the glass and pipe hang to Ella's cheek! Esther. Let me try. O, I cannot pull it off! Tom. Let me look inside the glass. The cheek swells up inside like a round ball, and the blood seems ready to fly out of the skin. Mr W. Well, now suppose Ella to be the cow, and the blood in her cheek the milk, and the pipe and glass the teat, and me the no, no-Tom the calf. All. No, no, father-you are the calf. Mr W. Well, well, I'll be the calf, and you shall all be the wise people to tell us about it. Go on. Tom. No, father, you must. Mr W. If I am 'calf,' I cannot; because I cannot suck and talk at the same time. Kenneth. Let me be calf. Mr W. Now, Ken, suck away. See, it swells more and more. Now, if this cheek, and blood, and pipe were actually the bag, and milk, and teat, what would take place? Tom. Why, the milk would run into Kenny's mouth. could not breathe. Now all this two or three miles of air above the cow, press upon her equally. Will you help me out, father? Mr W. Bless you, my dear boy, that I will. Suppose there was one part of the cow where this vast weight of air did not press upon, what must take place? Tom. Why, all the fluids and solids would be squeezed and forced out there. Mr W. Just as in this basin of water; if I press a lesser basin down to the bottom, that pressure drives and forces the water over the sides. Tom. Now I know why a sucker draws, and a fly can walk upon the ceil Mr W. Exactly so. Now you see ing. How delightful it is to know all it is not pulling. What is it? these things thoroughly! Tom. I think I know. Do not laugh at me if I am wrong. The air, you know, presses equally upon every part of the cow; there are many hundreds of pounds weight of air upon her. Ella How can that be? Tom. Why, Ella, you know, a balloon has carried people two or three miles high; and if there was no air there they Mr W. This is my great object, in conversing with you on such subjects. It is in science, as it is in journeying through a hilly country-the climbing up is difficult; but what glorious views burst upon us, when we have climbed over all the difficulties! Almost all the boys and girls of my acquaintance keep all their days in the valley of science, WHY SOME HEADS BREAK EASIER THAN OTHERS. because they stumble at the commencement. But why does a sucker draw? Tom. Because it is pressed flat upon the stone; by which all the air between it and the stone is pressed out; the string is pulled, by which the centre of the leather is pulled from the stone: no air is there-it is a vacuum. All the miles of atmosphere press 'upon the sucker and try to force an entrance into the space between the stone and the leather. This it cannot do; but it presses the leather at the rim a thousand times closer to the stone. CHAPTER XIV. Why a young man may break his head, and why an old man may not. Mr W. Can any of you tell me why Tom may tumble down and break his head without injuring him, and your father may not? Amelia. Is Tom's head thicker than yours? Mr W. Very likely; but that is not the reason. Guess again. Ella. Is it softer ? Mr W. That may also be true; but still, I want a better reason. 237 Tom. Is it owing to its being rounder? Mr W. The roundness of the head of every man, woman and child, is its greatest safeguard. Why is a round head stronger than a square one? Tom. Because it is a series of arches, which are the strongest forms; but, as your head and mine are both round, why should not an injury to mine be as hurtful as an accident to yours ? Mr W. There is a beautiful provision in the young skull, which saves the life of many an adventurous boy; in fact there are two-one for your youngest brother, and one for you. Tom. Indeed! your Mr W. His little head is composed of six or eight pieces. If you were so cruel to him as to squeeze his head, all the bones would overlap one another, and then fall into their places again; but in head all these bones have grown together, and you have now two skullsan inner and an outer one. Between these two is a network of bone; so that if you fall and fracture the outer, the crack is stopped by the network. In my head, on the contrary, these two skull caps, and this middle substance have all become solid bone; and if I fall violently I fracture the whole. Amelia. I never thought I had two heads. Mr W. Not exactly two heads, but one head with two layers of bone. What may we learn from this? Tom. First, that our Creator saw that when young we should be in greater danger of injury, and provided a remedy. surround us; and it is during this age Mr W. In our earliest infancy, when sleeping in a mother's arms, the brain is unprotected by bone in several parts of the head. If it were solid and bony, the soft brain could not grow as rapidly as it does; and in this stage of our life we are protected by the sleepless watching of a mother. As we advance in years, from infancy to manhood, perils and dangers that the contrivance just described is especially needed. With increase of age comes increase of wisdom. The infant is secure in its mother's arms; the young man rushes heedlessly into danger, and his brain is protected by this diploé, as it is called; but the man has reason given to him, that he may foresee impending danger and avoid it. A New History of England, HENRY FOURTH. FOR CHILDREN. OUR little History of England is received with great favor among those children who prefer true stories of real persons to Merry romance. Our subscribers constantly increase, especially since we select such useful subjects as we now do for Parley's Mag. We now go on with the Lancaster line of kings-their name still being Plantagenet. Henry was a usurper, for he was descended from John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, who was Edward Third's younger son; whereas the children of Edward's second son Lionel ought to have reigned before him. But the crown that he stole did not make him happy. Oh no, sin will never make any one happy; and you know he murdered Richard, so he was a thief and a murderer. He had one little boy, who was called Henry, after his father; and he was a wicked child; he liked to play with idle wicked boys, and they taught each other to laugh at sin. When he was grown up to be a man, one of his idle companions was one day taken before a justice, sir William Gascoyne, for theft. prince was there, and ordered the judge to let the young man go without punishment, and when sir William refused, the prince was very rude to him, and it is even said that he gave the judge a slap on the face. Sir William put the prince The HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR CHILDREN. into prison. When the king heard of it he thanked sir William, and ordered prince Henry to beg the old man's pardon, which he did the minute he was bid, and then king Henry said, 'I am a happy king to have a judge so honest, that he is not afraid to send my son to prison, and I am a happy father too, to have a son who is not ashamed to confess, when he has been wrong.' But to return to the king. I like him for being just, and I like the prince for obeying his father; but their goodness was rather transient. Henry was the first king that burnt a man for his religious opinions, and this man was a priest who would not believe in the Roman Catholic Religion nor bow down to images. His son Henry gave him great uneasiness by his profligacy; he seemed to forget he was the son of a king, and often joined with his riotous companions in committing petty robberies, and in disguise lay in wait for the receivers of his father's rents to rob them of the king's money. Henry was in continual fear of losing his crown, and when he went to bed or dered it always to be laid on his pillow, lest it should be seized before he was dead. He was subject to fits, and was one day thought to be dead, when the prince took up the crown and carried it away. Soon after, the king recovered, and missing the crown eagerly inquired for it. Being told the prince had taken it, he sent for him, and asked him whether he would rob him of his royalty be ་ 239 fore he was dead? The prince replied, He never had any such thoughts, but believing him dead, he had taken the crown as his lawful heir. Nevertheless, he thanked God he saw him again recovered, and heartily wished he might long live to wear it.' At the same time he brought the crown and laid it in its place. On the next page is a representation of the Prince, addressing the crown before he removes it from the pillow, on which, as he thought, lay his dead father. And as we cannot give our young readers a better conclusion to our short history of Henry IV. than the words which Shakspere has given to the Prince, we insert them also. Henry died at Westminster, in his forty-seventh year, leaving the throne to his son Henry. Short Lessons to be committed to memory. HENRY FOURTH. Character-He was a thief and a murderer, cruel and deceitful. Right to the throne-A usurper; he was descended from a younger son of Edward, and took the crown from Lionel's children, who ought to have reigned before him. Death-1413, taken in a fit as he was worshipping in St Edward's chapel, and carried into the abbot of Westminster's, where he died in a chamber called Jerusalem. Possessions-England, Wales, Normandy and Ireland. |