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about among the branches until finally a single | ing insect in two with a pair of sharp scissors; shot has brought down a bird and fish together. for as he does not use his mouth for breathing Professor Agassiz declared that the Amazon, purposes, and as his brain is not confined to his for a river of turbid water and of so high a head but runs all through his body, he will temperature, the average being eighty degrees, live for many hours in this mutilated state. In nourishes an extraordinary number of delicious fact some insects never eat a mouthful after they fishes for table use.-The Methodist. are full grown; so that if you cut off their heads, you only bother them, because they cannot see where to lay their eggs.

For the Children.

ONLY A FLY.

Two

Insects have from two to five eyes. large eyes called Compound Eyes, because they are made up of many thousand little eyes united, like a bundle of six-sided spy-glasses tied to

Of what use is a fly? Its only object seems to be to keep up a continual buzzing, just when his company is least wanted, butting his head with apparent relish against the wall or window-gether, large at one end and very small at the pane, and playing an endless game of cross-tag in the middle of the room with his companions, resting from his sports to sip sweets, and perhaps en ling his day in a milky grave, or sticking fast in the molasses jug. Yet really so important is he that without flies the world would soon loose its inhabitants, unless something were sent in their place to do their work. Humble and insignificant as he looks, the Fly has long puzzled the brains of the wisest men, and after years of careful study they have been able to find out only a part of the many mysteries which surround his every movement.

other, and looking under the microscope like an old fashioned patch-work quilt, or rather like the meshes of a very fine net. Then there are sometimes three little eyes in addition to the large ones, placed generally on the top of the head, as nine. pins are arranged when one is going to play "Cocked Hat," although they occasionally vary their position.

I will try to tell you something of what has been learned about our little friend, for a friend he is indeed, although like many others of the world's benefactors, who do their good deed silently and without any flourish of trumpets, he gets little credit, but is continually getting into hot water for what are counted as sins on his part. I hope when you find out that there is so much to be learned about the Fly, you will get hold of some interesting book that will tell you all you wish to know, and a great deal more that you never dreamt of.

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All insects have six legs, unless they have met with accidents such as you have often seen when you have caught a grasshopper" to see him "make molasses." After a few struggles away he goes, leaving a quivering leg in your fingers, and for the rest of his short life he hobbles about like one of our poor crippled soldier laddies; for insects do not grow new legs like lobsters, and I am very much afraid that he does not find any kind Sanitary Commission to bind up his wounds and give him a fresh start in life with a Palmer leg

All insects are provided with antennæ, which are those little, many jointed projections extending from the head near the eyes somewhat like reindeer's horns. These are probably used for feeling, smelling, and hearing with, although their uses have not been definitely settled. They vary much in appearance; sometimes resembling Indian clubs, sometimes fringed like a fir-tree, notched like a saw, plumed like a feather, or armed with teeth like a comb. A few insects have no wings, others have two, others four, but none have more than that number.

Insects pass through several stages of existence before they become fully developed.Most of them are hatched from eggs; then they pass into the larva state, in which they are caterpillar, maggot, or grub, according as they are to become butterfly or beetle. In course of time they go into pupa, or mummy state, from which they emerge ready for action as perfect insects. In some classes these distinctions are not so strongly marked.

Having glanced very briefly at the general structure of the insect world, I wish to dwell a little more particularly on the structure and habits of the fly. If you catch one of the poor, half-dozen little hermits which stay with us all winter, carefully hidden away in some dark They do not breathe through their mouths, corner, and warm him by degrees till he is able but by means of a great number of little pipes to move about, and then examine closely, you which run through them lengthwise, like the will be astonished at the many strange things gas-pipes under our streets, having openings you will see probably for the first time, and if here and there on the sides of the body where you use a microscope, your wonder and admirathe fresh air is drawn in. These little openings tion will know no bounds. You will find six are very curiously contrived,-in some cases legs, armed each with two sharp little toes; being protected by tiny trap-doors opening on two big eyes covering nearly the whole of the hinges, in others having a strong grating over head, and the three little eyes arranged in a trithem of very coarse hairs. You will see from angle; two transparent wings strengthened by this it is worse than useless to snip an offend-a net-work of veirs, and covered with fine hairs

to protect them from wear and tear; a pair of tiny winglets, and on each side of the body a little knob which serves for unknown purposes. On closer examination of his mouth you will find a proboscis, or trunk, like an elephant's; this is really nothing but the lower lip length ened and armed with three lancets, with which it punctures its food, or exasperates bald-headed old gentlemen. The end of the lip is flattened and grooved like the bottom of a meat-dish for gravy. Of course it is easy enough for the fly to eat soft substances; but how do you suppose he manages when he encounters a lump of sugar for instance, when that is sometimes too much for children's sharp little teeth even? His Creator has provided him with a fluid which, running down little canals, in his trunk, dis solves the sugar gradually, so that it becomes a sort of treacle, and then he easily sucks it up through the same little canals. The wings are like battle-doors, consisting of frames with transparent coverings stretched tightly over them on both sides.

You will probably all say "No!" and yet when you come to reflect, you will remember having often seen the Fly start from the wall when pretty near the ceiling, and without turning over fly toward the ceiling, all the time looking up with his two big eyes.

There is one fact in the natural history of flies that is generally very little understood, and what is true of flies is equally true with regard to all insects. It is, that flies once hatched into the winged state never grow any more, either smaller or larger. If he is hatched a small fly, small he remains all the days of his life, but never does he add the smallest part of a cubit to his stature. His growing and most of his eating has been done in childhood Then he leads the life of a glutton, eating with appar ent relish all most loathsome things, reveling in all sorts of impurities, and waxing very fat and aldermanic, as do most large eaters in the hu man tribe. He becomes a sort of bloated aristocrat; but with his new life he has turned over a new leaf, his whole habits have changed. The great mystery of flydom, and that which He is no longer of the earth earthy, but daintily has caused so much study and investigation, is sips the sweet which Dame Nature so bounti in the fact of the Fly apparently reversing the fully spreads before him. An old writer well laws of gravity and running about, as we every observes, "How few of us are aware that all day see on our ceilings, upside down. How they these creatures now buzzing so loudly above could do this without tumbling off was the our heads once crawled beneath our feet!" The grand puzzle. On examining the foot closely fact is that our little friend passes bis childhood under a microscope you will see that it is armed in a very dirty nursery. The baby fly, which with two little claws, protected by fleshy pads, is a small white worm, without feet, commonly covered with hairs. Each little hair is enlarged at the end, making a little disk like a "sucker," and this sucker" is kept constantly moist by a fluid continually exuding. The little claws catch on the rough point of any surface, and the moment that this is done, the little "suck- NEW AND WONDERFUL DISCOVERY IN ELECers" take hold and serve to keep him in place till he is ready to move on, when raising himself on his claws, the disks loosen one by one, and away he runs, nimbly, repeating this manœuvre whenever it is necessary.

called a maggot, is generally hatched from an egg of which his lady mother has laid about one hundred and seventy.-W. H. D. in Riverside Magazine.

TRICITY.

Mr. H. Wilde of Liverpool, has brought out a new discovery in electricity during the past year which is described as exceedingly brilliant and important. He has found a method of proThe speed of a fly on the wing is truly won- ducing electricity in quantities and intensity derful, when we take his diminutive size into hitherto unknown, by the action of feeble elecAccording to Kirby and Spence, the trical currents upon powerful magnets. His apcommon house fly, when undisturbed, makes paratus consists of six small permanent magsix hundred strokes with its wing in a second, nets weighing only a pound each, a ten-inch and when necessary can increase its velocity electro-magnet weighing three pounds (which acsix-fold. Let this same fly grow to the size of cumulates and retains the developed electricity, an eagle, and its capacities increase equally, on the same principle as an insulated submarine and it would travel through space with the ve- cable or the Leyden jar), and an armature relocity of lightning. To produce this speed and volving within an iron cylinder at the rate of all the other movements which a fly is contin- fifteen hundred turns a minute. The cylinder ually making, what an immense quantity of is about a foot long, and has a bore of two and muscles is necessary; and we can scarcely a half inches; the a mature which plays within find words sufficient to express our wonder it not touching the sides, is coiled about with and admiration at the manner in which these insulated copper wire. It is from this armainnumerable muscles are packed away in this ture, when the different parts of the apparatus tiny framework, where they will have the great have been connected and put into operation, est effect with the least interference. that the electricity is evolved and the effects are produced.

Did you ever notice a fly flying back down?

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This machinery evolves a light which rivals pervading. The earth he regards as a great the sun in its dazzling luminousness, and sur-magnetic globe, in which the ocean serves as a passes that orb in taking photographs. At a primary menstruum, keeping the crust in a condistance of a quarter of a mile it throws stant state of saturation and active crystallizashadows from the flames of street lamps upon a tion. As maguetic currents are ever active in wall. Two photographers in England have set a battery which has proper solutions between up the machines in their shops, and now do all its poles, so these currents are ever working their copying and enlarging by the new electric with prodigious power through the crust of the light at night. The heating power of flame is earth, between the north and south pole. The so intense that it melts seven feet of No. 16 iron north pole is a great absorbing basin, in which wire, and heats to a red heat twenty-one feet of the process of decomposition is carried on with the same wire in an instant. The cost of the au energy that never tires. The south pole is apparatus is small, the waste of materials tri- a great evolving basin, in which the process of fing, and the expense of working light. For reproduction goes on with equal regularity and lighting streets, for lighting houses and for illu- energy. minating public buildings, the new discovery is far superior to gas, and there are probably various other purposes besides those already indicated to which it may be devoted, if its properties are truthfully described.-Boston Journal.

A NEW GEOLOGICAL THEORY.

This theory, it will be perceived, is in conflict with the prevailing views on the method of formation of the earth's crust. It is yet more radically opposed to the views of the time when the successive formations were made. Geologists teach that the lowest strata, as the silurian, were deposited at an age too remote for human arithmetic to reach. Mr. Hopkins teaches that it is not a question of time at all, but simply of location on the earth's surface, in nearness to or remoteness from the south pole, as the reproduc

We are occasionally reminded, when some new geological theory is confidently proposed, or some old hypothesis abandoned, that the questions at issue between science and revelation cannot soon reach a final settlement. Being centre of action. In other words, he defore such a result can be obtained, science must speak its last word, and establish its claims and belief beyond all reasonable doubt. How such geology is prepared to set aside the teachings of Moses may be inferred from the fact that a new theory of the structure of the earth is propounded by an English geologist, which, if accepted, must lead to a reconstruction of the science as hitherto accepted and taught.

A Mr. Evan Hopkins has published a volume on Geology and Terrestrial Magnetism, in which he combats resolutely the aqueous and igneous theories of Werner and Hutton, and denies that the strata in the earth's crust have been formed either by mechanical deposition from water, or by melting and hardening through the agency of internal heat. Nor does he believe in a succession of cataclysms, by which sudden and great changes have been effected in the earth's surface.

The theory which he maintains to be more consistent with known facts is, that chemical and magnetic forces have been the great agencies in all terrestrial changes; that by ordered, not by convulsive action, both the crystalline and stratified rocks and the mineral veins have been formed. He argues with great confidence that the crystalline rocks must be due to magnetic instead of mechanical agency, for they are formed in parallel bands which are vertical instead of horizontal.

The details of his theory are ingenious and complicated. Great changes are now in progress in the earth's bosom through an electro-magnetic wet process, whose action is continuous and all

clares that the processes of solution and re-formation are going on continually, and the character of the formation depends on its relative place on the earth's surface. He asserts that in the antarctic region the silurian formation is now reproducing itself; in the south temperate zone the carboniferous formation; in the south tropical the bolitic; in the north tropical the cretaceous; and in the north temperate the tertiary.

We are not masters in the science, and do pot assume to give judgment on a theory which, if true, must set aside the views previously advanced by great and honored names. We only allude to it as a hint to our scientific friends that a little modesty will not be unbecoming on their part, in withholding a decision on the teachings of Moses. Until the fundamental positions of geology are settled beyond controversy, and the claims of its rival schools touching both the method and the time of formation of the earth's crust are adjusted, it is wise to leave out of sight the words of revelation. God's word and God's works will surely come into harmony, but the interpretation of the latter may need amendation even more than the former.- Watchman and Reflector.

"Sow, though the rock repel thee
By its cold and sterile pride,
Some cleft there may be riven,
Where the little seed may hide.
"Work while the daylight lasteth,

Ere the shades of night come on,
Ere the Lord of the Vineyard calleth,
And the laborer's work is done."

-London Christian Times.

A GOOD CUSTOM.

It was the custom in Massachusetts, in early times, as we learn from Lewis' History of Lynn, for a person to go about the meeting houses, during divine service, and wake the sleepers. "He bore a long wand, on one end of which was a ball, and on the other a fox tail. When he observed the men asleep he rapped them on the head with a knob, and roused the slumbering sensibilities of the ladies by drawing the brush lightly across their faces."

Let there be a conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit for light and guidance. It is his special mission to reveal Christ unto us. Be not afraid to follow the Spirit. He sheds light upon the reason. He does not impel his followers by bliud impulses which bid defiance to common sense, but sweetly assures the heart, illumines the path, and shows it to be of God.

Do not occupy yourself with the future, and think only of doing what you do at the very time you are doing it.

ITEMS.

The earthquake which was felt with such severity, 4th mo. 24th, in Missouri and Kansas, is believed by some to have reached Ohio. An acre of ground Dear Carthage, six miles from the city, immediately in the vicinity of the canal, sunk on the afternoon of that day a distance of ten feet. The basin formed by the depression has walls as straight and smooth as though the excavation was an artificial one. The ground which thus gave way is of a very solid character, and there are trees upon it more than a foot in thickness. The superintendent of the Southern Division of the canal has himself visited the spot, and been much astonished at the phenomenon. Along the line of the Little Miami Railroad, between Loveland and Morrow, a land slide occurred the same day, the earth and rocks being tumbled down the sides of the hills in a manner to excite the attention of all who have since travelled along the road, who declare they never saw any thing of the kind in Ohio before.-Ex. paper.

legal "Head of the Church" (of England), has sig. to examine into and report upon the ritual observnified her intention of issuing a Royal commission ances which have latterly made the Anglican resemble the Roman Church, in many resets. It is stated that "The inquiry will be limited to the interpretation of the Rubric relating to the ornaments of the minister and church during divine service. the members of the Peace Congress has been ratified The treaty which was signed on the 11th inst. by by their respective governments. By the terms of settlement, the fortress of Luxemburg is to be evac uated by the Prussians within one month from the date of the treaty.

DR. LIVINGSTONE.-There is some ground for hope that the report of the assassination of this distinguished explorer may, after all, prove false. Mr. Murchison, in a letter to the London Times, says:

"By a letter received yesterday (April 22) from

Mr. Kirk, dated Zanzibar, Feb. 8, (eleven days later than the previous dates), I learn that a dispatch reached His Highness the Sultan on the previous day from the Governor of Quiloa, containing a most im portant statement with regard to Dr. Livingstone. The dispatch stated that the traders had arrived at this port, (Quiloa) from the far interior beyond Lake two months after the time of the reported catastrophe) Nyassa, and that at the end of November last (i. e, when they were at Maksura, within ten miles of the supposed place of the massacre, nothing was known of any mishap having befallen Livingstone. They said, on the contrary, that the traveller had continued onward toward the Avisa or Babtsa Country, after having met with a hospitable reception on the western shore of the north end of Lake Nyassa. Dr. Kirk adds, however, that as Maksura is short of the place of attack described by the Johanna men, be almost fears to communicate this intelligence, lest it should buoy up hopes which may too soon be broken.

The Royal Geographical Society will send out an expedition to ascertain the truth.-The Press. SILK FROM OAK TREES.-The oak silk worm, the rearing of which M. Guerin Mereville is endeavoring to introduce into Europe, has already given such results as to warrant the belief that the oaks of the forest there will soon give abundant silk crops, and especially in those countries where the silk of the mulberry cannot be produced. At the session of the Imperial Central Society of Agriculture, of France, on the 27th of last 3d month, and that of the French Academy of Sciences on the 2d of 4th month, M. Guerlin Mereville read a letter from the The railway up Mount Washington is being con- Baron Bretton, an Austrailan land owner to whom structed with great activity. The track iron is being he had sent eggs of the yamamai, in 1863, announ transported to the base of the mountain, and teams cing that the colony had prospered, and, as in and laborers are hard at work. A large and mag-France, had attained the fourth generation. nificent hotel will be built this summer, and will be ready for the travel of next year.

The Atlantic cable has almost brought the extremities of the earth together. It is announced from Newburyport, Massachusetts, that a merchant of that city recently received a telegram from Calcutta, which had been but two days and five hours on its passage. This despatch cost $500, and had travelled over 13,000 miles.

A College for ladies is to be establisned in New York City, or rather Rutgar's Institute is to be ealarged in its curriculum of studies and its facilities for instruction, so as to make it an institution of the same grade as the Vassar Female College of Poughkepsie. An act of the Legislature of New York has given legal authority for this enlargement.

There are 200 colored schools in Georgia, and 100,000 colored people in that State are learning to

read and write.

The testimony of colored persons in a suit where the municipal court at Richmond, Va. It is the first both parties were white, has just been admitted in instance of the kind under a new law just passed by the legislature.

On the 13th inst., Jefferson Davis was brought before the United States Circuit Court, at Richmond, Va., on a writ of habeas corpus. After arguments by the legal gentlemen representing the government and the prisoner, Judge Underwood released the pris oner on $100,000 bail, to appear for trial, on the 4th of Eleventh month next, at the U. S. Circuit Court for the District of Virginia. His sureties were Horace Greeley was the first tɔ

RITUALISM IN ENGLAND.-The Archbishop of Can-twenty in number. terbury has announced that Queen Victoria, who is sign the bail bond!

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FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

"TAKE FAST HOLD OF INSTRUCTION; LET HER NOT GO; KEEP HER; FOR SHE IS THY LIFE."

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Extracts from John Stuart Mill's Inaugural Address........ 189
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REVIEW OF THE LIFE AND DISCOURSES OF | Living Person, and life becomes mean, exist

F. W. ROBERTSON.

BY S. M. JANNEY.

Continued from page 163.

The subjects of Christ's spiritual kingdom, who are brought under the government of the spirit of Truth, are by this means introduced into the glorious liberty of the sons and daughters of God. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

This is the subject of one of Robertson's discourses, entitled, "Freedom by the Truth." The text referred to is John viii. 32. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

"Observe," he says, "the greatness of the aim and the wisdom of the means.

ence unmeaning, the universe dark; and resolve is left withont a stay, aspiration and duty without a support.

The Son exhibited God as Love; and so that fearful bondage of the mind to the necessity of fate was broken. A living Lord had made the world; and its dark and unintelligible mystery meant good, not evil. He manifested Him as a spirit; and if so, the only worship that could please Him must be a Spirit's worship. Not by sacrifices is God pleased; nor by droned litanies and liturgies; nor by fawning and flattery; nor is His wrath bought off by blood. Thus was the chain of superstition rent asunder; for superstition is wrong views of God, exaggerated or inadequate, and wrong conceptions of the way to please Him.

"The aim was to make all men free. He saw around Him servitude in every form,- -man And so, when the woman of Samaria brought in slavery to man, and race to race: His own the conversation to that old ecclesiastical quescountrymen in bondage to the Romans,-slaves tion about consecrated buildings, whether on both of Jewish and Roman masters, frightfully Mount Gerizim or on Mount Moriah God was oppressed: men trembling before priestcraft; the more acceptably adored, IIe cut the whole and those who were politically and ecclesiasti- controversy short by the enunciation of a sincally free, in worse bondage still, the rich and gle truth: God is a spirit, and they that rulers slaves to their own passions. Conscious worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in of his inward Deity and of his Father's inten-truth.' tions, He, without hurry, without the excitement which would mark the mere earthly Lib. erator, calmly said, 'Ye shall be free.'

The truth which Christ taught was chiefly on these three points: God-Man-Immortality.

1. God. Blot out the thought of God, a

2. Truth respecting man.

Go to any

We are a mystery to ourselves. place where the nations have brought together their wealth and their inventions, and before the victories of mind you stand in reverence. Then stop to look at the passing crowds who have at

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