The

and sometimes four, divers descend successively to secure a particularly fine specimen. The best sponge is that which is the palest, and lightest, has small holes and is soft to the touch. When first taken from the rock, where it grows in a cup-like shape, it is perfectly smooth and black, and sometimes covered with a skin or coating of the same hue, and full of an offensive white liquid, which is a part of the animal, and is forced out, by pressing it under foot. When packed in casks to be sent to England, the sponges are filled with fine white sand, and when dried are compressed into a very small compass. object of the sand is said to be in order to preserve the sponge; it also adds considerably to their weight; and as they are always sold by weight, it appears, at first, a dishonest mode of proceeding; but it is probable were it not for the sand, the fine sponges would weigh so little that they would be cheaper than the coarse ones; the sand fills the fine pores of the best kind of sponge, and thus renders it of more value. You may have observed, I dare say, when you have purchased a new piece of sponge, that it is some time before you get rid of the fine powdery sand, from the inner parts. When sponge has been cut into pieces, beaten, in order to free it from little stones and shells, and burnt in a closed iron vessel, till it is black and brittle, it is then called burnt sponge, and is still used in medicine, though not so much as formerly. The sponge, or tinder, that you asked me about yesterday, does not grow on the sea-shore, but is a kind of fungus, growing on old oak, ash, or fir trees. This is boiled in water, dried, and beaten, then put into a strong lye, prepared with saltpetre, and again dried in an oven, a process which makes it very inflammable.

Coral is another substance that appears for a great length of time to have been considered a vegetable production. In 1720, however, M. De Peyronnel commenced, and, for thirty years, had the patience to carry on, a series of observations, by which he ascertained that the coral, instead of being a plant, was a living animal of the Polypi tribe. The general name of Zoophyte has since been applied to it though some modern travellers still call it Litho

phyte, or stone-plant. There are six of the species, and they secrete a milky juice, which when exuded from the animal becomes solid and fixed. The production of this secretion is one of those wonderful processes of nature's chemistry, which the skill of man has not enabled him either to detect or to imitate; but it is quite certain that by such means this diminutive animal has the power of raising huge masses of rocky substance, capable of resisting the tremendous power of the ocean, even when agitated to the highest pitch by winds or tempests. The coral insect is found in most of the great seas, and is particularly abundant in the Mediterranean, where it produces corallines of the most beautiful forms and colours; but it is in the Pacific Ocean where these tiny workmen are effecting those mighty changes which exceed the most stupendous works of man. That part of the Pacific in which these operations are going on has been called the Dangerous Archipelago, from the number of coral reefs and sunken islands with which it abounds; but latterly its name has been changed to that of the Coral Sea. It comprehends a region of many hundred miles in extent, the whole of which is thickly studded with reefs, rocks, islands, and columns of coral, continually approaching nearer to each other. The instinct which thus draws together inconceivable my

riads of these insects to commence such vast structures, which impels them, in spite of the violence of the sea, stedfastly, and with mathe matical precision, to pursue their purpose to its completion, is as surprising as the work itself, and, while it throws our most elaborate structures into the shade, strikingly displays the omnipotence of that God, who "weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance," and can thus cause "the weak things of the world to confound things that are mighty."

THE COLD OF CANADA.

often found my pen full of a lump of stuff like honey, which proved to be frozen ink; and one day, after washing in the morning, I took up some money from my table, and fancied it had become stickey, until I discovered that the sensation was caused by its freezing to my fingers, which I had not sufficiently dried. Many people lose their limbs, and occasionally their lives, from cold. I once enquired of a fine ruddy looking man, whose toes and insteps of each foot had been truncated, how the accident happened. told me that the first winter he came from England, he lost his way in the forest, and that after walking for some hours, and feeling pain in his feet, he took off his boots, and from the flesh immediately swelling, he was unable to put them on again.

He

Sir Francis Head.)

EVEN under bright sunshine, and in a most exhilarating air, the biting effect of the cold upon the portion of the face that is exposed to it, resembles the application of a strong acid; in a calm this is bearable, but the repetition of successive doses of it, by wind, becomes almost unbearable; indeed I remember seeing the left cheek of nearly twenty soldiers, simultaneously, frost-bitten in marching about one hundred yards, across a bleak open space completely exposed to a bitter north-west wind. Of late years, English fire-places have been introduced into many houses; and though mine at Toronto was warmed with hot-air from a large oven, with fires in all our sitting-rooms, nevertheless, the wood for my grate, which was piled close to the fire, often remained till night covered with the snow which was on it when deposited there in the morning. As a further instance of the cold of the climate, I may add that while occupied in writing, I

and he saw with alarm, but without the slightest sensation of pain, first one toe, and then another break off as if they had been pieces of brittle stick. In this mutilated state he reached an inhabited log house, where he remained, suffering great pain, till his cure was effected. On another occasion, while an Englishman was driving one bright beautiful day, in a sleigh on the ice, his horse ran away, and fancying he could stop him better without his cumbersome fur gloves, he unfortunately took them off. He was facing a keen north-west wind, and felt himself gradually, as it were, turning into marble, and by the time he had stopped the horse and arrived at home, his hands were so irrecoverably frozen, that he was obliged to have them! both amputated.

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'Give us this day O THOU! Who canst give "honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock!"-the Creator, the Giver of every good thing! the "Way" without which there is but wandering the "Truth" without which there is only error-the "Life" without which there is alone death! I would count over THIS DAY'S mercies: Thy watchful care, Thy tender providences, Thy countless blessings, and call to mind my own insensibility and ingratitude, till shame cover my face and confusion overwhelm me!! "Lord! what is man that Thou art mindful of him"-for verily he is altogether vanity! Yet, shew forth Thine attribute of mercy as Thou art ever wont, and still go on to be near us! glorify Thy Name in us, and turn away anger from those who would meekly acknowledge sin-for Thee belongeth forgiveness that Thou mayest be feared"-and when so many of Thine hired servants have BREAD enough and to spare, woe be to us if we perish with hunger!!!

to

O Lord Jesus! Thou Who art the Living Bread Who camest down from Heaven to give life unto the world, by being Thyself that Lamb without spot, offered on the Altar of the Cross-be Thy Wounds our hiding-place! that we may plead with the Father that He still

GIVE US DAY BY DAY OUR DAILY

BREAD! and as by special grace He doth put into our hearts good desires -by special grace may enable us to bring the same to good effect! Bury in Thy grave all that repels Thy Mind and Presence-all that

our daily bread:"

blinds and smothers pure intention. Lord Jesus! GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD-even every saving benefit of Thy Holy Incarnation, Nativity and Circumcision-Baptism, Fasting and TemptationThine Agony and Bloody SweatThy Cross and Passion, and Precious Death and Burial-and, when heart and flesh fail, be Thou our only Food and Consolation-and Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension our constant joy and stimulation!

Yes, Gracious God! "Thou Who art the Portion of mine inheritance." "He Who shall maintain my lot!" Thou didst feed Thine Own people with Angels' food and send them BREAD from Heaven without their labour-able to content every man's delight"-"satisfy our mouths with good things, and let our souls delight themselves in fatness!" still restrain us by preventing grace, and sustain us by Thy BREAD of Life: counsel us more, confirm us moretill our love (through the ever widening circle of union with Thy Blessed Son) so grow in practice, and our practice so grow in love, that shining in Christ's reflected Light, illumined by His transforming Grace, we be indeed a people formed for Thy praise, elect, and precious in Thy Sight!!

For this end, Lord God Almighty, bow Thou down Thine Ear and hear us! The rich Thou dost send empty away-but we would come before Thee "poor and in misery," and claim Thy promise to "fill the hungry with good things." We would open our mouths wide that