and turning my eyes to look for Euphemia, saw only a frightful black cloud.

8. "We waited till it had passed away, when nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was to be seen where the city once stood." In like manner did Port Royal, in the West Indies, sink beneath the waters with nearly all its inhabitants, in less than one minute, in the year 1692.

9. Still more awful, though usually less destructive, is often the scene presented by a volcanic eruption. Imagine yourselves, for instance, upon one of the wide elevated plains of Mexico, far from the fear of volcanoes. The earth begins to quake under your feet, and the most alarming subterranean noises admonish you of a mighty power within the earth that must soon have vent.

10. You flee to the surrounding mountains in time to look back and see ten square miles of the plain swell up, like a bladder, to the height of five hundred feet, while numerous smaller cones rise from the surface still higher, aud emit smoke.

11. In their midst, six mountains are thrown up to the height, some of them at least, of sixteen hundred feet, and pour forth melted lava; turning rivers out of their course, and spreading desolation over a late fertile plain, and for ever excluding its former inhabitants. Such was the eruption by which Jorullo, in Mexico, was suddenly thrown up in 1759.

12. Still more terrific have been some of the eruptions in Iceland. In 1783 earthquakes of tremendous power shook the whole island, and flames burst forth from the ocean.

An Eruption-Summit of Volcanic Mountain.

In June these ceased, and Skaptar Jokul opened its mouth; nor did it close till it had poured forth two streams of lava, one sixty miles long and twelve miles broad, and the

other forty miles long and seven broad, and both with an average thickness of one hundred feet. During that summer the inhabitants saw the sun no more, and all Europe was covered with a haze.

13. Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less than forty villages were reposing in peace. But in August 1772, a remarkable luminous cloud, enveloping its top, aroused them from their security. But it was too late; for at once the mountain began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared, with the forty villages and most of the inhabitants, over a space fifteen miles long and six broad.

14. Still more extraordinary, the most remarkable on record, was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca Islands, in 1815. It began on the fifth day of April, and did not cease till July. The explosions were heard in one direction nine hundred and seventy miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of forty miles, that houses were crushed and destroyed.

15. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet thick, and the vessels were forced through them with difficulty. The darkness in Java, three hundred miles distant, was deeper than the blackest night; and finally, out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of the island, only twenty-six persons were saved.

HOW TO SAVE.

in-stal-ments, part payments. | as-so-ci-a-tion, joining to re-source, something to de- gether.

pend upon.

mickle, much.

ex-er-tion, working, striving. fru-gal, careful, thrifty.

1. In the first place, I wish to say that I believe it is possible for almost every one to save. Perhaps you question this. But I will tell you why I say so. Suppose you earned a shilling a week less than you get at present, you would have to make it do, wouldn't you? Well, make it do as it is, and put that shilling a week by for some unlucky time, when you earn nothing at all.

2. Or, again; how many know what it is to save backwards! Now, if you can save backwards, you can save forwards. You know what saving backwards means. Illness comes, and brings a long doctor's bill-too long by far to be met out of the week's earnings. How is it to be paid? Why, by weekly instalments, till all is settled. Now, if you can save backwards to pay a bill after it is due, why not save forwards, that you may have something ready to meet it when it comes?

3. It is an unfortunate fact that, as a rule, English working-men save less than those of almost any other country. To compare ourselves with our neighbours on the Continent: in almost every European country the peasants possess their little bit of land, and often, as in Saxony, they own the houses they live in.

4. A Frenchman will go without half the comforts an English working-man allows himself, until he has scraped together enough to buy his few acres of land. French folks are quite astonished at the spendings of English people. "Ah," you say, "but they earn more money than we do." Not at all.

5. It has been well said that more money is made by saving than by earning. Even threepence a week becomes gold in twelve months. Sixpence a week yields a sovereign in less than a year. A young man beginning at twenty to save sixpence a week, has £100 by him when he is sixty, while a shilling a week continued from the same age produces £200 at sixty.

6. It is strange to think how money, like trees when well planted, grows of itself. Do you know that a sum of money placed out at 5 per cent. compound interest, doubles itself in fourteen years? The man who regularly spares a portion of his earnings to put by will soon have a comfortable resource to fall back upon, and will not need to look for help either from charity or from the parish.

7. A great many men think they are doing quite enough in the way of providing for themselves if they belong to a club; and there are so many advantages in association, that perhaps a working-man cannot do better than have a good club as the first string to his bow; but let him have an account at the Savings' Bank as the second,