through night and day tumble over the deep precipices to be ground to powder. rise. The avalanches heard during an ascent differ from the simple avalanches of snow, being caused by the rupture and toppling of glaciers; their thunder is an excel- Words cannot convey an idea of the magnificent view lent preventive against sleep anywhere on the monarch's of the mountains piled upon mountains which meets the flanks, as these tons upon tons of solid ice repeatedly eye of the venturesome climber standing on the monarch's summit. After the extensive panorama is fully taken in, he generally prepares to descend in entire satisfaction at having undertaken the trip. Not all is barren on the wayside even of Mont Blanc in Summer; tufts of vegetation and wild-flowers crop out here and there, and are pleasant sights amidst so much rocky, icy grandeur. Indeed from beneath the snow-bed, on the very verge of the glacier, the relative profusion of flowers of great beauty and variety is truly surprising in the most elevated Alpine regions, but, as the Alpine Summer is brief, their life is short. When parties ascend Mont Blanc their progress can be watched from several points near Chamouni, for the course lies like a map from the village to the summit, and with a good glass every step they take may be observed. There are dozens of peaks shooting up from the great chain in the immediate neighborhood of Mont Blanc; but the latter overtops them all, and can be seen on a bright day over a distance of one hundred miles. Similarly there are many glaciers flowing from its sides toward the Chamouni Valley, but the Mer de Glace is incomparably the grandest. The precipices on the mountain's side over which tumble the avalanches of ice are channeled with the furrows or grooves made in a long lapse of time. The avalanches are most numerous a little after noon, when the sun and wind exercise the greatest influence in loosening and breaking off the glacier's masses. When one of them falls the attention is first arrested by a distant roar, and in half a minute a gush of white powder, resembling a small cataract, is perceived issuing out of one of the upper grooves; it then sinks into a low fissure, and is lost, only to reappear at a stage some hundred feet below, and so on from point to point, till the mass is precipitated into the bottom gulf. Independent of the sound, which is an awe-inspiring interruption of the perfect stillness usually prevailing on the high plateaus, there is nothing that strikes the attention or fixes it upon the falling masses. The apparently insignificant white dust at each thunderous discharge is made up of blocks capable of sweeping away whole forests, or overwhelming houses and villages, were any in the way; but fortunately no harm is done by them. During early Summer three or four such discharges may be witnessed in an hour; in cold weather they are less numerous, and in Autumn scarcely any occur. The cretin is an idiot, with vacancy in his countenance, his head disproportionately large, limbs stunted or crippled, indistinctly articulating, and incapable of executing scarcely any work. He spends his days basking in the sun, and on the appearance of a stranger, becomes a clamorous beggar, ceaselessly chattering, and gladly gotten rid of at the cost of a few sous. They are allowed to roam at large, though their minds are so upset that they are often unable to find their way home when within a few feet of their doors. The disease is attributed to various causes-to snow-water, to carrying heavy weights on the head, to the soil, or the use of calcareous spring water, or to the want of a due circulation of air in certain walled-in valleys, where it mostly obtains. Strange to say, the people on one side of a valley will be afflicted by it, while on the opposite side they will be free. It appears in one spot, higher up it is unknown, and in another situation only a mile off it reappears. It is hereditary in families, but its presence is not pronounced during infancy. As a rule, it prevails in low, warm, moist situations, at the bottom of valleys, where a stagnation of water occurs, and where the Summer exhalations and Autumnal fogs arising from it are not carried off by a free circulation of air, thus doubtless being in part attributable to malaria; but whatever may be the true cause, its ravages among a portion of the mountaineers are lamentable to behold. Thanks to its annual income from foreign visitors, Chamouni is comparatively well off; but the mountaineers on the slopes roundabout have to work very hard to gain a living. Their chief dependence is in raising cows, and occasionally goats, and the making of cheese. The best cheeses are manufactured from the milk of cows fed on the most elevated pastures, and this is why the cows are driven across the Mer de Glace, to wander about in search of the rich and fattening, though scanty, pastures to be found during the Summer campaign on high, untenanted regions. The business, at best, is not very remunerative, and the cattle require great care to prevent losses. The house in which the hardy herdsman dwells with his family is only a hut built of pine logs, and weighted down with heavy stones, to prevent the fierce winds from blowing it away, for it can be located nowhere very far from gorge and precipice. According to the season and the feeding of the cattle, he has to shift his quarters, and hence keeps running, as it were, two or three abodes. The weary stranger out touring can rarely find anything in the shape of refreshment at the huts; provisions he has to carry along with him, or go without until getting back to his hotel at Chamouni, but this is no great drawback for him, as a highly whetted appetite gives spice to the fare spread before him at the table d'hote. The experienced excursionist generally starts out well supplied with eatables and drinkables. In the midst of so much magnificent scenery, exciting emotions of wonder and elevation in the mind, the mountaineers in the country surrounding Chamouni are afflicted with that mysterious disease known as "goitre," and its consequent cretinism, a condition truly pitiable. The same disease prevails in all the grandest and most beautiful Alpine valleys, whether in Switzerland or Savoy. Goitre is a swelling in front of the neck, which increases with the growth of the individual, until, in some cases, it attains an enormous size, and becomes a hideous wallet of For a near view of Alpine scenery, amidst the recesses flesh hanging pendulous down to the breast. It is not, of the mountains, the palm must be accorded to Chahowever, painful, and generally seems to be more repul- mouni and its valley, abounding in points which afford a sive to the spectator than inconvenient or hateful to the concentration of the most sublimely beautiful objects. bearer; but sometimes its increase is so prodigious that It is there the combination is most remarkable of fine he is unable to support its weight, and hence is to be met forms and great elevation in the mountains, of vast crawling along the ground under the unsightly burden. glaciers and snow-fields, of thundering avalanches, rushOn the northern edge of the Alps women are the princi- ing torrents and falling glaciers. There are many points pal sufferers from this malady, so much so that in certain whence the semi-circular array of Alpine peaks, capped districts scarcely a woman is free from it, and those who with snow and bristling with rugged rocks, may be seen have no swelling are laughed at, and called goose-necked, extending over a great distance; but not one of them all the afflicted making, as it were, a virtue of necessity; on can be compared with Chamouni. A distant view of the the southern slope of the Alps the disease prevails more colossal chain lends a degree of enchantment to it that a among the men. Cretinism, its attendant in the same near view serves somewhat to dissipate-certainly it dislocalities, is a more serious complaint, affecting the mind. I sipates the blue tint which distance alone can confer; but, after all, a near view has the advantage of making one more closely acquainted with the wonderful workings of Nature in actual, visible progress. Such an advantage is enjoyed at Chamouni to an extent unequaled elsewhere. GREEK POTTERY FROM ANTIPAROS. THE archæological treasures of Great Britain have just received a distinct and very characteristic addition in the shape of a collection-not yet, however, in the national possession of thirty or forty specimens of Greek pottery and other articles, which, dating from a prehistoric period, cannot be regarded as later than from 1400 to 1600 before the Christian era. They have been excavated in the Island of Antiparos, famous for its wonderful grotto, and for its having been the birthplace of Phidias and Praxiteles, and they are remarkable as being the first find of any importance which has responded to the enterprise of the excavator in the Cyclades or in other of the minor islands of Greece. The specimens of pottery-ware and molded are generally of the rudest description, and present singular marks of affinity with the earlier products of the ancient British artificers in the city. Into the composition of some of these terra-cotta vessels pieces of granite have been introduced, which seem to have been previously granulated for the purpose of imparting consistency to the material of the vessels with which they were incorporated. In the numerous cases of fracture this very precaution, which was intended as an element of durability, forms a special difficulty in the way of the restorer, who is apt to find a homogeneous substance the most amenable to reconstruction. On a few of the vessels which, notwithstanding their rudeness of construction, are very elegant in form, a leaf pattern is represented as the nearest approach to ornament. In addition to articles of domestic and, so to say, of artistic life, there are human figures, which are also of the rudest character, being suggestive and symbolical rather than accurately initiative. This remark applies principally to the limbs, for the faces are more finished, so far, indeed, that they are upturned in a way which is suggestive of prayer or invocation, and have the eyebrows in high relief. M. SAUVAGEON, of Valence, has studied the different phenomena which are produced in a cup of coffee when the sugar is put into it, and the results of his observation transform it into a barometer. "If, in sweetening your coffee," says M. Sauvageon, "you allow the sugar to dissolve without stirring the liquid, the globules of air contained in the sugar will rise to the surface of the liquid. If these globules form a frothy mass remaining in the centre of the cup, it is an indication of duration of fine weather; if, on the contrary, the froth forms a ring round the sides of the cup, it is a sign of heavy rain; variable weather is implied by the froth remaining stationary, but not exactly in the centre." A GOOD WIFE.-A good wife is thus described by the quaint Thomas Fuller. He says: "She commandeth her husband in equal matters by constantly obeying him. She never crosseth her husband in the springtide of his anger, but stays till it be ebbing water. Her clothes are rather comely than costly, and she makes plain cloth to be velvet by her wearing it. In her husband's sickness she feels more grief than she shows." THE EARL OF NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER OF LONDON. AMONG the friends and followers of the Pretender, the Earl of Nithsdale's name is familiar to all readers of history, and the story of his escape from the Tower of London is one of great interest. Into that terrible fortress he had been shut to die, and from out of its gloomy walls only the courage of a loving wife could deliver him. Lady Nithsdale was in Scotland when the news reached her that her husband was in prison, and condemned to death for following the fortunes of an unhappy master; and, after hastening on horseback over 300 miles of snowy roads, in fatigue and grief, she found it impossible to win a pardon for him from the King, George I. So, in her London lodgings, she sat down, not to despair and wring her hands, but devise a means to save Her faithful maid, Evans, was the her dear husband. only person she consulted at first, and these two brave women decided that Lord Nithsdale must be disguised in the dress of a lady, and so got out of the Tower. It was no easy matter to arrange, for even the visitors to condemned prisoners were strictly scanned by the guards and turnkeys. There was nothing to lose, however, and everything to gain, by the attempt. So the very evening before the execution was fixed to take place, the countess drove in a hackney-coach to the Tower, her landlady, Mrs. Mills, and a Mrs. Morgan being with her. These two kind women had consented to help the count, ess in her hazardous enterprise. Only one attendant was allowed to visit the prisoner at the same time as his wife; so Mrs. Morgan went in first, carrying the clothes which Mrs. Mills was to wear when she had taken off her own for Lord Nithsdale, for this was to be the plan. When Mrs. Morgan had paid a visit to the prisoner Mrs. Mills came up the staircase, holding her handkerchief to her face, and seemingly in great sorrow, as was only natural when going to say a last good-by. But the reason for this display of grief was that Lord Nithsdale, when leaving the prison disguised as Mrs. Mills, might continue the trick, and hold his handkerchief to his eyes; since, though his brave wife might paint and powder and dress him up, it is difficult to make a man look like a woman. Then began the great experiment of changing clothes. Mrs. Mills was soon ready in her changed raiment, and the countess, who neither flagged nor feared while there was work to be done, saw her safely out, and in a loud, earnest voice (as there were sentinels and other people listening), bade her go quickly and send her maid to her, since she must go to the King that night and present another petition for her husband's life. Mrs. Mills was not crying this time because, you remember, Lord Nithsdale was to do that when he was disguised in her clothes. Very soon, while finishing her husband's attiring, Lady Nithsdale perceived darkness coming on, and, fearful lest candlelight might betray her scheme, she hurried Lord Nithsdale out into the passage, leading him by the hand, and making believe he was one of her weeping friends. She was still talking aloud, and begging the crying lady to hasten her maid. "My dear Mrs. Betty, for the love of God run quickly," she said, "and bring her with you. You know my lodging, and if ever you made dispatch in your life, do it at present. I am almost distracted with the terrible disappointment. I want her to dress me for an audience | hands of his enemies? or the greater joy with which she with the King." The guards, who were all very sorry for the kind lady who had given them money the day before, and was in such sore trouble, looked very compassionately at her, and, doubtless, hoped that the weeping friend would hasten the maid, little thinking who was concealed beneath that hood and gown. Lady Nithsdale put her husband in front of her when she had passed them, meaning thereby to conceal his manly walk from their eyes; and every now and then, despite the need for coolness and composure, she could not help pressing him to make all possible haste. At the bot tom of the stairs stood her faithful maid Evans and Mrs. Mills, and into these good hands she gave over Lord Nithsdale. Then, always brave and collected, she went back to the empty room of the prisoner, pretending to wait for her maid, and all the while talking to her husband as if he were there, and answering to his voice. When she thought the escaped prisoner had had time to get free of the Tower precincts, she half opened the door of his chamber and wished him a formal good-night, saying aloud welcomed her husband, a fugitive, hidden in the tiny house of a poor woman, but free, and, she hoped, safe for a time? For three days the husband and wife lay concealed here, subsisting on bread and wine brought to them in Mrs. Mills's pocket, and then a new disguise was devised for Lord Nithsdale-a servant's livery-in which he went down to Dover in the Venetian Ambassador's coach-andsix, unknown to the ambassador himself, but in charge of one Mr. Mitchell, his servant. At Dover a little boat was secured, and Lord Nithsdale safely conveyed to Calais. While crossing, the wind was THE EARL OF NITHSDALE'S ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER OF LONDON.-SEE PAGE 303. she knew not what had detained her maid, but that she hoped to come to him in the morning with good tidings of a pardon; and then, cleverly pulling through the string of the latch, so that the door could not be opened from without, she prepared to leave the Tower. She forgot nothing that could help to hide her lord's escape, even telling her servant, who knew nothing of the plan, not to carry in candles till his lord sent for him. After that, the brave lady drove to her lodgings, where a Mr. Mackenzie was waiting with the petition, in case the attempt at rescue failed. Can you imagine the joy with which she took it from him, telling him she hoped there was no need of it, since his lordship was safe out of the Tower and out of the THE posses sor of an un gracious manner will never come up to the standard of a true gentleman or gentlewoman, although possibly well born and well educated. The sensation of insecurity and of being on the lookout for some ill-judged speech dissipates that safe and calm atmosphere which surrounds the truly refined. There is always a nervous dread of what may come next, and a feeling of constraint is generated. Persons who are much in the society of the ungracious, foster insensibly a guarded carefulness as to topics likely to call forth a show of ungraciousness, and a cautious manner of feeling their way on a subject, so to speak, very trying to those having to practice it. Yet, with every care taken, the failing will appear, and almost always when least expected, and on occasions seemingly the least calling for it. |