space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge; but I have never yet seen any one chart pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between northern and southern countries.

2. We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their fullness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration, -- that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco-wind.

3. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun; here and there an angry spot of thunder, a gray stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano-smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes: but, for the most part, a great peacefulness of light,-Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue,-chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain-chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel and orange, and plumy palm, that abate with their gray-green

shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand.

4. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians, stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in gray swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture-lands.

5. And then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness. And at last the wall of ice sets, death-like, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.

6. And, having once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet.

7. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then, submissively acknowledge the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being.

LANGUAGE STUDY.

I. Write the analysis of: spectator (specere); irregular (regere); contend (tendere); traverse (vertere); submission (mittere).

II. From what verbs or adjectives are these words formed: "fullness;" "migration;" "difference;" "peacefulness;" "plumy." Point out a personification and a simile in paragraph 3. What two powerful figurative expressions in paragraph 5?

36.-The Professor in Shafts.

la-pěl, that part of a coat which | pa-răb ́o-là, a curve having an laps over the facing. infinite branch.

PREPARATORY NOTES.

(1) Bethel... Lewiston... Brunswick: these are places in Maine. In Brunswick is Bowdoin (the "professor's") College. - (7) Scylla and Charybdis (kā-rib'dis), the names of two rocks between Italy and Sicily, and only a short distance from each other, both formidable to ships which pass between them. Hence the proverb here made use of.

1. A singular illustration of the extent to which theory often fails in practice was furnished by a ven

erated professor,-a most distinguished mathematician. The professor went to Bethel: on his return he spent the sabbath at Lewiston. Monday morning he was told the horse was sick: nevertheless he started. The horse went a few rods, fell down, and broke both thills. He then sent his wife home, and also sent to Brunswick for another horse and carriage to take him and the broken chaise home.

2. When the driver came they lashed the two vehicles together, and started. All went well till they came to the first long, steep hill between Lewiston and Brunswick on its summit they held a consultation. The professor had an exaggerated idea of his strength, and said, "Mr. Chandler, it is too much for the horse to hold these two carriages on this steep descent: take the horse out; I will get into the shafts."

3. "Professor," replied Chandler, "the breeching is strong, and so is the arm-girth.”

"But the horse, Mr. Chandler! it is too much for the horse. Besides, I know how to take advantage of the descent, and manage it much better than the horse."

"If the horse can't hold out, you can't."

"Do you, sir, intend to place me, in point of intelligence and knowledge of mechanical forces, below a horse? I have made mathematics the study of a lifetime."

4. "I have no intention to be disrespectful, sir; but I know that a horse understands his own businesswhich is handling a load on a hill-better than all

the professors in the United States. I was sent up here by my employer, who confides in me, to take care of his property if you will take the business out of my hands, and be horse yourself, you must be answerable for the consequences."

5. The professor had a habit, when a little excited, of giving a nervous twitch at the lapel of his coat with his right hand. "I," he replied, with a most emphatic twitch, "assume all responsibility."

6. The driver, in reality nothing loath to witness the operation, took out the horse, and held him by the bridle; and the professor, getting into the shafts, took hold of them at the ends. The forward carriage was just descending the hill, and the hinder one a little over the summit, when the professor trod upon a rolling stone, which caused him to plunge forward, and increased the velocity of his load so much that he was forced to walk faster than he desired, and exchange the standing position - with his shoulders thrown well back and feet well braced, which he had at first adopted -for a perpendicular one.

7. At length he was pushed into a run: the carriages were going at a fearful rate. At the bottom of the hill was a brook; on each side, precipitous banks. The professor was between Scylla and Charybdis, going nine feet at a leap. In order to cramp the forward wheel, he turned suddenly to the right. The shafts of the forward carriage went two feet into the bank, breaking both of them short off: the lashings of the