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neck, and dressed with flowers. I have met several groups of children, leading those beautiful little creatures -and very happy they all looked.

Since I last wrote to you, I have been to Seville; it is situated on a beautiful river, called the Guadalquiver. I visited the cathedral, which is a handsome building: and there are a many very valuable things preserved there. I saw the key of the city, with a Moorish inscription on it: it was given by the Moorish king to Ferdinaud, when he resigned the city to the Spaniards; there are likewise some articles made of the gold that Columbus brought to Spain, on his return from the discovery of America; there is also a large golden cross, with a small piece of wood in the centre, which is said to be a piece of the cross on which our Saviour was crucified, and was brought from Jerusalem; there is also a model of a temple, in silver; and a many precious stones, and other valuable articles.

I have also been to see the Alcasa, an old Moorish palace; the painted walls and ceilings are very beautiful, and the colours are much brighter than they can paint at the present day.

I have been over an extensive cigar manufactory, where as many as two thousand young women were employed in making cigars-and eleven hundred men making snuff and tobacco.

I shall write again, the first opportunity; until then, God bless you. Your affectionate sister,

JANE.

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[THE SUN-AS SEEN THROUGH A TELESCOPE.]

"Soul of surrounding worlds, in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker! may sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissolubly bound,
Thy system rolls entire: from the far bourne
Of utmost Herschel, wheeling wide his round
Of eighty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze."

Having given our young friends a general account of the solar system, let us now examine more minutely its parts in detail; and, depend upon it, if we come to the contemplation of this sublime subject, with minds rightly disposed to profit by what we learn, we shall become not only wiser, but better, from every lesson we receive.

The first body of the system, which claims our attention, is the Sun-that glorious and resplendent luminary -the light and heat of which, gives order and vitality to surrounding worlds. In reference to this glorious image of our infinitely glorious Creator, there are several things well worth our knowing; and these, we will explain to you as fully and as plainly as we are able. The sun is a vast globe of solid matter, surrounded by a dense luminous atmosphere; the rays from which, constitute the light of day, and convey those principles of heat, which, when brought into contact with bodies, capable of receiving and developing them, produce, as the secondary cause, all animal and vegetable life. The diameter of the sun is 190,000 English miles; it is 1,392,500 times larger than the earth; and is computed to be 539 times larger than all the planets and satellites put together. This immense globe does not, like the planets, move in an orbit, because it is the centre of the system, from which it never departs,-what is called the suns's path, in the heavens, is, like his rising and setting, only an appearance, which we shall explain presently,— but he revolves on his own axis, in about 25 days 12 hours, which is known by the appearance and disappearance of

some permanent spots, which have been observed upon

his disk, or surface. luminary with deep attention, considered it to be a body of pure fire, from which, all vital heat was derived. In this, they were, beyond question, correct. All effects must have a cause; and all must be in their cause. All heat, with which we are acquainted, is, in some way, an effect of the sun's rays; and the rays themselves must be the effects of principles of light and heat, existing in the body of the sun; which must, in consequence, be the fountain in which the principles of light and heat, for the whole system, are deposited.

The ancients, who observed this

The sun, when viewed through a good telescope, or on a clear day, with only a smoked glass to guard the eye, appears mottled all over; besides which, large spots and openings are frequently seen in his luminous atmosphere. The mottled appearance of his surface is supposed to arise from clouds of different density, floating in the luminous matter composing the sun's atmosphere; and it is thought that the dark and bright spots are occasioned by volcanic eruptions, from luminary mountains of vast magnitude; the dark spots being collections of vapours and opaque matter, and the bright ones the volcanic flames, rendered visible, by the dispersion of the dark matter thrown out of the mountains. This will, no doubt, account for several of these appearances, but not for all some of them are found to be permanent, and by these, the rotation of the sun has been discovered: from the time of their disappearance on one side, and

their reappearance on the other, occupying rather more than thirteen days. It is calculated that from the time of any portion of the sun being opposite the earth, to that of its again becoming so, is twenty-seven days : thus, to a spectator placed on one of the fixed stars, the spot would reappear in twenty-five days, making a difference between the earth, and one of the fixed stars, of two days; the reason of which is, that the earth, travelling in her orbit, proceeds in an opposite direction to the rotation of the sun, so that he must perform two twentyfifths of a fresh rotation, before he can be again in exact conjunction with her. Besides these permanent spots, there are others, of a great variety of forms: some of them change their shapes, and, in some cases, disappear with great rapidity. In 1779, a remarkable spot appeared, which was visible to the naked eye, and extended above fifty thousand miles. Dr. Herchel believes that, in this instance, the real body of the sun was visible.

The sun, as we have said before, is the material source of all the heat and light which enlivens and vitalizes the world in which we live. The earth moves in an elliptical orbit, hence she is nearer the sun at one time of the year than at another. Thus, in winter, when the days are coldest, we are some millions of miles nearer the fount of light, than we are in summer: but it is the direction of the solar beams, and the nature of the bodies on which they act, that causes them to give forth a greater or a lesser quantity of heat. Thus when the sun's rays come directly upon us, although we are in the remote parts of

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