Allan describes, of a velvet black, and exhibiting the conchoidal fracture more clearly than either cannel-coal or jet. He also mentions "a species of brown, silky, fibrous coal, which in consistency resembles hemp or other vegetable matter, and occurs among beds of brown coal, at Frankfort on the Maine."

The third species is called anthrakite, or stonecoal, and in Scotland, blind-coal. It is the oldest in date, the gasses have almost entirely escaped from it, and left a hard mass consisting of carbon, nearly as pure as charcoal. Most of the Welch coal is of this kind.

Coal is not generally found in such thick beds as many other strata; although in America there are anthrakite mines into which a coach and six might drive and turn with ease. The deepest bed of coal known in England is at Dudley; it is thirty feet in thickness. Those at Newcastle are only ten feet, and from that depth to two feet are the usual sizes. If a seam of coal be less than two feet thick, it is not thought worth the working.

Among the curiosities of coal may be named a number of large trees found in the Dudley mines, whose bark is converted into coal, and the interior filled up with sandstone. At Merthyr Tydvil the roof of one mine is formed by the trunks of trees, flattened as if they had been rolled out; and much of the Welch coal, if washed and examined, is distinctly composed of twigs and foliage, fernplants, &c.

The next article in the drawer is amber, what a contrast to the black and gloomy coals!-yet only differing from them in the proportions of the gases

combined with the carbon. It contains about seven parts of oxygen, and seven and a half of hydrogen, to eighty and a half of carbon. The Prussian and Baltic shores furnish the finest specimens of amber; but in Greenland and also at Paris, it is found imbedded in clay. On the coast of Sicily, amber with a peculiar blue tinge is washed up. The imaginative people of the East suppose amber to be produced by the tears of sea-birds; but the less romantic sages of the West declare that, from its optical and chemical peculiarities, no doubt exists of its being a vegetable substance, if not a positive gum or resin. One of the most interesting facts connected with it, is the preservation of insects in masses of amber, some of which are not now known to exist, Allan says; and many have evidently struggled hard for their liberty, having left scattered limbs behind them in other parts of the mass from that where the body has finally sunk and become inclosed. They have alighted or crawled on the amber, while yet soft and recent, and have been unable to escape from its gummy surface. A piece in this drawer, two or three inches long, contains the head, body and some other fragments of a large insect resembling a dragon-fly; with the whole persons of some small flies near the surface, while an unhappy little beetle, of stout though short proportions, has sunk nearly half-way to the bottom.

Amber is easily cut into toys and ornaments. Among other specimens, and next to the unfortunate dragon-fly and his companions, (embalmed for our modern inspection, no doubt against their wills,) is a pair of little shoes, high-heeled and thick-toed, about an inch long, cut in dark Prussian amber,

and looking not unsuitable for the Fairy Queen, were they rather lighter in their form.

The next article is somewhat different, being a piece of solid black-lead pencil, which would probably be viewed with contempt by some of my refined readers. But black-lead (as it is vulgarly called,) is plumbago, or graphite, which is carbon, mixed with about one tenth of iron; so that the unseemly bit of pencil has a native right to take a place by the fairy shoes; and though it be much less pleasing to the eye, be it remembered that it is far more useful; and in fact, it has traced many a circle, and other geometric figure, in its day.

This is a suitable place for petrified wood, or other fossil vegetable; as carbon is the main component of such specimens. Petrified moss is a beautiful article, but generally very fragile. I have a piece from Greta in Yorkshire, nearly white, and very delicate in structure. A contrast to this elegant little fossil is presented by a thick piece of petrified wood, which I prize highly: not only as the gift of a dear friend, but as a proof that common fossilization does not require the ages which many geologists claim for it. This block is about three inches deep, and is a section of a log three inches by five; the woody fibre is visible in every part, but the weight, hardness, &c., shew it to be now stone. It was evidently cut into its present size and form before it was petrified; it has been split, and chopped with axe or hatchet, in its original condition of wood, and also marked by some boring instrument. Consequently, this specimen was wood in the era of British civilization, and has not required “hundreds of ages" to become stone. It was found, with a

number of similar pieces, on the side of a white oolite hill in Wiltshire, during the laying out of a pleasure-ground. The country people declared that it must be "the wood that was left when Noah did build the ark." We never knew before that the ark was built in the west of England.

X. Q.

[Errata, in the last number, for "chlarates and chlarides," read chlorates and chlorides-and for "fluoides," read fluorides.]

* * * IT cannot be doubted that, whatever walk of science he may determine to pursue, impossible as it is for a finite capacity to explore all with any chance of success, he will find it illuminated in proportion to the light which he is enabled to throw upon it from surrounding regions. But independently of this advantage, the glimpse which may thus be obtained of the harmony of creation-of the unity of its plan-of the theory of the material universe, is one of most exalted objects of contemplation which can be presented to the faculties of a rational being. In such a general survey he perceives that science is a whole, whose source is lost in infinity, and which nothing but the imperfection of our nature obliges us to divide. He feels his nothingness in his attempts to grasp it, and he bows with humility and adoration before that SUPREME Intelligence who alone can comprehend it; and who "in the beginning saw every thing that He had made, and behold it was very good."-Professor Daniel's Chemical Philosophy, 1843.

THE FRUIT OF THE LIPS.

IF the Christian feels many joys with which a stranger intermeddleth not, he has also causes of grief the worldling never knows; and just in proportion to his conformity to his Master's Spirit, is his participation in his sorrow. Yet, let none think that the path of life is one of painfulness alone; surely there breathes not one, who having tried it with sincerity, has not felt how richly the balm of a Saviour's love soothes every pang the knowledge of that Saviour gives. Love to Jesus makes us mourn for many things on earth, but Jesus' love takes the sting from every earthly grief. If He leads His people in a dark way -so that they see him not, still they feel his guiding hand; if in a sorrowful path, have not his own tears softened the rugged road; if he gives a bitter cup, has he not drank thereof himself?

But if Jesu's love casts out earthly disquietude, love to Jesus brings in a sorrow-increasing and abounding as the Believer grows in grace; this is, sensitiveness to the exceeding sinfulness of sin, in his own heart especially, and in all that meets him generally. As the thoughtful disciple, in his meditative moments, glances over the world's wide map, and reflects on how small a portion of it the Sun of Righteousness sheds his hallowing light, does he feel no sorrow? he knows, he rejoices, that the kingdoms of the world shall yet be the kingdoms of his