lump of loaf sugar so that one end touches my tea, in a minute or two the whole lump will be filled with moisture. What is the reason of it? 3. In the winter, when the weather is very cold, the inside of the window will be covered with vapour, so that you can write your name upon the glass. What makes the window damp, and why do you see this in the winter, and not in the summer?

4. Then in warm weather, when you fill a glass with cold water, the glass will be covered on the outside with vapour; and if the day is very warm the water will run down the sides of the glass. I asked my teacher, when I was a child, what was the reason of it; and he said the heat forced the water through the pores of the glass! Bravo! What do you say?

I wish a good many of my young friends who have paid attention to the study of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry would write answers for these questions.

THEODORE THINKER.

A CHEAP TELESCOPE. WE have been requested to state, in few words, the cheapest and best way of forming a telescope for common observations, and know of none better than the following, which we take from Dick's "Solar System," published by the Tract Society:-"A common refracting telescope for viewing some of the celestial bodies may be constructed as follows: Procure a convex glass, whose focal distance is about three feet. This may be known

by holding the glass in the sun's rays and measuring the distance between the glass and the place where the solar rays are condensed into a small spot. Place this lens at the end of a tube about three feet two inches long, in which there is a small sliding tube for fixing the eye-glass, and adjusting the focus for distinct vision. At the distance of three feet one inch place a convex glass one inch focal distance. The object glass will form a picture in its focus of all the objects which are directly opposite to it, and this picture will be seen magnified in looking through the eye-glass. The magnifying power, in this case, will be in the proportion of three feet, or thirty six-inches, to one inch; that is, the instrument will magnify the diameters of all objects thirty-six times, or make them appear thirty-six times nearer than when viewed by the naked eye; but as the image formed by the object glass is in an inverted position, all terrestrial objects will appear through it as turned upside down. The opening at the object-glass, which lets in the light, should not exceed an inch in diameter.

"With such a telescope, which may be constructed for five or six shillings, if the tubes be made of paper or pasteboard, the satellites of Jupiter, the crescent of Venus, the solar spots, and the inequalities on the surface of the moon, may be distinguished. Galileo's telescope, with which he made the first discoveries in the heavens, did not magnify more than such a telescope."-From the "Solar System," Part 2, page 191.

BOOKS FOR GENERAL

READERS.

THE MOTHER'S FRIEND; a Monthly Magazine, edited by Ann Jane. To aid and encourage those Mothers who have little time to read, and little money to spend on books. Vol. I., 1848. London: Benj. Green, Paternoster-row.

We hailed the appearance of this work when its first number appeared with no common feelings of pleasure, and as successive months have passed, bringing us fresh stores from its devoted editor's head and hand, our pleasure has increased, and our conviction deepened, that it was amongst the best and most useful periodicals of our land. And now the whole first volume is before us -a beautiful, interesting, valuable book, designed professedly for our poorer and less educated mothers, yet in reality fully fitted, for original matter, elegant writing, and intrinsic merit, to take its place with any issue from the press, whatever be its pretensions, designed to aid the mothers of our land. It is full of admirably written papers from the pen of its gifted editor, with the productions of other no less gifted minds. All, too, is not for the mother. There is much for the father, and no lack for the children, while good sense, and withal such a cheerful spirit, pervade the whole, that none can read the book without receiving profit and delight.

We have made a brief extract from it this month, not so much as

a specimen of its style, as a suitable word of warning to our youthful readers at this turning of the year.

We commend the book to all our maternal societies and Sunday school institutions through the land.

ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE; or, A

Familiar History, for Young Persons, of the Country, and the Social and Domestic Manners of its Inhabitants. By Emily Taylor. Third edition. London: Houlston

and Stoneman.

The history of England, as ordinarily presented to young people, is little more than the history of its kings, their battles, and public movements. The true history of England,-the history of the peopletheir advancement in social improvement-their change of mannerstheir rise in mind, is seldom or never properly brought out. Hence it is that our youth on leaving school generally know nothing of the real history of their ancestors, and can only tell you the names of certain kings, the dates of the most celebrated battles, and a few meagre and ex parte accounts of a small proportion of the great events which have led to our present position in the world. The history before us aims at bringing out the people to view; and makes them rather than their kings and generals, the leading subject of remark. These, of course, are not left out. Their histories are sufficiently well given; but the nation itself is brought more out to