planation is much simpler, and closely approaches to my own, published five years ago in "Through Norway with Ladies." I there described particularly the waters of the Jolster Vand, which, seen from a short distance, appear of inky blackness. I have observed the same in other lakes. All these black lakes that I have seen in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, &c., are fed by rivers that flow through peat bogs, and dissolve from the peat a sufficient amount of bituminous matter to give the water when examined in small specimens the appearance of weak tea. The chief feeder of the Jolster Vand is as

dark as very strong tea.

I have examined such water by looking through different depths, and find that its depth of colour goes on increasing proportionally; that these variations of tint are correctly represented by taking a solution of asphalte or common coal tar in turpentine, and painting it on white paper. A thin film stains the paper to about the same depth and character of tint as is shown by a tumbler of water dipped from a peat torrent, or from a bog pool; another coat over this represents the colour shown by looking through a greater thickness of the bog water, and so on until the blackness of the original pitch is obtained. The same is observable by looking through sections of the pitch itself. Thin films are semi-transparent and have the colour of strong tea, which grows darker with increased thickness and opacity. All this is due to invisibly minute particles of black carbon suspended in a resinous medium.

Thus the black colour of deep lakes fed by streams containing a weak solution of bitumen in water is well explained, and further observation has satisfied me that all the other varieties of the colour of water have a similar simple origin.

Water containing yellow particles in suspension is more or less yellow according to the quantity, and with white particles it is corresponding white. This is very grossly shown by the waves that break on the sandy and chalky shores of our south coast. I say grossly, because here the particles are big enough to be separately visible, and nobody can dispute the visible cause of the milkiness and pea-soupiness. When, however, the particles are so small as to be separately invisible, much keener observation is necessary. any of my readers should visit the west coast of Ireland, they should carefully observe the waves that break upon the grand rocky barrier extending from Loop Head to Galway Bay, notably about Kilkee and the Cliffs of Mohir. There is no sand nor shingle here, and the water appears transparent; but the caverns, arches, and other torturings of the rock by the waves prove that they wear it away, and

If

therefore must contain the minute particles they rub off. These waves, especially in rough weather, are not merely blue or green like ordinary sea-water, but are of deep indigo-purple, a colour magnificently displayed by contrast with the white foam of the breakers. A slice of the rock cemented to a piece of glass with Canada balsam and then ground down till translucent, displays the same colour as the water. Such sections are commonly made by microscopists.

I could name a multitude of other similar cases, as, in the course of my solitary pedestrian wanderings, I have noted again and again the deep ultramarine colour of a multitude of torrent-fed lakes and tarns filling the hollows of dark slaty rocks, or where gneiss or hornblende abounds. Allowance must always be made for the reflected colour of the sky shown in certain positions.

Other lakes are as nearly colourless as an imperfectly transparent liquid can be, and contrast remarkably with the intensely blue lakes above named.

All such colourless water that I have seen has either been supplied by the surface drainage of siliceous rocks, subject to little or no torrent grinding, or by springs passing through hard limestones. These contain limestone in solution, but no suspended coloured particles.

The most remarkable of the first that I now remember is the Aachensee, a Tyrolese lake, with water so transparent that taking a header into it from a steep bank demanded quite an effort of resolution; it seemed like a suicidal plunge over an aërial precipice.

The fountain of Cyane, the source of the Anapo near Syracuse, is a deep pool welling from the limestone; it is so clear, so colourless and air-like, that floating in a boat and looking down at the pebbles, seen with microscopic distinctness 40 or 50 feet below, is suggestive of sitting in the car of a balloon.

It is well known to observant mariners that the wide ocean itself, far beyond the sight of land, varies considerably in tint. Seawater has been justly described as "a weak broth," on account of the large quantity of organic matter, chiefly spores and microscopic zoophytic life, that it contains. If I am right, its colour is due to these, and must vary with them.

W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS.

IN

TABLE TALK.

LAWLESS LONDON. '

N a famous passage of " Paradise Lost," descriptive of the devils worshipped as gods in Syria and Egypt, Milton furnishes a gloomy picture of the London of his day. It is impossible to doubt that he has in view the extravagances and crimes perpetrated by the Mohocks when, speaking of Belial, he writes—

In courts and palaces he also reigns,

And in luxurious cities, where the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury and outrage: and when night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons

Of Belial flown with insolence and wine.

Our streets have become again familiar with similar scenes. It is no longer, however, the aristocrat, as in the days of Milton, who maims, or it may be murders, the unarmed citizen. It is, I am sorry to think, a section of those working classes who have hitherto been in this country the most law-abiding and even

most law-defending class. That the lawlessness which after nightfall blocks up the readiest mode of communication between Westminster and Eastern London, and renders other streets in quiet suburbs almost as dangerous as Hounslow Heath in the olden days, must be put down, is universally conceded. Often in the night hours have 'shrieks of "murder" reached my ears when sitting in a house which overlooks the Thames Embankment, but at a distance sufficiently great to take away any chance of rendering aid, were the cries real, and not, as is ordinarily assumed, sounds uttered in mirth or derision by some benighted reveller. The only mitigating circumstance, if mitigating it be, is that the crimes committed seem to be accomplished with no purpose of robbery. They are ordinarily the work of young men, in whom the man's strength backs up the boy's cruelty and love of mischief.

I

THE REMEDY FOR JUVENILE VIOLENCE.

AM afraid, if we are to bring about a more peaceful and certainly more desirable state of affairs, we must discourage some of the proceedings which are supposed to be indicative of English pluck. Such amusements as town-and-gown rows, for instance, must be put down, and the boy must be taught that it is not his first duty to fight. What are called "boys' books" present as heroes to be copied lads always redressing wrongs. In his hurry to rival these Crichtons of the schoolroom, the boy cannot afford to wait for a wrong to redress, so he "dresses" another boy just weak enough to deprive the operation of danger. When a child of seven or eight, I went to school in a large town. The passage through a certain district, in which was a school supposed in some preposterous manner to be at war with that I attended, was to us youngsters a matter of constant alarm and some danger. We called ourselves, I remember, Duncan's Bulldogs, and our adversaries were known as Hiley's Mastiffs. Very faint hearts, I promise you, had some juvenile bulldogs as they skulked past the mastiffs' kennel. The notion of feud about nothing must, if possible, be eradicated. Difficult enough, I know, will be the task. succeed, and can also induce our magistrates to regard in a more serious light those offences against the person which they now visit with preposterously inadequate sentences, we may see a more satisfactory and less dangerous state of affairs.

THA

POETICAL INGENUITIES.

If we

HAT branch of literature which Mr. Dobson has studied and illustrated with success in his "Literary Frivolities," and more recently in his "Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities," has a great charm for some minds, and for my own mind among the number. Many as are the instances of clever parody and happy burlesque that Mr. Dobson has gathered, a rich harvest remains yet to be reaped. In the works of the Broughs, which seem slipping out of sight; of Frank Talfourd, now forgotten by all but a small circle who knew him as a wit of the first water; and even of some living writers, like Mr. Blanchard, are delightfully quaint and mirthful specimens of burlesques and mock-heroics. The more important forms of literary trifling-if the words 'important' and 'trifling' can be conjoined are the subject of very erudite studies. I possess two portly and substantial volumes on the Cento, by that elegant and

amiable scholar, Octave Dèlepierre, which first saw the light in the Philobiblion Society, and have since been reprinted; and the same writer has given a not less erudite treatise on Macaronics. Both these works are, however, in French, of which language, as Belgian Consul, Dèlepierre was necessarily a master. Meantime I hope Mr. Dobson will go on collecting these literary trifles and arranging them in volumes which are delightful to read and must always be dear to the curious.

THE

EPPING AND ITS INNS.

HERE is no cause to fear that Epping Forest will lose the character it enjoys as a place of purely popular resort, or that, following the precedent established by royalty, the aristocratic world will flock to visit it. Very beautiful are, no doubt, some portions of the scenery, those, perhaps, especially which are farthest from London; and such names as Theydon-le-Bois and Haveringatte-Bower-the latter parish is, I fancy, not in the forest-are enough in themselves to lure the traveller. Still, the country is inferior in pastoral charm to that which can be found near Windsor and Ascot. What, however, will most deter visitors is the character of the inns. I have wandered over much of the forest, and have found it almost impossible to get anything except the kind of food supplied when visitors flock in overwhelming numbers. To light upon a village public-house in which home-cured bacon, new-laid eggs, and fresh milk can be obtained, is as difficult as to find an hotel capable of cooking a good dinner. A cup of tea, with eggs from London, a most sparing allowance of thin milk, and other not more appetising viands, may be obtained, and have to be consumed in the midst of the other visitors to the house-who, though generally good-natured, are sometimes of questionable sobriety. A cosmopolitan myself, and used to rough quarters, I find no fault with this state of affairs. Still, it is worth while informing those who feel disposed to visit what to the majority of West-end folks is a terra incognita, of the kind of treatment to be expected. Given fine weather, a pic-nic in the middle of the week to High Beech or the more remote glades of the forest may be highly enjoyable. To obtain privacy together with shelter would, however, involve previous arrangements.

FR

MEMORIALS OF THE PAST GREAT.

`ROM various quarters remonstrances against the destruction of the memorials of past great men are constantly sent to the newspapers. Now it is Mr. Alfred Austin bewailing the probable