other book of the Pentateuch; and the prophecies
of that great event, as well as of many other circumstances in the
history of the Jews, have been so fully and minutely realized, that they
completely demonstrate the divine inspiration of Moses.

_3d._--Besides the rocks which compose our five grand formations, there
is another series, the _trap_ formation, or _overlying_ rocks; so
called, because they are found in various places lying on almost every
rock, from granite even to chalk. They sometimes traverse the other
rocks in _veins_ or _dykes_, and are sometimes found in immense
shapeless masses, but never regularly stratified. It is evident from
these facts, my uncle says, that their origin must be more recent than
those rocks on which they repose; yet they are quite free from all
organic remains--none, either animal or vegetable, having yet been found
in any rock of this class in England, nor, he believes, in any part of
the world.

These circumstances have given rise to much discussion as to the
original formation of these trap rocks, whether by fire or by water; but
that is a subject on which my uncle will not yet allow us to touch. Some
species of this family have the appearance of crystallization;
green-stone trap, for instance, has large distinct crystals of felspar;
in others, every trace of distinct crystals vanishes, and the whole
assumes a dull earthy appearance.

The famous basaltic rocks, of which there are such singular specimens in
Scotland and Ireland, belong to this family; but I shall be able to tell
you much more about them in a few months, my dear mamma, for my uncle
says it will be necessary for him to visit Ireland, and he proposes to
take us all with him to see the Giants’ Causeway. You will be surprised
at this; but pray do not be alarmed; I assure you there is no danger now
from the wild Irish. My uncle has been there already, and from what he
says, I think some parts of that country must be very interesting. I am
so full of the idea of our Irish travels that I can write no more
to-day.

_5th._--I have had another long walk to-day with Miss Perceval, and,
therefore, another charming conversation. The infinite variety in the
vegetable kingdom was our chief subject.

“Plants,” she said, “have not been thrown at random over the surface of
the globe; in every region, we find those which are best adapted to each
particular situation. Every climate, and every soil, has some
peculiarity which influences its plants; and every plant seems to be
subservient to some great and important object. From the brilliant
profusion of vegetation in some countries, down to the stunted lichen,
which just colours the rocks in others, every change points out the
beneficence of the Creator; and those who endeavour to comprehend this
beautiful order, and who trace these arrangements to the general system
of Providence, can alone enjoy the study of botany in its full extent.”

She then told me a great deal about this distribution of plants, and
mentioned many of the circumstances which appear either to fit them for
the different regions of the earth, or to render them useful in
supplying the local wants of the inhabitants. She began with the low
plants whose small, close-set leaves resist the intense cold of high
latitudes, or of stormy mountains; and tracing the gradual increase in
the size as well as in the number of native plants through all the
intermediate climates, she ended with the great stems, gigantic leaves,
and splendid flowers of the torrid zone.

“A similar change,” she added, “may be observed in those adjective races
of plants which depend upon others for support and protection. Instead
of the dwarf mosses and lichens which clothe the bark of trees in colder
countries, the luxuriant parasites between the tropics may be almost
said to animate their trunks. Delicate flowers spring from the roots of
the chocolate and calabash trees; and amidst the abundance of flowers
and fruits, and the confusion of parasites and climbing plants, the
traveller is at a loss to determine to what stem the leaves and blossoms
belong. Humboldt describes a species of _aristolochia_, whose flowers
are four feet in circumference; but Sir Stamford Raffles discovered a
flower belonging to a parasite plant in the island of Sumatra, that was
nearly ten feet in circumference. He brought home an exact model of it,
which is now in the apartments of the Horticultural Society, and which
your uncle told me he saw and measured when he was last in London. It
has five petals of a deep red colour, and of a very solid fleshy
substance, from a quarter of an inch in thickness at their outer lip to
almost an inch at their base; and he understood that when the flower was
first cut, it weighed fifteen pounds. The nectarium is so large and deep
that he thinks it would hold eight pints of water; and the whole
diameter of this giant flower he found three feet and two inches.”

I interrupted her to ask the name of this wonderful plant.

“It has been justly called, after its lamented discoverer, the
_Rafflesia_. A model was an excellent method of making us acquainted
with its appearance; for the northern nations can have but a faint idea
of the majestic forms of tropical vegetation from mere drawings and
descriptions; and still less can they judge of them from the sickly
plants in our stoves and greenhouses.”

This is just what I have myself thought a hundred times, mamma. I then
asked her about the _Cactus_ tribe, of which we have so many
singular-looking species in Brazil.

“It is, indeed,” she replied, “a most grotesque family; some with their
round backs and spines resembling a hedgehog, while others appear like
the pipes of an organ rising into long channelled columns. They are
almost entirely confined to the New World, one species only being a
native of the south of Europe. This is the _C. opuntia_, or prickly
pear, which bears on the edge of its leaf an agreeably flavoured fruit.
The _melo-cactus_ has been named by St. Pierre the Vegetable Spring of
the Desert: its shape is spherical, and though half concealed in the
sand of the parched plains in South America, the animals, who are always
tormented by thirst, discover it at a great distance, and
notwithstanding its formidable prickles, greedily suck the refreshing
juice with which it abounds.”

From the rich vegetation of America, we went to New Holland, and she
told me that though but little of the interior has been yet explored,
numbers of vegetables totally different from those of America, though in
the same degrees of latitude, have been found there. “They seem to have
quite a separate character; and those that are suited to the nourishment
of man, are as rare in that country as they are common in America. The
forests of New Holland, where the axe has never been heard, and where
vegetation extends itself without restraint, are described as having a
very singular appearance; the trees crumbling with age, and covered with
mosses and lichens.--Among their most beautiful productions are the
_mimosæ_, the superb _metrosideros_, and the whole tribe of
_eucalyptus_; many of which are from one hundred and sixty feet to one
hundred and eighty feet in height.”

I asked Miss Perceval whether South America or India had the greatest
number of plants. “India, I believe,” said she; “its inhabitants have
been so long in some degree civilized that, in addition to its native
vegetation, many plants must have been naturalized, and many varieties
produced by culture; and India exclusively boasts of the perfume of the
most precious spices.

“But there is another part of the world which we must not forget,”
continued Miss Perceval, “where nature seems to delight in multiplying
the species belonging to each genus. I allude to the Cape of Good Hope,
where the silvery lustre of the innumerable families of the _proteaceæ_
gives to the woods an appearance quite unlike those of either Europe or
America. The heaths are almost infinite in variety; the geraniums are
scarcely less so, and the gladiolus, the ixia, and the whole order of
_irideæ_, decorate the fields and thickets of the Cape, with an
exuberance unknown in any other country.

“To form a just view of vegetable nature, we must observe it in those
countries where the ground has not been turned by the hand of man. Few
such spots are now to be found in Europe, except on the summits of the
Alps and Pyrenees. There mountains piled on mountains, rising above the
clouds, form so many gardens, furnished with a vegetation of their own,
and the character of which changes with the temperature at each degree
of elevation. The same gradation takes place on all other lofty
mountains; and in Frazer’s account of the Himālā chain, which separates
Thibet from India, there is a long list of English plants that he found
there, at the altitude which corresponds with our temperate climate;
such as horse-chesnut, birch and apricot, strawberries, raspberries,
lily of the valley, and many others; and still higher up, he even saw
the famous Iceland lichen.”

_6th._--Yesterday Mr. Lumley and Mr. Maude dined here; and in conversing
about the new books which Mr. Maude has just brought from London, he
spoke very highly of Sir John Malcolm’s “Sketches of Persia.” He
mentioned several interesting anecdotes which he found there; and to
entertain Wentworth, he related some of the exploits of Roostem and his
wonderful horse Reksh; of which you shall have the following as a
specimen.

“All countries have their fabulous heroes, and Persia had her Hercules
in the renowned Roostem. He undertook the deliverance of his sovereign
who was a prisoner in Hyrcania, and set out alone on his good horse
Reksh. Fatigued by his first day’s journey, he lay down to sleep, having
turned his horse into a neighbouring meadow. There Reksh was attacked by
a furious lion: but after a short contest, he struck his antagonist to
the ground with a blow from his fore-hoof, and completed the victory by
seizing the lion’s throat with his teeth. When Roostem awoke, he was
more enraged than surprised that Reksh, unaided, should have risked such
an encounter. ‘Hadst thou been slain,’ said he, ‘how should I have
accomplished my enterprise?’”

This story produced a grand discussion--some doubted the power of the
horse to strike such a creature as a lion to the earth. Wentworth quoted
different books of travels to prove that horses always trembled with
instinctive dread at the sight of a lion; and even Mr. Maude, highly as
he estimated the courage of a horse, did not seem to think him capable
of such a noble effort. I thought to myself that it was perfectly suited
to the other fabulous adventures of Roostem.

My uncle waited to hear everybody’s opinion, and then said, “I will tell
you a singular circumstance which an old friend of mine witnessed, when
he was at the King of Sardinia’s court, at Turin, about forty years ago.
Perhaps it may convince some of my young sceptics, not of the truth of
Roostem’s exploits, but at least of the strength and spirit of horses.
The king had a remarkably fine charger, but so untameably vicious, that,
after having killed two grooms, he was ordered by his majesty to be
shot. It was suggested, however, that as he was to die, it would be a
good opportunity of putting to the test the bravery and vigour of a
horse whose spirits had not been subdued by being domesticated; and the
king readily consented that he should be turned loose into a
well-secured arena, along with a ferocious lion that belonged to the
royal menagerie. Arrangements were soon made; and both these animals
were allowed to enter at the same moment through opposite doors. They
approached a few steps--then stopped as if to take a survey of each
other--and again they advanced, but very slowly, till almost close.
There was now a pause for a moment, after which the lion stooped a
little as if meditating an upward spring, in order to fix his dreadful
claws in the neck of his adversary; but the horse seized the
opportunity, and making a slight but deliberate plunge with one leg in
advance, he struck the lion on the head, and with such fatal force as to
lay him dead at his feet.”

“The remarkable pause,” said Mr. Lumley, “which was made by those two
noble creatures is, I believe, the practice of all combative animals
when going to make their onset. I cannot give you better authority than
that of our highly valued friend, Major R., who you know was not less
remarkable in India for his scientific knowledge and military talent,
than for his intrepidity. In the course of service he had frequently
been sent with a detachment, to drive away from the wheat-fields and
jungles the tigers that often prowl about the camps or even enter the
villages; and he bears terrible marks to this day of the danger of such
an employment. He has lately told me, that more than once he has owed
his safety to that _moment_ of observation, when the animal seemed as if
collecting his force; for, as it always took place at a very short
distance, he seized that favourable pause, while his foe was stationary
and steady, to take a deliberate aim at a mortal spot.”

_7th._--In describing the changes that have been produced by the action
of the deluge, my uncle has often dwelt on the vast force of large
bodies of water, when moving with rapidity. He supposes that most of the
vallies have been scooped out by those means, and he divides them into
two classes: _longitudinal_ vallies, or those which lie parallel to the
chains of hills; and the _transverse_ vallies, which intersect the
chains. Caroline and I frequently talk over what he tells us, and we
agreed to ask him in our walk this morning, why the violence that tore
out the vallies did not disturb the hills at the same time.

“Those mighty currents,” he replied, “naturally made their first
impression on some weak part;--the fragments that were thus detached
assisted in excavating a channel as they rushed forward; and the more
the water was confined to a channel, the more powerful was its action.
But the hills have also been disturbed more or less; for the upper
strata appear to have been swept off from extensive ranges that they
once covered. This is proved by the separated hills, which geologists
call _outliers_; and which, having the lower strata exactly continuous
with those of the adjacent range of mountains, but wanting the superior
strata, shew that the same convulsion which broke through and carried
away the connecting parts, must also have torn off their summits.
Another proof is the great quantity of their _debris_, or broken
fragments, which are found scattered over parts of the country far
distant from their original positions. In the gravel beds near London, I
have found pieces of basalt, though that species of rock is not known to
exist within a hundred miles of the county of Middlesex.

“These fragments,” he continued, “must, therefore, have been transported
by some agent that was equal to tearing up and carrying away the parent
rock; and when it is considered that all gravel must have had its edges
and angles rounded by the rubbing of stone against stone, you will
perceive that this could only have been effected by the violent and
long-continued action of currents of water; in short, by the tremendous
surge and confused motion which accompanied a general deluge. That this
deluge has been comparatively recent is clear from the fact, that
fragments of primitive and secondary rocks are often found promiscuously
mixed in the same bed of gravel. In one large bed, near Lichfield, may
be found fragments of almost every rock in England, from chalk to
granite; and many of the pebbles contain organic remains.”

We spent a couple of hours wandering up and down some of the vallies in
the neighbourhood; and though a cultivated country is not the best
theatre for a geological lecture, my uncle contrived to shew us so many
corresponding circumstances on the opposite sides of one of the
transverse vallies, that it was quite evident to both of us that the
ridge had been formerly uninterrupted. We saw also many examples of the
gravel he had mentioned, all more or less rounded and smoothed, and
containing specimens of very different series. This was a delightful
walk; for though one may acquire very fine ideas at home of the
operations of nature, there is nothing like seeing them in their proper
places.

As we returned home, my uncle told us that this water-worn _debris_,
which covers many parts of the earth, is named _diluvium_, from that
great and universal catastrophe by which it appears to have been formed.
This name is meant to distinguish it from the more modern debris daily
produced by rivers and torrents, to which the name of _alluvium_ is
given.

“Diluvial gravel is highly interesting,” he said, “not only as it
assists in explaining the causes of the present state of the globe, but
as it even indicates the direction of the great currents of the deluge.
For instance--when, within a few miles of the neighbouring town of
Gloucester, we see rounded pebbles derived from rocks, which are found
only in the mountains of the north-west of the island, we may be sure
that a branch of that current must have rushed to the southward. It has,
therefore, been a favourite object of some geologists to trace these
travelled fragments to their native masses; and to discover the
apertures in the mountain barriers through which they had been swept.

“When the intervening country is nearly flat, there is no difficulty in
ascribing the removal of the debris to the currents of which we have
been speaking. But it is frequently found in situations that are
separated by deep vallies from the parent hills from which it appears to
have been torn. For instance, fragments of the primitive rocks that
compose the Alps are found scattered on the sides of the Jura mountains,
though, between those two ranges, the valley that contains the lake of
Geneva is interposed. On the low hills, near Bath, we find the flints
belonging to the chalk formation, though several deep vallies
intervene. Many other examples might be given; and the way in which
geologists obviate the difficulty is, by supposing that one set of
currents tore off and transported these fragments, and that a
_subsequent_ rush of the waters excavated the vallies.”

My uncle ended by saying, that when the weather was more settled he
would shew us a part of the country at no great distance from Fernhurst,
which would make us more clearly comprehend this interesting subject.

_8th._--The wonderful way in which the use of tobacco has spread into
every country of the world, in less than three centuries since its first
discovery in America, happened to be mentioned in conversation the day
Mr. Maude spent here; and we were all amused by his account of the mode
of smoking in Turkey. The sumptuous pipes in fashion there are so unlike
the little cigars in everybody’s mouth in Brazil, that perhaps his
description of them may entertain both you and Marianne.

The Turkish pipe, which is called a _chibouque_, consists of the tube,
the bowl, and the mouthpiece, so that they are all easily separated and
cleaned. The manufacturers of the tubes are seen at work every day in
the shops of Constantinople, where there is a bazaar, or street of
shops, entirely for their sale. They are made from the young straight
stems of cherry tree or jessamine, on which the bark is carefully
preserved; they are from two to six feet in length, and are nicely bored
with a wire auger. The nursing these stems during their growth is often
the support of a whole family, and requires a good deal of attention. To
prevent the bark from splitting in the heat of the day, each stem is
swathed with wet bandages, and the least tendency to become crooked is
counteracted, either by a judicious application of the bandage, or by
more copiously watering the plant on one side than on the other. A
perfectly straight stem, with a uniformly shining bark, is, however, a
great rarity, and sells for about two guineas.

The bowls are made of a clay called kefkil, found in Asia Minor, and in
Greece. In its native state, it is soft and white, but when baked, it
becomes hard; and, unlike the English pipeclay, turns to a black or red
colour. These bowls are made of all sizes; the Turks do not like them
very large; but those exported to Germany, where they are polished and
finished with great elegance, are as large as a man’s hand. Mr. Maude
says he was astonished by the piles of bowls in every shop of the
bazaar.

The bowls are frequently ornamented with gilding, and the tubes with
embroidery and jewels; but it is on the value of the mouthpiece that a
Turk prides himself. None but the miserably poor would use anything but
amber; and, though the common sort are cheap enough to suit all ranks,
Mr. M. has seen some which have cost a hundred pounds, not from their
size, but from some favourite tinge in their appearance.

“With such a pipe,” he says, “and with Saloniki tobacco, a Turk is
supremely happy. Cross-legged on his Persian carpet, he enjoys it the
whole day, and except to call for more tobacco, or for a cup of coffee,
he seldom opens his mouth, as the smoke is emitted from time to time in
long cloudy columns from his nose. Pipes take the lead in every visit,
and are preliminaries to every conversation. The most flattering
compliment a Turk can pay to his guest is to present him with his
chibouque warm from his lips; and I shall never forget the mixed look of
indignation and contempt which a Pasha of three tails threw at an
Englishman, who unwarily wiped the superb amber mouthpiece before he
introduced it between his own lips.”

_9th, Sunday._--“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day
shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and
when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou
risest up.”--Deut. vi.

After reading the whole chapter, my uncle called our attention to the
above verses, and said, “The characteristic excellence of the Mosaical
law consists in the inward principle on which obedience to it was
founded; in other words, on the love of God. This is fully unfolded in
the admirable commentary of Moses on the commandments, where we see that
the love that is expected from us must be accompanied with the full
vigour of our feelings; and that it must be daily excited by a constant
and grateful sense of the long-suffering and forbearance we have already
experienced; of the blessings we still enjoy; and of the promises held
out to us by a God of mercy, of goodness, and truth. This is the love
which should be the principle of all our motives, and the guide of all
our actions. This is the love which expands our hearts, not only into
grateful adoration towards the Author of our being, but into benevolence
towards our fellow-creatures. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;
I am the Lord.’ This emphatic conclusion shews that we are bound to do
so for the Lord’s sake; and throughout the Mosaical law you will find
that the love of God was made the basis of the love of our neighbour, as
well as of all our other duties. In the same manner our Saviour
declares that on these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets; that is, the whole religion and morality of the Old Testament.

“It appears,” continued my uncle, “to be peculiar to the Jewish and
Christian dispensations to have solemnly laid down the principle of the
love of God, as a ground of human action: for though some wise and
excellent heathens had certain elevated ideas of the Deity, none seem to
have inculcated the love of the Deity as a governing motive of human
conduct. This Moses did most expressly; and Christ not only adopted and
ratified what the law had already declared, but singled it out and gave
it pre-eminence over the whole body of precepts which formed the old
institution.

“Let this noble principle then be pre-eminent in our minds; let us, who
enjoy so many social comforts at home, and who have been happily taught
to behold in our walks the beauties of this beneficent creation; let us,
who can lie down to repose in health and security, and who can rise up
refreshed to perform our duties; let us, my children, fill our hearts
with the love of God; and let it purify our thoughts, direct our words,
and govern our actions.”

_10th._--I find great amusement in watching the young birds that are now
coming out, and in observing the tender care with which their parents
feed them. There are several nests in the tall trees near my window; and
in a thick bush in my quarry garden, a favourite robin, who used to hop
on my hand and feed there all the winter, has four young ones: I have
named them after Mrs. Trimmer’s dear little red-breast family, which
every child loves.

Robins seem less afraid than most birds of the human haunts; and my aunt
says she has a friend, in whose bedchamber a pair actually built their
nests, and brought up their young till it was time to fly away. The lady
used to leave her window open all day; and often sat there to watch
their manœuvres and to listen to their sweet song. They seemed to be
aware of their comfortable quarters, and fiercely attacked any other
birds that intruded themselves.

She also mentioned a singular circumstance of a wren, a bird that is
never very familiar. A gentleman having occasion to repair some paling
that was attached to an old hollow yew tree, the workmen discovered a
nest in a small hole in the stem, with nine little unfledged birds. He
was fortunately on the spot, and had it placed on the window sill of his
study. The old wrens soon followed; and even when it was taken into the
room or held in the hand, they boldly did their duty to their offspring.
They repeated their visits for sixteen hours daily, coming every two or
three minutes with fresh supplies of food, which the little things
greedily devoured. When this was told, I well remembered having heard
grandpapa tell it of himself long, long ago.

This season, I suppose, must be remarkably forward, for we have had
quantities of primroses and other flowers already, though Warton says of
the first of April,

    Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
    From the dark dell’s entangled steeps.

I should tire you with the long list of leaves or flowers opening or
already burst out; but I have kept a very exact account of them in my
naturalist’s calendar; and when you come home, mamma, you shall see it,
and we shall be able to compare it with the advance of spring in some
other year. Spring is really delightful; the great change from winter is
so animating, and so full of interest to the gardener and farmer.

My hyacinth and jonquil beds are in great beauty; and, without vanity,
my garden looks so well, that not only my cousins but even my aunt and
uncle congratulate me on my industry and success.

Franklin is very busy now in every part of his farm; yet he pays
constant attention to the workmen who are building his house, which is
already far advanced: he says it is inconceivable how much waste he
prevents by keeping his eye on them. Little Charles is beginning to be
useful; his understanding is quick, and he already speaks plain English.
The Franklins keep him always with them, without seeming to watch him;
in hopes of breaking the habit of pilfering. His relations are not
inclined to take him, so that my aunt will have a full opportunity of
trying her benevolent experiment.

_11th._--Caroline and I had a long walk, and a long conversation to-day
with my uncle, about the _alluvial_ changes on the surface of the earth.
I wish I could tell you all he said; I can only give you a little sketch
of it.

“Since the last great and general convulsion produced by the deluge,
many gradual changes have occurred, and are every day occurring, from
causes which we may easily trace. We see destruction going on in one
place, and new formations in another; we find headlands and cliffs
undermined and washed away by the incessant action of the waves; and we
as often find the materials, thus carried off, thrown up again, and
forming either extensive tracts of new land along the less exposed parts
of the coast, or new banks and shoals in the adjoining sea. The action
of frost and snow, and rain, have all a similar tendency: ice, by
swelling in the rifts and crevices of the rocks, detaches small
portions; the rain washes away the finer parts; the melting snow, which
forms the winter torrent, carries down the larger fragments, and, dashed
against each other, their angles are rounded off. The looser materials
of the soil, through which these torrents pass, are still more easily
swept away; and in this manner, year after year, the surface of the
mountain is conveyed into the valley. As the torrent reaches the level
ground, its rapidity lessens, the larger fragments proceed no farther,
and only the earth and sand reach the river, where they subside to the
bottom, and form alluvial flats, and push out the _deltas_ which may be
seen at the mouths of almost every river. Some of the prodigious deltas
made by the great rivers of the continent, I think I mentioned to you in
one of our earliest conversations, as well as the great deposit of new
land on the coast of Italy.

“Fortunately, over a large part of the earth’s surface, these wasting
causes have no influence; the green sward which clothes it is an
effectual protection. The barrows of the ancient Britons, though above
two thousand years old, retain their original outline, and the fosse
surrounding them is still distinct. Even on the sides of mountains,
where the causes which I have described are always more or less in
operation, still there is a degree at which further waste will be
checked; the abrupt precipice may in time be broken down into a slope;
but vegetation will creep up, and that slope will then be defended by
its grassy coat.

“Even the mighty action of the sea has a similar tendency to impose a
limit to its own ravages; for it wastes its fury in vain on the barrier
of loose stones which it had beaten from the cliff that they now
protect.

“On some coasts, however, the agency of the sea does produce an
injurious change. Where the shore is low, and consists of a flat, sandy
bottom, the sand is thrown up by the surf; at every reflux of the tide,
it becomes partially dried; the winds blow it higher up, and thus ranges
of sand-hills are formed parallel to the beach. They encroach on the
land so rapidly, that districts, which a few years ago were inhabited,
are now become desert plains of sand. This takes place on a large scale,
in many parts of the world; even in Norfolk it has been found that the
only means of arresting the progress of the sand is to plant thick
hedges of furze. On the east coast of Scotland, much property was laid
waste by this destructive enemy, whose advance was occasioned about a
hundred years ago, by the imprudent removal of the trees and the
_bent_-grass which grew on the sand-hills. The effects were so alarming,
that an act of parliament was made in the reign of George II. to
prohibit the destruction of that useful plant, the sea bent-grass, which
Providence has kindly formed to grow in pure sand, and to keep it firm.
The Dutch may be said to owe their existence to it, as its spreading
matted root fixes the sand on those great dykes or embankments, which
alone preserve the country from the inundations of the sea. This grass
is called _murah_, in the Highlands; on the coast of Lincolnshire,
_signs_; in Norfolk, _matgrass_; and by Linnæus, _arundo arenaria_. It
has long, sharp-pointed leaves, and, fortunately, no cattle whatever
will taste it. The sea eryngo and the creeping restharrow, contribute
also to defend us against these almost irresistible sands.”

When we returned home, my uncle shewed me an extract of a letter from
the unfortunate traveller Bowdich; containing an interesting account of
a sandy plain in Madeira, about eighteen miles from Funchal. I must copy
a part of it for my dear mama.

“From Caniçal, by following a rough track, on the margin of shallow
cliffs of alternate tufa and basalt, for about a mile and a half, we
reached a depression, more like a basin than a plain, and covered with a
deep bed of sand. This sand has, in some degree, been fixed by the
numerous branches of the forest-trees which it has enveloped, and which
are spread over the surface as well as beneath it, like a net-work of
roots. Both the branches and the trunks are encased in a thick hard
sheath of agglutinated sand; and in some instances, the wood having
entirely perished, the envelopes are found empty, like tubes. Most
frequently, however, the wood is still found within, where it has
become a hard petrified mass.

“The trunks which remain in their natural position, have been broken off
about a foot above the surface of the sand: how far they reach beneath
it I cannot say, but there were two or three as thick as my body. They
all appear to belong to the same species of tree, though of what family
I do not think our present knowledge of the comparative anatomy of
timber is sufficiently advanced to determine.

“This deposit of sand extends about three-quarters of a mile in each
direction; and as innumerable fossil marine shells are mixed with it, as
well as imbedded in the envelopes, it must evidently have proceeded from
an irruption of the sea, although it is bounded by hills several hundred
feet high, on which there is no trace of sand.”

_12th._--My aunt was so kind as to take Mary and me with her this
morning, to pay a visit to Mrs. B., who has always many pretty
curiosities to shew. Her cousin, who is captain of an East Indiaman, has
a constant commission to bring her any thing that is interesting.
Fortunately for us, he arrived a few weeks since, and has lately sent
her a collection of Chinese drawings of flowers and insects, which are
most beautifully coloured. They are, however, amusingly defective in
regard to proportion; for some of the flowers are much diminished, while
the insects upon them are represented of their natural size.

He brought her, also, a few stuffed birds; one of which, the adjutant
bird, is such a prodigious creature, that I scarcely looked at the
others. It measures, from the crown of the head to the foot, five feet
two inches; from tip to tip of the wings, fourteen feet; and the other
dimensions are proportionably great. Its general colour is black, or
slate blue, though a few of the small feathers round the neck, and on
part of the body, are white.

It is called the hurgill, in Bengal. They say that when alive it
majestically stalks along, and looks like an Indian; and when seen near
the mouths of rivers with extended wings, might be taken for a canoe.
There is a curious superstition among the Indians, that the souls of the
Brahmins possess these birds. They are very ravenous, and have a most
capacious stomach, as well as a large craw, which hangs down the fore
part of the neck like a pouch. The captain told Mrs. B., that in the
pouch of one which was killed, a land tortoise ten inches long was
found, and in the stomach, a cat; even a leg of mutton, or a litter of
young kittens, are easily swallowed. He heard of one that had been
caught when young: he was easily tamed, and being always fed in the
hall, he became so familiar, that at dinner time he stood behind his
master’s chair; but the servants were obliged to watch him, as sometimes
he would snatch a whole fowl off the table. He used to roost among the
high trees, from whence, even at two miles distance, he could spy dinner
carrying across the yard, when, darting home, he regularly walked in
with the last dish. As he stood near the dinner table, he appeared as if
listening to the conversation, turning his head alternately to whoever
spoke.

The most curious thing about this species is the pouch. Dr. Adam, of
Calcutta, supposes that it helps to sustain the birds in their great
flights in the air, and also assists them in the waters in searching
after their prey. From the structure of their limbs they cannot swim;
and it appears that they have the power of distending this bag with air
when they go beyond their depth. He says, that in the month of October,
when the sky is not obscured by a single cloud, it is a beautiful
spectacle to observe hundreds of these birds performing their graceful
evolutions at a vast height above the earth; with a telescope, however,
he could not perceive whether the bag was distended.

This huge bird occupied so much of our visit, that I scarcely recollect
any thing else that I saw.

_13th._--My aunt has been reading to us several interesting particulars
of the Hottentots, from Latrobe’s Journal of his visit to South Africa.

There is a striking difference, he remarks, in the conduct of the
uncivilized, and of the Christian Hottentots. All those who have been
converted by the Moravian missionaries, have learned some useful trade,
and, when they like their employment, work very industriously. They are
naturally kind-hearted and obliging; and Christianity has had such a
happy effect on them, that they live at the settlement of Gnadenthal
united as brethren amongst themselves, and very grateful to their
teachers.

The Hottentots have fine voices; they are fond of music, and are easily
taught to sing. “One morning,” Latrobe says, “at four o’clock, I was
awakened by the sweet sound of Hottentot voices singing a hymn in the
hall before my chamber door. They had learned from some of the
missionaries, that it was my birth-day, and I was struck and affected by
this mark of their regard; nor was their mode of expressing it confined
to a morning song. They had dressed out my chair at the common table,
with branches of oak and laurel; and even the school-children, in order
not to be behind in these kind offices, having begged of their mistress
to mark on a large white muslin handkerchief some English words
expressive of their good will towards me, they managed to embroider them
with a species of creeper called cat’s thorn, and fastened the muslin
in front of a table, covered with a white cloth and decorated with
festoons of field flowers. This table, on which stood five large
bouquets, I found in my room, on returning from my walk. The whole
arrangement did credit to their taste. The words were, ‘May success
crown every action.’”

_14th._--I asked my uncle yesterday, whether a considerable change has
not been produced in the level of the ocean, by the vast quantity of
materials, which he had told us were carried into it by the rivers, and
washed away from the coast by the waves.

He replied, that it was a very natural question, and shewed that we
reflected on what we had learned. “But,” said he, “though the quantity
of materials which has for ages been accumulating in the sea must be
vast, yet when compared with the capacity of the whole ocean, its
disparity is so obvious, that it probably can have had no visible effect
in elevating the general level of the water. I say the general level,
because it is possible, that in the mouths of large rivers, and in
narrow seas, it may have had some effect in raising the level of the
flood tide; for the actual volume of water rolled in from the sea
continues the same as it was formerly, but the space over which it has
to diffuse itself being less deep and less broad, it must, therefore,
force itself to a higher level. Other causes, however, may lead to the
permanent rise of the sea in certain places; for instance, it is
possible that the current which unceasingly rushes into the
Mediterranean, may in the course of centuries have gradually widened the
entrance; and consequently a greater quantity of water now pours in.
This, combined with the deposits from the Rhone, the Po, the Nile, and
other rivers, may, perhaps, account for the well known fact of the
eastern end of that sea being now higher than it was formerly; many
foundations of houses and other vestiges of buildings being visible
there several feet under water.

“But none of these causes will account for the extensive submarine
forests which have been discovered on several parts of the English
coast, for example, in Lancashire, and in the Bristol Channel, near
Bridgewater. In excavating the West India docks, in the Isle of Dogs,
near London, a complete stratum of decayed hazel trees was found: the
wood and bark were quite soft and decayed, but the nuts were in
tolerable preservation. Your aunt, I believe, has some specimens of
them, which she will readily shew you. The remains of the submarine
forests of Lincolnshire were examined not very long ago, by a gentleman
who has published a paper on the subject in the Philosophical
Transactions, and if Caroline will fetch the volume for 1799, she and
you may read his account.”

I shall make a few extracts from it here for Marianne’s benefit.

This gentleman, having learned that there were several sunken islets
along the coast where the remains of trees could be seen, took the
opportunity of a very low tide, to land on one of them, near the village
of Sutton; and he found that it was a mass of roots, trunks, branches,
and leaves of trees, intermixed with aquatic plants. An immense number
of the stumps were still standing on their roots, which, as well as the
bark of the branches, appeared almost as fresh as if they had been just
cut; and in the bark of the birch, even the thin silvery membranes of
the outer skin were discernible. The wood, on the contrary, was
decomposed and soft: but he understood that the people of the country
had often found very sound pieces of birch and oak of which they could
make use. He remarked, that the trunks and thick branches were
flattened, as if they had lain under the pressure of a heavy weight;
which is observable also in the _surturbrand_ or fossil wood of Iceland,
and of the Feroe Islands. Above the matted branches, he found a thick
bed of decayed leaves, which were scarcely distinguishable at first; but
after soaking a little in water, the leaves of holly and of other
indigenous trees were easily separated.

In a well that was digging in the neighbouring village of Sutton, a
similar stratum of decayed wood and leaves had been cut through at the
depth of sixteen feet, and, therefore, very nearly at the same level
with that of the islets: it extends through all the eastern parts of
Lincolnshire, and has been traced as far as Peterborough, more than
fifty miles to the south-west of Sutton. The fisherman informed him that
islets of the same kind are found as far north as Grimsby, on the
Humber; so that this great subterraneous forest was nearly eighty miles
in length; and as there can be little doubt of the woody islets along
the coast having been a continuation of it, the breadth must also have
been considerable.

Dr. Correa de Serra, who wrote this account, says that a most exact
resemblance exists between maritime Flanders and the opposite low coast
of England, both in elevation above the sea, and in the internal
structure and arrangement of their soil. They contain similar organic
remains of marine animals, as well as of tropical plants; and they each
have a stratum of decayed trees and compressed vegetable matter below
the present level of the sea. He, therefore, concludes that the two
countries were once continuous; and instead of supposing that the sea is
now higher than formerly, he gives it as his opinion, that this part of
the earth’s surface has sunk below its ancient level. That the epoch at
which this catastrophe took place, must have been in a very remote age,
he thinks may be proved from the sixteen feet bed of soil, which now
covers the submerged forest; and because it appears from historical
records in the Academy of Brussels, that no change of that kind has
happened in Flanders for more than two thousand years.

But the _uncovering_ of the woody stratum in the Sutton islets by the
action of the sea, he refers to a comparatively recent date. The people
have a tradition that their parish church once stood on the spot where
those islets are now; and it is very probable that before the skilful
embankments were made which at present restrain the stormy inundations
of the North Sea, the soil was gradually washed away by the waves, and
the trees were thus left exposed.

When we had done reading the above, my uncle told us that he had himself
visited the little hamlet of Sutton. The tides unfortunately were not
low enough to expose the islets, or rather the sandbanks, which the
Doctor mentions; but he saw a great number of the stumps and roots of
the trees, which the country people had obtained at favourable
opportunities. One fine oak stem had just been drawn on shore: it
measured forty feet in length, and five feet in circumference; and the
wood, though rather soft on the outside, was sound within, though all
black. He cut off a few chips with his knife, and was so good as to give
me one of them. So, mamma, if the stratum of earth which now covers this
submarine forest was deposited there by the deluge, it is clear that the
tree my uncle saw was antediluvian; and that the oak chip in my
possession was of the same growth of timber as that of which the Ark was
constructed.

_16th, Sunday._--A question, that Wentworth asked, about the object and
meaning of the prophecies contained in Deuteronomy, led to some
observations of my uncle’s, which I will endeavour to give you.

“The prophecies of Moses increase in number and clearness towards the
close of his writings. He appears to have discerned futurity with more
exactness as he approached the end of his life. To be convinced of this,
you have only to compare the records of history with his prediction of
the successes as well as the dispersions and desolations of the
Israelites; compare the rapid victories of the Romans, and the miseries
sustained by his besieged countrymen, with his denunciations; and
particularly compare his prophecies relative to the future condition of
the Jewish nation, with their accomplishment which is still going on
under your own observation, and which, indeed, may be called a standing
miracle.”

“But are we certain that some of these distant prophecies have not been
added in later times?” Wentworth said.

“I am glad that you have made that enquiry,” replied my uncle, “because
it gives me an opportunity of shewing you how impossible it is that any
such addition could have been made to the Pentateuch. In the fourth
chapter of Deuteronomy are these words: ‘Ye shall not add unto the word
which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it.’

“This prohibition preserved these books from the slightest alteration;
for it was considered so binding, that no copies were allowed to be made
by any persons but the Scribes attached to the synagogue; and as the
Jews were commanded to read portions of them every Sabbath day in their
families, and as at certain times the whole ‘law’ was publicly read to
the congregation, it is evident that any alteration must have been
noticed. There is a remarkable proof of the fidelity with which that
injunction was obeyed, in this fact; that the Samaritans have preserved
the law of Moses to this day, as uncorrupted as the Jews themselves have
done; although they were irreconcileable enemies, and though they have
been exposed to all the changes and revolutions that can befall a nation
during the long interval of two thousand four hundred years. No
opportunity could have been more tempting than when the ten tribes
separated from the house of David, and when each kingdom was zealously
supported by a rival priesthood; yet both parties religiously preserved
the books of the law, without changing a letter.

“From the Christian era down to this day, the Jews, though dispersed
into every country of the globe, continue to read the books of Moses and
the Prophets every Sabbath day, in the original Hebrew; and, however
they may differ from us, or among themselves, in the _interpretation_ of
various expressions, they have always considered the strict preservation
of the original _text_ as the most important of their duties. Those
books have now been translated into so many languages, and cited by so
many authors, and have been the subject of so much discussion from the
times of the Apostles, that it is absolutely impossible that any
fraudulent change can have taken place since that period. I may add,
that the books of the Old Testament were translated into Greek by the
command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about three centuries and a half before
that period; and they have therefore been for upwards of two thousand
years in the hands of heathens and sceptics, who would have been eager
to detect any alteration that might have been attempted.

“It is, indeed, a most striking circumstance, that notwithstanding the
many corruptions which the Israelites fell into while they had the sole
custody of these books, no omissions should have been made in the
copies, nor any attempts to suppress those parts of the law which bore
directly on their misconduct; and I think we may safely infer, that it
was the will of Him who had given the law, and who had inspired the
prophecies, that they should remain an indestructible ‘memorial to all
generations.’”

_17th._--The more I learn from my uncle’s kind geological conversations,
the more I see the necessity of acquiring some knowledge of mineralogy,
in order to understand them. In the mean time, Caroline and I find even
the general views he gives us so interesting, that we seldom miss an
opportunity of leading him to the subject. This morning he told us, that
the _debris_ of the hills which accumulate in alluvial districts usually
continue in the loose form of gravel or sand, or mud, or clay, in which
they were deposited. “Their visible transformation,” he said, “into
stone is of rare occurrence; in some circumstances, however, especially
on the sea coast, we may perceive the consolidation of the sand and
gravel into thin strata. If a stream, impregnated with _oxide of iron_,
should empty itself on the beach, it acts as a cement, and the process
goes on rapidly. The northern coast of Cornwall affords some examples of
this sort of petrification at home; and abroad it may be seen on a much
larger scale on the shores of Greece, Karamania, Sicily, and the West
Indies. Abundance of sea shells and other organic remains are found in
it; and at Guadaloupe a human skeleton was discovered in the beach,
imbedded in a mass of that description.

“Some springs of water are so highly loaded with calcareous particles,
that the sediment they deposit soon hardens into stone; and the
_stalactites_ which I shewed you are formed in a similar manner, in the
caverns and fissures of all limestone countries. Those were very small
specimens, but in some places, for instance in the celebrated grotto of
Antiparos, one of the Greek islands, they are found of enormous
magnitude, forming rows and clusters of columns, that reach from the top
to the bottom of that great cavern. The water in slowly dripping through
the rock becomes saturated with lime; as the drops exude from the
crevices, or trickle down the stalactites already formed, they are
exposed to the air; the watery part then evaporates, and the lime forms
a hard stony crust; in some cases assuming the shape of small crystals.”

When we reached home, my uncle obligingly laid M. De Choiseul Gouffier’s
voyage on the table for us; and we all read with astonishment his
description of that wonderful cavern, which is a thousand feet long, and
full of these curious productions. The _stalagmites_ that grow upwards
from the floor, are equally curious. My uncle explained to us, that when
the quantity of water that trickles through the roof is more than can be
evaporated from the surface of the stalactite, the remainder falls on
the floor, where the same process occurs; and thus the upper and lower
concretions proceed till they meet each other and form an entire column.
In the middle of the widest part of the cavern there is a stalagmite of
twenty feet in diameter and twenty-four in height; and on this superb
natural altar, another French nobleman had mass celebrated by his
chaplain to more than five hundred people who surrounded it. The cavern
was lighted by a hundred large torches and four hundred lamps; and the
splendour of this illumination, reflected by the concretions which hung
from the roof, or which lined the sides, is described as producing a
very magnificent effect.

_18th._--It will not be my uncle’s fault if I do not pick up some
information in this delightful house, for every day he tells us
something new. He has just been describing the method of casting plate
glass; and I hope some day to see the whole operation myself.

The furnace for melting the materials is about eighteen feet long, and
it is surrounded by ovens for _annealing_ the plates of glass when made,
that is, for cooling them slowly. The pots in which the materials are
melted, are made of a sort of tough clay that is found at Stourbridge,
in Worcestershire, as it has the property of standing the most intense
heat; and they contain about twenty hundred weight of melted glass, or
metal, as it is called by the workmen. The _cuvettes_, or cisterns,
which convey the liquid glass to the casting table, are made of the same
clay.

When the metal is sufficiently fluid, refined, and settled, which
happens in about thirty-six hours, it is put, by means of ladles, into
the cisterns, which are left in the furnace about six hours longer, till
the little bubbles formed by this disturbance of the glass have all
disappeared. The door of the furnace is now opened, and by a chain the
cistern is drawn out upon an iron carriage, and conducted to the casting
table. Here it is raised, by means of a crane, against two iron bars,
which are so contrived as to incline the cistern, and empty the fiery
torrent on the table.

This table is covered with a thick copper plate made very smooth on the
surface; and it is supported on wheels, so that it can be moved from one
annealing furnace to another. To regulate the thickness of the glass,
two iron rulers are placed along the table, and on these rest the
extremes of a very heavy roller, or cylinder of copper, which, as it
moves along, drives the superfluous matter before it, and renders the
two faces of the glass parallel. The iron rulers being moveable, serve
also to determine the width of the glass plate, and to prevent the
matter from running over the sides; the waste metal falls into a trough
of water at the end of the table, and is reserved for the next melting.

As soon as the glass has cooled to a proper consistence it is examined;
and if any bubbles or flaws are found, it is broken up and returned to
the melting pot: but if it has a sound appearance, the table is rolled
to the mouth of the annealing furnace, and the plate is carefully
deposited there. The heat of this furnace is at first very great, but it
is diminished every day for a fortnight, by which time the glass is
sufficiently annealed. This process renders the glass less brittle; for,
if suddenly cooled, my uncle says, it would fly into pieces when
touched.

_19th._--Much as we were all interested by the manufacture of plate
glass, my uncle steadily refused to carry us any further yesterday than
the annealing furnace: this evening, therefore, as soon as we were
comfortably collected round the fire, after dinner, we reminded him that
he was to describe both the grinding and polishing operations; and the
following is the substance of what he said.

The annealing furnace generally contains six plates of glass; when they
are withdrawn, they are cut square by a large diamond, which moves in a
wooden frame, and they are then carried to the grinding room. There each
plate is laid on a table, covered with a large slate or flag; and to
keep the glass steady it is bedded on the slate in wet plaster of Paris,
which you know has the property of _setting_, or becoming hard, in a few
minutes. A smaller plate of glass is then laid on the larger one, and
being properly loaded and drawn forwards and backwards, with a constant
supply of fine sharp sand and water, the two glasses grind each other to
a smooth even surface. A ledge round the lower glass prevents the sand
and water from running off; and the upper or moveable glass has a strong
plank cemented to it on which the weights are laid. An upright pin is
fixed to this plank, to which a handle, like a coach wheel, is attached
for the workmen to give motion to the glass, and much skill is required
to vary this motion in every possible direction; for if they were
frequently to repeat the same stroke, the glasses would grind each other
into furrows. But no matter what pains are taken to vary this motion,
the two surfaces have always a tendency to become slightly spherical,
one convex and the other concave; and to prevent this, the upper glasses
of the different grinding tables are occasionally changed, so that two
convex or two concave plates mutually correct each other.

When by these means a true surface has been obtained, finer sand is
used, and then emery of increasing degrees of fineness, till the
business of grinding is finished, and the plate is given to the
polisher, whose operations my uncle was obliged to reserve for another
evening.

_20th._--Within the last few days the swallow has returned to us; I
remember seeing it last autumn, but I did not notice it much.

I have observed that its motions are very rapid, and that it sometimes
perches on the house, where it makes an odd little twittering noise.--It
is a very pretty bird; the back and wings are black, glossed with
purple; and the breast white, with a spot of dull red upon it. I have
often read of swallows in poetry, and I shall be glad to watch this
little summer guest, as it sports in the sunshine, or skims along the
surface of the water. This species is, I find, the house or chimney
swallow, and is distinguished from the rest of the tribe by a small
white spot on each feather of the tail, which is more forked than any
other species.

Mary tells me that these birds generally appear in England about the
middle of April, though some few may be seen a little earlier; and that
they remain to the end of September. Their arrival, she says, is always
considered to be the harbinger of summer, as they come here from warmer
climates.

    See from bright regions, borne on odorous gales,
    The swallow, herald of the summer, sails.

There is a remarkable conformity, my uncle says, between the vegetation
of certain plants and the arrival of particular birds of passage.
Linnæus remarked, that in Sweden the wood anemone blows on the arrival
of the swallow, and the marsh marygold when the cuckoo sings; and a
similar fact appears to have been observed in other countries also, for
the same Greek word signifies both a cuckoo and a young fig, from their
appearing at the same time.

These house swallows are the earliest of all the various species, as
well as the most common. They build in barns, out-houses, and even in
chimneys, the warmth of which they like; and they are said to pass with
surprising address up and down the narrowest flues, to the depth of
perhaps six feet, without soiling their wings.

All kinds of swallows, as they skim along the surface of the water, sip
without stopping; but the common swallow only washes while on the wing;
gliding through the pools many times together without seeming to stop.

_21st._--After some little conversation about the alluvial alterations
of the coast, and the changes produced in the interior by the different
causes which my uncle had already mentioned, he said to us this morning,
“Those alterations are so gradual that years are required to detect
their operations, or to measure the rate of their progress; but the
gigantic changes effected by volcanoes and earthquakes carry their
desolation at once over whole districts. You have, no doubt, read an
account of some of the destructive eruptions of mount Vesuvius, by which
you know the city of Herculaneum was overflown with a torrent of melted
lava, and Pompeii was buried, and remained concealed for many centuries
under the ashes that were ejected from the crater.

“Large tracts of country seem to have been produced by volcanoes, and
after the lapse of ages the decomposed lava has become a fertile soil.
But even within the reach of history new volcanic mountains have been
elevated, and new islands have sprung out of the ocean. Pliny and Seneca
describe two marine volcanoes that raised themselves out of the water in
the Grecian archipelago; and in the beginning of the last century the
same thing again happened in the same place. In 1720, a small volcanic
island rose out of the sea near Terceira, one of the Azores; and in
1811, among the same group of islands, another violent eruption of lava
produced an island of considerable altitude; but in the following year
it sunk into the ocean. In the sixteenth century the Lucrine Lake near
Naples disappeared, and Monte Nuovo, a volcanic hill six hundred feet
high, and four miles in circumference, rose out of the place it had
occupied.

“Perhaps the most wonderful example I can give you of volcanic action,
is the elevation of Mount Jorullo, near the city of Mexico, in 1759.
Alarming sounds and repeated earthquakes, which continued for three
months, had prepared the inhabitants for some dreadful convulsion; when
at length a tract of ground, from three to four miles in extent, swelled
up in the shape of a bladder to the height of 500 feet. The terrified
natives, who witnessed this extraordinary scene from the neighbouring
mountains, asserted that flames burst from the ground; that red-hot
rocks were thrown to a prodigious height; and that the surface of the
earth was seen to heave like an agitated sea. The surrounding district
is covered by hundreds of small cones called _hornitos_, or ovens, by
the inhabitants; they are about ten feet high, and from each a thick
smoke ascends. From among these ovens six large masses arose from the
plain, some of them upwards of 1200 feet; and the volcano of Jorullo,
which has never ceased to burn, is now 1700 feet high. The place where
this extraordinary convulsion took place was forty leagues from any
volcano; and what renders this remarkable is, that Jorullo appears to be
in the exact line of continuation of a chain of distant volcanoes, as if
there were a subterranean communication. Though the fire is now much
less violent, and though the plain and even the great volcano begin to
be covered with vegetation, yet Humboldt found the air dreadfully heated
by the small ovens, and the thermometer rose to 202° on being plunged
into the aqueous vapour emitted by every fissure in the ground.

“It is said, that two rivers fall into the burning chasm, and that at
some miles distance they emerge from the ground in a heated state. You
may recollect Colonel Travers told you that he had seen the thermometer
at 200° in a subterraneous spring called Nero’s baths, at Solfaterra,
near Naples; and that he had eaten an egg which it had completely boiled
in a few minutes.

“It is computed that there are at present nearly a thousand volcanoes
known to exist, and yet there is no doubt that, in a former state of the
globe, they must have been more numerous, and far more active and
extensive in their operations. Remains of extinct volcanoes of great
size are scattered in almost every country, and geologists are every day
discovering large tracts of rocks and earths, which there is every
reason to ascribe to volcanic agency.

“Several have been found in Europe, which for many centuries must have
been at rest. Great part of Italy and Sicily are clearly volcanic. Near
Coblentz, in Germany, are the remains of several craters, and large
masses of lava are seen strewed over the surrounding country. Along the
Rhine entire chains of volcanic hills are found; and near Spa there are
traces of some very large volcanoes, with deep craters half full of
water. Great part of Languedoc and Provence in France are volcanic; and
Auvergne presents an astonishing example of the activity of its ancient
volcanoes, for the whole country consists of lava. In the East Indian
islands there are great numbers; Sumatra, Java, and the Molucca islands,
possess some of the finest volcanoes now existing. You know, from
Humboldt, how numerous they are on the western side of South America and
Mexico; and Nootka Sound, in the 50th degree of north latitude, was
observed by Captain Cook to be entirely volcanic. In the Pacific Ocean,
Easter Island is a mere mass of lava and basalt; and I need scarcely
mention the Sandwich Islands, as you have been lately so much interested
by Mr. Ellis’s account of the great volcano in Owhyhee, with its sublime
gulf of boiling lava, seven or eight miles in circumference.”

_23rd, Sunday._--My uncle continued the subject of the prophecies of
Moses, this morning.

“There are different kinds of prophecies in the books of Moses, some of
which were fulfilled soon after the prediction, such as the conquest of
the land of Canaan; and others the accomplishment of which was not to
follow till after a long interval of time, such as those that relate to
the coming of the Messiah, and the dispersion of the Jewish nation; but
in all there is the same clearness and consistency, the same tone of
inspiration and authority, and the same internal proofs of their truth.
The Jews have always looked on him as by far the greatest of all their
prophets. They assert, that the others received the divine
communications by dreams and visions; whereas they were given to Moses
by an immediate revelation from God.

“In the most important of all his prophecies--‘The Lord thy God will
raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren,
like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken’--Moses does not say a priest or
a king, though the Messiah was to be both; but ‘a prophet,’ in order to
put the people on their guard not to look for him among any of their
priests or kings. They were not to expect a person clothed with the
external honours of the throne, nor ranking high in the priestly form of
their government; but were to consider divine inspiration as the true
test of that great prophet to whom they were to hearken, and who was to
be the future head of their religion.

“In consequence of this prediction, an expectation of some extraordinary
prophet had always prevailed among the Jews, and particularly about the
time of our Saviour. They understood and applied it, as well as other
similar prophecies, to the Messiah, who they admitted would be as great
as Moses: but, forgetting the distinct explanation with which it was
accompanied, they looked for pomp and splendour, instead of the quiet
manifestation of divine power on suitable occasions; they looked for the
worldly attributes of dominion, instead of the meekness and humility
which had characterized Moses, and which entitled him to use the
expression, ‘like unto me.’

“When our Saviour had fed five thousand men by a miracle like that of
Moses, who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, then all those that
were present exclaimed,--‘This is of a truth that prophet that should
come into the world.’ St. Peter and St. Stephen[1] declared to the
people that the prophecy directly applied to Jesus, for he fully
answered the definition of a prophet like unto Moses. He was by birth a
Jew of the middle class like Moses. He had immediate communication with
the Deity, and to him God spake ‘face to face’ as he had done to Moses.
He was a lawgiver as well as Moses, and he performed ‘signs and
wonders’ greater than those of Moses.--‘I will put words in thy mouth,’
God said to Moses; and our Saviour says, ‘I have not spoken of myself;
but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should
say, and what I should speak.’

“There is another circumstance to which I would call your attention.
There are instances of kings, both Pagan and Jewish, who were described,
long before their birth, by those holy men, whom the Lord inspired; but
we do not find that any prophet was ever foretold by an antecedent
prophet; this pre-eminence was peculiar to the promised Deliverer.

“Several prophecies in the Old Testament plainly ascribe the destruction
of the Jewish church and nation to their rejection of the Messiah. The
words in Deuteronomy xviii. 19 are remarkably strong. ‘Whosoever will
not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will
require it of him.’ Daniel expressly assigns this as the cause of the
destruction of their city and temple; and Zechariah describes the future
repentance and mourning of the whole nation for their sin of ‘piercing’
or crucifying Christ, as preparatory to their general restoration.

“And,” added my uncle as he finished, “Let us hope that the time is fast
approaching, when instead of a wandering and despised people, we may
see the whole Jewish nation repenting of their former obduracy, and
yielding up their unbelief to a full though tardy conviction.”

_24th._--We claimed my uncle’s promise this evening of describing the
mode of polishing the glass. “When the grinding operation,” said he,
“has been completed on both sides of the glass, it is again secured in
plaster on a flat table, and the surface is rubbed with a block of wood
covered with several folds of woollen cloth. The workmen supply the
cloth with polishing powders, such as crocus, tripoli, and putty,
beginning with the coarsest, and changing gradually to the finest.”

Wentworth observed that he had never seen putty in a powdered state.

“The putty of which you are thinking,” my uncle replied, “is a mixture
of chalk, or whiting with linseed oil, for the use of glaziers; but the
putty to which I alluded is the oxide of tin. Crocus is a preparation of
the brown oxide of iron; and tripoli is a natural earth, which was
formerly imported from Tripoli in Africa, but is now found in other
countries. Both the grinding and polishing of plate glass is performed
in the large manufactories by the steam-engine.”

We begged of my uncle to describe to us the process of silvering, so as
to make looking-glasses. “The coating a plate of polished glass with a
thin pellicle of quicksilver, in order to give it the power of
reflecting, is a very pretty and easy operation. I think Wentworth might
readily perform it on a small piece of glass. Blotting paper is first
spread on the table and sprinkled with powdered chalk; and over the
paper is laid a sheet of tin foil; that is, tin beaten out in the same
manner as gold leaf. On the tin foil quicksilver is poured and equally
distributed, and cleaned from every speck by means of a hare’s foot.
Over that a sheet of thin smooth paper is to be spread: fan paper is the
best; and on this paper the glass is placed. With the left hand you are
to press down the glass, while with the right the paper is drawn out,
and with it most of the superfluous quicksilver. The plate is then to be
loaded with a great weight, to squeeze out more of the mercury; and
lastly the glass is set nearly upright that every particle that is not
amalgamated with the tin may ooze out; for the thinner the coating of
mercury, the more perfectly the metal adheres to the glass.”

If ever I should be in the neighbourhood of a plate-glass manufactory I
will endeavour to see the whole process; in the mean time even the
little knowledge one can pick up from a general description is better
than entire ignorance. Wentworth lost no time in making an experiment
of the silvering operation. My uncle furnished him with tin foil and
quicksilver; my aunt supplied paper, and a small rubber of cloth instead
of the hare’s foot; and we all assisted. There was a little bungling at
first, but after a few trials we succeeded in making a scrap of
looking-glass, which Wentworth intends to frame for Grace’s doll.

“As glass was comparatively a late invention, uncle, what were the
looking-glasses which are mentioned in Scripture?”

“The word,” said my uncle, “should have been translated mirrors; they
were formerly made of brass, or of a mixture of brass and silver, which
takes a very high polish; and this inadvertence of the English
translators is the more singular, because the context removes every
difficulty. In the passage of Exodus[2], to which you refer, the laver
is described to be made ‘of brass of the looking-glasses.’ Glass could
not possibly have been converted into brass; but if the word be rendered
by mirrors, the sense would be complete; that is, the laver and the foot
of it were made of brazen mirrors.

“In Turkey, the common domestic mirrors at this day are made of brass;
but I have heard that in Persia they are sometimes made of steel, and
slightly convex. The metallic mirror, or speculum, which is now used in
a reflecting telescope, is composed of about two parts of copper and one
of tin; but what metals were employed by the ancients in their burning
mirrors is not known.”

“You allude, I suppose, papa,” said Frederick, “to the famous concave
mirrors with which Archimedes destroyed the Roman fleet.”

“Long before his time,” my uncle replied, “concave mirrors had been
constructed, by which the sun’s rays were so concentrated as to burn
substances placed in the focus: but those used by Archimedes were not
concave, they had plane or flat surfaces, and it was by the combination
of a great number that the effect was produced. For you can readily
conceive that whatever portion of the solar heat can be conveyed by
reflection from a single plane surface, the effect will be doubled if
the rays from another plane surface be directed to the same spot. Five
or six times the direct heat of the sun would set dry wood on fire; but
as more than half the heat is dissipated by reflection and by other
causes, we may say that eighteen or twenty small plane mirrors would be
quite sufficient for that purpose. The Count de Buffon tried a great
many valuable experiments on this subject; with 154 mirrors he succeeded
in burning wood at the distance of seventy yards, and in fusing several
metals at eight, ten, and even twelve yards, “There was another
circumstance in your question, Bertha, on which I must set you right. It
is true that glass has been brought to great perfection by modern skill,
but glass was known in the earliest ages of which any remains of art are
now extant. The mummies, for instance, which have been brought home from
Egypt, are ornamented with beads and bits of coloured glass. Pliny
describes the manner of making it; and there are various authorities for
believing that glass was even used in windows before the third century.”

_25th._--The nightingale, the next bird that appears after the swallow,
has arrived, and I have twice had the pleasure of hearing the sweetness,
fulness, and power of its melody.

It is supposed to visit Asia during its absence from England, as it does
not winter in the south of Europe or in Africa, but is found at all
times in the East, from Persia to Japan. I must acknowledge that its
song is more agreeable than that of the bird we call nightingale in
Brazil.

The wry-neck, and the cuckoo, which I have; just heard, arrive here very
soon after the nightingale. The wry-neck is a very pretty little bird;
the neck and breast are of a reddish brown, and crossed with waving bars
of fine black. It sits so very erect on a branch, that its body appears
to bend almost backward, while it is constantly turning its neck quite
round from side to side; and it also has the power of erecting the
feathers of the head like a jay. I have seen it feeding on ants, which
it dexterously transfixes with the sharp bony end of its tongue; and the
country people say, that the young ones, while in the nest, make a
hissing sound like that of little snakes, which deters boys from
plundering their nests.

There is something very cheerful in the notes of the cuckoo and the
rail. They serve to mark one of the steps by which this changeful and
busy season of spring steals on us with all its gradations of pleasure
and interest; and which, dear mamma, I cannot help thinking preferable
to the unvarying brilliancy of Brazil.

    “Now Nature, soothed, assumes her wonted charms,
     And like an infant, stilled, laughs through her tears,
     That glittering hang on every bloomy spray.
     The birds their woodland minstrelsy renew,
     In chorus universal; while the sun
     Gilds with effulgence sweet the azure vault,
     And paints the landscape with a thousand flowers.”

I have seen the mole cricket to-day; it is a most remarkable insect,
endowed with wonderful strength, particularly in its fore legs which are
fitted for burrowing. The shanks are broad, and terminate obliquely in
four large sharp claws, like fingers; and the foot, which consists of
three joints, and is armed at the extremity with two short claws, is
placed inside the shank so as to resemble a thumb, and to perform its
offices. The direction and motion of these hands enable the animal
effectually to remove the earth when it burrows under ground; and in wet
and swampy situations, which it loves, it excavates very curious
apartments.

There is the prettiest variety of wild flowers now in bloom all over our
part of the forest; not gaudy and dazzling, like the natives of the
Brazil forests, but small and delicate, and beautifully marked and
tinted. I am sorry to say the primroses are fading; but wild violets,
the wood anemone, and millions of cowslips with their pretty golden
bells, make up for their loss.

I had almost forgotten to tell you that the buds and leaves of the
branches I had in water, have all withered away; ashamed, I suppose, to
appear now that there are abundance of real leaves.

_27th._--My aunt has been extremely interested by an account she read of
the progress of Christianity in the Sandwich islands.

It is almost a singular instance of a nation by general consent
destroying their idols, and being sensible of the insufficiency of their
own religion. The small opposition made to the change, and the manner in
which many of the chiefs publicly professed Christianity, give one every
reason to hope that it will take root in the minds of the people, and
that the progress of Christianity and civilization will advance
together. It appears to have been a spontaneous act of those intelligent
and amiable islanders; and when the Blonde frigate arrived there in
1825, the new faith they had adopted had already materially purified
their morals and improved their manners.

Besides wooden idols, the uninstructed natives had long worshipped the
deities of their island at the foot of the stupendous mountain of Mouna
Roa, imagining their favourite abode to be in the volcanoes it
contained. Offerings were frequently made to court their favour; and at
every fresh eruption of lava hogs were thrown alive into those fiery
gulfs, to appease the anger of Peli, the principal deity. To put an end
to these superstitions, Kapiolani, the wife of a chief of high rank who
had recently embraced Christianity, determined to descend into the great
crater, and, by thus braving the volcanic deities in their very home,
she hoped to convince the people that they existed only in their
imagination. A crowd of her friends and vassals accompanied her up the
mountain, to the first precipice that bounds the sunken plain: there
most of them stopped or turned back; and at the second, her remaining
companions earnestly implored her to desist from her dangerous
enterprise, which could only serve to tempt the vengeance of the
deities whose sanctuary she was about to violate. She proceeded,
however, to the verge of the crater, and being again assailed with their
entreaties, she calmly replied, “I am resolved to descend; and if I do
not return safe, then continue to worship Peli;--but, if I come back
unhurt, you must learn to adore the God who created Peli.”

Few of her attendants had sufficient courage to follow this heroic
woman; but she steadily persevered, and at length reaching the bottom of
the dreadful chasm, she triumphantly thrust a stick into the burning
lava, and for ever dissolved the spell of superstition which till that
moment had bound the minds of the astonished spectators. Those who had
expected to see the incensed goddess burst forth and destroy the daring
intruder, were awe-struck; they instantly acknowledged the superiority
of the God of Kapiolani; and from that time no reverence has been paid
to the fires of Peli.

_28th._--When I came down to the library early this morning, my uncle
asked me several historical questions: taken thus by surprise, I should
some months ago have been unable to answer, though, perhaps, I might
have been acquainted with the facts; but now I conquered my difficulties
in a tolerably satisfactory manner; and my uncle congratulated me on
the improvement of my memory, or rather of my recollection.

“I believe, uncle, it is more from my not being quite so much frightened
as I used to be at being examined; and besides, since I have been in
this house, I have gained more knowledge.”

“Yes, my dear, you have gained more knowledge, but of what avail would
it be if your memory could not supply you with a key to it? You have
materially improved your recollection; and I will tell you how: first,
by increased _attention_, the foundation of all memory; and next by
_exercise_, for every power of body and mind may be strengthened by
constantly, though moderately, applying them to their proper purposes.
You have also, I think, wisely aided your memory by some of the
expedients that I formerly hinted to you.”

“Do you mean, uncle, the classification of one’s knowledge; and the
endeavour to connect detached ideas?”

“Yes,” said he; “I have carefully observed you, Bertha--and I perceive
that you have in some degree acquired the faculty of catching the points
by which ideas are related to each other, and thus of associating them
in your mind with some one common principle. This is the true way of
strengthening the memory, and, indeed, at the same time, of improving
the understanding. Every one who steadily pursues it will find, that the
facility of this kind of arrangement increases every day, till at length
it becomes so habitual as to be performed almost mechanically; that is,
without the intervention of the will. The advantage is obvious; every
new fact, every new idea becomes a catch-word to some other; and when
referred to the common principle by which they are all combined, the
mind rapidly and almost unconsciously runs through every link in the
chain, and literally _recollects_ those which may be wanted for the
subject under consideration.”

“Do you not think, too,” said I, “that as we increase our knowledge,
those links become more numerous; and therefore, that the more new facts
we learn the more easily we can recollect the old ones?”

“In some measure,” he replied; “but it is not merely by the new facts or
ideas that we acquire that our real increase of knowledge must be
estimated; it is by the number of relations which they bear to those
already in the mind. _New_ knowledge does not merely consist in our
having access to a new object, but in forming new combinations of the
ideas which it excites with our former ideas of similar objects; it is
not by loading the memory with insulated facts, but by putting those
facts in their right places, that we augment our stock of knowledge.”

“Indeed, my dear uncle, I feel the truth of that every day; for the more
I know, the more my curiosity is excited, and I ramble on from one thing
to another, till my head contains nothing but a confused heap of
unconnected facts. Then, when I go back and try to put them in some sort
of order, I find that the most useful circumstances are forgotten, and
only those well remembered which happened to connect themselves with
things long known.”

“That leads me,” said he, “to another point, which I would earnestly
press on your attention;--_discrimination_--or the selecting from the
necessarily confused mass of new ideas which are constantly presenting
themselves those of the greatest importance. By grasping at all, you
lose the real acquisitions within your reach; and though the sacrifice
may at first appear great, you will be a gainer in the end. Every day
your selection will be more judicious, and in time more abundant; and
your knowledge of useful and connected truths will advance gradually and
securely, because you will have learnt to hinge them properly together,
without encumbering your mind with those that are insignificant.”

I then asked him if he approved of my writing this journal, and whether
he advised me to continue it.

“Certainly I do, Bertha, because I am sure it is highly satisfactory to
your mother, not only to know what you are doing, but to trace the
progress of your mind. Besides, though I suspect that no young lady can
write a great deal without introducing a little desultory matter, yet,
from the pages you have occasionally shewn me, I am sure there is much
in your journal that may be advantageous to Marianne. Indeed I am glad
you mentioned it, for I think it forms no bad illustration of the
unconnected manner in which knowledge presents itself in every-day life;
and if our present conversation finds a place in it, tell your sister,
from me, to attend to what I have said about discrimination, and to try
her skill in selecting, and classifying in her memory, the many useful
topics on which you have touched.

“The benefit to _yourself_ of committing to paper the detailed knowledge
that you acquire, is quite another question. As a help to which the
memory may refer I am inclined to think that it is injurious; except in
so far as the time occupied in writing forces one to dwell sufficiently
on the ideas, to perceive their analogy with others. But you may, I
think, make a common-place book really useful, by stating your general
impressions of the books you read, and of the discussions you hear; and
by sometimes recording those passing thoughts which suggest themselves
to every reflecting person. By thus frequently marking the state of your
mind, you can hereafter judge of its progress; and you will be able to
correct the prejudices which may have impeded its steady improvement.”

_29th._--I begged of my uncle to describe some more of the remarkable
animals that have been found in a fossil state. He readily complied; and
as it is possible that I may one day have an opportunity of seeing some
of these curious petrifactions in the museums, I carefully noted what he
told us.

“One of those huge oviparous quadrupeds to which the name Monitor has
been given, was found at Maestricht, in soft limestone rock mixed with
flints. The skeleton was about twenty-four feet long; the head four
feet; and from the great breadth and strength of the tail, the animal is
supposed to have inhabited the sea.

“There are but two living species of sloths known; and two fossil
animals have been found which seem nearly allied to them. One of these
animals, the megalonix, is of the size of an ox; and was first
discovered in a limestone cave in Virginia. The other, the megatherium,
is as large as a rhinoceros; its remains have been found only in South
America; and it is a curious fact, that greatly as these animals exceed
the sloth and the ant-eater in size, they not only appear to belong to
the same family, but their bones are found only in America, the very
country inhabited by sloths and ant-eaters.

“The gigantic fossil elks of Ireland are also an extinct species: they
are found under bogs, or in deep marl pits; and generally in an erect
position, as if the herd had been suddenly overwhelmed by the mass in
which they are imbedded, while it was in a fluid state. The distance
between the tips of the horns of a skull, now in the museum of the Royal
Society of Dublin, is eleven feet and ten inches; and I have heard that
a still larger specimen has been discovered in that country.

“The skull of the fossil ox, or buffalo of Siberia, cannot be identified
with any of the known species of this animal; and it is conjectured to
have lived at the same time with the fossil elephant and rhinoceros, as
it is found in the same alluvial tracts.

“Two distinct species of elephant are at present known; the African and
the Asiatic; but only one fossil species has hitherto been discovered,
which has been called the mammoth, a name borrowed from the Russians.
Though differing from both the existing species, principally in the
structure of the teeth, it more nearly resembles the Asiatic than the
other. The remains of this animal have been found also in the alluvial
soil round London, and in a great many parts of England, and even in
this county. In Ireland also, in Sweden and Norway, and in almost every
country of Europe, they have been discovered. Humboldt found their teeth
in South America; the North American naturalists have also found them;
and lately, Lieutenant Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, perceived them
in an _iceberg_ near Behring’s Straits. But it is in Asiatic Russia that
they occur in the greatest abundance: there is scarcely a river there
with alluvial banks that does not afford remains of the mammoth, and
generally accompanied by marine shells.”

My uncle then was so good as to go to the library for an account of a
fossil elephant that was found in a state of perfect preservation,
though its great antiquity is evident, from the whole race to which it
had belonged being now extinct. The account was drawn up by the
celebrated M. Cuvier, from observations made on the spot by Mr. Adams.

“In the year 1799, a portion of an ice-bank, near the mouth of the river
Lena in the north of Siberia, having fallen down, a Tungusian fisherman
perceived a strange shapeless mass projecting from the remaining cliff
of ice, but at a height far beyond his reach. The next year it was a
little more exposed, by the dissolving of the ice; and in the end of the
summer of 1801 he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcase of
some enormous animal. He continued to watch it till the year 1804, when
the ice having melted earlier and to a greater degree than usual, the
carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-cliff on
an accessible part of the shore. The fisherman carried away both the
tusks, and so well had the ice preserved the ivory, that he sold them
for fifty rubles. This circumstance having come to the knowledge of Mr.
Adams in 1806, he travelled to the spot to examine the animal, but he
found the body greatly mutilated; much of the flesh had been taken away
by the natives to feed their dogs, and one of the fore legs had been
carried off, probably by the white bears. The rest of the skeleton was
entire; the head was uninjured, even the pupil of the eye was still
distinguishable; and the ears were well covered with bristly hair. A
large quantity of the skin remained, which was extremely thick and
heavy; and there was a long black mane on the neck, the stiff bristles
of which were more than a foot in length.

“About thirty pounds weight of reddish brown bristly hair was collected
in the mud, into which it had been trampled by the bears while devouring
the carcase, as well as a quantity of coarse wool of the same colour.
The wool was evidently the same kind of covering that lies next the skin
of all the inhabitants of cold climates; and this very interesting fact
proves that the fossil elephants of Siberia were residents of that
country, and that they belonged to a race which no longer exists, which
was fitted by nature for a rigorous climate, and which could not have
endured the sultry regions where those animals are at present found, and
where their skin is nearly bare.”

My uncle added that it was impossible to conjecture at what period this
elephant had been buried in the ice, but that it was evident he had been
frozen at the moment of his death, which sufficiently accounts for the
preservation of the flesh. In cold countries it is common to preserve
meat through the longest winter by freezing it; and all kinds of
provisions are sent at that season from the most remote of the northern
provinces, to St. Petersburgh.

Gmelin, a German traveller, tried how deep the ground had been thawed by
the heat of a whole summer at Jakutsk, in 62° north latitude: he found
it soft to the depth of two feet and a half; there it became harder; and
at half a foot lower, it scarcely yielded to the spade. The inhabitants
of that place keep their provisions continually frozen in caves which
are only six feet below the surface.

_30th, Sunday._--I asked my uncle to-day to explain to me the nature of
those three feasts at which all the Israelites were enjoined to attend
in the course of the year; the feast of Unleavened Bread; the feast of
Weeks; and the feast of Tabernacles[3].

“Feasts,” he replied, “were appointed to commemorate those great events
with which the existence of the Israelites, as a separate people, was
identified; they also afforded opportunities of giving general
instruction, of expounding the law, and of keeping up a useful connexion
between the distant tribes, by meeting each other at stated times in the
holy city. The first and most ancient of feasts, you know, was the
Sabbath, a day of general rest, in memory of the creation; and there was
also a Sabbatical year of rest every seven years; and a jubilee year
every seven times seven years. The feast of Atonement took place in the
seventh month; the feast of Trumpets celebrated the first day of the
year; and in after times feasts were instituted on the restoration of
the Temple, and on the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot.

“But of all the annual festivals, the three about which you inquire were
the most sacred and important. The feast of Unleavened Bread was only
another name for the feast of the Passover. It lasted seven days after
the Paschal lamb had been killed; sacrifices were offered on each of
the days; no bread but such as was unleavened was permitted to be eaten
during its continuance; and the first and the last days were observed
with peculiar and impressive ceremonies. The departure of the Israelites
from Egypt, and the wonderful acts of Divine power by which their
liberation had been accomplished, were the objects commemorated at this
great assemblage of the people;--but we have so often conversed on the
Passover, that I need not renew that subject now.

“The feast of Weeks,” my uncle continued, “was so called because it was
kept at the end of seven weeks, or a _week of weeks_, after the
Passover, that is, on the fiftieth day; and therefore it has been also
called the feast of Pentecost, from a Greek word signifying fiftieth. It
lasted seven days, and was held in remembrance of the law which was
given to the people at Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after their
leaving Egypt. At this feast two loaves of bread and a certain quantity
of meal, to represent the first-fruits of the ground, were offered as a
solemn and grateful acknowledgment for the harvest which in that fine
climate and fertile country had already commenced. The modern Jews keep
this festival with great strictness; but they mix various traditional
rites with the ceremonies. In this country, I understand that they
decorate their houses with garlands of flowers, and strew roses in the
synagogues; and in Germany each Jewish family has a high rough cake, to
represent Mount Sinai, composed of seven layers of paste, to designate
the seven heavens through which they pretend that Jehovah descended to
declare the law to Moses. As the Passover was the type of the sacrament
of the Lord’s supper, so the feast of Weeks was the type of our
Christian Pentecost, which took place fifty days after the resurrection,
and on which the astonishing miracle was performed, of the gift of
tongues to the Apostles.

“The feast of Tabernacles was established in the middle of the seventh
month of the ecclesiastical year, or in the first month of the civil
year, which began in September. All Israel were obliged to assemble in
order to celebrate this feast, and to live in tents or booths made of
green boughs, during its continuance. The same word in Hebrew signifies
both tabernacles and tents, and this great religious festival was held
in memory of the journey through the wilderness, and of the mode in
which their forefathers had dwelt there in tents, during forty years. On
the first day, the people, with branches of palm trees, willows, and
myrtles in their right hands, and a citron bough bearing its fruit in
the left, joined in procession round the altar, waving the branches and
singing Hosannas. The six following days burnt offerings were made, and
the latest fruits of the year were presented at the temple; on the
eighth and last day the procession with branches was repeated with still
greater solemnity, and the whole feast concluded with what was called
the Hosanna Rabbah, or the great Hosanna. This word literally means
‘Save, I beseech thee;’ it was a common form of religious blessing or
salutation; and thus to that ancient mode of solemnizing the feast of
tabernacles you may trace the branches that were cut down, and the
acclamations of ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ with which our Saviour
was received on his public entry into Jerusalem.”

_May 1st._--This has been a day of amusement; and the Miss Maudes and
their brother, who came here yesterday, have greatly added to our
gaiety. Very early this morning we all went out, not exactly to gather
May-dew, but to see the numbers of people that went out Maying. Several
May-poles and garlands had been erected; but we were most interested by
that which the little school children had dressed up opposite to their
house. They had also placed an arch of flowers and hawthorn branches
over the door; with a magnificent C in the middle of it, made of daisy
flowers strung on thread.

This was in compliment to Caroline, and when she passed under it, they
all joined in chorus, singing these lines of their own composition:--

    We’ll welcome Miss Caroline with flowers so gay,
      To the school where she teaches us goodness and truth;
    Oh! may she be happy on ev’ry May-day,
      And most graciously pardon the follies of youth.

My uncle says it has been always the custom to celebrate May-day in this
county,--and that to have a pretty May-bush is still considered quite
important.

In Huntingdonshire, Miss Maude told us that the children hang every
place with garlands, and sometimes they make very pretty triumphal
arches. To a horizontal hoop, two semi-hoops are fixed, so as to form a
sort of crown, which is ornamented with flowers, ribbons, necklaces,
spoons, and all kinds of finery. This is suspended across the road by a
flowery rope, extending from house to house, while the children sing,
dance, toss their balls over it, and ask money from the passengers: Miss
Maude repeated to us their usual song.

_The May-day Garland._

    “To the lilac, laburnum, and iris, which cheer,
     The hawthorn, the cowslip, and king-cob so gay,
     Each beauty which gladdens the spring of the year,
     And the kerchiefs and ribbons our friends have supplied
     In bows and in streamers are tastefully tied,
     And form our sweet garland, our garland of May.

    “Beneath it we’ll dance, and we’ll throw up the ball,
     And all shall be gladness, good humour, and play,
     We’ll sing, and in chorus we’ll join one and all,
     And glad as the season, we’ll lift up our voice,
     And all, within measure and reason, rejoice
     Beneath the gay garland, the garland of May.”

My uncle observed, that in Cornwall, where customs have been less
changed than in most parts of England, the May-day ceremonies are kept
up with great care. He learned from a friend, who lived in a remote town
in that county, that all the houses were thrown open; lively music was
everywhere heard, and the young maidens, decked with wreaths and
festoons of flowers, danced along the streets, or formed dancing parties
in every house they chose to select.

“The annual celebration of this day,” he continued, “may be traced up to
a very high antiquity. The Romans had their Floralia, or games in honour
of Flora, during the calends of May; and in Asia, when the sun entered
the constellation of Taurus, which corresponded to that period, the same
kind of festivities took place, accompanied by a similar display of
flowers. Some antiquaries have shown that May-day was celebrated in this
country long before the Roman invasion, and they ascribe the
introduction of the custom to an Asiatic colony that settled here, and
who of course brought with them their national habits. In the East,
customs have undergone but little change; and many of the sports which
are prevalent on May-day in some parts of England and Ireland, and
which, at first sight, appear to proceed from unmeaning caprice, may be
proved to be fragments of ancient Eastern ceremonies, by their
similarity to those still practised there on that day.”

My aunt said, that she had seen a May-bush very prettily hung with
flowers at Chamouni, in Switzerland; and she added, “in the
old-fashioned custom too of making fools on the first of April, there is
probably a vestige of the Eastern celebration of the season when the sun
enters Aries; that is, when the year commences. In Persia, medals of
gold were struck with the head of the Ram, on the festival of the Nauruz
or new year’s-day; and the frolic of making fools still distinguishes
the Nauruz festival, and is practised, I believe, from one end of India
to the other.”

I asked my uncle when that Eastern colony to which he had alluded came
to England, as I did not recollect seeing it mentioned in the History of
England.

“The ancient Britons,” said my uncle, “had a tradition of their being
descended from an Eastern tribe called Sacca; and undoubtedly there are
many points of resemblance between their modes of worship, and those
practised in some of the Indian provinces. It would probably be
tiresome to a young person like you, Bertha, to read all the arguments
on this disputed point; but hereafter you may find it a subject of
curious inquiry to examine the coincidences said to exist in the manners
of such remote nations of the East and the West.”

_3rd._--I have such a severe cold, that, fine as the weather is, I am
not allowed to go out; so I can write without interruption to my dear
mamma. I must confess my own foolish imprudence was the cause of this
cold: on the evening of May-day, my aunt allowed the school children to
have a dance on the green, and we all joined in it round their pretty
May-bush. I exerted myself so much, that I was soon over-heated; and,
then stood in the wind to cool myself. My aunt warned me of the
consequence, but I was too much diverted to attend immediately to her
advice, and the next morning I had a violent head-ache, and all the
symptoms of a heavy cold. However, as my uncle had arranged every thing
for showing a cloth manufactory, several miles from this, to the Maudes
and Miss Perceval, I could not bear to give up what I might not have
another opportunity of seeing. Besides, we were to cross the river at
the ferry, where horses had been ordered to meet us; and I hoped to see
a great deal of new country. My friends, indeed, advised me to remain
in bed, but I would not acknowledge how ill I was; and persisted in
accompanying them. Of course my head grew very painful, and my cold
oppressed and stupified me so much, as to prevent my remembering
distinctly the half of what I saw.

I recollect, however, being shewn how the wool was washed and beaten in
order to clean it. When well dried and picked, it was _carded_ on large
cylindrical brushes, made of wire instead of hair, which laid all the
fibres in one direction; the wool was then oiled, and again combed or
brushed with finer cards on the knee, and at last spun into yarn--that
intended for the _warp_ being always smaller and more twisted than that
of the _woof_. The yarn for the woof was then wound on little _bobbins_
or tubes; and in weaving, one of these is placed in the middle of the
_shuttle_, on a pin, round which it easily turns, so as to let the
thread run off through a hole called the _eye_ of the shuttle, as it
travels from side to side of the loom.

I will not tease you with the manner of warping the yarn from one _beam_
to the other; nor with a description of the _heddles_, or looped
strings, which raise and depress the alternate threads of the warp for
the shuttle to pass between them, and which the weaver works by his
feet; nor of the _batten_ and _reed_ for driving the woof home every
time the shuttle carries it across; all these appeared very simple,
while looking at the operation, but I am afraid that I should give but a
very lame account of them. Still less can I attempt to describe a
power-loom which has been just set up; it seems to do every thing
without the interference of the weaver--the heddles rise and fall, the
batten strikes in regular time and with equal force, and the shuttle
flies to and fro from selvage to selvage as if it was alive.

At another loom they were taking off the cloth from the beam on which it
had been rolled in the process of weaving, and many hands were
immediately employed with iron nippers in trimming and cutting off the
knots and threads. The obliging proprietor of the manufactory partly
described and partly shewed us the subsequent operations of scouring the
cloth with potter’s clay, steeping and _fulling_ it, and then stretching
it lengthwise to take out the wrinkles. This is repeated several times,
then it is washed in clear water, and given wet to other workmen to
raise the nap, by means of a flower called _teasel_, which somewhat
resembles a thistle. When the nap is well raised on the right side, it
is given to the shearers, and then to the dyer; and when dyed it is
again washed in plain water, and spread on a table, where the nap is
laid properly with a brush. It is then hung up to dry, and stretched in
every direction; after which it is folded and laid under a press.

It seemed very curious to see a homely wild plant like the teasel, fresh
from the field, used along with so much complex machinery: many
imitations of it have been tried, but nothing answers so well as the
beautiful little hooks contrived by nature. In the west of England,
therefore, wherever the soil is dry and gravelly, teasels are cultivated
on a large scale for the cloth manufactories.

I remember little more of what I saw or heard yesterday, except that my
uncle remarked as we passed a sheep-walk in our drive home, what an
astonishing number of people combine their labours to produce any one
manufacture, and how necessary the different trades are to each other.
From the grazier, for instance, who rears the sheep and sells the wool,
and the various artificers employed in preparing, spinning, weaving,
dyeing, and pressing it, up to the retail shopkeeper who keeps the cloth
ready for our use. “But in fact,” said he, “these are only a few links
of the chain; we must recollect the numerous hands employed in making
the machinery, the miner who raises the iron ore, the smelter who
converts it into metal, the smith who works it, and the collier who
supplies them with coals; the carpenter who constructs the frame-work,
and the engineer who contrives the whole. Then come the merchants, and
shipwrights, and sailors who bring home from distant countries the
articles requisite to colour the cloth, and the dyer, who, by the aid of
chemistry, compounds them; and lastly, the farmer who cultivates the
humble teasels. See, Bertha, what a prodigious number of heads and hands
are thus toiling for the accomplishment of a single object, and, though
all impelled by individual interest, yet all co-operating for the
general good.”

_4th._--As I am still paying for my imprudence, and confined to my room,
kind Mary has been entertaining me with the conversation she had heard
below stairs, and particularly with Mr. Maude’s account of Venice.
Nothing in Italy so much struck his imagination, as the view of that
city, with all her towers and pinnacles rising from the sea, where, the
poet said,

    “Venice sits in state, throned on her hundred isles!”

But now it has a most melancholy appearance: the port, which in times of
prosperity was crowded with shipping, is now almost empty; and the muddy
canals which intersect the town in every direction, are no longer
enlivened by multitudes of gondolas gliding swiftly through the water.
The showy palaces which rise from the sides of these watery streets,
were once adorned with all that painting and sculpture could perform;
but they are now neglected, moss-grown, the habitations of owls and
bats, and fast sinking to decay: and many of the great families who had
inherited their wealth and honours in direct succession for a thousand
years, are now obliged to part with their splendid mansions, or to see
them gradually crumbling into ruins, from the want of means to repair
them.

Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Maude says that Venice is still a
magnificent looking place; and amongst its many beautiful buildings, he
describes the cathedral as being most venerable and interesting. It was
built so long ago as the ninth century, and enriched with the spoils of
Greece and of Constantinople. He once went through the city at night, to
see the effect of moonlight on its superb buildings; but the few of them
which were still dazzling with lamps, as if enjoying their former glory,
made such a contrast with the pale light and dark shade of the moon, and
with the general stillness, that the whole scene had even a more
deserted appearance than in the day-time. Now and then the gloomy
silence was interrupted by the sounds of the harp or guitar, or by the
wild and plaintive airs of a few gondoliers, as they kept time to the
gentle splashing of their oars.

Mr. Maude, she says, added a great deal about the present government,
the state of society, and the remaining commerce of Venice; and my
uncle, who was much pleased with his observations, remarked that few of
the changes recorded in history, offered a subject of deeper interest,
than the long-continued grandeur and present fall of Venice. “It rose,”
he said, “as it were, from the waves, when, on the invasion of Italy by
the Huns, numbers of people took refuge in that cluster of islands where
the city now stands. So early as the year 421, they formed a little
state, strong enough to oppose the invaders, or at least to secure
themselves from molestation. Commerce soon followed security; and from
this small beginning arose that wealth and power which continued for
many centuries, and which extended the influence of Venice over all the
states with which she was connected. Her foundations were laid in the
darkest ages of Italian misery; but she soon became the spectator of the
dissolution of the Roman Empire. She witnessed the ravages of many
continental wars, and the rise and fall of many nations; till at length
she fell in her turn also. Somebody has well remarked, that she was the
last surviving witness of antiquity, the common link between the two
periods of civilization.

“Her whole history,” continued my uncle, “has a paradoxical and peculiar
character. Her romantic achievements in the East; the noble lead she
took in the struggles of Christendom with the empire of the Turks; and
the heroic defence she made against the attacks of numerous enemies,
place her resources and power in singular contrast with the smallness of
her territory. On the other hand, her selfish policy; her imperious
conduct wherever her influence extended; and her deadly jealousy of the
neighbouring republic of Genoa, rendered her the object of universal
envy and hatred. While at home the rigorous despotism of her government,
which was ill concealed under the mask of republican freedom, and the
inquisitorial tyranny of the senate, which silently pervaded every
house, and controlled almost the thoughts of every individual, could
tend only to alienate her subjects. These are points of deep moral and
historical interest; but it may be safely said that her government
outlived the age to which it was suited; no timely reform adapted it to
the growing changes in the public mind--no concessions to the people
united them in common cause with their haughty masters--and the fall of
Venice may be ascribed more to her internal vices, than to the
overpowering armies of France.”

_5th._--I have been so much better all day that I was allowed to go down
to tea; and had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Maude describe the
_fruitiéres_ in Switzerland. I quite misunderstood that word at first;
for I find that it means a kind of dairy, something like that described
to us by our Savoyard friends last winter. The person by whom the
fruitiére is managed receives their milk daily from all the neighbouring
peasants; he sells the cream, and butter, and makes the cheese; and at
the end of the season pays the contributors either in cheeses or money.
He keeps an exact account, not only of the quantity of milk brought in,
but to prevent fraud, such as mixing it with water, he ascertains its
quality by a kind of hydrometer, or floating gauge. Persons detected in
cheating are struck out of the book, and lose what they had already
contributed. The fruitiére man who manages the business and keeps the
accounts, is paid by a small per centage on each cheese.

This plan is chiefly adopted in those parts of the country where the
cattle are taken in summer to pasture in the mountains; the farmers
confide their cows to a man who lives in a chalet, such as Madeleine
mentioned, and spends night and day in milking the cows, and in making
and turning the cheeses.

The same practice has been introduced into Piedmont and Lombardy. All
the dairies in which the Parmesan cheeses are made, are supplied in this
manner. The meadows of Lombardy, in the vicinity of the Po, are the most
fertile in the world: being constantly watered, they produce three or
four crops of hay in the season; but as they are occupied by a great
number of individuals, there are few who can support a dairy, because
the making cheeses requires a large quantity of milk, the produce of at
least fifty cows. To effect this the Lombards have formed societies in
order to make their cheese in common; and twice a-day the milk is sent
to the principal house, where the dairy-man keeps an account of each
person’s share.

This subject reminds me that my aunt has had a satisfactory letter from
Bertram and Madeleine. He is much improved in strength. She appears to
be very happy, and the little girl is going on well.

_7th, Sunday._--Wentworth has been so much interested by the character
of Moses, and by the explanations my uncle has occasionally given of his
prophecies, that during the last week he prepared a long string of
questions for this morning. His father was pleased by this eagerness to
obtain information, and answered them all most kindly and fully. I need
not repeat the questions, I shall only tell you the general substance of
the answers; and you, dear mamma, who are so well acquainted with the
subject will easily trace my omissions.

The prophecies of Moses may be considered in some measure as
supplemental to those of Jacob and Balaam. He enters into many details
of the perverseness and the corruptions of the Israelites, and the
consequent calamities of famine, pestilence, and war, which should
afflict them under the government of their kings. He states them almost
with the simplicity of an historical narrative; while all other
prophecies, except those of our Lord, are expressed in more poetical,
and in far more obscure language.

The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy contains several passages which are
plainly indicative of the captivity of the ten tribes by the Assyrians,
and of the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin, by the
Babylonians. In examining the books of Kings and Chronicles, we find
that most part of those predicted judgments were fulfilled in the order
he foretold; as in the dearths that took place, the plagues that carried
off numbers of the people, and the repeated invasions of the country by
the Moabites and Philistines, and afterwards by the Ammonites, Chaldees,
and Syrians. The captivity of Jehoiachin by the Babylonians was a
striking accomplishment of the prophetic threat in the 36th verse. “The
Lord shall bring thee and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto
a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known:” for it was
delivered long anterior to the establishment of any king. The
conclusion of that verse, “and there thou shalt serve other gods, wood
and stone,” was also precisely fulfilled, as the people were compelled
by their cruel conqueror to worship his idols.

The circumstantial prophecy contained in the last twenty verses of that
chapter, was fulfilled most literally by the invasion of the Romans, the
destruction of Jerusalem, and the complete dispersion of the Jews. The
Romans were described in it with characteristic precision eight hundred
years before they existed as a nation. It is said that they were to come
“from far, from the end of the earth:” now the western parts of Europe
were at that time the limits of the known world; and it is remarkable
that the armies of Titus and Adrian were principally composed of Gauls
and Spaniards. The rapidity of the Roman marches is compared by the
prophet to the flight of the “eagle,” and it is not too much to suppose,
that in that expression he alludes also to the eagles which were the
Roman ensigns. Their language was not to be understood by the Jews; and
the “fierce countenance,” for which the Romans were distinguished from
the earliest periods of the republic, is noticed, as well as the
merciless ferocity of their conduct.

The horrors of the siege of Jerusalem are next foretold with dreadful
exactness; as well as the miseries the people were to endure in their
subsequent dispersion. “The Lord shall scatter thee among all people,
from the one end of the earth even unto the other; ... and among these
nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have
rest.” “Observe now,” said my uncle, “the fulfilment of that prophecy.
Since their calamitous expulsion, the Jews have wandered over the face
of the globe for one thousand seven hundred years, without national
possessions, government, or laws. Their riches have exposed them to
plunder, and their poverty to contempt. Driven from place to place, they
have been persecuted even in Christian countries with unrelenting
cruelty; they seem to have lost their rank in the creation, and have
been made to feel the ‘trembling heart,’ ‘the sorrow of mind,’ and the
uncertainty of their lives, of which their great prophet so emphatically
warned them.

“Yet, notwithstanding their sufferings, they have been preserved a
distinct people through all the changes of nations; for the same prophet
said, they should ‘only be oppressed and crushed;’ not exterminated and
rooted out like the Canaanites. They have adhered to their religion and
retained the sacred language of the Scriptures; they appear to have been
preserved for ‘a sign,’ and for ‘a wonder;’ and they may be said to be
the depositaries of the prophecies, the continued accomplishment of
which is really a standing miracle of the most extraordinary and
convincing nature.”

I am ashamed, dear mamma, of the slight sketch I have given of what my
uncle said at great length in answer to Wentworth; but, though I have
done him very little justice, it has all made a deep impression on my
mind, and I am going to read a book he has lent me on the comparison of
the prophecies with profane history.

_8th._--At last I have escaped from confinement, and am enjoying the
delight of fresh air. Everything looks gay; the sweet flowers, the
bright green shrubs, the butterflies flitting about in the sun-beams,
and, above all, the unceasing singing of the birds. Oh, mamma, how can
you bear to live where you hear so few warbling birds?

The change that one short week has produced in my garden is quite
magical; it is really a sheet of flowers; and I found there a new proof
of the goodnature of my cousins, for they had pulled up every weed that
disfigured it while I was confined to the house.

In my aunt’s garden there is a tree of the Yulan Magnolia just opening
its large tulip-shaped blossoms, which are so fragrant, and of so pure a
white. It is nearly twenty feet high, and it is so hardy, that she
wonders this beautiful shrub is not more common in all gardens.

What a peculiar character the hawthorn gives the hedges in this country!
It is called _May_, and indeed it is so pretty, that I think it deserves
that honour.

    “For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear,
     If not the first, the fairest of the year.
     For thee the Graces lead the dancing Hours,
     And Nature’s ready pencil paints the flowers.”

I have been examining with my aunt the tendrils of the sweet pea; they
are so generally found just in the right places for attaching themselves
to some convenient support, that one would almost imagine they knew
exactly where to put out; but she pointed out some that were idle and
useless. She then shewed me the beautiful arrangement of nature by which
the honeysuckle supports itself: when a straight shoot becomes long and
weak, it curls into a spiral figure which gives it great additional
strength, even if alone, and enables it to take a firm grasp of any twig
that it meets. But if two or more shoots should touch, they immediately
twine or screw themselves round each other, like the strands of a rope,
for mutual support.

Another fact my aunt told me on this subject is, that the claspers of
briony always shoot forward in a spiral, in search of support; but if
they meet with nothing, after completing a spiral of about three turns,
they alter their course, and proceed in some other direction.

_9th._--Caroline and I had a nice walk this morning with my uncle, and I
hasten to write down the additional facts that we learned from him on
the subject of fossil remains.

Shells, he told us, are generally found entire, and the skeletons of
fishes are frequently discovered in such a perfect state, that both
their families and species can be easily ascertained. But the fossil
remains of quadrupeds are very rarely complete; some of the parts are
wanting; the bones are either scattered at a distance from each other,
or else lying confused together, and generally broken. Yet these
misplaced fragments are the only means left for naturalists to determine