P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY. 



137 



are the centers around which life in the 

 Chinese colonies revolves, furnishing sup- 

 plies of Chinese wares, and serving as club- 

 rooms and assembly-halls. Nearly all of 

 the Chinese in America have passed some 

 of their early years at school, where they 

 learned to write some of the characters in 

 their language, and to read it with more or 

 less facility. Among the immigrants from 

 Hoh-Shan and the districts adjacent to Can- 

 ton are found many of considerable attain- 

 ments — not men who would be considered 

 scholars in China, but clerks, who are able 

 to read and understand much of the classi- 

 cal literature of their country, and whose 

 sympathies and traditions are allied with 

 those of the literary aristocracy. This class 

 forms a small part, however, of the whole 

 number. 



The Table-topped Dills of the Amazon. 



— To any one ascending the Amazon River, 

 said Mr. James W. Wells, in the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, a most noticeable feature 

 strilies his attention, in the table-topped 

 hills of the Serras de Erere and Obidos, and 

 the somewhat similar formation on the oppo- 

 site bank, at the rear of the Santarem. These 

 opposite islands form the walls of the val- 

 ley through which the river, once probably 

 a great inland lake, has excavated its way 

 to the sea. Their summits, instead of being 

 ridges, extend in the form of undulating 

 savannas far inland, ever ascending, fur- 

 rowed with hollows and valleys by many a 

 stream or water-course. Strange and in- 

 teresting as is the appearance of these cliffs 

 of one thousand feet in height, yet they are 

 not exceptional features of the basin of the 

 Amazons ; at its farther western extremity, in 

 the Serra de Cupati, bordering on the banks 

 of the Rio Japura, and also on the western 

 face of the Chapada da Mangabeira, are en- 

 countered identical formations, and even to 

 the north in Roraima and its brother Kuke- 

 nam, also exists a somewhat similar appear- 

 ance. These great, precipitous bluffs, and 

 isolated table-topped hills are indicative, or 

 at least suggestive, of a great denudation 

 that has either long since occurred, or is yet 

 happening. The Chapada da Mangabeira 

 rises gradually and by regular gradients 

 from the San Francisco River to the divide, 

 where it appears as perpendicular walls of 



sandstone, with flat summits, and looks, 

 when viewed from the east, like gigantic 

 fortresses. The base of these cliffs is com- 

 posed of a natural earth-slope of the mod- 

 ern debris of the fallen materials of the 

 walls. Evidence is presented that this table- 

 land extended yet farther to the west from 

 twenty to sixty miles. The vegetation and 

 soil of the tops of these miniature Rorai- 

 mas are precisely similar to those of the 

 great plateau, whereas the vegetation of the 

 surrounding lowlands is quite different in 

 character. 



Some Kotes about Bees. — A recently 

 published book by Mr. Frank R. Cheshire, 

 lecturer at South Kensington, gives some 

 curious items of information about bees. 

 A lens magnifying fifty times will reveal 

 the tracheae, and also the beautiful " salivary 

 glands," which a skillful operator may ex- 

 tract through the head, after immersing the 

 insect up to its neck in wax." There is con- 

 siderable discussion among apiarists as to 

 the uses of these glands, in which is inci- 

 dentally included the question whether bees 

 feed their young by regurgitating semi-di- 

 gested food, or by a glandular system pro- 

 ducing a nutritive secretion. Mr. Cheshire 

 finds in the digestive system, in which " the 

 salivary and gastric secretions perform pre- 

 cisely the same functions in both," ... a most 

 helpful similarity of physical structure be- 

 tween mankind and bees." Bees have, how- 

 ever, the great advantage over mankind of 

 being able to carry a large stock of food 

 and drink in their insides, and of having the 

 power of feeding upon these stores by means 

 of what is called the " stomach-mouth," at 

 pleasure ; or, if they choose, they can con- 

 vert these provisions into building-materi- 

 als. Their foot is furnished with a very 

 sharp and powerful claw, and with a sort of 

 soft pad that gives out a clammy secretion, 

 by means of which they are able to walk 

 on smooth surfaces. It is by the claws that 

 bees hang one to another in swarming. The 

 cutting off of a bee's head docs not appar- 

 ently of necessity kill it ; for " drones in 

 confinement will sometimes live very much 

 longer without their heads than with them." 

 The head, however, is not an unimportant 

 part of the bee, which has a larger propor- 

 tion of brain than many other insects. The 



