DAY IN THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 



299 



replied, "I don't know of any school 

 you can get here, but remain, my 

 young friend. You form your own 

 character, and mould your own 

 destiny." These words of wisdom 

 sunk down into the young man's 

 heart. Musing upon them, he re- 

 turned to his little boat, shot out 

 again into the stream, found a school 

 somewhere below, and that young 

 man was John Price, who after- 

 wards became one of the most 

 distinguished preachers and theo- 

 logical professors in Virginia. 

 His perseverance and self-reliance 

 made him a great man. (Ameri- 

 can Paper.) 



FOOT-PRINTS OF ANIMALS ON ANCIENT 

 ROCKS. 



Sir Charles Lyell delivered a lec- 

 ture " On impressions of Rain-drops 

 in Ancient and Modern Strata." 

 In illustration of the foot-tracks of 

 quadrupeds, such as the musk-rat, 

 the minx, the dog, and others, so 

 common on the recent red sand of 

 Kentville, on the borders of the 

 Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Sir 

 C. Lyell exhibited a copy of a brick, 

 one foot square, from Babylon, now 

 in the British Museum, on which 

 the track of a small animal of the 

 ichneumon tribe, apparently the 

 Asiatic mongoose, is distinctly 

 seen. This brick has been sun- 

 dried (not baked in a kiln), and 

 must have been traversed by the 

 creature when the clay mixed with 

 straw was still very soft. Sir C. 

 Lyell verified the character of the 

 track by getting a living ichneumon 

 in the Zoological Gardens to walk 

 over a cake of soft mud, which 

 he afterwards sun-dried. In the 

 middle of the brick is an inscription, 

 in the Babylonian cuneiform cha- 

 racter, which, according to Colonel 

 Bawlinson's interpretation, signifies 

 that Nabokodnossor, King of Baby- 

 lon, built certain cities, &c. This 

 king is the same as the Nebu- 

 chadnezzar of Scripture, so that 



the brick is twenty-four centuries 

 old. 



SINGULAR DIET. 



The celebrated modern sceptic, 

 Benedict Spinoza, was accustomed 

 to spend from twopence-halfpenny 

 to threepence a-day upon his nour- 

 ishment. But he was beaten hol- 

 low by Buttner, a German natural- 

 ist and philologist of the eighteenth 

 century; such was the zeal of this 

 individual in the pursuit of his 

 favourite studies, that, in order to 

 buy books, he restricted himself to 

 what was barely sufficient to sus- 

 tain life he only ate one meal a- 

 day, which cost him exactly three- 

 half-pence. It is veiy generally 

 known that the eminent French 

 astronomer Lalande either really 

 possessed, or else affected, an ex- 

 cessive fondness for spiders and 

 caterpillars as articles of diet, and 

 would eat them with apparent 

 relish. He always carried a supply 

 of these insects about with him in 

 a bonbonniere. (Critic.) 



DAY IN THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 



There was music echoing through 

 the transparent fabric. Fragrant 

 flowers and graceful shrubs flash- 

 ing and sparkling in the subdued 

 sunlight ; in living sculpture were 

 suddenly seen the grand, the gro- 

 tesque, the terrible, the beautiful 

 objects of every form and colour 

 imaginable, far as the eye could 

 reach, were dazzlingly intermingled, 

 and there were present sixty thou- 

 sand sons and (laughters of Adam, 

 passing and rcpassing ceaseli 

 bewildered, charmingly ; gliding 

 amidst bannered nations, through 

 country after country renowned in 

 aiK-'u-ut name and great in modern : 

 civilized and savage. From the 

 far east and west, misty in distance, 

 faintly echoed martial music, or 

 the solemn anthem ! The soul was 

 approached through its highest 

 senses, flooded with excitement, 



