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WEEKLY GHAT WITH CORRESPONDENTS
C. M., who fails to send
'<l her post office, writes :
u Dear Uncle Burke : I live
in the backwoods of Missis
sippi. We came from Georgia
four years ago, and left all our
kinsfolk ; and I want to go back and
see them very bad. I have no little
brothers or sisters to write about, as I
am ma’s baby, and am only ten years
old, and can’t write very well. So none
of the Burke cousins must laugh at my
letter, if it is not so well composed as
some of the rest. I am keeping a diary,
all my own, and may be some day 1
will send you a leaf or two, if you have
no objection.”
If Miss Flora will send us the name
of her post-office, we will send her the
picture she writes for. Our little friends
would scarcely believe us if we were to
tell them how many letters we receive
without the post-office address.
The Rev. J. N. G. sends us the fol
lowing :
“ In the year 1824, I was stationed in
Camden, S.C. On entering on my la
bors, and giving out my hymn, 1 saw a
beautiful little girl turning her prettily
bound hymn book to the } age. W hen
the congregation rose to sing, her kind
mother stood her up on the seat, when
she joined the congregation in singing
the hymn, her sweet face and lovely
deportment attracting my attention. I
soon became acquainted with her and
her kind parents, and often visited them.
In the fall of that year, on one of my
visits, she said to me that she would be
five years old on a certain day, and that
she was going to commence reading the
Bible through on that day, and wished
me to come and hear her. I promised
to do so. On the designated day I was
called into the country several miles, to
attend a funeral, and did not get back
till late in the evening. On my return,
I hastened to fulfill my promise. When
I turned into DeKalb Street, I saw her
in the porch, watching tor me. On my
arrival, she took me by the hand, and
led me into the drawing room, and
when I was seated, she brought a large
family Bible. I took her on my knee,
and held the Bible while she read the
first chapter in Genesis. Nearly two
years afterwards, I received a letter
from Sarah Ann Thornton, saying that
she had gone her journey through the
Bible in two months and three weeks
less time than her father had given her,
and that she was now waiting for the
BURKE'S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
gold medal he had promised her.
On a subsequent visit, she exhibited
with pride and pleasure a beautiful
gold medal her father had given her,
as a reward of merit for reading the
Bible through before she was seven
years old.
“I intend to keep a lock of her
hair as long as I live, in memory
of the only child that I ever knew
to read the Bible through so early; but
I send you a part of it before I die,
so you may show it to some of your
little friends.”
Fig. 1.
The Little Sister.
Not far from my home lives a little
boy, whose whole time seems taken up
in tending a baby. It is a tiresome,
cross kind of a baby ; but this little fel
low never seems weary of carrying her
Fir. 2.
about, and talking to her. However
trying baby might be, I never heard a
cross or impatient word from him. He
is a very homely boy, wears very poor
clothes, but certainly possesses a great
fund of good temper.
“Are yon never tired of tending the
baby?” I asked.
He looked up in my face, with a
smile that made his plain face almost
beautiful. “Oh, no,” he said, “she’s
my little sister.”
Written for Burke’s Woekly.
EVENINGS AT GLENWOOD.
Hr
HEN we last met,” said Mr.
Cranford, “we considered the
.»• subject of lenses. We spoke
of the images formed by convex lenses.
You recollect that we determined the
focal distance of a lens to be the single
point at which a beam of light, falling
upon a lens, will be collected by refrac
tion ; and that an object placed before
a lens will be real or inverted, accord-
ing to its distance from the len3. What
else did we learn in regard to this,
Arthur? ”
“That if an object is placed further
from the lens than the principal focal
distance, it will be real and inverted;
that when it is further from the lens
than twice the principal focal distance,
the image will be smaller than the ob
ject; when at twice the focal distance,
it will be the same size ; and when less
than twice the focal distance, it will be
greater than the object.”
“Yes; and we illustrated it with a
candle and a convex lens. I will illus
trate it still further. (Fig. 1.) You see
that, in this instance, the image is en
larged and inverted. You can see this
same principle illustrated by looking
through a convex lens at the letters of
a printed page. When the lens is held
close to them, the letters are magnified
and erect; on withdrawing the lens they
disappear at the principal focal distance,
and finally reappear, diminished in size
and inverted.
“Concave lenses being thinner in the
middle than at the edges, cause the
parallel rays to diverge. Let us take
this vase, and look at it through a con
cave lens (Fig. 2). You see that it is
much diminished, and that the image
is erect. I will explain this to you on
the black-board. Let A. B represent
the object. A pencil of rays coming
from A is deviated from its course so
appear to come from a, which is situa
ted in a line drawn from A to the opti
cal centre of the lens o. A pencil of
rays coming from B is deviated in the
same way, so as to appear to come
from b , in the line B o. Hence, you
will see, a b is the image of the object
A B, and is, as I before remarked,
smaller than the object, and erect.
“ While on this subject of concave
lenses, I will read you a couple of para
graphs from the Wonders of Optics ,
which will be interesting to you, and
will close our evening’s talk :
“ 1 The effects produced by the action
of concave mirrors may be produced
with just as much facility by convex
lenses. If a body is placed in a focus
of a lens which receives the direct rays
of the sun, the heat as well as the light
will be concentrated at one point; and
if the object is combustible, it will take
fire sooner or later, according to the
size of the lens. All the experiments
mentioned by Buffon as being produced
by a concave mirror are equally obtain
able with a concave lens. When of
sufficient diameter, the most refractory
metals, such as platinum and iridium,
may be melted and dissipated into va
pour. Before lucifer matches and vesu
vians were as common as they are now,
it was not at all unusual to find smokers
carrying a small burning-glass and a
piece of tinder, for the purpose of light
ing their pipes or cigars; and there
hardly exists a boy who has not lighted
a bonfire in the fields or playground by
means of an old spectacle lens or tele
scope glass.
“ ‘ Amongst other applications of this
property of lenses may be mentioned
that of causing guns to fire at a certain
time, by arranging a small burning-glass
above the touch-hole. In the Gardens
of the Palais Royal, at Paris, there is
such a gun, so arranged that on sunny
days it fires exactly at noon, or, in
other words, at the moment the sun
comes to the meridian. Every fine
day towards twelve o’clock, crowds of
Parisians who have nothing to do may
be seen bending their steps towards the
Palais Royal to set their watches bj r the
gun, which they believe to be superior
as a time-keeper to the finest chrono
meter in the world. There they stand,
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