"MORE than half my boys never saw the rea, and never were in London; and it is surprising how the first of these disadvantages interferes with their understanding much of the ancient poetry." So said and wrote Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, one of the wisest and noblest men who ever devoted the best years of a valuable life to the instruction and guidance of youth. And truly it is a great and valuable privilege to behold the mighty ocean, and search for the myriad phases of animal and vegetable life that present themselves to the observer's eye every time the receding tide leaves bare the margin over which the bounding waves flowed but an hour ago. "O sea! old sea! who yet knows half Of thy wonders, or thy pride? wrote one who himself had, with no unobservant eye, marked those wonders and rejoiced in that pride. Remarkably true it is what Mr. Gosse, the patient, indefatigable naturalist, tells us in one of his admirable books: "When once we have begun to look with curiosity upon the strange beings that ordinary people pass over without notice, our wonder is continually excited by the variety of phase, and often by the uncouthness of form, under which some of the meaner creatures are presented to us; and this is very specially the case with the inhabitants of the sea. We can scarcely poke or pry for an hour among the rocks at low-water-mark, or walk, with an observant, downcast eye along the beach after a gale, without finding some oddly-fashioned, suspicious-looking being, unlike any form of life that we have seen before. The dark, concealed interior of the sea becomes thus invested with a fresh mystery, its vast recesses appear to be stored with all imaginable forms, and we are tempted to believe that there must be multitudes of living creatures whose very figure and structure have never yet been suspected.' Yes, truly, the sea teems with wonders, and is in itself a marvel of wisdom and might; and we have never been able to understand how so many boys can pass week after week, and month after month, by its margin, and at last know no more when they return home than when they left. Eating, and drinking, and idling are not the end and aim of a sea-side visit, dear boys; there are thousands of things to be learned, and admired, and wondered at; and although we do not by any means expect that all your tastes should point the same way, or that you should all take interest in the same things, we should form a very low estimate of the mental capacity of any boy who could pass his holidays at the seaside without doing anything more useful than taking purposeless strolls, and lounging about on parades and terraces. Not every boy is born to be a young naturalist; to take interest in the wonders of the beach and of the rocks, and eagerly to collect treasures from the limpid pools left by the receding tide, is not an occupation in which all can take delight; but for those whose tastes are athletic rather than scientific, there are other and no less interesting pursuits. To learn to use the muscles and develop the strength by rowing-to sharpen the wits and learn steadiness and quickness by practising the management of a sailing-boat-to practise sea-fishing, or swimming, or pedestrianism-these and a dozen similar occupations there are, from which the young visitors may select the one that suits them best. But our advice to one and all-advice earnestly given and heartily urged upon themis this have some pursuit or occupation; and, whatever it may be, follow it zealously. Be determined that you will learn something during your holidays, if it be only how to plunge head foremost, or how to fish for mackerel. Let "something attempted, something done" each day earn you "a night's repose," as it did to the village blacksmith in Longfellow's poem. A question is sometimes asked, with regard to the sea, by those who approach it through one of the large rivers, such as the Thames or Humber"How is it that the sea never gets full?" and when we consider the immense volume of water continually pouring down such tremendous rivers as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and Missouri, in America, not to speak of our European Rhine, Elbe, and others, the question seems natural enough, and a very interesting one it is. Without wishing to make our "Handy Book" too scientific, we will ask our young readers to follow us carefully while we attempt to give them an idea of the law that keeps the wonderful ocean at its just equilibrium, not permitting it to overflow the land, but saying, as it were, with the voice of Almighty power, to the raging waves-"Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." Lieutenant Maury, of the United States navy, answers this question admirably in his work on the "Physical Geography of the Sea." There are two great agencies continually at work, two great operations continually going on, in which the ocean and the atmosphere work together. These two operations are called PRECIPITATION and EVAPORATION. Maury well observes: "To distribute moisture over the earth, and to temper the climate of different latitudes, it would seem, are the two great offices assigned by their Creator to the ocean and the air;" and by these two As operations of precipitation and evaporation, these offices are carried on. Precipitation is the falling of moisture from the atmosphere, in the form of rain, hail, snow, or mist; evaporation, the drawing up of moisture from the water into the air, in the form of vapour. Now, in some parts of the earth's surface, evaporation exceeds precipitation; that is to say, more moisture is drawn up into the atmosphere in the form of vapour than is cast down again in the shape of hail, rain, snow, or dew; while, in other latitudes, the reverse is the case. Around the equator, for instance, there is a region or belt of almost constant calms, where the north-east and south-west trade winds meet. Merchant sailors know these equatorial calms, or doldrums, well, and rignt glad they are to get out of the influence of these calm belts into the region of the trade winds. Now, these winds have been hissing over a large surface of ocean, from which they have extracted a large amount of moisture. Ascending vertically, this vapour-laden air expands, and a portion of the moisture falls back into the sea in the form of rain. So heavily does it fall sometimes, that fresh water has actually been scooped from the surface of the sea. A goodly portion, however, does not descend; and let us now see what becomes of it. If we look at the map of the world, we shall find that almost all the great rivers are in the northern hemisphere. "All the rivers run into the sea," says the Preacher, "and yet the sea is not full" (Eccles. i. 7). Tremendous bodies of water are continually pouring down into the ocean from the mouths of these rivers; and yet the ocean does not cover the land, nor do the rivers run dry. Remember evaporation and precipitation, and you have the key to the whole question. In the southern hemisphere, the sun draws up the moisture from the immense body of water in the great oceans. This moisture, containing a portion of latent heat, is diffused over the northern hemisphere, carried away through the upper regions of the atmosphere, till it reaches our climates. Thus it is that the south and south-west winds are at the same time wet and warm, while the wind from the north is at once cold and dry. Now, observe the beautiful compensation that is continually going on, and think what marvellous wisdom must have invented the scheme. Far away in the southern ocean the moisture is drawn up into the air, and wafted to the colder regions of the north, to mitigate the rigour of winter, and to break up the crust of ice and snow that has settled over the face of the earth during the last months of the year. Descending, chiefly in the form of rain and dew, it supplies the great rivers which roll back into the sea; the amount of moisture withdrawn from the ocean every year by evaporation being nearly compensated by, and equal to, the volume returned in the form of water by the great streams and rivers. But of what inestimable value has this moisture been, what a wonderful mission has it fulfilled, between the time when it was drawn up from the bosom of the mighty ocean, and the period when it returns thither! The earth has been fertilised, and made to bring forth " every green thing for the use of man; "the rigour of cold climates has been softened, and otherwise uninhabitable regions made to blossom like the rose, by the Wisdom that created and maintains the universe, guiding the seasons as they roll their appointed course. This doctrine of compensation and exchange is carried out in the atmosphere which encircles sea and land, as much as in the great ocean itself. "It is only the girdling, encircling air," says a distinguished writer, "that flows above and around all, that makes the whole world kin. The carbonic acid with which to-day our breathing fills the air, to-morrow seeks its way round the world. The date trees that grow round the falls of the Nile will drink it in by their leaves; the cedars of Lebanon will take of it to add to their stature; the cocoa-nuts of Tahiti will grow rapidly upon it; and the palms and bananas of Japan will change it into flowers. The oxygen we are breathing was distilled for us some short time ago by the magnolias of the Susquehanna, and the great trees that skirt the Orinoco and Amazon, the giant rhododendrons of the Himalayas contributed to it, and the roses and myrtles of Cashmere, the cinnamon tree of Ceylon, and the forest older than the flood, buried deep in the heart of Africa, far behind the Mountains of the Moon. The rain we see descending was thawed for us out of the icebergs which have watched the polar star for ages, and the lotus lilies have soaked up from the Nile, and exhaled as vapour, snows that rested on the summits of the Alps." In these preliminary remarks we have, perhaps, gone deeper than our young friends expected to be led in a book purporting to be only a work of recreation. We shall not pursue the scientific question connected with the sea, but are content to leave them to be handled in more ambitious treatises than this. Our only object in introducing these remarks has been to call the attention of our friends to the most important and valuable lesson we can learn from our searchings into Nature, which is to be found in the evidence we continually meet of design and purpose in the works of the great Creator, whose doings are indeed wondrous, and whose wisdom, like his own sun, shines luminous through them all. DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHIPS AND CRAFT.-Strictly speaking, the term ship is only applied to a vessel with three masts, squarerigged; that is, with yards stretched across the masts, so that the sails hang A SHIP. or square, and not on one projecting from the bows in front of the ship, and to which the head-sails are made fast; the hull or body of the ship itself, divided into the forecastle, where the sailors live, in the bows of the ship; the waist or middle part, in which is |