mechanism of our spinning-machines and our steamengines. The elements of the tumbling puppet were revived in the chronometer, which now conducts our navy through the ocean, and the shapeless wheel which directed the hand of the drawing automaton* has served in the present age to guide the movements of the tambouring engine.'

But these grand "possible results" have seldom been in the minds of the makers of automata. They have generally sought their own advantage in catering for the amusement of their kind. This is a fair and laudable purpose, especially if science is called to assist the illusion. Many great men have thought it worthy of their energies to devote some attention to automata. Archimedes, the most famed mechanist of antiquity, found time for, and pleasure in, the making of such "inconsiderate trifles." Many scientific men since his time, as Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Regiomontanus, the Marquis of Worcester, Dr. Hooke, Vaucanson, and others, have striven in the same direction.

All automatons have not been useless, even in their own time. Witness that equine wonder mentioned by Isaac D'Israeli. It seems that a philosopher, annoyed by having horses led to drink beneath the window of his study, "made a magical horse of wood, according to one of the books of Hermes, which perfectly answered his purpose by frightening away the horses, or, rather, the grooms. The wooden horse, no doubt, gave some palpable kick!" In many cases automatic machines have not been of such value to their makers; frequently they have brought them into serious trouble as sorcerers; and ignorance has, in some instances, led to the destruction of the figures, as when Descartes's "wooden daughter" was being conveyed by sea, and the prying ancient mariner, fixing his "glassy eye" at a cranny in the packing-case, was frightened by the wooden lady speaking to him, and induced by his superstitious fears to throw the box and its contents overboard.

It is as well to say at once that the accounts of early automata must be received with caution, as unquestionably exaggerated, while possibly, in some cases, the stories are wholesale fabrications. The mechanisms of the Middle Ages, too, were terribly be-puffed by contemporary writers. Some of these were, doubtless, marvels of delicate workmanship when mechanical, but clock-work simply. The nearest approach to the supernatural in such creations were those dependent upon trickery, pre-eminent amongst which were some apparently endowed with human speech, where the conjurers called in science to their aid. Amongst the earliest recorded self-moving engines are those mentioned by Homer (to whom we must accord poetic licence), tripods constructed by Vulcan for the Temple of Olympus. These, by their own volition, took their stations in the banquet-hall of the gods. Archytas of Tarentum, a Pythagorean philosopher, who had been Plato's tutor, 400 B.C., made a wooden dove, or pigeon, that would fly, but when once it settled could not renew its flight. Aulus Gellius says that it flew by mechanical means, being suspended by balancing, and animated by a secretly-enclosed aura of spirit, a definition of motive-power sufficiently indefinite and abstruse for a modern spiritualist. Bishop Wilkins more sagely attributes such motion, if it did exist, to the presence of rarefied air within the body of the machine.

* This probably refers to the figure of M. Le Droz the younger, mentioned hereafter.

Artificial puppets that ran, actuated by internal springs, are said to have been a favourite amusement of the Greeks, and the Romans imitated these in their neurospasta. Daedalus was most prolific of automatons; he had female dancers and a wooden cow. The latter sounds somewhat prosaic, though we have long been accustomed to the mechanical "cow with the iron tail"-a great source of lacteal riches for London! He made some statues so active and vigorous that it became necessary to tie them down to prevent them running away! This is a doubtful legend. It is all very well to see a figure bound with ropes and to be told that if once released it would run like a lamplighter," but there is not much proof about it. It reminds one of the story told of Joe Smith, the Mormon prophet: he took his followers to a deep stream, that they might see him walk dryshod over it. By the waterside he stopped and faced the eager crowd: "Have you faith," said Joseph-"have you faith that I can walk across without wetting my feet?" "We have-we have!" cried his enthusiastic people. "Then," said the prophet, "that is as good as if I were to do it fifty times the end is gained!" and he walked away with his patriarchal umbrella under his arm-for, like other Mormon leaders, Joseph had ever an eye to the main chance, and provided for a rainy day. Aristotle mentions a wooden Venus, constructed by Daedalus, the secret of whose motion depended upon quicksilver; but Sir David Brewster points out that its movements could not be due to such agency, "unless the automaton moved on a descending plane, like the Chinese toy called a tumbling mandarin, which by means of mercury included in the cavity of its body is made to tumble down a series of steps like a stair."

Amongst the automatic achievements of the ancients, Bishop Wilkins mentions an image holding in its hand a golden apple, "beautified," he says, "with many costly jewels; if any man offered to take it, the statue presently shot him to death; the touching of this apple serving to discharge several short bows, or other the like instruments, that were secretly couched within the body of the image."

Automatons apparently possessed of human speech were long a source of marvel. The speaking head of Orpheus was an awe-inspiring enigma to the Greeks; but it is more than probable that the wonder was to be accounted for on the same principle as the vocal powers of the colossal statue of the Indian god, Siva (the Destroyer), where a seat was provided for the priest under the head-gear of the figure, and from this came the voice of the supposed god. Tubes were often used to convey the sounds. The Scandinavian Odin had a speaking head of Mirue, constructed after the death of that mythical hero, and the monk Gerbert (afterwards Pope Sylvester II) is credited by William of Malmesbury with making a brazen head gifted with speech.

The celebrated talking head of the Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, of Ilchester, has often been referred to, but the records are so mixed up with stupid legends that no useful information can be gathered from them.

A contemporary of Roger Bacon, the friar Albert Groot, called "Albertus Magnus," from the Latinising of his name of Groot, or Great, sometime Bishop of Ratisbon, is stated to have designed a speaking head of earthenware, and a man of brass, who politely answered the visitor's tap at the distinguished

chemist's door. We may fairly put Albert Groot's man of brass down as fable, or perhaps it was only an allegorical way of describing his not very modest nor popular servant.

This brazen man is said to have been worked at for thirty years under various constellations and according to the laws of perspective, whatever that has to do with such movements; and one story runs that when the androide was raised to the dignity of Groot's attendant it became inflated, and when once the machinery of its tongue was set in motion, like the "cork leg" of a famous ballad, there was no stopping it! It is also said that Thomas Aquinas smashed the figure to be rid of its ceaseless loquacity; while another legend is that Aquinas knocked it over with his staff because he imagined it to be the work of the devil. If this be true, Thomas, whose dull face had led his schoolfellows to call him "The Ox," must have been as dull as that amiable animal; albeit Groot is reported to have said that Thomas was an ox who would one day make his lowings heard throughout Christendom. Albertus took his misfortune very mildly, it seems, merely exclaiming, 'Periit opus triginta annorum.'

Porta, in his "Natural Magick," says, "I read in many men of great authority that Albertus Magnus made a head that speak; yet, to speak the truth, I give little credit to that man, because all I made trial of from him I found to be false, but what he took from other men." We are in duty bound to note that one person has been found ingenious enough to advance a most original theory. This is, that the interior of the body should be charged with words-as a cannon with powder and shot-beforehand, to be rattled out, like the frozen-up tunes in Baron Munchausen's trumpet when a thaw came. Bishop Wilkins says some have thought it possible to preserve the voice, or any words spoken, in a hollow trunk or pipe, and that this pipe, being rightly opened, the words will come out of it in the same order wherein they were spoken-a rough anticipation of the phonograph!

Many attempts at speaking-machines have been made nearer our own time. In my article upon acoustics (see "Leisure Hour," 1878, p. 204) some were named that owed their wonderful power to tubes such as are now so familiar to the public for the like purpose of carrying the voice for long distances.

Evelyn's "Memoirs" state that when he was in Italy, in 1644, he visited the Villa Borghese, at Rome, and there saw the figure of a satyr that "artfully expressed a human voice;" but we receive no further particulars. In his diary of the 13th July, 1654, however, he writes, "We all dined at that most obliging and universally curious Dr. Wilkins, at Wadham College (Oxford). He had contrived a hollow statue, which gave a voice, and uttered words by a long concealed pipe that went to its mouth, whilst one speaks through it at a good distance."

About 1774 the Abbé Mical (who made some musical automatons) exhibited two speaking heads at the Academy of Sciences, at Paris; and at London Cucchiani, an Italian conjurer, in 1825, admitted the public to view a bust of Napoleon which was said to speak in any language. Possibly the Abbé's attempts were genuine efforts at imitating the human voice by reed sounds; undoubtedly Cucchiani's bust was on the principle of "The Invisible Girl" (see the paper previously alluded to) which was brought out in Paris in the same year.

This was the best and most successful trick in the so-called "speaking-machine" business, and_was worked upon the lines laid down by Baptista Porta nearly two hundred years previously.

From the foregoing it will be noticed that such creations are to be divided into two classes, the first and larger one being that in which trickery is employed to deceive the senses, and where the voice of a concealed person is conveyed by reflection, or through tubes, to the machine; the second is the smaller but more meritorious class, where the makers have made earnest efforts to reproduce by machinery and tubes or pipes the sounds of the voice of man. De Kempelen, the inventor of the famous chessplayer, gave his attention to the subject, and is said to have shown a machine to his friends which spoke a great number of words and sentences. But with one so accomplished in the arts of deception as De Kempelen there will always remain a doubt whether these effects were not produced by an accomplice concealed in that "rectangular box about three feet long." Sir David Brewster thought that "perhaps the chess-playing dwarf" (referred to hereafter) was not altogether unconcerned in the performance." De Kempelen's attempt was in 1783, after the introduction of M. Kratzenstein's ingenious "vowel-pipes" before the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, in 1779. These were reeds, and by blowing into them the vowel sounds were produced. Mr. Willis, of Cambridge, improved upon these by adapting cylindrical tubes to the reeds, whose length was capable of variation by sliding joints. Neither of these arrangements surmounted the difficulties of successfully imitating "the human voice divine."

Notwithstanding all the failures, Sir Charles Wheatstone exhibited the result of his labours at a meeting of the British Association at Dublin. This machine spoke only a few words, and those very indistinctly.

Herr Faber, of Vienna, brought out a talking figure of a woman in the Boulevard Magenta, Paris, 1862, and subsequently in London. Some unpleasant sibilant sounds were obtained from this machine by the professor, who played upon keys as of a piano.

Thus, though several loyal efforts have been made, the human voice still baffles correct imitation; our speaking dolls, who say "papa " and "mamma" so much alike that it takes a quick ear to distinguish one from the other, are almost on a par with all that is known of real talking-machines. I do not look upon the reproduction of vocal sounds as an absolute impossibility. There are ample means now to work upon, so as to surpass any of the contrivances of this kind yet published to the world.

I have thus, for the convenience of comparison, grouped all speaking-machines together, but shall now return to the chronological order of the automata first pursued, and departed from after Albert Groot's brazen man. To the maker of this very doubtful monster succeeded another automatic mechanician, whose wonders are equally open to suspicion. This was the German astronomer Johann Müller, called "Regiomontanus," from Mons Regius, or Konigsberg. He constructed an iron fly that left his hand at a banquet and returned after making a circuit of the hall. He is also credited with making a wooden eagle that flew forth from the city of Nuremberg upon June 7th, 1470, to meet the Emperor Maximilian. It perched upon the city gates, and stretched

out its legs as if to salute the monarch! The story is somewhat apocryphal, and some authorities hint that it was a tame dove decked with some nobler feathers.

Beckman, author of the "History of Inventions," thinks all the wonders ascribed to Regiomontanus were stories invented by Peter Ramus, on whose authority they mainly rest, or accepted by him on hearsay, as he never visited Nuremberg until 1571, more than a hundred years after the supposed marvels were accomplished.

Jean de Mont-Royal is said to have presented the Emperor Charles v with an iron fly that hovered round the inventor's head, and then rested on his arm-a suspicious replica this of the fly of Johann Müller.

Charles v, after his abdication, studied mechanism under Janellus Turrianus, of Cremona, at the monastery of St. Justin. He is said to have introduced puppets upon the table after dinner, beating drums, blowing horns, or charging each other in fight; also iron mills, self-moving, and so small that a monk could carry one in his sleeve, yet sufficiently powerful to grind enough corn in a day to last eight men for a like term. This seems about as easy of belief as are the stories of fairy mills that grind one young again; but then we must remember what capacious sleeves those monks wore. About this time, also, Hans Bullman, padlock-maker, of Nuremberg, made many liliputian figures of men and women. These beat drums and played upon lutes by clock-work, and probably some found their way into the ex-monarch's museum. About the year 1679 Dr. Robert Hooke, when secretary of the Royal Society, seems to have been smitten with a desire to emulate the feats of the ancients in the construction of a machine by which men could fly in any direction. He, however, gained little in reputation by his flying chariot, or chair, and his fame rests upon a lower but more solid basis in his observations on the quadrant, telescope, and microscope. Hooke merely followed in the wake of many clever men, who deemed it possible to make some kind of machine to make men fly, though all such attempts have hitherto failed.

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND ANECDOTES.

LIMPETS.

WHO HO that has visited rocky sea-shores but must have seen the limpet? And perhaps to most the sight has not been particularly interesting. There they are, every day in the same spot, unattractive in either colour or shape, some big, some little. Perhaps the fact not only of holding on, but living and thriving on a wave-beaten ocean coast, may have been thought a little remarkable. I feel persuaded that closer acquaintance would disclose much to interest. I at least have felt deeply interested in limpet study, and will, if you incline, make you partaker of what I have seen and felt among the limpets on dark nights and bright days.

To an ordinary observer the limpets seem stationary, occupying the same spot on the face of the rock for weeks, months, years. Nor is this at variance with fact. From infancy to old age, if not removed by violence, the limpet will keep to the

same spot, summer and winter. When the boy becomes a man, the limpets marked by him when a boy are there still-not merely on the same rock front, but on the identical spot, as if a dead fixture instead of a living creature.

The best place to study their habits is in a rockfissure, a little below high-water mark—say, halftide-a fissure too deep for your hand to reach the limpets, but in which you see them distinctly. Here you will see them planted side by side as if set by human hand, some big, some little, but all in rows, so that each limpet seems to have a right-of-way to come out if so inclined. But who ever saw them except as described? Everybody knows they can move; and in order to feed one fancies they must. Yet who ever saw them move?

Now come with me to such a fissure; count the number of limpets in it; mark the exact position of each and the size of each. Repeat this visit twelve or twenty times, until each limpet becomes as familiar as the button on your sleeve. We now visit our fissure about midnight-hardly worth loss of sleep and exposure, but when on a discovery on which the mind is set, sleep and comfort count for little. We are off; it is about half-flood, not more. Coming within several yards of our familiar fissure, we cease to speak, and crawl on in silence. Now we are at the spot. If there is a moon we may have light sufficient, if not, we strike a light and look into the fissure, and, to our surprise, the limpets are all gone! Look outside; there they all are, moving about promiscuously like sheep in a park! The least noise will cause them either to squat down or roll off into the sea; but if silent, we can remove them with ease as they move about. Our object just now is not to take them for bait, but to look at them and learn something from them. We thereupon withdraw in silence, and next day visit our fissure. There they all are, each in the same spot as on previous days. No; perhaps we miss one small limpet. Barring accidents, I can account for the little chap. Limpets have laws or rules of procedure in common with all living creatures. Rule number one seems to be that no limpet shall invade the resting-place of another: the penalty, death. Young limpets, like the young of a noble race, from selfishness, ignorance, or bravado, sometimes violate this rule. When out feeding, they are sooner filled than big ones, and return sooner to the fissure. From mistake or choice, the wee thing will, on a rare occasion, settle down in the bed of a big one. When the old fellow returns and finds his bed occupied, he touches the invader with his feelers. The only effect of this gentle hint is to cause the little one to adhere more firmly. The big limpet at once puts the law in force by inflicting the penalty death on the transgressor. He moves on to the top of the small limpet until he gets hold of the rock all round the little one, and by thus excluding the air suffocation soon does the fatal work. the big limpet moves off, the dead one usually rolls to the bottom of the fissure, when it is at once taken in hand by a number of insects which seem to have been waiting for such an event, and in a short time all that remains of the ambitious youth is an empty shell!

When

Such tragical scenes in a limpet village are rare, but they do occur, as the empty shells at the bottom of the fissure testify. I have witnessed the execution, and, I am afraid, felt more sympathy for the condemned than respect for the law. To take the part

*

L. FRASER.

THE COW-TREE OF THE CARACCAS.

Of vegetable productions, few have excited more general interest in the botanical world than the Palo de Vaca, or Cow-tree of the Caraccas (Galactodendron ùtile), which belongs to the natural order Artocarpacea, a family containing the bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa), the virulent Upas-tree (Antiàris toxicària), and many other plants.

The appearance of the Galactodendron at the Paris Exhibition has caused fresh attraction to be directed to it, and its introduction and cultivation to be recommended in parts of the world of which the tree is not a native, where a constant supply of the milk would prove of great advantage. The milk of the Cow-tree has been analysed by various chemists, who have found it to contain more than thirty per cent. of galactine. Living specimens of this important tree may be seen in the collections at Kew, and at the Royal Botanic Gardens in the Regent's Park.

The late Baron Humboldt was the first to bring the Cow-tree of Caraccas into notice. In his valuable "Rélation Historique" he says, "We returned from Porto Cabello to the valley of Aragua, stopping at the plantation of Barbula, through which the new road to Valencia is to pass. For many weeks we had heard a great deal of a tree whose juice is a nourishing milk. The tree itself is called the Cow-tree, and we were assured that the negroes on the farm, who are in the habit of drinking large quantities of this vegetable milk, consider it as highly nutritive, an assertion which startled us the more as almost all lactescent vegetable fluids are acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous. Experience, however, proved to us, during our residence at Barbula, that the virtues of the Cow-tree, or Palo de Vaca, have not been exaggerated. This fine tree bears the general aspect of the star apple-tree (Chrysophyllum Cainito). Its oblong, pointed, coriaceous, and alternate leaves are about ten inches long, and marked with lateral nerves that are parallel and project beneath. The flower we had no opportunity of seeing. The fruit is somewhat fleshy, and contains one or two kernels. Incisions made in the trunk of the tree are followed by a profuse flow of gluey and thickish milk, destitute of acridity, and exhaling a very agreeable balsamic odour. It was offered to us in calabashes, and though we drank large quantities of it, both at night before going to bed and again early in the morning, we experienced no uncomfortable effects. The viscidity of this milk alone renders it rather unpleasant to those who are unaccustomed to it. The negroes and free people who work in the plantations use it by soaking bread in it made from maize, manioc, aropa, and cassava; and the superintendent of the farm assured us that the slaves become visibly fatter during the season when the Palo de Vaca yields most milk. When exposed to the air this fluid displays on its surface, probably by the absorption of

* From-gala, milk, and dendron, a tree--milk-bearing tree.

the atmospheric oxygen, membranes of a highly animal nature, yellowish and thready, like those of cheese, which, when separated from the more watery liquid, are nearly as elastic as those of caoutchouc, but, in process of time, exhibit the same tendency to putrefaction as gelatine. The people give the name of cheese to the curd which thus separates when brought into contact with the air, and say that a space of five or six days suffices to turn it sour, as I found to be the case in some small quantities that I brought to New Valencia. The milk itself, kept in a corked bottle, had deposited a small portion of coagulum, and, far from becoming foetid, continued to exhale a balsamic scent. When mingled with cold water the fresh fluid coagulated with difficulty, but contact with nitric acid produced the separation of the viscous membranes.

"This wonderful tree appears peculiar to the Cordillera of the shore, especially from Barbula to the lake of Maracaybo. Some individual Cow-trees are also said to exist near the village of San Mateo, and likewise in the valley of Caucagua, three days' journey to the east of Caraccas. At Caucagua the natives call the tree which yields this nutritive fluid Milktree (Arbol de leche), and pretend to discriminate, by the thickness and hue of their foliage, those trunks which contain most sap, as a cowherd would know, by outward signs, the best milch cow in his herd.

"I own," the Baron continues, "that amid the great number of curious phenomena which offered themselves to my notice during my travels, there was hardly one which struck my imagination so strongly as the sight of the Cow-tree. Neither the noble shadowy forests, nor the majestic current of rivers, nor the mountains hoary with sempiternal snows,-none of these wonders of tropical regions so riveted my gaze as did this tree, growing on the sides of rocks, its thick roots scarcely penetrating the stony soil, and unmoistened, during many months of the year, by a drop of dew or rain. But dry and dead as the branches appear, if you pierce the trunk, a sweet and nutritive milk flows forth, which is in greatest abundance at daybreak. At this time the blacks and other natives of the neighbourhood hasten from all quarters, furnished with large jugs to catch the milk, which thickens and turns yellow on the surface. Some drink it on the spot, others carry it home to their children; and you might fancy you saw the family of a cowherd gathering around him, and receiving from him the produce of his 'kine.'”

Sir Robert Ker Porter made an excursion in 1837 into the mountains, some fifty miles distant from the city of Caraccas, about three leagues from the coast, not far from the town of Coriacco, and, after extreme pedestrian labour, up the steep forest-covered face of the mountain, reached the spot where the Palo de Vaca grows; and he says that the sight of this extraordinary tree fully repaid him for the fatigue and the severe wetting which he experienced. The elevation above the level of the sea, he states, cannot be less than four thousand feet, and he found the temperature at eight o'clock under the spreading branches of the tree was 70° Fahr. Sir Robert made a drawing of one of the trees which he saw, the trunk of which measured somewhat more than twenty feet in circumference at about five feet from the root. This colossal stem ran up to a height of sixty feet, perfectly uninterrupted by either leaf or branch, when its vast arms and minor branches, most luxuriantly clothed with foliage, spread on every

culture of chiccory is the same as that of clover. It is grown in gardens for culinary purposes, and the seed may be procure i from the seed shops. From eight to twelve pounds of seed, which should be fresh, are usually sown to an acre.

2. The yellow lucern (Medicago falcata), which is much hardier than the common lucern, has been successfully cultivated on poor soils in some parts of France and in Switzerland, and is now being tried in some parts of England. In a wild state it is counties of England.

generally found in dry gravelly soils, chiefly in the eastern

Darieties.

SOFA-WORSHIP.-A recent paragraph in the "Athenæum illustrates the absurd length to which relic-worship can be carried:-"The worshippers of Shelley will be glad of some further information regarding the Shelley relic, the sofa, mentioned last week. It is now shown conclusively that this is the sofa which Shelley ordinarily used in Pisa. At his death it came, of course, to Mrs. Shelley; she, on leaving Pisa, presented it to Leigh Hunt. When his turn for quitting Pisa arrived, he sold it to Mr. Charles Brown. This gentleman eventually returned to England, and then Mr. (now the Barone) Kirkup bought the sofa; and Landor' (says Kirkup) 'always laughed at me for paying the value of Brown's appraiser, who had a percentage on the price, and therefore raised the price accordingly." Shelley is known to have slept on the sofa the two or three nights that he was in Pisa before his last fatal voyage.

USEFUL FODDER PLANTS.-In the "Leisure Hour" for October, 1877, p. 656, a description was given of the Caucasian prickly comfrey (Symphytum asperrimum), as being an excellent fodder plant; and it may be useful to direct attention to some other plants which afford an abundant supply of most useful food for cattle and sheep.

1. The chiccory, wild endive, or succory (Cichorium Intybus) was first cultivated in this country about 1780, by Arthur Young, who held it in very high estimation, and who, indeed, considered it of such consequence for different purposes of the farm, that on various sorts of soil the farmer cannot, without its use, make the greatest possible profit. Where it is intended to lay a field to grass for three, four, or six years, in order to rest the land, or to increase the quantity of sheep food, there cannot be any hesitation in using it, as there is no plant to rival it. Upon blowing sands, or upon any soil that is weak or poor and wants rest, there is no plant that equals this. On such blowing poor sandy lands as many districts abound with, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk, it will yield a greater quantity of sheep food than any other plant at present in cultivation. On fen and bog lands and peat soils it also thrives to much profit. On all lands where clover, from having been too often repeated, is apt to fail, chiccory may be substituted to great advantage. It does very well for cattle, both lean and fattening; and it is said to increase greatly the milk of cows. It is of great use to those who keep a large stock of swine; and it does exceedingly well in an alternate system of grass and tillage, as it will last four, five, six, or even more years; but it should not be sown with any view of making hay in this climate, though it forms a considerable portion of many of the best meadows in the south of France and in Lombardy. The plant has long, thick, perpendicular roots, a tuft of endive or lettuce-like leaves, and when it shoots into flower its stems rise from one to three feet high, being rigid, rough, branched, and clothed with leaves and blue flowers. It is found wild in dry caleareous soils in England, and in most parts of Europe of similar or greater temperature. The

3. The kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulnerária), a British perennial, frequent in dry pastures, and on the borders of fields in chalky or limestone districts, is also now being tried in England. The herbage is eagerly eaten by cattle; and as some of the most profitable sheep pastures of Southern Europe abound with this plant, it will probably repay the attention of the British farmer in many of the dry and barren districts of this country.

4. The saintfoin (Onobrychis sativa) is found highly valuable to the farmer in dry and especially in chalky districts, growing

No plant is better liked by cattle, and when eaten in a green state it is not apt to swell or hove cattle like the clovers or lucern. On soils that are suitable for the saintfoin (those that are dry, deep, and calcareous), no farmer can sow too much of it. It is a deep-rooting perennial, with branching spreading stems, compound leaves, and showy red flowers.

5. The Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberòsus) has been found a most useful fodder plant. It has tuberous roots, and leafy stems from four to six feet high. It thrives well on soft moist soils, and even, it is said, on moist peat soils; and it is alleged that its tops will afford as much fodder per acre as a crop of oats, or more, and its roots half as many tubers as an ordinary crop of potatoes. The cultivation of the land for the Jerusalem artichoke is in all respects similar to that for the potato.

A.

SHERE ALI, AMEER OF AFGHANISTAN.-We reprint from The "Times of April 23, 1872, a remarkable letter from the Ameer of Afghanistan to the acting Viceroy of India on the death of Lord Mayo:-"I have just been shocked to hear the terrible and mournful tidings of the death of the Viceroy and GovernorGeneral of India. By this terrible and unforeseen stroke my heart has been overwhelmed with grief and anguish, for it can scarce occur again in days so out of joint as these that the world will see another so universally beloved and esteemed for his many high and excellent qualities as him who is now in the spirit land. All great and wise men have ever regarded this transitory world as a resting-place for a single night or as an overflowing and changing stream, and have never ceased to remind their fellows that they must pass beyond it and leave all behind them. It is, therefore, incumbent on men not to fix their affections on perishable things during the course of their short lives, which are, as it were, a loan to them from above. Naught remains to the friends and survivors of him who is gone from among us but patience and resignation. The unvarying friendship and kindness displayed towards me by him who is now no more had induced me to determine, if the affairs of Afghanistan at the time permitted the step, to accompany his Excellency on his return to England, so that I might obtain the gratification of a personal interview with her Majesty the Queen, and derive pleasure from travelling in the countries of Europe. Before the eternally predestined decrees, however, men must bow in silence. A crooked and perverse fate always interferes to prevent the successful attainment by any human being of his most cherished desires. What more can be said or written to express my grief and sorrow? It is my earnest wish that your Excellency, wherever you may be, will in future communicate to me accounts of your health, and inform me of your name and titles, that I may be enabled to address my letters correctly."

MIRACLE PLAYS IN ENGLAND.-There is still in existence a rude amphitheatre, in the parish of St. Just, near the Land's End, Cornwall, in which sacred plays, some of a Scriptural and others of a legendary character, were performed in the days before the Reformation, a practice still traditionally remembered by some of the people. Mr. Norris writes thus in his "History of the Ancient Cornish Drama ":" The bare granite plain of St. Just, in view of Cape Cornwall and of the transparent sea which beats upon the magnificent headlands, would be a magnificent theatre for the exhibition of what in those days would appear to be a serious representation of the general history of the Creation, the Fall, and the Redemption of Man, however it might be marred occasionally by passages of a light and even of a ludicrous character. The mighty gathering of the people from