orders of the king, they were removed to Westminster, and buried in a suitable manner.

Edward V. was succeeded by his uncle RICHARD III., in the year 1483. When Richard had thus attained the great object of his ambition, he was far from being happy; there is no rest for the murderer; he lived in continual dread of conspiracies, and in the nights, it is said, he was disturbed by the most dreadful dreams.

Richard did not long enjoy his basely acquired honours, for the Earl of Richmond, a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, entered the country with the view of dethroning him, and being joined by great numbers, he advanced till he met with Richard, who had assembled an army to oppose him.

The dreadful conflict took place at Bosworth, in Leicestershire,* when Richard was slain, after fighting with a courage deserving a better cause, and Richmond was saluted king. Richard's reign only continued two years.

Richard III. was succeeded by the Earl of Richmond, under the title of HENRY VII., in the year 1485. On ascending the throne, Henry's first care was to obtain the hand of Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV., thus uniting the interests of the two houses of York and Lancaster, and putting an end to the dreadful civil wars that had prevailed for many years.

In these unnatural conflicts, in which brother frequently fought against brother, upwards of one hundred thousand persons were slain, and amongst these were sixty princes, and half of the nobility of the land.

In consequence of Henry's imperfect title to the crown, many conspiracies were formed against him,

Les'-ter-sher,

but these, by his prudence, were put down; his ruling passion was avarice, and this he carried to such an extreme, that at the end of his reign, he left behind him nearly two millions of pounds, an immense sum in those days.

During Henry's reign, which continued twenty-three years, America was discovered by Columbus.-The Cape of Good Hope was first doubled, and Shillings were first coined.

LESSON LVIII.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

Architecture means the art of building, but it is more particularly applied to building with a certain degree of art, elegance, and taste, so as to afford accommodation, and excite sensations of pleasure and satisfaction in the beholder.

All great civilized nations have been desirous to erect magnificent buildings for the purposes of public worship, the administration of government, and other national purposes.

The tides in the Med-i-ter-ra'-ne-an and Baltic seas are scarcely perceptible; all the water that can be attracted by the narrow entrances of Gibraltar and the Sound, within six hours, is not sufficient to occasion a visible rise in those seas; and, in like manner, all which could flow out in six hours, is not sufficient to cause any perceptible fall.

Lightning is electric fluid passing from one cloud to another, and thunder is the noise made by it in its passage; we generally see the lightning before we hear Ar'-ke-tek-sher.

the report, because light moves with inconceivable quickness, while sound travels much more slowly.

When a thunder cloud is very near, the thunder will immediately follow the lightning, and then there may be some slight degree of danger, and if we are travelling, it is safer to keep on the public road, than to take shelter under trees, which are frequently shivered to pieces. We may at any time know the distance of a thunder cloud, by observing how many seconds, or how many beats of the pulse, intervene between the lightning and the thunder; if as many as five, we may conclude the distance to be a mile, and if ten, it will be two miles.

Although lightning is sometimes attended with fatal results, yet it is beneficial to man; it consumes hurtful vapours, promotes the circulation of the air, and frequently brings rain when much wanted.

The cuckoo is a migrating bird, and arrives in England about the end of April, when we hear its wellknown note; it takes its departure in the beginning of autumn, as soon as the young are able to bear the fatigue of their flight.

The humming bird, so called from the humming noise it makes with its wings, is the least of all birds; there are many different species; the smallest is about the size of a humble bee, and its feathers are beautifully variegated.

Humming birds are found in great numbers in South America, and the West Indies; their food is chiefly the juice of flowers, which they extract by means of their bills.

Foxes are still numerous in England, and are not extirpated on account of the diversion they afford in hunting; this country formerly had wolves, bears, and wild swine, but now the only wild animals found are foxes, deer, polecats, wild cats, hares, rabbits, squirrels,

otters, badgers, hedgehogs, weasels, moles, rats, and mice.

Naturalists class a great number of animals under the genus felis, or cat kind, from their great resemblance in form and habits, as, the lion, the tiger, the panther, the leopard, the lynx, the ounce, and many others.

The le'-ver is the foundation of all the mechanical powers for raising weights; any thing long, that will not bend, may be used as a lever-the poker is one.

Levers are used for raising heavy bodies; thus, in a stone quarry, we see a workman move a heavy block of stone, which would require a number of hands to accomplish, if no lever were used.

LESSON LIX.

CLIMATE.-RAIN.

Great Britain is proverbial for the uncertainty of its weather; the reason why it is more uncertain than the other countries of Europe, is, because it is an island, and the weather on islands is usually more changeable than it is on large continents.

This fickleness in the climate is, upon the whole, an advantage rather than a disadvantage, for during the season of vegetation, our fields are generally in a growing state; and have often a beautiful verdant appearance, at the very time that those upon the neighbouring continent, are burnt up with drought.

In this country we are bountifully supplied with one of the first necessaries of life, namely, water; we obtain it from springs, and wells; from brooks and rivers, and from the clouds when it rains.

Millions of tons of water are hourly taken up in vapour from the ocean, by the joint action of the wind; and the sun, and this vapour, being lighter than the atmosphere, continues to rise till it meets with colder air, when it appears in the form of clouds, which are wafted about by every wind that blows.

These clouds become so heavy with vapour, that the air will no longer bear them up, when the moist particles run together, and fall down in fine drops, which we call rain.

When rain falls, part of it is required to carry on vegetation, and part of it runs down the sides of hills, and forms little brooks, and these in their progress meet with other brooks, and these uniting, they continue to increase until they become a river, and this at last. makes its way to the sea, to be again taken up in vapour, and supply us with more rain; thus water may be called perpetual motion, for it is never at rest.

The young reader will naturally ask why the water that rises up from the sea is not salt? To this it may be observed, that salt is two heavy to evaporate or rise in the air, and that nothing but pure water rises up, all the salt being left behind.

A great deal more rain falls in hot than in cold countries; thus, in the West Indies, the rain that falls in the year is seldom less than one hundred and twenty inches deep, and in the East Indies about eighty inches, while in England the average quantity is about thirty inches, and in Norway and Lapland, it does not exceed half that quantity.

More rain falls in the western counties of England than in the eastern; the winds from the west and south west, in their passage over the Atlantic Ocean, draw up great quantities of water, and when the clouds reach the western coast, they are attracted by the hills, and fall in rain, and these clouds, before they reach the