from the lake, the water is beautifully clear and pellucid. The reason of this is, that during its slow passage through the lake it has had time to settle. The impurities, which the torrents bring down into it from the mountains, all subside to the bottom, and are left there; and thus the water comes out at the lower end quite clear. The lake itself, however, is, of course, gradually filling up by means of this process.

Geneva is a comparatively small town. It would take ten Genevas to make a New York, and nearly a hundred to make a Paris or London. Why, then, is it so celebrated? There are several reasons for this. The first reason is, that this town stands on the great high-road leading from France into Italy. The second reason is, that Geneva is a convenient and agreeable point for entering Switzerland, and for making excursions among the Alps.* By way of Geneva we go to the valley of Chamouni and Mont Blanc, and visit the vast glaciers and the stupendous mountain scenery that lie around this great monarch of the Alps. The third reason why Geneva has acquired so much celebrity is, the great number of learned and distinguished philosophers and scholars that have from time to time lived there. Switzerland is a republic, and the canton of Geneva is Protestant; and thus the place has served as a sort of resort and refuge for all the most distinguished foes, both of spiritual and political tyranny, that have risen up in Europe at intervals during the last five hundred years. Geneva was, indeed, one of

* There are two great avenues into Switzerland from France and Germany-one by way of Geneva, and the other by way of Basle. By the way of Basle we go to the Jungfrau and the Oberland Alps, which lie around that mountain, and to the beautiful lakes of Zurich and of Lucerne. All these lie in the eastern part of the Alpine region.

the chief centres of the Reformation; and almost all the great reformers visited it, and wrote about it, and thus made all the world familiar with it, during the exciting times in which they lived. Besides this, Geneva has been the residence and home of a great many moral and political writers, within the last one or two centuries; for the country being republican, is much more open and free than most of the other countries of Europe. Men who have incurred the displeasure of their own governments, by their writings or their acts, find a safe asylum in Geneva, where they can think and say what they please. All this has tended very strongly to attract the attention of mankind to Geneva, as to a sort of luminous point in respect to moral and political science, from which light radiates to every part of the civilised world. There is one more reason, very different from the preceding, which tends to make Geneva famous, and to draw travellers to visit it at the present day; it is a great manufacturing place for watches and jewellery-one of the greatest, indeed, in the world. Thus, for one reason or another, it is estimated that the number of visitors every year to Geneva is not less than thirty thousand.-Jacob Abbott.

LESSON LXXII.-ANTS.

Ants are disagreeable insects in any country, but especially so in warm tropical climates. Their ugly appearance, their destructive habits, but above all the pain of their sting, or rather bite-for ants do not sting as wasps, but bite with the jaws, and then infuse poison into the wound-all these render them very unpopular creatures. A superficial thinker would suppose that such troublesome insects could be of no use, and would

question the propriety of nature in having created them; but when we give the subject a little attention, we find that they were not created in vain. Were it not for these busy creatures, what would become of the vast quantities of decomposing substances found in some countries? What would be done with the decaying vegetation and the dead animal matter? Why, in many places, were it not consumed by these insects, and reorganised into new forms of life, it would produce pestilence and death; and surely these are far more disagreeable things than ants.

Of ants there are many different kinds; but the greatest number of species belong to warm countries, where, indeed, they are most useful. Some of these species are so curious in their habits, that whole volumes have been written about them, and naturalists have spent a lifetime in their study and observation.

Their

social and domestic economy is of the most singular character-more so than that of the bees; and I am afraid here to give a single trait of their lives, lest I should be led on to talk too much about them. I need only mention the wonderful nests or hills which some species buildthose great cones of twenty feet in height, and so strong that wild bulls run up their sides, and stand upon their tops, without doing them the least injury! Others make their houses of cylindrical form, rising several feet from the surface. Others, again, prefer nesting in the trees, where they construct large cellular masses of many shapes, suspending them from the highest branches; while many species make their waxen dwellings in hollow trunks of trees, or beneath the surface of the earth. There is not a species, however, whose habits, fully observed and described, would not strike you with astonishment. Indeed, it is difficult to believe all that

is related about these insects by naturalists who have made them their study. One can hardly understand how such little creatures can be gifted with so much intelligence or instinct, as some choose to call it.

Man is not the only enemy of the ants. If he were, it is to be feared that these small, insignificant creatures would soon make the earth too hot for him. So prolific are they, that if left to themselves our whole planet would, in a short period, become a gigantic ants' nest.

Nature has wisely provided against the over-increase of the ant family. No living thing has a greater variety of enemies than they. In all the divisions of animated nature there are ant-destroyers-ant-eaters! To begin with the mammalia: man himself feeds upon them-for there are tribes of Indians in South America, the principal part of whose food consists of dried termites, which they bake into a kind of " paste!" There are quadrupeds that live exclusively on them, as the ant-bear and the pangolins, or scaly ant-eaters of the eastern continent. There are birds, too, of many sorts that devour the ants, and there are even some who make them exclusively their food, as the genus myothera, or ant-catchers. Many kinds of reptiles, both snakes and lizards, are ant-eaters; and, what is strangest of all, there are insects that prey upon them.

No wonder, then, with such a variety of enemies, that the ants are kept within proper limits, and are not allowed to overrun the earth.-Captain Mayne Reid.

LESSON LXXIII.—THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES.

See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall—

Withered leaves-one-two-and three-
From the lofty elder tree!

Through the calm and frosty air Of this morning bright and fair, Eddying round and round they sink, Softly, slowly:-one might think, From the motions that are made, Every little leaf conveyedSylph or fairy hither tendingTo this lower world descending, Each invisible and mute, In his wav'ring parachute.

But the kitten-how she starts, Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts! First at one, and then its fellow, Just as light, and just as yellow; There are many now-now oneNow they stop, and there are none. What intenseness of desire In her upturned eye of fire! With a tiger leap, half-way, Now she meets the coming prey, Let's it go as fast, and thenHas it in her power again.

Now she works with three or four,

Like an Indian conjuror;

Quick as he in feats of art,

Far beyond in joy of heart.

Were her antics played in th' eye
Of a thousand standers by,

Clapping hands, with shout and stare,
What would little Tabby care
For the plaudits of the crowd?

Far too happy to be proud;