NATURE’S JEWELS, 
Another wonder is that “Stone Moun¬ 
tain,” of Georgia, which was rendered fa¬ 
mous during the into war, has not been more 
written about, talked about, and traveled 
about, is unaccountable, and indicates a 
want of admiration for the wonders of 
Southland, Were it across the waters, it 
would be in song, in sermon, and in lecture, 
and travelers by scores would go as they 
now go to the pyramids: 
“These the work of man. 
That tlie work of an Almighty hand.” 
Imagine a mountain of solid grunito tow¬ 
ering two thousand feet, with scarcely a 
shrub on its defiant bald face. In its soli¬ 
tude it is alone; no kiudred nigh 1 Not, even 
the faint outline of a mountain is discerni¬ 
ble in the distance; aiul as we turn our 
guze upward to its perpendicular height, 
the classic. Palisades seem tame and wo cun 
but wonder if it bo a boulder from some dis¬ 
tant sphere, suddenly, by some freak of na¬ 
ture, ejected to our planet; or may it not 
have been that during the great primeval 
ocean, which once overspread the earth, 
matter attracted matter, until the mighty 
pile arose, and will stand until the final con¬ 
summation of all things here? 
way from fifteen dollars to two thousand 
dollars. But when a student proposes to 
select one Of these microscopes for his own 
use, hemust either place himself in personal 
communication with some uiicrosoopist that 
he can trust, or he must procure some first- 
class work, such as that, of Carpenter, and 
study the subject fully for himself. 
A Practical Microscofist. 
The orchard lands arc all aglow with gem*. 
Rich perfumed gem*, fvom Nature's casket strewn— 
Pearls on the pear, ou apple opals pink, 
llleh rutiles on the quince, and amethysts 
Upon the peach and almond : fairer gems 
Than light the scepter at the proudest throno. 
Tho scarlet blush sits on the queenly blooms 
Of the pomegranate, and the whitening buds 
Of April snow-shower? flake the Jargonelle ; 
Here the pink blossoms of the glorious pouch. 
Superb sultana, mingle with the Bowers 
Of the retiring tender apricot; 
And there the quince her fragrant petals hidc3 
Beneath the shadow of the damascene. 
Showed ever iris in prismatic how 
More gorgeous mingling of n thousand hues 
Than show the orchards, while the trelllmid wall 
Glows 'neath the stars of yellow Jessumtne 
In natural topaz, and the sapphire gleam? 
In heaven s unclouded ceiling purely blue? 
Jewels, rich Jewels, fair and sweet, and rare, 
Renewed from year to year : Jewels till sweet. 
That cost nor tolling days nor sleepless nights 
For gold to purchase them ; Jewels on which 
The humblest eye may gnze, the poor and rich 
May both alike have share; gems which when dead 
Leave a rich legacy of fruits to earth, 
And with tho spring reviving bloom again 1 
microscope answers nearly as well as a very 
expensive one—that is, provided the pur¬ 
chaser knows how to select and use the 
cheap one. The simplest form of micros¬ 
cope consists of a simple lens, which may he 
mounted in a frame or not, according to 
the wishes of t he owner. Simple lenses may 
be obtained that will magnify from four to 
twenty-five diameters, and give really sat¬ 
isfactory results. A lens magnifying four 
diameters should be about three-quarters of 
au inch in diameter, and about two inches 
focus, while a lens magnifying twenty-five 
diameters should be about half au inch in 
diameter, and from a quarter to a third of 
an inch focus. Single lenses magnifying 
more than this are neither convenient to 
use uor satisfactory in their results, though 
they have been made and sold in enormous 
quantities, having a magnifying power of 
one hundred diameters. These lenses are 
not ground, however, but are merely little 
bits of glass fused into globules. They, con¬ 
sequently, rarely give such an image of the 
object as will enable us to see clearly its 
real form and structure. 
It is upon this plan that tho Craig Mi¬ 
croscope is constructed, and also those 
microscopes which have been extensively 
advertised at prices ranging from twenty- 
live to fifty cents, and which consist of one 
of these fused globules fastened into a hole 
iti a plate of lead ami ground flat on one 
side. A lens magnifying twenty-five di¬ 
ameters is exceedingly useful. We may 
realize somewhat of the increase which it 
gives to our powers of distant vision by re¬ 
flecting upon the vast change which an in¬ 
crease to twenty-five times our present 
muscular strength would give in an ability 
tn lift, or move objects. And such a lens 
ABOUT 3EA-H0RSES. 
The accompanying engraving represents 
a group of those curious and strange looking 
fishes known us Sea-Horses. The family to 
which this fish belongs is the &yn<jiiuthtda\ 
of which there are several varieties, such as 
the pipe fishes, the sea-horses, and tho 
winged sea horses. This particular sea 
horse is called the short nosed, or Hippo¬ 
campus Drcvlrost/ris, and a specimen is now 
to be seen in the gardens of tho Zoological 
Society, Regent’s Park, London. Thev are 
rarely found on tho coast, of Great Britain, 
but,are often caught in the Hudson River. 
A few years ago. Mr. Barnum had quite a 
collection of them in his museum on Broad¬ 
way. The animal is small, being hut a few 
inches in length, and of alight brown color. 
It, is technically described as follows t—Head 
and body compressed; snout narrow, tubu¬ 
lar; mouth, terminal: dorsal fin, single; 
caudal flu, wanting. The habits of this lit¬ 
tle animal are very singular. When swim¬ 
ming, it maintains a vertical position, but 
the tail is ready to grasp whatever meets it 
in the waiter. It quickly entwines it, iiiany 
direction round weeds or other objects, and 
when fixed, the animal intently watches 
surrounding objects, and darts at its prey 
with great dexterity. When two art' in com¬ 
pany they orteu twist their tails together. 
The eyes, which appear large for so small an 
animal, move independently of each other, 
as in the chameleon. 
THE OVERWORKED CLERGYMEN 
MISS THORNE’S FORTUNE TOLD, 
Geo. W. Curtis writes as follows of a 
clergyman’s functions:—“ no is, in fact, the 
town-pound, to which everybody luay com¬ 
mit tho truant, fancies that nobody else will 
tolerate upon the pastures and lawns of his 
attention. He is the town-pump, at which 
everybody may fill himself with advice, lie 
is the town-bell, to summon everybody to 
every common enterprise. He is the tow u- 
beast of burden to curry everybody's pack. 
With all this, he must, have a neat and a 
pretty house, and a comely and attractive 
wife, who must be always ready and well 
dressed In the parlor although she cannot 
afford to hire “ help.” And the good man’s 
Children must be well behaved and proper¬ 
ly clad, and his house be a kind of hotel for 
the traveling brethren. Of course, he must, 
be a scholar and familiar with current lit¬ 
erature, and he may justly be expected to 
fit half a-dozen boys, for college every year. 
These are but illustrations of tho functions 
he is to fulfill, and always without miirmur- 
ing; and for all he is to be glad to get a pit¬ 
tance upon which he can barely bring the 
ends of the year together, and to know that, 
if he should suddenly die of overwork, as he 
jirobxlbly will, his wife and children would 
bo beggars.” 
.j.v ejvolisu st on 1 
Cissy Tiiornf, was sitting at her toilet- 
table, skipping a novel while her maid Emma 
brushed her long, thick, silky hair. Some 
people said it was false, because there was 
bo much of it; others were certain it must 
be dyed, seeing that it had that, particular 
bright, golden tint which is so often due to 
art; but Emma knew better. That exem¬ 
plary girl took the same sort of pride in her 
mistress’s hair that a good groom does iu 
the coats of his master’s horses, and was 
never tired of currying—1 mean brushing 
it. Fortunately, the young lady took ail 
equal pleasure iu her passive part of the 
performance, and so both were satisfied. 
When the spoiled beauty did not know 
wluit else to do, she went up to her room, 
took off her dross, and had her hair brushed ; 
it was a ladylike substitute for a siuoking- 
pipe. I wonder that Darwin lias not in¬ 
stanced the pleasure we feel iu being stroked 
the right way, in favor of his theory. I 
believe that Cissy was very often near purl¬ 
ing, especially in thundery weather, when 
her hair crackled liko an experiment. 
“ Well, Emma, did you go to tho fair?” 
asked the bruahee, laying down her book. 
“ Yes, miss, I did.” 
“ And what did you see?” 
“ 1 saw a horsemanship, where they rode 
standing, and jumped through hoops; won¬ 
derful.” 
“And did you go on one of the rounda¬ 
bouts that are worked by a steam-engine, 
which plays an organ ?” 
“No, miss?” replied Emma with an em¬ 
phasis. 
“ Do you know, Emma, I should like to, 
if no one saw ? ” 
“Lor, miss! they are crowded 
with such a low lot, they are.” 
. “Low lots, as you call them, 
IpgSfjLsj^iT seem to have all the fun,” said 
gfBsfSfS Cissy, with a half sigh. “ And 
what else did you see?” 
5*;fc'V_iL “I went to a—fortuue-teller.” 
“No! In a tent.?” 
“ There were little tents about, 
. & but it was a little yellow cart I 
- went * nt °! not in the fair exact- 
]y, but in the camp, before you 
*-*7*^' come to It. She’s wonderful!” 
“Is she, though? What did 
- * she say ? Tell me,” cried the ex- 
a . . cited Cissy, who was troubled 
pW ,31 with yearnings after the super- 
1°!^ mc a U sorts of things, 
which she could not have known 
natural: —a mole on my back; 
how long I have been in ser- 
“ Yes, yes, but the future; did 
she say anything about that?” 
“She did more—she showed it 
njgjCfKp S - J “In a round glass; as true as 
*’ m landing here, I saw him 
“Your future husband?” 
“ As is to be, yes, miss.” 
The two girls had been play¬ 
mates when very little, and there 
was much more familiarity be¬ 
tween them than is customary 
with mistress and maid. So Em¬ 
ma had to enter into all tho mys- 
1B terious details of tho cabalistic 
— 1 " ceremony. 
AMERICAN WONDERS 
Silver Spring, Fla., is one of the greatest 
curiosities in the South. It bursts forth in 
the midst of the most fertile country in the 
State. Tt. bubbles up In a basin near one 
hundred feet deep and about, an acre in ex¬ 
tent., and sending from it a deep stream six¬ 
ty to one hundred feot wide, and extending 
six to eight miles to Ockluwuha river. In 
the spring itself fifty boats may lie at 
anchor—quite a fleet. The spring thus forms 
a natural inland port to which three steam¬ 
ers now run regularly from St. John's, mak¬ 
ing closo connections with tho ocean steam¬ 
ers at 1’alntka. The clearness of the water 
is truly wonderful. It seems even more 
transparent than air; you see tho bottom, 
eighty feet below the bottom of your boat, 
the exact form of the smallest pebble, the 
outline color of the leaf that has sunk, and 
all the prismatic colors of the rainbow are 
reflected. Large fish swim in it, every scale 
visible, and every movement distinctly seen. 
If you go over the spring in a boat you will 
see tho fissure in the rocks from which the 
river poors up like an inverted cataract. 
it is all that is required for examining the 
parts of plants which determine the class 
to which a given plant belongs, and It, will 
show small insects very clearly. It will also 
show the numerous eyes of the fly and the 
feathers, or rather scales, which form the 
dust that is rubbed from the butterfly’s 
wing. A lens of this focus should be plano¬ 
convex, as it is called—that is, one side 
should be perfectly flat and the other con¬ 
vex. When in use, the flat side is turned 
towards the object. Such a microscope 
may be had of auy respectable optician for 
about a dollar. 
When we desire to go beyond twenty-five 
diameters, and yet to keep among the cheap 
microscopes, we cau do very well by getting 
one of the five dollar American microscopes. 
Formerly, all cheap compound microscopes 
were imported from Franoe, and 
poor things they were. But of 
late years our American manu- ||g WWjlj' 
facturers began to make cheap ^ 
oompound microscopes, and they 
have succeeded in producing au t§|tofi§8 
instrument which is really ser- fWglzL 
vioeable—a thing that canuot be 
said of tho little upright micro- 
scopes of the Freuoh. These mi- 
oroscopes possess magnifying Ipijjgjp^ 
powers which may be varied iggig ' 
from twenty to one hundred and ^ 
twenty diameters, thus giving a 
wide range, and their perform- jg; 
ance when worked up to their . \ 
highest powers i6 very satisfac- l5S|gf? 
tory, though of course It cannot •- 
be compared with the work that \ ? 
may be done by a really fine 
achromatic microscope. 
These five dollar microscopes 
will, of course, do everything 
that can be done by a single lens, kga’M | 
but far more perfectly. They 
will show globules of blood and 
various objects that are beyond SSgUjlp 
the reach of single lenses, and 
they give really fair views of 
many of the more common ob- yfcjMfeyi 
jects. From the fact that they ? 
are so portable and so easily man- gOpL’A, 
aged, they are frequently used jpy . 
by microscopists who possess 
better instruments. The writer [W""’*-- 
owns a large microscope of very 
fair quality, and yet he frequent- 
ly employs one of these cheap iSSsieg 
instruments for common work. 
The next step leads us to 
the fine achromatic instru- i 
mentB whose prices range all the 
Nothing on earth cau smile but human 
beings. Gems may flash reflected light, but 
what is a diamond flash compared with ail 
eye flash and a mirth flash? A face that 
canuot smile is like a bud that cannot blos¬ 
som, and dries up at the stalk. Laughter 
is day, and sobriety is night, and a smile is 
the twilight that, hovers gently between 
both, and more bewitching than either. 
The road ambition travels is too narrow 
for friendship, too crooked for love, too rug¬ 
ged for honesty, and too dark for conscience. 
THE SHORT-NOSED SEA-HORSE (HIPPOCAMPUS BREVIROSTRISJ 
