you with a gay and smiling air. I wish those gentlemen whom we call philosophers would show us distinctly the secret springs of these wonderful movements, instead of filling their famous writings with their little superstitious reasons which are almost always false. The sages humbly confess that nature has her unsearchable depths, and to speak properly, all these are things divine. They acknowledge also that one of the greatest sciences of true philosophy is not to be ignorant of our own ignorance.-Leguat's Voyages.

Sir Robert Peel remitted 3,358,000l. of taxes.

Wordsworth-Poet Laureat.-As over his own mountain scenery so over his verse there often hangs a chilling mist, there is often felt a cold northern air: but the clouds break up, and between their flying shadows are caught glimpses of vivid beauty and magnificence which richly reward our watching, and which will remain like the genuine sublimities of nature for ever after treasured in the memory.

Great Events from Small Causes. - The climate of North America has been materially changed by some small flies, which, torment

ing the wild cattle, deer, &c. drive them into the burning woods to obtain a deliverance from their enemies by the smoke; the native inhabitants having learned this secret, avail themselves of it to obtain their game, and for this purpose some millions of acres of forests have been burned, to the great benefit of the climate. Another great effect is produced by this conflagration, that of an extermination of the game, the support of the native Indians who in their greediness for prey, kill as it were the goose that lays the golden eggs; and thus not only the American continent, (says Sir F. Head) is gradually undergoing a process which with other causes will assimilate its climate to that of Europe, but the Indians themselves are clearing and preparing their own country for the reception of another race, who will hereafter gaze at the remains of the elk, the bear, and the beaver, with the same feelings of astonishment with which similar vestiges are discovered in Europe; the monuments of a state of existence that has passed away.

A Practical Parodox.-At the British Association in Cambridge, in 1845, an experiment was exhibited of ice made in a red hot cupel of

platinum, by the evaporation of water and sulphurous acid.

Maynooth.--The folly of educating at the expense of the state persons who would be piously opposed to the Church establishment, is only to be paralleled by the folly of the Dutch, who sold gunpowder to their own besiegers.

Formation of Man.-Man passes through the states of fish, reptile, bird, and the lower mammalia before he attains his specific maturity. At one of the last stages of his fœtal career he exhibits an intermaxillary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape-this is suppressed and he may then be said to take leave of the inferior animal type, and become a true human creature. Even as the varieties of the race are represented in the progressive developement of an individual of the highest, before we see the adult Caucasian, the highest point yet attained in the animal scale.

Chinese Language.-Dr. Morrison says the oral language of the Chinese does not amount to more than four hundred words; each of these different words is spoken with four different accents, so that the total amount is increased to 1,694, whereas the lowest estimate

of the written characters, according to Dr. Marchman, is 30,000. This poverty of language obliges the Chinese to appear a very grave reserved people, as they sit together frequently for a long time without talking a word, and when they speak, the sense is made out by observing the countenance and gesticulation more than by articulate words. The Chinese will hardly answer the most simple question unless it is expressed in writing; and no official orders are given but in writing.

The Reformation.-The Reformation began without the clergy having much to do with it; and as it arose not on religious grounds, but on political and judicial, the people left the King and Pope to settle it between them. The reformation of doctrine came on very slowly indeed in England. It was not the object of the cause, neither was it the first consequence of the change: we took up our present Church and State condition before any change of doctrine was effected, without any alteration of the service-book, and with the consent of Romish bishops, as Gardiner and others. The supremacy of the Pope was renounced, and that of the King resumed. As the most learned

lawyers affirm that the law confirming the king's supremacy was only declaratory of the ancient laws of England.

The Ancient Mammalian Fauna, (from Professor Owen's introduction to his work on British Fossil Animals and Birds):-" The indications of changes, mighty in comparison with any of which human history takes cognizance, prepare us to view with less surprise the corresponding changes which have taken place in our Mammalian Fauna; but we are still ignorant of the cause of the extirpation of so large a proportion of it as has become extinct. It is an important fact, however, that a part, and not the whole, of the terrestrial species have yet perished, whence it may be concluded that the cause of their destruction has not been a violent and universal catastrophe from which none could escape. There is no small analogy indeed between the course of the extirpation of the Pliocene Mammals, and that which history shews to have reduced the numbers of the wild animals of continents and islands in connection with the progress of man's dominion. The largest, the most ferocious, and the least useful of the pliocene species have perished; but the