1

at every reside. And his memory has bined been cherished with affection in both countries as that of a true hero and champion of liberty. A very good idea of the times of Wallace tan be gained by reading The Scottish Chiefs," by Miss Jane Porter.

of governors sent thither by England well as from the unlicensed and brutal soldiery let loose upon them at the slight est provocation-that there is no wonder that's young man like Wallace, of noble birth and dauntless spirit, should be eager to strike a blow for his country's freedom. The rebels, who were headed by Sir William Douglas, Murray of Bothwell, Wallace, and young Bruce, compelled the surrender of English garrisons in the castles of Durisdeer and Sanquhar. Edward I sent into Scotland an army of 40,000 men to quell the insurrection. The advance guard of this army met

a night attack by a band under Wallace, who, however, was forced to fall back by the numbers of the enemy. The Scotch were repulsed in the battle of the following day, and, not being suff. cfently well organized to make a stand, a treaty was made by the chiefs with the English: Wal lace and Murray refused to accede to the terms of submission and retired fato the hilly country of Northern Scotland, where they recruited & pow

erful

army, and surprised and captured several Important English garrisons. A large English army was now Enown to be on the march toward Stirling. Wallace Immediately set forth to meet it and arrived before Stirling with 40,000 foot and 180 horse. The English troops, numbering 50,000 foot and 1,000 were commanded by

horse,

"

the

1-0 70

LUBAX CAVES IN VIRGINIA

Would like a description of Luray Cave.

7

49 9.58

SABETEA, Kan. G. W. STEVENSON. Answer.-The Luray caverns-for there are three remarkable openings into the earth here, though but one has been cleared out and explored to any extent-are in Page County, in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia The existence of

these caves was unknown to the inhabitants antil 1879.

When one of them was then opened and examined there were found in it evidences that the cave had been at some time occupied by men and animals, though at what period it was impossible to sav. Bones of animals and men were found, and the walls of the caye were much blackened, showing that fires had been kindled therein. In one part the floor was found smooth and even under the debris, showing that the stalagmites had human agency for this purpose. been removed by, som This cave abounds in singular and interesting objects and stalactites of great size and variety. One, deposited from the dripping waters-stalagmites

ན་

of Surrey tree pardon was offered Earl the Empress column, is a pure white mass of

A

the Bootch

in the name of the English King, but it was in-
dignantly refused, and the great battle of Stirling
bridge was fought Sept, 10, 1297, in which the
English army was almost literally out to plebes.
Wallace was now, by general consent, declared
guardian of the kingdom of Scotland, for one
Scotch King, John, was imprisoned in the Tower
of London. This successful leader then made
several raids across the border, and laid waste the
English country in retaliation for the spoliation
which the
the Scotch had so long suffered at the
the English invaders. Meanwhile,
Edward had
again raised an enormous army,
which he headed in person, and at the battle of
Falkirk July 22, the Boottish army was de-

hands

alabaster seventy feet high, reaching from the floor nearly to the roof. Another pendant formation, nearly equal to the former in length, vibrates for a minute when struck, and in one of the rooms of the cave, called the Cathedral, are twenty slender columns which sound part of a scale when struck successively. Many remarkable specimens from this cave have been sent to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, but there is still left in it a whole mine of curiosities waiting the enterprise of scientific explorers.

leido HE MEASUREMENT OF LATITUDES belles 1 there any difference between meriahar and AAH RIDGE Wis. found by careful measurement of the meridians that true latitude? 2. Professor Mitchell says that it in degree of latitude is greater toward the poles tha toward the equator, How is this capoful measures ment made?

this a guerrilla warfare was carried the always taken on the meridian of

lace and his
leader once went
noe went over to France
ce to solicit the
aid of that country against the English, but with
out avail. In February, 1304, he was declared
an outlaw, and a price was put upon his head by
the English King. Soon after he was betrayed
by a false friend, Sir John Menteith, into the
Sir John
hands of his enemies, and was taken to London
and tried in Westminster Hall for treason. He
was condemne 1 to death and executed with all
the ignominious and cruel forms with which the
offense of treason was puntshed in those days.

Answer-1. No: the latitude of I
of any place 13
2
on the meridian of that place

The latitude of any p
vertical line there with the plane of the equator,
or the angle made by a line from the polar star to
the observer, with the plane of the horizon. To
understand how these two measurements are
equal and how they always › correspond to the
latitude, let us imagine an observer atending on
the equator. The angle made by his vertical
line with the plane of the equator is
because this line
10.
the equator. Similarly, as the polar star lies in

is in the

He was dragged at the tails of horse then his horizon, the angular measurement of s

minster Hall to West Smithfield, and

drawn, and quartered. His head was set upon London bridge, and his limbs were exposed at Newcastle, Berwick, Perth, and Stirling But the English populace sympathized with his fate as that of a fellow countryman rather than an enemy, and in Scotland tears were shed for him

ΟΙ

drawn from him to the star with the horizon's plane would be 0. Now, suppose this obeer ver to move northward from the equator one degree The equatorial plane no longer passes through his zenith, but is one degree south of it, "and htt vertical line makes with that plane an ankle of one degree. In like manner the north pole has fiabil

readily by observing the greatest and least, alti-
tudes of any circumpolar star, and (correction be-
ing made for refraction) taking half their
sum. There are other means of determin-
ing it by observation of, the stars. But
this measurement would not give the difference
in the length of a degree from the equator to the
poles. As soon as the fact that the earth was
a prolate spheroid-that is, a sphere flattened at
the poles-had been shown by the increased
movement of a pendulum as it approaches the
arctic circle, then it became self-evident to ge-
ographers that a degree of latitude increased
from the equator to the poles. This was proved
to be so by geodetic measurement. Geodesy, is
the science of surveying extended to large tracts,
of country, for the double purpose of producing
maps of exceptional accuracy and also determin-
Ing the actual curvature of the earth's surface.
The instrument used for this purpose is known
as the theodolite. It consists principally of a
telescope with cross wires in its focus, mounted
so as to turn both on vertical and horizontal axes,
the whole furnished with leveling sorews for ad-
Justing to the horizon and mounted on a tripod.
As the use of the theodolite and the whole sci-
ence of geodesy depend upon a knowledge of
trigonometry, it would be impossible to describe
its measurements so as to make them compre
bensible to the general reader. We may giye,
however, the difference in the length of degrees
thus ascertained. It has been found that the
actual length of a degree of latitude at the
equator is 68.702 miles and 69.396 miles at the
poles

THE BATTLE OF ARBELA DOWNEY CITY. Cal. Would like a sketch of the battle of Arbela. JOSEPH SMITE, Answer. The battle of Arbela was fought in the month of October, 331 B. C., between the forces of Darius, the Fersian, King, and those of Alexander the Great, The armies met on a plain about twenty miles from the village of Arbela, in the valley of the Tigris River. Alexander had inwaded Asia three years before, and had then met and vanquished the armies of Darius. This third battle was looked forward to by both commanders as a conflict of the greatest importance, which should decide who was to be the ruler of Asia. Alexander'army consisted of 40,000 foot soldiers and 7.000 cavalry Darins had 40,000 mavalry, and, it is said, about 900,000 infantry. though this estimate may have been too large. But it is known that the Persian army, recruited from all the Central Asian tribes,

fely twenty times as large as that of the

The battle-held was chosen bf Dafins himself, with direct reference, to the convenience banhaling his great hosts on this open plain. The march of the army of Alexander was south

ward along the banks of the Tigris. On the last day of September it came in sight of the Persian army, Darius expected an attack from his foo that night, and therefore formed his troops in order of battle and kept them under arms all night. Alexander, however, though advised by

He

of the darkness, refused to do so, and ordered
that the troops should take their evening meal
and go to rest. It therefore happened that the
soldiers of Darius came to the encounter on the
following morning jaded and dispirited through
loss of rest, while their opponents were fresh and
vigorous, Alexander's management of his army
in this battle is regarded as one of the most re-
markable feats of generalship on record.
"He had," says the historian Creasy, "no
natural barriers to protect his flanks,
and not only was he certain to be overlapped
on, either wing by the vast lines of the Persian
army, put there was imminent risk of their
circling round him and charging him in the rear,
while he advanced against their center.
formed, therefore, a second or reserve line, which
was to wheel round, if required, or to detach
troops to either flank, as the enemy's movements
might necessitate, and thus, with their whole
army ready at any moment to be thrown into one
vast hollow square, the Macedonians advanced in
two lines against the enemy, Alexander himself
leading on the right wing, and the renowned
phalanx forming the center, while Parmento com-
manded on the left." As the two armies
approached one
whole li Alexander found that
the front of his whole line barely equaled the
front of the Persian center, so that he was out-
flanked on each side by an entire wing of the
enemy. His tactics were to assail some
point of the Persian front with such force as to
gain a decided advantage, while, as far as possible,
he held back the encounter along the rest of
the line. He therefore inclined his march to the
right, in order to bring the troops of this part of
his army into collision with the enemy first.
Darius endeavored to check this advance with a
cavalry charge, which was met by Alexander
ordering forward a troop of horse from his sec-
ond line. At first the Macedonian cavalry seemed
to be overborne by the great number of their as-
sailants, but at last the superior discipline of the
European troops enabled them to break the line
of their adversaries and drive them off the
field. Darius now directed his scythe-armed
chariots to charge against the Macedonian center.
This chariot was considered a terrible instru-
inent of war in ancient times, and capable of
scattering the best-trained infantry. But they
were rendered ineffective this time by the light-
armed troops which Alexander had specially ap
pointed for the service, and who, wounding the
horses and drivers with their hurled lances.
and running alongside so as to cut the traces or
seize the reins, broke the force of the charge,
while the few chariots that reached the
phalanx passed harmlessly through the
Bad
spaces opened for them, and
were all
tured in the rear. Repeated attacks Wor
now made by the Asiatic cavalry to flank the

Macedonians, but these were always beaten back by charges from the horsemen from Alexander's second line. Meanwhile, this commander was holding the troops of his wing fresh, ready to seize any opportunity to strike a decisive blow. The time came when a large body of horse on the Persian left wing left their station, riding off to take part in the cavalry encounters on the Persian right. This left a huge gap in the Persian front into which Alexander charged with his horseguards, followed by his central phalanx. This advance made its way into the Persian center, arriving so near the person of Darius himself that his charioteer was killed with a javelin. The King's courage now quite forsook him, and mounting a fleet horse he galloped from the plain. The fight continued for several hours, but with every onslaught the superior discipline of the Ma'cedonian troops gave them the advantage, and having no leader to rally them, the entire Asian(ops, 260 barons, 16 Scottish representative peers, army was soon in full fight from the field. They were pursued to Arbela, where Alexander took possession of the King's treasures and stores, though the King himself had escaped, and a few days after the battle Alexander entered Babylon. then "the oldest seat of earthly empire," as its acknowledged ruler. The battle of Arbela is re-spection of the bishops as well as of the inferior corded as one of the great decisive battles of the world, because by it the mighty ancient Persian empire was destroyed,and the Orient first opened te the inroads of western civilization.

tion. Under Gladstone's guiding hand the reforms of Great Britain have been possible; the franchise has been extended; the working classes have been sought to be elevated, their 'condition improved, and all internal interests have been fostered. From the great Disestablishment of the Church measure of Gladstone down to the fran "chise bill the distinguished Commoner has been moving to break the bonds which have held down body and conscience in Great Britain. 2. The British House of Lords consists of peers who hold their seats by virtue of hereditary right, by creation of the Sovereign, by virtue of office, the English bishops; by election for life, as the ́ Irish Peers, and by election for duration of Parliament, as the Scottish peers. Exclusive of twelve minors, the House of Lords consists of 5 princes of the blood, 2 "archbishops, 20 dukes, 18 marquises, 113 caris, 27 viscounts, 24 bish

PARTIES AND PEERS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

ORION, Ind.

1. What are the differences between the Liberal and Conservative parties of Great Britain? 2. What is the composition of the House of Lords, and what are The meanings of the tities archbishop, bishop, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron, and peer? L. M. Answer-1. Since the year 1828 the name Liberal has been given to the more advanced Whigs and reformers, and the name Conservative has since 1830 been given to and accepted by a political party whose leading principles were the preservation and continuance of the national institutions as they existed. But there is just now a alearer cut difference between the leading political parties in Great Britain. There they have no assemblies corresponding to our National Republican and National Democratic conventions. In these and in our State conventions, and from them down to our town, ward, and precinct meetings and clubs, the platforms of principles of each are debated and discussed by the humblest elector. In Great Britain the policy of the Liberals will be foreshadowed by Gladstone, or some other leader to be chosen, should he be unyable by ill-health to lead in the coming campaign, and that of the Conservatives may be expected from Lord Salisbury when he Lakes the platform tor public political discussion. The utterances of these leaders will then become the watchwords and platforms of their respective parties. But when we review' the

eral administration and the course past Lib

Con

servatives, we may say that their policies are thus summarized: The policy of Gladstone and the Liberals has been to make strong home government; while the Conservative drift and policy are to make a strong foreign administra

elected for each Parliament, and 28 Irish representative peers, elected for life, in all 513 persons. The princes of the blood are of course members of the royal family. The archbishops are the chiefs of the clergy in their provinces, and have within them the in

clergy. Originally in England the dignity of
duke was confined to the royal house, but that
has been extended. All the sons of dukes and
duchesses, not of royal rank, are lords, and their
daughters ladies; a duke's oldest son always
ranks as a marquis, and generally bears that
title. The royal dukedoms, notwithstanding
that they constitute peerages and are hereditary,
are created chiefly with a view to connect the
reigning house with the great cities or with cer-
tain provinces of the realm. A marquis or mar-
quess is second in the order of the British peer-
age, and therefore next to a duke. An eari is
title and rank of nobility now the third in the
order of the peerage, and between a marquis and
a viscount, The viscount is now the fourth da-
gree of nobility: his wife is a viscountess. In
early
times the word baron

used to include the whole mobility
of England, because all noblemen were barons
whatever might be the higher ranks in the peer-
age they occupied. The word peer has of late
years come to be used with the same significa-
tion, perhaps because it is no longer necessarily
the case that every nobleman should be a baron,
there being instances in which earldoms and
other honors have been given without a 4 barony
being attached to them, and in which the barony
has been separated from the higher degree by
following a different order of descent. The gen-
eral theory of the constitution, however, still›
that it is as barons that all the peers sit in tho
House of Lords, and it is on this ground that the
archbishops and bishops'are said to sit in virtme
of their baronies.