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This absurd fashion is a relic of the custom of trimming the trees, in old pleasure grounds, into the form of animals, vases, pyramids, and the like.

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extraordinary, very strange.

neigh'bouring, next. morass'es, swamps. in'dustry, diligence.

explo'sion, violent bursting into flame.

reg'iment, the subdivision of an army, numbering, with us, about 1,000 men.

inunda'tion, a flood.

en'ergy, vigorous action.

intel'ligent, bright, clever.

peculiar'ities, qualities specially

marking certain persons, &c.

lab'yrinth, a maze, confusion,

intricacy. characteris'tic,

feature.

distinguishing

indefatigable, untiring. manufac'tory, place where things are made.

organiza'tion, systematic formation.

intru'der, one who thrusts himself in without right.

crev'ice, a crack.

ram'part, a wall for defence.

calam'ities, misfortunes.

irrup'tion, a bursting in.

vig'ilance, watchfulness. prosper'ity, welfare.

necess'ity, need. inge'nious, clever. quaint, fanciful.

pyr'amid, a four-sided cone.

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Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird-
They, to their grassy couch, these, to their nests-
Were slunk,-all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

66

When Adam thus to Eve: Fair consort, th' hour

Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of like repose, since God hath set
Labour and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive, and the timely dew of sleep,

Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight, inclines

:

Our eyelids other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest :
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
While other animals inactive range,

And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen
And at our pleasant labour, to reform
Yon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Meanwhile, as nature wills, night bids us rest.”

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To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned : My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st, Unargued I obey: so God ordains.

God is thy law; thou, mine: to know no more,
Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
With thee conversing, I forget all time;
All seasons, and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn-her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train :
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,

Glist'ring with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glitt❜ring starlight, without thee is sweet."

SPELL AND GIVE THE MEANING

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HOW COAL IS FORMED.-W. BOYD DAWKINS, M.A.

1. We find under each bed of coal a layer of "under clay," as it is termed, that is as full of rootlets as it well can be. It is therefore clear, that it was the soil on which the vegetation grew. In some cases we can prove that the roots and rootlets penetrated the bed of coal, very much in the same way that the roots of trees now penetrate the soil.

2. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the under clay which you find below every seam of coal is the soil on which the trees grew; and that the layer of coal above, which is sometimes equally penetrated with

roots, is the accumulation of vegetable matter on that soil. This is a very important point, because it leads us to an adequate idea of the conditions under which the coal was formed. It proves that these ancient forms of vegetation were laid up in the form of coal very much where they grew.

3. There is evidence, also, that these forms grew not very far from high-water mark. In the first place, the layers of coal run more or less straight, though they are broken up here and there from causes of which I shall speak presently. If you could strip off, from some particular layer of coal, the rocks with which it is overlaid, you would frequently find the channels formed by water while the coal was being formed. In the 4-foot coal of the Forest of Dean,1 we get, ramifying through it, a series of channels filled with sandstone and shale. Now, there can be no doubt that, in this particular instance, the reason we have stone instead of coal, is simply owing to the fact that, in the old days, streams of water played upon the vegetable matter, and these streams wore its way into channels, and these channels have been filled up with sand and shale.

4. Such a series you will find at the mouth of any river you choose to examine. You will see a number of channels hollowed in the soft mud; and if the sea should come over and deposit sand, then you would find those mud channels filled with sand, just in the same way as in the coal measures of the Forest of Dean. We have also clear evidence that the coal was not accumulated under water, in the simple fact that the small seeds or spores of which the bituminous coal is made up, are so light that they would float on the surface, and could not possibly become water-logged.

5. We can therefore gather this idea respecting the

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