gravity of society, and wander like a child amid the beauty which God has spread out with such a lavish hand over the earth. Why, I should as soon think of feeling reproved for gazing on the midnight heavens, gorgeous with stars, and fearful with its mysterious floating worlds. I believe that every man degenerates without frequent communion with nature. It is one of the open books of God, and more replete with instructions than anything ever penned by man. A single tree standing alone, and waving all day long its green crown in the summer wind, is to me fuller of meaning and instruction than the crowded mart or gorgeously built town.

LONG LAKE COLONYA LOON-FORKED LAKE.

FORKED LAKE, August.

DEAR H

TAKING Mitchell along with me, we embarked on Monday in his birch bark canoe for Forked and Raquette Lakes. Paddling leisurely up Long Lake, I was struck with the desolate appearance of the settlement. Scarcely an improvement has been made since I was last here, while some clearings are left to go back to their original wildness. Disappointed purchasers, lured in by extravagant statements, have given up in despondency and left-the best people are all going away, and in a short time there will be nobody left but hunters. This wilderness will be encroached upon in time, though it will require years to give us so crowded a population as to force settlements into this desolate interior of the State.

But our light canoes soon left the last clearing; and curving round the shore, we shot into Raquette River, and entered the bosom of the forest. As we left the lake, I saw a northern diver some distance up the inlet, evidently anxious to get out once more into open space. These birds (about the size of a goose,) you know, cannot rise from the water except by a long effort, and against a strong damp wind; and depend for safety entirely on diving, and swimming. At the approach of danger, they go under like a duck, and when you next see them, they are perhaps sixty rods distant, and beyond the reach of your bullet. If cornered in a small pond, they will sit and watch your motions with a keenness and certainty that is wonderful, and dodge the flash of a percussion-lock gun all day long. The moment they see the blaze from the muzzle they dive, and the bullet, if well aimed, will strike exactly where they sat. I have shot at them again and again, with a dead rest, and those watching, would see the ball each time, strike in the hollow made by the wake of the water above the creature's back. There is no killing them except by firing at them when they are not expecting it, and then their head and neck are the only