the water, is built without mortar or any other cement; and its elevation above the bed of the river Gardon, is not less than a hundred and fifty feet. The extremities of this splendid structure are in a dilapidated condition, but the remainder is in a very good state of preservation.

EXTRAORDINARY SITUATION FOR A TREE.

The Lower and Middle Lakes at Killarney are separated by a peninsula, upon which stands the ruin of the Abbey of Muckross, which was founded in 1440, and re-edified in 1602. The ruin, which consists of parts of the convent and church, is not remarkable either for extent, or for beauty of workmanship, but its preservation, seclusion, beauty of situation, and accompanying venerable trees, render it one of the most interesting abbey remains in Ireland. The entire length of the church is about 100 feet, its breadth 24. The cloister, which consists of twenty-two arches, ten of them semi-circular, and twelve pointed, is

the best preserved portion of the abbey. In the centre grows a magnificent yew-tree, as represented in our engraving, which covers as a roof the whole area; its circumference is thirteen feet, and its height in proportion. It is more than probable that the tree is coeval with the abbey, and that it was planted by the hands of the monks who first inhabited the building. It is believed by the common people that any person daring to pluck a branch, or in any way attempting to injure this tree, will not be alive on that day twelvemonth.

PRAYING BY MACHINERY.

Mr. Moorcroft informs us, in his "Journey to Lake Manasawara, in Undés, a province in Little Thibet," that the inhabitants used the following most extraordinary way of saying their prayers :-It is done by motion, which may be effected by the powers of steam, wind, or water. A large hollow cylinder, like a drum, is erected, within which is inclosed all the written prayers the people choose to offer, and then it is set going, by being whirled round its own axis; thus saving the trouble of repeating them. Mr. Turner, whose travels in Thibet_are before the public, corroborates the account of these whirligigs. They are common, also, among the Monguls, the Calmucks, and the Kalkas; so that the engineers for these pious wheels must have a tolerably extensive trade, as this national mode of worship is naturally liable to wear out. But even this mode is innocence itself, compared with that of a set of savages, who pray people to death; for Lisiansky, in his Voyage round the World, gives us an account of an extra-religious sect, in the Sandwich Islands, who arrogate to themselves the power of praying people to death. Whosoever incurs their displeasure, receives notice that the homicide-litany is about to begin; and such are the effects of imagination, that the very notice is frequently sufficient, with these weak people, to produce the effect, or to drive them to acts of suicide.

TOPING IN THE LAST CENTURY.

At a Somersetshire hunt dinner, seventy years since, thirteen toasts used to be drunk in strong beer; then every one did as he liked. Some members of the hunt occasionally drank a glass of wine at the wind up, who were not themselves previously wound up. In country towns, after a dinner at one o'clock P.M., friends used to meet to discuss the local news over their glasses of strong beer, the merits of which furnished a daily theme. At Bampton one knot of gentlemen took four times the duration of the Trojan war, and even then failed to settle which of the party brewed the best beer.

A FINE OLD SOLDIER.

Jeremiah Atkins, of the Scar, near Bromyard, Herefordshire, died in 1796, aged 102. He had been a soldier through all the earlier periods of his manhood, and had seen much service; was present at the taking of Martinico, and at the Havannah; and, on one occasion, being taken prisoner by the Indians of North America, was very near being scalped, as he was only rescued at the moment they were about to perform the

operation. He was likewise at the taking of Crown Point, in America, and in the battle of Fontenoy with the Duke of Cumberland, whom he also accompanied in his resistance to the advance of the Scotch rebels, being in several of the skirmishes and battles fought on that occasion. He afterwards went again to America, and took part in the storming of Quebec, when Wolfe was killed. The last battle in which he was engaged was that of Tournay, in Flanders. This extraordinary man retained the full use of all his natural faculties, save hearing, to the very close of his life.

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POPULAR FALLACY OF THE VIRTUES OF A SEVENTH SON.

It is believed that a seventh son can cure diseases, but that a seventh son of a seventh son, and no female child born between, can cure the king's evil. Such a favoured individual is really looked on with veneration. An artist visiting Axminster in 1828, noticing the indulgence granted to one urchin in preference to others, and seeing something purticular in this child, addressed his mother as follows:- This little man appears to be a favourite: I presume he is your little Benjamin." He's a seventh son, sir," said the mother. Affecting an air of surprise, I expressed myself at the instant as being one very anxious to know what a seventh son could do? The mother, a very civil woman, told me that "she did think, to cure all diseases, should be the seventh son of a seventh son; but many folk do come to touch my son." In April, 1826, a respectable looking woman was engaged in collecting a penny from each of thirty young women, unmarried; the money to be laid out in purchasing a silver ring, to cure her son of epileptic fits. The money was to be freely given, without any consideration, or else the charm would have been destroyed. The young women gave their pence, because it would have been a pity for the lad to continue afflicted if the charm would cure him.

SELF-NOURISHMENT.

That animals may sometimes be kept alive for a long time solely on nourishment supplied from their own bodies, is evident from the fact that after a great fall of earth on one occasion from the cliff at Dover, which buried a whole family, a hog was found alive five months and nine days after it had thus been buried! It weighed about seven score when the accident happened, and had wasted to about thirty pounds, but was likely to do well.

CHINESE METHOD OF FISHING.

There is nothing more extraordinary in the history of the different nations of the world than the ingenuity of the Chinese. They are the most handy people on the face of the earth, and the lower orders are just as clever as the higher. A proof of this may be seen at a fishing village which is contiguous to the town of Victoria, in Hong Kong. It remains in much the same state as that in which it existed prior to the British occupation of the island. Old worn-out boats, and torn mat-sails, bamboos and dried rushes, these are the principal materials employed in the construction of their domiciles. The fishing boats are most inge

niously built. Each of these has a long projecting bamboo, which is rigged out from the stem in the form of a bowsprit, only working on a pivot. From the extremity of this outrigger, a strong rope communicates with a balance-board, that exactly poises the bamboo outrigger, when the net is immersed in water, and the fisherman has only to walk up and down this plank to raise the net and let it drop again in the water. But opposite to the island, and on many of the little insular rocks which constitute the "ten thousand isles," of which the emperor of China, amongst his vast pretensions to titles, lays claim to be lord, fishing is conducted on a larger scale, though worked upon the same principles. Huge poles are driven into the ground where the water is comparatively shallow, and leading ropes, which pass over a block-wheel inserted in the tops of these poles, communicate at

one end with large circular nets, (constructed somewhat in the shape of a funnel, the upper rim being attached to floats, whilst from the centre are pendant weights,) the other end being fastened on shore to a balance plank, which the weight of one man suffices to work.

MOSQUE OF OMAR.

The opposite engraving represents the Great Mosque at Jerusalem. It is built on the exact site of Solomon's Temple, and takes its name from its original founder, the Caliph Omar. It is a Turkish edifice, and is devoted to the worship of Mahomet.

Titus having taken Jerusalem in the second year of Vespasian's reign, not one stone was left upon another of that Temple where Christ had done such glorious things, and the destruction of which he had predicted. When the Caliph Omar took Jerusalem, in 636 A.D., it appears that the site of the Temple, with the exception of a very small part, had been abandoned by the Christians. Said-Eben-Batrick, an Arabian

historian, relates that the Caliph applied to the Patriarch Sophronius, and enquired of him what would be the most proper place at Jerusalem for building a mosque. Sophronius conducted him to the ruins of Solomon's Temple. Omar, delighted with the opportunity of erecting a a mosque on so celebrated a spot, caused the ground to be cleared, and the earth to be removed from a large rock, where God is said to have conversed with Jacob. From that rock the new mosque took its name of Gameat-el-Sakhra, and became almost as sacred an object to the Mussulmans, as the mosques of Mecca and Medina. The Caliph ElOulid contributed still more to the embellishment of El-Sakhra, and covered it with a dome of copper, gilt, taken from a church at Balbeck. In the sequel, the crusaders converted the Temple of Mahomet, into a sanctuary of Christ; but when Saladin re-took Jerusalem, he restored this edifice to its original use.

The form is an octagon, either side being seventy feet in width; it is entered by four spacious doors, the walls are white below, intermingled with blue, adorned with pilasters, but above, it is faced with glazed tiles of various colours. The interior is described as paved with grey marble, the plain walls are covered with the same material in white It contains many noble columns, in two tiers. The dome is painted, and gilt in arabesque, whence depend antique vessels of gold and silver; immediately beneath it stands a mass of limestone, reported to have fallen from heaven when the spirit of prophecy commenced. On this sat the destroying angel, during the slaughter caused by David's numbering the