the instrument through a sort of telescope tube, I that the paste proper for procuring the animalor by a rack-work; and then the very precise point is hit upon by turning a fine adjustment or micrometer screw. By pushing the slide or port object backward and forward with the thumbs of each hand, the object is examined in its breadth and length; by turning the micrometer screw, in its depth and thickness. For, with a high power, you cannot see the whole of a single globule at once; an almost insensible turn of the screw brings a fresh portion of the object within the focus. But these little manipulations are not acquired without a fatiguing amount of practice, even though the image seen is reversed; that is, to make it go to the right you must push the object-slide to the left, and to move it apparently upward you must direct your gentle touches downward. cules called eels, is made with flour and water But Next, as to microscopic books. It is a good plan, when you want to comprehend a subject, to get together all the works that treat of it. On looking them through, the repetitions and the chaff are sifted away without much exertion of intellect, and you are then possessed of all the solid grain. Three modern works are so good, and so wonderfully cheap, that the young micros-mained therein a minute or two they may be copist will assuredly purchase the entire trio: The Microscope and its Revelations, by Dr. Carpenter, with three hundred and fifty woodcuts; The Microscope, its History, Construction, and Applications, by Jabez Hogg, M. R. C. S., with upwards of five hundred engravings; and The Microscope, by Dr. Lardner, with a hundred and forty-seven engravings. The utility of the last work is much diminished by the want of an index, and still more by the affectation, after Cobbett, of not being paged; the only guide to its valuable contents are figures which refer to para-seconds. graphs. Quekett on the Microscope, Pritchard's Microscopic Cabinet, and of Microscopes, and the discoveries made thereby, by Henry Baker, may be profitably consulted. For physiological students, the works of Dr. Robin (in French) and of Dr. Hassell are of the highest interest. But a microscope, and a library in alliance with it, alone, without plenty of objects to look at, are a theatre with its repertory of plays, but wanting scenery and actors. Microscopists, therefore, must provide themselves both with living performers and inanimate decorations. Happily our artists do not ask the salaries of Piccolomini, or Rosati, and are content to wait the call-boy's summons in a green-room of quite modest dimensions and furniture. One or two shelves, filled with bottles, boxes, and pots, will serve as the menagerie for an innumerable company of first-rate performers, whose talents are unrivalled in their respective lines of parts. Thus, one of the celebrities who was among the first to make his appearance on the microscopic stage the paste-eel-is open to an engagement at any period of the year. Simply take note taken out, and placed under the microscope, when the first act of the comedy will begin. Their versatility of talent enables them to play even minor parts in tragedy. They are a favorite prey of many aquatic larvæ. When the latter are starving upon your boards, put in a few supernumerary eels; they will be devoured without mercy, and will add much to the interest of the spectacle. You will have tableaux not inferior to those presented by the terrier Billy in his great feat of killing a hundred rats in fifty Paste-eels are still a mystery in their nature; they propagate only by bringing forth their young alive, as far as is known. How, then, do they come in the paste? if they lay no eggs, none can be floating about in the air. The boiling, one would think, must destroy any germs of life contained in the flour, or the water of which the paste is made. Most philosophers are afraid of admitting what is called spontaneous generation. It is not very clear why they fear it, since the admission would only be another form of expressing the unceasing as well as the infinite power, and the universal presence of the great Creator, who blew the breath of life into the nostrils of man himself. Another set of players, much resembling the last, may be had from vinegar (home-made is the best, as the addition of sulphuric acid destroys your troop,) that has stood uncovered, got flat, and has a mouldy scum on its surface. Vinegar eels will grow so large as to be discernible by the naked eye. A writhing mass, either of these, or the former species, is one of the most curious spectacles which the microscopist can The Littell's Living Age. THE LOST DARLING. BY L. H. SIGOURNEY. exhibit to the inexperienced observer. If the things created, and a microscope towards the vinegar wherein such eels abound be but mode- other, we sigh to think how short is life, and rately heated at the fire, they will all be killed how long is the list of acquirable knowledge. and sink to the bottom; but cold does them no Alas! what is man in the nineteenth century? injury. After such vinegar has been exposed a It is provoking that, now we have the means of whole night to the severest frost, and has been learning most, we have the least time to learn it frozen and thawed, and frozen again several in. If we had but the longevity of the anteditimes over, the animalcules have been as brisk luvian patriarchs, we might have some hope, not as ever. Still, they prefer not to have an icy of completing our education, but of passing a bed, if they can help it. In cold weather, if oil respectable previous examination prior to our adbe poured on vinegar containing eels, they will mittance into a higher school. The nearer we creep up into the oil floating on the surface, approach to infinite minuteness, the more we apwhen the vinegar begins to freeze; but on thaw-preciate the infinite beauty and the infinite skill ing it, they return to their original home. To in contrivance and adaptation, which marks every add variety to their gymnastic exercises, and production of the one great creative Hand. their plastic poses, drop a few grains of sand amongst the eels you submit to your microscope; it will be an entertaining pantomime to see them struggling and embarrassed, like sea-serpents caught in a shower of rocky boulders. Anguillulæ generally, or eel-like worms, includ- She was my Idol. Night and day to scan ing those of wheat and river-water, possess the The fine expression of her form, and mark additional recommendation (which they enjoy in The unfolding mind like vernal rose-bud start common with certain other animalcules) of re- To find her fairy footsteps following me, To sudden beauty, was my chief delight. viving, after they have become as dry as dust, at Her hand upon my garments, or her lip however remote an interval. You may bequeath Close sealed to mine, and in the watch of night to your great-great-grandchildren the very identi- The quiet breath of innocence to feel cal acrobats whose agile feats you have applauded Soft on my cheek, was such a full content Of happiness as none but mothers know. in your own day. It appears that the best means Her voice was like some tiny harp that yields of securing a supply of paste eels for any occa-To the light-fingered breeze; and as it held sion, consists in allowing any portion of a mass Brief converse with her doll, or kindly soothed of paste in which they may present themselves Her moaning kitten, or with patient care to dry up; and then, laying this by so long as it Conned o'er the alphabet; but most of all Its tender cadence in her evening prayer, may not be wanted, to introduce it into a mass Thrill'd on the ear like some ethereal tone, of fresh paste, which, if it be kept warm and Heard in sweet dreams. But now alone I sit, moist, will be found after a few days to swarm Musing of her, and dew with mournful tears with these curious little creatures. The little robes that once with woman's pride A being formed so beautiful. I start, I wrought, as if there was a need to deck Half fancying from her empty crib there comes A restless sound, and breathe the accustomed words; "Hush, hush, Louisa, dearest !"-then I weep, As though it were a sin to speak to one Whose home is with the angels. And so the actors attached to our minor threatre strut and fret their hour upon the stage. The downy atom which floats on the breeze, the drop of discolored stagnant water, the tiny vermin which invade our dwellings, the crystal which shapes itself into symmetry unseen, the cast-off skins of despised creeping things, the change effected in natural tissue by disease, the parasitic moulds which threaten the life of higher vegetables, the nameless creatures that breed and batten in mud and slime, the rejected worthless sediment of far-fetched fertilizers, the organized means of self-preservation, well-being,, and dispersion with which the humblest weed is endowed, the gorgeous items composing the wardrobe inventory of the beetle, the butterfly, the caterpillar, and the moth-all are replete with marvels which would harass the mind, if they did not entrance it with delight. At the same time that they fill the soul with awe and wonder, they tend, more than all the doctrinal arguments that have ever been urged, to impress a consciousness and an undisputed admission of the existence of omniscience and omnipotence. With a telescope directed towards one end of 'Tis no time for wandering visions, If amongst the guests assembled, Thou mayest witness, as at Cana, Send and gather in the vessels, THE HEMLOCK. The best examples of hedges of hemlock that have anywhere come under our notice, are those of Moses Brown, Esq., on School-house lane, Germantown, Philadelphia. They have been a labor of love, and the result of careful culture for many successive years; here may be seen hedges of various ages and modes of planting. At first the double row, and plants one foot apart, was adopted; this plan has produced handsome thicket hedges, but it consumes a great number of plants, and a single row two feet and a half apart has been found, by actual repeated experiment, to serve the purpose equally well, and to possess the advantage of exhausting soil much less. Mr. Brown brings his trees from their native habitat near by, and subjects them to the shears at once to give them a trim look and to induce a close habit. They make little progress the first two years, but after that their beauty becomes apparent, and they rapidly assume cha racter and importance. Mr. Brown mulches all his hemlock hedges with stone, and feeds them annually with leaf mould. He does not trim them more than once a year, and that in the spring, preferring the luxuriant, full appearance, which nature produces; but where a set hedge, or solid-looking wall is desired, we should recommend, as heretofore, a close cutting in Septemper. BREAD. A portion of the nutritive matter of our grain is lost in the process of vinous fermentation. I yeast is added to moistened sugar, and the mi ture raised to a moderately warm temperature, a portion of the carbon and oxygen of the saccha rine solution is disengaged in the form of c bonic acid gas; alcohol and water remain. T distiller takes advantage of this, the earliest stage of decay in fruits and grains, to separate the alcohol by distillation. This is not a concentration of food, but a change of a nutritious substane into an innutritious one. In the first stages of this vinous fermentation, the nutritious principle is developed and made more active and capable assimilation by the digestive organs of the animal's stomach. Hence we comminute the wheat and develop fermentation by adding yeast, which has the peculiar property of superinducing this change. Then, at just the point when the nutritious principle is most highly developed, we knead the flour into dough carefully by the human hand: no machinery ever has been found to answer as a substitute. If we eat this dough, it will sustain life; but the full development of the nutritious principle has not yet taken place, nor does it until after the dough has been subjected to the action of fire, when we obtain sweet, wholesome, palatable bread, more or less nutritious, according to the manner in which it is baked. Some bread is but little more nutritious than it would be if made of saw-dust, or wood flour, instead of wheat. We often complain that baker's bread is dry and innutritious, and does not satisfy the appetite. Home-made bread sometimes has the same fault. Sometimes, in spite of all care, the vinous fermentation progresses so far that counteracting agents have to be employed, or else the bread will have a sour, unpleasant taste, and, in either case, be devoid of the full amount of nutriment which the grain was capable of affording. In the process of baking, in all heretofore disAs a single shrub, regularly kept down by the covered plans of bread-ovens, a portion of this shears, the hemlock is extremely beautiful, as it value is lost-the least so in the most rude apalso is as a screen without much use of the pliances of man to this important and essential shears; as a single tree nothing need be more art of civilized life. The sweetest bread ever ornamental, and standing alone, their habit of baked-it has been said a thousand times-is growth is highly picturesque. A visit to Mr. that from dough buried in the embers, and roastBrown's premises in the morning when the dew ed like a potato. The next is the " Johnny is on the trees, or rather a shower of rain, when cake," or "hoe-cake," where the dough, generthe sun shines through the branches of these ally of Indian corn meal, is patted upon a board beauties of nature, is highly gratifying; so fond and set down before a hot wood fire on the is he of the hemlock, that his place is a fair show, farmer's hearth. Next comes the loaf baked in embracing the perfect large tree and all the vari-a "Dutch oven," an iron pot with an iron cover, ous forms it is capable of assuming. When once surrounded with red-hot coals. Then comes, established, the hemlock, though not quite so next in order, bread baked upon the bottom of a so rapid in growth as the Norway fir, is by no stone or brick oven, out of which the fire has means to be classed with the slow growing ever-just been raked, and which is so hot when the greens, and remember, it is green and perfectly bread is first put in that the dough seems to melt hardy.-Horticulturist. and glaze over, and then scorch if the oven-lid is not removed. This is one great secret of bread- | although that will enable one of these ovens to baking-to have the oven just hot enough when manufacture bread so much cheaper than it is the loaves of dough are put in. Next comes the possible to do in the ordinary way, that none of family bread, baked in all sorts of modern con- the bakeries now in operation can compete with trivances; and lastly, in value as nutritious food, | it. The plan does not necessitate the use of the ordinary baker's loaf. As bread is sold in this city at so much a loaf, and not by weight or value according to the quantity of good flour it contains, but by sight, there is a natural temptation of cupidity to make the loaves look large, and to make poor flour look like good. This can only be done by carrying fermentation to excess, and then neutralizing the acidity by chemicals detrimental to healthy nutrition. Then the ovens are heated by guess; and sometimes when the dough is ready the oven is not, and when one batch is baked another must be prepared and the oven reheated. But that is not the worst of it: the dough, when ready for the oven, both in bakeries and families, is often in a similar condition to the mash prepared for the still, when heat applied to it will set the alcohol free; and, although alcohol is not nutriment, yet, after having reached that point in the chemical change of the grain, its escape carries off with it a very large amount of the nutritious principle, so that the residuum, whether in the form of grains from the brewery or the mash from the distillery, or the bread that has undergone distillation in the oven-is very much less nutritious than it would be if cooked for food without this alcoholic escape. As in the distillation for alcohol, the vapor rises and is condensed and saved, so in the distillation of baking bread it rises, and, owing to its volatile character, separates from the vapor of water, which descends and is absorbed in the oven bottom, while this rises to the top, and is etherealized by the heat, and absorbed or burned up, dissipated and lost. steam-power nor of an oven of such large dimen- What WOMEN'S HELP FOR FARMERS' FAMILIES. A large part of our farmers' wives are overworked. What with the boarding of the farm In the common form of the baker's oven, this hands, the dairy, and all the other unavoidable is inevitable and unavoidable. The discovery of parts of the routine of daily work, there needs to a principle upon which ovens can be constructed be extra hands to do it, and when these cannot so as to save all or nearly all of this loss, and a be, or are not furnished, health suffers, the temform in which the heat will always remain equa-per is often soured, the beauty of mind and soul ble, while the process of baking is continuous, is marred, and too often the worn-out mother without loss of time, fuel or labor, and the fails to live out half her days. whole operation conducted with clock-work ma- We believe most families would gladly hire chinery by the power of a steam-engine, was re- more assistance, if possible, but there are conserved to this wonder-producing age of the world. stant complaints from all parts of the country, of It is not a thing hoped for-it is an act consum- a lack of girls who will consent to hire out in mated. Mr. Berdan's oven, which we have here- farmers' families. It is evident that we cannot tofore described, and which is now in full opera- expect much of this kind of help from American tion in Brooklyn, turning out thirteen thousand girls. Either they have insufficient health, or loaves a day, and capable of baking five hundred their fathers are able to support them without, barrels of flour every twenty-four hours, working or they are too proud to "work out," as it is automatically, is constructed upon such a principle called. And girls of foreign birth, if they have that the alcoholic evaporation of one set of loaves been even for a very short time in the city, can is absorbed by another set, so that little, if any seldom be persuaded thereafter to go into the of the nutriment of the flour is lost. This is by country. far more important to mankind than all the ingenious machinery contrived to facilitate the work, On the other hand, while luxury is everywhere gaining ground, there is small chance that our wants will be simplified, and thus be more readily met. On the contrary, they are vastly more likely to be multipled. The demand is likely to increase, while the supply diminishes. The same want is felt too to considerable extent by the farmers in their out-door work, though machines are fast lessening the evil here. Not so in-doors, and the question has become an important one, how is this growing evil to be met? The most feasible plan that we can suggest is this-Build a cheap though comfortable house on one corner of your farm, fence off a few acres of ground to go with it, and rent this to some tenant who will be likely to supply your wants. There are enough families in all our cities, who, if comfortable provision were made for them, would be glad to go into the country. The Germans are almost always good tenants-neat, industrious and saving, and fond of working the ground. Welch and sometimes English and Scotch families can also be found who will do well. The advantages resulting from such an arrangement are numerous. You can easily spare the land, the fire wood, etc., indeed you would scarcely miss it, and would be sure to want more than the worth of it in work, and the convenience of having help at hand when wanted, must be great. You are not obliged to hire either the men or the women when not needed, as they can support themselves from their own share of the to go or stay or hire as they please, and we are sure the advantage will be mutual.—J. C. B., in Ohio Cultivator. Men of the noblest dispositions always think themselves the happiest when others share their happiness with them. Give no advantage in argument, nor lose any that is offered. This is a benefit which arises from temper.- William Penn. PHILADELPHIA MARKETS. FLOUR AND MEAL.-The weather has put a stop to almost all business. Flour is without change. We quote at $6 37 per barrel. Last sales of better brands for home consumption at $6 37 a 6 50, and extra and fancy brands at $6 50 a 7 25. There is very litle export demand. Rye Flour is worth $375 per barrel. Corn Meal is dull, at $3 00 per bbl. sales of prime new Pennsylvania red were made at GRAIN. Wheat is dull, but prices are firmer. $1 48 a 1 52, and $1 62 a 1 63 for white. Rye continues steady; sales of Penna. at 81c. scarce; sales of old yellow at 66 a 68c, and new yellow at 64c. Oats are steady at 47c per bushel for Delaware. Corn is DOARDING SCHOOL.-A Friend desirous of open Bing a Boarding School convenient to Friends? UST PUBLISHED. A New Edition of the Dis ground; neither are you obliged to retain them Jcipline of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. as tenants, if they prove lawless. One great cause of the scarcity of farm laborers, is this. You generally insist upon hiring only. single men. A man with a family could be Fifty cents. 1st mo. 10. Price T. E. CHAPMAN, UST PUBLISHED. more easily obtained, and by boarding himself, J Price 374 ets. too, would relieve the women of a part of their burden. Moreover, the tenant family could probably board any other hands that might be required, and thus materially lessen the crushing labors of the house-wife. The women of such families, too, are usually hardy as well as industrious, and would commonly be glad to get the job of washing and ironing for the family, or they would come in by the day and clean house, etc., and if there be girls in the family, you can probably hire them steadily by the week or month. By hiring them thus occasionally from childhood, they would learn your ways, and be much more likely to meet your wants than any fresh importations. The advantage of such an arrangement must, we think, be great to you; and in return, you should make it advantageous to them. Let them have the place on such terms as will make it an object for them to leave the city and hire with you. Make their home a comfortable one, pay fair wages, take no advantage over ignorance 1st mo. 10. T. E. CHAPMAN, ERCLE DOUN BOssion of this institution will com mence on the 19th of Second mo. next, and will con tinue twenty weeks. The usual branches comprising a thorough English education will be taught, and scientific lectures illustrated by appropriate apparatus will be delivered. It is situated three miles southwest of Coatesville, on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, from which place pupils will be conveyed free of charge. For circulars address the Principal, Ercildoun P. O., Chester Co., Pennsylvania. SMEDLEY DARLINGTON, 12th mo. 26th, 1856. 6t. p. Principal. HESTERFIELD BOARDING SCHOOL FOR BOYS.--The Winter Session of this institution will commence the 17th of 11th mo. 1856, and continue twenty weeks. CB TERMS.--Seventy dollars per session, one half payable in advance, the other in the middle of the term No extra charges. For further particulars address HENRY W. RIDGWAY, Crosswicks P. O., Burlington County, N. J. 10th mo., 1856.3m. or humble position; in short-do as you would N. be done by. Let there be freedom on both sides & L. WARD, PLAIN BONNET MAKERS, North West corner 9th and Spruce streets, Philadelphia. 11th mo. 29th.-2m. |