6

Queen Mab now found

hazel nut In the end

which a hole was cut By the tooth of Mas_ter Squirrel Come

and gases produced by internal fires have forced up the bottom of a large sea, in these latitudes, into open day! A similar phenomenon is said to be going on at the present time in the Baltic Sea, the bottom of which is found to be gradually rising.

It must be within the recollection of many, that an island suddenly rose in the Mediterranean, upon which some sailors landed; it shortly sank and disappeared. A striking instance of matter being forced up from the interior of the earth, occured in a coal-pit at the Whitwick Colliery. It was found that some portion of red-hot granite had been forced upwards through a bed of coal, which it charred on all sides. We have now a new theory, which contradicts our former notions. Instead of the earth sinking, it is ascertained that our islands have been, by internal operations, pushed up from below. When first emerged from the ocean, the mud on the surface before it became hardened, received impressions of the steppings of birds, some of which, from the size of their feet and gigantic stride, could not be of less height than a moderate-sized house. So fine and accurate are these impressions, thus covered up for millions of years, that we may perceive the marks of a shower of rain upon them; and from the slanting way in which the drops fell, we may even ascertain the point from which the wind blew.

The learned Professor described the gigantic Plesiosaurus, now placed in our Museum, as the most

R

curious and perfect specimen in the country. From the vast length of the neck he supposes that it killed its prey by the powerful blow it could give; and that it was a carnivorous animal, as bones have been found fossilized in its stomach. Like the crocodile, it could live upon land as well as in the sea; and by the enormous size of its paddles, its power and swiftness in the water must have been prodigious.

We have thus at our own doors, the marvellous records of a former condition of the animal creation, which have lain buried in the earth for myriads of years. These were the inhabitants of an ocean, at one time covering, with many hundred fathoms of salt water, the tract which now forms England and the neighbouring isles, and the continent of Europe.

CHAPTER LXV.

VACCINATION.

The value of Literary societies cannot be too highly estimated. Lectures are the readiest mode of conveying information. Everything that has been said and written upon the subject to be presented to the enquiring mind, is brought into one point of view by the lecturer, by which means the hearers are saved