almost the whole of the great drop to the sea-level is is carried by the prevailing west winds far into the effected in the one waterfall. country, and would fall into the mother-liquor lakes, where, on exposure to the air at a warm temperature, it would gradually oxidize to nitrate, and acting on the sodium carbonate, would form sodium nitrate (Chili saltpetre). The "caliche" (crude saltpetre) is most variable in appearance and in the percentage of nitrate which it contains. WHY TWELVE HOURS? WHY are the dials divided into twelve divisions of five minutes each? Hear Mr. S. Grant Oliphant: "We have sixty divisions on the dials of our clocks and watches because the old Greek astronomer, Hipparchus, who lived in the second century before Christ, accepted the Babyloniau system of reckoning time-that system being sexa decimal system, but for common or practical purposes they counted by sossi and sari, the sossos representing sixty and the saros sixty times six-three hundred and sixty. From Hipparchus that mode of reckoning found its way into the works of Ptolemy, about 150 A. D., and hence was carried down the stream of science and civilization, and found its way to the dial-plates of our clocks The elevation of the Labrador tableland is given by Professor Hind as 2,240 feet. From this height the Moisie and Cold Water Rivers descend to the sea by means of a considerable number of falls. But in the Grand River below Lake Waminikapou there is only one fall, viz., that which occurs twenty-five miles from the river-mouth. This fall is 70 feet. It is true that the whole of the river from Lake Waminikapou to the First Falls is rapid, but there is no place where there is any considerable drop, and indeed no place where it is necessary to take the boat out of the water. Now the lake first above the Grand Falls is on the height of land. In the channels joining the various lakes above the falls there are no rapids, and there is scarcely any stream. It therefore follows, assuming the elevation of the tableland on the east to be approximate to that on the south, that in the thirty miles beginning with the Grand Falls and end-gesimal. The Babylonians were acquainted with the ing with Lake Waminikapou, there is a drop of about 2,000 feet. Some of this drop is probably effected by the rapids immediately below the falls, but the greater part is no doubt made by the fall itself. The river is said by Maclean to be 500 yards broad above the falls, contracting to 50 yards at the falls themselves. The interior of the country Mr. Holme found was richly wooded, and the climate mild, though the plague of flies and musquitoes was almost intolerable. The few Indians who inhabit Labrador belong mostly to the Cree nation, and according to Mr. Holme are probably perfectly unmixed with either whites or Eskimo. As an agricultural or pastoral country Mr. Holme thinks Labrador has no future, though something may be made of its iron, of the existence of which strong indications exist. Mr. Holme's observations have tended greatly to the improvement of the maps of Labrador, and the photographs he brought home give an excellent idea of the general character of the country. SALT-BEDS OF THE WEST COAST OE SOUTH AMERICA. THE salt-beds on the west coast of South America are found in the rainless district which stretches from Payta (near Amotape), in Peru, as far south as the twenty-sixth parallel. This region forms a narrow strip along the coast-line, and rarely exceeds twenty-five miles in width. It is bounded on the east by a chain of the Andes, and in the southern portion of the district the coast is fringed with low-lying hills, known as the Coast Cordilleras. A recent German author considers that, before the upheaval of the Andes, salt began to deposit in certain bays, which had been wholly or partially shut off from the sea by the gradual formation of an intercepting bar. Then, while the process of evaporation was still incomplete, the district was raised by volcanic action, and the mother liquors from the salt lakes eventually escaped, running down into the valleys, and, where they encountered no obstacle, reaching the sea. The Coast Cordilleras acted as a barrier in the southern portion of the district, while in the northern part the liquors doubtless returned to the sea. The volcanoes which produced the aforesaid upheaval exhaled immense volumes of carbonic acid gas, and the author considers that a portion of the sodium chloride in the mother liquors was thus converted into sodium carbonate. (The co-existence of borates goes far to confirm the source of carbonic acid.) The coast in this part of Chili is studded with small islands containing deposits of guano rich in ammonia. The guano dust and watches." ABOUT ARTISTS' COLORS. A WELL-KNOWN artist gave some curious information the other day regarding the resources from which the colors one finds in a paint-box are derived. Every quarter of the globe is ransacked for the material-animal, vegetable and mineral-employed in their manufacture. From the cochineal insect are obtained the gorgeous carmiue, as well as the crimson, scarlet and purple lakes. Sepia is the inky fluid discharged by the cuttle-fish, to render the water opaque for its own concealment when attacked by enemies; Indian-yellow is from the urine of the camel; and ivory-black and bone-black are made out of ivory chips. The exquisite Prussian-blue is got by fusing horses hoofs and other refuse animal matter with impure potassium carbonate. It was discovered by accident. In tho vegetable kingdom are included the lakes, derived from roots, barks and gums. Blue-black is from the charcoal of the vine - stock. Lamp-black is soot from certain resinous substances. From the madder-plant, which grows in Hindoostan, is manufactured Turkey - red. Gamboge comes from the yellow sap of a tree, which the natives of Siam catch in cocoanut-chells. When burned it is burnt sienna. Rawumber is an earth from Umbria, and is also burned. To these vegetable pigments may probably be added India - ink, which is said to be made from burnt camphor. The Chinese, who alone can produce it, will no reveal the secret of its composition. Mastic-the base of the varnish so called-is from the gum of the mastic-tree, indigenous to the Grecian Archipelago. Bistre is the soot of wood-ashes. Of real ultramarine but little is found in the market. It is obtained from the precious lapis lazuli, and commands a fabulous price. Chinese-white is zinc. Scarlet is iodide of mercury, and cinnabar, or native vermilion, is from quicksilver ore. health of small children, as our friend the artist remarked, the water-colors in the cheap boxes usually bought for them have little or no relation chemically to the real pigments they are intended to counterfeit, Luckily for the "LEANING BACK IN A GREAT SLEEPY-HOLLOW CHAIR SAT KATHERINE, ONE HAND DROOPING OVER THE ARM OF THE CHAIR, THE OTHER UPHELD BEFORE HER, SUPPORTING A TINY JAVA SPARROW." THE JAVA SPARROW. BY LOUIS DELARNE. AUNT JANE was nodding in her chair by the fire, her cap had slipped rakishly awry, and the blazing wood cast grotesque reflections over her sweet old face; Bess, amidst convulsions of silent mirth, was sketching her distorted profile on the wall; and Primrose was abVol. XXV., No. 5-35. sorbed in a book, while I roamed disconsolately about the quaint old room waiting for Tom. Suddenly I bear the noise of an opening door, and fly to meet my bouny lad. He is carrying something in his hand-a square paper parcel, which he holds teasingly just out of reach. "Whoever guesses the contents in five minutes can have the package," he announces, gayly. We all guess, even Aunt Jane hazards. "A box of collars," we all shout in derision, and the clamor of answers goes on until"Time's up!" cries Tom. "You have all failed, and I award the prize to Aunt Jane. Her guess was no worse than yours, and she is really the most deserving person here." Tom proceeds to carefully unwrap tne parcel, and inside is a tiny, square wooden cage, and inside the cage is Java sparrow-a soft, gray little creature, with brilliant red beak and inquisitive black eyes. a tiny Java sparrow, whose soft, gray little body was unmarked save by a single scarlet spot on the breast. "I entered quietly, and as Katherine turned toward me, her beautiful gray eyes still retained a curious, dreamy, dazzled look, as though she had just turned them away from some dim twilight distance to the full light of day. The peculiar expression disappeared almost immediately, and giving me an enthusiastic welcome, Katherine plunged into a discussion upon chiffons in general and those of her trousseau in particular. sparrow had retired to his perch on my entrance, and it was not until after a busy hour that I remembered the curious little scene I lad witnessed, and asked when she The We exclaim in delight, and drag Aunt Jane forward to had bought her new pet, and what she called him. Dissurvey her prize. regarding my first question, she answered the latter by Aunt Jane exclaims too, but not in delight. She pushes calling Jack.' The sparrow immediately flew down, the cage toward Tom. "Take it away, Tom, please; it reminds me of my poor Cousin Katherine." Tom complies, evidently a little downcast by the result of his joke, and Aunt Jane, who is the kindest soul alive, comes promptly to his relief. You will think me very foolish, Tom, unless I give you a reason for my feeling about the bird. To do that I must tell you a strange experience of mine." Without further preface Aunt Jane begins: "Twenty years ago, when my Cousin Katherine was still the beautiful Miss Heywood, and a charming girl of twenty, she had among her admirers two well-known society men, Jack Wynne and Waltham May. Both young, both well-favored by nature and fortune, they were for a time equal favorites in the love-race. One radical difference there was between the two men. While Jack Wynne never forgot Katherine, Waltham May never forgot himself. In spite of this, perhaps-so curious is human nature-because of it, Waltham May found favor in Katherine's eyes, and one fine morning there were two events in fashionable circles: Katherine's engagement to Waltham May was announced, and Jack Wynne sailed for his coffee plantation in Java. "Circumstances called me away from town at this time, and I did not return until within a few weeks of Katherine's marriage. "During my absence, however, news had reached me of Jack Wynne's death in Java from a gunshot wound received during a hunting expedition. I had heard no particulars of his death. "On the day of my return I received a note from Katherine begging me to be her bridesmaid, and to pay her a visit at my earliest convenience, with a view to consultation about the dress to be worn on that occasion. "I called next morning, and was met at the door by Mrs. Heywood, who was just leaving the house. She greeted me pleasantly, and then said: 666 'Don't stand on ceremony, Jane. Go right up-stairs to the nest. You will find Katherine there.' "The 'nest' was Katherine's particular 'den,' where only her intimates were admitted, and had been so-called because Katherine, with a verital le passion for the feathered tribe, always had two or three of her pet birds flying about in the apartment. I mounted the stairs, and drawing aside the portières, looked in at as pretty a picture as the eye of an artist could desire. "Leaning back in a great Sleepy-Hollow chair, her face turned a little away from the door, sat Katherine, the dark-blue velvet of the chair making an admirable background for the delicate Grecian profile, shaded by masses of chestnut hair, one hand drooping over the arm of the chair, the other upheld before her, supporting and alighting on her shoulder, ran his tiny beak round and round the dainty ear nearest him, gradually encroaching more and more upon the soft cheek until, with a sudden dart, he pressed his little head against her lips. To my surprise, Katherine, instead of laughing at its pretty tricks, reproved him angrily. "Flinging out the hand that held him, she said, harshly: "Go to your perch, sir, and don't come down while I stay here.' "The bird obeyed immediately with drooping mien. Reaching his perch, he tucked his miserable little head under his wing, and rulling out his feathers till he looked like a gray ball of thistle-down, had quite the air of a hermit retiring from a cold world. "Half laughing and half indignant, I demanded of Katherine why she should treat the amusing little creature so harshly, but she replied by a question: "Do you believe in the transmigration of souls ?' "With a moment's pause of amazement, I gave a decided negative, adding: "Why, what new fancy has taken possession of you, Katherine?' "It is something more than a fancy, and you are right in one thing, it has taken complete possession of me,' she replied, quietly. I will tell you the whole story if you will only hear me patiently, and suspend your judgment meanwhile. You well remember what a surprise Jack Wynne's sudden departure was to his friends?' "I signified my assent by a sad little shake of the head. I had liked Jack, and unreasonably regretted Katherine's dismissal of him. "Well,' she continued, he came here, the day before, and speaking of my reported engagement to Waltham, begged me to tell him the truth with regard to it. Something in his manner annoyed me, and I told him it was not only true, but that it was the dearest hope of my life to become Waltham May's wife. Jack had been sitting where you are now, Jane; he was leaning forward gazing eagerly, beseechingly in my eyes. When I had finished speaking, every particle of expression had left his face. It was set and cold. Only his eyes seemed alive, and they were looking at me with a curious, intent gaze that made me shiver. We both remained silent for a moment, and then Jack rose, took his hat, and was about to leave me without a word. Some demon of coquetry entered into my heart. He had been so long my slave, I could not bear that he should leave me so. I laid my hand upon his arm with some entreaty to stay and let me explain. He turned upon me with a fury in his face that made me shrink away, horrified and frightened out of all vanity and girlish nonsense. "Katherine," he said, "for some reason best known to yourself you have allowed me to hope for your love. I have placed all my happiness, all my hopes of the future, on that cast. I find that I have been deceived by myself as much as by you. As for being your friend, that is worse than absurdity. I would now, and at once, give up all thought of you if I could, but I cannot do anything of the sort. I love you, and I firmly believe, in spite of your infatuation for May, that you love me, and that some day you will regret as bitterly as I do now the separation of our lives." He stopped a moment, and then went on, his voice a little less firm: "Oh, Katherine, the pity of it -I love you so well, and you will not be happy with Waltham. I k.ow it as certainly as though I could see your future, and yet you must go through all that disillusionment and misery before you can see as I do now. Dear love, it maddens me to think of your life in the next few years; but when it is hardest, when in the misery and humiliation you suffer there seems no possibility of relief, remember that somewhere in the universe your lover Jack is waiting for you; that the darkest hour of your grief heralds the dawn of happiness perfect and entire.'" "Katherine paused a moment here, and then resumed, quietly: "I never saw or heard directly of Jack again until a few weeks ago, when a Mr. Hendor, a friend of Jack's in Java, came here to see me. This Mr. Hendon had been with Jack constantly; was with him at the time of the accident, and afterward receiving his final directions. Jack was wounded in the morning, and before his death, which did not occur until midnight, he wrote a short note to me begging my acceptance of a silver girdle and of a Java sparrow, both of which his friend presented to me. The girdle was composed of links of antique silver, shaped like arrows, and the clasp looked like a heart cut in two. The sparrow is the one you have just admired. Before Mr. Hendon took his leave he told me that some time before Jack's death two sparrows had built their nest under the eaves of a covered balcony outside of Jack's window. He had taken a great interest in all their proceedings, and was much concerned when the nest was blown down one day, and all the eggs broken but one. He restored this egg to the nest, and the nest to its original place, and watched eagerly for the appearance of the "fit est," as he called the unhatched sparrow, on the principle of "the survival of the fittest." The evening Jack died the watchers heard a feeble chirp, and upon Jack's whispered inquiry examined the nest and found the existence of the "fittest" had begun. They told him, and he immediately gave directions that it should be given to me. He lay quietly for a few minutes afterward, then raising himself slightly, he said, quite clearly, "Take my soul to Katherine. Hendon, be sure to take my soul to Katherine," and fell back dead. "Now, Jane,' said Katherine, turning to me, 'you understand why I believe in the transmigration of souls. That this Java sparrow is the present embodiment of Jack's soul I am quite certain, and while it seems treason to Waltham to keep the bird, yet I cannot send it away from me.' | Street speculations, and was unusually successful. He seemed to possess the philosopher's stone,' and Midaslike, everything he touchel turned to gold. Success intoxicated him; he evidently felt himself master of his destiny. Waltham May, always egotistic, became an egotist pure and simple-pride of birth, pride of wealth, and pride of person-led him on with promises as delusive as lured Macbeth to destruction-and Katherine. "Poor Katherine, her suffering was unique. Endowed with a genius of loving, she lived in a golden desert, and only in dreams was she blessed with a mirage of love and happiness. Not that May ill-used her-he simply forgot her. Many of his pleasures were of such a kind as to. preclude her participation in them, and during an illness, occurring soon after her marriage, not only her beauty but her strength had failed her, and she was only a spec tre of the Katherine I had known. "There came to New York, in the Autumn of the third year after Katherine's marriage, an Englishwoman, Mrs. Lemoyne by name, famous because of her beauty and her past history. She brought good letters of introduction; was received, féted, caressed-in a word, became the fashion. In an evil hour for Katherine, Waltham May fell under this woman's influence, and openly and recklessly showed his infatuation. It was dreadful to witness the effect this conduct had upon his wife. Frail-looking always, she grew more and more shadow-like, and worse than that, her mind seemed equally affected with hor body. Her husband had evidently become an object or loathing, and her most peaceful hours were spent in her boudoir with her books and Jack. I had forgotten to say that during Waltham's courtship, before and after marriage, Jack had drooped and pined-nothing would tempt him to leave his perch; but as Waltham's ardor cooled and changed to mere courtesy, Jack became more and more important to Katherine. He would sit perched on her shoulder or head for hours while she read. "Katherine's idea about the transmigration of Jack's soul evidently was confirmed. One day I ventured to sympathize with her on the subject of her loneliness. She looked at me quietly and said : "Jack is more to be pitied than I am.' As the Autumn advanced Waltham's infatuation for Mrs. Lemoyne became more pronounced, and it was evident that a catastrophe of some kind impended. It came, curiously enough, on the anniversary of Katherine's marriage. A few days before, Waltham had announced his intention of giving a ball, to which Mrs. Lemoyne should be invited. Katherine objected that she did not know, or desire to know, Mrs. Lemoyne; that an invitation could not be given under those circumstances. Waltham insisted angrily, and the interview concluded by Katherine's remarking: "You may do as you please, Waltham, but if you bring Mrs. Lemoyne here I will leave the house. You destroyed my love for you some time ago. If you value the good opinion of the world, do not attempt to inflict on me this crowning indignity.' "The subject of this conversation was not, Katherine told me, referred to again by either, but the prepara tions for the ball went on. They were on a magnificent "After a few moments of a very thoughtful silence scale, and the entertainment was to be a social event. It upon both our parts, Katherine added: "I have told you all this, Jane, because I found my self brooding over it, and fancied telling it might do me good. You will best please me by never referring to it again.' "Katherine married soon after, and for a time seemed happy in her new life. Waltham May plunged into Wall was to take place at a beautiful country house, a wedding present to Katherine from her father, and her favorite dwelling-place since her illness. In it she had fitted up a 'den' in memory of her girlhood's days, and there spent her most peaceful hours. It was a dainty, luxurious room, filled with books, and here was Jack's favorite perch. One side of the room opened on a detached |