6. An account is given of the way in which the merchants of Manchester carried on their business in the last century. One who made a large fortune, used to carry his own goods on pack-horses from town to town. He was thus absent from home for the greater part of the year, and performed all his journeys on horseback. He carried his money in his saddle-bags. He was exposed to all kinds of weather, and to the dangers of highway robbers, who abounded at that time. No private carriage was kept in Manchester until the year 1758.

7. In Scotland, matters were even worse. There were hardly any regular roads at all, and it was a difficult matter to go from one town to another, especially in winter. There were merely tracks across moors, and when one track became too deep, another was made by the side of the old one.

8. The first coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow commenced running in the year 1749, but it took two days for the journey of forty-four miles.

9. A carrier's cart took a fortnight to get from Selkirk to Edinburgh, a distance of thirty-eight miles. On the morning of the carrier's starting, the people of Selkirk would gather round him to wish him a safe return. In the winter the carrier did not attempt the journey.

10. We read of a nobleman travelling in his own. carriage in 1760 through the south-western districts of Scotland. He was obliged to take with him a party of labourers to lift his carriage out of the ruts. But, after all, the carriage several times got fast, and when about three miles from a village called

was thought of the proposal to make this aqueduct? How many miles of canals were planned and constructed by James Brindley? When did Brindley die?

1. "Little by little," an acorn said,
As it slowly sank in its mossy bed;
"I am improving day by day,
Hidden deep in the earth away."
Little by little each day it grew;
Little by little it sipped the dew;
Downward it sent out a thread-like root;
Up in the air sprung a tiny shoot.
Day after day, and year after year,
Little by little the leaves appear;

2.

And the slender branches spread far and wide,
Till the mighty oak is the forest's pride.

Far down in the depths of the dark blue sea

An insect train work ceaselessly;

Grain by grain, they are building well,

Each one alone in its little cell;

Moment by moment, and day by day,
Never stopping to rest or play.

Rocks upon rocks they are rearing high,
Till the top looks out on the sunny sky;
The gentle wind and the balmy air
Little by little bring verdure there;
Till the summer sunbeams gaily smile
On the buds and flowers of the coral isle.

3. "Little by little," said a thoughtful boy, "Moment by moment I'll well employ, Learning a little every day,

And not spending all my time in play;
And still this rule in my mind shall dwell,
'Whatever I do, I will do it well.'

Little by little I'll learn to know
The treasured wisdom of long ago;
And one of these days perhaps we'll see
That the world will be the better for me."
And do not you think that this simple plan
Made him a wise and useful man?

improving, getting better. | rearing, raising up.

1. The name of whale is given to a number of fishlike animals living entirely in the sea, and widely spread over the world. The whale is not really a fish, for it breathes air in the same manner as animals do which dwell on the land, and like them it has also warm blood.

2. Whales are the largest animals in existence, some of them being from fifty to sixty feet in length, others as many as eighty, while a few are met with a hundred and twenty feet long.

3. Whales often visit the seas around the British islands. A few years ago a shoal of whales was seen off the east coast of Scotland. Many of these were caught, but they were mostly young ones, some of them being only about twenty feet long. They are sometimes left high and dry on the beach when the tide recedes, and then are easily killed. One, seventy-five feet in length, was thus caught in the Firth of Forth. When whales go about in shoals, sailors call them "a school of whales."

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4. There are several varieties of whales, but the two kinds of greatest value to man and of which we know most are the Greenland whale and the Sperm whale. Both kinds are sought after and captured, the former for oil and whalebone, the latter for oil and spermaceti.

5. The Greenland whale is from fifty to eighty feet long. The head is about one-third the length of the body, and is of enormous size. This whale has no teeth, but instead, has a great number of plates of whalebone hanging down from the roof of the mouth on either side, their lower ends spreading out into a number of fibres or fringes, so as to form a kind of sieve. When open, the mouth is big enough to admit a boat, crew and all.

6. Although this whale has such an enormous mouth, it has a very small throat, so that it could not swallow any fish much larger than a herring. Its food consists chiefly of a kind of jelly-fish, which is found in great abundance in these seas, and also of small shell-fish and sea-slugs. Its mode of obtaining food is very different from that of other animals and fishes.

7. When in want of food it opens its mouth wide, and swims rapidly through the water, which flows out at the sides of the mouth, while the plates of whalebone catch the small animals it contains. Every now and then it closes its mouth and presses the tongue against the whalebone sieve, being then able to swallow the mass of minute creatures that it has caught.

8. Like other whales it has a very broad and strong