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other things with these thin leaves, and make them look like gold; but the metals which are more common are quite as useful.

Zinc is hard, and makes good roofing, and weather-cocks, and foot-baths.

Lead is easily rolled out and bent, and so we make pipes of it, and cover our gutters and flat roofs with it.

Copper is used to make pots and pans and kettles. They will last a long time; but they must be kept very clean, because the rust is poisonous.

Tin is soft and easily beaten out, and will not rust; so it is used as a lining to copper saucepans and other vessels, that they may be always sweet and clean. What we call tin-plate, is commonly a thin sheet of iron, covered over with a thin coating of tin.

The most useful as well as the most common of all metals is Iron. Remember that steel is made from iron, and think how many times iron is used before we can get a slice of bread.

First the ground must be ploughed with an iron plough-share, and raked

with an iron harrow after the seed is sown. Then, when the weeds spring up, we want an iron hoe; and when the ears are ripe, the corn must be cut with a steel sickle.

You can scarcely get it out of the field without a waggon, which has wheels bound round with iron tires, not to mention the iron hooks, the iron bolts, and the iron chains in the harness.

When the corn is at the mill we find the millstones are moved by iron wheels; and when it is carried home in the shape of flour, and kneaded into dough, it is put into the oven with an iron shovel.

You cannot even cut a slice from the baked loaf without a steel knife. Your clothes are cut out with steel scissors, and sewn with steel needles. What would a tailor do without his iron thimble and

his iron goose? What would the

cobbler do without his steel awl? The carpenter could not do without his chisel; the bricklayer without his trowel; the digger without his spade.

None of these tools can be made without iron; and the washer-woman must have

her flat irons and box irons, and even her mangle could scarcely be made without iron.

Why is it that iron is so useful? Because it is so fit for tools. Tools are those things with which man works; and when we have searched all the world, we shall find nothing worth so much as man's labour.

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THERE is nothing so common as water. We go down to the sea, and there we see water far and wide, tossing up and down, now coming towards us, and now going back, never at rest.

Water runs smoothly in the river as we walk along its bank; it stands in pools and ponds; it lies cool and fresh

in deep wells; and sometimes gushes out of the earth in springs and fountains.

The water of the sea is so salt that we cannot drink it; the water of ponds and rivers is fresh, though sometimes muddy, and not always sweet; but the water of springs and wells is the clearest and best.

Water is seen in many forms.

In the heat of the day it rises in vapour from the earth. In the cool evening it falls again in dew; and often in the morning it hangs in over the river, or is along the hills.

wreaths of fog driven in mist

The clouds consist of a vast number of little balls or globes of watery vapour, closely packed together. The vapour of water is lighter than dry air;—this is why the clouds float in the air. At times these globules, being quickly chilled, run together and fall in the form of rain.

When it is very cold, water freezes and becomes ice; and the ice on ponds is often so hard and thick that we can walk, skate, or slide upon it quite safely.

Water from the clouds sometimes freezes as it falls, and then it comes down to the ground in flakes of snow; sometimes it is turned at once into ice by a storm in the air, and then it comes down in hail-stones.

When the vapour in the air freezes, it becomes rime, and on a bright winter's day we often see the rime upon the branches of the trees glistening in the sun like white feathers.

When water boils, a vapour rises from it which is called steam. It may often be seen coming out of the spout of a tea-kettle, and looks like white smoke.

Vapour,-dew,-fog,-mist,-clouds, -rain,-icc,-snow.-hail,-rime,-and steam are all water in different forms.

You live in a land which has water all round it. If you want to go to some foreign country, you must go in a ship; a ship can move along upon the water.

Some ships are made to move by the wind; tall, upright poles, called masts, are fixed to the ship, and sails are

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