We are told that in some of the villages of France, it is customary on certain occasions, to crown young maids of true modesty and real worth, with chaplets of flowers. The engraving represents one of these ceremonies. A beautiful arch or canopy is reared over the heads of the company, and a lady of rank is about to place the wreath on the head of the "rustic maid," in the presence of the village parson, and a large collection of gay spectators. Such a tribute to moral excellence is not to be slighted, by any means. Well that those who cannot be moved by the hope of a reward of greater value, can be excited even in this way. But it is far nobler when young people of both sexes aim at crowns very different from those with which it is customary to adorn the heads of these young French maids. And what is the crown at which the young ought to aim? What, in short, would most adorn them? The "gray head" is said to be "a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness," but not otherwise. Righteousness, then, renders the gray hairs of the old a crown; but will it render the covering of younger heads a crown too? If so, what is this righteousness? Reader, if you love God, and keep his commandments, you are in the way of righteousness. And if you are in the way of righteousness, whether your hair is white, or brown, or black, or gray, you have the crown, or will have ita crown of glory that will not, like wreaths of flowers, fade away-but which is unfading, and imperishable. True righteousness is purity, holiness, excellence, -in feeling, in affection, in thought, in conversation, in action. After a little while, at the longest, there will be a mighty change in your appearance. The body that you and your friends now see, and think so much of, and call yours, will become a mass of lifeless matter, destined to putrefaction. But will the purity, and holiness of which I have been speakingthe qualities of the soul,-putrify with the body? Oh, no; never, never! The house which the soul lives in may be deserted; and may decay, but the inhabitant, the soul 124 FRAGMENTS OF BOTANY.-DEATH OF LA FAYETTE. itself, will find its way to regions hitherto unknown, perhaps; but regions where they that are "wise shall shine as the sun in the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness," or are righteous themselves, "as the stars, for ever and ever." FRAGMENTS OF BOTANY. 232 he might as well keep it, he answered, pointing to his breast: "I got a good man and a bad man here, and the good man say it is not mine, I must return it to the owner; the bad man say, why, he gave it you, and it is your own now; the good man say that's not right, the tobacco is yours, not the money; the bad man say, never mind, you got it, go buy some dram; the good man say, no, no, you must not do so; so I don't know what to do, and I think to go to sleep, but the good and the bad man keep talking all night and trouble me; and now I bring the money back, I feel good." It No. 1. IS THE TIGER FLOWER OF MEXICO. It is very pretty, but very shortlived. comes forth quickly, but disappears also quickly. It has scarcely shown itself, before it is gone. Alas! this is not the only living thing that "fleeth, even as a shadow, and continueth not." No. 2. IS THE SCABIOUS, OR WIDOW FLOWER. How do you like it? It is very fragrant and has the smell of honey. And some people imagine that its clusters of flowers, with their gaping mouths, resemble the honeycomb. THE HONEST INDIAN.-An Indian being among his white neighbors, asked for a little tobacco to smoke, and one of them having some loose in his pocket, gave him a handful. The day following the Indian came back inquiring for the donor, saying he had found a quarter of a dollar among the tobacco. Being told that as it was given him At the end of forty or forty-five days after silkworms are hatched, they begin to change to a clear, transparent pink, or flesh color, particularly on their tails. Soon after, they grow restless, and begin to refuse their food. When these symptoms appear, it is time to prepare for their spinning. The first thing is to roll up small, square pieces of paper, corner-wise, and pin them to a piece of tape stretched across the wall of a room; and with their pointed ends downward. When one of the worms entirely quits its food, it should be placed on one of these little workshops, as we may properly call them. In these, the worm spins its web. The web is then arranged in such a manner as to leave a cavity within. This is called the cocoon. Here the worm casts its skin once more, and its appearance now changes altogether; becoming short, thick, and enclosed in a dark brown, shining case. It is now called, as I have formerly told you, an aurelia, chrysalis, or nympha. It should not be disturbed in its labors, till by gently shaking the cocoon, at your ear, you can hear a rattling in it. It is then time to wind off the silk. If this is not done, within twenty days, there will be another striking change. The chrysalis becomes a moth, and bursts its way out of the cocoon. But this would injure the silk, therefore it must not be allowed, except in the case of a few, to lay eggs for the ensuing year. The cocoons are carefully removed from the place where the animals had formed them, and placed in large vessels, each 126 SILKWORMS-THE COCOONS. 234 covered with a thick blanket. They are fresh cocoons, as fast as the first become then exposed to heat sufficiently powerful exhausted. to destroy the life of the pupae, within them; but not to spoil the silk. This is generally done by placing the vessels containing the cocoons, in an oven, heated to about the same degree as that of a baker's oven, after his loaves are withdrawn. Here they are suffered to remain about an hour. They are then withdrawn, but the blanket which covered them is not removed, under about five or six hours. There is one thing, however, which is to be done, before baking the cocoons. It is to clean them of all dirt and dead leaves which adhere to them. This is usually done before they are removed from the places where they were spun. The engraving represents the Eastern manner of performing this task. They next wind the silk off from the cocoons. For this purpose, after the rough outsides are removed, several handfuls of them at a time are thrown into a vessel containing water, and placed over a gentle fire. The water is then to be heated almost, but not quite, to the boiling point. A short, slinted brush, formed of heath or any other shrub of that description, is now gently Hoved about, among the cocoons, and on withdrawing it from the water, the ends of the silk are found to have adhered to it, in several places. See the engraving on the next page. The person who is to wind the silk, then gathers together, with her fingers, as many ends as she intends the first description of thread to consist of, and hands them to an assistant, whose business it is to turn the reel, as soon as the silk is laid upon it. In the mean time, the principal work-woman continually adds to the threads the ends of The silk when reeled off, in this manner, is called singles, and is used in weaving, to form the weft, that is, the thread that crosses the cloth, from side to side. Another description of silk thread are called trams. These consist of two or three singles, twisted together to form a stronger thread. But the strongest and most valuable sort is the organzine, which is formed by placing skeins of singles upon a reel, and as they are wound off, twisting them strongly, by means of ma chinery. Two or three of these are then taken, and the whole again twisted together to form a stronger thread. This thread is the organzine, and is used for the warp, or length of the cloth. The process of making organzine is called throwing; and the throwsters form a very important branch of the silk business. The engraving represents the process of winding off the silk into singles; but the person who winds, appears to have left her post for a moment, to blow the fire. It is the Chinese process, but cannot differ essentially from the method pursued in this and in other countries. The length of reeled silk, obtained from a single cocoon, varies from 300 to 600 yards. It has also been estimated that 12 pounds of cocoons, the produce of the labors of 2,800 worms, who have consumed 152 pounds of mulberry leaves, give one pound of reeled silk; which may be converted into 16 yards of the kind of silk cloth called gros de naples. Silk, after being thrown or twisted, is called hard silk, and must be boiled, in order to get rid of the guin which is in it, for otherwise, it will be harsh, and will not receive the dye. After boiling about four hours, in soap suds, it is washed in clear water, to loom. Winding silk from the Cocoons. discharge the soap, when it is ready for the But there are some people, whose health would sometimes be improved by wearing silk. There are also some states of the atmosphere, in which silk clothing would be very useful to almost every body. But we cannot go deeply into this subject at present. There is one fact which ought never to be forgotten. It is that no other insect will eat the leaves of the mulberry, but the silkworm. Is not this a most remarkable provision of Divine Providence? Many people think it very great folly to spend time in making silk. "Why it is used for mere ornament," they say. "The proper uses of dress are to cover our bodies, to keep us warm, and to defend our skin from many injuries which it would otherwise receive; but silk is not half so good for the two latter purposes as woollen or cotton." Now these remarks, often made, are not without truth, as silk is now generally used. FROM LANDER'S JOURNAL IN AFRICA. Many wonen, with little wooden figures of children on their heads, passed us in the course of the morning; mothers, who having lost a child, carry such rude imitations of them about their persons, for an indefinite term, as a symbol of mourning. None of them could be induced to part with one of these little affectionate emblems. The mortality of children must be in |