noble characteristics. Four-wheeled cabs for two are expensive, as are Hansoms for one. It is obvious that they must make use of Omnibuses, which, indeed, would appear to be the proper vehicles for persons of their (first-rate) condition. As a Sociable, which holds four, is to ordinary individuals, so is our omnibus to our agricultural friends-but what if you attempt to make that omnibus hold twelve! To the agriculturists themselves, this little matters, for when six or eight are in it, even the cad is obliged to proclaim that he is Full Inside.' He may inveigle would-be passengers as far as the step, but he knows they will never cross the threshold. They perceive the state of the case at once, and promptly descend, to seek some rival vehicle patronised by the aborigines only. Nothing happens in this case worse than the inconvenience of delay.

But supposing that persons of moderate size are already in the omnibus, the entrance of these gigantic folk becomes serious indeed. The original inhabitants must make up their minds at once either to endure all things or to flee; for after more than one of them has entered in, escape is impossible-you cannot get by-you are enclosed in a living tomb, which is also locomotive. General observations, however, fail to convey the terrors of this awful position. Let me narrate an experience, which occurred to my own half-sister, Miss Bridget Lamb, of Baker Street, on Wednesday, December 10, 1862, as related by her own lips. I will myself guarantee the truthfulness of her narration, for I know her well to be as incapable of falsehood as of invention. She is a person of the strictest principles, and has no imagination whatever. 'I arrived at London Bridge from Greenwich at about 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon. As I had no luggage, and there was still some daylight, I thought I would save a cab-fare by taking an omnibus. By help of a policeman, I escaped out of the clutches of seven cads (all of whom assured me they were going in my direction) and got into a Paddington Royal Oak, which I knew must pass the end of Baker Street. It was better, at all events, than trusting myself to an Elephant and Castle, though it solemnly averred that it would drop me at my door. Still, I did not like to hear the conductor observe to the driver, across the roof of the vehicle, that "the Old Gal would have a goodish round of it." I could not help thinking-for I knew that the insolence of this class of person is unbounded-that the remark might have some distant reference to myself. However, there was one passenger beside me, who informed me that he was going all the way to the Oak," and this convinced me that I could not at least be in the wrong 'bus; he was an inoffensive, pleasant little man, and by the long white roll of paper which he carried in his hand, as well as by his affable manners, I concluded him to be a civil engineer. I was quite pleased to have the companionship of so respectable a person, and that I should save eighteenpence at least, without suffering any of those inconveniences which my half-brother is always prophesying for ladies who ride in omnibuses. There was a stoppage in King William Street, to be sure, for about three-quarters of an hour, but we had a fine view of the Monument all the time. Just before we got to the Bank, the omnibus stopped for longer than the usual time-which, I think, is half a secondallowed for the admittance of a passenger; a very stout gentleman placed his foot upon the step, and as he did so, I felt the whole omnibus "tit up," so that I thought the horses must be off their legs. Woa, woa, my lud," said he to the grinning conductor; "there's another little one a-coming." And, sure enough, another very stout gentleman, and the counterpart of the first one, followed him in. It was quite dreadful to see how light they made of their own condition. "Licensed to carry twelve on

66

us, eh!" said one, referring to some legal notice stuck up in the vehicle; "well, I shouldn't like to be the eleventh, nor yet the ninth, for the matter of that." The little engineer was much depressed by the incursion of these formidable persons, and he whispered across to me that he did not understand it, but that we did not seem to be going to the Poultry at all.

"Poultry! Why no, sir, there's nothing but beastesses and such-like, as we're going to see," observed No. 1 stout gentleman.

"Beastesses and peags," remarked No. 2, with gravity, as though making an important correction. "But I don't want to go to the cattle-show," exclaimed my vis-à-vis impatiently. "Hi, conductor, hi; I want to go to the Royal Oak."

"All right, sir, and so yer shall; only we goes to the Hangel first, for the convenience of these here gentlemen. It won't make scarcely any difference in point o' time. Cattle-show! cattle-show!! Whose for Islington and the fat-cattle-show !!!"

"The little engineer would have got out then and there, only No. I and No. 2 stout gentlemen were sitting exactly opposite one another, so that their respective waistcoats touched. Egress was thus rendered impossible, unless one of them could be induced to move, which was a circumstance that did not seem probable. Then we plunged through the gathering gloom into Finsbury, past the Artillery Ground (as the conductor informed one of the two strangers), a place I never thought to have beheld in my mortal life, and so along a dreadfully unfinished thoroughfare, called the City Road, to the Angel. Here, thought the little engineer and I, we shall at least be free; but although the Two got out, no less than six twin brothers of theirs squeezed themselves in, in their place; the windows were thus entirely obscured; a seventh giant, who was permitted to stand on the step until somebody should get out, filled up the doorway, so that we were in almost total darkness.

'My original companion, in whom I had begun to feel much interest, engendered by our common misfortune, would not, however, have been visible, even had there been light. His white roll of paper seemed to gleam forth from the pocket of the monster who had absorbed him. As for myself, I could breathe (with difficulty), and that was all. My steel crinoline became first spherical, and then of a diamond shape, having "given" in four places. It was shocking to imagine what an appearance I should present when I got out, but still more shocking to consider that there was no probability of my getting out at all. It was already past our usual dinner-hour in Baker Street, and my brother was the fussiest person for punctuality, as well as the most despondent in his views respecting what has made any body late. He would be almost sure to conclude that I had been garrotted; certainly he would never imagine that I was in the far end of an Islington omnibus, with halfa-dozen mountains of men between myself and liberty.

'When we arrived at the top of Baker Street, I felt it was useless to stop the vehicle. I could not ask six gentlemen to get out in the mud, in order to permit of my exit. I was carried on with them to Paddington station, to which, as I was well aware, they were all bound. I got out there-leaving the little civil engineer like a thread-paper in collapse, but retaining his precious roll intact and took a cab to Baker Street. Thus, beside the injuries to a certain article of apparel, to which I have already alluded, my journey home was not a cheap one after all. My half-brother, too, had already incurred considerable expenses in advertising me in the evening papers, and in driving about to the various policeoffices. The dinner, too, having been much spoiled, his temper had suffered proportionally; his language was

such as it is impossible for me to repeat; and so far from sympathising with my misfortunes, he observed, with brutal vulgarity, that "it served me precious right for taking a 'bus."

The above is the sad story of my sister Bridget. It is all true, with the exception of the last few statements. My temper was quite unruffled, and my language temperate in the extreme. I did say, how ever, that for a person like herself, who had actually lived in Baker Street, where the cattle-show used to be held until now, and who must, therefore, be well acquainted with the contour of our bucolic visitorsfor her, I said, to get into an omnibus during the Agricultural Week, for the sake of saving eighteenpence, was the act of an economical monomaniac-of a female Elwes. Still, are these vehicles never to be placed under restrictions that may meet the periodical emergency? Can nothing be done?

THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.

ELECTRICIANS enlivened their Christmas holidays by talking about Mr Gassiot's latest experiments, which formed the subject of a paper read before the Royal Society. As the former experiments by the same persevering gentleman have been repeatedly noticed in this Journal, particularly those in which luminous effects were produced in glass vacuum tubes, we may with propriety take occasion to add a few particulars thereunto. Mr Gassiot's present battery consists of 3500 cells, filled with salt-water, by which he obtains an extraordinary continuity of action, and surprising effects. One of the most remarkable takes place when the ends of the wires which connect the battery with the vacuum tube dip into water. When slightly dipped, a disk of brilliant light appears in the middle of the tube, remaining stationary, dazzling the eyes of the beholder. Plunge them a little deeper, and another disk marches out, so to speak, from the electrode at the end of the tube, and takes up a position by the side of the first; and so with every successive plunge, until not fewer than thirteen disks of light occupy the central space. This is a very striking experiment; one that fascinates the eye while it interests the mind. As Professor De la Rive of Geneva has shewn, the passing of electric currents through vacuum tubes seems to afford a means for explaining the appearance of aurora boreales and some other cosmical phenomena. Meanwhile, Mr Gassiot is pursuing his experiments, and the visitors to his next electrical soirée may anticipate an unusual treat.

At the same meeting of the Royal Society, Professor Tyndall announced that further investigation had confirmed his views as to the relation between radiant heat and aqueous vapour. This is a subject which we noticed some months ago, when first brought forward. The meaning of it is that aqueous vapour is proved to act a most important part in the interception of radiant heat; so much so, that the said vapour in the atmosphere intercepts eighty times more heat than the air itself. From this, Professor Tyndall shews that the stratum of air, say ten feet in thickness, nearest the surface of the earth may be regarded as a blanket; for the aqueous vapour therein contained, by preventing terrestrial radiation, keeps the earth warm. As was stated on a former occasion, the perfume of flowers floating in the air serves to economise the warmth of the bed beneath. We thus see that this apparently dry subject has important relations to chemistry, meteorology, and horticulture; and we are glad to hear that Professor Tyndall is at work on a book in which the whole of the interesting question will be discussed and published.

We hear that spectrum analysis, which, as many readers know, is a beautifully refined experiment, is likely to be applied in the great wholesale hardware

manufactory-Sheffield. In the casting of steel, it is essential that certain gases injurious to the metal should be allowed to fly off, and it is always a delicate question as to when they are completely got rid of. This question, it is said, may be answered by observing the spectrum of the gas as it rises; and when the colour peculiar to it appears in the instrument, then the moment will have arrived for shutting down the furnace, and running off the metal. This would be as beautiful an application of a philosophical fact to practical uses, as that of optical rotation in the preparation of sugar and saccharine fluids.

Anatomists and physiologists have long questioned as to the reason why the stomach does not digest itself during life. The gastric juice is so powerful that it will dissolve steel and other hard substances, while it is perfectly harmless upon the stomach itself; except after death, and then one part of the operation of decomposition is the eating away of the stomach by its own secretion. John Hunter was one of those who examined into the question, and he came to the conclusion that the stomach was protected by its living principle.' This is not a satisfactory conclusion for those who believe that in the progress of physiology a more definite answer would one day be found, and many ingenious experiments have been tried, in the hope of solving the question. Among the latest are those of Dr Pavy, described in a paper read at a recent meeting of the Royal Society. Having a dog with a fistulous opening into its stomach, he introduced the hinder parts of a living frog, and the ear of a living rabbit, and found that in each case the process of digestion did actually begin. Hence, it is a mistake to suppose that the gastric juice will not act on the living substance, and the popular notion that a frog swallowed by accident or design will live for years in the human stomach, is proved to be as fallacious as popular physiological notions commonly are. Dr Pavy has varied his experiments, testing one set of results by another arrived at in a different way, and the conclusion he comes to is, that as the blood in a state of health is always alkaline, so the alkalinity of the blood circulating through the coats of the stomach neutralises the action of the acid, or gastric juice. And seeing that the taking of food into the stomach excites a greater flow of blood to that organ, the protection is most active at the very time that the gastric juice is poured out in greatest quantity for the process of digestion.

Some time ago, a chemist pointed out that it would be easy to detect fraud in woven goods by means of a simple test-that is, by dipping samples of the articles into a chemical solution which would dissolve all the cotton, and leave the silk or wool uninjured. It is well known that silk and woollen goods, so called, are offered for sale which contain more cotton than is fair to the purchaser, and by this method the amount of adulteration or of substitution may be ascertained. A solution of ammoniuret of copper dissolves cotton quickly; after a time, it dissolves silk also. By this means, therefore, silk can be reduced to a pulpy state; and M. Ozanam, a French chemist, taking advantage of this fact, informs the Academy of Sciences that he is experimenting as to the possibility of manufacturing silk without the trouble of spinning or weaving. The silkworm produces a soft gummy thread which gradually hardens, and the proposal is to imitate nature, and to draw out threads of any required thickness from a mass of silk-pulp. This might be called silk-wiredrawing; and if M. Ozanam succeeds, we may expect to see silk-cloth made by a process of pouring out and passing between rollers, somewhat after the manner of sheet-lead. Other applications suggest themselves; and if the silk-pulp can be hardened on drying, it might be manufactured into ornamental and useful articles for which gutta-percha is now used. At anyrate, it seems probable that the demand for silk will

increase, and we observe that South America is about to add to the supply. Some of the lands along the Rio de la Plata and in Uruguay are well suited for the growth of the Palma Christi, or castor-oil plant, on which one species of silkworm thrives to a remarkable degree; and the climate is so favourable, that six crops of cocoons may be gathered in a year.

The importance of the silk-trade may be judged of by a few particulars concerning the produce of Europe only. In an ordinary year, the silk-crop of Italy, including Southern Tyrol and the canton of Ticino, amounts to more than 100,000,000 pounds-weight, worth, according to quality, from fifteenpence to halfa-crown a pound. The total value is thus seen to be of great importance; and from that a notion may be formed of the loss arising from the silkworm disease, a disease for which no effectual cure has yet been discovered. In an average year, Lombardy alone produces 30,000,000 pounds of silk; in the year just past, the quantity was not more than 10,000,000 pounds. The utilising of silk-pulp will effect a great economy, as all kinds of silk-waste and silk-rags can be dissolved, and reconverted.

Admiral FitzRoy, who has been doing the state good service for some time past by his storm-warnings at our seaports, has now published a handsome octavo, entitled The Weather Book, for the benefit of all classes of readers. The admiral is not covetous of a monopoly of weather-wisdom, and he tells us in his opening chapter that the reader need not expect to find abstruse problems or intricate difficulties' in his book; that it is intended for many rather than for few, with an earnest hope of its utility in daily life.' The subject is one in which everybody is more or less interested; how should we ever get into conversation if it were not for the weather; and those who wish to devote some study to it will be encou raged by Admiral FitzRoy's assurance, that the means actually requisite to enable any person, of fair abilities and average education to become practically "weatherwise," are much more readily attainable than has been often supposed.' Let any one accustomed to notice signs of weather provide himself with a barometer and two or three thermometers, and inform himself as to the way in which he should observe the instruments, and take their readings, and he will soon increase his knowledge of meteorology; a word which is to be understood as expressive of all that takes place in the domain of the weather. If he reads the book now under notice, he will find all the information he can desire about instruments and observatories, and the results which they ought to accomplish; about the history of the weather in our own and other countries; about the weather peculiar to the different zones of the earth; about the effect of the moon, and the occurrence of cyclones and such storms as that in which the Royal Charter perished.

The present season has excited much attention among meteorologists; it has been unusually mild, and yet very windy, accompanied by unusually high tides. On December 22, primroses were gathered in full bloom in the neighbourhood of Penzance; and in London, the sun shone so warm on Christmas-day that overcoats were oppressive. Up to the first day of the new year, the temperature was seven degrees above the average. In Naples, on the contrary, the weather had been bitter, and in the north of Europe the frost was severe and unusually destructive, because of the small quantity of snow that had fallen. But in other respects, we did not escape: the fierce gales occasioned disasters round the coast; in Norfolk, the sea in two or three places regained its place upon reclaimed lands, and extraordinarily high tides pushed the salt water so far up the rivers that it reached some of the inland Broads, and killed thousands of fish, which were afterwards seen floating on the surface.

Bank-note forgeries, if provocative of ingenuity on the wrong side, do also inspire ingenuity on the right

side; and now a new method of engraving and printing bank-notes is announced, which is said to accomplish all that can be desired as regards security. The printing is so curiously interlaced, the black with another colour, that copying by photography is impossible. The ornamental part of the plates is engraved from an arbitrary matrix of very intricate design, obtained by transposition after the manner of a kaleidoscope. No engraver could imitate or reproduce such a plate unless he were in possession of the matrix, which would seem to render forgery impossible; for a banker has only to hold possession of the matrix from which his own notes were engraved, in order to defeat any schemes of imitation that may be attempted. In a busy commercial community such as ours, a method which offers security to bankers will no doubt receive consideration; and it is probable that something might be made of the practical suggestions put forward by the late H. Bradbury, whose handsomely illustrated volume shewed to what admirable perfection the mechanism for engraving had been brought.

The Institution of Civil Engineers have issued their annual list of subjects for premiums. It contains forty-three articles, some of which have been suggested by the disastrous tidal irruption into the fen country above Lynn last year. For example, one of the subjects, stripped of details, is a history of the successive changes of any fresh-water channel; another is a history of any tidal river or estuary; on the modifications of the tidal wave in its passage upwards; on the construction of dams, docks, and harbours. Another class of subjects takes in the building of suspension-bridges, boring of tunnels, drainage, sewage, and water-works; on the construction of railway carriages and wagons, with a view to the reduction of the gross weight of passenger and goods trains; on the means of utilising the products of the distillation of coal, so as to reduce the price of coke. Then we have the processes of iron manufacture, and steam-engines and super-heated steam; so that any competent person having knowledge and experience to communicate, may now send in his paper to the Institution above named. The highest premium is twenty-five guineas.

Among the papers to be read at the United Service Institution, we notice one on 'The Means for Scientific Physical Training, and on Rational Gymnastics;' another 'On the Formation of Bars at the Mouths of Rivers;' on 'British Columbia and Vancouver's Island;' on 'A Proposed Plan for a wholly Ironmade Armour-plated Vessel;' and on The Future of Naval Attack and Defence.'

ROBIN.

ROBIN on the yellow bough

Sits and sings,

Puffing out his crimson breast,
And in intervals of rest,
Prunes his wings.

Robin on the yellow bough
Sits alone,

Mourning for the summer past,
For the year that fades so fast,
Perched upon the rusty rail

By the graveyard stone.
Robin on the yellow bough
Mourns the winter coming now,
Mourns the rain, and mourns the snow,
And the cruel winds that blow—
Like a little orphan child,

Calm and gentle, sweet and mild,
Singing all alone.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by all Booksellers.

HOW I FIRST MET HER. 'FIRST-LOVE is the only true love,' say some people; and 'Love is love for evermore,' adds a poet of the affections. On the other hand, there are many persons, not without some reputation for judgment in commercial circles, who assert that 'first-love is calf-love.' I do not pretend to decide this question. But, at all events, first-love must happen to every man before second-love, and if it has not happened at all, it has yet to come. Under these circumstances, I cannot but think that the subject is of universal interest, and that any new experience of this absorbing passion will be received with rapture by the public. Variety is pleasing, but novelty is what I understand the magazines are just now giving almost anything for.* Balloon-adventures are rising, I believe, in the periodical scale; and narrations of descents into the craters of volcanoes (if active) are remunerated most handsomely. But conceive, Mr Editor, what would be the attraction of a volcanic experience, 'complicated,' as the doctors say, with an episode of the tender passion! A love-scene, for instance, in the crater! Vows of affection interchanged amid seas of burning lava, and with the mountain throwing Roman candles over the heads of the intrepid pair! Would not this be novel?-would not this be striking? I wish, for both our sakes (for yours, Mr Editor, and mine, that is), that I had met my Charlotte Elizabeth for the first time under the above peculiar circumstances. You would have hastily written, 'Name your own price,' would you not, and enclosed a blank cheque by return of post? I thought so; and the idea gives me much satisfaction, because+ I really did meet Charlotte Elizabeth for the first time in a locality by no means inferior (in point of exceptionability) to that of the bottom of a crater-and a great deal lower down. You will not imagine this to have been a coal-mine, I hope. I have met very charming persons of the opposite sex-and those of the first fashion-many hundred feet below the level of the sea, and attired in a masculine garb, for the convenience of descending shafts and travelling upon all-fours; but I should not

* Our contributor is amusing, but we see no reason to increase cur usual rate of remuneration in his particular case.-ED.

+ These hints respecting the amount of pecuniary remuneration looked for by our contributor are scattered broadcast throughout his paper, but in all subsequent instances they have

been excised.-ED.

PRICE 14d.

dream of sending the account of anything so ordinary to a modern editor. I am better acquainted, I trust, with the nature of his expectations than that. I should as soon think of claiming originality for laying a scene of Plighting Troth in the Thames Tunnel, which must have occurred long ago to every magazine-writer, and been rejected as commonplace. But to my tale.

In the days of my youth, and I doubt not for many years before it, there were wont to be two solemn metropolitan institutions, called the Colosseum and the Polytechnic. They professed to combine information with amusement, and science with hilarity. The electrifying machine (then in its infancy) delighted the young of that epoch at both those places, by setting their hair on end, by educing sparks from the backs of their hands, by making a crackling noise (if I remember rightly) at the napes of their necks, and by other humorous, though by no means painless, proceedings. There were melancholy conjurers, with an immense display of apparatus, every article of which is patent to the present rising generation, and would be despised by the babe of six weeks old. There were laboratories where a patronising individual, half-chemist, halfclown, made flame out of liquid, and turned green fluids into vermilion (I think) by pouring yellow upon them.

At the Colosseum, there was an eternal panorama of Timbuctoo under the Harvest-moon,' painted upon half a million of yards of canvas, and beheld from a gallery, out of which, as it seemed, one might be precipitated thousands of feet. I don't know how this illusion was effected, but I remember that it always made me very giddy, and that I was glad to come down in a sort of lift' afterwards (for which convenience we paid threepence each) instead of by the stairs. Then there was a grotto, which was cool even in August, and a conservatory that was comfortable in December; and dioramas, and cosmoramas, and glass-blowing, and lemonade, and not new buns.

At the Polytechnic, there were lectures by real professors, an electrical eel (the age of which was fabulous), solos on the accordion, steam-machinery (quite a wonder in those days), glass-blowing, and lemonade, and not new buns. We have changed all this, I believe. At the Colosseum, popular delusions are now 'exploded,' and the last arts of the latest Houdin laid bare; while at the Polytechnic, there is a gentleman who warbles like a whole woodful of

་

birds, and a representation of the tragedy of Bluebeard, that convulses the children with merriment. The boys and girls of the present day have no superstitions, as we had, but at seven are more sceptical

than we used to be at seventeen.

Seventeen was just the age at which I first met Charlotte Elizabeth-under water. What think you of that, Mr Editor? Are not such circumstances of first-love new? Permit me also to add, with my hand upon my heart, that they are moreover true.

It was on a Saturday afternoon, which was a holiday at our office in the City (although the Earlyclosing Movement was not so much as heard of at that time), and I was spending it in the improvement of my mind at the Polytechnic. I had sat in that stately hall, which is something between a theatre and a dissecting-room, to behold the wonders of science; I had gazed upon that wondrous apparatus for learning to swim upon dry land until my limbs were on the point of involuntarily striking out' for an imaginary shore; and I had gazed upon the electrical eel to repletion, when a great bell was rung, and a sonorous voice exclaimed: Experiments connected with the diving-bell.' Upon this, a great rush was made from all parts of the building to that circular pond of clear green water, the excessive depth of which has always been a marvel to me. Into whose cellars does it descend? What sewers does it for ever threaten with untimely flushing? From what fountains do its pellucid waves arise? Then the intrepid diver made his toilet in the presence of the company, being loaded with heavy weights, as though he were some desperate criminal, and having on his face a helmet fixed, to be presently screwed round by the assistants, a proceeding which appeared to the unscientific eye like wringing his neck. Covered with polypi in the shape of india-rubber tubing, this monster tadpole clumsily descended by an iron ladder into the pond, the bottom of which was already strewed with halfpence; after these, we could dimly see him waddle and stoop, made more hideous even than before by the watery medium-foreshortened, atright-angles-to-himself, exaggerated, disproportioned, slow the most horrible picture of cupidity that the mind is capable of conceiving. Above him arose large and noisy bubbles; and now and then he would emerge as to his head and shoulders, and tap his metal helmet with the halfpence, to let us know-as though we had not watched his horrid movements all along-that he had picked them up. Incredible as it may appear, I was attracted towards this amphibious pursuit of his; I felt as though I too should like to explore those airless depths, and make my business in those mighty waters. When he came out at last, like a two-trunked sea-elephant, and bowed in his repulsive manner to the spectators, I was almost afraid that he was going to offer any lady or gent' the loan of his apparatus. I was infinitely relieved when I saw it put away in a cupboard, for now no unnatural temptation

Any lady or gent for the diving-bell?' exclaimed the sonorous voice. The machine is now about to descend.'

My heart came into my mouth, and then retired about half-way down my throat, as I should judge. My extremities became cold as ice, as I gasped out: Stop a minute: take me in, please, do.' The crowd that already surrounded the machine parted to left and right, to let me pass. There was not the least hurry, of course; but if I had not spoken at once, I should not have done so at all. I was the first volunteer for this tremendous enterprise, and an object of great public interest.

'I wouldn't do it myself for a 'underd pound,' observed one gentleman, for the purpose of reassuring me, I conclude; and a friend of his replied: 'No, nor yet for two; it's what I call fool'ardy.'

I passed the little barrier; I gave the manager

the requisite shilling for the submarine passage; and I crept under the great goggle-eyed bell amid quite a popular ovation. A narrow seat ran round the interior of the machine; the atmosphere seemed close, even as it was, and the light was dim, although we were as yet in the land of the living. I perceived, however, a shining substance immediately opposite to me, which turned out to be a boy covered with buttons-the page of the establishment, whose dreadful trade it was to descend, I don't know how many times a day, in company with subaqueous amateurs. He had a rope in his hand, that hung down from the top of the bell, and which I fondly imagined communicated with the scientific authorities, so that we could be hoisted up again at a moment's notice, by signal; but this confidence was entirely misplaced. A certain round spot with a number of little holeslike the top of a sink-was the sole ornament of the apartment in which we were; and through this was to come the air we breathed. To say that I would gladly have got out again, and sacrificed my shilling, is to give a very feeble idea of my, state of repentance. I would have given forty shillings to be once more gazing-under the light of heaven-at the least remarkable object of interest in the institution. All the crimes I had ever committed during a checkered life seemed to crowd in upon my recollection. made the most ardent resolutions for conducting myself for the future after a different fashion-if I should only be permitted to emerge alive out of that bell. It is true that there was yet time for me to do so, for the director was still touting for passengers, but I had not the moral courage for such a step as this. I could not have descended amid the same crowd which had applauded my intrepidity, to experience its scornful jeers. I perceived the same feelings were actuating two other individuals who now joined us; they, too, cast wistful glances at the mouth of the bell, and were evidently contemplating in their minds the most salient points in their past wicked lives.

I