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sheep or oxen he had metals to give in exchange for it, he could easily proportion the quantity of the metal to the precise quantity of the commodity which he had immediate occasion for.

8. Different metals have been made use of by different nations for this purpose. Iron was the common instrument of commerce among the ancient Spartans; copper among the ancient Romans, and gold and silver among all rich and commercial nations.-Adum Smith.

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How are the most of man's wants supplied? What may you style one who exchanges? What difficulties arose at first when exchanges were made? Give instances where exchange of commodities became inconvenient and impracticable. What articles were used in the rude ages of society as instruments of commerce? Give the respective values of the armour of Diomede and Glaucus. What is said to be the article of exchange in Abyssinia? What on some parts of the coast of India? What at Newfoundland? Why have metals been generally preferred as the instrument of exchange? Give the different metals used by different nations of antiquity.

MIDNIGHT IN THE NORTH.

1. We are all on deck to-night, passengers and sailors, leaning on the bulwarks and looking towards the north. It is eleven o'clock, and the sun has but lately set. We can see exactly where he is below that line of distant

dull two hours ago, gray

hills the shore. They were upon but now they have a tint of deepest purple, and their outlines are wondrously sharp. There is a thin filma mere transparent veil of cirro-stratus or halo-cloud out there-a sheet of what would be thin fog, but that it is some two or three miles high.

2. The colours of the sunset cling to this, and the sun below the horizon throws a clear and definite light upon it as upon a screen. It marks distinctly the position of the sun, and thus we are able to watch him gliding on

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slowly from west to north, sinking in the meanwhile a little more. Now it is midnight, and the subterranean sun due north. There is light enough to read a newspaper if it face the north. Just over the sun is a vanishing semicircle of buff light; westward it grows to orange, and from this orange zone broad bands of browning red stretch upwards and outwards.

3. On the eastern side the buff tint melts and darkens into a fresh cool gray. Further on, in a widening circle, extending upwards and eastwards and westwards to the south horizon, all these colours melt away gradually to neutral gloominess. There, at the southern meetingplace of sea and sky, both are mingled in one heavy leaden semi-darkness. This is the region of night; still further on, over the bending sea, men have been burning gas and candles for the last three hours or more. We have all learned book-wise that it is so, but here the southward darkness is visible. So are the sunny midnights of the opposite north. There is the sun, obvious though unseen; his body hidden by the earth's rotundity; but the lighted atmosphere, visible beyond the distant mountain tops, shows both his presence and position in the region of continuous summer day.

4. Thus visible all at once from the ship's deck are evening and morning, night and day; sunrise and sunset seen together. Though definitely separated by the north midnight glow, the character of each marked most distinctly and shown in curious contrast. Why there should be such difference I am not able to explain; why the sun's rays in passing westward should tint the sky with warm, languid, evening colours, while those spreading upwards at the same moment towards the east should look so cool, and gray, and wakeful, I cannot tell; but here they are side by side, and unmistakably contrasted. We all linger on the deck long after midnight, then one by one descend.

5. I had scarcely reached the cabin-door, when I heard the mate call to the captain to look over the starboardbow at a ship on fire. Of course I hastened upon deck again, and looked over the starboard-bow forthwith. We soon perceived that it was not a ship on fire, but the

moon reddened by the veil of misty cloud, rising behind a ship on the horizon, and looking like a dull lurid flame over the deck and between the masts and sails.

6. It was the half-moon, of huge apparent size, rising point upwards out of the eastern leaden-gray part of the sea. She had a dull, scowling visage, as though angry with the sun for cheating her of her nocturnal supremacy. The form of the moon was curiously distorted by the unequally refractive power of the strata of air through which her different parts were seen, the lower limb being unusually lifted and flattened upwards, as though it were soft, and had been dubbed against the hard metallic horizon. Through Norway with a Knapsack.

bulwarks, ship's sides.
horizon, the circular line which
bounds the view of the sky and
the earth, formed by their ap-
parent meeting.
subterranean, under the earth.

obvious, evident.
languid, faint.

starboard, right side of a ship.
nocturnal, nightly.

supremacy, superior brightness. distorted, out of shape.

Describe the distant hills in the north after the sun has set. What is the appearance of the sky in the north? Describe the appearance of the sky in the east and south. Give an account of the rising of the moon. Why did the moon appear so curiously distorted?

ICE MOUNTAINS IN GREENLAND.

"Tis sunset: to the firmament serene
The Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene;
Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold
Girds the blue hemisphere; above unroll'd,

The keen clear air grows palpable to sight,

Embodied in a flush of crimson light,

Through which the evening star, with milder gleam, Descends to meet her image in the stream.

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Far in the east, what spectacle unknown
Allures the eye to gaze on it alone?

-Amidst black rocks that lift in either hand
Their countless peaks, and mark receding land;
Amidst a tortuous labyrinth of seas

That shine around the arctic Cyclades;

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