correspondent to that of the animals, that, imperfectly as they were always seen through the trees and bushes, the disguise could not be detected at a distance, and scarcely discovered upon the nearest inspection. He was armed with a dagger and tomahawk.”

16. The cause of the disappearance of the other sentinels was now apparent: The Indians, sheltered in this disguise, secreted themselves in the coppice, watched for the moment to throw off the skin, burst upon the sentinels without previous alarm, and, too quick to give them an opportunity to discharge their pieces, either stabbed or scalped them. They then bore their bodies away, and concealed them at some distance in the leaves.

Anon.

LXIX.-JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

col-lec'-tion, a store of objects of interest; Sammlung.

skiff, a small, light boat; Schiffchen; Kahn.

civ-il-ized', refined; gesittet.

cane'-brake, a thicket of canes; Röhricht.

ven'-om-ous, poisonous; giftig.

am-mu-ni'-tion, the articles used to charge fire arms; Munition; Pulver und Blei.

lash, to bind; binden.

or-ni-thol'-o-gist, one who studies the structure and habits

of birds; ein Vogelkundiger.

port-fo'-li-o, a portable case for loose papers; Mappe.
hos-pi-tal'-i-ty, kindness to guests; Gastfreundschaft.
in-va'-ri-a-ble, unchangeable; unveränderlich.

af-fec'-tion-ate, tender; zärtlich.

1. Few men in our country have rendered greater service in the field of science than John James Audubon. He was born of French parents, near New Orleans, on the 4th of March, in the year 1780.

2. At a very early age, Audubon was sent to France, and educated in art and science under the best masters. The love of birds, which was the passion of his life, had already shown itself in childhood, and on his return from France he betook himself to his native woods, and began a collection of drawings, which were the beginning of his great book on the Birds of America.

3. His father gave him a plantation on the rich banks of the Schuylkill, where he might have enjoyed life in luxury and ease, but his heart was in the green woods; and in the year 1800, with a young wife and an infant son, and his unfailing rifle, he embarked in an open skiff on the Ohio to find a new home. He settled in Kentucky, where he pursued his studies and roamings.

4. It is impossible, in these few lines, to give a full history of the prairie and forest life he led. He was a true American woodsman, as he called himself. His appearance

in the forest was that of a man half civilized, and half savage.

5. His dress was made of leather ; a blanket was buckled to his shoulders; a large knife hung on one side, balanced by a long rusty tin box on the other; his beard, tangled and coarse, fell down upon his bosom, while his black, thick hair-locks rested upon his back and shoulders; his eye was quick and glancing, and his step firm and elastic.

6. Such was the odd appearance of this man, who spent more years in the forest than most men live. He was chilled with the frosts of the polar regions; his tongue was parched with thirst from the burning heat of the tropics.

7. He slept many nights across branches of trees, waked by panther screams, and many nights he passed in canebrakes, where he did not dare to sleep. He saw the knife of the savage whetted for him; and stepped on venomous serpents; and started the cougar in his secret lair, and swam

across swollen streams, with gun, ammunition, and drawings, lashed to his head.

8. Thus he lived and toiled for many years, his courage never failing, his love for nature never cooling, until he had finished one thousand drawings of American birds. Other ornithologists had painted their birds after they had been stuffed. Audubon made accurate drawings of his in the forest, when the plumage had scarcely been ruffled, much less had lost its brilliancy.

9. But alas, when he had about one thousand finished drawings in his portfolio, the collection was entirely destroyed by some accident. "The burning heat," says he, "which ran through my brain when I saw my loss, was so great I slept not for several nights, and my days were oblivion. But I took up my gun, note-book and pencils, and went forth to the woods as gayly as if nothing had happened. I could make better drawings than before; in three years my portfolio was filled."

10. Since his work could not be published in America, he went to England and had it done there. It was a magnificent work, and his fame was established at once. Learned societies welcomed him, and men of rank and wealth extended to him unbounded hospitality.

11. They tried to buy his original drawings from him, but his invariable reply was: "No, they are all American birds; they were painted in America; I am an American, and they belong to my country-they must go back with me."-.

12. He returned to America, and retired to his lovely home on the Hudson, where he passed the last years of his life in the midst of an affectionate family, and there he died in his seventy-first year, on the twenty-seventh day of January, in the year 1851.

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S

LXX. THE BAROMETER.

mer'-cu-ry, quicksilver; Quecksilber.
in-vert', to turn over; umkehren.

coun-ter-bal'-ance, to act against with equal weight; das
Gleichgewicht halten.

de-vise', to plan; to invent; erdenken; erfinden.
con-tin'-u-ance, uninterrupted succession; Fortdauer.

1. Let us take a tube of glass, open at one end and closed at the other, fill it with mercury, and keeping the finger tightly against the open end invert it into a glass vessel also containing mercury, taking care not to withdraw the finger from the open end until this end is below the surface of the mercury in the glass vessel.

2. Now mark what happens. You see a blank space left at the top of the upright tube of mercury, and your first idea is, that we must have let some air in; but this is not the case. There is absolutely nothing in this blank space. You are next inclined to ask, why does not the atmospheric air, which is no doubt pressing in all directions, and therefore pressing upon the surface of the mercury in the vessel, drive up the mercury so as to fill this empty space?

3. The reply is, that it would if it could; as it is, it presses upwards against the surface of the mercury in the vessel with force sufficient to keep up in the tube a column of heavy mercury thirty inches high; but it can do no more the weight of this mercury pressing downwards exactly counterbalances the pressure of the air forcing it upwards, and hence on the one hand the column of mercury can not push itself downwards, and on the other

the pressure of air can not push the column upwards, and we have therefore a blank space above the column.

4. This experiment was devised by an Italian called Torricelli - the tube is called a Barometer, and the empty space at the top is called the Torricellian Vacuum. Most barometers are provided with a scale of inches, by which the height of the top of the column above the surface of mercury in the cistern may be accurately measured.

5. The barometer is useful in many ways; for instance, we may by its means tell the height of a mountain. You know that the pressure is greater at the bottom of a deep vessel of water than near the top, and the same thing takes place in this ocean of air in which we live-the pressure is greater near the bottom of this aërial ocean than it is far up near the top.

6. If therefore we go to the top of a high mountain, we have a smaller weight of air above us than we had when down below, and in consequence the pressure of the air will be smaller at the top of the mountain than at the bottom. The air will not now be able to balance the same column of mercury as at the bottom, so that, in the barometer, instead of a column of mercury thirty inches high, we shall have one of twenty-five inches only, or possibly of twenty inches, depending upon the height of the mountain. In fact, the mercury will sink lower and lower down in the tube of the barometer the higher up you rise in the air, and thus by means of the barometer you can tell to what height you have gone.

7. The barometer is also useful in telling us when bad weather is at hand. When the barometer falls, that is to say, when the top of the column of mercury gets lower in the tube, and especially when it falls quickly, we may expect bad weather or storm. On the other hand, if the mercury remains steady and high, we may expect a continuance of fine weather.

Science Primers.