"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown-Shakespeare. "The ripest fruit first falls.-Ibid.

"How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes."-Ibid.

"I cannot tell what the dickens his name is "-Ibid.

"Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted."-Cervantes.

"Every one is the son of his own works."— Ibid. "Better late than never."-Thomas Tusser.

"At Christmas play, and make good cheer,

For Christmas comes but once a year."-Ibid.

"A rolling stone gathers no moss."-Gosson.

"One half the world knoweth not how the other half liveth." -Rabelais.

"Man proposes and God disposes."-Thomas Kempis. "Of two evils the less is always to be chosen."-Ibid. "And yet he had a thomb of gold."-Chaucer.

"The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants."-Bertrand Barere.

"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."Charles Pinckney.

"All men are created equal."-Jefferson.

"Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long."-Goldsmith.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no fibs."-Ibid.

A Famous Phrase.

Patrick Henry, in March, 1775, delivered a speech in the Virginia Convention in favor of a resolution "that the colony be immediately put in a state of defense." In concluding his address, the impassioned son of Hanover County said: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

Author of "Nearer, My God, to Thee."

Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams was the authoress of the grand hymn. This lady was born in Cambridge, England, in the month of February, 1805. Her father was the editor of a weekly Cambridge paper, and the same authority informs us that her mother was a woman of fine gifts and culture. The sweet hymn-writer was the youngest child, and was early noted for the taste which she manifested in literature, and later in life for great zeal and earnestness in her religious life. She is said to have contributed both prose and verse to the periodicals of her day, and to have her criticisms in art matters highly esteemed. She wrote a catechism for children, which was published in the year 1845. She married young, was of frail constitution, but was always, even with many creature complaints, very busy with her literary labors. At just what time and under what circumstances she wrote the great hymn is not known. It was first published in 1841, but

the authoress never knew the fame which the sacred song brought her. Mrs. Adams died at the age of 44, and since then the lines she penned have been singing themselves round the world.

The World's Seven Wonders.

The seven wonders of the world are: The Pyramids, the Colossus of Rhodes, Diana's Temple at Ephesus, the Pharos of Alexandria, the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the Statue of the Olympian Jove, and the Mausoleum by Artemisia at Halicarnassus. The Pyramids are numerous, and space forbids anything like even a list of them. The great piles were constructed of blocks of red or syenitic granite, and of a hard calcareous stone. These blocks were of extraordinary dimensions, and their transportation to the sites of the pyramids and their adjustment in their places, indicate a surprising degree of mechanical skill. The Great Pyramid covers an area of between twelve and thirteen acres. The masonry consisted originally of 89,028,000 cubic feet, and still amounts to about 82,111,000 feet. The present vertical height is 450 feet, against 479 feet originally, and the present length of the sides is 746 feet, against 764 feet originally. The total weight of the stone is estimated at 6,316,000,000 tons. The city of Rhodes was besieged by Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon, but, aided by Ptolomy Soter, King of Egypt, the enemy were repulsed. To express their gratitude to their allies and to their tutelary delty, they erected a brazen statue to Apollo It was 105 feet high, and hollow, with a winding staircase that ascended to the head. After standing fifty-six years, it was overthrown by an earthquake, 224 years before Christ, and lay nine centuries on the ground, and then was sold to a Jew by the Saracens, who had captured Rhodes, about the middle of the seventh century. It is said to have required nine hundred camels to remove the metal, and from this statement it has been calculated its weight was 720,000 pounds. The Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, was built at the common charge of all the Asiatic States. The chief architect was Chersiphon, and Pliny says that 220 years were employed in completing the temple, whose riches were immense. It was 425 feet long, 225 broad, and was supported by 125 columns of Parlan marble (sixty feet high, each weighing 150 tons), furnished by as many kings. It was set on fire on the night of Alexander's birth by an obscure person named Erostratus, who confessed on the rack that the sole motive which prompted him was the desire to transmit his name to future ages. The temple was again built, and once more burned by the Goths in their naval invasion A. D., 256. The colossal statue of Jupiter in the temple of Olympia, at Ells, was by Phidias. It was in gold and ivory, and sat enthroned in the temple for 800 years, and was finally destroyed by fire about A. D. 475. From the best information, it is believed that the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a rectangular building surrounded by an Ionic portico of

thirty-six columns, and surmounted by a pyramid, rising in twenty-four steps, upon the summit of which was a colossal marble quadriga with a statue of Mausolus. The magnificent structure was erected by Artemisia, who was the sister, wife, and successor of Mausolus.

Castle Garden.

Castle Garden is a historic spot. It was originally a fort, and afterward was transformed into a summer garden, and in that way derived the name it now bears. Half a century ago it was used for civic and military displays and recep tions. In 1824 Lafayette revisited America, and a grand ball was given in his honor at Castle Garden, and President Jackson, in 1832, and President Tyler, in 1843, were publicly received there. Later it became a concert hall, and there Jenny Lind made her first appearance in this country. In 1855 the immigrant depot was established within its walls. The present building at Castle Garden was erected after the partial destruction by fire of the original structure in 1876.

The Blarney Stone.

Blarney is a village in Ireland, in the County of Cork, about five miles from the far-famed city of that name. It is chiefly celebrated as giving the name to a peculiar kind of eloquence which is said to be characteristic of the light-hearted natives of the Emerald Isle. The old castle at Blarney contains the identical stone, the kissing of which is believed to give the person peculiar skill in speech. It is one of those superstitions which can be traced back until the mind of man runneth not to the contrary.

The Big Trees of California.

The big trees of Calaveras and Mariposa Counties, in Callfornia, belong to the same genus as the common redwood. This giant of the Sierras is not a handsome tree, either when young or aged; the branches are short, the spray less graceful than the coast redwood, the leaves small and awlshaped, but the cones are several times larger, and the wood is of a duller reddish hue. The forests were first seen by white men in the spring of 1852, when a hunter named Dowd conducted a party of miners to the locality where the blg trees grew. In the several groves where they have been found, there are many trees from 275 to 335 feet high, and from 25 to 34 feet in diameter. The area of Mariposa Grove is two miles square, and it contains 427 of the monster trees. The largest in the Calaveras Grove is "The Keystone State," and is 325 feet high, and its girth six feet from the ground is 45 feet. There are some 1 the Mariposa Grove which are not so high, but which have a greater circumference. "The Grizzly Glant," for example, being 93 feet at the ground, and over 64 eleven feet above. Some dozen miles south of the Mariposa Grove is the Fresno Grove, which is said to contain about 600 trees, the largest 81 feet in circumference; while

about fifty miles north of the Calaveras, in Placer County, a small grove has been discovered. Careful computations have been made of the ages of these trees, and some cautious scientists admit, in regard to one of them, that "its age cannot have exceeded 1,300 years!"

The Language of Precious Stones.

Diamond, innocence; ruby, beauty and elegance; emerald, success in love; opal, hope; amethyst, sincerity; topaz, fidelity; garnet, constancy and fidelity; turquois, prosperity; cornelian, contented mind; sardonyx, conjugal felicity; agate, health and long life; bloodstone, courage.

Destroying the Germs of Consumption.

It is satisfactory to know that to some extent two germicides for consumption have been discovered, the one gaseous and the other liquid. Salicylic acid, however, appears to be the more lastingly successful. Perhaps a better germicide may be found, yet the principle of the method of treatment is quite revolutionary. In consumption the blood contains living bacilli-tubercles; and this system introduces into the blood by injections the microbes of salicylic acid to kill the bacilli. When the bacilli are destroyed nature will have a chance of repairing the damage done. The highest rate of consumption is in the New England States; the lowest in the Southern and Western States, and especially in the Territories.

The Natural Bridge of Virginia.

It is one of the most wonderful structures nature has left to show her handiwork. The bridge spans the mountain chasm in which flows the little stream called Cedar Creek, the bed of which is more than two hundred feet below the surface of the plain. The middle of the arch is forty-five feet in perpendicular thickness, which increases to sixty at its juncture with the vast abutments. It is sixty feet wide, and its span is almost ninety feet. Across the top is a public road, and being on the same level with the neighboring country, one may cross it in a coach without being aware of the interesting place. It is on the abutments that many names are carved by persons who have climbed up the face of the precipice. For a number of years the name of Washington, cut in the rock when the Father or his Country was a lad, stood high above those of all the other daring spirits. In 1818, however, a student of Washington College, Virginia, James H. Piper by name, climbed from the foot to the top of the rock.

A Fact About Ourselves.

The average weight of male adults is 130 pounds of women about 110 pounds. The average height of American recruits is about five feet nine inches; the average height of wellbuilt men is five feet nine inches; of women five feet four inches. One inch of height should add two pounds of weight. The specific gravity of the body ranges from

0,950 to 1.030. The heart weighs 260 grammes in women and 330 grammes (104 ounces) in men; the average weight is 292 grammes. The period of its maximum weight is between 50 and 80. The amount of blood in the body is onethirteenth the weight of the body, or five or six quarts, or eleven or twelve pounds. A man dies when he has lost a fifth of his b ood. The heart with each contraction ejects six ounces of blood from each ventricle, at a pressure in the ventricle of one-fourth of an atmosphere. The heart sends all the blood around the body twice every minute, or ab ut thirtyfive contractions. A deadly poison injected into vein kills in 15 seconds, on the average; injected under the skin, in 4 minutes. A cubic millimeter of the blood contains 5,000,000 blood cells in men, 4,500,000 in women. There are 300 red cells to every one white blood cell. The red cells have an average diameter of 1.3200 inch, the white cells 1.2500 inch. The specific gravity of the blood is 1.055. The frequency of the pulse in the new born is 150; in infants of 1 year, 110; at 7 to 14 years, 85; in adult man, 72; in women, 80. The respirations are one-fourth as rapid as the pulse.

Mechanism of the Heart.

In the human subject the average rapidity of the cardiac pulsation for an adult male is about 70 beats per minute. These beats are more frequent, as a rule, in young children and in women, and there are variations within certain limits in particular persons, owing to peculiarities of organization. It would not necessarily be an abnormal sign to find in some particular individuals the habitual frequency of the heart's action from 60 to 65, or from 75 to 80 a minute. As a rule, the heart's action is slower and more powerful in fully developed and muscular organizations, and more rapid and feebler in those of slighter form. In animals the range is from 25 to 45 in the cold-blooded, and 50 upward in the warm-blood: 1 animals, except in the case of the horse, which has a very slow heart-beat, only 40 strokes a minute. The pulsations of men and all animals differ with the sea level also. The work of a healthy human heart has been shown to equal the feat of raising 5 tons 4 cwt. one foot per hour, or 125 tons in twentyfour hours. The excess of this work under alcohol in varying quantities is often very great. A calculation has been made giving the work of the heart in mileage. Presuming that the blood was thrown out of the heart at each pulsation in the proportion of sixty-nine strokes per minute, and at the assumed force of nine feet, the mileage of the blood through the body might be taken at 207 yards per minute, seven miles per hour, 168 miles per day, 61,320 miles per year, 5,150,880 miles in a life-time of 84 years. The number of beats of the heart in the same long life would reach the grand total of 2,869,776,000.

The First Book in English.

So far as known, the first book ever written in English was a poem-"a Paraphrase"-as it is called-of the creation, the