who loves you, and while he is writing for you, is praying that what he writes may do you good. That his thoughts and feelings may be printed by means of your own memory, on your heart; and that when the book is laid aside, you may read over and over again, the thoughts he has written down to instruct and amuse you.

We wish, in the first place to supply you with a book worth reading; then to get you to read and love it; and then to think and reflect on what you have read, so that all you read may be your own. We do not write and print for profit, of course printing and paper must be paid for, but what we have most at heart is the good of those who read what we write and print. We intend every line to contain something worth remembering, and we should like our young friends to help us all in their power to make up a book, that shall circulate through and be read by thousands of families. Let our readers and friends do their best in preparing pieces which they would like to see in print, and in telling us what subjects they wish to be written upon, and if we have faults in the manner of addressing them, let them not be afraid to tell us of them, ever remembering this, that the book we are now preparing is for our READERS, not for OURSELVES.

SCIENTIFIC.-HEAT.

Q. Does heat expand air?

A. Yes if a bladder (partially filled with air,) be tied up at the neck, and laid before the fire, the air will expand till the bladder bursts.

Q. Why will the air swell, if the bladder be laid before the fire?

A. Because the heat of the fire drives the particles of air apart from each other, and causes them to occupy more room than they did before.

Q. Why do unslit Chestnuts crack with a loud noise when roasted.

A. Chestnuts contain a great deal of air, which is expanded by the heat of the fire; and not being able to make its escape through the thick rind,) bursts voilently through; slitting the rind and making a great noise. Q. What occasions the loud crack or report, which we hear? A. First, the sudden bursting of the rind makes a report; in the same way as a piece of wood, or glass would do, if snapped in two; and secondly the escape of hot air from the chestnut, makes a report also, in the same way as gunpowder, when it escapes from the gun.

Q. Why does the sudden bursting of the rind, or snapping of a piece of wood, make a report ?

A. As the attraction of the parts is suddenly overcome, a

violent jerk is given to the air; this jerk produces rapid undulations in the air, which (striking upon the ear,) gives the brain the sensation of sound.

Q. Why does the escape of air from the chestnut, or the explosion of gunpowder, produce a report?

A. Because the very sudden expansion of the imprisoned gases, or air, produces a partial vacuum: the report is caused by the air rushing to fill up the vacuum,

Q If a chestnut be slit, it will not crack, why is this? A. Because the heated air of the chestnut can freely escape

through the slit in the rind.

DR. BREWER.

"IF thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel, glimmers white:
When the cold lights' uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the Owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave:
Then go-but go alone the while-

And view St. David's ruined pile.”

MELROSE is a town in Scotland, on the river Tweed, thirty five miles south of Edinburgh. A short distance from the town, and on the same river, is the Abbey of Melrose; one of the largest and most magnificent in the kingdom. It is one of the most beautiful Gothic structures in Great Britain; the admiration of strangers, and much visited by travellers.

It was built by King David I, in 1136, in the form of a cross, 258 feet long, and 137 broad. The walls of the nave, choir, and transept, are standing, and part of the central tower. The beauty and finish of the architectural decorations, and the majestic appearance of the ruins, altogether render Melrose an object of great attraction. Both the exterior and interior of the Abbey were formerly adorned with a variety of sculptured men and animals. Many of these figures were destroyed in the reigns of Henry VIII.-Edward VI.—and Elizabeth, whose statesmen and warriors, thought they were promoting religion by breaking all sorts of sculptured figures they could find in sacred edifices. The niches in which these figures stood, display much curious and beautiful workman

ship. The tower, which rose from the middle of the cross or transept, was a noble piece of architecture. Part of it still remains, but the spire is entirely gone.

The east window is most magnificent, and consists of four mullions with tracery, variously ornamented. On each side appear several very elegant niches, and on the top is the figure of an old man, with a globe in his left hand, resting on his knee; and another of a young man on his right, both in siting postures with an open crown over their heads. It is impossible to conceive a more beautiful specimen of the lightness and elegance of Gothic architecture, when in its purity, than the eastern window of Melrose Abbey. Sir James Hall has with great ingenuity, traced the Gothic order through its various forms, and seemingly eccentric ornaments, to an architectural imitation of wicker-work. The original of the clustered pillars is traced to a set of round posts, begirt with slender rods of willow, whose loose summits were brought to meet from all quarters, and bound together artificially, so as to produce the frame-work of the roof; and the tracery of our Gothic windows is displayed in the meeting and interlacing of rods and hoops, affording an inexhaustible variety of beautiful forms of open-work.

Many of the pillars are perfect and beautiful, and the embellishments upon them seem as if newly executed; an evidence of the excellence both of the stone and of the workmanship. Part of the building continues to be used for divine service.

The ruins yet standing, besides the church, consist chiefly of a part of the walls of the cloisters; the other buildings, of