PENN'S TREATY GROUND, ON THE DELAWARE.

tempt to dazzle them by the display of a crown or a sceptre. But he addressed them as a friend who had come not to injure them, but to do them good. With one consent, in obedience to a signal from the great sachem, the tribes threw down their bows and arrows, and prepared to listen to the words of Penn, as their great father from over the sea.

The government of William Penn was an eminently successful one. It was one of peace, and right, and order, and love. He returne! to England after a few years, and remained there for seventeen years, all the time trying to do something to advance the cause of liberty among his countrymen. Pennsylvania, however, felt the need of his presence; and he returned with his family, and resumed his station as governor. After devoting himself, with all his energies, to the interests of his subjects, both the natives and the whites, he again crossed the Atlantic, an old man, to die among his kindred. He resided, at the time of his death, at Rushcombe, an obscure little vil lage in Berkshire. The railway from London to Bristol passes not far from this spot, though I am sorry to say that the guide-books which are published for the tourist are silent respecting the name of this place. The spot where one of the greatest colonists and lawgivers of any age spent his last days, and from which his spirit went

to heaven, is not deemed worth the slightest mention. Thus is it often with the world's best heroes. Those who have conferred the greatest benefits on their countrymen and the world, have often sunk into oblivion at their death while our Alexanders and Napoleons, who have deluged vast battle-fields with human blood, and who have done a thousand times more harm to their species than good, live fresh in the world's memory.

Penn's residence was a quaint old mansion, which stood opposite the church presented in the engraving. It is not standing now. Time has laid it waste. Penn died on the 30th day of July, 1718, in the

74th year of his age.

BURIED FORESTS.

EXTENSIVE forests, covering valleys and hill-sides, are overturned,

and the uprooted trees form a gigantic barrier, which prevents the flowing off of the waters. An extensive marsh is formed, particularly well adapted for the growth of various kinds of mosses. As they perish they are succeeded by others, and so for generations, in unceasing life and labor, until, in the course of time, the bottom, under the influence of decay and the pressure from above, becomes turf. Far below lies hard coal; the upper part is light and spongy. At various depths, an abundance of bogwood is found, consisting mostly of oak,hard and black as ebony, or of the rich chocolate-colored wood of the yew. Such ancient forests every now and then rise in awe-inspiring majesty from their gråve. The whole city of Hamburg, its harbor, and the broad tracts of land around it, rest upon a sunken forest, which is now buried at an immense depth below the surface. It contains mostly limes and oaks. The city of New Orleans, it has been recently discovered, is built upon the most magnificent foundation on which a city ever rose. It was the boast of Venice that her marble palaces rested in the waters of the Adriatic on piles of costly wood, which now serve to pay the debts of her degenerate sons; but our Venice has not less than three tiers of gigantic trees beneath it. They all stand upright, one upon another, with their roots spread out as they grew; and the great Sir Charles Lyell expresses his belief that it must have taken at least eighteen hundred years to fill up the chasm, since one tier had to rot away to a level with the bottom of the swamp before the upper could grow upon it.

A POINT IN GRAMMAR.

ONEST Lindley Murray-that blessed old man who did so much for my education when I was a boy-used to say, in treating of the relative pronouns. Who is applied to persons, which to animals and inanimate things." The most eminent grammarians of the present day, too, put forth the same doctrine in almost the same words. Moreover, if we look into the dictionary of Dr. Webster, or into that of Dr. Worcester, we find a similar statement in regard to these two pronouns. But what do we see now, when we look into the productions of certain living authors? Why, there is Uncle Frank-pray don't let him know a word of what I say he never, I believe, speaks of an animal without applying to him the relative who, even when not personified. He uniformly says, "A horse who did so and so," or, "A bird who did so and so." Don't Grace Greenwood, too, and Peter Parley, and several others of equal renown, use the word in the same way? Why, even in Harper's great magazine I noticed lately that a writer said, "A horse who," etc. Now, how is all this, I would like to know? It won't do to say, of course, that these famous authors never studied English grammar; nor that they don't care a fig for the laws which it prescribes. We must search for some other reason for their course. Perhaps they think it is just as reasonable to apply who to the inferior animals, as it is the pronouns he and she. He and she are classed with the personal pronouns; yet we all, in speaking of a horse, would say, " He ran away," or of a goose," She is swimming on the pond." Or perhaps it is getting to be understood, that birds and beasts have more intelligence than was formerly supposed. Good old Bishop Butler somewhere says, that if it should be asserted that beasts live after death, no one could prove to the contrary. If they live after death, they must have, of course, some sort of an intelligent spirit. It may be that this idea has taken a pretty firm hold of our authors; and, as the world has come to think more highly of the female sex than it used to, so they-I mean our authors-are now disposed to render increased

honor to the inferior orders of creation. At any rate, it would seem that they have a higher opinion of them than people formerly had; so that it is inconsistent with their views to say, for instance, "The dog which barked;" or, "The cat which stole a piece of cheese."

Now, what is to be done? Propriety requires, in my view, that a change should be made somewhere. If the old rule, "Who is applied to persons, which to animals and inanimate things," is a good and authoritative one, ought not all writers to wheel about and observe it? But if our language is undergoing a real change in this respect, then ought not a corresponding change to be made in our grammars and dictionaries. I don't know how the matter will end; but from present indications, the change will probably be made after a while in the grammars and dictionaries? I would like to know the opinion of Uncle Frank and Company on the subject; still, don't even drop a hint to them about it, for the world. They might think we were taking too much liberty with their dignity.

A CALIFORNIAN LAKE.

THE OLD MAJOR.

THE Placerville American gives an account of a peculiar lake on

mense pool or spring, rather than a lake, a little over one hundred yards in length along the base of the mountain, and nearly the same in width, but extending in one place under a shelving rock that nearly touches the surface of the water for many yards. That it is an immense spring issuing from the mountain, is apparent from the fact that any floating substance thrown under the shelving rock, is immediately brought outward to the opposite bank. There is no visible outlet to the waters except that the margin is little else than rock with innumerable fissures traversing it in every direction, and through which, though with no apparent current at the surface, the water undoubtedly escapes. The surface of the rocks at the edge of the water, and for several inches above and below, is coated thick with a substance closely resembling sulphur, but without its properties, being uninflammable. Not a living fish is to be seen in its waters, but digging into and breaking up a kind of soft scoria or volcanic mud nearly hardened into stone, that makes a portion of the bank, great numbers of fish, from two to six inches in length, are found embedded therein, and perfectly petrified.