The large snails which are found in gardens and woods, discharge a whitish substance, with a slimy and gelatinous appearance, which has been known to cement two pieces of flint so strongly as to bear dashing on a pavement without the junction being disturbed, although the flint broke into fragments by fresh fractures.

Artificial Ice.

A mixture of four ounces of nitrate of ammonia, four ounces of subcarbonate of soda, and four ounces of water, in a tin pail, has been found to produce ten ounces of ice in three hours.—­Brande’s Journal.

* * * * *

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

* * * * *

AN OLD MAN’S STORY.

BY MARY HOWITT.

  There was an old and quiet man,
     And by the fire sate he,
  “And now,” he said, “to you I’ll tell
     A dismal thing, which once befell
  In a ship upon the sea.

  ’Tis five-and-fifty years gone by,
     Since from the River Plate,
  A young man, in a home-bound ship,
     I sailed as second mate.

  She was a trim, stout-timbered ship,
     And built for stormy seas,
  A lovely thing on the wave was she,
     With her canvass set so gallantly
  Before a steady breeze.

  For forty days, like a winged thing
     She went before the gale,
  Nor all that time we slackened speed,
     Turned helm, or altered sail.

  She was a laden argosy
     Of wealth from the Spanish Main,
  And the treasure-hoards of a Portuguese
     Returning home again.

  An old and silent man was he,
      And his face was yellow and lean. 
  In the golden lands of Mexico
      A miner he had been.

  His body was wasted, bent, and bowed,
      And amid his gold he lay—­
  Amid iron chests that were bound with brass,
      And he watched them night and day.

  No word he spoke to any on board,
     And his step was heavy and slow,
  And all men deemed that an evil life
     He had led in Mexico.

  But list ye me—­on the lone high seas,
     As the ship went smoothly on,
  It chanced, in the silent second watch,
     I sate on the deck alone;
  And I heard, from among those iron chests,
     A sound like a dying groan.

  I started to my feet—­and lo! 
      The captain stood by me,
  And he bore a body in his arms,
     And dropped it in the sea.

  I heard it drop into the sea,
      With a heavy splashing sound,
  And I saw the captain’s bloody hands
     As he quickly turned him round;
  And he drew in his breath when me he saw
     Like one convulsed, whom the withering awe
  Of a spectre doth astound.