Ohio confirm these dates. Another reason for thinking that the time is not so many thousand years ago, is found in the fact that the shallow Minnesota lakes have not been filled up. And another is the freshness of pre-glacial remains, as wood. In Ross County, Indiana, thirteen feet below the surface of a farm, four hundred and thirty feet above the valley, a log was recently found so well preserved that it could be and was manufactured into articles of furniture. Here is opening a wide and interesting field for local observers. Speaking of present glaciers, Professor Wright said that they are not diminutive in themselves, but in comparison with the past they are insignificant enough. In Greenland there are nearly four hundred thousand square miles of territory almost wholly covered by moving ice. A great many large icebergs are continually breaking off into Baffin's Bay. Dr. Kane once saw two hundred and eighty, some being fully two hundred and fifty feet out of water and therefore two thousand feet deep. Explorers under Baron Nordjenskiöld, in July, 1883, penetrated three hundred miles inland from Disco Bay, reaching an altitude of six thousand feet, but saw only an illimitable icefield stretching on before them. One great glacier, thirteen thousand feet in breadth, moves into the sea at the rate of fifty feet per day; another was observed in 1875, moving sixty feet per day. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the super-glacial streams. In our country there are a few small glaciers still, in Utah and Colorado, above the level of eight thousand feet. The upper cañon of the Yellowstone is filled with a sixteen hundred feet deep glacier. On our western coast there are a large number of glaciers between Mount Shasta and Mount St. Elias. Mount Tacoma, over fourteen thousand feet high, has one glacier ten miles long and four thousand feet broad. North from Washington Territory the coast is very rugged, being formed of partially submerged mountains. As one enters Alaska the number of glaciers increases. From fifteen to twenty may be seen between Juno and Chilcat. Between latitude fifty-eight degrees and sixty degrees is perhaps the most remarkable mountain contour in the world. The peaks rise fifteen thousand to nineteen thousand feet, and the lofty icewalls are miles in extent. Here, near the Muir glacier, Dr. Wright spent the whole month of August, 1886. The Muir glacier is two and one-half miles wide, its icefront rises up three hundred to four hundred feet and moves into the sea at the rate of sixtyfive to seventy-three feet per day. The continual breaking-off of icebergs is like a steady, tremendous cannonade. Muir glacier is full of ice-peaks, rising like cathedral spires, glittering in silver and blue. A few miles away are cedar forests, once buried under three hundred feet of gravel; the ice having receded, this deposit is now being washed away. Some of these uncovered treetrunks are over ten feet in circumference. Dr. Wright increased the value of his admirable course of lectures by many superb views of icebergs, glaciers, and cold mountain scenery. We trust far more light will be thrown upon this subject in the future. It is one of absorbing interest. WHA RONDEAU. BY WILLIAM BARTLETT TYLER. HAT of the night, O watchman, canst thou say; The clouds which o'er the sleeping land are rolled, A weary, restless soul, who cannot stay Of Day with her glad hours, and hear it told, THE COLORED RACE IN MISSOURI BY SUPERINTENDENT J. M. GREENWOOD, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI. THE HE political rights conferred upon the colored people as an entire class by the general government was an experiment the results of which at the time none could foresee. Even the most sanguine were not free from forebodings, not because the colored man had the privilege of voting, but as to whether he would exercise his newly acquired privilege intelligently, and thus become a stable factor in our form of government, or whether he would use and abuse the power as a mere political trickster whose influence and ignorance designing and unscrupulous men would control for the most ignoble purposes. There is a class of citizens who believe in restricted suffrage, and this class foresaw dangers in extending the rights of complete citizenship upon the colored race. Without entering upon a discussion of this phase of the subject, it is sufficient for present purposes to accept accomplished results, and to inquire now what traits of character in the colored race have the last twenty years unfolded, and what is the future outlook. With rare exceptions, twenty years ago, the colored people of this State were uneducated and poverty-stricken dependent and helpless creatures. The former life of the slave had a tendency to make him shiftless and helpless, and the action of the government in providing for him rations had not the effect to stimulate those qualities which that people is now unfolding with remarkable aptness. It required time for a large majority of the colored people to realize that they must lean upon themselves, plan for themselves, work for themselves, and be men in reality and not in name only. As a consequence, the women engaged chiefly in such occupations for white people as they knew well how to do. In the towns and cities they washed and scrubbed and did various kinds of housework. Knowing well the character of the people among whom they lived, they were sure of fair compensation-such food as the family lived upon, and such articles of wearing apparel, as gifts, which the white folks no longer needed. For a Missourian to have a colored man or woman at work for him and not to give him or her breakfast and dinner, would be regarded as a contemptible trick and one entirely out of the usual order of conduct. Only a few openings offered for the men except that of day-laborers. Occasionally one had learned the blacksmith's or carpenter's trade. Some became barbers, and others found employment as porters at hotels and on railroads. Realizing fully that they must become educated in order to compete more successfully with the whites, they strained every nerve to educate themselves and their children. Old white-haired men and women studied the first reader and spelling-book so as to read the Bible, the papers, and to be able to write letters to friends and relatives, while they sent their children to school and urged them to study diligently. Without property, education, or influence, except what unorganized numbers could give, they started on the journey of life. The first lesson, as I have already intimated, was to learn how to depend upon themselves and to provide the necessaries of life. It is under such conditions that the negro character must be studied in order to a right understanding of it. In the first place, the colored people are the most cheerful and contented class of citizens we have. If the white man can live, he feels sure of living also. He will find something to do, and even under what to others would be discouraging circumstances, he still bears up manfully, and hope rarely forsakes him. A better time he confidently looks forward to, and he plans and works to get a "little home" after awhile. He has unbounded faith in seedtime and harvest, and never for a moment questions the mercy of providence. His social qualities are strong and deep, and in general he is faithful to promises of secrecy, rarely betraying a confidence. Kind-hearted, simple, and generous, he will divide his last crust with a true friend, be he white or colored. Life generally is all sunshine to him, and under the darkest shadows and most lowering skies, his wit and humor never forsake him. With an active imagination and a deep vein of reverence not unmingled with superstition, he is given to poetic sentiments which glitter and sparkle even in the ordinary course of conver sation. With large ideality and quick comparison, he sees the incongruous in nature and in art, which affords him an endless variety of amusement. It is true that his taste is not always elevated and refined, yet it is strong, healthy, and vigorous. Fickleness of character and a disposition to change frequently from one thing to another may be reckoned as one of the faults which he will in time overcome. As it is, the adage "A rolling stone gathers no moss "has no force in his eyes. To go off and to come back with money in his pocket is the secret mainspring of much of his life. But he is not the thriftless, lazy creature many would have us believe. Starting with nothing, to-day this race possesses not less than twenty millions of the real and personal property in the commonwealth of Missouri. Many an old woman at the close of the war bought a lot with a hut upon it, and by washing paid for it. Kind-hearted white people gave "auntie" time to wash the debt out, and to-day she has a home. A Missourian "who would sell a negro out" would be classed as mean," and not without cause. I have not known a Missourian who lived in this State prior to 1861, whatever were his political opinions, to foreclose a mortgage or to dispossess a colored man or woman of their home; but upon the contrary, to give them time to pay for their homes in labor or money, although in many instances years elapsed before the debt was canceled. 66 For some time it has been a question as to the negro's ability to learn the branches required to be studied in common and high schools. Some persons hold that colored children as a class are unable to do this kind of intellectual work, and hence it is time wasted in providing for them anything beyond the merest rudiments of a common school education. While it is true that a large majority of these youth may not pass beyond the common branches, and the same is true of white children, yet that fact of itself does not prove anything more than that the parents need their children to work at home, and cannot keep them at school longer. But there is another way to approach this question, and that is to compare the average white child and the average colored child intellectually, and to note the peculiarities as observed in the school-room. Exceptional cases will be found among both races, but these need not be considered on either side. As to what the average white child can do in school-work, it is hardly worth while |