Jan Mayen and get the best of the fishing before the crews of the other vessels can commence. We must, however, confess that we doubt whether the crew of any single vessel would be found courageous enough to do this, and for the simple reason that there would probably be the crews of some fifty Swedish and British vessels looking on, who, in the absence of policemen in those cold localities, might, and probably would, make it unpleasant for the offending crew. We may, then, rest assured that so soon as a law has been passed by the two countries principally interested in the fishery, that law will practically become the regulation governing the method in which the sealing is carried on, whether the vessels engaged in the trade belong to those countries or not, more especially when we remember that other nations will, if necessary, be invited to pass similar laws.

There is but one other point to be mentioned, and that is, that it may, before many years have elapsed, be found necessary to institute a year of grace, say every third or fourth year, during which no seal fishing shall take place. But it will be advisable to postpone such an arrangement as long as possible, inasmuch as the crews shipped on board vessels engaged in this trade are special crews, and there might be some difficulty in getting them together again after they had once been discharged. No doubt this difficulty could be surmounted by offering each seaman a small retaining fee, payable to him on his re-engagement after the year of grace, and this would not add very materially to the total expense of the voyage.

One word of comfort, in conclusion, to such of our lady readers who have been shocked by the accounts of the cruel manner in which this seal fishery at Jan Mayen is carried on. They will be pleased to learn that their" dear" seal-skin jackets do not come from that part, but that they are the skins of a different kind of seal, which is killed by the Americans and Russians near Aliaska and the Kurile Islands, and in the vicinity of Newfoundland. Whether the Americans and Russians kill the seals in a more kindly manner than the Scotch and Norwegians we are not prepared to say, but we hope they do.

A MIDSUMMER DANCE.

BY PERCY HAMILTON.

HE lads and the lasses from homestead and chalet,

To a chesnut-girt meadow have wended their way; They have come from the lake-side, the alp, and the valley,

To dance through the hours of a midsummer day.

The fiddlers play briskly, and briskly the dancers

Keep time to the music with light twinkling feet;
And words whispered softly bring still softer answers,
As hands are pressed gently, and eyes shyly meet.

Round the thyme-scented meadow the elders are sitting,
Whilst the little folk joyously play at their knees,
They gossip and laugh as the dancers keep flitting
In and out of the shade of the old chesnut trees.

Apart from the gay groups, deserted and lonely,

An old woman sits and looks on the gay scene; She watches the dancers, but with her eyes only,

Her thoughts are far off from the dance on the green.

She thinks of the days when her feet were the lightest

That brushed off the dew from the flower-spangled grass; That her lips were the ripest, her eyes were the brightest, There were many to tell her, as well as her glass!

She thinks of the young men who fought for her favour,
Who ran at her bidding, and came at her call:

She gave them a word, or a smile, and they gave her
Their heart's honest love, but she laughed at them all.

She thinks of the one, whom at last she had chosen,
The truest and noblest of all she had known;
Who had melted her heart, so cold and so frozen,

And warmed it with love, till it glowed like his own.

And where were the maidens who danced at her wedding?
The young men who trolled out their merriest staves?
All gone like the rest!--and their children are treading
The sweet summer flowers, that bloom over their graves.

Where too were her children (the crown of her losses),
Who one by one lovingly hung at her breast,
Then faded away? Now she thinks of the crosses
That mark in God's acre the place where they rest.

Down her care-furrowed cheeks the hot tears slowly trickle,
As she thinks of her old age without any prop,
Death has had a rich harvest! she wishes his sickle
Had cut her down too, with the rest of the crop.

Worn out with her walk, and her thoughts so heartrending,
Her hands drop down listlessly into her lap;

With eyes slowly closing and head forward bending,
The old woman falls gently into a nap.

But, oh! what a change has come over her features,
A smile round her lips is beginning to play;

From the saddest she turns to the happiest of creatures,
And the sunbeams have kissed all the tear-drops away.

She dreams by her loved ones that she is surrounded,
And tenderly whispers each well-beloved name;
Her voice seems as if from a distance it sounded,
'Tis the old woman's voice, and yet 'tis not the same.

The dancers give in, though they're loth to surrender,
For stars in the sky are beginning to peep,
The laughter is loud, and the partings are tender,
But still the old woman smiles on in her sleep.

"So old and so weary! we must not forsake her,

Let us see her home safely," a kind maiden said; "How happy she looks, 'tis a shame to awake her."

The old woman has gone to her home, she is dead.

Death has dealt with her kindly, whilst peacefully sleeping She has passed from this sorrowful world to that place, Where the dwellers know nothing of parting and weeping; Is it strange then she wears a sweet smile on her face?

OUR COLONIES.-VI.

THEIR COAL DEPOSIT S.

NE of the most important and useful of the natural productions of our Colonial possessions is certainly that of coal, especially in its future relations to their material progress, and the aid they can thus afford to the parent State. As yet the vast deposits of coal in our various Colonies have been scarcely developed, for only a few localities are at all extensively worked.

A country without coal is deprived of, perhaps, the most powerful agent of civilization. In these days of steam-engines, steamboats, and railways, on the use of which we are so dependent for commercial intercourse, and the provision of innumerable wants, coal, the prime mover of all this vast machinery, is an absolute necessity, and if it be not produced within our country, we must draw our supplies, at great cost, from other places.

In a paper read by the late Mr. Eddy, before the Royal Colonial Institute, in 1872, "On the Natural Distribution of Coal throughout the British Empire," after asserting that coal is not only the most important of all products in ministering to the arts of peace, and supplying the sinews of war, is the one great agent for facilitating intercourse between distant lands, and for supplying the physical bonds which unite our Colonies to each other and their parent State, he goes on to show that coal-fields situated near the seaboard, and, therefore, available for marine and naval purposes, exist in abundance in our principal groups of Colonies, and form a most peculiar and distinctive feature of the various members of the British Empire.

The export of British coal has gone on increasing year by year. In 1873, over 12,617,000 tons were shipped, and the Board of Trade returns show that in 1874, the export was 13,909,000 tons, besides 2,900,000 tons for the use of steamers engaged in the foreign trade. How highly desirable, therefore, must it be to lessen this great drain upon our home supplies, by working and utilising wherever possible, the large existing coal-fields in our Colonies. The bulk of our extensive shipments of coal go, however, to foreign countries, and feed rival factories.

It is a fortunate circumstance that, with few exceptions, wherever important British Colonies have been founded, there has also been found a local supply of coal; thus the colonists of that race, which, above all others, has attained great national prosperity by means of its vast mineral wealth, find in their new countries the same agents whereby to build up a like greatness.

Starting from England, the first considerable supply of coal we come to is on the very nearest part of the coast of North America, and this is on British soil. The island promontory of Cape Breton, stretching out towards us into the Atlantic Ocean, teems with bituminous coal of excellent quality; seam above seam crops out on the face of the cliffs to an aggregate depth of about 150 feet, several of the seams being from 6 to 8 feet thick, one 39 feet thick, and another 22 feet. A little further to the west, highly bituminous coal is found at Pictou, and at the head of the Bay of Fundy, stretching across the narrow neck of land to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The supply of this coal-field is, without doubt, enormous; its importance cannot be exaggerated, and its advantages are threefold. It opens out on a bold coast, abounding in harbours, on the very nearest portion of the American seaboard. It is close to our naval arsenal of Halifax, "the western sentinel of the Atlantic," and it renders easy of achievement and of maintenance the great intercolonial railway, which is destined to bind together, in material intercourse, the several States of the Dominion already associated in a political union. It is probable that Nova Scotia, in proportion to its extent, stands unrivalled in the productive capabilities of its coal-fields. In 1851, only 115,000 chaldrons of coal were raised in the province; in 1872, the quantity raised was 881,000 tons, and the average number of persons employed in the colleries was 3,522. Nova Scotia coal now sells at remunerative prices in several markets hitherto altogether supplied from Great Britain.

As regards the steam coal, in a few cases, determinations of sulphur have been made; but from this impurity the greater part of the coals now worked in the Pictou region is quite free. One point of difference between the Welsh steam coal and the Pictou coal is this: whereas the former gives a larger amount per ton of steam evaporating power, it also gives a larger amount of sulphur, causing a clinker, which adheres and eats the bars of the furnace; whereas the latter, with a less amount of steam-producing power, contains hardly any sulphur, but makes a large amount of ash. For fuller information on this branch of the subject, a "Report on the Coals of Pictou County," by Mr. Edward Huntley, F.G.S., may be consulted.

Most of the albertite and other coal of New Brunswick is consumed in the province, and only a few thousand tons are exported annually.

Coal is also supposed, with good reason, to exist on the western shore of Prince Edward Island.

The carboniferous system appears on the opposite coast of Newfoundland. The Governor of that Colony, in a recent official report to the Colonial Office, states the fact that coal exists over a large area on the western side of the island, has been ascertained beyond a doubt, and this must be