ourselves with a guide and wax tapers, we descended a long flight of steps, at the bottom of which commence the galleries and rooms. It is astonishing with what gloomy pomp this temple of death is arranged. The largest bones piled with much symmetry and in compartments sustain the smaller ones, which are thrown behind. The number of dead bodies which have furnished these bones are estimated at three millions! The walk which we made in the midst of them, appeared about two miles in extent. Lines drawn on the ceiling of the galleries guide the subterranean traveller in his melancholy walk. Nor is it then unattended with danger. A young man not long since attempted to explore the long drawn aisles and fretted vault without a guide, his taper soon failed him; and after some months he was found dead on a stone with his hands lifted up in the attitude of prayer. The bones of those who lie here are piled_up without distinction of rank, wealth or beauty. The deep excavations which contain them undermine a large part of the French metropolis. Yet thousands of its gay inhabitants sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play, thoughtless of the awful precipice which is direetly beneath them, and the thinness of the partition which seperates them from it."

Important reflections might be made on this brief account of the Catacombs of Paris; but we must omit them for the present, and perhaps connect them with some future account of the more extensive Catacombs of Egypt and Rome.

REMARKABLE INSTINCT.

An obliging Literary Friend has furnished us with the following interesting Scrap of Natural History.

THE nests of birds are made with inimitable skill and ingenuity.

There is a bird in India, of the Loxia species, that constructs a pendulous nest, in a curious manner; with grass very closely woven, and which is suspended to the limb of a tree, in the form of a bag. The entrance is

by a hole at the bottom. The place for the deposit of the eggs is midway up; and forms a projection or swelling in the side.

It has been found that the occasion, of this mode of building, is to avoid the depredations of a small kind of lizard, which elimbs the tree, and would pilfer the eggs, or destroy the young; but descending the outside of the nest for this purpose, and attempting to turn and go up to the inner lodging, the filaments of grass, which are quite loose at the bottom, and cannot support the weight of the intended plunderer, give way, and let him fall to the ground.

What is most remarkable is, that the same birds migrate, to pass the rainy, or winter season, in the Islands: and there, not being exposed to the same enemy, build a cup nest. How wonderful is this instinct!

THOUGHTS ON ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL

PHILOSOPHY.

PHILOSOPHY is a word, which to many minds, suggests the ideas of abstruse and deep speculations, such as none but men of extensive research in science can understand. This prevents numbers from ever seeking a variety and extent of information which they might acquire. But the etymology of the word certainly presents nothing forbidding. It implies no more than the LOVE of WISDOM. And youths whose attainments in science are very limited may still have a love and a THIRST for knowledge. Where these exist, Philosophy is not

beyond the reach.

To an ingenuous and reflecting mind, even the rudiments of Natural Philosophy are very attractive. The existence and infinite divisibility of matter, with the grand physical laws of the universe, afford subjects of interesting research to the inquisitive mind. The organs of sensation are constantly receiving impressions from without us. These impressions are produced by matter. How came matter into existence? Nothing can produce nothing.We have seen matter changing its forms and

icombinations: but who has in reality seen any increase or diminution of it? Man cannot produce one new particle of matter. A power greater than man must have created it. Its infinite divisibility, displays unsearchable wisdom. Conceive of a particle of matter as small as you please, it must have an upper and an under surface, and must therefore be pronounced divisible, though it were too minute for instruments to divide. But gold may be beaten astonishingly thin, and divided into parts incalculably numerous if viewed by a microscope. Still Jehovah has divided matter into parts inconceivably smaller. Think of the smallest fly you ever saw. That insect had a heart with arteries and veins and blood circulating in them. That insect had a brain and nerves with organs of sensation through which it received actual enjoyment. Now a microscope will show you innumerable myriads of insects, a thousand times smaller than the gnat which we have considered. But like that they all have similar parts and fluids and enjoyments. How great the condescension and benevolence of the Infinite source of being, to create, to sustain, and to impart enjoyment, to such immensely diversified species of diminutives, too small for man's organs of vision, unassisted by glasses. If our hearing could be assisted as much as our sight, we might hear the hum of these insects. But if we could, it might only gratify our curiosity. Yet he who hears the young lions when they roar and seek their meat from God, hears insects' notes of want and sends supplies.

As small as the particles of matter must be, to circuJate through the veins of such little insects, the particles of light are vastly smaller. And yet, for aught we can tell, each particle of light may be the abode of life and conscious enjoyment. But if the scale of created existence descends so much below us, may it not ascend as much above us? May not the planet Jupiter be inhabited by creatures whose corporeal frames bear the same proportion to the size of that planet, which ours do to the size of this earth? and may not created intellectual capacities as much exceed ours as these do the capacities of the smallest creature of which we have any conception? May not an angel be supposed to exist, whose intellect can take in at one view as many material 3d Edit. 3

worlds as our eyes can take in particles of light? And a higher order of intelligences may as much exceed this angel in mind, as he exceeds us. And is it not possible, that our intellectual capacities, may hereafter be expanded incalculably beyond what we have here conceived to be possessed by the highest order of creatures? But even then the INFINITE MIND will be INFINITELY GREATER than all created minds united. Who then can by searching find out God! Who can find out the Almighty to perfection?

Again. When we contemplate some of the physical laws of matter we may well be filled with admiration. Simplicity characterizes all the operations of the Almighty Architect. This is abundantly perceptible in the tendencies of matter, An unknown something called ATTRACTION, binds together the particles of matter of which the earth is composed, and all the smaller bodies which are near it. This tendency of matter to cohere, is a principle which alike keeps together the particles of which my penknife is composed, and those of which my body is composed. It is the same principle which prevents the inhabitants of different sides of the globe from being thrown from its surface. All things on earth tend to each other and still more forcibly towards the centre.

But this same principle operates still more extensively. UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION, binding together the solar system, and regulating all the mighty movements of the stupendous bodies which compose it, is one simple principle. Yet of that principle we can from natural philosophy learn nothing except its effects. We can demonstrate the existence of such an uniform tendency in particles of matter and in spherical planets with their attendant satelites, and we can discern how it contributes to the actual circumstances of those bodies while revolving around their own axes and around one common centre. Here reason and science must stop. Unassisted they can carry the investigation no further. But Revelation acquaints us that these laws are but the all pervading presence and efficiency of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Were the efficient agency of the Eternal suspended but for a moment, the particles of our bodies would

separate and disappear and all material existence would rush back to its original nothing.

Here the reflection occurs, that what gravitation is in the solar system, LOVE is in the MORAL UNIVERSE. All worlds and all intelligences, that feel its influence, are attracted and bound to one common centre and to each other. In proportion as it is felt, it causes every moral affection to revolve around the throne of the ETERNAL, and attunes to order and harmony all moral action in the diversified spheres and relations of moral agents. It is alike adapted to all circumstances, all worlds, and all intelligences. A principle so unlimited in its extent, and so uncircumscribed in the felicities which it bestows, must be imperishable in its nature. For should love cease, not only would all the social endearments on earth become extinct, but silence and death would overspread creation; and even the THIRD HEAVEN Would be shaken to its centre.

Thoughts on elementary principles of Natural Philosophy will be resumed in future Numbers.

HERSCHEL'S HISTORY OF THE SUN.

This star of the first magnitude, in the Astronomical horizon, has proposed a very ingenious theory respecting the sun. It may be interesting to our youthful readers to learn it, though we must assure them, that it rests on no firmer basis than plausible conjectures. Dr. Herschel supposes, that the body of the sun is dark, but surrounded with two strata of luminous clouds. The upper stratum is the fountain head of that light and heat, which are diffused throughout the solar system. A second stratum of loose clouds, defends the body of the sun from that intense light and heat, which must otherwise be continually poured upon it. He concludes, that what are called spots on the sun, some of which are occasionally so large, as to be seen with the naked eye, are but openings in these luminous clouds, through which the opaque body of the sun then appears. This theory is favoura ble to the opinion that the material universe is full of conscious existence, and that the sun, as well as the plan

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