A FABLE FOR GEOLOGISTS.

FROM A LONDON PAPER.

of the new houses of parliament. The hen was but a last year's bird; her partner had had more experience in nestbuilding, and had, therefore, been instilling into her the necessity of caution, and the danger of haste in their art. Jenny yielded to his superior judgment, though she longed to set about the second row of their residence. After a few minutes of silence, she lazily gave her wing a stretch, shook her feathers, and then delivered herself of the following remarks:-"I've been thinking how many, many summers they must have been building this great place. If we have to rest several hours for our little bricks to dry, what a long time one of these great stones must have taken to harden!"

"Yes," said her husband; "for though they have so many to work, still it must have required millions of years to complete such a building as this."

"And they're obliged to work with such great clumsy tools," added she; "if they had beaks and claws, it might have been easier and quicker done."

"And then," rejoined the other, "they have to fetch a good deal of their material from a great distance. I heard your father say, that he had seen them getting some stones from the other side of the sea, and that he had actually finished his own house and reared his family, before they had got them over."

king, so perhaps, they may not

have been so very long about it.'

THE ANGEL BOY.

THE night was bright and beautiful; the pale stars glittered in the blue heavens, and the silvery moon looked lovingly down upon a slumbering world. "The brightest, noblest angel, Death," left his golden home and descended to the earth to cull a flower for the heavensand pausing for a moment, said: "While the dew-drops are yet upon the flowers, I will return again, and another brilliant gem will I add to the diadem which decks the brow of the living God."

A mother sat watching her infant boy. She smiled, as he sweetly slept, for all that day had he been restless, and she thought, as she gazed on her cherub, that he was holding converse with happy angels, for heaven beamed o'er his lovely countenance. Truly was he a bright and beautiful child; and fondly did the young mother press him to her bosom, and kiss his ruby lips-sweeter to her than " essence from Araby the Blest." She loved him tenderly; he was the idol of her young bosom; she seemed to live but in his smile, and dreaded the thought of his being snatched from her. And as she continued to gaze she saw a change come over him—and in a moment he was sickly pale. A dreadful thought took possession of her, and she exclaimed, “He cannot, O, he must not die-he is my life-blood!" He awoke, sweetly smiled, and with his tiny hands endeavored to wipe the tears from his mother's eyes; and she thought she heard a voice whispering unto her,

But they had not observed an old martin who had been listening to their conversation without making any remark. Indeed, he thought it useless to do so with birds who seemed so determined in their own opinions. Still he did not like them to indulge the notion that all their tribe were of the same mind as themselves. He, therefore, quietly remarked, "You would do well to remember that men, though they cannot fly, can do many other things

bloom brightly in the garden of heaven! Fair mother, thou wilt meet him again!" Her tears flowed copiously-she heaved a heavy sigh—and in tremulous accents exclaimed, "Thy will, O God, be done!"

Again her cherub slept, but again he awoke not. The angel of death breathed over that fair face; and ere the dew was exhaled from the flowers, he had repassed the portal of heaven, and had borne to the throne of grace the spirit of the angel boy.

"I had a fight once," said Mr. Headfurst, "with a 'lectrical ell, in fifty fathom of water, west-by-south of St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall. It was one of my earliest jobs, and I was n't thoroughly used to the work at that time; and I had n't a mate, either, to go down with me. It's a fright'ning thing that sinking out of sight of everything, a'most, without knowing where you're going to, nor what you may find when you get there. This time the bell missed the wreck I was arter entirely, (which as it happened, however, was a very fortunate circumstance,) and I was lowered down to the very bottom. Half way down, Master James, what should come into the machine but an enormous 'lectrical eel. He came in, young master, and he stopped in; and the higher the water rose in the bell, the nigher I got to the 'lectrical eel. I pulled my precious legs up on the seat, I promise you, and sat tailor fashion all the rest of the way; but when we touched ground at last, I was n't above an inch or two off the beast-boxed up under the ocean, within a couple of inches of being shocked to death. Well, as I said, I was new to the work, and having banged at him with a pickax till I was tired, and he slipped away from me just like oil, I thought it would be an easier thing to suffocate him than me; so I did n't turn no air on for ever so long, and found myself getting black in the face, while the animal was swimming and gliding like a gentleman in easy circumstances enjoying the spectacle, and every now and then a-splashing with his tail for moderate applause. So I gave up that dodge just in time, and resumed my pick. The more I picked, however, the less he chose, which was an unappreciated joke I made to myself during those trying events themselves, and I was obliged to try summut else. I laid bare the floor of the bell, (which we can do within an inch or so,) got him into shallow water, and very soon finished him off. The skin is in the big chest, in my bed-room, and measures a hundred and twenty feet from tip to tip. I regret to say that the key is lost, or I should have great pleasure in showing it to you."

Once upon a time I persuaded Mr. Headfurst to let me accompany him on one of his submarine visits to the great three-decker which I first spoke of as sunken opposite. I was in a flutter of

fright and joy such as youths who have only been down in the bell at the Polytechnic can form no idea of. I had the perfectest confidence in the machine, and, above all, in my friend Thomas, but still I was in a greater state of "blue funk" than most boys of fifteen have ever any reason to be. The bell could hold but two, so I took the place of the other diver

though, of course, without a helmetopposite Thomas. I had become quite accustomed by this time to his hideous apparel above-board and on land, but as we sank lower and lower, and the light grew dimmer and dimmer, that terrible shako of his, and his pipes, and his paraphernalia grew frightfully unnatural to my perturbed vision, and I thought whether he might not be Davy Jones himself, and the bell his "locker." Now and then some strange and dreadful fish glided in upon us, but one glimpse of Thomas drove him out in an instant, and I did n't wonder. Nevertheless, it was far worse when I was left in the machine alone-with the fullest instruction, of course, as to airtubes, but also in the deadilest terror of forgetting them—while my friend (the only friend I had in all the sea) went about his business over the wreck-a very wondrous experience that, and not easily forgotten. Many reflections of an original character ought to have occurred to me, without doubt, which I should have now described, but, as I said before, I was far too frightened to think of anything except air-tubes and getting up again. After the longest half-hour anybody ever passed in their lives, my merman reappeared. He had fixed his hooks and eyes round a great brass carronade, and was extremely buoyant in consequence.

but, Master James, you must come down with a helmet some day, and then you will see wonders."

"Thank you, Thomas," said I, "all the same, but enough is as good as a feast; I have had my duck, and enjoyed it, nor do I want another. I should like, however, to hear of anything interesting you may have met with under those circumstances.”

"Well," said he, and he turned his quid in his mouth, and brought his right eye to bear steadfastly upon me, as was his wont during compilation; "I will tell you of an

"There was a friend of his, mate to a West Indiaman that was outward bound in a few days from Cork; and Bill, my brother, and he had had a difference: what the quarrel began about I don't rightly know, but the mate abused Bill's profession, and called him an amphiberous lubber, or something like that, and Bill abused the mate and wished him under the sea, with never an air-tube; and the ship sailed without making it up. My brother was very sorry when it was too late-for amphiberous lubbers has their feelings like other folks and greatly shook when news was brought, next morning, that the vessel had gone down not three miles from shore, with every soul on board. Just at starting, as it might be with all her passengers so full of hope, agoing to join their friends again-she struck upon a rock off Early Point, and settled down, as it was supposed, about midnight, in a few minutes. There was a good cargo of spice, and Bill was, of course, sent for immediately; there was but a few bodies floated to shore, and, knowing he would see some terrible sights, he was not over-pleased at the job; but until they could get more divers there was no choice, so down he goes to the vessel, and finds her fallen between two reefs of rock, holt upright, with masts standing and sails set, just as she settled down. She looked, he said, for all the world like any ship upon the surface, except that there was a hole broken in her side, where she had struck; her boats were slung almost uninjured, coils of rope were lying on the main-deck, the hatches were open and the door above the chief cabin stairs; the wet, swift fishes darted in and out of it, and the crabs were going about their work already when my brother descended. There were six or seven men in the cabin, gentlemen passengers, and a card or two that floated about showed they had been playing when the vessel struck; some of them were even standing upright, just as they started from their seats when they felt the shock, and one had a dreadful look, with pale, parted lips, as though a cry of agony had just escaped them; a young man and a girl-so like as to be sworn brother and sister-were embracing for the last time; the heaving of the sea, scarce felt at such a depth, swayed all the figures to and fro-without a touch of

that ship's company. The captain, in his cabin, slept his last sleep quite placidly. The sailors, for the most part, were drowned within their hammocks, only those whose duty necessitated their being on deck were washed off and driven ashore. The darkness had been so deep as to render the best look futile, the strongest swimming of no avail. All these things were sad enough, and Bill's nerves, iron as they were, were shaken sadly. Wandering about that living charnel-house, attired so unnaturally, seeking for gold in the very heart of ocean, it was terrible; and yet, Master James, though you look so shocked, it was his honest business so to do, and a far less hateful way of getting on in the world than is practiced in high places daily; still, when he had found what he wanted, and, laden with as many bags as he could carry, was returning to the main-deck by another way, it seemed to him the worst job he had been ever set to do—and, lo! at the foot of the companion-ladder, he met the man he knew so well, and parted with in wrath so lately, with one hand on the round, as if in the act of flight. The look upon the drowned man's face seemed to reproach him for his latest wish, so that he dared not put him aside and pass by, but turned back and went upon deck by the road he came; nor ever after that dreadful sight could brother Bill be brought to venture down into the sunk West Indiaman."

“Dear me, Mr. Headfurst," I said, "I never heard so frightful a tale in all my life."

"Nor I neither, Master James; but it's true enough, and so my brother will tell you if you ask him. I don't happen, just at present, to remember his address; but he dives a good deal still, off the east coast of Ireland."

THE women of the Carib Islands had, according to Lafitan, a language altogether different from their husbands. He has not referred to his authority. There is, however, no reason to doubt the fact; and the inference is that the Caribs were a race of conquerors, who took no women with them when they left their original country. Their wives never ate with them, never called them by their names, and served them in all things like slaves.

[For the National Magazine.

JUDGING FROM APPEARANCES.

BY ALICE CARY.

years

gins; but, judging from appearances, you would have said he was fifty-five, for he had worked hard ever since he was big enough to work, and, for some reason, had had fewer holidays than most men who in this free country live to be forty-five years old. His eyes were half shut with the wrinkles at the corners, and his complexion bronzed and hardened by continual exposure to the sun, and rain, and bitter cold, of all the long and drudging years through which he had passed.

His head was bald at the top, and his hair thin and gray on the temples; his hands large and clumsy, with veins swollen and knotty as they could be; his neck was lean and long, and his shoulders bent, merely because he had not energy enough to hold himself up, people said; and in his face there was a wo-begone expression that made some people smile and others sigh. It was a foolish fashion Moses Wolfe had got into, his neighbors thought; and if they were disposed they could put on just such a miserable look; and if they persisted in wearing it, they supposed they would find it just as difficult to lay aside as he did. But mixed with the wobegone expression, or struggling to get through it, there was one of patience, of resignation, and of hope; or rather of what would have been hope, if Moses Wolfe could have known any hope: why he could not, nobody knew; and judging from appearances, he would not, and that was all. No one ever thought of pitying him, or of looking any further than the appearances about him; and, standing a mile or two away from his house, and all the tireless help and love that should have been there, it was not easy to tell why the man should have been regarded by any as an object of pity.

By degrees he had lost the respect of people, for, the truth is, he did not respect himself. He did not present himself on election day with shaven face and clean shirt to make his vote count on what he thought the right side. Poor Moses! he did not know there was any right side everything was crooked and dismal to VOL. VII.-17

in some places; a number of the windows were broken, and you could not tell what color the paint had originally been. One or two old and unpruned trees stood in the yard, their tangled tops full of spiders' webs, neighbored by dozens of young trees that from time to time had been planted, all dead, and ready to be plucked up by the roots; many of them having had their bark gnawed away by hungry colts, and some of them having died of thirst, for Moses always forgot to pour a little water about the roots, no matter how dry and hot the weather after their planting; perhaps that he had been so little used to the dew of life himself. But we will not anticipate.

There was a frolic at Mrs. Fundy's-a quilting party-and all the farmers' wives and daughters, for two miles around, were there; the wives in black gowns, and the daughters in white ones; the elder ladies talking of soap-making and sugar-making, and the younger ones of new bonnets and their lovers. Mrs. Fundy made the room warmer than the sunshine with her smiles. The quilting was going on nicely; and though she had fifty quilts, she thought this would be the prettiest of them allthe young girls might make hearts or arrows in the corners, just as many as they chose. Everything had gone just right -even the two ginger-cakes, baked in the great bread-pan, had not burned one speck, top nor bottom; there was only the least imaginable drawback to her happiness, on two accounts: she feared her friends would tire themselves to death with quilting so fast and so nice; and she began to fear the most charming of her neighbors was not coming, for it was now ten minutes past two, and Mrs. Wolfe could not be seen in the distance. I do hope she will come, said one to another all around the quilt, for all were looking to Mrs. Wolfe, as they always did, for patterns of the fashions- since she, be it known, was the most stylish woman in all the neighborhood.

Anne Hadly was appealed to, she being thought likely to know the probabilities, inasmuch as "she went out sewing;" but