almost loathsome children who surround you the washing of the hands was by no means a and clamor for bakshish, make you beat a retreat needless ceremony, for behold Mustafa and the as fast as you can. At the corners of the streets other gentlemen each seizing a leg or wing, as sherbets are for sale, and men with water-jars the case may be, pulling it off with scarcely any on their shoulders and tin mugs in their hands assistance from the knife, and eating it with the offer you a drink. Now you meet some Egyptian fingers. Nay, more, see the good-humored host ladies muffled in large black silk mantles with every now and then selecting a dainty bit and white veils over their faces, and wearing baboog handing it to some favored guest. or yellow slippers with pointed toes; they are riding donkeys, and they really look more like bundles of clothes than women; but I believe their inner dress is very rich, and this outer garment is a mere disguise. But if I were to name all the queer figures you might see here in an hour or two I should not have done till midnight, and I think you have had enough of my pictures for to-day."

"Oh no, Aunt Emma, please, please just one more. That is, if you are not tired," said Charlie; "you know the others are not come home yet, and I a am sure there would be time for another."

“Well, if you wish it so much I must try to think of one. I had not expected my old remembrances to be so largely drawn upon, but I am very glad if they amuse you," said the kind aunt; "and now what do you think of seeing an Eastern dinner-party?"

"To the turkeys succeed various made dishes there is a pillau; you see they make a ball of the greasy rice and swallow it-thus; it does not sound inviting, and we may well be glad to have a more comfortable way of eating our dinners; but the things themselves are very good, and the Eastern traveler can not always have a Nile boat stocked with luxuries at hand, and is often very thankful to share one of these meals and to remember that 'fingers were made before forks.' Pastry in various shapes, pudding made of beans, and several sorts of dried fruits, make up the rest of the entertainment; you see there is also some wine, but that is out of compliment to the Ingleez,' for Mussulmans are not allowed to drink it, though indeed some of them seem to have no objection to it. Of course also it was because we were Franks that we ladies were admitted to the party. The Eastern women live entirely secluded, and when their

"Oh, that will be nice, if it is one you were lord and master eats they attend upon him, but really at yourself-where was it?" never sit and eat with him-such is the custom of the country.

"It was at Thebes, at the house of the Consul Mustafa, who is himself an Arab, a nice friendly old man. He wears of course the dress of his country, and looks very imposing with his abba, or cloak of bright scarlet, and one or two attendants called Kawasses behind him he stands to receive us at the door of his house, which is close to the beautiful Temple of Luxor, and ushers us into a room containing a divan and a few chairs. We are all seated, and shortly afterwards a servant appears carrying a large copper basin, the centre part of which is raised and contains soap.

At this moment the sound of little footsteps was heard, and three or four voices at once exclaim, "Oh, Charlie, we do wish you had been with us! We had such a treat! It was such a nice Diorama! You know it moves along, and after you have seen one picture another comes sliding on, and the man tells you all about them, and then there is music too."

"Well," said Charlie, "we have had no music certainly, but I do not think that much matters; but I can tell you I have had a fine time of it while you were gone; Aunt Emma did not want me to be dull, and she has been making dissolving views."

"Dissolving views! How could she?" said Robert, the eldest boy; "why that requires two magic lanterns!"

"The bottom of the inner basin is perforated with holes, to allow the water, which a second servant pours over the hands of the guest, to drain into the receptacle beneath: each of us is then presented with a towel, the ends of which are richly embroidered in colored silk, "Oh, but I do not mean real dissolving and we are desired to keep it during the repast. views; but Aunt Emma has been making We then pass into a long hall, and sit down pictures for me, describing them, you know, of upon cushions placed on the floor round trays things she saw in the East; and you can't think which are raised about a foot from the ground. how jolly it is just to lie still with your eyes Upon each of these trays is first placed a bowl shut and hear the things painted for you in your of excellent soup, and Mustafa sets the example mind. She took me to the Nile and showed me by dipping his own spoon into the bowl; each the boat she traveled in, and a street in Cairo guest sitting round the tray does the same, and with such funny figures walking about; and in this manner the soup is speedily made to she took me to a dinner party, a real Arab vanish. Magnificent roast turkeys stuffed with dinner party. And I dare say now aunty has raisins next appear, and now you perceive that begun this sort of thing she may do it again some day."-Aunt Judy's Magazine.

THE APPLE CULTURIST. A Complete Treatise for the Practical Pomologist. By SERENO EDWARDS TODD. New York, Harper & Brothers, publishers; Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.

This is a very complete manual on apple culture, and should be in the hands of every man who raises fruit for profit. It is possible that a more extended knowledge of the apple tree, its habits and requirements, may serve to stay the decay of our orchards in the West, and give us the abundant crops of fruit of twenty-five years ago.

This work contains complete information on propagating, grafting, preparing the soil for orchards, laying them out, removing and transplanting trees, general management, etc.

A TEXT-BOOK OF ELEMENTARY CHEMISTRY, Theoretical and Inorganic. By GEO. F. BARKER, M. D. New Haven, Conn., Chas. C. Chatfield & Co.; Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co. Probably we have been more interested in examining this Chemistry, than the student will be in studying it. It has one merit at least-it renders the study of this most useful of the physical sciences difficult. That the advanced student might profit by such mathematical drilling we can conceive, but the majority will learn more and learn it better from simpler text-books.

MARK TWAIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FIRST ROMANCE. New
York, Sheldon & Co.; Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.

It is well that the publishers put "Burlesque" in brackets on the title page, else many persons would scarcely have seen that the author intended to be peculiar. This making fun for somuch a page, and grinding it out monthly to meet the demands of publishers, is not usually very laughable. Indeed, on the contrary, the material has frequently a funereal character that impresses one unpleasantly, as he wonders if the mental decrepitude does not presage early death.

DAISY NICHOL. A Novel. By LADY HARDY, author of a
Casual Acquaintance, etc. New York, Harper & Bros. ;
Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.

MAD MONKTON AND OTHER STORIES. BY WILKIE COLLINS.
Philadelphia, T. B. Peterson & Bros.

MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. BY CHARLES DICKENS. Philadel
phia, T. B. Peterson & Bros.

These three are in cheap form, for summer reading. They are all good, the last two by well known authors.

GOING ON A MISSION. BY PAUL COBDEN. Illustrated. Boston,
Lea & Shepard; Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.

This is the second volume of "The Beckon

This is No. 25 of a series, "The Illustrated Library of Wonders," recently published by this house. The entire series may be recommended to those purchasing libraries, either public or ing Series," to be completed in six volumes. private. The present volume, as may be judged It is enough to say that it is one of the best by the title, is filled with exciting incidents, of issued by those enterprising publishers this historic passages, for the past fifteen hundred year, and whilst it will interest, it will convey years. valuable lessons to the young reader.

MAGAZINE OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE

"Our needful knowledge, like our needful food,
Unhedged, lies open in life's common field,
And bids all welcome to the vital feast."

CINCINNATI, MAY, 1871.

A MANUAL OF HEALTH.

CHAPTER VI.

of mankind. The hair and the nails in human beings, and the beaks of birds, and the claws and horns of the lower animals, are all produced from the epidermis, and are called epidermal appendages.

STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. HE warmth of the human body is conThe cutis, or lower skin, is supplied with castantly maintained at a temperature pillary vessels, and to it is brought the blood of of 98° of Fahrenheit's thermometer. the whole body by the aid of these minute Whether a man exists in the arctic vessels. At the same time, the true skin posregions, or is an inhabitant of the sesses a number of small glands, which commutropics, this is the temperature of his body. nicate with the capillaries on the one hand, and We have seen that the source of this heat is not terminate in open pores through the epidermis. external, but that it is due to the consumption on the other. Between the pores and glands are of combustible materials within the body itself. minute ducts or tubes, which convey from the The carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen of the food glands to the pores a fluid, which is called percoming in contact with the oxygen of the air spiration. It is calculated that there are not are the sources of this heat. The great agent less than from two to three millions of these by which the heat of the body is kept at a given minute tubes upon the surface of a human temperature is the skin. In all animals the body. The perspiration contains saline matters, various organs are covered with a skin. This organ, which is a thin membranous envelope in the lower animals, becomes more and more complicated as we rise in the scale of organization. In the human body it is composed of two parts, the cutis, or lower skin, and a layer placed over this, the epidermis, or scarf skin. When we apply a blister to the skin, a portion of the epidermis rises, and forms a bladder or vesicle. This blister, as it is called, consists entirely of the epidermis, which is separated from the true skin below by the effusion of a quantity of serum or water. If we prick the blister the water exudes, and the epidermis collapses. The epidermis covers the whole of the body, and can be traced into the mouth and nostrils, where it is continued in the form of the covering of the mucous membranes of the internal passages of the body, and is called epithelium. The epidermis consists of flattened cells; between it and the cutis lie the black-colored cells, the presence of which produce the black and colored races

carbonic acid, and other products, which are got rid of by the agency of the skin. The great function of these sweat ducts, however, is not to act as excretory organs, but to regulate the heat of the body. It is a well-known fact that when water is converted into vapor or steam, it changes or renders latent the heat which is employed in converting it into vapor. It is by means of this action that the skin becomes the agent of regulating the temperature of the body. No sooner is the heat in the interior of the body raised by the oxidation of the food in the blood and tissues, than a certain portion of it is made latent by the conversion of the water into vapor in the perspiriferous canals. This process is constantly going on, and the vapor of the water passes off from the skin in the form of insensible perspiration. When large quantities of perspirable matter are thrown off, as during strong exercise, or in hot weather, the secretion from the skin condenses, and forms what is called sensible perspiration.