tide, the spinning machine advances to get gain,
and retires with it garnered up in perpetual
progress. There, the pattern grows as you look
on the carpet: In one corner, cigars are rolled;
in another, blocks of ice grow out of the heat
and steam. Everywhere the strong steel arms
are thrust out, and drawn back laden with profit.
Everywhere the wheel revolves. Everywhere
there is rushing of waters, and turning of
wheels, and crashing of metal; and by everything
that is done the progress of the world is
hastened. Student of such arts as these press on
and onward yet! Cultivator of a tenth muse,
whose votaries worship amidst the clang of steel
and the whir of wheels, go on, and prosper! Your
crown shall not be of laurel nor of bay. It shall
be a nimbus of polished, steel, an emblem of
that one eternal form, the wheel, which still
recurs for ever in your labours. The wheel on
which the culprits of the old time were broken,
and on which, in these modern days, we are
breaking the idols which ignorance and superstition
have set up, and scattering their fragments
to the winds of Heaven.

We cannot all devote ourselves to science or
mechanics, but happy those whose lot it is to
be engaged in such studies and speculations.
They are in the van of that vast army that lays
siege to the gates of knowledge. They are the
High Priests who worship in the temple of wisdom,
and seek to extract secrets from the oracle
for the benefit of the congregation that waits
behind them.

And what of those who head yet another
band of pilgrims, those who having journeyed
to the brink of that great chasm which lies
beyond and outside this sphere of ours, stand
upon the edge of the material shore, and strain
with eager eyes into the darkness of the
unknown firmament? If they are great who would
strive to unlock the mysteries of earth and win
new secrets from the mountain or the mine,
what are they who stand upon the hill-top,
tiptoe, and yearn for knowledge of the secrets
above their heads? Well, as we get additional
knowledge, or rather as our ignorance is
diminished by an additional fraction, may we cry out
for more and more light. What surface knowledge
is ours. The deepest hole we have made
in this enormous ball on which we live, is a
pin-prick below its outer crust; the highest
flight of the aëronaut takes him nearer to the
planets by a poor four or five miles. Shall we
get, now that we have spread ourselves over
the surface of the world, and know so much of
its outside—shall we get more knowledge of
what lies within and without it? It may be
so. The geologist has not been long at work,
and the air-navigator makes but trial-trips.
Who knows what may happen in a year or
two? We may have a succession of towns
moored in mid-air between this and the moon,
with air tubes as long as the Atlantic Cable to
supply them with a breathable atmosphere; and
when you ask a friend "where he is going this
autumn?" he may tell you that he is off to
"Skyville for quiet."

Meanwhile, and during the time that Skyville
is still in the clouds, we may be satisfied that we
have done some few wonderful things already.
How wonderful are those photographic views of
the moon which—placed in a rather out-of-the-way
situation in one of the galleries—are among
the most interesting things exhibited! One can
peer into the crannies and lumps upon the
moon's surface, by means of those views, to
one's heart's content. Of course those same
lumps and crannies, when magnified to their
real size, are such mountains and valleys as
are found among the Himalayas or the Alps. It
is a curious thing that all these roughnesses and
inequalities which represent chains of hills, all
appear to be arranged in a circular form, as if
all the hills were volcanic with craters in the
midst. Yet this may be simply an effect of light.
We know that the flickering lights which appear
on the ground in a wood when the sun is shining,
all partake of a circular form. Now, the apertures
among the leaves through which the light
comes are not round, but of various shapes. The
rays of light affect, but are not affected by, the
apertures through which they pass. Some
such phenomenon may account for the circular
appearance of these same roughnesses on the
surface of the moon.

As one leaves the place where those photographs
are, one feels that sadness which Wordsworth
has spoken of, and something, too, of
terror. For it is terrible to think of that vast
globe away in the blue space, a chaos of rugged
forms, deserted, silent. It is so now as we write,
and as you read, while the cabs are rattling in
Piccadilly, and the "Cure" is being sung by
the comic singer who stands upon his head to
sing it.

                     RUSSIAN TRAVEL.

                          WOLVES.

AFTER visiting the White Village, I had
agreed to accompany Saunderson to a place
called the Little Village, which belonged to the
widowed lady who had obtained from the white
villagers mercy for being merciful. The management
of this estate, including a large saw-mill,
corn-mill, and sugar-mill, was under the control
of the intelligent gentleman whose acquaintance
I had made at the hunt. The distance was about
thirty miles, and, although we could have gone
by a more open and safe route, we decided on
the forest track, as the nearest, and as affording
the best chance of sport by the way. During two
preceding nights the frost had sharpened, until
the snow was crisp and firm, and formed in any
direction through the wood a magnificent hard
road, without a track on it. Instead of shunning
the wolves, which abounded in the forest, we
resolved to court their company, and for this
purpose carried with us a decoy, in the shape of
a young pig carefully tied up in a strong canvas
sack. Rifles, knives, ammunition, brandy-flasks,
and sandwiches, having been put into our
well-appointed sleigh, we set off, passed the
church, crossed the bridge, went up the hill a