sengers, to receive tickets, in consequence
of discrepancies in the issue of them and the
reception of money. This relieves him of all
responsibility regarding the ship, and is, in fact,
a compliment, as showing the confidence reposed
in him by the company. I am myself a share-
holder," continued my friend; " I have sustained
considerable losses; but I also participate in
the enthusiasm for our captain. I declare to
you he is the best fellow—-"

Hallo! What's that? There was a crack
and a scrape from end to end of the ship. We
breathed again, for we were making way; but
we had evidently passed over some hard and
dangerous substance.

"There!" again groaned the nervous
passenger.

"Ease her! Stop her! Back her!" shouted the
captain, and the man at the helm (who hated
the lieutenant) obeyed. The captain, with a wild
gleam in his eyes, pointed (lor he could not
speak) to a dark something in the lake; and
there, reposing under the shining water, we
distinctly saw the beautiful little Seagull, or all
that remained of her.

We had struck upon her topmast, and had
scraped over it from end to end without injury;
but, alas! while hovering so lovingly over and
around the remains of his lost pet, the
captain once more took " a turn too much," and—
not far off from the scene of the last
catastrophe— we took, struck heavily, and, I felt
assured, hopelessly, on the sand.

There was no danger for the moment, as the
bottom was soft, and not a breath of air was
stirring the sleeping lake. The dear old
captain assured us that we should float again in
half an hour; but my time in Switzerland was
short, and bidding a hasty adieu " To the ship
and her crew," I, with my bag and the nervous
gentleman, rowed to shore: thence to get on,
as we best might, to Montreux.

Three days afterwards, in the train, I passed
near the scene of our disaster, and there, with
shocked surprise, I beheld the ship still hard and
fast, surrounded by a fleet of boats and the
inevitable fir-trees, the little tug creeping up from
Geneva, and the dear old captain, in his scarlet
sash, radiant and gleaming amongst the crowd,
lending a hand everywhere, directing, working,
and sending off reassuring telegrams every half-
hour. I was obliged to continue my journey
direct to England; but I felt a pleasurable
conviction that this accident— being only, as it were,
in connexion with the last, and developing, in
an equal degree, the resources of the
commander— would be worth to him at least a silver
cup and a banner, cantonal.

As the train rushed by, I strained my eyes to
catch a last glimpse of the dear old fellow and
his staff. There they were, the ship, the water,
and the Alps, all glowing in the sunset! As
I smiled at his uncertain voyages, may I be
forgiven for confessing that these lines of
Wordsworth's visited my brain:

Where lies the land to which that ship must go?
   What haven is her mark?
And almost, as it was, when ships were rare,
   A doubt, and something dark,
       Some reverential fear
Is with thee, at " this " farewell, joyous bark.

OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

THE FIRST USE OF GAS IN LONDON.

THOSE sanguine and patient enthusiasts, the
alchemists, were not by any means the jugglers
and charlatans they are commonly supposed
to have been. Disdainers of dogmas, earnest
searchers for new truths, strenuous navigators
in the advanced trenches of scientific discovery,
putting nature to the rack, forcing her by steel
and fire to disclose her secrets after the
dumbness of long ages—those laborious men broke up
the old ground of Aristotle, and sank deep the
piles on which modern medicine and modern
chemistry have reared their vast but still
uncompleted palaces. They first struck the lodes,
which have since widened into richer veins. To
reproach them because they sought for
impossibilities is like striking the infant because it
cannot at once speak. We must not forget
that modern science has shown that there were
germs of truth even in their wildest dreams.
The great Liebig can manufacture gems by
chemical combinations; he has publicly
expressed the opinion that we shall, before long,
learn how to make gold; and we must remember
that if a common basis of all minerals was
once found, gold-making would be the smallest
of the benefits mankind would derive from the
vast discovery.

The early alchemists obtained a great
knowledge of the properties of natural objects by their
ceaseless and prolonged experiments. It was
they who discovered alcohol: that mingled curse
and blessing. They first taught us the use of
mineral medicines. Basil Valentine devoted
half his adventurous life to the study of the
medicinal properties of antimony. Paracelsus
brought from the East opium, the pain-killer,
in all its compounds. It was an alchemist
who discovered phosphorus. Lastly, it was
Van Helmont, an alchemist, who first analysed
atmospheric air, and discovered that it is
composed of gases. In the Spa waters of Germany
he first observed carbonic acid gas, and learned
to distinguish it as a distinct elastic aëriform
substance to be elicited only by chemical
decomposition, and considering it as more of an essence
than common atmospheric air, he gave it the
German name of Gheist (ghost or spirit), from
whence comes our English word gas. This
great discovery dates about 1624.

The Baconic theory, promulgated and acted
upon centuries before Bacon translated it into
his own beautiful and sound English, led
rapidly to the development of experimental
philosophy. Wise men began, after wasted
centuries, to regard finality dogmas as only
fit for men whose minds had ceased to grow,
or men who benefited by the dogmas they
inculcated. Nothing now was to be believed
that could not be verified by experiment; no