suming the depths off Hatteras to be one hundred and fourteen fathoms, and allowing the usual rates of expansion for sea water, figures show that the middle or axis of the Gulf Stream there should be nearly two feet higher than the contiguous waters of the Atlantic.

Hence the surface of the stream should present a double inclined plane, from which the water would be running down on either side as from the roof of a house. As this runs off at the top, the same weight of colder water runs in at the bottom, and so raises up the cold water bed of the Gulf Stream, and causes it to become shallower and shallower as it goes north. That the Gulf Stream is therefore roof-shaped, causing the waters on its surface to flow off to either side from the middle, we have not only circumstantial evidence to show, but observations to prove.

Navigators, while drifting along the Gulf Stream, have lowered a boat to try the surface current. In such cases, the boat would drift either to the east or to the west, as it happened to be on one side or the other of the axis of the stream, while the vessel herself would drift along with the stream in the direction of its course; thus showing the existence of a shallow roof current from the middle toward either edge, which would carry the boat along, but which, being superficial, does not extend deep enough to affect the drift of the vessel.

That such is the case is also indicated by the circumstance that the seaweed and driftwood which are found in such large quantities along the outer edge of the Gulf Stream, are never, even with the prevalence of easterly

winds, found along its inner edge- and for the simple reason that to cross the Gulf Stream, and to pass over from that side to this, they would have to drift up an inclined plane, as it were; that is, they would have to stem this roof current until they reached the middle of the stream. We rarely hear of planks or wrecks or of any floating substance which is cast into the sea on the other side of the Gulf Stream being found along the coast of the United States. Driftwood, trees, and seeds from the West India islands, are said to have been found cast upon the shores of Europe, but never, that I ever heard, on the Atlantic shores of this country.

As a rule, the hottest water of the Gulf Stream is at or near the surface; and as the deep-sea thermometer is sent down, it shows that these waters, though still far warmer than the water on either side at corresponding depths, gradually becomes less and less warm until the bottom of the current is reached.

There is reason to believe that the warm waters of the Gulf Stream are nowhere permitted, in the oceanic economy, to touch the bottom of the sea. There is everywhere a cushion of cold water between them and the solid parts of the earth's crust. This arrangement is One of the benign

suggestive and strikingly beautiful. offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico, where otherwise it would become excessive, and to dispense it in regions beyond the Atlantic for the amelioration of the climates of the British Islands and of all western Europe. Now cold water is one of the best non-conductors of heat, and if the warm water of the

Gulf Stream was sent across the Atlantic in contact with the solid crust of the earth comparatively a good conductor of heat-instead of being sent across, as it is, in contact with a cold, non-conducting cushion of cool water to fend it from the bottom, much of its heat would be lost in the first part of the way, and the soft climates of both France and England would be as that of Labrador, severe in the extreme and icebound at points.

We have, in the warm waters which are confined in the Gulf of Mexico, a heating apparatus for Great Britain, the North Atlantic, and Western Europe. The furnace is the torrid zone; the Mexican Gulf and Caribbean Sea are the caldrons; the Gulf Stream is the conducting pipe. From the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the shores of Europe is the basement, the hot-air chamber, in which this pipe is flared out so as to present a large cooling surface. Here the circulation of the atmosphere is arranged by nature; it is from east to west; consequently it is such that the warmth thus conveyed into this warm-air chamber of mid-ocean is taken up by the genial west winds, and dispensed in the most benign manner throughout Great Britain and the west of Europe.

I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke, and found that life was duty.
Was my dream, then, a shadowy lie?
Toil on, brave heart, unceasingly,
And thou shalt find thy dream to be

A noonday light and truth to thee. - HOOPER

HARK TO THE SHOUTING WIND

BY HENRY TIMROD

Timrod was an American poet. olina in 1829 and died in 1867. exquisite sonnets and short poems.

He was born in South CarHe was the author of some

Hark to the shouting wind!
Hark to the flying rain!
And I care not though I never see
A bright blue sky again.

There are thoughts in my breast to-day
That are not for human speech;
But I hear them in the driving storm,
And the roar upon the beach.

And oh, to be with that ship

That I watch through the blinding brine!
O wind! for thy sweep of land and sea!

O sea! for a voice like thine!

Shout on, thou pitiless wind,

To the frightened and flying rain!

I care not though I never see

A calm blue sky again.

But have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? - That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? - LOWELL

THE TRIAL OF ANTONIO

FROMTALES FROM SHAKESPEARE,' BY CHARLES AND MARY LAMB

Charles Lamb was an English author. He was born in 1775 and died in 1834. He wrote "Essay on Roast Pig,” "Dream Children," and other essays. The "Tales from Shakespeare," written for children by him and his sister Mary, are an excellent introduction to Shakespeare's plays.

The selection here given is the latter part of the story of "The Merchant of Venice." The first part tells how Antonio borrowed three thousand ducats from Shylock for the use of his friend Bassanio. In jest, as he thought, Antonio agreed that if he failed to pay the money on a certain day, Shylock should have a pound of flesh, cut off from whatever part of the body he pleased. Antonio was unable to pay the money, and Shylock claimed the pound of flesh. Portia, Bassanio's wife, came disguised as a counselor, or lawyer, to plead the cause of her husband's friend.

You will enjoy reading the whole of Lamb's tale and also the trial scene from Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice."

I

And now began this important trial. Portia looked around her, and she saw the merciless Jew, and she saw Bassanio, but he knew her not in her disguise. He was standing beside Antonio, in an agony of distress and fear for his friend.

The importance of the task Portia had engaged in gave this tender lady courage, and she boldly proceeded in the duty she had undertaken to perform. First of all she addressed herself to Shylock; and allowing that he had a right by the Venetian law to have the forfeit expressed