much more steep, and instead of a flat floor, the inner space is concave or cup-shaped, with a solitary peak rising in the center.

"Solitary peaks rise from the level plains and cast their long, narrow shadows athwart the smooth surface. Vast plains of a dusky tint become visible, not perfectly level, but covered with ripples, pits, and projections. Circular wells, which have no surrounding wall, dip below the plain, and are met with even in the interior of the circular mountains and on the tops of their walls.

"From some of the mountains great streams of a brilliant white radiate in all directions and can be traced for hundreds of miles. We see, again, great fissures, almost perfectly straight and of great length, although very narrow, which appear like the cracks in moist clayey soil when dried by the sun."

But interesting as these views may be, it was not for such discoveries as these that astronomers examined the surface of the moon. The principal charm of astronomy, as indeed of all observational science, lies in the study of change-of progress, development, and decay, and specially of systematic variations taking place in regularly-recurring cycles.

The sort of scrutiny required for the discovery of changes, or for the determination of their extent, is far too close and laborious to be attractive to the general observer. Yet the kind of observation which avails best for the purpose is perhaps also the most interesting which he can apply to the lunar details.

One of the most interesting features of the moon, when she is observed with a good telescope, is the variety of color presented by different parts of her

surface. We see regions of the purest white-regions which one would be apt to speak of as snow-covered, if one could conceive the possibility that snow should have fallen where (now, at least) there is neither air nor water.

Then there are the so-called seas, large gray or neutral-tinted regions, differing from the former not merely in color and in tone, but in the photographic quality of the light they reflect towards the earth. Some of the seas exhibit a greenish tint, as the Sea of Serenity and the Sea of Humors.

Where there is a central mountain within a circular depression, the surrounding plain is generally of a bluish steel-gray color. There is a region called the Marsh of Sleep, which exhibits a pale red tint.

The brightest portion of the whole lunar disc is Aristarchus, the peaks of which shine often like stars, when the mountain is within the unillumined portion of the moon. The darkest regions are Grimaldi and Endymion, and the great plain called Plato by modern astronomers-but, by Hevelius, the Greater Black Lake.

OF STUDIES.

LORD BACON.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness, and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for, expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general

counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.

To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience-for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digestedthat is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend: Abeunt studia in mores. (The studies pass into the manners.) Nay, there is no stond1 or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. If a man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

craft' y, artful; cunning; sly. dis tilled', condensed.

im ped' i ment, that which hinders or impedes. sub' tile, acute; penetrating.

ALONE.

GEORGE HOWLAND.

Not in the throng does man prepare
His noblest deeds to do, or dare,
Which heaven itself may own;
But ere with power divine endued,
The soul in deepest solitude,
Where mortal eye can no'er intrude,
Must first retire alone.

Not when embattled squadrons meet,
In panoply of war complete,

1 Hindrances.

Are man's true triumphs shown;

But when in sadness he hath gone
Apart, from every aid withdrawn,
And from the darkness till the dawn
Hath wrestled there alone.

Not 'neath the gaze of friendly eyes
Do we behold the spirit rise,

To its full stature grown ;

But while the weary watchers sleep
It turns aside in silence deep,
Its sleepless vigils there to keep,
And seek for strength alone.

Then only hath the prophet's face
Put off each weak and human trace,
And like an angel's shone;

When he from crowded camp hath fled,
And on the mountain summit dread,
With clouds and darkness overspread,
Communed with God alone.

Not when the loud huzzas resound
And palms and branches strew the ground
Are joys the deepest known;

But when it feels itself replete

With blessedness so pure and sweet
No tongue the rapture can repeat,
The heart would be alone.

And when our dearest joys depart,
And anguish rends the bleeding heart,
No idle dust is strewn;

No soothing words of kindred kind,—