persons hitherto existing, or rather vegetating
in a state of semi-starvation. Thus not
only will peat be converted into acetates and
ammoniacal salts, and paraffine, and other
hydrocarbons, but will undergo a not less
interesting metamorphosis into Irish bacon,
Irish beef, Irish bread — let us hope — and
thence into Irish bone and muscle. Of its
conversion into English plum-pudding, witih a
view to the latter of these transformations,
Mr. Owen has a capital experiment to relate,
tried by him at his already established works
at Newtown Crommelin, in Antrim. The
plum-pudding was a much greater novelty to
the poor fellows than the paraffine, at its first
discovery, was to the world of chemists.

If any dependence can be placed from facts
and figures, and the most Intelligible
arguments and deductions from scientific data, it
does seem that Ireland contains the elements
of a prosperity only to be paralleled in amount
by her previous wretchedness. The traditional
gratitude of Irishmen still honours St. Patrick
for having preached all the vermin of their
island into the peat-bogs. They will, probably,
have much more reason to thank Mr. Rees
Reece and Mr. Owen for the opulence which
those gentlemen will have conjured out of the
bogs by the  beautiful magic of chemistry,
aided by capital.

A NEW PHASE OF BEE-LIFE.

ABOUT the middle of an afternoon in July,
1848, we had landed on a low sand-bank,
which, for a short distance, skirted the right
bank of the stream, for the purpose of
camping for the night; and right glad were
we to stretch our limbs after ten hours'
paddling.  The Indians had started in their
woodskin up the neighbouring creek, in quest of
game for our evening's repast, and the women
were clearing a space beneath the branches for
our hammocks, and collecting fuel for the
nightly fire.  All who have wandered with
the pleasant Waterton in his chivalrous
Expedition on the Essequibo, will remember his
first guiltless attempt to hook the wary cayman,
before seeking more skilful allies in the
Indian settlement higher up the river. The
sand-bank in which we were about to bivouac,
was that mentioned in his narrative, where,
for four days, he had impatiently waited for
the shades of evening, and as often turned
into his hammock at day-break with his
longings ungratified.

It was as usual intensely hot in the sun.
To seek some relief, for the first time during
the day, I strolled — or rather straggled, for
every step through the tangled creepers had
to be gained by hacking and hewing with a
cutlass — down to the cool banks of the creek,
whose overhanging branches, forming a
magnificent  arcade of verdure, almost excluded
(or admitted only at distant intervals), the
scorching rays.

Seating myself on the smooth grey trunk
of a tree, which lay prostrate across the
sluggish water whose broken limbs shone bright
in the gay drapery of a scarlet-blossomed
epiphyte, I lighted my pipe, and taking a book
from my pocket, began lazily turning over the
pages and lightly gleaning the pleasant
thought of a witty and social poet. My
attention now and again drawn away by the
ceaseless tappings of a yellow-headed
woodpecker on a decaying tree close at hand, to the
glittering flashes of a Karabimitas, a Topaz-
throated humming-bird— a frequenter of dark
and solitary creeks, capturing flies among the
gay petals, for his nest-keeping partner, who,
a few paces up the stream was gently swinging
with the evening breeze, in her tiny home.
I had been in this position for some time,
little regarding the whizzing hum of insects
constantly passing and repassing — when, my
gaze chancing to fall a yard or more from my
resting  place, I detected a small bright-grey
bee, about the third of an inch in length,
disappearing in what seemed a solid part of
the trunk.

There was no hole or crevice perceptible to
the eye, nor did that portion of the bark feel
less smooth than that immediately adjoining.
I might be mistaken—nay! I must be.  I had
just arrived at this last conclusion, when a
tiny piece of the bark was suddenly raised,
and out flew the little gentleman I had seen
disappear, or one too like him not to belong
to the same family.  The mystery was solved.
Some ingenious bee-architect had devised an
entrance-gate, fitting so admirably as to defy
discovery when shut; while I was certain
that I could lay my finger almost on the
precise spot, the closest inspection failed to reveal
any trace of its outline. The bark, though
polished and even, was covered with faint
interlaced streaks, from which even the smoothest
bark is never free; and the skilful
carpenter had adapted the irregular tracings
of nature to his object of concealment. Wishing
to inspect his workmanship without injuring
its delicacy, I had to wait patiently until it
should again fly open; nor was I kept long
in expectation, for it presently popped up to
permit the egress of another of the fraternity,
and a ready twig prevented its descending.
I found it designedly crooked and jagged at
the edges, with an average width of about a
quarter of an inch, and twice that in length:
its substance was little more than the outer
skin of the bark, and, being still connected
at one end, opened and closed as with a
spring. The cunning workman had no
doubt been aware that had he made it
much shorter — which the size of the
passengers would have permitted — it would
have required to be thrown farther back,
when the greater tension would soon have
destroyed the elasticity of the hinge, and,
with that, its power of fitting close to the
tree. Immediately within the doorway was a
small ante-chamber, forming a sort of porter's
lodge to the little surly grey-liveried gentleman