THE HOSPITALITIES OF NATURE.

“The rolling year is full of Thee,Forth in the gentle spring Thy beauty walks,Thy tenderness and love.”

“The rolling year is full of Thee,

Forth in the gentle spring Thy beauty walks,

Thy tenderness and love.”

These tuneful words of Thompson’s “Seasons” express the milder mood of nature, but who can fitly tell of the condensed impressions about God made by a valley only six miles long, one mile wide, and half a mile high, wherein every form of solemn, majestic and pastoral beauty are combined. A holy awe rested upon us, and tears were in all eyes. At last the sacred silence was broken by a rich voice, beloved by me for many a year, as Mrs. Dr. Bentley lead the “Gloria in Excelsis,” in which the jubilant soprano harmonized with the melodious bass of humanity’s united utterance of praise. “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker,” these inspired words leaped to our lips, and we found that beyond all poets was the fitness of dear old words, our mothers taught us from the book of God, in this supreme moment of our experience. “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him,” “What is man that Thou art mindful of him,” “Stand in awe and sin not:” these were the first words that came to us, and I believe we shall be better men and women always for that vision of eternity from which the curtain of mystery was for a moment drawn aside. We learned afterward that as our coaches rolled on into the valley a third rounded “Inspiration Point,” and Judge ⸺ of Sydney, Ohio, a dear old gentleman, rose to his feet, clasped his hands as if in prayer, and exclaimed “Mercy! mercy! Have I lived seventy-six years that I might see this glory!God made it all!” and he lifted up his voice and wept. Such a scene as that is once for a life time.

We saw the valley from an hundred points of view afterward, we waved our good-bye to it a week later from this very point, but the first remains the unmatched view—its like will never greet our eyes again—not in this world.

As we sped onward into the valley one of us said: “I never felt before such pity for the blind.”

BY THE REV. HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E.

Some objects are repellant and exclusive. They give no shelter or support to any created thing. They suffice for themselves, and stand out clearly defined in their distinct and independent existence. The surface of the snow is barren; the chilly glacier has no communion with the mountain glen through which it passes. The clear, sharp-cut crystal harbors no stain from earth or sky to show its sympathy with the materials out of which it sprang. The marble rock, like the snow, does not invite the green things of the soil around it to share its existence with it, and give to and take from it an element of picturesqueness and beauty.

And yet, as in human society, when social laws overbear private plans, and the social design is fulfilled in spite of selfish opposition, so in nature the substances that seek to exclude others are made to contribute to the general harmony and the beautiful balancing of creation. The very snow is made to be friendly and hospitable, for it nourishes on its stainless bosom a simple, one-celled plant which grows with such rapidity and in such marvelous profusion that it gives to whole fields of polar and alpine snow a deep crimson hue, as if a creature’s blood had dyed them. In the shallow parts of water melted on the surface of the glacier by the hot noonday sun may be seen jelly-like masses of vegetation; while under the stones which the rocks around hurl down upon it, as if in anger at its hostility, may be found lively colonies of the small black glacier flea. Nature will not allow this cold, frigid substance to maintain a separate existence; for beside bowlders from the rocks, she persists in soiling its surface with dirt-bands and masses of débris from the crumbling mountain-side, so that a line of demarcation between ice and earth can not be drawn, and the glacier blends with the rest of the mountain; while the sky claims kindred with the deep cerulean blue that shines in the crevasses. Marble, too, takes on the warm golden tint of the sunset, and is stained by time with a russet hue that brings it into partnership with the common rocks, with which all things make friends—the mosses, the lichens, the vines and birds. Even the hardest crystals and precious stones have occasional cavities filled with fluids, which indicate their origin. Nay, so anxious is nature to assimilate every object, that on the thatch of man’s lowly cottages she plants her tufted mosses; on the slates of his statelier roofs she paints her frescoes of golden lichens; and even on his windows she produces not only the iridescence of age, but also a growth of curious, minute algæ. On his dark unsightly cinder-walks, which seem like spots of ink disfiguring nature’s fair page, she makes her dandelions to open their sunshine; and on the raw new walls which he builds around his possessions, to separate them from nature’s wastes, she spreads her hoary nebulæ of vegetation. Man’s works are thus made kindred to the earth and the elements; and nature, by her hospitalities, makes them at home in every situation.

Some objects are more hospitable than others. The beech, of all trees, is perhaps the most self-contained. It fills out its trunk so thoroughly; its bark is so hard and stuffed and rounded with its wood, that it has not a rift nor a crevice in which any living thing might find refuge. No moss forms a green tuft upon it; no leafy or shrubby lichen finds a foothold on its smooth bark. And even the crustaceous species thatconsist of a mere film of gray matter grow thinner on its hard repellant surface than on the rock itself. They cling so closely that they can not be separated. No botanist would go to the beech expecting to find on its trunk the wealth of lowly plants in which he delights. To the entomologist it is equally uninteresting, the number of insects that frequent it being exceedingly few. Nor is it chosen usually by birds to build their nests on its boughs. Darwin mentions that worms hardly ever make their curious castings under its shade. The ground beneath it nourishes no green grasses, and only its brown mast and polished, three-cornered nuts carpet the soil.

Why is the beech so inhospitable? Why does it thus stand alone, apart from the rest of creation, and proudly maintain its own self-sufficient existence? It is indeed one of the grandest of our forest trees. Nothing can be lovelier than its translucent foliage in spring, making, as Coleridge says, “the level sunshine glimmer with green light.” Nothing can be more splendid than its blaze of amber tints lighting up the woodland in autumn like a pillar of fire. Its shade is ample; its leaves are sweet and tender; its nuts pleasant and nutritious. And yet all creatures, with the exception of the pig, which feeds upon its nuts, seem to shun it; and hardly any moss or lichen ornaments its trunk and arms with its quaint jewelry. It stands in the inanimate world of pictures around us as a type of a thoroughly selfish and unsocial nature. Only the lover seeks it to carve upon its smooth, hard bark the name of the beloved one, fondly hoping that it may long retain, clear and sharp as if cut in stone, the cherished inscription. But even this tender secret it refuses to keep; its trunk swells, and the letters become dilated and distorted, and in a few years a new growth smooths out and obliterates the name, without leaving a trace on its callous wood. Perhaps this smoothness and hardness of the bark and wood, as well as the dryness of its shade—for no other woods are so free from damp and so pleasant to walk in as beech woods—may be the reason why it shelters so little dependent life. Even the raindrops refuse to linger about it, and though the sunbeams may play through the green meshes of its transparent foliage and tremble on the lines of silky hairs that project from the margins of its young leaves “like eyelashes from the margin of the eyelid,” yet without moisture the light can favor no growth of fern or moss or lichen, which loves a damp atmosphere; and without these lowly plants no insect or bird life can flourish.

Another inhospitable tree is the pine. Its degree of selfishness varies with the species, some being much more tolerant of alien life than others; the common larch being, perhaps, the least exclusive, and the aurucaria the most. The trunk and branches of the larch are covered from head to foot with tufts and rosettes of hoary lichens, which cling specially to this tree and give it a most venerable appearance; but the aurucaria surrounds itself with an impenetrable armor of vegetable spears and daggers, within whose formidable circle no living thing dare intrude. I once saw a squirrel skipping along a lawn, and suddenly stopping at the foot of a tall, wide-spreading aurucaria, it looked up at the bristling trunk and branches with evident astonishment, as if it had never seen anything of the kind before; and with an expression of disappointment and fear that was almost human, and certainly was exceedingly comical, it turned away and climbed up a more propitious looking species of pine near at hand. But whatever may be the case in regard to individual trees, the pine tribe in its social character is decidedly inhospitable. A pine wood is one of the loneliest scenes in nature, not merely as regards the intrusion of man, but as regards the intrusion of any other living thing. Nothing breaks up its uniformity and monotony. It has none of the rich variety of life that characterizes other woods. The seasons themselves make no impression upon it, for it is dressed in perennial green, and it retains its shade alike in summer’s heat and winter’s desolation. It prevents all undergrowth; no brambles dare to stretch their long, trailing, thorny arms—like the feelers of some creature of prey—within its guarded enclosure. No wild roses can open their trembling petals white with fear, or crimson with blushes, in its solemn sanctuary. No hazel bush will drop there its ringlets of smoking catkins in spring, or its ruddy clusters of nuts in autumn. No mimic sunshine of primrose tufts, no pale star-beams of anemone or sorrel will light up its gloom. No glimpses of blue sky are let into it by hyacinths, or bluebells, or violets. To all the lowly plants that find refuge in other woods, and in turn adorn and beautify their hosts, the pine trees in their dignified independence refuse admission. No song of bird or hum of insect is heard beneath their boughs. And on the ground below, strewn deep with a carpet of brown needles and emptied cones that have silently dropped in the course of long years from overhead, and are slow to decay, only a few yellow toadstools and one or two splendid scarlet mushrooms make up for the painful dearth of vegetation. It seems as if the balsamic breath of the pines, which is so wholesome to human life—guarding off all fevers and infectious diseases—were as deadly as the upas shade to other forms of life.

How widely different is it with the oak! This of all trees—of all living things—is the most hospitable; and in this respect it is well chosen as the badge of England, which has the proud distinction of affording a refuge to every political outcast and victim of ecclesiastical tyranny throughout the world, and fosters by its love of freedom and constitutional government, every type and variety of human life. A whole book might easily be written upon the multitude of living things that obtain food and shelter from the oak. The natural history of its inmates and boarders is like that of a garden, or, indeed, a county. Some creatures are peculiar to it, and find their home nowhere else; and to many more that are free to come and go, it extends a kindly welcome. Were it to perish altogether from off the face of the earth, many insects and plants would disappear utterly. The insect population alone of the oak tree, including beetles, butterflies, and a great variety of tiny creeping things which none but a naturalist cares for, or is aware of, would furnish materials for study of a most interesting and absorbing kind for many summer weeks together. When we do not see themselves, we see the evidence of the existence and working of the insects in the great variety of curious galls which they produce upon the trunk and branches: oak apples that hang on the twigs like some mysterious unknown fruit, and are as wondrously fashioned, although excrescences and abortions of the vital sap, as the legitimate acorn cups and eggs themselves; and beautiful golden-brown spangles that crowd all the under-surface of the withering leaves in autumn like the seeds, or the “fairy’s money,” as it is called, on the back of the ferns, thus linking the oak leaf and the fern leaf—the highest and the lowest type of vegetation—together in the wondrous unity of nature by a strange similitude of appearance. But it is among the plants that we find the most beautiful occupants of the oak tree. The ivy climbs up its trunk, which affords admirable support for its myriads of little feet, and changes its glossy leaves, as it creeps higher and higher, from the deeply-cut angular pattern to the oval and pointed one; and at the top it waves its airy sprays among the oak leaves, and produces beside the acorns at the extremities of the branches, the light-green flowers that blossom only when the plant has nothing to cling to and must shift for itself; as if nature were taking care that when the life of the individual was in danger, the life of the race should at least be made sure. Then there is the mystic mistletoe, with all its dim and sacred associations with the Druid-worship of our remote ancestors. It clings still closer to the oak, for it is not an epiphyte like the ivy—merely making use of the tree for support—and finding its food independently from the soil and air—but a partial parasite that strikes its root into the substance of the oak, and while to some extent feeding upon its prepared juices, is capable of showing a little independent spirit and working for itsown support, as is evident from the fact of its having green leaves, which, however pale, can still decompose, to some extent, the sunshine into materials of growth. The mistletoe is thus a partial boarder of the oak; it gets, so to speak, its principal meal from it, while for its lighter refreshment it is dependent upon its own resources. A beautiful emblem truly it is, thus growing on our royal English tree. According to the suggestive mythology of our ancestors, which had, indeed, much in it of the deeply philosophical, as well as of the practical and religious, the oak was Hesus, the god best and greatest, strongest and ever-during; and the mistletoe was man weak and poor, but living in him and clinging to his everlasting arms.

It would be almost impossible to enumerate the various kinds of mosses, lichens, and ferns, that show a preference for the oak, and share its grand and liberal hospitality. Its trunk seems as if made to harbor those lowly lilliputian members of the vegetable kingdom, whose quaint forms and curious properties harmonize so well with the fairy scenery of midsummer night’s dreams. Unlike the smooth bark of the beech, made to keep all visitors aloof, the bark of the oak is full of furrows, crevices, irregularities, porches and outbuildings as it were, where wandering seeds find lodgement, and first tender growths can secure their hold against scorching sunbeam and cruel wind. The huge patriarch, hoary with years, whose lifetime bridges across the whole history of England, allows the tiny imps of vegetation that are but of yesterday—the perpetual infants, so to speak, of plant life, freely to clamber over its roots and arms, and hang upon its rugged bosses which time has used so cruelly, reducing them almost to bone and muscle, their emerald bracelets of moss, their plumes of polypody ferns, and their rosettes of lichen, adorning the magnificent old grandfather of the woods with the ornaments of youth and beauty! What a wonderful picturesqueness do these lowly forms of life, crowding around the oak as it grows in years and in size, give to it! They richly repay the hospitality they receive in the added charm they impart to the forest patriarch. They show an exquisite sympathy even with its weaknesses, hiding its defects by their fairy sprays, and covering its dead members with a lovely pall of vegetable velvet.

It teaches us thus the touching lesson that the grandest things in nature may be made more beautiful and picturesque by the simplest—as the greatest man may be indebted for his chief happiness to the smiles and prattle of the little children that climb on his knee. And how open to all the flowers and shrubs of the wild wood are its wide-spreading arms! The grass may grow up to the very foot of its trunk unreproved by any dark frowning shadow cast by its leaves. The hyacinth may make a fragrant mist of blue about its roots, and the primrose need not blanch its sunny cheek as it creeps up to its venerable bole. Royal as it is, its dignity consists in its hospitality; and its nobility is indicated by its freeness of access and kindly generous welcome to all that may hold within it the sacred principle of life. The gates of its hospitality, like the Bukharian nobleman’s, are “nailed open.” Sturdy and independent as it is, there is thus no object that is more closely linked with the genial life of nature, that blends more harmoniously with the operations which different creatures carry on for their own advantage, and makes of them one genial system of mutual benefit.—London Sunday Magazine.

“Nothing can possibly fail, because the sole true end or object is redemption of man; and this is attained ever and for ever, with no exception, in good and evil, in each largest and most trivial thing.”—James Hinton.

How crooked is our life! Its ins and outsWe can not scan;How often do we say, “That’s just too lateAnd spoils our plan.”How often we perplex ourselves, becauseOf efforts vain,And try, without success, to make things comeRound right again.How disappointment will not let us holdThe course we would,But throws us off from every hoped-for boonThat we think good.How little things perplex our onward pathFrom day to day,Seeming to render futile all our work,Stopping our way.Oh! could this crooked life be straightened out,And every bitMet fairly by another, point to pointIn sequence fit;The difficulties then were not so hardTo meet and bear,Were there a carrying on of some wise plan,And purpose fair.What if the Master’s planbeutter good,Too vast, in sooth,For us to grasp it with our puny powers?In this grand truth,For such it is—although things look not soTo our weak sight—Lies the true meaning of these crooked thingsIf read aright.The source of all the discord that we feel,Is that our willIs not made one with God’s, and so we striveTo make life stillA thing that we call good—a little goodThat we can know;Instead of in our ignorance contentGod’s way to go.

How crooked is our life! Its ins and outs

We can not scan;

How often do we say, “That’s just too late

And spoils our plan.”

How often we perplex ourselves, because

Of efforts vain,

And try, without success, to make things come

Round right again.

How disappointment will not let us holdThe course we would,But throws us off from every hoped-for boonThat we think good.How little things perplex our onward pathFrom day to day,Seeming to render futile all our work,Stopping our way.

How disappointment will not let us hold

The course we would,

But throws us off from every hoped-for boon

That we think good.

How little things perplex our onward path

From day to day,

Seeming to render futile all our work,

Stopping our way.

Oh! could this crooked life be straightened out,And every bitMet fairly by another, point to pointIn sequence fit;The difficulties then were not so hardTo meet and bear,Were there a carrying on of some wise plan,And purpose fair.

Oh! could this crooked life be straightened out,

And every bit

Met fairly by another, point to point

In sequence fit;

The difficulties then were not so hard

To meet and bear,

Were there a carrying on of some wise plan,

And purpose fair.

What if the Master’s planbeutter good,Too vast, in sooth,For us to grasp it with our puny powers?In this grand truth,For such it is—although things look not soTo our weak sight—Lies the true meaning of these crooked thingsIf read aright.

What if the Master’s planbeutter good,

Too vast, in sooth,

For us to grasp it with our puny powers?

In this grand truth,

For such it is—although things look not so

To our weak sight—

Lies the true meaning of these crooked things

If read aright.

The source of all the discord that we feel,Is that our willIs not made one with God’s, and so we striveTo make life stillA thing that we call good—a little goodThat we can know;Instead of in our ignorance contentGod’s way to go.

The source of all the discord that we feel,

Is that our will

Is not made one with God’s, and so we strive

To make life still

A thing that we call good—a little good

That we can know;

Instead of in our ignorance content

God’s way to go.

BY C. E. BISHOP.

A song was popular about forty years ago, in which was couched an invitation to every nation to come along and make no delay, as “Uncle Sam is rich enough to give you all a farm.” At Castle Garden, since that invitation, respondent aliens to the number of over seven and a half million have “come along,” and Uncle Sam has redeemed the promise to all who applied. Yet, munificent as is this bounty, the State of New York bestows a more liberal hospitality, and a more beneficent care on the immigrant. During a discussion in a New York club lately of the question “What does this country owe to other nations?” a gentleman vehemently protested against the assumption couched in the question. “When a subject of another nation lands on our shores,” he said, “we meet him with food and raiment, find him occupation, and give him a farm. Talk about our owing other people anything! The obligation is all on the other side.”

The speaker did not half recite the obligation that the Empire State assumes on behalf of the stranger. It reaches out arms of protection to him, like a mother yearning across seas, almost from the time he sets sail. It meets the ship at the Lower Bay of New York, inspects its sanitary condition and that of the passenger; hears his complaints, and if he have any grievance, tries to remedy it. It receives him at Castle Garden, helps him to secure and check his baggage and buy a passage ticket to any point at lowest rates. It gives him his mail, if he have any waiting; telegraphs or writes the news of his arrival to his friends, if he have any in this country, and sends him and his baggage to them if his destination be in or near the city. It gives him food if he be hungry; medicine and nursing if he be ill; a Bible if he can read; sends him to an asylum, if he benon compos mentis, or back to Europe if he be a pauper. It changes his foreign coin into American on terms of equal value, and gives him a piece of paper with the whole transaction figured out so he can ponder over it and come back for explanations or corrections, if need be. It finds him a hotel, if he want one, the proprietor of which is under heavy bonds to kindly entreat the stranger and not overcharge him; it stands guard with big clubs to keep off biped wolves, and if, notwithstanding, in the exercise of his new-found liberty, he walk into pitfalls, it sends a detective or a policeman to secure him restitution. It finds him immediate occupation at prices that sound fabulous by the side of his old-time pittance; it furnishes interpreters, guides and guardians—in a word, exercises over him a wiser and more helpful paternalism of government than he has ever known. And all this paternal care it extends to him not only when he arrives; it stands ready to renew the guardianship at any time within a year thereafter if he return to Castle Garden and ask it. Most of this it does without charge to the immigrant; all of it is free if he have no money to pay withal. Not so much is done for any other visitor—not even for the titled and wealthy stranger. Nay, the opera singer or the champion pugilist receives less consideration. Really, the only “distinguished arrivals” in this country are the steerage passengers.

The State of New York stands guardian to the whole United States in this matter. Its little timely aid and provision of employment, its security extended to those destined inland, as well as the care it takes to prohibit entirely the landing of paupers and helpless ones, prevent many from becoming a public expense in other states.

Perhaps you are ready to give it credit, in all this, for Christian philanthropy. Not at all. It is enlightened self-interest on the part of the State. She is simply guarding the chief city of the country, which happens to be within her borders, from the peril and cost of unregulated immigration. And she takes care to make some one else pay all the bills, my friend. The expense of doing all this is chiefly met by a tax on the steamship lines, called “head-money;” a tax of two dollars a head, for all steerage passengers. And besides that she makes the steamship company, at its own expense, carry back to the old country any emigrant who has no money or friends in this. In collecting the head-money tax and in enforcing the restrictions against pauper immigration the State has indirectly the powerful aid of the United States government—a plain recognition of the fact that the whole duty properly belongs to the latter.

The regulation of immigration by states is one of the anomalies of our government. It is a relic of the early conflicts between the powers of state and nation. After the infant Yankee nation had outgrown its first constitution—that absurd, distrustful experiment of setting up a nation and denying it all governmental powers—the matter of imposing and collecting duties on imports of merchandise, etc., which had formed one of the chief bones of contention between states, was taken from state authority entirely, and given in charge of the general government. But at the same time the regulation of the more importanthumanimportations was left with the states, and to this day the general government assumes no control in the matter of what is strictly an international interest, and concerns the welfare of all the states. Thus it came about that the states in which are immigration ports acquired a large control over the character of the population, and hence over the prosperity of other states. That a business so much international and interstate in character should have been left to local governments is a curious illustration of the lack of foresight on the part of the founders of the constitution, as well as one of the many evidences that they were not at heart democratic enough to thoroughly believe in and understand the common people. Had they anticipated that the time would ever come when human cargoes should disbark upon our shores to the number of half a million in a year, of people unused to our institutions and uneducated in self-government, they doubtless would have devised a protective tariff which would have prevented an invasion so threatening, as they might think, to our peace and stability. It is often well that statesmen are not more prescient. Legislating for the future in the light of the present, they would most certainly go wrong, especially in legislating for a country of such rapidly changing conditions as have followed each other here. Those adopted citizens who raise the cry against the Chinese and demand protection against imported labor, may thank their stars that the same spirit did not seize the prophetic minds of the earlier law-makers of the country.

Castle Garden, on the Battery, gives on the loveliest and healthiest park of New York and the noblest harbor in the world. The main structure is old Castle Clinton, a large circular fort built early in the century for the protection of the city. Now it is converted to the uses of peace, to welcome invaders instead of repelling them, but still to protect the city, and the state and the nation. The open central space has beenroofed over and converted into a great rotunda; while the embrasures and casemates designed for great cannon and magazines are used for baggage rooms and various apartments. This is better than hammering swords into plow-shares, this using forts to welcome ploughmen to our broad acres. Wooden excrescences around the wall provide offices, hospitals, insane asylums, labor bureaus, and various other departments. The rotunda and fort walls can accommodate 3,000 immigrants and their baggage—and do you know all that the words, immigrant’s baggage, implies?

On this little amphitheater of war is daily held a Congress of All Nations. If you want to see Europe, come to Castle Garden, not go abroad. There is nothing left over there but the houses and the superfluous nobility and wealthy. Men are Europe, and the manhood of Europe is being skimmed off for America’s use. A gentleman told me that when he traveled in Circassia he looked in vain through the mass of awe-inspiring female ugliness for the famous types of Circassian beauty. “Where are the beautiful women?” he asked. “In Constantinople, all,” was the answer. So, he said, it is with the manliness of Europe—it goes to America. Not the most cultured, intelligent and favored. It would be small merit in them to break away and come to America; that they do not proves that they are too contented, fat and selfish for our use. But a man who, being born and trained to a life of subjection and dependence; rooted to the spot on which generations of his fathers have lived and died; who hardly knows whether his native hills or city streets bound the world or not—when one of these tears up his roots and sets out three thousand miles in search of a chance to breathe and grow, be sure, be very sure there is a spark in him of something that is wanted in this country. There is the germ of an American citizen; the growth of it will appear in a few generations. It is this surviving, vital spark of character that enables this nation to assimilate so much crude human material and convert the so-called “offscourings of Europe” into elements of national prosperity and strength. What could we have done in forty years with seven and a half million foreign aristocrats and capitalists? What would have become of us if they had come to us! A few of them have come lately, and they are already trying to build here a landed aristocracy, and on stolen land at that. Men should be estimated by the abuses and disadvantages they have survived, as well as by what they are. The courage, independence and aspiration that outlive centuries of subjection in sufficient force to carry a man half around the world intoterra incognitaare the elements of empire.

A ship load of six or ten hundred does not make a very big caucus in this rotunda of the world’s congress, but it makes the scene picturesque, as to costumes, more so as to goods and chattels—the latter seeming to include women and children. All the family heir-looms, such as pots, pans, feather-beds and nondescript furniture came along. I can believe in all the dozen ship loads of “traps” that “came over in the ‘Mayflower,’” since seeing one load of later immigrants debouch. And they come, like a lot of wealthy bankrupts, with all their property on their wives’ backs. The loads on these biped beasts of burden make one think of the loads of hay on small donkeys in Spain, or those mountains packed on camels in the East. At the head of the family caravan marches thepater familiasloaded down with a shot-gun, half a dozen canes, a long-tailed pipe or some queer fiddle-looking instrument. Well, he has never been able to stand upright and hold up his head in the presence of anybodybuthis wife. A man must rise superior to something. One of these years, mayhap, the order of superiority will be reversed, and some of the daughters of this flock be advocating, or at least thinking, women’s rights at Chautauqua. Housewives can tell you how soon some of the daughters of these subjugated women learn a goodly degree of independence. I anticipate this result more for the girls than the boys, because when the caravan files before the clerk’s desk for registration these “beasts of burden” are often the only ones self-possessed enough to give the names, ages and intentions of the family. Often the lord and master has forgotten the names, generally the ages of his children, and not infrequently he has to refer to his chattel for his own name and age. There is a scared look in all eyes. I don’t wonder, after such an uprooting and hegira, that they look dazed, and that some go clean daft—as they do.

One naturally looks here for the queer in dress, action or design, and there is plenty to gratify the curiosity. Far across are two men who look like Digger Indians in queer costumes—dirty red, long sacks and short laced leggings. They are squatty, swarthy, sluggish, and outwardly uncanny-looking. We go across the wide rotunda and find that each of these unpromising delegates has a Bible, and that one of them is writing the fly-leaf over with much small, neat chirography—a language which no one here can interpret. They are Russian Finns. Despise nothing you see here, my friend. You would look a trifle out of condition, and mayhap your “plug hat” would excite a smile after a steerage journey to Finland. I doubt if, arrived there, you would settle to as intelligent and philosophical an occupation as writing a commentary on the Bible.

Then come a more canny couple—two manny-clad, bright-faced boys, Scotch bairns, as their pretty dialect reveals. One is ten and the other eleven years old; and these bit laddies are making the journey all the way alone from Loch Lomond to Loch Michigan; billed and ticketed to their widower father in Chicago. It is a picnic to them, you can see, yet in their childish faces there is a sedate gravity, such as belongs to the earnest race of the Covenanters. Nearly six hundred children last year came thus alone “over the back of the round sea” to seek parents or friends. There are in the United States Senate, in gubernatorial chairs, at the head of great industries, in leading positions of all kinds, other boys who in other years came thus alone to the land of promise. So we despise not the day of small things at Castle Garden, says our attentivechaperon.

The most out-of-place delegate that I saw here was a Bedouin Arab. “What sought he thus afar!” Very tall and slender and sinewy; swarthy skin, black, close-cropped hair, intensely black stubbed beard, behind and amidst which his white teeth, constantly exposed like a bull-dog’s, shine like a battery behind a bristlingchevaux de frise. His head is raised, his nostrils dilated, his black, piercing eyes look far away over the unseen crowds; he moves restlessly with a swift, cat-like tread and an undulatory motion of his long, lithe body, like that of a tiger. He seems a veritable wild beast at bay, and I watch from a respectful distance to see him pounce down on some unsuspecting emigrant. Yet might not this animal some day turn up an alderman in a “growing city,” having first studied law? ’Twere not to consider too curiously to consider so; no, faith, not a jot. I admit it were some time a paradox, but now our time gives it proof.

Plenty of romances and not a few tragedies are enacted or consummated here. If the re-unions that take place in this old fort consecrate it to humanity, and make it a temple of affection, its disappointments make it a theater for melodramas and tragedies in reality. Last year one hundred and fifty-three emigrants were sent to the insane asylum on Ward’s Island, East River, a large proportion of whom were young people, and a majority women. They come over to find their mates, and either do not meet them, or worse, find they have lost them indeed. Thence they become aliens to the whole universe and find their only home in the Fantastic Realm. Melancholia is the prevalent form of aberration. The shock of transplanting and the excitement of new scenes upon simple and undeveloped natures are also a pregnant cause of mental overthrow. A little negro boot black, contemplating the insane asylum, said to me reflectively, “I think anybody isfoolish to go crazy.” As three-fourths of the crazy ones here are unmarried, it might seem foolish to expose themselves when so simple a remedy is so available as marriage is here.

For Castle Garden is a famous place for weddings. Romances begun in the old country or on shipboard, and eke runaway matches to this distant Gretna Green find fusion here. Plenty of girls also come to America to unanticipated homes. A curious feature of the supply agency of the bureau is its match-making offices. The commissioners are applied to by men in this country for wives—perhaps on the principle that if a man marries he will be compelled to support a German or Irish girl anyway, so he might as well marry one and have done with trouble on that score. Sometimes, also, a man sends by mail his request, as who should say, “Please forward to my address in good order, upon approval, one (1) wife, per express.” The original of the following letter was shown me at the superintendent’s office:

“Fort Cœur d’Alene, Idaho Territory.“Dear Sir:—Having noticed in the columns of some New York papers that some young men have procured good wives at the Castle Garden, and as I presume that the demand is not equal to the supply, I am desirous of having a good, honest woman for a wife and would make an offer of a comfortable home to a deserving woman. Of course the lady must be consulted about taking her chances in coming out this far, but I am making this offer in good faith and would like an answer as soon as your convenience will permit. My reasons for sending so far are—I am keeping a hotel, stables and ranch on one of the few routes to the newly discovered Cœur d’Alene gold fields, am doing a fair business, am a young bachelor not yet thirty-two, and can’t find a girl of any use to me inside of three hundred miles. So I thought I, being a New Yorker myself, would send and have you try and procure me a life-partner. Hoping this may meet with kind favor I am, yours, etc.,“M. E. L.”

“Fort Cœur d’Alene, Idaho Territory.

“Dear Sir:—Having noticed in the columns of some New York papers that some young men have procured good wives at the Castle Garden, and as I presume that the demand is not equal to the supply, I am desirous of having a good, honest woman for a wife and would make an offer of a comfortable home to a deserving woman. Of course the lady must be consulted about taking her chances in coming out this far, but I am making this offer in good faith and would like an answer as soon as your convenience will permit. My reasons for sending so far are—I am keeping a hotel, stables and ranch on one of the few routes to the newly discovered Cœur d’Alene gold fields, am doing a fair business, am a young bachelor not yet thirty-two, and can’t find a girl of any use to me inside of three hundred miles. So I thought I, being a New Yorker myself, would send and have you try and procure me a life-partner. Hoping this may meet with kind favor I am, yours, etc.,

“M. E. L.”

There is never any difficulty in making up these improvised matches, but the wooers, like young Lochinvar, have to come out from the West and make their own selections. So far as reported, these matches result happily, which goes to show that connubial felicity does not always follow the law of natural selection. Perhaps the matches that are made in Castle Garden are different from those reputed to have been made in heaven.

Somewhat too much of incident.

Is there in all history a human migratory movement like this? Men have always been, like poor Joe, moving on, but generally for conquest or subjugation of other races. No such fusion of bloods has ever before taken place—the nearest approach to it being the amalgamation of races through which the modern Englishman came. But that commingling was always the result of conquest and subjugation, and the antagonistic nature of the union delayed the peaceful fusion and left its impress of belligerency on the resultant race characteristic. In this last Anabasis of Liberty, however, everybody is welcome, all elements are assimilated, everything converted to the uses of empire and the work of peopling a continent with an entirely new race of men—new in blood, thought and aim. Whether as a result of the varied forces of heredity or the unprecedented influences of environment, it is evident that here a new people is being created for a new purpose. The future Greene who shall essay the writing of “The Making of America,” will find in the mutual reaction of race characteristics on each other, in the influence of material surroundings and in the stimulus of free institutions, the profound study of the origin and evolution of the American citizen.

[The following poem was read by Dr. Vincent on the morning of August 25, 1884, at the closing exercises of the Chautauqua Assembly. This poem Dr. Vincent has read at the close of several Assemblies, and always with marked effect.]

I sat alone with my conscience,In a place where time had ceased,And we talked of my former livingIn the land where the years increased;And felt I should have to answerThe question it put to me,And to face the answer and question,Throughout an eternity.The ghost of forgotten actionsCame floating before my sight,And things that I thought were dead thingsWere alive with a terrible might;And the vision of all my past lifeWas an awful thing to face,Alone with my conscience sittingIn that solemnly silent place.And I thought of a far-away warningOf a sorrow that was to be mine,In a land that there was the future,But now is the present time;And I thought of my former thinking,Of the judgment day to be;But sitting alone with my conscienceSeemed judgment enough for me.And I wondered if there was a futureTo this land, beyond the grave;But no one gave me an answer,And no one came to save.Then I felt that the future was present,And the present would never go by,For it was the thought of my past lifeGrown into eternity.Then I woke from my timely dreamingAnd the vision passed away.And I pray that I may not forget itIn this land before the grave;That I may not cry in the future,And no one come to save.And so I have learned a lessonWhich I ought to have known before,And which, though I learned it dreaming,I hope to forget no more.So I sit alone with my conscience,In the place where the years increase,And I try to remember the futureIn the land where time will cease.And I know of the future judgment,How dreadful soe’er it may be,That to sit alone with my conscienceWill be judgment enough for me.

I sat alone with my conscience,In a place where time had ceased,And we talked of my former livingIn the land where the years increased;

I sat alone with my conscience,

In a place where time had ceased,

And we talked of my former living

In the land where the years increased;

And felt I should have to answerThe question it put to me,And to face the answer and question,Throughout an eternity.

And felt I should have to answer

The question it put to me,

And to face the answer and question,

Throughout an eternity.

The ghost of forgotten actionsCame floating before my sight,And things that I thought were dead thingsWere alive with a terrible might;

The ghost of forgotten actions

Came floating before my sight,

And things that I thought were dead things

Were alive with a terrible might;

And the vision of all my past lifeWas an awful thing to face,Alone with my conscience sittingIn that solemnly silent place.

And the vision of all my past life

Was an awful thing to face,

Alone with my conscience sitting

In that solemnly silent place.

And I thought of a far-away warningOf a sorrow that was to be mine,In a land that there was the future,But now is the present time;

And I thought of a far-away warning

Of a sorrow that was to be mine,

In a land that there was the future,

But now is the present time;

And I thought of my former thinking,Of the judgment day to be;But sitting alone with my conscienceSeemed judgment enough for me.

And I thought of my former thinking,

Of the judgment day to be;

But sitting alone with my conscience

Seemed judgment enough for me.

And I wondered if there was a futureTo this land, beyond the grave;But no one gave me an answer,And no one came to save.

And I wondered if there was a future

To this land, beyond the grave;

But no one gave me an answer,

And no one came to save.

Then I felt that the future was present,And the present would never go by,For it was the thought of my past lifeGrown into eternity.

Then I felt that the future was present,

And the present would never go by,

For it was the thought of my past life

Grown into eternity.

Then I woke from my timely dreamingAnd the vision passed away.

Then I woke from my timely dreaming

And the vision passed away.

And I pray that I may not forget itIn this land before the grave;That I may not cry in the future,And no one come to save.

And I pray that I may not forget it

In this land before the grave;

That I may not cry in the future,

And no one come to save.

And so I have learned a lessonWhich I ought to have known before,And which, though I learned it dreaming,I hope to forget no more.

And so I have learned a lesson

Which I ought to have known before,

And which, though I learned it dreaming,

I hope to forget no more.

So I sit alone with my conscience,In the place where the years increase,And I try to remember the futureIn the land where time will cease.

So I sit alone with my conscience,

In the place where the years increase,

And I try to remember the future

In the land where time will cease.

And I know of the future judgment,How dreadful soe’er it may be,That to sit alone with my conscienceWill be judgment enough for me.

And I know of the future judgment,

How dreadful soe’er it may be,

That to sit alone with my conscience

Will be judgment enough for me.

BY MRS. PATTIE L. COLLINS.

No other issue of the day has absorbed me like the ever vexed problem of woman’s work. I have read at various times many learned dissertations upon women’s duties, women’s spheres and women’s capabilities; her few successes and countless failures; most of them from the pens of men, and a few from her own sex, but the first have, as a class, been almost purely theoretical, and the second incomplete, one sided and argumentative rather than instructive. A certain popular author wisely observes that “Everything depends upon the point of view.” It is scarcely possible for a man from his standpoint to take in the difficulties and intricacies that lie all along the path of the gentle sex in the pursuit of work, and after having obtained it, its successful accomplishment at a salary not at all commensurate with its value. And the task is equally difficult for a woman, since misfortune begets the most disagreeable and unreasonable form of egotism, and the burden of her grievance demoralizes her logic and vitiates the force of her statements. I am distinctly conscious of all this as I approach the subject, and only a long and crucial experience has given me the courage of opinions. One fact seems to be lost sight of in the ceaseless clamor concerning “women’s rights,” viz.: that most of them have more “rights” than they enjoy, and conspicuous among them, the privilege of earning their own living. The avenues of remunerative employment are only too few, and each is filled to repletion with a hungry multitude. There are those, the achievements of whose genius have lifted them beyond all praise or blame and given them a rich and well merited reward, but it is not to these exceptional cases that the ordinary laws of the great struggling masses can apply. The world has known but one Mrs. Browning, one George Eliot, one Patti, one Nilsson, but the example of these daughters of the sky soaring and basking in the sunlight has only served to accentuate the gloom and toil of the dwellers in the valleys below. Spirits such as these must ever remain apart from the constant, harassing struggle of average women, and this is the class for which I write.

I have often thought that it was the shadow of the curse of slavery still resting upon our land that prevents, even in the wide and generous light of the present day, a proper recognition of the true majesty of labor. Unfortunately, the term is still regarded as synonymous with servitude, not precisely degraded servitude, but certainly something so near akin to it that it could never be confused with badges of the Legion of Honor!

Sewing, for a woman, means starvation, or slow death by torture; factories and shops tell their own pitiful stories; the paths of music, art, literature, and the drama, are strewn with dismal failures; and when I come to teaching, that worst abused vocation of all, language fails me. In Boston, I have heard it said that a faithful teacher can support the burden of existence only about seven years. I can well believe it; but on the other hand, to one such worker there are ten thousand drones. The first impulse of every gentlewoman, thrown upon her own resources, seems to be to teach; as to what or how, she is nebulous, delightfully vague, the only point settled being the choice of occupation. Governesses are engaged, to whom the entire charge of children is given, who receive the treatment and wages of servants. In our public schools the felicitous standard of excellence is a high percentage in examination, while the far more important considerations of adaptability, patience and self-control are disregarded. The evil effects of such a system are visited upon defenseless children. Women, as a rule, regard their work, whatever it may be, as only a temporary makeshift; the hope of something better lures them like theignis fatuus; the dim and uncertain prospect of a distant future imparts a half-hearted exertion to the present, and this fact touches the key-note of a large proportion of their failures. If all of them could be brought to a thorough realization that we are a surplus quantity, an unwelcome factor, yet one that can not be eliminated, the answer to these problems which confront us might still be hidden, but we should at least stand upon the threshold. On the other hand, I have known women of singleness of purpose, of unalterable resolution, and the courage of heroes arrayed in the ranks of the breadwinners. True, they belonged to a hopeless minority, but this only served to render their virtues the more conspicuous. Long observation and thorough investigation have led me to the conclusion that the government departments at Washington afford the best field for female labor now open to the sex. Best, because the hours are not unreasonable, and the compensation fair; best, because there are no three months’ vacations to be tided over without pay, and also, on account of the certainty of retention unless just cause can be shown for removal. It has been now nearly a quarter of a century since it was decided that women were eligible to these positions, being, I believe, during the late war that the first appointments were made. Small experimental beginnings have crystallized into wonderful results. Hundreds of women through the liberality and enlightenment of our government are enabled to maintain themselves and those dependent on them in comfort and respectability, and each of them holds her office by the same tenure that their superiors hold theirs, so that she is equally independent and fearless, owing her allegiance not to them, but to the government which claims absolute fidelity over a solemn oath. Our public service has been much and justly criticised; it is still very far from invulnerable, but within the last two years it has made more than creditable progress in the right direction. That there have been, at various times, ignorant, careless and corrupt abuses of the appointing power can not be denied. For many years the sole power behind the throne was political influence, and thousands of appointments of both men and women have doubtless been made without reference either to the educational qualifications or moral character of the appointee. Sometimes it was a case that appealed only to the sympathies, as a needy widow, or a wounded soldier; or sometimes the unscrupulous tool of a more unscrupulous politician; not unfrequently a poor relation—all of these were made pensioners upon the treasury of the nation. Liberal pay for conscientious, intelligent labor scarcely constituted one plank in the departmental platform, but a pernicious sentiment looking toward a minimum of work and a maximum of pay exerted a wide influence. In view of the heterogeneous clerical assortment this is scarcely a matter of surprise. There are comparatively few natures so strong that they unflinchingly continue to do right simply because it is right. Even so recently as five years ago, no clerk, not even the most capable and faithful, could possess the assurance for a single day that his or her dismissal might not be demanded to make a vacancy for some one commanding stronger political influence. Inevitably, this knowledge had an injurious effect. Another circumstance: thesalaries being similarly apportioned, it often chanced that a clerk doing five times the amount of work, and of infinitely better quality than his neighbor, received the same pay; and in the course of events a promotion would come to the idle and inefficient employe, while the competent and industrious one toiled on at the old salary.

The Treasury, the Interior, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the Postoffice Department, the Pension Office, and the Government Printing Office, all employ a large proportion of female clerks. The average rate of compensation is $900 per annum. For some years it was much lower, but the end came, and the reward, as it usually does to those who patiently labor and patiently wait. It has proven another verification of the old adage “A work well begun is half done.” The progress has been very slow, but all prejudice is obstinate and difficult to remove; every reform fights for its foothold inch by inch; the gates of light ever unclose reluctantly. The legislative halls of the nation have not been wanting in men who have vehemently maintained that no government clerkship should be filled by a woman. Not on account of mental, moral or physical lack, but because these places were their legitimate spoils, which they prostituted their high offices to unworthily bestow. And on the other side, there have been great and generous spirits that have emphatically declared thatallof these offices should be given to females, unless, indeed, the charge of bureaus requiring an unusual degree of executive ability. Many women are skillful accountants, neat and rapid copyists, and accomplished linguists, and these are what government work demands. Their accuracy and rapidity in counting money is marvelous. Beyond and far above their intellectual or mechanical capabilities, I should mention honesty. The peculations and defalcations of male employes have been legion, but no woman has ever been known to betray her official trust. A former Secretary has affirmed that in his opinion this unfailing honesty was attributable to cowardice; that they were not too good to steal, only that they were afraid! Well, let the honorable gentleman have his way. No matter how low the motive, the fact remains, and the result is favorable to the national exchequer. Even with the odium of this ungenerous construction, they will probably continue to enjoy a pardonable pride in this bit of departmental record.

The creation of a Civil Service Commission has drawn a broad line of demarkation between the abuses of the past and the reforms of the future. It would be difficult to over-estimate the good already accomplished. In the first place, it has destroyed the incentive for removal, since the vacancy can no longer be filled save by the wholly disinterested and impartial Commission. Secondly, an employe may now indulge a reasonable expectation, if his services warrant it, of advancement from grade to grade as opportunities occur; in any event he will no longer be subjected to the mortification of seeing a wholly unworthy person passed directly over his head to a position to which he was entitled by every law of right and justice. But one of the very best features of this Commission is, the outer wall, the bulwark itself that they have reared,i. e., the examination. It is thorough and comprehensive, and need not be tampered with, or even approached, by the illiterate, since only ignominious failure could result. There is no escape from the ordeal. It is the one narrow path that leads to the inner courts, and there is no avoiding nor evading its labyrinths. It is by no means uncommon to hear complaints and repinings over their hard lot and small salary, from clerks of both sexes, who receive a far greater amount for their services than they could possibly obtain elsewhere. To use the mildest language, it comes with a very bad grace from women who could not earn twenty-five cents per day scrubbing door steps, and men whose highest occupation outside would probably be driving a dray. This class is now effectually shut out. Henceforth none but the intelligent laborer need apply. I do not mean to say that liberal culture, or even a very superior order of education is necessary for the performance of ordinary clerical work—it is not—but a decent, rudimentary knowledge is indispensable, and this the government has a right to demand. Even this, unfortunately, is but one of the requirements that go toward making up a desirable clerk. The more highly educated are often inefficient, while those of moderate attainments attain an enviable standard of excellence. Acute perception and rapid and accurate performance, an ability to use instantaneously whatever knowledge possessed, a ready and retentive memory, conscientious and never flagging industry—these make up the model clerk. I bear willing and glad testimony that there are many such; those who have an honest pride in their work, who do it well, because it would be impossible for them to do anything carelessly, who do not look forward to “pay-day” for their reward, but find it every day and every hour in the consciousness of duty done. I once heard a chief say to one of his subordinates: “Whenever I give you anything to do I am satisfied that it will be right. I no longer have any sense of responsibility in regard to it. I amsureof you.” This seemed to me a compliment of the best order, for, alas! the number is very small of whom we can be perfectly “sure.” Emerson says of the working classes that “finishers” such as these are very rare, but that the world is blessed in having even a few.

To those whose desires or ambitions lead toward this branch of national service, I would say, the channel for all information is the Commission, with its headquarters at Washington. Neither the member of Congress from your own district, nor even your powerful Senator can now pronounce an “open sesame.” Nor can a political force from California make an appointment from Maryland and accredit the appointee to his own State, while Florida grapples with the rights of Oregon, and Maine and Texas are inextricably mixed. Such measures as these have been of frequent occurrence, but the despoilers are now themselves despoiled. Each state has always been nominally entitled to its quota, but practically the law was of no avail. Henceforth a just distribution of favors will be demanded. The English Civil Service, which is the perpetual boast of our cousins across the water, even so late as the time of Trollope’s experiences, was in a deplorable condition; the evils of ours are not of such ancient and stubborn growth, and the remedies lie near at hand. We have taken no half way measures; the treatment is heroic, and the cure is to come from the ground up. We may in time arrive at the ideal arrangement of retiring and pensioning these public servants as France does her postal employes, but this will probably be much later on, since our Republic is not modeled after Plato’s!

This article is designed specially for women. I have wished to give my fellow laborers not familiar with this particular vineyard some general ideas in regard to these positions, how they are obtained, what qualifications are necessary, and lastly the salaries. As I said before, the average salary for women is $900 per annum, but there are many who receive $1,000 and $1,200, while a more limited number are paid $1,400 and $1,600. Leave of absence for thirty days during the year is granted, with pay. Absence, other than this, must be without pay, unless on account of sickness. Of course the departments are closed on legal holidays. The hours are from nine until four, with thirty minutes intermission at noon for luncheon. The offices, are well heated, well ventilated, and furnished with the best desks, chairs, stationery, pens and ink; every appliance and convenience that could be desired is liberally supplied. Certainly the last vice of which Uncle Sam could be accused is niggardliness. Payment of salaries takes place on the 15th and 30th of each month. Many employes draw their salaries only on the 30th, but all who wish can do so at both the dates mentioned. One strong argument against the employment of women has been that they lose much more time than men from sickness. This is lamentably true; whether it comes from an abnormal state of existence, theforcing of weak hands to strong work, and the necessary out-door exposure to heat and cold, rain and snow, I can not say; it may be that the answer is found in the sad and homely saying that “A woman’s work is never done.” Too many, alas! turn from their desks only to a change of labor at home; to bake and brew, to patch and darn, to nurse the sick, to answer and instruct eager, tireless, little questioners; to be, in a word, father, mother and servant, to an entire household. I can not apply this palliation without a great deal of discrimination. I will generously say that it perhaps covers the cause of one half of the absenteeism attributed to sickness. That there are many conscienceless ones who take advantage of every pretext to remain away from their duties and make false representations in regard to their absence can not be doubted; and naturally in making up the general percentage the innocent suffer for the guilty, but as this injustice has prevailed throughout human affairs from the beginning of time, it will probably continue. On the other side, I will say that in the important bureau with whose workings I am most familiar, I believe the most careful and painstaking work is done by the female clerks, and the compensation to male clerks is correspondingly much greater. The doctrine of “Equal work, equal pay,” is not yet enforced, but the chances are better and the prospects brighter in this direction than in any other. In conclusion, let me add, that I have made this impartial exposition of a dry subject in behalf of such of my readers as stand face to face with that dragon of the century—the unending struggle for food and raiment.

BY CHANCELLOR M. B. GOFF,Western University of Pennsylvania.

While affording such accurate methods of determining time, does not directly furnish that by which we are accustomed to be guided, so that astronomers are wont to speak ofsolar time, asmean solar time, andapparent solar time, the former being that kept by our clocks and the latter that from which the former is estimated. If the earth moved around the sun at an unvarying rate, then each time the sun threw the shadow of a vertical rod directly north (in the northern hemisphere) would indicate noon at the point where the rod was located; and the interval between two such successive shadows would be exactly one day, and we could divide the time into twenty-four equal spaces and call each space one hour. Now, this is what we imagine the earth to do; or rather, for the sake of convenience, and because the results are the same in either case, we conceive the sun to move around the earth, and make ameanormock sun, move around the earth in a day of twenty-four hours of equal unvarying length, and call this amean solar day. But thetrueorapparent solar dayis considerably different from this, being sometimes less and sometimes more than twenty-four hours in length, thetrue sunreaching the meridian as much as 16¼ minutes before or after themean sun, both reaching it together only four times each year, viz.: On April 1, June 15, September 1, and December 24. Of course it would be impossible to construct a time-piece that would keep pace with thetrue sun. Indeed, it is difficult enough to construct one that will keep with the mean sun. But all difficulty is obviated by making clocks whoserate of errorcan be determined. This rate being known it is easy to estimate the correction, and thus obtain exact time. For example, suppose a clock togain0.24 of a second per day, then in two days it will gain two times 0.24 of a second, and in three days three times 0.24 of a second, etc. These amounts subtracted from the noon-time of the clock would give the correct noon. For any other hour, a part of the 0.24 depending on the number of hours after noon must be subtracted. If the clockloses, then in a similar manner the proportioned loss must be added. In actual practice, we may say that even the best chronometers do not keep exact time; and every one has to be “corrected” in the manner indicated.

To obtain mean time from apparent time we apply to apparent time a correction called the equation of time. Thus, at noon, on October 1st, in Washington, the equation of time isminus10 minutes 34.58s., which means that if from 12 hours we subtract 10m. 34.58s. we shall have 11h. 49m. 25.42s., the mean time of apparent noon, or noon as indicated by the north shadow of the vertical rod. Or, if at 10m. 34.58s. after the sun crosses the meridian we set our watch at 12 o’clock, we shall have exact mean time. On the 31st of October the real sun will be 16m. 17.56s. ahead of the mean sun, while on the 31st of December it will be 3m. 38.11s. behind the mean; that is, will reach the meridian at 12h. 3m. 38.11s. p. m. mean time.

Beside the ordinary clocks, the chronometers used by navigators keep mean solar time, and family almanacs usually in some form give the “equation of time” under the headings, “clock slow” or “fast,” or “sun south.” Astronomers use also another kind of time called “sidereal,” of which we may have something to say in the future.

On the 1st, 16th and 31st of this month the sun rises at 5:57, 6:13 and 6:30 a. m., and sets on the same days at 5:42, 5:18 and 4:58 p. m. respectively, showing a decrease of one hour and seventeen minutes in thirty days, or at an average rate of 2m. 34s. per day. On the 18th and 19th the sun will be eclipsed, entering the moon’s shadow at 10:20 p. m. on the 18th in longitude 132° 0.6′ east, and in latitude 63° 30.5′ north; and leaving it at 2:15 a. m. on the 19th in longitude 134° 22.7′ west, and in latitude 33° 25′ north. Greatest eclipse occurs at 12:18 a. m. on the 19th. Magnitude, 0.638. As the entire eclipse is during our night, it will of course be invisible to us, but can be seen by the inhabitants of the northeastern part of Asia and the northwestern portion of North America.

Will be eclipsed on the 4th, beginning at 3:07 p. m. and ending at 6:41 p. m., Washington mean time. The beginning of totality will be at 4:07 p. m., and the ending at 5:40 p. m.; the middle at 4:53 p. m. Magnitude, 1.533. As the moon in this section does not rise till about 5:20, only the latter half of the eclipse will be visible. On the 16th, the moon rises at 3:45 a. m.; on the 1st, sets at 2:21 a. m., and on the 31st at 3:11 a. m. On the 4th, at 4:52 p. m., full; on the 11th, at 9:21 a. m., enters upon its last quarter; on the 18th, at 7:23 p. m., new moon; and on the 26th, at 11:46 p. m., enters upon its first quarter. Is nearest to the earth on the 7th, at 8:48 a. m., and farthest away on the 23d, at 7:48 a. m.

Presents himself as an object of interest for a few mornings before and after the 5th, the day on which he reaches his greatest western elongation, 17° 58′ from the sun; and as he rises nearly an hour and a half earlier than the latter body, may with a little care be clearly distinguished. His times of rising are as follows: On the 1st at 4:33; 16th, at 5:12; and 31st, at 6:22 a. m. His motion is direct and amounts to 43° 46′. As he moves away from the sun, after 6:00 a. m. on the 3d, hisdiameter diminishes from 7.4″ to 4.6″. On the 17th, at 7:58 p. m., he is 2° 1′ north of the moon.

Remains a morning star during this month, shining, toward its close, with somewhat decreased brilliancy. Her motion is altogether eastwardly, and amounts to 33° 12′ 46″, diameter changing from 21.6″ on the 1st to 17.6″ on the 31st. On the 1st, she will rise at 2:13; on the 16th, at 2:35; and on the 31st, at 3:01 a. m. On the morning of the 7th the trio, Jupiter, Venus andAlpha Leonis(Regulus) will give an exhibition worth much more than all the trouble it costs to obtain the view. Jupiter rises first at 2:30; a few minutes later, and to the south, Venus appears, and almost at the same time a little northward, Regulus: the three presenting a combination rarely witnessed. On the 6th, at 11:00 a. m., Venus will be 1° 15′ south of Jupiter; on the 7th, at 7:00 p. m., 55′ south of Regulus; and on the 15th, at 2:48 a. m., 3° 35′ north of the moon.

Though accounted an evening star, will be above the horizon in the day time most of the month, on the 1st rising at 8:55 a. m. and setting at 7:01 p. m.; on the 16th, rising at 8:50 a. m. and setting at 6:32 p. m.; and on the 31st, rising at 8:46 a. m., and setting at 6:08 p. m. Its declination on the 31st is 21° 34′ south. Motion for month direct and amounting to 22° 28′. Diameter decreases from 4.6″ to 4.4″. On the 21st, at 6:15 a. m., 4° 10′ south of the moon.

(Together with Venus) makes this month’s mornings brilliant. Rising on the 1st at 2:26, on the 16th at 1:44, and on the 31st at 12:57 a. m.; and his diameter increasing from 31″ to 32.2″, makes each stay appear longer and each return brighter. His motion is direct and equals 4° 56′ 51″. On the 6th, at 11:00 a. m. he is 1° 15′ north of Venus; and on the 14th, at 11:57 a. m., 4° 42′ north of the moon.

Rises on the 1st at 9:29 p. m., and sets on the 2nd at 12:09 p. m.; rises on the 16th at 8:29 p. m., and sets on the 17th at 11:09 a. m.; rises on the 31st at 7:29 p. m., sets 10:02 a. m. on November 1st. His motion, 42′ 26″, is retrograde. Diameter increases from 17.8″ to 18.8″. On the 5th, at 8:00 a. m. is stationary; and on the 9th, at 3:50 p. m., 3° 30′ north of the moon.

Will be morning star throughout the month, moving eastwardly 1° 40′ 45″; diameter increasing about one-tenth of a second. On the 8th, at 3:00 a. m. will be 1° 10′ south of Mercury; on the 16th, at 7:19 p. m., 2° 5′ north of the moon. Its times of rising are as follows: On the 1st, 5:13 a. m.; on the 16th, 4:19 a. m.; on the 31st, 3:24 a. m.

Motion for the month is 44′ 22″ retrograde; diameter, 2.6″. On the 7th, at 11:44 a. m., he is 1° 33′ north of the moon. His night ascension on the 31st is 3h. 21m. 23.5s., and declination 16° 36′ north, about 1h. 8m. west ofAldebaranin the constellationTaurus. He rises on the 1st, at 7:38; on the 16th, at 6:39, and on the 31st, at 5:39 p. m.

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