For the Miscellany. BY MARY B. JANES. there to pay homage at the shrine of wealth and beauty. Magnificent girandoles and candelabras streaming with light revealed to the eye every thing that could entrance the sense.-The sun never rose brighter than on the Carpets so soft and yielding, they seemed 18th birth-day of the heiress Lucy, the like down to the step,divans and tete a tetes, pride of an old time-worn castle, that stood that would have graced Buckingham palacewithin its walls of antique sculpture, tower- specimens of Mosaic, statuary of Paria's ing above the trees and frowning most un- purest polish-marble tables covered with sociably at its opposite neighbor, a broken pouderous tomes. The walls were embelldown parapet in one of the most romantic ished with paintings representing the most glades of Old England. striking scenes in Lord Ellerton's history; Ellerton castle was in an excitement of portraits of ancient heroes and reigning sov preparation, a fete was to be given that eve-ereigns-then all this was multiplied in the ning in honor of the fair Lucy. While clearest mirrors. One would suppose himstewards and house-keeper are all in a bus-self gazing on some scene of enchantment tle with their clamorous acclamations of joy, the effect was so like magic. pacing up and down with the emblems of Music floated through the salcon, some their respective offices, we may slip out and times softly lulling the sense, at others stirsurvey the estate. The grounds were extenring the soul with the warmest emotions. A sively and beautifully laid out. Exotics gush of perfume from Elieu's parterre poured bloomed in profusion. Shrubbery grew there in through the open casements, filling the which had been planted many years before, apartment, and almost overwhelming the until the stately trees had formed groves in guests with a flood of delicious sensations. every direction, through which the deer were bounding with a fleet step, and over the Viands that an epicure would covet, with downs and fells the sheep grazed in luxuri-wines and fruits from Oriental climes crowd. ant idleness. Birds found there a favorite ed the board of the hospitable noblemen.— haunt, and their responsive notes filled the The dawn of morning saw coaches filled air with rural melody, and on a hidden tree with satisfied guests, and attended by footɛat a Macaw parrot perfectly conscious of his men in richly caparisoned livery, rapidly dignity as one would suppose, from his traversing the Park, while Lucy was in her screaming egotism. To give to the whole bed of down, dreaming of doting friends and the completion of an English landscape her home of luxury. stood the castle, with here and there, a broken arch or crumbling pile. Its grey walls looked old fashioned enough, to be sure, in their gothic dress, reminding one of some demure old monk in his cowl and robe of serge, but the twining flowers clung closely to the massive stone causing it no longer to look cold and prison like, but seemed a fit retreat for one so lovely as Lucy Ellerton. There never was a more joyous assemblage, than was collected in the Castle that night. Ladies in glittering court dresses, and gentlemen in dazzling uniform--the beauty and chivalry of the adjacent country, were Night never stretched her leaden sceptre more in terror, than she did over the home of Kathleen Moore, a hovel which stood alone in a remote glen of Ireland. The howlings of the blast were truly terrific as they swept by, peering into every crevice of that mud walled but, causing it literally to creak to its very foundation. A few leafless trees like giant skeletons were scattered over the fell, all corse-like as it was in its winding sheet of snow, and on one of the trees sat an owl screeching to the night wind.-Seemingly the moon never shone in Ireland, for the sky was so obscured by clouds that every object was shrouded in darkness; but a pale light yet glimmered within Kathleen's cottage. What a shivering seizes the spirit, as the door turns on its hinges revealing to the gaze, the interior of that abode of sorrow ! nerve in her frame acts in its utmost tension she starts up in all the "tearless energy of woe," and clasps her dead darling still closer, her shadowy form moving with astonishing precision, she paces the floor and begins wailing one of those plaintive airs so peculiarly adapted to that sorrow-stricken land-then wildly shrieking she lays her child beside its father and rushing forth from the door, her cries are borne upon the blast. When day breaks upon the scene it discloses two fatherless boys, huddling in tear ful despair round a maniac mother. These are no fancy sketches, who that has observed the extravagance and dissipation of the Court of St James, and the wretchedness and want of Erin's sous, will say that these were not scenes from real life? Gaunt pestilence was stalking through the land and with its blighting breath had swept innumerable victims to the charnel house; had stolen the roses from youthful faces and left them blanched by the mildew of want, had quenched the fire of Beauty's lustrous eye, leaving it,bloodshot and glaring with fierceness; had corrected the sympathies and hardened the hearts of many, who yet walked the sterile soil, like bloodless phantoms. There in one corner of an almost unfurnished room, upon a straw pallet is stretched the form of Edward Moore, in the last stage of pestilential fever. Though doomed to die, a serenity sat upon his brow, one bony hand clasped a bible and the other, Never forsake a friend. When enemies already stiffened was raised toward heaven. gather around--when sickness falls on the In an opposite corner upon a similar heart--when the world is dark and cheercouch are two boys asleep! yes asleep! for-less-is the time to try true friendship. The getfulness has for a while stolen upon their heart that has been touched will redoublə faculties. Their lips are pale with hunger its efforts when the friend is sad or in trou and their lank faces are shrivelled and ghast-ble. Adversity tries true friendship. They ly; yet enduring patience is stamped upon them and they are fondly locked in each other's arms-but starvation haunts their pillow, for in their dreams, in suppressed, yet fitful tones they are murmuring, Bread! FIDELITY. who turn from the scene of distress, betray their hypocrisy, and prove that interest only moves them. If you have a friend who loves you-who has studied your interest and happiness, be sure you sustain him to Near the father's bed sits the mother, cold adversity. Let him feel that his former and shivering, holding within her arms a kindness was appreciated, that his love was babe. A tear has frozen upon its cheek, and not thrown away. Real fidelity may be its form is like an icicle. Ah! it is dead-rare, but exists in the heart. Who has not dear helpless one, thus early inured to sor-seen and felt its power? They only deny . row! its worth and power who have never either The mother lifts her transparent hand to loved a friend or labored to make him haprevive, if possible the expiring wick of her py. The good and kind, the affectionate Last taper, which throws a sudden flickering and virtuous, see and feel this heavenly prin light about the room, and tells to her that ciple. They would sacrifice wealth and the harpies of famine with the baleful breeze happiness to promote the happiness of oth of their pestiferous wings, have sent the ers, and in return, they receive the reward death chill upon her heart's idols. Oh! how of their love in sympathizing hearts and frantically she gazes upon her babe, then countless favors; when they have been upon her husband, how her eyes dilate; every | brought low by distress and adversity. Vol. 6, No. 2-6. the same GEOLOGY. It has been supposed by many that the action of the mighty power, whatever it may be, by which the surface of the earth has been so materially modified, was confined to the early existence of our planet, and, like the spirit of prophecy, has long since passed away. But the researches of modern science show that this opinion is incorrect, and that causes which have elevated the West Indies and thousands of other islands, in ancient times, are still in operation in modern days. But a few years since it was ascertained, by competent observers, thet the western coast of Chili had been raised. in the space of a few days, two to nine feet, vor an area of more than 100,000 square miles; and that the coast of Norway has boen for many years gradually rising from the sea is evident, from the constant shoaling of the water on the sea shore, although this elevation is so gradual as not to be perceived by the inhabitants. From We find evidences of a slow and gradual The whole of Florida lies on a bed of shell and coral limestone; and, in many parts of the country, clam shells have been dug up, so perfect in form, that the eye could not distinguish them from the ordina ry kind, while the interior of the shell bas But the most conclusive proof on record of the slow and gradual elevation and depression of large tracts of country, may be found in the history of the temple of Jupiter Serpis, an ancient pagan temple in South-been filled with calcareous matter, which has em Italy. This structure was originally e assumed the appearance of perfect marble, rorted at some distance from the shore; but, showing the vast period that must have eby the sinking of the ground on which it lapsed since the shell was occupied by a liv. tood, it was so far submerged that the stone ing animal. Similar appearances have been pillars of the portico were thirteen feet un- found in many other parts of the country.— der water. Here they remained until those On the shores of Connecticut River, a log of parts of the columns which were under wa-wood was found, in digging a well, forty ter, were deeply corroded by the action of | feet beneath the surface, showing that at the water, and a peculiar species of boring least that much of soil had been deposited A large bed of worm, which attacks the marble as the ze- since the tree had grown. redo attacks the sides of a ship. After hav- clams was found many feet beneath the suring remained in this situation for centuries, face, while they were excavating for the the whole shore, temple and all, were Erie Canal, in the vicinity of the city of raised so much, that the columns already Rochester; and most persons who have vismentioned WERE LIFTED BEYOND THE AC-ited Niagara, have not failed to observe that TION OF THE WATER, and left as firm and the cliffs of that far-famed cataract are filled erect on their pedestals as if nothing had with fossil shells perfectly solidified, but yet retaining their original form to the minutest happened. and most delicate parts; showing that they were not transported into their present posi Nor is it only on one portion of the earth's surface that these changes have taken place, tion by a CURRENT OR FLOOD, but died and mains of SAURIANS and other animals of the were buried beneath a covering GRADUALLY crocodile tribe, show that the country was DEPOSITED Over them. A still further proof once, in whole or in part, the bed of an inof the elevation of that section of our coun- land sea, inhabited by animals totally differtry is found in the fact, that in many parts ent from any species known at the present of its course, the St. Lawrence shows two or day. A few years since, the skeleton of one three shores elevated one over the other, ri- of these animals was found in the southern sing fifty or sixty feet above the present high part of England, ninety-seven feet in length, water mark, and as distinctly marked by the with a body of greater size than that of an action of the water on the cliffs, and by a elephant. Clothed with a corresponding line of water-worn pebbles, as the present mass of flesh, such an animal must have exshore. On the summit of the Catskill eeeded the weight of at least one hundred of Mountains, more than two thousand feet the largest of modern crocodiles-no unapt above the Hudson, lie immense beds of con- illustration of the Behemoth so graphically glomerate, kuown as PUDDING STONE, compo- described by Job. The present site of the sed of irregular masses of gravel and stone, city of Paris, as well as the whole valley of from a few ounces to many pounds in the Seine, was once the bed of a vast freshweight, the whole firmly cemented together water lake, filled with fish and shells of a by mud impregnated with oxide of iron, class totally different from any known modproving most clearly that these mountains ern species, and whose remains have been were once the bed of the ocean, or of a vast buried beneath the sand and clay, to serve inland sea, and have been raised to their as a record of their existence to unborn milpresent position by some mighty convulsion. The vast numbers of boulders lions. Hundreds of species of shells and fishes, of basalt scattered over the shores of Con-unlike any known class of modern times, necticut and Long Island, with their surfa- have been exhumed in perfect preservation, ces deeply worn by the action of running showing that they could not have been water, seem to indicate that they have been drifted into their present position by any borne from the Highlands to their present tide or current, but must have lived and died position, as no stones of a similar kind are on the spot where they are found;, otherfound in their native beds in any nearer lo-wise various species would have been cality. The vast beds of coal, gypsum, and salt, found in so many of the Middle and Western States, seem to indicate that those countries must have been covered with wa ter while those immense beds were in the process of formation; and the period of time necessary for this purpose may be judged of from the great depth of the beds of sandstone, clay, and limestone, with which they are covered. found lying together, and more or less mutilated, as the necessary result of any violent motion. No truth which geological investigation has ever made known, is more astonishing. or more difficult to account for, than the fact that our earth was, at one period of her history, peopled by animals of a character widely different from those now occupying it; and that this diversity, of species belongs not Similar appearances are found in France to a single class only, but includes birds, an and England, indicating greater changes in imals, and fish. All have heard of the mamtheir character than any that have occurred moth, whose gigantic skeleton has been within the memory of man.. All parts of found in many parts of our country, and England abound in huge hills of basalt-whose bones have been exhibited in various which is but another term for lava-and im- collections of natural history. mense dykes, stretching from sea to sea, and often fifty to sixty feet wide; while the re-cies In 1789, an animal of the elephant spewas found imbedded in ice on the northern shores of Siberia. In size, it much Mantell, in the south of England, which exceeded the largest elephant,had very curved measured NINETY-SEVEN FEET in length, and tusks of great size, but in other respects in height exceeded the tallest elephant.-much resembled the common Asiatic ele- Another of the same class is termed the 10phant, except in one particular-it was cov- THYOSAURUS, OF FISH-LIZARD, so called from ered with a dense coat of hair, the under its partaking of the character both of the part fine and close, the outer coat a foot or fish and the lizard; having the general ap more in length. No living specimen of this pearance of a lizard, but instead of legs, beanimal has ever been seen, nor has any men- ing furnished with powerful fins, by which tion ever been made of it in history. Yet it was enabled to pass over the water with its flesh was so well preserved in the solid great rapidity. This animal must have atice, that, when thawed, it became the food tained the length of thirty-five or forty feet, of the wolves and other wild animals. The and from its size, strength, and agility, must skeleton is now in the Museum at St. Pe- have been an object of general terror. tersburg, and is the only known specimen of the kind in existence. How such an animal could have gained subsistence in the frozen regions of Siberia, or have endured the heat of the south, where alone its food could be obtained, is a question not easily solved. But Of the birds of an antediluvian age, but few fossil remains have ever been discovered. Their peculiar habits would naturally prevent their being entombed by any sudden catastrophe, and their skeletons, lying on the surface, and exposed to the action of The remains of another animal, now ex- the weather, would soon be decomposed,and tinct, known as the megalotherium, have resolved into their original elements. been found in the plains of South America, that there were birds coeval with the mastoand, by their immense size and strange pro- don and the mammoth, and whose sizes as portions, have excited the greatest astonish- much exceeded that of modern birds as those ment. The length of this animal about animals surpassed the quadrupeds of the equalled that of the elephant, but it was sev-present age, has been fully established. eral feet less in height; but the weight and Professor Hitchcock, of Amherst College, solidity of its frame may be judged of from one of the most distinguished scholars of our the fact, that while the thigh-bone of the el-country, a few years since discovered the ephant is never more than six or eight inch-footprints of a mammoth bird embedded in es in circumference, that of the megalothe-solid sandstone, on the banks of the Conrium measured eighteen inches at the centre, and twenty-seven at the upper part. where it enters the hip-joint; while the space across the pelvis, or from outside to outside of the hip-bones, exceeded sIX FEET! From its enormous elaws, more than three feet in length, and its massive grinding teeth, it appears to have lived upon plants and roots, dug up from the swamps and shores of the tropics. Great numbers of the skeletons of fossil animals have been dug up in various parts of England. Among these may be mentioned the IGUANADON, somewhat resembling the modern crocodile, but more than four times as long, and large in proportion. The skeleton of one of these animals was found a few years since by days. necticut, near Northampton. These footprints were SIXTEEN INCHES long, much resembling in form the track of the ostrich, but more than double its length. The distance between the steps or tracks indicated that the bird must have had legs six feet in length, and, from the depth of the impres sion made in the soft mud, must have weighed at least FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS.— These footprints appear to have been made on the shore of the river, in a sand tolerably firm, and then to have been covered with a deposit of sand and coarse gravel, which, in the course of time, hardened into stone, and thus preserved, for future ages, this STEREOTYPED IMPRESSION of the history of ancient |