smooth-shaven lawn" - which is surrounded by drooping evergreens, myrtle, ivy, and laburnum-affording glimpses at almost every point of the blue bay and cliffs beyond, and dight with lustrous patches of rhododendrons, dahlias, drooping fuschias, and red and white roses. How poor Tickler took to scampering over the emerald lawn, and darting about among the shrubs-rolling over and over, wildly jumping up against ourselves, and saying as plainly as dog could say, who had just travelled some hundred and fifty miles, chained up in a dark dog-box, "If this isn't Paradise after Purgatory, I am not Tickler II.!" We were, however, quickly reminded of the passage in the foregoing letter relating to the disfigurement which the thieves had inflicted upon him. What do you think the miscreants had done? Cut off the hair close, round each eye, as well as at the top of the head and sides of the mouth, leaving two long tufts at the end of the jaws; also cutting away the hair from his breast and the back of his neck so that the first idea he suggested to us was, that they must have intended clipping him into a resemblance of a French poodle! the wretches! Imagine a Skye poodle! And it was pitiful to feel his ribs and backbone, so sharp were they, and well defined! When, moreover, subjected to the test of suspension by his fore-paws, his lightness told heavily of six weeks' scanty feeding!

The first moments of wild joyousness over, poor Tickler eyed me very solemnly, as I did him in turn; and in his eyes, looking mournfully out of his bald face, was plainly written -"Isn't it a shame?" Nevertheless, in due time, he gave a good account of some chicken bones, to which he afterwards added nearly half a tumbler of spring-water, and then lay down on the lawn, to contemplate the lovely scene before and around him, and contrast it with Pancras Street and St Giles's !

The next morning beheld the important operation of his elaborate, thorough, and indispensable ablutions, as will appear when it is borne in mind that in all probability his last had taken place on the

Saturday before his being spirited away. I happened to see him, through a back upper window, standing silent and unresisting in the midst of a goodly trough of soapsuds; and when, some two hours afterwards, my daughter herself had combed so much of his hair as was left, I will be bound that there was not a sweeter dog in Christendom. I know, while saying this, that Pil (the Vicar's Skye) is within a hundred yards, and not unworthy of commendation; but still he is not Tickler, and besides, let my reverend friend wait till Pil shall have been stolen, clipped, disfigured, and disguised, as Tickler has been! "Aha," said he to me when I said this to him, "but there are no dog-stealers in my parish!"

SYMPTOMS OF IMPROVEMENT.

Each succeeding day made a difference in Tickler for the better. Wholesome and select victuals (we are celebrated for our chicken and mutton bones in these parts), plenty of pure water, fresh air, and exercise, frequent sea-bathing, and a mind at ease (except perhaps when he reverts to the dismal past, or shudders as he asks himself, "Am I to be stolen again?"), are doing their work well, and telling their own tale. In fact, he was himself, a few days ago, under my own eye, made unpleasantly conscious of the fact that he was no longer the barebones he had come hither. We have a little ornamental iron gate, opening from the lawn on the carriage sweep; and the morning after he came, he squeezed himself with perfect ease under the open space between the gravel and the bottom of the gate. This feat, however, he performed with visible dailyincreasing difficulty, and at length fairly stuck fast! to his great alarm, manifest in his countenance; and it was only a desperate effort that got him through. I have not seen him make the attempt since!

WILL TICKLER II. RELATE HIS ADVENTURES?

Why not, since his predecessor did? I was naturally curious to hear some

thing about the seventy days' captivity of Tickler II., and took occasion several times, when we were alone, to intimate my wishes. As he did not seem inclined to respond, I took for granted that he happened to be "not i' the vein ;" so I resolved to seize what I conceived to be a highly favourable opportunity, and then ask him plump; and if he refused, learn the reason why.

Not far from where I am writing is a stupendous land-slip, which has become in time, mantled as its uneven surface is with green-sward and luxuriant foliage, a scene picturesque and grand whichever way the eye turns. On a lovely morning, or rather early noon, in this pleasant month of September, I sallied forth to enjoy the sublime scenery, silence, and solitude afforded by this landslip. How unspeakably fresh, pure, and beautiful looked everything above, around, below-earth, sea, sky! A powerful steadfast N.E. wind had fairly routed the black battalions of sullen rain-clouds which had so long chilled and oppressed the earth, and distressed its inhabitants, and driven them clean out of sight, even into the far west; while the sun, in his glory, shone in the cloudless sky, cheering the souls that had been so long deprived of his beams (truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun), and warming the earth into fruitful luxuriance. Before me stretched to the right the boundless blue waters; to the left they formed a charming bay, nothing visible on either but a tiny glistening sail or two. I sat on the summit of a grassy knoll, my book lying unheeded beside me, my chin leaning on my hand, and I gazing around me, with an occasional sigh of appreciation. No sound entered the ear save that of the sea-far, far, beneath, faint and soft, as it kissed the sands, or dashed in gentle dalliance against the base of the cliffs, which looked down upon them in awful silence Tickler also seemed penetrated by a sense of the beauty of the scene, for he lay stretched at my feet, looking towards the sea, motionless, and once or twice sighing. He had had two hours' sport in chasing the rabbits (sole tenants of the

land-slip), but which had flitted about before him only like little shadows or ghosts! for he never could get at them, or even near them.

"Isn't this lovely, Tickler?" said I, thinking it just the very nick of time to get him into talking humour. He looked up at me silently, with almost a human expression in his eye, and his tail wagged gently.

Rather different this from St Giles's-eh, Tickler?" He lay with his nose between his paws, and his eyes fixed on the ocean, his tail straight as an arrow. From a faint motion about his nostrils, I fancied him smiling, as if inwardly tickled by something or other.

"Tickler! Tickler!-Good dog, Tickler!" said I, coaxingly. He rose slowly, stretched himself after his usual fashion, with evidently an exquisite sense of enjoyment: suddenly his whole nature seemed roused, and he was off like a shot after a rabbit that had just caught his eye far beneath! Vain-in short, utterly vain

were all subsequent entreaties and blandishments; the little dog persisted in maintaining, in the strictest sense of the word, a dogged silence. Everything, however, turns out for the best, and so it did in the present case, as the reader will see; for I have now something to tell him very far exceeding in wonder and interest anything which I have hitherto communicated. I shall have to draw largely on his trust, but am not conscious of having done anything to cause my drafts to be dishonoured. If I am about to exhibit my much-loved dog in quite a new aspect, and disclose a startling interference with the laws regulating things visible and invisible, material and spiritual, I cannot help myself; for Truth is Truth, and never more so than when it necessarily involves complete contradiction, and absolute impossibility. I was once myself a confirmed unbeliever in the reality of what I am now as certain of as that I formerly disbelieved it.

TICKLER II. AND THE GREAT MEDIUM!

"It's all very easy to laugh, and say Pho! pho!" replied my friend; "but the Wonderful and the True

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have always to encounter incredulity and ridicule as their appointed foes, over whom they always triumph!" "Just consider for a moment"I've already told you he's to be at Lady's this evening, as a special favour. She is young and beautiful, and has become a believer, and has prevailed on the great man to show some of his prodigious doings, in order to try to overcome

"But on a dog!-It's preposterous!"

"My good friend, everything human or animal yields to his astonishing and mysterious influence. A distinguished Parisian savan assured me personally that the operations on a poodle at St Cloud the other day, overwhelmed and filled everybody with awe. The poodle rose slowly from the floor towards the ceiling, and, when midway, floated several times gracefully round the room, with a wrapt air, the white tuft at the tip of his tail softly brushing against the nose of an august spectator, who seemed transfixed with awe-the Medium majestically waved his hand towards the window, which noiselessly opened, and, in the presence of the august person referred to, three members of the Institute, the Archbishop of Paris, and the British Ambassador, the poodle floated through the window, the Medium informing us, in tones of dulcet melody, that it was gone to have an interview with the Dog of Montarjis!

"Bless us-Well, what has become of him?"

"Become of him? No one knows,

except the Medium, who won't answer questions."

"But suppose my Tickler goes through the window after the poodle, and I never see him any moree-what the wiser shall I be? and yet. By the way, I forget I may learn from him, before he sets off, who and where the rascal is that took him on the 28th June last-that will be something. But did the poodle

at St Cloud say anything before he started?"

"It's already," said my friend, looking at his watch impatiently, "half-past five o'clock, and the thing begins at nine. We have to dine, and Lady's is at least six miles off. My carriage is in the lane; and if you like, you and Tickler may jump in, and we'll see what comes of it."

There was no withstanding my friend. So, after much misgiving, which the dog also appeared to share, we both jumped into the carriage, followed by my friend, and off we drove. I became very thoughtful as we went along; and resolved, with the Great Medium's permission, to ask Tickler, first, "Who had stolen him on the 28th June, and where the rascal now was?" secondly (in the interests of natural science), "Why does a dog generally turn round three or four times before he goes to sleep?" If he answer me both, or either, of these questions satisfactorily, I may become a believer, and perhaps, also, even a Medium myself.

*

*

*

Can it be? Are there any longer such things as Laws of Nature?—Oh, Tickler!

GEOLOGISTS and Archeologists have recently somewhat startled the public, by announcing the discovery, in the north-east of France and the adjacent corner of England, of supposed indications of the existence of the Human Race in the remote age when these tracts were inhabited by the extinct Elephant, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, and other mammals, whose bones are preserved in the Diluvium, or great superficial deposit attributed to the last wide Geological inundation.

These indications are of the nature of rudely-chipped lumps of chalk-flint, fashioned to serve the functions of hatchets, knives, and other tools, and, it is conjectured, of instruments of war likewise. They occur in not inconsiderable numbers in the gravelquarries or sand-pits of Abbeville and Amiens, and also at a few other spots bordering the wide valley of the River Somme, more sparsely on the Seine, at Paris, and at one locality in England-namely, Hoxne in Suffolk. It is estimated that the total number of these "worked flints," exhumed since their first detection by their eminent discoverer, M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, some twenty years ago, exceeds 1500, and may even approach 2000 specimens.

The first recognition of these interesting relics was not an affair of chance, but the result, as M. de Perthes assures us, of a systematic search for traces of antediluvian man, undertaken by him subsequently to the year 1838, at which date he published a learned work, entitled De la Création, in which he stated his conviction that sooner or later such traces would be found. For ten years he examined with scrupulous care and diligence every exposure and excavation in the so-called diluvium throughout the Departments of the Somme, the Seine, and the Lower Seine; and though he failed to discover any actual remains of man himself, he found many specimens of artificially-shaped flints, showing marks of a human origin. His first accounts

of these were submitted to the Emulation Society of Abbeville, but he published a more elaborate description of them in 1847, in a remarkable work, Antiquités Celtiques et Antediluviennes, where their several forms are accurately delineated, and the situations under which they were found are carefully stated. Strange to say, his announcements awakened but little attention, notwithstanding their startling nature, and the characteristic alertness of his countrymen to advance in any freshly-opened track of research. He appealed with little success to the archæologists and geologists of France, for a recognition of his facts, until 1854, when M. Rigollot of Amiens, a Corresponding Member of the French Institute, a highly scientific antiquary, and a sceptic in regard to M. de Perthes's conclusions, undertook a scrupulously severe investigation of the phenomena. A prompt and frank_recantation of his doubts by this learned archæologist, in a pamphlet entitled, Mémoires sur des Instruments en Silex trouvés à Saint Acheul près Amiens, et considérés sous les Rapports Géologiques et Archéologiques, drew the attention of the Institute at last to the subject. Soon afterwards several other skilled observers-M. Buteux of the Geological Society of France, and M. E. Hebert, a Parisian Professor of Geology, among them-visited the localities on the Somme, and confirmed the genuineness of M. Boucher de Perthes's discoveries. It is only within the last two or three years that the subject has attracted the notice of British scientific men. The indefatigable Dr Falconer-at present so zealous an explorer of the kindred problem of the antiquity of the human remains lately found in some British and other caves-first pointed out to some of the members of the Geological Society of London, the high importance of M. Boucher de Perthes's researches. Thereupon, Mr Joseph Prestwich, already well known for his successful examinations of the superficial deposits of

many parts of England, addressed himself to a scientific study of these French ones containing the "worked flints." This able geologist submitted a paper on the subject to the Royal Society of London in 1859 (see Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. x. no. 35, p. 51), in which, abstaining from theoretical considerations, he expressed his belief that the flint implements are the work of man-were found in undisturbed ground-and are associated with the remains of extinct mammalia; adding, as his opinion, that the period was a late geological one, but anterior to that at which the surface assumed some of its minor features.

Mr Prestwich has re-examined the French localities several times, and lately presented another more amply illustrated memoir to the Royal Society of London, which is soon to appear in print. Other distinguished British geologists have corroborated the statements of M. de Perthes and Mr Prestwich. One of the most interesting of these recent verifications of the authenticity of the flint-implements is a communication by J. W. Flower, Esq., to the Geological Society of London, read June 22, 1859, and printed in the Society's proceedings, vol. xvi. p. 190, and entitled, "On a FLINT IMPLEMENT recently discovered at the base of some beds of DRIFT GRAVEL and BRICK EARTHI at St Acheul, near Amiens." This paper is important in the history of the subject, for its authenticating the actual finding of a good specimen of a wrought flint, by a competent explorer (the author himself), who "found it lying at a depth of 16 feet from the surface, and about 18 inches from the face of the quarry, to which extent the gravel had been removed" by him. Annexed is a cut of the very specimen, on one half the scale of Mr Flower's lithographed representation of it in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.

My own visit to the gravel-pits of Abbeville and Amiens, the results of which I propose to embody in this communication, was made in August last, under circumstances sufficiently propitious for gaining an insight into the conditions of this question of the true nature and import of the flint

M. Boucher de Perthes, with the liberality and frankness for which he is

distinguished, not only opened his rich museum of specimens from the gravel-pits to my inspection and study, but generously placed in my possession nearly the whole literature of the subject, as well his own extensive works as numerous memoirs by his distinguished French colleagues. Besides examining other lesser collections of the "flints" and mammalian bones exhumed from the Diluvium, I gave my close attention, during several days, to the gravelquarries themselves, whence these materials were procured, repeating my visits to them until my mind was assured of its ability to decipher their contents as a great physical record. I make these personal statements simply as my title to the can