getting and using our coal. After the coal and its attendant shale, so useful in the manufacture of paraffin, we have the magnesian limestone,' and new red sandstone, then shell limestone,' and marls." Lias limestone and shale follow, then the colite, or egg-shaped particled limestone. The chalk and greensand - next appear. On strata of this sort the city of London stands. All these were called the SECONDARY FORMATION.

We have now clays, marls, gypsum, or plaster of Paris, so useful in the arts, and called stucco after it is formed into figures. Sandstone and calcareous grits9 complete the old TERTIARY SERIES.

We must now step out of the bucket, for we are near the surface. The rest of the pit-shaft must be solid masonry, founded upon the rock. Behind the building is drift clay with boulders," or huge round stones like enormous pebbles, some weighing several tons. Alluvial sand and gravel. lie above, and then we have vegetable soil,' on which we depend for our food and raiment, and which makes our earth so fair and beautiful by its numberless products and the various trees and plants that grow in such rich luxuriance in the tropics and temperate zones.

Had we leisure to examine closely the stratified rocks noted in our ascent of the pit, we should find in them petrified remains of animals and plants, many of which are of most extraordinary forms. To these the name of Fossils has been given. No fossils have yet been discovered in gneiss, mica, and talc slates ; hence these rocks have been classed as Azoic (A) or void of life. From greywacke to mountain limestone are found the oldest fossils, and these are classed as PALÆOZOIC (B) or ancient life. The remaining rocks are classed as MESOZOIC (C) or middle life, and CAINOZOIC (D) or recent life.

TO A SKYLARK.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

un-pre-med-i-ta-ted (L. in, rot; pre, before ; meditor, to think), not previously thought of, not done purposely or by design. pro-fuse [L. profusus, from pro, forward ; fundo, to pour], exuberant, lavish, liberal to excess. pres-ence (L. præ, before ; sum, I am), the state of being in view of, or near any one, approach face to face, nearness. po-et [L. poeta, from Gk. poieo, to make), the writer of a poem, one skilled in making verses.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit !

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still, and higher,

From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire ;

The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest,

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

1

Keen are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not.

What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower ;

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view,

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass :

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine ;
I have never heard

Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divino.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,
Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt,-
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain ?
What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain ?
What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain ?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee;
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures

Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

EXERCISE.-05. COMPOSITION. 1. What is meant by trochaic measure? What is the length of each of the lines of the first stanza?

2. Are the following rhymes correct: cloud, overflowed ; grass, was; pain, strain; not, fraught; found, ground; flow, now?' Give verses for your answers.

3. Express in you own words the following : Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

THE MISERIES OF CAPTIVITY.

LAURENCE STERNE.* so-lil-o-quy [L. solus, alone; loquor, to speak], a talking to one's self, or a discourse addressed to one's self when alone, or even in the presence of others. prop-o-si-tion (L. pro, before; positus, from pono, to place], something proposed or offered for consideration, “ As for the Bastile, the terror is in the word. Make the most of it you can,” said I to myself, “the Bastile is but

* LAURENCE STERNE was born at Clonmel, November 24, 1713, and died in Bond Street, London, March 18, 1768. He was a clergyman, and held two livings in Yorkshire, besides being a prebend of York. His principal works are “ Tristram Shandy" and " A Sentimental Journey,” from which the above extract is taken. He possessed peculiar power as & humorist, and his works contain many beautiful touches of sentiment and pathos, which, it is to be regretted, are merely clever and life-like word-paintings by a facile pen, and in no way prompted by genuice feeling for the misfortunes of others.

P