meadow-lands, covered chiefly with grass, and presenting, in the summer season, the grandest display of floral vegetation which the sun looks down upon, are grouped in three divisions, as bushy prairies, wet or swampy prairies, and rolling prairies. It is the latter, more particularly, which are described in the following lesson as the "gardens of the desert" -"island groves hedged round with forests."

THESE are the gardens of the desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name-
The prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations far away,

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless forever. Motionless?

No-they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the south!

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not-ye have played

Among the palms of Mexico and vines

Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks

That from the fountains of Sonora glide

Into the calm Pacific-have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

Man hath no part in all this glorious work:

The hand that built the firmament hath heaved

And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes

With herbage, planted them with island groves,

And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor

For this magnificent temple of the sky

With flowers whose glory and whose multitude

Rival the constellations! The great heavens
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love-
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue,

Than that which bends above the eastern hills.
As o'er the verdant waste I glide my steed,
Among the high, rank grass that sweeps his sides,
The hollow beating of his footstep seems

A sacrilegious sound. I think of those
Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here-
The dead of other days?-and did the dust
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life
And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds
That overlook the rivers, or that rise

In the dim forest, crowded with old oaks,
Answer. A race that long has passed away
Built them; a disciplined and populous race

Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms

Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock

The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields
Nourished their harvests; here their herds were fed,
When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,

And bowed his manéd shoulder to the yoke.

All day this desert murmured with their toils,
Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked and wooed
In a forgotten language, and old tunes,
From instruments of unremembered form,
Gave the soft winds a voice.-BRYANT.

LESSON VIII.-CAVES AND GROTTOES OF THE OLD WORLD.

1. NATURAL caves, which are hollow places under ground, generally with openings on the surface, form a division of physical geography interesting alike to the man of science and the mere wonder-loving tourist. Nearly all the great caves in the world are in limestone rocks, and have been produced by the action of water, which, running in little streams through the strata and dissolving particles of rock,* has, in the course of ages, formed subterranean passages, often of great extent and wonderful beauty. Caves found in rocks of granite, lava, and porphyry, owe their origin to other

causes.

2. It is not surprising that the priests of antiquity, for the purpose of producing an effect on the minds of the ignorant populace, localized their false divinities in caverns, which were so well calculated to awaken curiosity and excite the imagination. Thus the original Delphian oracles, reverenced by

* The water carries with it carbonic acid gas, by which limestone is rendered soluble.

the Greeks, and consulted by the monarchs of the ancient world, were delivered by a priestess seated at the mouth of a cave, who pretended to be inspired with a knowledge of future events. The primitive inhabitants of Northern Europe selected caves as appropriate places for their barbarous rites. Among these is the cave of Thor, "The Thunderer," in the limestone district of Derbyshire, England, described by Darwin as

"The blood-smeared mansion of gigantic Thor."

3. Of the celebrated caverns of the Eastern world, the most famous is that called "The Grotto of Antiparos,"1 a magnificent stalactite2 cavern in a little island of the same name in the Grecian Archipelago. Within its vaulted chambers are columns, some of which are twenty-five feet in length, hanging like icicles from the roof, while others extend from roof to floor. The following extract from the description given by Goldsmith, taken from the writings of an Italian traveler, will convey some idea of the scene presented in one of the interior chambers of this "enchanted grotto:"

4. "Our candles being now all lighted up, and the whole place completely illuminated, never could the eye be presented with a more glitter

ing or a more magnificent scene. The whole roof hung with solid icicles, transparent as glass, yet solid as marble. The eye could scarcely reach the lofty and noble ceiling; the sides were regularly formed with spars, and the whole presented the idea of a magnificent theatre illuminated with an immense profusion of lights. The floor consisted of solid marble; and in several places magnificent columns, thrones, altars, and other objects appeared, as if nature had designed to mock the curiosities of art. Our voices, upon speaking or singing, were redoubled to an astonishing loudness, and upon the firing of a gun, the noise and reverberations were almost deafening."

5. But perhaps the most remarkable of all the cavern-like

formations in Europe is that of Fingal's Cave, in Staffa, a small islet among the Hebrides. Almost all the rocks of the island are basaltic3 and columnar; but here they are so arranged as to present the appearance of a magnificent work of art. An opening from the sea, sixty-six feet high and forty-two feet wide, formed by perpendicular walls crowned by an arch, leads to a natural hall more than two hundred feet long, and bounded on each side by perpendicular columns of great size, beautifully jointed, and arranged in varied groups. The roof is beautifully marked with the ends of pendent columns; and the whole is so well calculated to suggest the idea of a vast cathedral, as to have called forth the well-known lines of Sir Walter Scott on Fingal's Cave:

"When, as to shame the temples decked

By skill of earthly architect,

Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
A minster5 to her Maker's praise.'

"The Cathedral of Iona," says a late writer, "sinks into insignificance before this great temple of nature, reared, as if in mockery of the temples of man, by the Almighty power who laid the beams of his chambers on the waters, and who walketh upon the wings of the wind."

1 AN-TIP-A-ROS, now AN-TIP-A-RO.

2 STA-LA-TĪTE, a pendent cone of carbonate

of lime in the form of an icicle.

of igneous origin, often in a columnar form.

4 PEND'-ENT, hanging.

3 BA-SALT'-16; basalt is a grayish black stone 5 MIN'-STER, a cathedral church.

LESSON IX.-CAVES IN THE UNITED STATES.

Hall of Statuary, in Weyer's Cave, Virginia. in Kentucky.

1. SUBTERRANEAN caverns are not uncommon in our own country, and some of them will be found to rival in beauty, and greatly to surpass in extent, those of the Old World. We have space to enumerate but few of them here, but among the more noted may be mentioned the Big Saltpetre Cave in Marion County, Missouri, which, although yet but partially explored, promises to rival all others in beauty and extent; Weyer's Cave, in Augusta County, Virginia; and the celebrated Mammoth Cave

2. Weyer's Cave, which is in a limestone region, has a length of sixteen hundred feet in a straight line, but the aggregate of its branches and windings is near three thousand. Its numerous and extensive apartments, which have received various names from their fancied resemblance to temples, palaces, halls, cathedrals, etc., and which abound in stalactites1 of almost every possible variety of form and grouping, have been not inappropriately compared to the enchanted palaces of Eastern story. An engraving of the "Hall of Statuary," which we place at the head of this lesson, showing the stalagmites1 rising from the floor, and the pendent stalactites1 still dripping with lime-water, illustrates the process of these curious formations.

3. But the largest and most remarkable cave in the world is the famous Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, a region of vast and still unknown extent, hidden from the light of day. It has already been explored to the distance of ten miles, and a river navigable by boats affords a convenient means of pene