bottom, when it has been dug a few hours, though there has been no rain, and the ground above is quite dry and hard. A well is only like a grave, a hole dug down very deep in the earth, and then water soaks through the earth into it, and we can draw it out with a bucket, or pump it up. So you see a well, after all, is only like the rainwater tank-a place where the water, that fell when it rained, has been collected till we want to use it. We have not seen yet why it tastes different and looks clearer; but I told you it fed the plants as soon as it fell on the ground. Now plants are not made of water only, so they get something else out of the rain besides moisture. Take some dirty water and strain it through a piece of white cloth, or filter it, as we say, and you will find some little black specks left on the cloth, and the water you have filtered will be clearer. Some of you may have seen a drop of rain-water magnified in a microscope, and seen it full of all kinds of curious ugly-looking animals. Many of these are filtered out of it, and all the bits of dust and dirt it has carried along with it off the roof, or the ground, as it ran away. Then, as it falls deeper into the ground, the close soil acts like the cloth, and filters more and more of this dirt and these little creatures out of it, till it is almost quite pure, when it gets into the well. Some soil does this better than other soil, and so some water has less taste about it than other water even out of a well. If the soil is clay, it cannot get through it so easily, and you will find the rain-water stand about on clay fields in ponds, and the roads all round are muddy; but if the soil is gravel, the surface soon dries, because the water falls through it very quickly.

When it rains, as we have seen, it rains all over the country for many miles, sometimes all over England at once. But all the country is not flat like a yard. Some of you live in a part, where there are hills and mountains standing up out of the ground like huge houses or factories, with their tops reaching up into the clouds, so that in some places you can hardly see the tops, as in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and

in Scotland and Wales. These hills and mountains are like the roofs of houses. They are made of rocks of stone with very little growing upon them, and so there is very little soil to suck up the rain, and they are so steep (like the roof of a house), that the rain-water pours down them before it has time to sink into the ground. It runs down their sides (just as it runs down the slates of a house) till it gets into some little nick or gutter, and then on it goes, till several of these gutters meet, and wear away a wider and a deeper gutter, until more of these join one another and make a brook, which runs on till it meets another brook, and another, and then it has got so large we call it a River, which joins another river, and so on, till it runs down into the sea, carrying nearly one-third of the water there that has fallen on the mountains; another third has been drawn up by the sun, and the rest has soaked into the ground of the valleys to make the crops grow and feed the wells. You will now see how it is that the seas and oceans never get dried up. The sun is always drawing up wet out of them in the shape of steam, which floats about in clouds till it gets cooled, and then it falls in rain upon the earth, waters it, or runs back to the sea, and is drawn up again by the sun. It never really gets dried up, it only rises in steam above the ground, and then comes down again in rain. If it were not for this constant rising and falling of water, the air would get so dry that the trees could not live, the grass would all be parched, and our own throats would get dry, our lips cracked, and we should be suffocated. You know how close it feels sometimes in the school, and even out of doors, on a very hot day in summer, especially just before a thunderstorm; we feel as if we could hardly breathe; but what must be the feelings of people who live in very hot countries, where it very seldom rains?

It does not rain in all countries as often as it does in ours. Round the centre of the earth, which we call the Tropics, it only rains during one part of the year. It then comes down in torrents, such as we never see here,

and begins with a storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning. "When the thunder has ceased nothing is heard for several days but the rush of the falling rain, and the roar of the swelling streams. In a few days the storm ceases, and the earth, which was withered by the hot atmosphere of the dry season, is now, as if by magic, suddenly clothed with the richest verdure, and the air above feels pure and balmy. After this the rains fall at intervals for about a month, when they again return with great violence, till they attain their height, after which they subside gradually." This lasts for about six months, and then the rest of the year there is not a single drop of rain.

You will now, I think, understand how rivers are formed, and that the slopes of mountains are like the roofs of houses, catching the rain and throwing it down into the valleys, which resemble the flat ground about our houses, and the rivers do the work of the under-ground pipes or drains, that carry the water away into the big wells-lakes, seas, and oceans.

The great plains of Africa, Arabia, and Persia are almost without any rain, because the sun draws up nearly all the moisture in the clouds that floats there from other regions, and there are no mountains sufficiently lofty to cool the vapour in the clouds and bring it down in rain. So those plains have no rivers, and scarcely get watered at all, therefore hardly anything grows there, and no one lives there. We call them deserts, for they are deserted both by people and cattle, and vegetation-dry sandy wastes.

Then again in the very cold countries towards the north and south poles-some parts of Russia, Siberia, Norway, and Sweden-there is no rain in winter, because it is too cold, and they get their rain in summer; but we have most of ours in winter. But they have snow in winter, covering the mountains, which melts during the summer, and waters the whole country, making things grow very quickly. So they get a double quantity of water, and if you look at the map, you will see a great many rivers and lakes in the countries I have named.-Rev. J. Ridgway.

"PRESS ON: A RIVULET'S SONG.

JUST under an island, 'midst rushes and moss,
I was born of a rock-spring, and dew;
I was shaded by trees, whose branches and leaves
Ne'er suffered the sun to gaze through.

I wandered around the steep brow of a hill,
Where the daisies and violets fair

Were shaking the mist from their 'wakening eyes,
And pouring their breath on the air.

Then I crept gently on, and I moistened the feet
Of a shrub, which enfolded a nest ;
The bird, in return, sang his merriest song,
And showed me his feathery crest.

How joyous I felt in the bright afternoon,
When the sun, riding off in the west,
Came out in red gold from behind the green trees,
And burnished my tremulous breast!

My memory now can return to the time

When the breeze murmured low plaintive tones, While I wasted the day in dancing away,

Or playing with pebbles and stones.

It points to the hour when the rain pattered down,
Oft resting awhile in the trees;

Then, quickly descending, it ruffled my calm,
And whispered to me of the seas.

'Twas then the first wish found a home in my
To increase as time hurries along;

breast

'Twas then I first learned to lisp softly the words, Which I now love so proudly-“ Press on !”

I'll make wider my bed, as onward I tread,
A deep, mighty river I'll be-

"Press on!" all the day will I sing on my way,
Till I enter the far-spreading sea.

It ceased. A youth lingered beside its green edge
Till the stars in its face brightly shone;
He hoped the sweet strain would re-echo again—
But he just heard a murmur,-
"Press on!"

Household Words.

THE OVERFLOW OF THE NILE.

IN England every one talks about the weather, and all conversation is opened by exclamations against the heat or the cold, the rain or the drought; but in Egypt, during one part of the year at least, the rise of the Nile forms the general topic of conversation. Sometimes the ascent is unusually rapid, and then nothing is talked of but inundations; for if the river overflows too much, whole villages are washed away; and as they are for the most part built of sunburnt bricks and mud, they are completely annihilated; and when the waters subside, all the boundary marks are obliterated, the course of the canals is altered, and mounds and embankments are washed away. On these occasions the smaller landholders have great difficulty in recovering their property; for few of