natural vegetation only, ferns and heath and some few wild laurels ; and now, at a height of 3,000 feet vertical, they are close under the cloud. Before entering therein, let us pause for a moment and survey the beauties of creation in the region we are leaving behind. If, for that one purpose of severe astronomy, a position below the clouds is unsuitable, yet what an infinite amount of benefits for man to enjoy and beauty for him to contemplate, are connected therewith! Beneath the clouds are kindly rains and gentle dews; and these, assisted by a warm climate, encourage all those exquisite forms of vegetation we have admired clothing the lower slopes of the mountain. Without these, where were the fruits to support human life; where the buds and blossoms and fading flowers which teach us many a lesson useful to eternal life? But duty now calls us on our upward way; and, before many more seconds are passed, first comes one cold hurrying blast, with mist upon its wings, and then another, and another, until, in the midst of a constant dense wet fog, all creation is shut out of our view, except the few feet of sloping earth on which we are treading, and they appear of a dull gray; and the occasional spiders' webs seen across our path are loaded with heavy drops of moisture.

For half an hour we must toil on and on through this windingsheet of gloom; perpetually on the same upward rising way, but strong in hope and faith of what must in the end be presented to our eyes; on still, and up higher, when suddenly a momentary break appears overhead, and a portion of sky is seen,-oh, so blue! but it is lost again. In a few minutes, however, another opening, another blue patch is seen, and then another, and another; while before three minutes more are passed, all the hurrying clouds seem blown on one side; fair sky is everywhere above and around; a brilliant sun is shining; and there, there below us, is the upper surface of the clouds, extending far and wide, like a level plain, shutting out lowland and city and sea all from view, and in their place substituting brilliant reflections of solar light, which make the surface of this new mist-country look whiter than snow. Yes, indeed, we are now "above the clouds ;" and

that view we have attempted to describe is the first example of the heightened, the advanced, the glorified appearance of even earth's sombre fog-banks to those who are privileged for a time to look on them from the heaven-ward side.

"Above the clouds," not only no rain, no mist, no dew, but a scorching sun, and an air both by day and by night dry to almost an alarming degree. The further we advance, and the higher we ascend, the drier becomes the air; while at the same time the strength of the north-east trade-wind is continually decreasing, and, at the height of about six or seven thousand feet, has completely died away. Not that it has ceased elsewhere as well, for the driving clouds below show that it is still in its accustomed violence there. The distant movements of those rollers of white cloud betray that it must yet be raging down there in all its strength, tearing the mist piecemeal, and bowing down the heads of suffering palm trees, and lashing the sea into foam-crested waves. Heaven grant that no cry of shipwrecked mariners be borne on the breeze; and, more still, that no evil thoughts be engendering in the cities of men.

It was when our party on the mountain were in the fullest enjoyment of their daily and nightly views of the heavens, that their friends in the towns of Teneriffe, near the sea-coast, wrote to them most sympathizingly :-"Oh! what dreadful weather you must have been suffering! Down here we have had for three weeks the most frightful continuance of storms; constant clouds, rain, and howling winds; and if that was the case with us, what must it not have been with you at the greater height!"

Yet, at the greater height, at that very time, the air was tranquil and serene, the sky clear, and bad weather entirely confined to that lower depth in the atmosphere, beneath "the grosser clouds."

Marvellous, indeed, and soul-inspiring, are the rewards which God, in his goodness, has allowed to be attained by those amongst men who diligently explore and read his book of works coincidently with his inestimable book of revealed words.

THE RAINBOW.

ALL transparent bodies have the power of decomposing the light which falls on them. A soap-bubble, for example, exhibits a beautiful play of colours on its surface; and so is it with that most beautiful of all the phenomena of the atmosphere, the rainbow. The drops of rain act as a prism, and separate the white light of the solar rays into the seven prismatic colours of which sunlight is composed, namely, violet, indigo, blue, green, orange, yellow, and red, the dark cloud behind the falling shower acting as a screen, on which the brilliant arch is made visible to the spectator.

TRIUMPHAL arch that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part!

I ask not proud philosophy

To teach me what thou art:

Still seems, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given

For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green undeluged earth
Heaven's cov'nant thou didst shine,

How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow lustre smiled

O'er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child, To bless the bow of God.

Methinks thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth, delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!

The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When, glitt'ring in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,

As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam.

For, faithful to its sacred page,

Heaven still rebuilds thy span,

Nor lets the type grow pale with age

That first spoke peace to man.

CAMPBELL

THE WATERS OF THE GLOBE.

WATER is one of the most widely diffused bodies in nature, about three-fourths of the surface of the globe being covered by it. The benevolence of the Creator is manifest in the wide diffusion of this element. It is indispensable to both the animal and the vegetable worlds. It serves invaluable purposes in the arts and manufactures; in the form of rivers, lakes, and seas, it becomes a medium of intercourse among the nations of the earth; and to the vast reservoir of water in the ocean we are indebted for the clouds, which carry moisture from the sea, and let it down upon the parched and thirsty earth in refreshing rain.

There is a river in the sky a hundred times larger than the Amazon or the Mississippi; and not only one, but many. These rivers come to us in the spring rains, the summer showers, the nightly dews, and the winter snows. The water which thus falls from the sky every year would cover the earth, if it were level like a field, to the depth of fully five feet.

All the waters of our mighty rivers and lakes were once clouds, and the clouds are but vapour lifted into the sky from the sea by the secret enginery of the sun; and the winds, by the flapping of their mighty wings, drive it over the land to the hills, and the mountains, and the thirsty fields'; and there the clouds pour their blessings on the farms, and pastures, and orchards, and the dusty roads, and the wayside grass, bringing greenness and gladness everywhere.......

The sea is in the sparkling dew-drop, and it falls in the summer shower. It makes the grass grow, and the flowers unfold their gay banners-red, white, and blue. It ripens the peach and the apple, and loads the fields with the yellow harvest. It spins our thread and weaves our cloth. It is harnessed to mighty engines, and does more work than thousands of men and horses. It saws our timber, lifts up our coal from the bowels of the earth, and steams in the iron horse. The sea clothes and cools us, and

carries us and works for us.

All the water in our rivers, lakes,