DEFINITIONS.

Jointed, having ridges round it.
Reed, a stalk, a little tree.
Incline, to lean, to approach.

Serrate, to indent like the teeth of a saw

Numerous, many,

Reserve, to keep back, to save.

Extract, to draw out, to press out

'THE sugar cane is a jointed reed, commonly measuring from three feet and a half to seven feet in height, and sometimes rising to twelve feet. When ripe, it is of a fine straw color inclining to yellow, produc

ng leaves or blades, the edges of which are finely and sharply serrated. The joints of one stalk are from fifty to sixty in number, and the stalks rising from one root are sometimes very numerous.'

The canes are planted in fields somewhat like corn, and in November, when they are in full blossom, such a field is said to be one of the most beautiful productions, that the pen or pencil can describe.

In harvesting the cane, the leaves are reserved as food for cattle, and the stalks cut into pieces about a yard long, bound into bundles, and carried to mill; where they are bruised, and the juice is extracted, and boiled into sugar. In the best of the West India islands, one acre of cane produces three or four thousand pounds of moist, brown sugar, and sometimes èight thou sand pounds.

CHAPTER XXIX.

DEFINITIONS.

Magnitude, size, greatness.

Multitude, a great number.

Speedy, quick, sudden.

Remedy, a cure for sickness, or sores; a cure for any evil.

Mortal, deadly, destructive.

Brandish, to shake, to swing, to flourish.

Rapidity, swiftness, quickness.

Velocity, swiftness, rapidity.

Ascend, to go up, to climb.
Similar, like, of the same kind.

ON SERPENTS.

THE Common name of a serpent is snake, and the natural history of them is called •Ophiology. Almost all children, who are old enough to read this book, have seen snákes, and are sufficiently acquainted with the shape of them. They are of almost all colors, either separate, or mixed, spotted, or striped; and among other colors, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, and black. Their mouths are very large for the size of their heads; and their tongues are long and forked.

Serpents differ extremely in length and magnitude. We have a brown snake among us, which is not more than ten or twelve inches long, and not so large as a pipe stem; and it is said that, in some parts of the world, there are tnose, which are not more than three or four inches in length. On the other hand, if we are to believe multitudes of witnesses, there are serpents not only twenty or thirty, but seventy, eighty, or an hundred feet long.

Serpents are oviparous animals; that is, they are produced from an egg. But the shell, or covering of this egg, is not brittle like that of a fowl, but more like paper. The young snakes go into their motner's mouth and throat, when they

wish to be brooded, or to escape from dan ger. This I have myself seen.

Some serpents are vènomous, and without a speedy remedy, their bite is mortal. In our country, however, there are very few of these. The rattlesnake is perhaps the only poisonous serpent in New Engand, unless the adder be óne; the brown adder, which has a sting in its tail, nearly an inch in length, which I have seen it brandish with great rapidity.

ful.

The motion of serpents is very wonder

Some of them will run upon land with great velocity, and they will ascend trees to a considerable height. They are supposed to move forward by the help of the scales on the under side of their bodies.

Serpents are among the strongest, and at the same time the most voracious animals in the world. The little snakes among us, we know, will swallow mice and frogs, that are larger round than themselves; and there is a serpent in some of the hot countries at the south called the Boa Constrictor, which swallows in a similar manner, men, goats, deer, buffaloes, and oxen, and is more than a match for a full grown tiger.

10

This tremendous animal, which is said to be from twenty to forty feet long, suspends himself by his tail from a tree, till some unhappy animal passes under him, whom he seizes by the nose, and winding himself around him, breaks one after another, every bone, and bruises him to a jelly. After this, he stretches his enormous mouth, and swallows him whole.

[See Goldsmith, and N. E. Encyc.]

Conversa on fourth between a Mother and her Children.

MOTHER. Philo, you may take the Bible, and turn to the fifth chapter of Daniel. There is something, I wish you and your sister to read.