of the explosion; it might have caused the rocks and coal to have fallen down and cut off our retreat; if it took place in another part of the mine, and we had rushed toward the central shaft, the bad gases might have driven out the air and suffocated us, or perhaps the explosion might have destroyed the main shaft, and cut off our retreat entirely.

"I lately read about two brothers in a mine in Wales, who were thrown down senseless by an explosion. They gradually recovered their senses, and began to move toward the exit; but the air was so heavy and hot they nearly fainted away. John bathed his head and his brother's with tea from his lunch-basket, and they started again. They crawled on their hands and knees, in the midst of darkness, over the bodies of their dead comrades, and at last regained the light of day, leaving forty-seven dead miners behind them."

The next day Mrs. Cartmell and Nellie met the rest of the family in New York, and they returned together to Boston and Lake View, after several months of wandering.

They visited not long after the gas-works in a neighboring town, where they saw the workmen put soft coal into long horizontal tubes, called "retorts," and then heat these tubes till the gas passed off through a large iron tube at the top. After the gas had been carefully purified, it was conducted to the "gasometer," from which it passes to the houses, where it is used for light or heat.

LANGUAGE LESSON.

WRITE about Coal, looking at the following topics for suggestions:

1. The great Coal States.

2. Formation of Coal.

3. Location of Coal in the Ground.

4. Mauch Chunk and the Lehigh Valley.

5. A Coal Shaft.

6. Going down a Mine.

7. Safety Lamps.

8. Boys in Mines.

9. The Main Gangway. 10. Digging out the Coal. II. The Breaker.

12. Accidents in Mines.

LESSON VIII.

AMERICAN SCHOOLS.

AFTER months of travel, it was pleasant for Mrs. Cartmell and the other members of the family to be at home

once more.

All the children but George entered at once their respective classes in the grammar school of Lake View. George studied at home, and recited to Miss Gray. In the afternoons he developed and mounted many photographs which had been taken on the Southern trip. In the evenings books of travel were read and discussed, and new topics taken up.

One evening Miss Gray began a talk upon Our Schools, by asking Nellie where she first went to school.

"I went first to a little kindergarten, kept by Miss Rust. She was a lovely teacher."

"What did you learn there?"

"We first had worsted balls representing six different colors; then we had blocks, of various kinds and sizes, with which we learned to build houses, chairs, tables, and steps. We also had sticks, with which we made beautiful designs; after the sticks we had clay for modelling, bright worsteds for embroidery, and colored papers, which we learned to cut into different shapes for folding and pasting. But I liked the paper-weaving as well as anything we did in the kindergarten."

"Did n't you have songs and plays?"

"Yes; Miss Rust always played with us several times a day, and we sang quite frequently."

"Where did you first go to school, Florence?"

"I went to the primary school first. My teacher's name was Neale. Her room was full of pictures, charts, and printing in colored chalks. She taught us how to read by the sentence-method. We generally read something new every day. She had clay-modelling, paper-cutting, and writing, as well as numbers up to ten. I was in the primary school three years. At the end of the third year I could write, say the tables, do simple examples in numbers orally and on paper, and read at sight in any third reader." "What are you learning in your grade, Fred?"