CHAPTER III.—THE DINING ROOM.

Iss was gar ist, Trink’ was klar ist, Sprich was wahr ist.

—_German Dining Room Motto._

The central work-room of the house is the kitchen. There labor is continuous. There three times a day, year in and year out, the meals must be cooked, and the pots and pans washed. Slovenly work there tells all over the house. An ill-regulated kitchen involves poor cookery and waste, and cheapens the most artistically arranged dining room. But the importance of good, careful and intelligent cookery hardly comes within the limits of this article.

It behooves us, however, to insist upon it that the room where so much of the necessary work of home is carried on, should be airy, sunny, cheerful, well stocked with the implements essential to the lightening of kitchen labor, and adapted in every way to the comfort of its occupants.

A good farmer supplies himself with tools and machines for his farm work; but his wife often toils with cracked stove, green wood, and a scant supply of kettles and pans, when only a slight outlay would save her many weary steps and much worry of mind.

The kitchen should have painted walls that can be readily washed. Indeed, every surface in the room should be washable. There should be plenty of closet room, a large sink, a large work-table, comfortable chairs, at least one easy chair, a shelf for books, and room in the window for a few plants if desired. A picture or two would not be out of place if protected by glass, nor an occasional motto—like the charge to the German cook:

“Köchin, denk’ an deine Pflicht, Vergiss du heut’ das Salz ja nicht.”

Or the admirable rules for home living which Dr. Watts wrote for children:

“I’ll not willingly offend Nor be easily offended; What is ill I’ll strive to mend, And endure what can’t be mended.”

There are many small houses where either kitchen or sitting-room has to serve also as dining room. Any sensible woman can make shift to get along comfortably in this way and eat her bread and honey with the queen in the kitchen when necessity compels, so long as she has neatness and despatch for hand-maidens. One large, light room is often far better than two small dark ones; but where a room does double duty there can hardly be unity in the arrangement and furnishing.

To my question, “What is of most importance in the dining room?” a man made answer, “the kitchen,” and a woman, “the outlook.” No doubt the provision of wholesome and abundant food for her family is the housewife’s first duty, but while fully endorsing the masculine paradox, we must not ignore the woman’s plea for a cheerful outlook.

If possible, the dining room should have as good a view as the house affords. Let it look out on the orchard, the sea shore, or the distant hills, rather than the stable or the clothes line. The view of a terraced, box-bordered garden, of a tulip bed and apple blooms, as seen from an old-fashioned country house dining room is one of the sweet memories which childhood has stored up for the enrichment of my coming years. Three times a day the household gathers here to take the goods the gods provide them, and then, if ever, they should enjoy a little leisure, and be in the mood to appreciate the best of the out-of-door world that surrounds them. A good view is better than pictures or stained glass for a dining room; but when a good view is out of reach and an unsightly one is unavoidable, then stained glass comes to our aid. If that darkens the room too much, ground or cathedral glass panes can transmit the light, surrounded by a border of color. That would be over-leaping the obstacle; but it can be quietly set aside by means of a pretty sash or half-sash curtain of Madras muslin or any pretty, thin, colored curtain material. A curtain is a simpler, franker, and consequently better solution of this difficulty than any of the pasted-on, semi-translucent, paper cheats that simulate stained glass

“In faint disguises that could ne’er disguise.”

Let honest poverty hold up his head and hang up a width or two of ten penny Turkey-red calico by the aid of button rings and a brass wire, so that it can be drawn across the lower sash, and if the color be in keeping with the room, it will look better than anything more pretentious and less true. Good stained glass, such as Mr. Tiffany or Mr. La Farge devise, is very beautiful, but like Adolphus’s tea-pot, it has to be lived up to throughout the room, and so is more expensive than in its first cost. The fine view, however, involves no extra outlay, and beside adding good cheer to that which the housewife spreads upon her board, it is no inconsiderable factor in the table-talk of the year, helping not a little in the entertainment of guests.

The dining room should also be conveniently near the kitchen, either in point of fact, or made practically near in the case of a basement kitchen by a “lift” or dumb waiter. The kitchen should not open directly into the room, or all the kitchen odors will abide there. An intermediate pantry or entry way shuts off many of the smells of cooking, and a small slide through which dishes can be passed serves to the same end, as it obviates the necessity of keeping the door ajar while food is carried back and forth.

How to light the dining room is a question of some importance. There should be light enough to show the table to advantage, but it should be possible to darken the room with shutters or blinds in the inevitable summer warfare with flies. A room looks better, artistically, where the light enters from but one side. Cross lights are the artist’s abhorrence.

In city houses a conservatory built out on one side gives a pleasant suggestion of the woods and out-of-doors, and at the same time gives the right effect of light and shade to the room. Kerosene lamps are not ornaments to the dining or tea table. They are cumbersome, malodorous, and their room is better than their company. A chandelier over the table, burning gas or holding lamps, is the easiest and cheapest arrangement, but not the most picturesque. The prettiest light of all, and probably the most expensive, as the prettiest things are apt to be, is given by wax candles from tall candlesticks. Four of these judiciously arranged on the table will give an abundance of light for those seated about it, if additional light be provided for the rest of the room by a lamp on the sideboard or in side sconces.

A dining room should not be too warm. It is an old boarding house trick to so heat the dining room as to take away all appetite for food. The room should, in fact, be kept a little cooler than the rest of the house, partly because the lower temperature provokes appetite, and in part because on leaving the table it is natural to feel a sensation of chilliness, the blood of the body being called aside to the business of digestion, so that it is comfortable after eating to step into a room a few degrees warmer than that in which one has been seated.

The color of the dining room depends upon its size, exposure, and upon whether it must do double duty as sitting room, or library. Dark, rich furniture and wall-hangings have been the rule for dining rooms for many a year. The larger the room, the more elaborate, rich and dark can be the furnishing, but a dark room that hardly gets a glimpse of sun throughout the year must be made sunny by plenty of yellow in woodwork, or walls; bright, sunny pictures with gilt frames; and by the glitter of brass or of the pretty, yellow English ware with which the china shops are aglow this year. For rich wall effects Japanese or leather paper is good, Lincrusta better, the latter being a comparatively new material, in substance something like linoleum, washable and very durable (so the manufacturers assert), having figures raised upon it, and coming in good designs and colors. With elaborately decorated walls, plain curtains are called for. Where the walls are to be furnished freely with oil paintings, let the pictures supply the decoration, and let the walls be as unobtrusive as possible—only ensuring that they are of a good back ground color; sage, olive-green, olive-brown, or dull red, in paint or paper.

Family portraits, if good, are not out of place in the dining room; but poor, old photographs in bungling, black walnut frames should be preserved in the private apartments of those who value them. They are never decorative; nor are pictures popularly known as dining room pictures much more pleasing. The effigy of a silver salver of leaden hue loaded with fruits of all climes, with a decanter of wine and a half empty glass, of fishes hanging by their gills, or dead ducks, each from one web-footed leg, is not nearly so attractive as a good portrait, landscape, _genre_ picture or flower painting, however good practice the manufacture of such studies may be in the art schools. I know a dining room where, outrivaling some amateurish fruit painting, an engraving after Rosa Bonheur of a shepherdess with her sheep has been a daily delight for years, and another where the only picture space in the room, that directly over the mantel shelf (the walls being darkly paneled), is filled with a water color copy of Sir Joshua’s “Angel Choir” that seems fairly to light and hallow the air around it, like the glories round the heads of saints.

An over-mantel is appropriate in the dining room if anywhere, as it affords shelf room for choice china or glass that ought to be seen. A little ingenuity can go a great way in dressing up a commonplace shelf so that it shall have dignity and importance. I have known one to have a very aristocratic air which was only an adaptation of part of a four-post bedstead, graceful, slender posts standing on either side of the fireplace, built up with shelves of varying width and length.

If books in every room are a prime necessity, as our model home-maker assures us, then there should be at least one book-shelf in each room.

“Pray what is that book-shelf for?” asks the visitor while seated at the dinner table in “The Poet’s House,” which Mr. Scudder has described for us. “Books of reference,” said Stillwell, promptly. “It’s extraordinary how many little questions come up for discussion at the table, questions of dates, of names, of quotations. So I keep a dictionary, a book of dates, a brief biographical dictionary, a dictionary of poetical quotations, and one or two other such books at hand. It is the sideboard to our mental feast. We don’t keep everything we possibly need on the table itself.” And others beside poets would find such a shelf of great convenience.

There should be at least a square of carpet in the dining room under the table, not only for warmth and the look of comfort, but to prevent the noise of chairs scraping over the bare floor. In other rooms small rugs scattered here and there may suffice, though one large rug is always more restful to the eye, but a table around which a family gathers, either in dining or sitting room should for these obvious reasons always stand upon carpet. Where the floor is carpeted throughout and a crumb-cloth or drugget used, pains should be taken in the selection of the latter to get the colors in harmony with those of the carpet. Cheap druggets as a rule are so glaring and crude in color that any carpet that respects itself loses tone at once, and appears thoroughly commonplace when forced into association with the blowzy things. The patient seeker, however, may be rewarded in his search by finding a “Bocking” or drugget that shall be as thoroughly becoming to his carpet as is the tidy morning apron to the neat-handed Phyllis who wears it. Since the days of King Arthur the round table has been held the most delightful for social and hospitable purposes. With a small family there is a cosiness about a round table that is very charming, but when one is forced to enlarge the circle a small, round table can not be expanded to the required circumference. A solid table seven feet long and four feet wide will seat six comfortably, and eight without crowding, and is of delightful dimensions to sit about of an evening, when work or study is toward. If such a table be used (an Eastlake table, our furniture dealers would call it, since Mr. Eastlake inveighed so severely against what he styled the “telescope” table) there should be two side tables made four feet long which could be of service in the room, standing against the wall, but on occasion could be used to enlarge the dining table. H. J. Cooper, an authority on house-furnishing, after speaking of Mr. Eastlake’s objections and suggestions, says:

“We do not find, however, any great revolution in the matter of expanding dining tables, and are inclined to think their great convenience will prove a barrier to any wide-spread reform.”

A good table should be polished, not varnished, and protected when not in use by a substantial cover.

Side tables are serviceable when one’s space or purse will not allow of a sideboard, but sideboards are useful articles of furniture, and look better when made of the same wood as table and chairs. They should be simple of construction, with straight rather than curved lines, smooth surfaces, and with drawers easily get-at-able and lightly pull-out-able.

The sideboard should hold the table linen for daily use, the daily silver and cutlery, teacups and saucers. If, in addition, it can find room for a convenient box of biscuits, pot of ginger, or any simple refreshment for the late worker who likes a bite before going to bed, so much the better will it serve its purpose as a sideboard. Our grandmothers kept here decanters and wine glasses, but in these days of the W. C. T. U. wine is seldom found standing out boldly in sight in the dining room. In addition to the sideboard a small table or a butler’s tray should be ready to hand to hold dishes or food that must be used in the table service.

Cabinets for the display of china, closets let into the chimney for the safe keeping of nice glass, should feel themselves at home here, while plaques and old china plates seem to belong of right to the dining room, and can be arranged over doors by means of a tiny balustrade, or on the frieze, or as over-mantel decorations, while choice cups and saucers can fill the cabinet spaces. In the breakfast room, where I am now writing (not my own), I have just counted fifty-nine pieces of glass or pottery which hang on the wall or stand exposed on sideboard, mantel or shelves, besides the tiles of the fireplace, two small cabinets, each holding a half dozen rare and precious Japanese cups and saucers protected by glass, and two large cabinets filled to overflowing with specimen china, and yet the room does not seem at all overstocked with ceramic treasures.

Growing plants are charming dining room ornaments, but will only thrive where a minimum of gas and furnace heat and a maximum of sunshine and fresh air is supplied, with regular attention as to water and shower baths. They are sure, however, to reward painstaking care.

Decorative china and plants, however, are luxuries, though less or more within the reach of all. A screen, though usually looked upon as a luxury, is in the dining room almost a necessity, and it can be bought or manufactured at home for a nominal sum. Many a guest has been well nigh martyred at table with a fire in the rear and sunlight to the fore, whose meals might have been made a delight by a careful adjustment of shades and blinds and the judicious intervention of a screen between chair and grate. Doors must needs be left open as servants pass back and forth, and a screen between the mistress’s chair and the door may save her from many an annoying influenza.

A thick, white cloth of felt or Canton flannel should be spread over the table before it is “set.” This not only protects the polish of the table top, but makes the linen cloth lie much better, and appear to the best advantage.

Table linen should, so far as possible, be spotless. Fine damask is costly, but a clean, coarse cloth looks better than a fine one soiled and tumbled. It is true that table linen is worn more by washing than by use. Still it must be washed—at least that is the American theory. I have sat at a table in Saxony where the table linen bore the date of more than a century before, but there the wash was perhaps a semi-annual affair, and a breakfast cloth was made to serve from Easter till July, breakfast being only a simple meal of a roll and a cup of coffee.

We can lay down no further rule for the changing of table linen. It is perhaps better to keep breakfast and dinner cloths separate, the finer for dinner, that being the more formal meal; tea and luncheon can be served, if one wishes, without table cloth. If care be taken to lay a carving cloth or napkin under the meat platter, or a tea cloth where tea or coffee are to be poured, breakfast and dinner cloths can be kept fresh longer.

Some writers more nice than wise sneer at napkin rings, implying that no table linen should be used more than once without washing. But there are few families of any size that can afford such lavish laundry work. A family of six would require twenty-one dozen napkins in constant use, if given out fresh each meal. When the same napkin must serve for more than one meal, a napkin ring is the simplest and surest way of securing each person his own. Of course rings are only for family use, not for the transient guest, and they would be out of place at a dinner party.

Table cloths should be done up with a suspicion of starch, not enough to stiffen them, but with only so much as will make them iron well. Heavy linen looks and wears better than light. Large napkins are for dinner use. Delicate doilies of fine drawn linen work or silk embroidery are laid under finger bowls to protect the choice china plates on which the bowls rest. This doily should be laid to one side with the bowl, it should not be used as a fruit doily. I have seen an absent minded man roll up in a crumpled heap one of these delicate lace affairs costing five dollars, perhaps, and then carelessly wipe hands and moustache with it, while the mistress of the house looked on with an assumed placidity which spoke volumes for her powers of self-control.

The finger bowl is not an elegant affectation, but is a genuine comfort where fruit or sweets are served. Fruit napkins should be used to save large damask ones from stains.

If the first requirement for a well ordered table is cleanliness in damask and dishes, the second is tidiness and regularity of arrangement. If mats are placed under hot dishes let them lie on the square, and let the plates be put on at regular intervals, and in a straight line. A hotel waiter who flings plates and plated ware at the table by a dextrous twirl of the wrist is no model for the home table setter. Spoons for soup and dessert should lie to the right of the plate, knives above, forks to the left; this is the time honored usage, and it makes the labor of serving dessert easier if all knives, spoons and forks to be used during the meal are laid at the first by each plate. Tumblers stand to the right a little above the plate, butter-plates in a corresponding position to the left. Avoid the use of what are popularly known as “individual” dishes upon the table, such as butter plates, salt cellars, sauce plates, and so forth. This is another hotel fashion that should not find its way into the home. It is better to use a larger plate and take a greater variety of food upon it. The little butter dishes are really needed only with warmed plates; and beans, peas, corn, and other vegetables in separate dishes, about a dining plate, make a table look very untidy, and make extra and unnecessary work for the dishwasher. An English lady who visited me a year ago took home to London with her as an American curiosity a set of butter plates which, so she writes, she has not yet found opportunity to use, not having had any American visitors.

Steel knives are better, and where meats are to be served are more desirable in every way than plated ones, the latter being a device to save the labor of “scouring” with Bristol brick.

Flowers or fruit are never out of place upon the dining room table; a showy _épergne_ is not necessary, for a pretty growing plant always makes a good center piece, and a single rose in a slender glass adds flavor to the best cooked meal. My grandmother of blessed memory used to say that the simpler the meal the more pains should be taken to serve it daintily. Broiled salt pork and baked potatoes, according to her theory, could be so bravely set out upon the table as to make a meal fit for gods and men. A parsley bed is of special service in decking out a simple dinner, and celery tops are not to be despised.

The heads of the household should face each other from the ends and not the sides of the table, if the meals are served English fashion, vegetables and meat being placed upon the table. No table can be set with any air of elegance when the meat platter or the tea equipage stand in the middle of one side. It makes comparatively little difference, however, when meals are served _à la Russe_, that is with meats and vegetables placed at side tables and passed by servants, while only fruit, bon-bons and ornamental dishes appear upon the board. The latter fashion seems to be obtaining in America, and an intelligent diner-out remarked in my hearing the other day, that fifty years hence no meats at all would be carved at table. This Russian fashion is pretty and wholly luxurious, as it removes all possible demands for service or helpfulness from those seated at table, and devolves it all upon servants. The fashion requires more and better trained servants than most of us have at command.

The bane of modern entertainments is the enormous number of courses that style makes essential. Women with but one or two servants at the most feel called upon to give luncheon or dinner parties, and course follows course, many of them sent away scarce tasted, and the home silver and china not sufficing for the occasion, must be eked out by borrowing or by expeditious washings between the courses. The giving of such entertainments by persons of moderate means exhausts nerves as well as purse. Let us wisely give up aping rich people’s ways, and aim for simplicity in our table service.

Colored table ware is cheerier upon the table than white. Very pretty English or American sets can be obtained at low prices. The Canton china (willow pattern) comes in good shapes, is of good color and standard design, and single pieces can always be bought to replace what has been broken, but

“Porcelain by being pure is apt to break,”

Or at least to chip at the edges, and for every-day use pretty crockery is good enough unless a painstaking and cautious hand wields the dish-mop. The more covered with decoration (design and color being good) the prettier will be the effect of the ware when in use.

It is not at all necessary to have all the dishes upon the table of the same style and pattern. Harlequin sets can often be brought together so as to combine harmoniously, and pretty single pieces can be bought marvelously cheap. Amateur painted china is generally too costly for daily use, and when good should be treated with respect.

Plain silver is on the whole better for plain livers than that which is more elaborately ornamented, and absolutely plain solid silver forks and spoons can never be out of taste, and can easily be kept tidy with whiting. Electro-silicon and patent cleaners of that ilk injure silver and are ruinous to plated ware.

The beauty of silver and pottery depends first upon their form and adaptation to use; secondly, upon their decoration. Delicate chasings and thin _repoussé_ work are naturally as appropriate to silver as good shapes and _flat_ decoration are to earthen ware.

As to glass, there is a crystal craze at present, and “hob-nail” glass glitters on all tables. Miss Lucy Crane, in her lecture on “Form,” says (and I quote freely because her words are timely):

“As the beauty of glass consists in its transparency and lightness, and its capability of being twisted or blown or moulded into a multitude of delicate forms, it early occurred to the manufacturing mind that if made thick and solid, and cut into facets it would resemble crystal; and thus it has come to be a fixed idea that hard glitter is its most valuable quality, so it is made inches thick, and pounds heavy, to enhance its brilliancy; and being one of the most fragile of substances, it must be engraved with people’s crests and monograms as if it were intended to carry down the name of the family for generations to come! Being of its nature transparent, it must be rendered opaque of set intention by coloring matter, and then painted and gilded! Since at its strongest glass can never be anything but fragile, at least let it keep the beauty belonging to fragility; since it is naturally transparent, let the light be seen streaming through it, sometimes delicately tinted, sometimes iridescent, and, instead of being cut, let it be blown and twisted into the thousand delicate shapes to which it easily lends itself, and of which in the Venetian glass of a bygone day, and in its present revival, there are such delightful examples.”

I saw last evening a handful of flasks on their way to the laboratory, whose soap bubble effects were far more beautiful than all the cold glitter of all the “hob-nail” ware that Sandwich has ever produced.

In a boarding house it may economize labor to set the table over night, but it is pleasanter and more homelike to have it set fresh and clean with the morning light; beside, to have the dining table clear of an evening is often a great family convenience.

The dining room affords grand opportunity for the domestic artist. The bread board, bread and carving knife handles, salad fork and spoon, all offer employment to the carver’s tool, to say nothing of cabinet, sideboard and over-mantel. Tiles for tea pot rests and all sorts of china call for the decorator’s skillful brush, while tea cloths and coseys, doilies, mats, centerpieces and carving cloths all await the embroiderer’s needle.

Arise, my young readers, and take your tools in hand, for home work is the fairest adorning of the homelike house.

MEXICO.

Mexico is a country reaching from the Gulf on its eastern coast to the Pacific Ocean, almost 2,000 miles, with a breadth varying from 140 to 750 miles. The whole territory of Montezuma, at the time of the Spanish conquest, was not less than 1,600,000 square miles, more than one half of which has been obtained by the United States by purchase, enforced treaties, or otherwise. The plains on the coast are low, marshy, and in the summer and autumn malarial diseases are very prevalent. Strangers can visit the place with safety only about four months in the year, when severe northern gales cool the heated atmosphere and dissipate the seeds of disease.

There are 6,000 miles of coast line, but, considering its extent, it does not furnish many good harbors.

The main body of the land is an elevated plateau, traversed by chains of mountains, some of which are of extraordinary height. The eastern Cordillera, or chain, that runs nearly north from the initial point has an elevation of 6,000 feet, the western nearly 10,000. Traversing the longitudinal range, there are several cross ranges containing some of the highest volcanoes on the continent. They are all quiescent now, and none of them have been active during the present century. There are not many lakes, and none that are very large. The basins of some, though of sufficient extent, are so arid, and evaporation is carried on so rapidly that the water in them has, at times, quite disappeared. Neither are the rivers of much importance as thoroughfares. The Rio Grande, forming the boundary between Mexico and Texas, is the longest (1,500 miles), but navigable only for a short distance. Those in the mountain region are impetuous torrents, larger near their source than afterward, as they lose more by absorption, in passing through arid portions of the table-lands, than they gain by drainage, except in the rainy season. After plowing deep furrows, and cutting out immense ravines among the foot hills of the mountains, some are partly exhausted, drawn into reservoirs and canals constructed for purposes of irrigation, and spread out into sluggish bayous, of no great depth, before they reach the sea. The lack of navigable streams has been seriously felt.

Climate, other things being equal, decides the flora of a country, and in this respect Mexico has many advantages. Were the country level from the Gulf to the ocean, it would have mostly a tropical climate, and produce only the vegetation of the tropics. But, rising in successive stages to a height of 19,720 feet, the temperature changes with the elevation, and a large portion enjoys the climate of the temperate zones. The low lying region near the coast, called the “hot country,” has a rich soil, a humid atmosphere, and abundant rains, that perpetually nourish a rank tropical vegetation. At an elevation of 3,000 feet we reach a delightful zone where the extremes of heat and cold are unknown, the temperature ranging from fifty to eighty-six degrees. Here the forms of vegetable life, mingling those of the lower and upper regions, have a charming variety. Crossing this wide belt, with its luxuriance in things of surpassing beauty and usefulness, and advancing gradually till the mountains begin to show their rugged forms, at an elevation of 8,000 feet a colder climate is reached, with a corresponding change in the vegetation that now ranges from the corn, barley, and other useful cereals and hardier fruits to the cryptogamia of the mountain top. Take it all through, from coast to mountain, it is quite safe to say Mexico has a flora not excelled by any other country of the same dimensions. And it has increased with the advance of civilization. Many plants, flowering shrubs, and fruit-bearing trees that were not indigenous, but successive contributions from the Old World, have a vigorous growth, and produce abundantly. Apples, pears, peaches, cherries, oranges and grapes, with a variety of choice East India fruits, are widely distributed through the country. In the coast region, and to an elevation of about 1,500 feet, they have cotton, cocoanuts, cocoa, cloves, vanilla, nutmegs, peppers, and other spices of commerce, beside the fruits of nearly all tropical countries of the east and west. Higher up they have sugar, coffee, indigo, rice, tea, bananas, and an abundant supply of edible roots, such as yam, arrow-root, sweet potato, and all the fruits of America, Central Asia, and Barbary.

From a partial catalogue of the productions of the country there is evidence that its agricultural possibilities are very great. Nearly all fruits and grain, indeed, nearly all plants that grow, are either indigenous to the country or may find a congenial home within its limits. Some parts of the upland require irrigation to make them productive, and, if the dry season is prolonged, water must be stored in basins for the use of stock. The neglect of this, especially where the land has been long cleared, causes barrenness, and gives the country a desolate appearance.

The agriculture of the country has never been of a high order, though the Aztecs, at the time of the Spanish invasion, were an agricultural people, and about as well acquainted with the arts and processes of husbandry as most nations of the East were at that day. Having incorporated in their communities the shattered remains of the old Tolteck tribes they had acquired considerable civilization, and were not, as the invaders supposed, rude nomads, or even herdsmen, but cultivators of the soil, and fixed in the possession of their estates. Theirs was not a skillful husbandry, since necessity, mother of inventions, had not greatly improved either their methods or their instruments. They had no plows, harrows, or cultivators, but used hoes, knives, and sickles made of copper. In planting, the earth was loosened with a hoe or stick, and the seed, when dropped, covered with the foot.

The present state of agriculture, though much improved, is still very inferior, and the production, reported in the last census, $177,451,985, might, from the same areas, be greatly increased. Before the recent advent of railroads those far in the interior had no adequate means for exporting the excess of their products, and little inducement to raise more than they needed to consume.

Mexican forests furnish in abundance nearly, if not all, the useful timber trees of the north, and those valuable woods that grow only in the tropics. Some sixty varieties used for timber are mentioned, and twenty suitable for the finest style of interior finishing and furnishing.

The mines of Mexico have long been famous, and are not surpassed in richness by those of any other country in the world. Early in the fifteenth century the inhabitants had accumulated wealth from that source, and the glitter of their gold led the avaricious Spaniards to undertake the conquest of the country. Just how long the mines had been worked before the invaders came is not known. After a change of owners, and the improved methods they adopted, the product was greatly increased, and ever since, though subject to many interruptions on account of political disturbances, it has been larger than in any other country except the United States. The Spanish settlers at once engaged in working the mines of Tasco, Pachuca, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato. Cortes selected for himself and worked the gold mines of Techuantepec, and the silver mines of Zacatecas, that were found productive. The mine at Real del Monte, near the city of Mexico, has yielded largely, and enriched several successive owners. And the principal vein at Guanajuato, noted for its richness, is described as ten yards wide, and has been worked a distance of more than eight miles. In the early part of this century the annual product of these mines exceeded twenty-five million dollars, and they seem inexhaustible. The whole of the gold and silver taken from the mines of Mexico up to 1870 was estimated at $4,200,000,000. The seven principal mines of San Luis Potosi are said to be very productive, and the whole of Sinaloa abounds in silver mines. In Sonora there are one hundred and forty-four operated, chiefly producing gold, and a much larger number in which, though productive, work is suspended. Many large mining districts are simply located, and their development delayed, awaiting more ready means of access to them. That country alone, probably, could furnish the world a full supply of the precious metals for centuries, or until they become as plenty and cheap as they were in Jerusalem in the time of Solomon’s reign. Mexico has not only mines of gold and silver, but the country abounds in other minerals of no less importance. Iron, tin, copper, lead, mercury, cinnabar, and nearly all the known metals are more or less abundant. Coal is found in three or four districts, but to what extent, or of what quality we are not informed. The products of the coal fields, and their rich quarries, and of the oil belts, can be but little known till their facilities for transportation are improved.

The roads constructed as thoroughfares of travel and commerce will modify the industries of the country through which they pass. Mining and stock raising, already extensive, will be increased. Farming and farms, such as we have in the States, will be common, and, as the resources of the country become better known, many enterprising men will be attracted to the Mexican plateaux; society will improve, the reign of superstition will cease, and a free government for an intelligent Christian people, though for a time struggling against chronic tendencies to revolution, will become established, and strong as it is liberal.

Mexico encourages immigration, but, naturally enough, prefers those of the Latin race, as more like the native population. Still, having friendly relations with the United States, and greatly improved opportunities for intercourse, prejudices will be overcome, barriers that have hindered immigration taken down, and perfect liberty of conscience proclaimed through all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.

TWO SEAS.

BY ADA IDDINGS GALE.

Are not those wild steeds champing on the beach, Rearing and splashing on the lonesome shore, The main land seeking frantic’ly to reach, Their white manes gleaming like the frost wreaths hoar?

Steeds of the sea are they that tireless ever Beat with their sounding hoofs the hard sea sand, Lashed onward by the blast, with fierce endeavor They vainly seek the quiet of the land.

Type of that wild unrest that fills the soul: The waves of longing, mad desire, and strife, Whose undertone of sorrowfullest dole Is the sad voicing of the sea called Life.

A type and yet unlike—there is a shore Where the wild sea forgets the tempest’s breath, And rests in lullful silence evermore Upon the wide, white, shining strand of death.

O perfect peace! O blessed mystery! Where waves of longing cease their gainless quest, And on the still sands of eternity Do melt away in an eternal rest.

NEW ORLEANS WORLD’S EXPOSITION.

BY BISHOP W. F. MALLALIEU, D.D.

London and Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia and New Orleans share the honor of having been selected as sites for the grandest displays of which modern civilization is capable. This far-away city of the Southeast was selected in view of the fact that it is the great metropolis of a vast and rapidly developing portion of the Union, and to emphasize the fact that the time has come when the past, with its mistakes and antagonisms should be left behind, and also to encourage the rising industries of the entire South. The general government did well when it extended most generous financial aid to the enterprise. And should further need of such assistance be developed, it is to be hoped that enough will be supplied to make the Exposition a complete success.

The formal opening took place on December 16, 1884, by the President of the United States. True, he was not present, and yet the touch of his fingers set in motion the engine that drives a thousand whirling gears and pulleys. Fifty years ago it would have taken President Jackson a month to travel from Washington to New Orleans, but now, quicker than the revolving planet turns upon its axis, the President, standing in his office in Washington, executes his will in a city a thousand miles away. This world used to be twenty-four thousand miles in circumference, and it took six months to make a voyage around it. Now it has become so small there are no distant lands; we are all neighbors, and crowded at that, and thought, which is a part of man and the best part, travels round the world in the twinkling of an eye. It is a great thing to live on so small a world in such an age as this. Nowhere do such thoughts more forcibly impress themselves upon the observer than in a World’s Exposition, for here, side by side in friendly rivalry, are the people and productions of almost all the nations of the earth. The Chinaman is here with his hideous gods and all sorts of queer things, from ivory chopsticks to the most elaborate porcelains. The men of Japan are found wherever there is an honest dollar to be made. They bring things to show and to sell. With their thin lips and sharp pointed noses, and keen, bright eyes, they remind one of the shrewdest types of Yankee peddlers. Nobody expects to get the better of one of these Yankees from the land of the rising sun. Their ingenuity is surprising, and their powers of imitation are nearly equal to those of the Chinese. With the inspiration which comes with Christianity, it is safe to predict that a future of great promise is the portion of this nation. The ubiquitous Turk is here with the same articles, or their duplicates, that he has had in every exposition, and which he is gradually introducing into state fairs. These institutions of the present age must greatly stimulate the small industries of the Turkish Empire, though some people have thought the Turks at Philadelphia were, for the most part, born in Ireland, and these of New Orleans are supposed to be native Creoles, but still they sell olive wood paper weights, paper cutters, work boxes and trinkets of various sorts, said olive wood having the reputation of coming from Jerusalem, and, to support the reputation, being inscribed with divers Hebrew letters which the sellers are unable to decipher. Of course the European nations are represented, but not to so great an extent as at Philadelphia, and not so fully as will be the case a month later. The foreign countries best represented are our next door neighbors. Here is Jamaica, true to its past and present, with an exhibition of all sorts of rum, from thirty years old and less, in bottles and barrels of all shapes. It is put up with a nicety and even elegance which would be worthy of something better. Then she sends sugar and molasses, dye woods, coffee, cocoa, and skins dressed and undressed, with samples of varied workmanship in several departments. Mexico sends the military band of the Eighth Regiment of cavalry, more than fifty pieces, and it does credit to that Republic. There is an air of Spain about all the productions of Mexico, whether it be the crude ore from her mines of gold and silver, or the richly caparisoned saddles, which in beauty and comfort are unsurpassed. Honduras, both Spanish and British, Guatemala, and Central America, add largely to the extent and attractiveness of the display. No one can carefully study the exhibits of these four last named countries without being profoundly impressed with the idea that they must possess a wealth of undeveloped resources which will, in the near future, attract the attention of the civilized world. It is manifest that they have a soil of exuberant fertility, and a climate that is free from the cold rigors of the north and even from all dangers of frost, and that all circumstances offer the promise of the maximum of results for the minimum of toil and capital. It seems as if a good many of the physical conditions of the Garden of Eden were still retained by these favored countries.

Nearly, if not quite all the states of our Union are represented, though it is to be regretted that some of them, especially Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, are deserving of severe criticism for the very meager displays which they offer. The people of Massachusetts will have more cause for shame than pride when they visit the spot where their activities and achievements should be fairly and fully set forth. There is no excuse for such a failure. Even little Rhode Island does better than her proud neighbor. It is a Rhode Island Harris-Corliss engine that drives the machinery, and the same State sends one of the grandest locomotives that ever ran on rails. Connecticut, the land of notions and wooden nutmegs, makes a fine show of her thread manufactures. The whole process, from preparing the raw cotton to selling the thread in spools, is displayed before the eyes of the admiring spectators. Not a few of the Southern people are led to ask, as they see the thread making and, close beside it, the weaving of cotton cloth, why should we send the cotton we raise to the North, especially to the most distant eastern corner of the North, and after the people there have made it into thread and cloth bring the same cotton back again? Why pay them for transporting it both ways and also for manufacturing it? It is well for them that they are asking such questions. When people begin to inquire it is a sure sign that they are getting ready to act. Soon we may expect to find them making their own cloth and thread where the cotton is grown.

The great West is here in full force, the states west of the Mississippi being especially prominent. It is not long since Kansas and Nebraska were both included within the limits of “The Great American Desert,” on whose sandy soil it was said not even grass could grow. But now from those same arid plains come the best of corn and wheat, and all the other cereals, with fruits and vegetables that are truly surprising. Such potatoes as Oregon and Colorado send need at least such hills as those in which eastern farmers raise similar crops. Think of potatoes ten inches long, six inches wide, and four thick. But time and space would alike fail to specify the abundance and variety of the horticultural and pomological products of the West, this including all west of the Alleghenies, and especially west of the Father of Waters.

One of the most important sources of national prosperity, growth, and riches is to be found in our mineral deposits. Here we see rich specimens of almost every known mineral, and all found within our own borders. Within the list are tin, zinc, copper, silver, gold, iron and coal, with unnumbered others; but these mentioned are the principal, and these are the factors which enter largely into all problems of modern progress and civilization; they add to the riches, if not the wealth of any people; and wisely used, they will add to the wealth as well as riches. The central and eastern portions of the Union abound in coal and iron; these give strength and stability to the enterprise and industry of a people. The Rocky Mountain range, in all its length, from its outlying spur reaching through Alaska to Behrings Strait on the north, to the Mexican border on the south, is full of gold and silver. These deposits excite the ambition and stimulate the energies of the people; and it is sure that the fact just stated will help the American people to find a solution to the disgusting problem presented by Mormons. The heart of the Rocky Mountains will not always be dominated by the most virulent enemies of all that is truly American and Christian. The forests, with the endless variety of woods they produce, never made a better showing than at this Exposition. From Maine to California, and from Florida to Dakota, various woods gathered from the plains, the mountains and the swamps show the abundant supply with which the country is provided. The specimens are prepared so that the trunk of the tree, with the bark covering it, the wood showing the grain polished, and varnished and unvarnished, can all be seen at a glance.

To most people of middle age or beyond, the collection of machinery is peculiarly interesting. Young people have no personal knowledge of the extraordinary progress of invention within the last twenty-five or thirty years. Thirty years ago and men and women were reaping the ripened grain just as the Greeks and Romans did 700 B. C., and just as the servants of Boaz did on the plains of Bethlehem 1100 B. C., and, in fact, just as Noah and his family did when they raised the first crop after they left the ark. But there has been a revolution in the implements of husbandry. A crooked stick is no longer used as a plow, but in the place of the stick are plows of all shapes and sizes, gold mounted and nickel plated, as ornamental as a parlor piano. The rude hoe is superseded by all sorts of cultivators. Planting is done by machinery, elaborate, exact, scientific and elegant. The great Daniel Webster when asked as to the best way to hang a scythe replied the best way he had ever found (and he was brought up on a farm) was to hang it over the limb of a tree. If he could see these mowers and the many other machines to make hay, he would conclude that he had reached the millennium as far as hay making is concerned. So, too, the sickle has given way to the machinery drawn by a span of horses, that can almost do the work required on a trot. The machine reaps, gathers up and binds the bundles. Not long ago all threshing was done by tying two straight sticks together with a string, the best string was an eelskin dried and tanned, and then the farmer, in dust and solitude, would pound away at the straw laid out upon the barn floor; but here is a machine that will thresh and winnow wheat as fast as six men can toss in the bundles to the man who feeds, and it will take as many more to remove and stack the straw. And so it is with the whole business of farming. What is true of the processes is equally true of almost every other manual industry. It is a revelation of wonders to walk about amid these exhibits of machinery, and remember that to all intents and purposes the results we behold are the achievements of the last fifty, and in most cases of the last thirty years. And it is equally remarkable that most of these inventions are the offspring of American thought.

It is most natural for every thoughtful person to ask, how is this and why? The ready and superficial answer is that “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and that the American people, by the conditions of life surrounding them, have been compelled to invent. But surely such an answer can not be considered satisfactory. There are two events in modern times that no philosopher, physicist, ethnologist or theologian has up to this time fully measured, and much less has been able to estimate their relation to the future of humanity. The first of these events is the vast migration of the peoples of the Old World to the New, by which, within the last sixty years 12,000,000 of human beings, most of them young men and women, have left Europe to make their homes in the United States. God only knows the importance and significance of this movement. The second marvelous event of these days in which we live is the sweep and triumph of invention. It is worth considering that the steam power of the United States represents more than the entire muscular force of all the able-bodied men in the world. And the improvements in machinery represent immeasurable conquests of mind in the realm of matter. It does not take omniscience to apprehend, to some extent, the fact that these things must affect the destiny of the whole family of mankind. With such thoughts as these in mind one walks amid these minute or ponderous contrivances for the application of power, with something of the reverence and wonder felt by Moses when he stood in the presence of the bush that burned but was not consumed. It is evident that God, the Eternal Ruler of all things, is in the midst of these “flying wheels.”

One of the most interesting exhibits is that made of the live stock. The spirited, clean-limbed trotting stock of Kentucky is here. The little Shetland ponies are side by side with the vast Normans. Some of the full grown ponies are so small that a strong man could easily toss one of them to his shoulders, but a Norman that weighs more than 2,000 pounds is altogether a different creature. The Clydesdales may be good for draft horses, but their enormous fetlocks so disfigure their feet and legs as to make them appear homely and uncouth. The Normans and Percherons do not have this disfigurement. They are magnificent in size, some of them black and glossy as anthracite coal, others are deep bay, almost a rich mahogany color, others are dapple gray, from very dark to very light, and two of them are as white as milk. To any one who loves horses this show is worth the travel of a thousand miles. It would make the heart of Rosa Bonheur glad to walk through the stables; and if the finest of the horses could be grouped together under her artistic eye she would have all she could wish for one of her famous pictures. These, or such as these, Job had in mind when he wrote: “Thou hast given the horse strength, thou hast clothed his neck with thunder. He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, he rejoiceth in his strength.”

Nothing less, in every praiseworthy point, is the exhibit of horned cattle. Short Horns, Herefords, Devons, Jerseys, Holsteins, Galloways, vie with each other in size and beauty. One ox weighs 2,990 pounds, and many of them exceed 2,000 pounds. They are thoroughbreds, or carefully crossed, and it is doubtful if finer specimens could be obtained, even in the original habitats of the respective breeds. But I need not write of jacks and jennies, of mules, and sheep, and hogs, they are all here, after their kind, and worthy of admiration for the perfection they display as the result of painstaking skill.

The educational interests are variously represented, and many of the cities and educational societies, and even private or denominational schools find space to show the methods and results of each. The Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church makes a creditable display. The same is true of the American Missionary Society, and of several Roman Catholic institutions. The facts, however, seem to show that comparatively little progress has been made in the science of education in the last twenty years. Whether we have reached the ultimatum, so far as methods are concerned, is the question. The child is yet to be born who knows his letters without being taught them. The capital of each, at start, is nothing, and only one thing can be learned at a time, and the human brain is only capable of a certain amount of work. These are some of the limitations a good many educators are inclined to overlook, and yet they will continue to confront all practical people as long as the world stands. Would it not be well, at about this time, for visionary people, with all sorts of educational vagaries, to halt for a little while and inquire if a thorough, plain, fundamental education is not the desideratum for the great majority of the youth of every land. A good part of modern education partakes of the frivolous character of the times. Substantial, honest, common-sense education is vastly better than the illusions and flippancies of sentimental theorists.

Speaking of the Freedman’s Aid Society as above, reminds one that the colored people are admitted to participate in the Exposition. Well, the world moves. We are not where we were twenty-five years ago. We are coming up out of the wilderness. Shall we come “full as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” Yes, if we come in God’s order. No, if we do not. It always pays to do right. It never pays to do wrong. No curse ever comes causeless. It is sometimes worth remembering that the 7,000,000 colored people in the United States own on an average property to the amount of $14, and it is not long since they started with nothing. They will send some missionaries to Africa, but most of them will live and die with us, and where we are buried there will they be buried. It is time we recognized the fact that our God is their God. Let us all rejoice that they have a place in the World’s Exposition in New Orleans. We need them, they need us. Why not recognize our brotherhood with them, and then together consecrate ourselves to the glorious task of making this land the first and foremost of all the world in the possession and exemplification of all Christian, and manly, and patriotic graces? And why not join all forces, North, South, East and West in one sublime and divinely led effort to carry the untold blessings of education, morality, freedom, and Christianity to all peoples who still sit amid the shadows of tyranny, superstition, poverty and ignorance? This World’s Exposition will reach its highest and grandest legitimate possibilities just in proportion as it shall help forward these desires of all good men and these plans and purposes of the World’s Redeemer.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR MARCH.

BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,

Western University of Pennsylvania.

ECLIPSES.

In the early ages of the world eclipses were regarded as alarming deviations from the established laws of nature, presaging great calamities, as famines, pestilences and earthquakes; and among heathen and superstitious peoples, as evidence of the displeasure of the Deity, or deities. Herodotus tells of an eclipse of the sun occurring in 585 B. C., which put an end to a battle between the Medes and Lydians, who were so terrified by the day turning suddenly into night, that the contending armies ceased fighting and concluded a peace which was cemented by a twofold marriage. Another total eclipse of the sun occurred on March 1, 557 B. C., which so terrified the defenders of the Median city Larissa, that they withdrew from its walls, thus permitting it to fall into the hands of its besiegers, the Persians.

Among the Hindoos, it is imagined that the moon, as it covers from sight the face of the sun, is a huge dragon which devours our luminary, and can only be compelled to disgorge and then driven away “by the beating of gongs and rending the air with discordant screams of terror and shouts of vengeance.”

An eclipse of the moon, March 1, 1504, was employed by Columbus to obtain provisions for himself and his starving companions. Having been wrecked on the coast of Jamaica, the natives refused him supplies. Knowing that an eclipse of the moon was about to take place, he informed them that the Great Spirit was displeased with them on account of their ill-treatment of the Spaniards, and would manifest his displeasure by shutting out the light of the moon. When the eclipse occurred, the Indians, terrified by the sight, hastened to him with abundant supplies, beseeching him to intercede with the Great Spirit in their behalf.

At the present day we look upon these wonderful events as the results of natural causes, whose operations have long since been explained. We have learned that an eclipse of the sun is merely the moon coming between the earth and the sun, thus shutting off from the former all or a portion of the light of the latter; that this event may occur as often as five times, and never less than twice in one year; that it can only occur at time of new moon; that it occurs only in limited portions of the earth at any one time, and hence, that although happening so often, for any given place it is a comparatively rare event—especially the last two of the three kinds, _partial_, _annular_, and _total_; and that the portion of the earth affected by a total eclipse does not exceed 170 miles in diameter; or, in other words, the width of the moon’s shadow, when it falls perpendicularly on the earth’s surface, is not more than 170 miles. We have learned, also, that an eclipse of the moon is occasioned by the earth coming between the moon and the sun; that this event can not occur more than twice in any one year, and may not occur even once; that it happens always at full moon; that it can be seen in all parts of the earth where the moon is above the horizon at the time of the occurrence; and for this reason, although it only happens in the ratio of 29 to 41 as compared with eclipses of the sun, yet there are more lunar than solar eclipses visible in any given place.

During the present month we shall have two eclipses, one of the sun and one of the moon.

THE SUN

Will be eclipsed on the 16th, first contact taking place in longitude 136° 49.3´ west and latitude 13° 25.3´ north, at 8:26 p. m., Washington mean time; and the last contact in longitude 32° 58.3´ west and latitude 49° 0.8´ north, at 1:22 a. m. on the 17th. The central eclipse will begin in longitude 156° 39.5´ west and latitude 35° 54.5´ north at 9:48 p. m., and end in longitude 15° 4.6´ west, latitude 71° 24.1´ north, at 12:00, midnight. The path of the central eclipse in North America will be about 35 miles wide, and will take a northeasterly course from a point near Cape Mendocino on the western coast of California, and will embrace Weaverville, Cal., Idaho and Boise cities in Idaho; Bannock City and Gallatin, Montana; cross the boundary line between the United States and the British Possessions in longitude about 105° west; pass through the central part of Hudson’s Bay; cross Hudson Strait, Davis’s Strait, and Greenland, ending as above in longitude 15° 4.6´ west, latitude 71° 24.1´ north. As this is an annular eclipse, the shadow of the moon being too short to reach the earth, parties located in the path named will see the edge of the sun like a bright ring around the dark shadow of the moon. Persons outside of this path will see the sun more or less eclipsed, dependent on their position. The beginning and end of the eclipse at a number of places in the United States is given below, in the local time of the cities mentioned: Bangor, Me., begins at 12:48 p. m., ends at 3:23 p. m.; Concord, N. H., begins at 12:32 and ends at 3:07 p. m.; at Montpelier, Vt., lasts from 12:26 to 3:03 p. m.; Boston, Mass., from 12:36 to 3:09 p. m.; Providence, R. I., from 12:33 to 3:05 p. m.; Hartford, Conn., from 12:25 to 2:58 p. m.; New York, 12:17 to 2:50 p. m.; Trenton, N. J., 12:13 to 2:45; Pittsburgh, Pa., 11:38 a. m. to 2:18 p. m.; Wilmington, Del., from 12:07 to 2:40 p. m.; Charleston, S. C., from 11:37 a. m. to 2:04 p. m.; Columbus, Ohio, 11:20 a. m. to 2:01 p. m.; Detroit, Mich., 11:21 a. m. to 2:04 p. m.; Indianapolis, Ind., 11:02 a. m. to 1:45 p. m.; Chicago, Ill., 10:55 a. m. to 1:40 p. m.; Jefferson City, Mo., 10:24 a. m. to 1:09 p. m.; Lawrence, Kan., 10:07 a. m. to 12:52 p. m.; Omaha, Neb., 10:04 a. m. to 12:51 p. m.; St. Paul, Minn., 10:26 a. m. to 1:13 p. m.; Des Moines, Ia., 10:18 a. m. to 1:04 p. m.; Janesville, Wis., 10:47 a. m. to 1:33 p. m.; Santa Fé, New Mex., 8:59 to 11:49 a. m.; Wheeling, W. Va., 11:32 a. m. to 2:13 p. m.; Washington, D. C., 11:58 a. m. to 2:31 p. m.; Louisville, Ky., 11:03 a. m. to 1:44 p. m.; Denver, Col., 9:10 a. m. to 12:01 p. m.; Bismarck, Dakota, 9:44 a. m. to 12:33 p. m.; New Orleans, La., 10:28 a. m. to 1:08 p. m. Our usual notes for the sun are as follows: Rises on the 1st at 6:33; on the 16th, at 6:09; and on the 30th, at 5:45 a. m.; and sets on the corresponding days at 5:51, 6:10 and 6:22 p. m. respectively. Spring begins on the 20th at 5:21 a. m.; northward movement, 12° 6´.

THE MOON

Will be partially eclipsed on the 30th, entering the earth’s shadow at 9:50 a. m. and leaving it at 1:02 p. m. Magnitude of the eclipse, .886. As the moon does not rise with us on this date till between 6:00 and 7:00 p. m. it is evident that the eclipse will not be visible in the United States. It will be visible, however, in the western Pacific Ocean, Asia, and the eastern portions of Europe and Africa. On the 1st, moon rises at 6:42 p. m.; on the 15th, at 5:29 a. m.; and on the 31st, at 7:39 p. m. It presents the following phases: Last quarter, 8th, 1:46 p. m.; new moon, 16th, 12:28 p. m.; first quarter, 23d, 12:15 p. m.; full moon, 30th, 11:32 a. m. Farthest from earth, 9th, 3:12 p. m.; nearest earth, 23d, 3:54 p. m.; least elevation, 9th, 30° 17´ 23´´; greatest elevation, 23d, 66° 41´ 16´´ (in latitude 41° 30´ north).

MERCURY

Has a direct motion of 52° 59´ 4´´; increase in diameter, one second; on 7th, at 9:00 a. m., 1° 3´ south of Mars; 13th, at 1:00 p. m., in superior conjunction with the sun; 16th, at 8:02 p. m., 1° 37´ south of the moon; 28th, at 4:00 a. m., nearest the sun. On the 1st, 16th and 30th, rises at 6:23, 6:26 and 6:22 a. m. respectively; and sets on same days at 4:51, 6:16 and 7:42 p. m. Can be seen with naked eye on the last few evenings of the month.

VENUS

Continues as morning star throughout the month, but makes little display, both on account of her distance from us and her proximity to the sun. Her diameter diminishes from 10.6´´ to 10´´, and her time of rising is as follows: On the 1st, 6:02 a. m.; on the 16th, 5:51 a. m.; on the 30th, 5:36 a. m.; on the 6th, at 6:00 a. m., she is farthest from the sun; on 15th, at 1:42 p. m., 3° 32´ south of moon; 27th, at 10:00 p. m., 36´ south of Mars. Her motion is direct and equals 37° 23´ 30´´.

MARS

Rises on the 1st at 6:32 a. m. and sets at 5:24 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 6:00 a. m. and sets at 5:28 p. m.; on the 30th, rises at 5:33 a. m., sets at 5:25 p. m. Motion direct and amounts to 22° 25´ 38´´; diameter, 4.2´´; on 7th, at 9:00 a. m., 1° 3´ north of Mercury; 16th, at 12:50 a. m., 2° 34´ south of moon; 27th, at 10:00 p. m., 36´ north of Venus.

JUPITER

Lessens his diameter two seconds, and makes a retrograde motion of 2° 56´. On 27th, at 9:57 a. m., is 4° 40´ north of the moon. He rises on the 1st at 4:42 p. m. and sets on the 2d at 6:07 a. m.; rises on the 16th at 3:35 p. m. and sets on the 17th at 5:09 a. m.; rises on the 30th at 2:34 p. m. and sets on the 31st at 4:10 a. m.

SATURN,

As a telescopic object, is still improving, and his time of setting permits him to be viewed with less than usual inconvenience. On the 2d he sets at 1:44 a. m.; on the 17th at 12:49 a. m.; and on the 30th at 11:55 p. m., affording thus all the evening for observations. On the 7th, at 3:00 p. m., he is “in quartile,” or 90° east of the sun; on 22d, at 10:28 a. m., 3° 56´ north of the moon.

URANUS

Retrogrades 1° 12´ 23´´; his diameter remains at 3.8´´; on 2d, at 11:59 a. m., he is 1° 6´ north of moon; 21st, at 3:00 a. m., in opposition to the sun (on the other side of the sun from the earth); 29th, at 7:05 p. m., 1° 13´ north of moon; sets on the 1st at 7:31 a. m.; on the 16th, at 6:30 a. m.; on the 31st, at 5:30 a. m. Morning star till the 21st; after that evening star.

NEPTUNE,

With his diameter of 2.6´´ moves some 44´ 46´´ of arc in his orbit, which is not so slow after all when we consider that his average absolute motion is 3.36 miles per second, and that his aggregate for the 31 days of this month is a little less than nine million miles. His right ascension on the 1st is 3 hours, 15 minutes, 18 seconds, and his declination 16° 17´ 57´´ north. He sets on the 1st at 11:33 p. m.; on the 16th at 10:29 p. m.; and on the 30th at 9:43 p. m.—an evening star.

HOW TO WIN.

BY FRANCES E. WILLARD,

President National W. C. T. U.