stone; but if any part of it be detached at a spot which the tide reaches every day, it is found to be full of worms of different lengths and colours, some being as fine as a thread and several feet long, of a bright yellow, and sometimes of a blue colour; others resemble snails; and some are not unlike lobsters in shape, but soft, and not above two inches long.

The growth of coral appears to cease when the worm is no longer exposed to the washing of the sea. Thus a reef rises in the form of a cauliflower till its top has gained the level of the highest tides, above which the worm has no power to advance, and the reef, of course, no longer extends itself upwards. The other parts in succession reach the surface, and there stop, forming in time a level field with steep sides all round. The reef, however, continually increases, and, being prevented from growing higher, extends itself laterally in all directions. But the growth being as rapid at the upper edge as it is lower down, the steepness of the face of the reef is still preserved. These are the circumstances which render coral reefs so dangerous in navigation;-for, in the first place, they are seldom seen above water; and, in the next, their sides are so steep, that a ship's bow may strike against the rock before any change of soundings has given warning of the danger.—Hall's Voyages.

THE CORAL ISLAND.

I MARKED a whirlpool in perpetual play,
As though the mountain were itself alive,
And catching prey on every side, with feelers
Countless as sunbeams, slight as gossamer.

Compressed like wedges, radiated like stars,
Branching like sea-weed, whirled in dazzling rings,
Subtle and variable as flickering flames,
Sight could not trace their evanescent changes,
Nor comprehend their motions, till minute
And curious observation caught the clue
To this live labyrinth,-where every one,
By instinct taught, performed its little task.
Millions of millions thus, from age to age,
With simplest skill, and toil unweariable,

No moment and no movement unimproved,
Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread,

To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound,
By marvellous structure climbing toward the day.
Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them;
Hence what Omnipotence alone could do,
Worms did. I saw the living pile ascend
The mausoleum of its architects,

Still dying upwards as their labours closed:
Slime the material; but the slime was turned
To adamant by their petrific touch;

Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives,
Their masonry imperishable. A point at first,
It peered above those waves a point so small,
I just perceived it fixed where all was floating;
And when a bubble crossed it, the blue film
Expanded like a sky above the speck;

That speck became a hand-breadth; day and night
It spread, accumulated, and ere long
Presented to my view a dazzling plain,
White as the moon amid the sapphire-sea.
Compared with this amazing edifice,
Babel's stupendous folly, though it aimed
To scale heaven's battlements, was but a toy,
The plaything of the world in infancy.

Nine times the age of man that coral-reef

Had bleached beneath the torrid noon, and borne
The thunder of a thousand hurricanes,

Raised by the jealous ocean, to repel

That strange encroachment on his old domain.

Fragments of shells, dead sloughs, sea-monsters' bones,
Whales stranded in the shallows, hideous weeds
Hurled out of darkness by the uprooting surges ;
These, with unutterable relics more,

Heaped the rough surface, till the various mass,
By Nature's chemistry combined and purged,
Had buried the bare rock in crumbling mould.
All seasons were propitious; every wind,
From the hot siroc to the wet monsoon,
Tempered the crude materials; while heaven's dew
Fell on the sterile wilderness as sweetly
As though it were a garden of the Lord.

James Montgomery.

216

SEA-FOWL.

SEA-FOWL have places of rendezvous, where you would imagine that they were deliberating in common on the affairs of their republic; it is in general, a rock in the midst of the waves. We used often to sit in the Island of St. Pierre, on the coast opposite an islet, called by the natives the Pigeon-House, on account of its form, and because they repair to it in spring for the purpose of seeking eggs. We passed whole days and nights in studying the manners of the inhabitants of this rock; the nights are full of the secrets of Providence. The multitude of birds that assemble at the Pigeon-House is so great, that we could frequently distinguish their cries amid the roaring of the most furious tempests. All these birds have extraordinary voices, resembling the sounds that issue from the sea: if the ocean has its Flora, it has likewise its Philomela. When the curlew whistles at sunset on the point of some rock, accompanied by the hollow roaring of the billows, which forms the bass to the concert, it produces one of the most melancholy harmonies that can possibly be conceived: never did the wife of Ceix breathe forth such lamentations on the shores that witnessed her misfortunes. The best understanding prevailed in the republic of our birds. Immediately after the birth of a citizen, his mother precipitated him into the waves, like those barbarous nations who plunged their children into rivers to inure them to the fatigues of life. Couriers were incessantly dispatched from this Tyre, with numerous attendants, who, by the command of Providence, dispersed over all the seas for the relief of the mariner. Some, stationed at the distance of forty or fifty leagues from an unknown land, serve as a certain indication to the pilot, who discovers them like corks floating on the waves; others settle on a reef, and in the night, these vigilant sentinels raise their doleful voices to warn the navigator to stand off; while others again, by the whiteness of their plumage, form real beacons upon the black surface of the rocks. It is for the same reason, we presume, that the beneficence of the Almighty has bestowed on the foam of the waves a phosphoric property, and has rendered it more luminous among breakers, in proportion to the violence of

the tempest. How many vessels would perish amid the darkness, were it not for these miraculous beacons, kindled by Providence upon the rocks!

All the accidents of the seas, all the changes of calm and storm are predicted by birds. The Thrush alights on a desolate strand, contracts her neck within her plumage, conceals one foot in her down, and standing motionless on the other, apprizes the fisherman of the moment when the billows are rising ;-the Sea-lark, skimming the surface of the wave, and uttering a gentle and melancholy cry, announces, on the contrary, the moment of their reflux: lastly, the little Procellaria stations herself in the midst of the ocean-the faithful companion of the mariner, she follows the course of ships and prophesies tempests. The sailor ascribes to her something sacred, and religiously fulfils the duties of hospitality, when the violence of the wind tosses her on board his vessel. In like manner the husbandman pays respect to the Red-breast, which predicts fine weather, and receives it beneath his thatch during the intense cold of the winter. These unfortunate men, placed in the two hardest conditions of life, have friends whom Providence has prepared for them. From a feeble animal they receive counsel and hope, which they would often seek in vain among their fellow-men. This reciprocity of benefits between little birds and unfortunate men, is one of those moving incidents which abound in the works of God. Between the red-breast and the husbandman, between the procellaria and the sailor, there is a resemblance of manners and of fortunes exceedingly affecting. O! how dry, how barren is Nature, when explained by sophists: but how productive and how rich, when a simple heart describes her wonders, with no other view than to glorify the Creator.

Chateaubriand.

METHODS OF IMPROVING IN KNOWLEDGE. THERE are five eminent means, or methods, whereby the mind is improved in knowledge, and these areobservation, reading, instruction by lectures, conversation, and meditation; the last of which is in a more peculiar manner called study.

Observation is the notice that we take of all occurrences

L

in human life, whether they be sensible or intellectual, whether relating to persons or things, to ourselves or others. It is this that furnishes us even from our infancy, with a rich variety of ideas, propositions, words, and phrases; it is by this we know that fire will burn, that the sun gives light, that a horse eats grass, that an acorn produces an oak, that man is a being capable of reasoning and discourse, that our bodies die, and are carried to the grave, and that one generation succeeds another. All those things which we see, which we hear or feel, which we perceive by sense or consciousness, or which we know in a direct manner, with scarcely any exercise of our reflecting faculties or our reasoning powers, may be included under the general name of observation.

Reading is that method whereby we acquaint ourselves with what other men have published to the world in their compositions. The arts of reading and of writing are of infinite advantage, for by them we are made partakers of the sentiments, observations, reasonings, and improvements of all the learned world, in the most remote nations and in former ages, almost from the beginning of mankind.

Public or private lectures are such verbal instructions as are given by a teacher, while the learners attend in silence. We learn in this manner religion from the pulpit, philosophy or theology from the professor's chair, and mathematics by a teacher showing us various theorems and problems-that is, speculations or practices, by demonstration and operation, with all the instruments of art necessary to those observations.

Conversation is another method of improving our minds, wherein, by mutual discourse and inquiry, we learn the sentiments of others, as well as communicate our sentiments to others in the same manner. Under this head we rank disputations of various kinds.

Meditation, or study, includes those exercises of the mind whereby we render all the former methods useful for our increase in true knowledge and wisdom. It is by meditation we confirm our remembrance of things, of our own experience, and of the observations we make. It is by meditation that we draw various inferences, and establish in our minds general principles of knowledge. It is by meditation that we fix in our memory whatever we