1. The colossus of Rhodes, a statue of Apollo, seventy cubits high; striding across the mouth of the harbor; so that a large ship, under sail, might pass between its legs. A man could not grasp its thumb with his two arms. After having stood a long time, it was overthrown by an earthquake.

2.. The temple of Diana at Ephesus: a work of astonishing magnificence. It was supported by a hundred and twenty seven pillars, sixty feet high. Two hundred and twenty years were required to finish it. A man named Erostratus, with the mad desire of rendering his name immortal, destroyed this stupendous fabric, by setting it on fire.

3. The mausoleum, a most beautiful sepulchre of marble, built by Artemisia, queen of Caria, in honor of her deceased husband Mausolus.

4. A statue of Jupiter, formed of ivory and gold, and of prodigious size: this statue was executed by Phidias, and was placed in the temple of Jupiter, in the city of Olympia.

5. The walls of Babylon, built by Semiramis, the circumference of which was sixty miles; and their breadth so great, that six chariots could drive upon them abreast.

6. The pyramids of Egypt, three of which still remain to astonish mankind. The largest of these is constructed of enormous stones thirty feet thick. This prodigious mass of building occupies eleven acres of ground.

7. The palace of Cyrus, king of Persia, built by

Menon, with no less prodigality than art; for he cemented the stones with gold.

14. The Orcus of the ancients.

THE entrance of the infernal regions was called Avernus. Here was stationed a host of dreadful forms: diseases, terror, old age, hunger, sleep, death, and the furies, the avengers of guilt, with snaky hair, and whips of scorpions; here, too, were placed war and discord. Near this dismal cavern, is the road to the river Acheron, whither resort the departed spirits, in order to pass over. Charon, the surly old boatman, receives into his bark those, whose bodies have been honoured with funeral rites, but inexorably rejects those who have not received these marks of respect; and these unfortunate shades are condemned to wander, for a whole century, on the dreary shores of the infernal river.

On the other side of the river, is the gate leading to the palace of Pluto, the sovereign of these dismal realms. This gate is guarded by Cerberus, an enormous dog with three heads, one of which is always upon the watch. Within this seat of horror, are seen, first, the souls of infants who expired as soon as they were born; then the souls of those who have been put to death unjustly, or who have killed themselves. Beyond these inhabitants of this region are seen, wandering in groves of myrtle, the victims of love and despair. Then succeed the abodes of her es. Not far from them is seen the dread tribunal, where

Minos, Eacus, and Rhadamanthus, administer strict justice, and pass the irreversible decree.

Next Tartarus discloses itself, the prison of despair. This dreadful abode is surrounded by three massy walls, with three gates of solid brass; round which the blazing Phlegethon rolls its waves of fire, and Cocytus extends its stagnant marsh. Here, likewise, is the river Styx, by which if the gods swore, their oath was inviolable; and Lethe, whose waters when tasted, produced forgetfulness of past events. The Elysian fields, the abodes of the virtuous, are crowned with eternal spring, and immortal beauty.

III. CLASS. DIDACTIC PIECES.

1. Two uses for which the air seems to have been designed.

AIR is essentially different from earth. There appears to be no absolute necessity for an atmosphere's investing our globe; yet it does invest it; and we see how many, how various, and how important are the purposes which it answers to every order of animated, not to say of organized, beings, which are placed on the terrestial surface. I think that every one of these uses will be understood, upon the first mention of them; unless it is that of reflecting light, which may be thus explained. Had I the power of seeing by no other means, than rays coming directly from the sun, I should find, whenever I turned my back upon that luminary, that I was involved in

darkness. Had I the power of seeing by reflected light, yet by no other means, than of light reflected from solid masses, these masses would shine, indeed, and glisten, but in the dark. The hemisphere, the sky, the world, could only be illuminated, as they are illuminated, by the light of the sun being, from all sides, and in every direction, reflected to the eye, by particles as numerous, as thickly scattered, and as widely diffused, as are those of the air.

Another general quality of the atmosphere is the power of evaporating fluids. The adjustment of this quality to our use, is seen in its action upon the sea. In the sea, water and salt are most intimately mixed; yet the atmosphere raises the water, and leaves the salt. Pure and fresh as drops of rain descend, they are collected from brine. That evaporation is solution, seems probable from various circumstances; and here we observe a striking fact, that the air dissolves the water and not the salt. This distinction, upon whatever it is founded, is a critical one; so much so, that, when we attempt to imitate the process by art, we must regulate our distillation with great care and nicety, or, together with the water, we get the bitterness, or, at least, the distastefulness of the marine substance.

2. On Light.

LIGHT travels from the sun at the rate of twelve millions of miles in a minute. Urged by such a velocity, with what force must its particles drive against

every substance, animate or inanimate, which stands in its way! The force seems to be one which might shatter to atoms the hardest bodies.

How then is this effect guarded against? By the minuteness of the particles of which light is composed:-a minuteness adapted to their own velocity, and to the delicate and tender frame of many of the substances, through which they are constantly passing. It is impossible for the human mind to imagine to itself any thing so small as a particle of light. But the extreme axility of that substance, though it is difficult to conceive, it is easy to prove. A drop of tallow, on the wick of the smallest candle, sends forth says sufficient to fill a hemisphere of a mile diameter; and to fill it so full of these, that an aperture, no larger than the pupil of the eye, placed any where within the hemisphere, is sure to receive some of them. What floods of light are continually poured from the sun we cannot estimate; but the immensity of the sphere, which is filled with its particles, if it reached no farther than even the orbit of the earth, we can, though imperfectly, compute; and we have reason to believe, that, throughout this region, the particles of light lie, in latitude, at least, near to one another. The spissitude of the sun's rays at the earth is such, that the number which falls upon a burning-glass of an inch diameter, is sufficient, when concentrated, to set wood on fire.

The tenuity and the velocity of particles of light, ascertained by separate observations, may be said to