yet no breeze is 'perceptible on the surface of the stream; but a hollow murmur in the air precedes the black clouds ascending from the horizon, like grim warriors ready for battle.

And now the old forest groans under the shock of the hurricane; a night-like darkness veils the face of nature; and, while torrents of rain descend amid 'uninterrupted sheets of lightning and terrific peals of thunder, the river rises and falls in waves of a dangerous height. Then it requires great skill to preserve the boat from sinking; but the Indian pilots steer with so masterly a hand, and understand so well the first symptoms of the storm, that it seldom takes them by surprise, or renders them victims of its fury.

A majestic uniformity is the character of European woods, which often consist of only one species of tree; but in the tropical forests an immense variety of families strive for existence, and even in a small space one tree scarcely ever resembles its neighbour. Even at a distance this difference becomes apparent in the irregular outlines of the forest, as here a dome-shaped crown, there a pointed pyramid, rises above the broad flat masses of green, in ever-varying succession. On approaching, differences of colour are added to 'irregularities of form; for while our forests are destitute of the ornament of flowers, many tropical trees have large blossoms, mixing in thick bunches with the leaves, and often entirely overpowering the 'verdure of the foliage by their gaudy tints. Thus splendid white, yellow, and redcoloured crowns are mingled with those of darker or more humble hue. When at length, on entering the forest, the single leaves become distinguishable, even the last traces of harmony disappear. Here they are delicately feathered, there lobed here narrow, there broad here pointed, there obtuse: here lustrous and fleshy, as if in the full luxuriance of youth; there dark and arid, as if decayed with age. As the wind plays with the foliage, it appears now silvery, now dark green-now of a lively, now of a sombre hue.

Variety of vegetation is characteristic of all tropical countries, but nowhere are the varieties so wonderfully brought together as on the Mexican plateaux. There the vegetation rises in successive zones from the base of the mountains to heights unparalleled in any other part of the world. It is literally true that the inhabitants, without leaving their native land, may view the vegetable forms of every country on the globe, and pluck nearly every fruit that is found between the Equator and the Arctic Circle.

gigantic, colossal.
inunda'tion, flood.
irregularities,diver'sities.
lobed, having rounded di-

visions.

lus'trous, shin'ing.
luxu'riant, abun'dant.
magnificent, grand.
majestic, grand.
mammalian, of the order
of suck-givers.
marvellous, won'derful.
misfortune, ac'cident.
mit'igating, mod'erating.
obtuse', having a broad
point.

pen'etrates, pierces.

'Lu'cern-meadows, meadows covered with lucern, a leguminous (pea-like) plant cultivated by farmers for fodder.

perceptible, appa'rent.
perpetual, everlast'ing.
prehen'sile, adapted for
seizing.
prime'val, original.
probos cis, trunk.
proxim'ity, near'ness.
ri'valling, em'ulating.
savan'nas, mead'ows.
sol'itary, lonely.
stupen dous, enormous.
superabun'dance, excess'.
tu mult, commo'tion.
undoubtedly, certainly.
uniform'ity, same'ness.
uninterrupt'ed, unbroken.
ver'dure, green'ness.

striking example of which is afforded by South America. The Atlantic trades cross that continent as east winds laden with moisture; but so completely are they cov-drained of their moisture by the cooling influences of the Andes, that while the eastern gorges of these mountains are clothed with perpetual verdure, their western slopes are almost uniformly and constantly arid.

Cac'tus, a well known tropical plant, having a thick fleshy stem, generally ered with spines and destitute of leaves. Several kinds bear beautiful flowers. The cochineal insect, highly valued for the dye which is made of it, feeds on a species of cactus. (Pl. cacti, or cactuses.)

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A'gave, the American aloe, a handsome flowering plant. Its flower stem is often twenty or thirty feet in height. It rises from the centre of the plant like a flag pole, and the flowers form a circle, like the lights of a candelabra, around its upper end.

How marvellous the contrast. In general, within the Tropics, the eastern coasts and the eastern slopes of mountains are better watered than lands with a western exposure. This is owing to the influence of the trade winds; the most

QUESTIONS. Of what are the tropical regions suggestive? Wherein do they differ from the north temperate zone? What effect has this on their climate? Mention another cause of the varieties of tropical climate. Give examples of its operation? In what do these diversities produce corresponding variety? What are the great physical features of tropical America? What constitute the Puna? For what are these regions chiefly remarkable? What is the nature of the Peruvian sea-bord? What contrast do the two sides of the Andes present? To what is this due? To what height does the Amazon rise after the rainy season? What changes are observed after it has fallen again? Where is the beauty of tropical vegetation seen to greatest advantage? Mention birds that are seen there. What mammals are most numerous in these forests? What is the monkey's fifth hand? What does it enable him to do? What is the most formidable beast of prey in the Brazilian forests? What do the storms of the Amazon recall to memory? Mention some of their striking features. Wherein do tropical woods chiefly differ from European ones? What produces their differences of colour? Where is variety of vegetation most strikingly exhibited? How is this variety illustrated?

MAN AND THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

As industrial creatures, we often look like wretched copyists of animals far beneath us in the scale of organization; and we seem to confess as much by the names which we give them. The mason-wasp, the carpenter-bee, the mining caterpillars, the quarrying sea-slugs, 'execute their work in a way which we cannot rival or excel. The bird is an exquisite architect; the beaver a most skilful bridge-builder; the silk-worm the most beautiful of weavers; the spider the best of net-makers. Each is a perfect craftsman, and each has his tools always at hand.

Those wise creatures, I believe, have minds like our own, to the extent that they have minds, and are not mere living machines, swayed by a blind instinct; but their most wonderful works imply neither invention, contrivance, nor 'volition, but only a placid, pleasant, easily rendered obedience to instincts which reign without rivals, and justify their despotic rule by the infallible happiness which they secure. It has cost none of these ingenious artists any intellectual effort to learn its craft, for God gave it to each perfect in the beginning; and, within the circle to which they apply, the rules which guide their work are 'infallible, and know no variation.

To those creatures, however, the Author of all has given, not only infallible rules for their work, but unfaltering faith in them. Labour is for them not a doubt, but a certainty. Duty is the same thing as happiness. They never grow weary of life, and death never surprises them; and they are less to be likened to us than to perfect self-repairing machines, which swiftly raise our admiration from themselves to Him who made and who 'sustains them.

We are industrial for other reasons, and in a different way. Our working instincts are very few; our faith in them still more feeble; and our physical wants far greater than those of any other creature. Indeed, the one half of the Industrial Arts are the result of our being born without clothes; the other half, of our being born without tools.

I do not propose to offer you a 'catalogue of the arts which our unclothedness compels us to foster. The shivering savage in the colder countries robs the seal and the bear, the buffalo and the deer, of the one mantle which Nature has given them. The wild huntsman, by a swift but simple 'transmutation, becomes the clothier, the tailor, the tanner, the currier, the leather-dresser,

And the

the glover, the saddler, the shoemaker, the tent-maker. tent-maker, the arch-architect1 of one of the great schools of architecture, becomes quickly a house-builder, building with snow where better material is not to be had; and a ship-builder, 'constructing, out of a few wooden ribs and stretched animal skins, canoes which, as sad experience has shown, may survive where English ships of oak2 have gone to destruction.

Again: the unchilled savage of the warmer regions seeks a covering, not from the cold, but from the sun which smites him by day, and the moon which smites him by night. The palm, the banana, the soft-barked trees, the broad-leaved sedges and long-fibred grasses are spoiled by him, as the beasts of the field are by his colder brother. He becomes a sower, a reaper, a spinner, a weaver, a baker, a brewer, a distiller, a dyer, a carpenter; and whilst he is these, he bends the pliant stems of his tropical forests into roof-trees and rafters, and clothes them with leaves, and makes for himself a 'tabernacle of boughs, and so is the arch-architect of a second great school of architecture; and, by-and-by, his twisted branches and interlaced leaves grow into Grecian columns3 with Corinthian acanthus capitals, and Gothic pillars, 5 with petrified plants and stony flowers 'gracefully curling round them.

Once more in those temperate regions where large animals and trees do not greatly abound, turfs, or mud, or clay, or stones, or all together, can be fashioned into that outermost garment which we call a house, and which we most familiarly connect with the notion of architecture.

It is not, however, his cultivation either of the arts which have been named, or of others, that makes man peculiar as an industrial animal;-it is the mode in which he practises them. The first step he takes towards remedying his nakedness and helplessness, is in a direction in which no other creature has led the way, and none has followed his example. He lays hold of that most powerful of all weapons of peace or war, Fire, from which every other animal, unless when fortified by man's presence, flees in terror; and with it alone not only clothes himself, but lays the foundation of a hundred arts.

Man may be defined as the only animal that can strike a light, the solitary creature that knows how to kindle a fire. This is a very fragmentary definition of the " Paragon of animals," but it is enough to make him the conqueror of all the rest. The most degraded savage has discovered how to rub two sticks together, or whirl the point of one in a socket in the other

till the wood is kindled. And civilized man, as much as his savage brother, is a fire-worshipper in his practical doings. The great conquering peoples of the world have been those who knew best how to deal with fire. The most wealthy of the active nations are those which dwell in countries richly 'provided with fuel. No inventions have changed the entire world more than steam and gunpowder. We are what we are, largely because we are the ministers and masters of Fire.

Clothe-less creatures by birth, we are also tool-less ones. Every other animal is by nature fully equipped and 'caparisoned for its work; its tools are ready for use, and it is ready to use them. We have first to invent our tools, then to fashion them, and then to learn how to handle them. Two-thirds at least of our industrial doings are thus 'preliminary. Before two rags can be sewed together, we require a needle, which embodies the 'inventiveness of a hundred ingenious brains; and a hand, which only a hundred botchings and failures have, in the lapse of years, taught to use the instrument with skill.

ore.

It is so with all the crafts, and they are inseparably dependent one on another. The mason waits on the carpenter for his mallet, and the carpenter on the smith for his saw; the smith on the smelter for his iron, and the smelter on the miner for his Each, moreover, needs the help of all the others;—the carpenter the smith, as much as the smith the carpenter; and both the mason, as much as the mason both. This helplessness of the single craftsman is altogether peculiar to the human artist. The lower animals are all polyartists, amongst whom there are no degrees of skill; and they have never heard of such a doctrine as that of the division of labour.

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The industrialness, then, of man, is carried out in a way quite peculiar to himself, and singularly illustrative of his combined weakness and greatness. The most helpless, physically, of animals, and yet the one with the greatest number of pressing appetites and desires, he has no working instincts (at least after infancy) to secure the gratification of his most pressing wants, and no tools which such instincts can work by. He is compelled, therefore, to fall back upon the powers of his reason and understanding, and make his intellect serve him instead of a crowd of instinctive impulses, and his intellect-guided hand instead of an 'apparatus of tools. Before that hand, armed with the tools which it has fashioned, and that intellect, which marks man as made in the image of God, the instincts and weapons of the entire animal creation are as nothing. He reigns, by right of con