SULTRY WEATHER.-BATHING.

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They also noticed how bitterly they tormented some cows, which were standing half up their legs in a pond under the shade of some ash trees. They kept lashing their sides with their long tails to no purpose; the little persecutors returned to the same spot the moment the tail passed to the other side. Sometimes they remarked that the animals made all the skin of their bodies to shiver, and this action might rouse up for an instant one or two timid flies, but the remainder of the swarm stuck fast to the hides of the beasts. Now and then a cow would lift up one fore leg and stamp it down again; then, with a hind leg, she would kick her belly. Then she would shake one ear, then the other; toss up her head, wink with her eyes, in the corners of which a dozen tormentors were collected. All was to little purpose. "In the hot country of India," said Mr. Stock, "the buffaloes get into the pools in shady spots, and leave no part above the surface of the water but the nose, to allow them to breathe." "If I were one of these cows, I would do so too," said Adam.

Adam had been a courageous bather in the sea when an infant; he therefore jumped in very freely, but began to be frightened at first, because the water took away his breath, and he could not speak without sobbing: all this, however, went off in less than a minute, and he played about as happy as a duck, and tried to swim. When they came out, and while they were dressing, his father told him to bear in mind as long as he lived, that if he wished to be a healthy man, it was very necessary that he should be a cleanly one. Next to kind and endearing manners," said he, "nothing is more pleasing in man or woman than a delicate cleanliness of person. And one of the surest

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BATHING.-THUNDER.

means of being so is, to bathe regularly during the summer months, and in the winter ones as regularly to use the warm bath. There are few people who do not spend in wine and other luxuries ten times the sum of money that it would cost to have a warm bath every other day all the year round.”* As Mr. Stock finished speaking, they heard a very low rumbling, like the noise of a heavy cart on an iron road. Presently they observed, from a dark, lead-colored cloud, a bright flash, like a fiery snake, dart down upon a distant hill; after waiting for some time, the thunder followed, as if it had been the same heavy cart that had fallen, and was afterwards dragged rattling along; then had stopped, then fallen again, and ended by rumbling till it was out of hearing. The dark cloud all this time was changing its appearance and shape; sometimes it was very ragged at the edges, like wool, pulled or snatched off. Every thing around was quite silent; not even a little bird was heard to whistle. The sheep in the fields huddled their heads together, and bent them down towards the ground. Presently the wind rose all at once with a great roaring, and whirled up the dust of the road in a cloudy pillar; then ceased again, and all was silent. In a few seconds some large drops fell, and immediately after a broad flash burst out of the cloud, followed almost instantaneously by a crashing and tearing, as if houses were being overturned and dashed to pieces; and every

Those who cannot avail themselves of the bath, may find a very easy and effectual substitute in the daily use of a sponge, moistened in pure water, and followed by the friction of a dry towel. In dwellinghouses, where the cold of the chambers is tempered by means of a stove in the main passage, the process may easily be continued throughout the year.-EDS.

A THUNDER-STORM.

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66

now and then there were great bangs heard like cannon firing off. At the sudden bursting of this thunderclap, some horses in a neighboring field snorted, started, and galloped away. For a moment or two after the thunder had ceased there was a dreadful stillness, and then the rain came down in a torrent, driving up the dust of the road, and making a soft noise as if it fell upon wool, till it was soaked through and beaten down; when it made a quick splashing, and seemed to be lashing the ground.

They now had to run for it, and did not reach home till they were nearly soaked through. The lightning and thunder still continued, and the rain seemed to smoke along the ground, and upon the thatched roof of a shed opposite to their house. Sometimes the thunder sounded very high in the air, as if above the clouds; at others, as if it were down in the road. That which but a few minutes before had been a lovely day, with a blue sky, and stately clouds like snowy rocks that scarcely moved at all, was now one dull, lead-colored covering. In about an hour it became lighter, and in another hour they had the pleasure to see that stormy cloud sailing away from them, still locking black, with its edges touched by the light of the golden sun. From time to time they heard that the storm had not ceased, though it was not so loud; at length it was so far off that the thunder made only a low surly rumbling; and the cloud which had before looked so angry, when over and near them, now shone like a snow-covered mountain, with crags and precipices, and deep hollows and caverns. The family all remarked how pleasantly cool the air had become, and how calm; and admired the fresh and glittering appearance of the grass, and the leaves of the trees,

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VELOCITY OF SOUND.

and the flowers in the sunshine: and they snuffed up with delight the smell of the earth after the rain.

Adam asked a multitude of questions about thunder and lightning, of which his father told him it would be extremely difficult at his age to make him understand the explanation. He, however, informed him, that thunder was the report of the lightning, as the noise after the flash of a gun was the report of that. Then he wished to know how it was that it was so long after the flash before they heard the thunder. "Because,” said his father, "sound occupies some time in coming to our ear from a distance. Do you not remember when you once saw a man driving an iron wedge into the root of a tree, that you heard the blow just after you saw him strike? It was because you were at a short distance from him, and the sound was that length of time in coming to you. Some clever person discovered, that sound flies one thousand one hundred and fifty feet in a second of time. Therefore with a watch you can tell how far off a storm is by counting the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and the hearing of the thunder. Or you may make a rough guess by counting the beatings of your pulse in your wrist. About seven beats of an ordinary pulse are equal to the time in which sound will travel one mile. If, therefore, the instant you see a flash of lightning, you were to put your fingers to your wrist, and count fourteen pulsations before you hear the thunder, you may know that the storm is somewhat more or less than two miles distant. You ought to know that rule in arithmetic, Adam; it is very easy."

Some time after this, the father told him that he had heard him a few days before reading aloud a part of the Roman history, from which he ought to be able

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to tell the reason why this month was called July. Adam, however, had forgotten the circumstance, if he had ever noticed it. Mr. Stock told him it was so named in honor of Julius Cæsar, who, after he had obtained the government of the Roman empire, altered and corrected the calendar.

One of these days they were employed in planting out, for their winter table, some young savoys, winter cabbages, broccoli, and endive; of which two last plants they sowed some more seed for the principal winter and spring crops. "And, Adam," said his father, “as we are all fond of kidney-beans, we will sow a couple of rows, which will furnish our table through the month of September. If the ground had not been lately moistened with that heavy rain, it would have been as well to soak them for an hour or two in water before planting. Those cauliflower plants, too, which were sown in the month of May, should now be planted out in rows; they will be welcome to us in October and November. You may finish these two tasks, while I begin a trench for our winter celery; and as you will have done before I shall, you may sow some more mustard and cress, and hoe out the weeds, and thin that bed of turnips; but in managing this work you must be careful to pull away those only which are the most feeble-looking, and where they are growing too closely together. Choose the healthiest plants to remain, and let them stand at about a six inches' remove from each other. You will find sufficient occupation in the task I have here given you. In the evening, after our walk, we will all have a supper of currants and strawberries, and milk, with sugar."

When they had finished these tasks, Adam was allowed to sow two rows of the Charlton and Knight's