Yellow Iris, the Purple Loose-strife, the graceful Willow-Herb, the delicate Arrow-head, the Flowering Rush, the yellow Water-Lily, the fragrant MeadowSweet, and "the blue significant Forget-me-not,” are all more or less abundant, and vie in beauty with each other. May we not accept with thankful hearts the comforting assurance-" If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith"?

It is believed by geologists that the valleys of the Bulborne and the Gade were both mapped out during a pre-glacial period; it is further stated that glacial action is perceptible at several different points along their course; but, be this as it may, it seems to be nearly certain that the gap in the Chalk Hills at the head of the Great Gaddesden valley and the depression in the same formation near Tring station are due, at any rate in some degree, to the chemical dissolution and abstraction of the chalk by the four rivers that take their rise in the two localities.

In order to demonstrate that this process is still in active operation, I have attempted to gauge the quantity of water that passes down the Gade at Hunton Bridge, and I think that it cannot average less than 30,000 gallons per minute throughout the year. Professor Attfield, of the Pharmaceutical Society, has kindly assisted me by analysing a portion of this water, and he informs me that every gallon of it contains about twelve grains of carbonate of lime, and six grains of other calcareous matter. The whole of the carbonate of lime, together with a small portion of the sulphate, is precipitated by boiling, and this fact readily explains the origin of the incrustation that accumulates in culinary utensils in which such water is boiled.

It follows, therefore, if my calculation of the volume

of water passing Hunton Bridge is correct, that an aggregate quantity of more than 18,000 tons of chalk is annually abstracted from the surrounding chalk formation and carried away by the waters of the Gade, in process of time to be again precipitated, or, by the wonderful organic agency of minute Foraminifera, to form, in some far-off submarine region, a new cretaceous deposit, possibly the incipient chalk hills of ages yet to come,

The effects of the chemical dissolution of chalk by water that percolates through it are very apparent in the dykes or gullies that abound in chalk districts; they are also readily observable at almost every railway cutting and gravel pit in this neighbourhood. The top of the chalk is almost invariably found to be extremely ragged, and to be indented with fissures into which, as chalk has disappeared, the gravel and sand of overlying deposits have constantly trickled down ; large pipes of this material, fifty or sixty feet in depth, may occasionally be observed, as is the case near the Lime Works at Hitchin, running like wells through the chalk, and unquestionably owing their formation to the same agency. Near Welwyn railway station two large pipes of this description are very conspicuous, and may be noticed, without difficulty, by the passing traveller; the smaller of these pipes is worthy of careful examination; not only is the dissolution of the chalk absolutely complete, but the operation has proceeded so gradually, and the sand and pebbles of the superincumbent stratum, an outlier of the Woolwich and Reading beds, have replaced the chalk with such extraordinary precision, that a horizontal row of flints, once embedded in chalk, is still left in situ, but is at present surrounded by the more recent sand.

It is this marvellous continuity in geological development that so forcibly impresses the mind with a sense of the vast eternity already comprehended in

the past. It appears to be almost certain that the enormous chalk stratum that underlies a large portion of the South of England, that is alike conspicuous in our own beautiful Chilterns, and in the white cliffs of Kent, was deposited under submarine conditions and from “matériel" derived from pre-existing strata. If it be also true that the chalk hills of to-day are even now in process of dissolution, and that from their débris new cretaceous strata are, once more, in process of formation, it would seem to imply that a system of successive development, almost akin to the generations that distinguish animal life, has prevailed throughout untold ages, and is still in active operation. "My heart is awed within me when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on

In silence round me; the perpetual

Work of Thy Creation, finished, yet renewed for ever.” I know but little of the science of geology, but I am very certain that it is impossible to approach the consideration of its most elementary lessons without an overwhelming conviction of the immensity of the problems it attempts to solve; and it seems to me that in nothing is the Divine governance of the world more conspicuously apparent than in the laws that regulate with undeviating exactitude the continuous operations of nature.

It has frequently been asserted that the study of natural history, and more especially of geology, is fraught with materialistic tendencies; I confess that I cannot understand how such should be the case. If it were possible to believe that the globe on which we live, with its lofty mountains, its green valleys and its clear sparkling rivers, was simply the result of chance, and that throughout so much grandeur and beauty Chaos alone reigned supreme, then, indeed, one might be tempted to doubt the handiwork of an all-wise Creator; but when it becomes abundantly evident

that certain agencies, acting in accordance with prescribed and well-defined laws, have contributed throughout countless centuries in determining the configuration of the earth as it at present exists, one cannot fail to recognise, in every such agency, the design of an omnipotent Providence; one ceases to wonder at, what some may call, the eccentricities of geological development; to use the words of Robert Pollok

"One wonders not why shells are found on mountain tops, But wonders much why shells are found at all, more wondrous still."

And thus, by seemingly irresistible evidence, one is compelled to accept the conclusion that nature is an uniform and consistent whole, sustained and governed by an Almighty Ruler, whose sovereign will directs the forces of the universe," Who maketh the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice," and in whose power are the issues of life. JOHN E. LITTLEBOY.

N.B.-I have just obtained a report of the Rainfall and Percolation that has occurred in this district during the past eight months. It is so exceptionally large that I venture to append particulars. I believe that the amount of percolation has never before been equalled, and I can only find one instance in which the rainfall of any single month has exceeded that of August. On the third of August-the day of the great storm-3.558 inches of rain, and 2·098 inches of percolation were recorded. The percolation reported was taken at a depth of 40 inches.

STRAY NOTES ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES.

THE earliest mention of these celebrated rivers occurs in Gen. ii. 14, where they are named as two of the streams that watered the garden of Eden. The Tigris-Hiddekel-flowing towards the East of the land of Assyria, and the Euphrates springing from the opposite side of the same mountains compassed, on the west, a plain, then apparently about the size of Denmark, to which the rich alluvial deposits annually brought down by these streams, has since gradually added to the south full 120 miles.

Again, we learn from Gen. x. 10, that Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, founded Babel, Erech, and Accad and Calneh, the ruins of which are still to be seen on the banks of the Euphrates, whilst the remains of Nineveh and Calah, with others built on the Tigris by Asshur, are familiar to the Biblical student.

To supply so large and increasing a population, even if nature was unusually prolific, art had to be very early called in; and it is not surprising to find, that some of the most ancient tablets lately brought to Europe through the labours of Layard, George Smith and others, refer to the rise and fall of these wonderful rivers, whose periodical inundations and life-giving waters were as important as those of their sister, the Nile. These annual overflows are also referred to in the Chaldean account of the Deluge, discovered at Nineveh-and now in the British Museumas of special value in the trial of the great vessel built to ride the flood. It is in the beginning of March that