THESE HOURS SHALL BE SPENT IN YOUTH, WILL GO FAR TO DETERMINE THE CHARACTER IN MATURE AGE."

"Indeed, sir," said George, "as far as I have had opportunity for observing, I think most lads are drawn into evil courses at first for want of some safe and pleasant pastime to fill up the time they have at their own disposal."

"It would be unspeakably for the happiness and interests of parents and masters," said Lewis, "to encourage publications adapted for youth. The great bar to im provement is the scarcity of books that are intelligible or interesting to humble or untutored readers. I have often

wished, that in every street there were libraries, under the controul of proper censors, where apprentices, and persons who could not be supposed capable of selecting books for themselves, might obtain volumes at a cheap rate, for an evening. It would be easy to prevent frauds, by making each reader deposit the value of his book, to be returned when the book was restored to the librarian."

"There are three institutions much wanted in our empire," continued Lewis; "but without the benevolent interposition of the legislature, they can never be established in due extent. PUBLIC GRANARIES, by purchasing corn in abundant seasons, would prevent the price from falling beneath the expense its cultivation has cost the farmer; and the stores sold out in times of scarcity at a moderate rate, would save the indigent from hardships that cannot be adequately represented by the most minute detail. The class immediately next to them would also be relieved from a heavy burden; for it is they who feel most severely the painful sympathy, and the charitable stretches of very limited ability to supply their famishing neighbours. The next establishment I would patronize, if my power could equal my will, would be to bestow on every parish, A DISPENSARY FOR THE POOR. A family who subsist by daily labour, must be reduced by sickness to the privation of bread; and how can they pay for advice or medicine? The patient cannot work; and the attendant can have little time for earnings-and O! what misery ensues to the healthy-and how many valuable lives sink

under

under disorders that might be cured by timely assistance. PUBLIC LIBRARIES, adapted for humble readers, would undoubtedly prove of incalculable use to all ages; and more especially to youth; but I WOULD LIKEWISE EARNESTLY RECOMMEND SOME WEEKLY OR MONTHLY VEHICLE FOR ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. How many instructive truths are known in husbandry, in manufactures, and handicraft trades, that have not yet appeared in print; and how numerous are those that may be extracted from books, by far too expensive for a plebeian library. It is allowed, that Doctor FRANKLIN'S Popular Essays were of more real utility to his countrymen, than his philosophical discoveries, though some of these are life-preservers. Occa sion for extraordinary aid never occurs in the whole course of many lives; but RELIGIOUS, ETHICAL, and PRAC. TICAL KNOWLEDGE, ARE THE SUBSTANTIAL FOOD WHICH DIURNALLY PROMOTE OUR WELFARE. The higher refinements are dainties very desirable indeed in subservience to necessary aliments; but he who furnishes a poor family with abundance of plain wholesome food, is certainly a more kind and judicious benefactor, than the donor of a handful of sweetmeats. If my godson, Lewis, continues in his present inclination to be a printer, and that I live to see the period when he is fit to undertake it, I shall obtain my anxious wish for a CHEAP MAGAZINE, to the vast benefit of myriads yet unborn; for the improvement of intellect and morals is intimately connected, and progressive through countless generations. I request of you, my dear lads, in your future reading, or social opportunities, to assist me in collecting materials for a work, which, if properly conducted, must prove more conducive to national advantage, than the most splendid conquest that ever graced our an nals. Without moral worth, no happiness, individual or collective can subsist; but a very small portion of internal good becomes the mean of solid, uniform, and durable satis faction to pious minds.”

To be continued.

The Book of Nature laid Open.

(Continued from page 314.)

"With wonder mark the moving wilderness of waves,
Magnificently dreadful!-Where, at large
Leviathan, (with each inferior name

Of sea-born kinds, ten thousand, thousand tribes,)
Finds endless range for pasture and for sport.”
SEA PLANTS.

THE bottom of the sea, as I observed before, abounds with a variety of vegetable productions. Before turning my attention more immediately to the animated inhabitants of the great abyss, I shall, therefore, take a cursory glance at these sub-marine gardens, woods, and meadows; and the first thing that strikes my attention, is the remarkable difference in the conformation betwixt Sea and Land Vegetables; for although they agree in possessing the concomitant parts of roots, stalks, and branches, yet it must be immediately observed, that instead of being hard and brittle like the latter, the largest and strongest of the former are furnished with an extraordinary degree of tenacity, yet evince a power of flexible elasticity that is astonishing; so much so, that bend them into any form, or twist them into an hundred shapes, while they adhere, in their native freshness, to the rocks, still will they recover their natural shape and position without danger of breaking. The roots of sea plants are not constructed for penetrating deep into the soil, but they are wonderfully fitted for taking firm hold of the rocks or stones upon which they vegetate, and instead of being disturbed by the tossings of the tempest, these seem rather to acquire vigour by the severity of the weather. The long and broad leaves of these plants are excellently formed for imbibing moisture from the surrounding element; their horizontal position, extreme pliability, and oval-shaped branches, fit them admirably for the peculiar situations in which they are placed, while the clammy glutinous moisture with which they are covered, no doubt serves (besides other important purposes) to prevent them from being injured by the continual action of the water; so that, in the words of an admirable writer, whom I have already more than

once

once quoted, we see from this, and numberless other instances, what a diversity there is in the operations of the GREAT CREATOR'S hand. Yet every alteration is an improvement, and each new pattern has a pecu liar fitness of its own. The herbs and trees," he also observes, "which flourish on the dry land, are maintained by the juices that permeate the soil, and fluctuate in the air. For this purpose they are furnished with leaves to collect the one, and with roots to attract the other; whereas, the sea plants, finding sufficient nourishment in the circumambient waters, have no occasion to detach a party of roots into the ground, and forage the earth for sustenance. Instead, therefore, of penetrating, they are but just tacked to the bottom, and adhere to some solid substance, only with such a degree of tenacity, as may secure them from being tossed to and fro by the random agitation of the waves.'

There are two striking peculiarities in sub-marine vegetables, which deserve our notice. Several of them are furnished with a number of appendages in the form of globes or bladders; and, instead of an uniformity of colour, these are found to be diversified with a dissimilarity of tints. The former, however, from emitting a loud noise when broke, we have reason to conclude, may possibly serve the purpose of air vessels to the plants, and we need not go far to have the mystery solved why they are made to differ so much in colour from each other.

Let us attend to the operations of yonder angler, and behold with what eagerness the unsuspecting fish, guided by the eye, rushes on the deceitful bait; if we can therefore for a moment harbour the supposition that it is by the eye the finny tribes are in a great degree directed in their movements, and knowing, as we do, that some of them delight in vegetable food*, we must see at once the propriety of such a variety in the colour of the carpet that covers the bed of the ocean, and the wisdom in the contrivance of its different hues. Without dwelling on the several uses of the vegetable productions of the great deep, I would briefly observe, that besides serving as articles of food to so many of the

*Mackerels are particularly fond of a sea-plant, the narrow-leav.d Sea-wick, which abounds on the coast of England.

the inhabitants of the watery regions, particularly to those of the Shell kind, which abound chiefly among them*; these afford among their intricate and perplexing labyrinths, a safe retreat for the weak from the strong; a commodious lodgement for a variety of shell fish, and convenient recesses for numbers of the finny tribes to betake themselves to, for the purpose of depositing their spawn; and to those who make use of their leaves on the occasion, these plants seem to be admirably adapted by the glary matter which covers their substance, not only preventing the eggs from being easily washen off before they are hatched, but affording, in all likelihood, an immediate supply of nuBetricious food for the young, before they are fitted for any thing more gross; and this may be the reason as well as the safety which their concealment insures, why so many of the weak and smaller fry are found among them.

These few specimens may serve to show in what respects sea vegetables may be of use in the economy of nature, and I shall just notice two or three of the many instances in which they may be said more directly to contribute to the service of man.

The utility of the spunge, (an article which takes its rise from those rocky beds,) in several of our most useful arts and manufactures, is well known.-The sea-weed, formed into kelp, forms a principal ingredient in the composition of soap and of glasst; but of all the uses to which VOL. II.

G G

sea

The pincers of one of the large claws of the lobster, are furnished with knobs, and those of the other are always ferreted. With the former it keeps firm hold of the stalks of submarine plants; and with the latter it cuts and minces its food very dexterously. According to the relation of navigators, when the sea is calm, and the weather serene, the tortoises are seen feeding on the green carpet at the bottom of the sea, where the depth is but a few fathoms.

The Sea-wrack, or ware, as it is called, from whence kelp is formed, is found on our rocks and shores in great abundance; after being spread out and dried in the summer months, it is raked together, and burnt in those hollows which we observe on the beachThe ashes form what is called kelp, which is used in the composition of soap and glass, as well as in the alum works. Soap is an article too well known for its cleansing quality to need description; and, without the aid of glass, to what miseries and inconveniences must