schools and Bible classes come out in barges from | Oxford, especially on a certain week in August, when they at once escape the riot of the races and enjoy the richest scenery of the neighbourhood in good company.

Abingdon Lock and bridge are generally threaded by boats, as quickly as may be; the town seems to hold out a standing invitation to the cholera. Encamping soon after in a meadow for a cup of tea, the crew could muster no lucifers; a brave boatman not only rowed away and procured a supply, but sturdily refused any remuneration. The musical box inclined the heart of every spectator to vie for the honour of rendering aid. A neighbouring hotel

afforded dinner and beds.

The luncheon-room next day, after passing Culham and Sutton, was under Appleford railway bridge, where some navvies willingly supplied tools for opening tins of soup. They are not without mother wit; to one, who was dining al fresco by a hedge, we said, "You have a large dining-room.'

"Yes," he replied, with a blue ceiling." "I should like to borrow your appetite," said I, looking at his huge hunch of bread.

"And I," rejoined he, "should not mind borrowing your dinner."

At Clifton Hampden the scenery takes a fresh start, but we cannot describe even its quaint little church on its abrupt knoll, with park-like trees projecting into the river; nor "Wittenham Clump," the groves on a conical hill, which seem as if they never would get out of sight. The old Roman and Druidical traditions of this clump and of Dorchester, near at hand (not to be confounded with the greater Dorchester in Dorset), have been worked up into an interesting historical tale of the days of Constantine, yclept "Evanus," which should be read by the tourist. Day's Lock is soon passed, with its groupings of foliage, and as Dorchester swing-bridge is but "a mile" from Shillingford, the captain, after long delays for sketching, attempts the last stage of the day's wanderings; but, alas! for guide-books, the distance is three miles. Darkness has descended, and the musical box has played all its loudest tunes ere the port is reached. Worse still, as we emerged from the bridge the crew of a large "four-oar" walked up to the hotel and took the only remaining beds. What was to be done? The landlord of this same pretty little ivy-covered hotel on the bank is, according to the books, a churlish individual. Never was a falser charge, nor one that ought to be more handsomely withdrawn. Already more than full, when he heard there was a Benedict in the case, the worthy man put his own daughters on beds extemporised on the floor of the sitting-room, and discovered for us a bedroom comfortable enough, though entered, to our sincere regret, through the drawing-room of an artist and his bride. Then came the late dinner, with congratulations at not being compelled to pick the way among the rushing weirs and locks of the Thames in the dark. I must say no more about the well-known scenes between this and Richmond, but pass on to a trip in

NORTHERN FRANCE-CAPE GRIS NEZ-THE LIANE.

From London Bridge to Boulogne by steamboat, the fare is, or was, eleven shillings, first class; five shillings and sixpence convey us back again. The boats are never crowded; merchandise is the chief object, and most travellers prefer being stifled in the

train to Folkestone, and shortening the refreshing sea passage, from insane fears about a passing tribute to Neptune, should the ship roll a little. As for this tribute, it is a most wholesome custom or prejudice, even if it be not all imagination. The deputy steward on board was endued with a logical mind, and instead of condemning us to separation, he yielded to the force of the Benedictine theory, and without extra charge benevolently gave us a family cabin, which had not been used apparently since the last leap year at the very least. Fine fellow! may his shadow never be less, nor his welldeserved fees.

It rained heavily as the vessel steamed by warehouses and wharves illuminated for work the livelong night; but after a few hours' rest a bright summer's morning found us opposite the Isle of Sheppey. In due time Margate, the North Foreland, Walmer, and the South Foreland are left behind, and an hour after breasting the welcome Cape Gris Nez, we are in Boulogne harbour. Wo are not much concerned with dry land, but a boating matter is not to be omitted. In the dim ages of the past (so runs the tradition) a little vessel came careering into the harbour without oars or sails, its occupant a black image, which awed the angry waves and so forth with its majesty, albeit it was hideous enough. Unlike the image of Diana of the Ephesians, it did not fall down from heaven, but its arrival was marvellous; and to this day it is worshipped with almost Divine honours-or rather, what remains of it; for, like the images in Isaiah's days, it could not defend itself, but in troublous times was burnt wholly or in part, and consigned to ignoble localities; but the hand is preserved, and, strange t› say, identified after all, and, enshrined in gold in the heart of a new black image, not more beautiful than its unfortunate predecessor, receives the homage of continuous crowds, even in the nineteenth century. Through its protection, say they, the town has been saved from invasion; but history is singularly unkind to this infallible tradition, especially about the time of Henry VIII, of all men.

Before embarking on the Binomial, another terrestrial attraction was an expedition to Cape Gris Nez, the lighthouse headland between Boulogne and Calais. The train goes as far as Marquise, with its huge ironworks half supported by English strikes, and thence a drive of four or five leagues by the telegraph posts leads to the Cape with its breezy heights. Little French farms are thick enough, consisting of perhaps three acres or less; larger ones are enclosed on all sides in square courts, with no windows to the road, as if the country was not always secure. In one farmhouse, or cottage, as we should say, while the good woman filled a huge bowl with milk for the wayfaring, we answered the sage inquiries of the husband. The English are Protestants? Yes. What kind of pagans are they? Havo they baptism? Certainly. Do they worship the Virgin? They esteem good people; they worship God. How much do the very poor pay at a funeral for masses? etc. The poor among the French pay thirty francs at least. These are opportunities for a Christian word, and it is a thing never to be forgotten to have separate copies of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles for gift, or even for sale. They are very inexpensive.

From Gris Nez the return to Boulogne is made in twelve or thirteen miles by a road which follows the

A different kind of cruise was to begin that night, for at Calais a stiff westerly breeze was blowing, and the London boat could not get out of harbour. The crew were against the attempt; but the captain, after waiting for an hour for a better tide, ventured out, and though the steamer was almost on her beam ends the whole way, she made the passage both quickly and well.

EAST ANGLIA-LOWESTOFT TO YARMOUTH BY RIVERRUINS OF ST. OLAVE'S AND BURGH CASTLE.

East Anglia, though not comparable in all respects to Switzerland, yet affords river excursions which awaken all the enthusiasm of the natives. Among these is the cruise round a kind of inland semicircle of rivers from Lowestoft to Yarmouth. How many thousands of visitors never so much as hear of it!

A mile from Lowestoft harbour comes the lock, on one side salt water, on the other fresh, where begins Lake Lothing or Oulton Broad; this again contracts in less than a mile into the Waveney. A branch to the left leads to Beccles (a pleasant sail) and Bungay. A cutting farther on leads also on the left to Norwich and the Upper Yare and Wensum; but keeping to the right, the Binomial, after sighting Burgh St. Peter's Church (not to be confounded with Burgh Castle), attained Somerleyton, once the princely residence of Sir Morton Peto, and soon after St. Olave's, with its quaint ruins of the Priory. But the main attraction is Burgh Castle, at the junction of the Waveney and the Yare; four and a half acres are contained within the ruins of this noble old fortification, whence the Romans commanded both streams, and all the surrounding country.

Some four miles farther is the populous old town of Yarmouth, something less than twenty miles from Lowestoft by the river. Its bloaters, its memories of Nelson, its narrow and busy thoroughfares, are for other pens; it is enough for us to indicate a charming cruise, only adding that it is highly desirable to arrange to go with the tide, and to be careful as to the method of landing when the boat is being swept along at a great pace.

THE YARE-NORWICH.

The good boat the Binomial next prepared to return with the tide, along the course of the Yare, for Norwich; a place was specially left for the captain, with the oars ready to hand, but, to the blank amazement of the crew, there was the Oyster with the captain on board, still leading the way with unruffled good-humour: the canoe must be a conjuror. The first-mate, preferring to have the captain on the larger boat, had paid twenty shillings to a sailor to have the canoe spirited away: but there it

peals of laughter from the outwitted captain, the new cruise commenced.

It is nearly forty miles ere Crown Point and the picturesque suburbs of Norwich come in view-too much for one day: and hotels are rare on the bank; but the railway runs alongside and conveys the crew at night to the eastern metropolis, or back to Yarmouth, whence it is easy to return and resume the voyage next morning, a far better plan for a family than roughing it in the country.

The town of Wolsey possesses a river of singular beauty. The natives aver that the sail down to Harwich is quite equal to the Rhine; some will have it that the Rhine is inferior-especially those who have only seen the Orwell. Freston Tower, overlooking the broad stream, and Wolverstone Park, besides other fair demesnes, with very respectable hills, and grassy well-wooded slopes reaching to the water's edge at high tide, are unusually fine and luxuriant for a salt-water estuary. After a short twelve miles the rapid tide has brought us to Harwich, where the River Stour, from Clare, Dedham, and Manningtree, joins the Orwell, before they unitedly pour themselves into the German Ocean by Landguard Point. The Stour is reserved for the future, as also a run by the fine Harwich steamboats to Belgium and Holland.

This concluding little cruise was marked by a casualty which ought not to have occurred to the Binomial; the Oyster would have blushed at it. The boat was taking a short cut across a mud flat when the Ipswich steamer rushed by. In deep water the swell is easily encountered; but in shallows, the first effect of the steamer's approach is a backward rush of the water to fill up the void in the wake of the paddlewheels: the consequence was that the Binomial was suddenly left high and dry on the mud; in that helpless condition she remained while the great swell from the steamer's prow came rolling up. Her prow faced the wave, but she had no water to float in. There was no danger, but a humiliating wetting was inevitable. The captain jumped on the mud and held the stern, lest the boat should be swept off -a very undesirable thing if she were waterlogged. On came the wave, and broke over those of the crew who were in the prow; the alarm was soon over, and a little baling put all things to rights. The moral was self-evident: always meet a steamer's swell in deep water.

A solitary rower whom we observed was much nearer to grief-apparently, at least. Not looking behind him, his own impetus and the rush of the tide carried him straight towards a huge buoy, used for marking the channel. As the dark body whizzed by him, he gave a start, and only just succeeded in clearing it. So much for being alone. The committee held that he richly deserved his fright.

Thus ended, safely and thankfully, the Binomial cruises. They afford pleasant recollections for the

and their Application to the Solution of some Geothermal Problems." It consists of an able application of the higher mathematics to a profound problem in physics, and shows its author to be a man fitted for original investigation. The career of Mr. Rankine as a professor at Glasgow more than fulfilled the expectations of his early friends. His valuable contributions to engineering science gave him a world-wide celebrity, and his appearances at the meetings of the British Association were always hailed by numerous friends from all parts of the country. His services to that learned body will not speedily be forgotten, and his death in the prime of life has been regarded as a great loss to those high branches of science in which he excelled.

The name of William Hepburn Hewitson must be well known to many readers of this magazine. He was highly distinguished at the University of Edinburgh as a classical scholar, an acute metaphysician, and, above all, as a devoted and spiritually-minded student of divinity. He gained a prize open to the whole University for an essay on "National Character." When licensed to preach the Gospel he showed, both in and out of the pulpit, the spirit of Robert M Cheyne, to whom he has often and justly been compared. He was sent by the Free Church of Scotland, to which he adhered at the Disruption in 1843, to minister among the Portuguese in Madeira who had been converted to a Scriptural faith by Dr. Kalley. His labours among these interesting converts, both in Madeira, and in Trinidad to which they were banished, were most arduous and successful. After a brief career of the most exalted Christian usefulness, he died as Free Church minister at Dirleton, East Lothian, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, leaving a precious name and memory to the Church of Christ. His contribution to the annual was upon the once well-worn academic theme, "The Pleasure derived from Scenes of Distress." It is written in a very precise and forcible style, though words of Latin origin obtain an undue preference. But it is full of acute analysis and ingenious illustration, whilst it is pervaded, as might have been expected, by a high moral tone. Though not unworthy of his finely cultivated powers, it is not one of those things which, in the latter part of his life, he regarded with much satisfaction.

Next comes a name peculiarly dear to science, Edward Forbes, recalling many proud and sad memories. This most genial and gifted student, who afterwards filled the Chair of Natural History in Edinburgh, the most important of the kind in Great Britain, was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man, in the year 1815. After studying medicine for several years at Edinburgh, he began to manifest his extraordinary powers as a naturalist; and while he was yet a young man he stood in the front rank of geologists and zoologists. By his unwearied By his unwearied labours on land and sea, he actually gave a new aspect to many branches of natural history. His dredgings, first in the Frith of Forth and afterwards in the Agean, yielded most important results bearing on the geographical distribution of our existing fauna and flora. As Curator of the Geographical Society, as Professor of Botany in King's College, London, and as one of the staff of the Geological Survey, he rendered great services to science. He was at once one of the hardest-working members and one of the choicest spirits of the British Association. His presence at its annual meetings was like

"sunshine in a shady place." In the Red Lion Club, of which he was the chief founder and moving spring, he regularly let off his exuberant spirits like so much superfluous steam, and was the soul of good-fellowship as well as scientific zeal. Appointed in 1854 to the Chair in Edinburgh long held by the veteran Jameson, he entered upon its duties with great enthusiasm, and with every prospect of the highest success. The whole scientific world expected the greatest things from an appointment that it had ardently looked forward to for many years. But in little more than half a year after it had been made, when his second course of lectures was only begun, the great naturalist suddenly died of fever. It is, perhaps, not going too far to say that the place of Edward Forbes as a philosophical paleontologist has never to this day been fully supplied. The subject of his contribution to the Academic Annual was highly characteristic and significant-"On the Associations of the Mollusca on the British Coasts, considered with reference to Pleistocene Geology."

Dr. George Wilson, an accomplished chemist, and one of the most genial of men, next claims our attention as a contributor. His paper is entitled, "Experimental Demonstration of the Existence of Flaloid Salts in Solution." Chemistry was Wilson's vocation, and his profound knowledge of that science procured him the appointment to the newly-instituted Chair of Technology in his own University. That Chair, intended to elucidate the application of chemistry to the industrial arts, was brilliantly filled by its first and last occupant. Why it was abolished after Dr. Wilson's death has never been satisfactorily explained. George Wilson, like his compeers, Samuel Brown and Edward Forbes, had a strong literary as well as scientific turn. His contributions to various high-class reviews, including the "North British," were distinguished by great sprightliness of fancy and general literary skill. In private life he was singularly beloved for his amiable manners and genuine Christian worth. Inheriting a feeble and diseased frame, which subjected him to almost constant suffering during the later years of his life, he bore up under the double burden of bodily pain and sustained intellectual toil with a noble fortitude inspired by deep religious principle. His death, in the prime of his powers and in the middle of his honourable career, was universally lamented, and of him, as of Edward Forbes, it may be said that he has hardly had a kindred successor in his own walk of science.

The last name in our list is James Hamilton, a name dear to all the churches. In early life Mr. Hamilton was a great student of botany and geology, and his paper accordingly was "On the Gardens of Ancient Palestine," a very characteristic production. both in point of matter and style. It reads very like one of the felicitous productions of his later years, in which fact and fancy, scientific allusion and Scriptural truth, are curiously blended. Mr. Hamilton's scientific studies, especially those relating to botany, were never wholly suspended even in the midst of a busy and overburdened ministerial life. He always looked on Nature with the eye of a philosopher, a poet, and a Christian, and his skilful pen never failed to mingle finely together the kindred lessons of the works and of the Word of God. His death deprived the world too soon, as we say, of one of the finest minds that ever lavished its riches on mankind for their good. It may be long before the English Pres