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A New Lamp The use of projections on a screen as an aid in instruction is now widely appreciated; but an absence of the elec tric or calcium light, (which is often not procurable) it may prove difficult to get light sufficiently intense for large images. Or. Kegnard has lately devised a lamp of simple character, the light of which is equal to about half that of the calcium light, and which should find various use besides the c ne indicated. The idea is burn ing cm a metallic utt a mixture of air and petroleum vapor. The apparatus consists merely of a common Bunsen burner, terminated by a small cage of platinum wire. The petroleum vapor mixture takes the place of the gas, being supplied through an india- rubbi r tube at. the bottom from appar atus of well-known form, an air cur rent from a bellows beiDg sent through petroleum in a stoppered vessel, whence, charged with vapor, it passes to the lamp. The intense heat in burn ing of the mixture renders the plat inum cage brightly incandescent. To send all the light in one direction, a bent nozzle of trumpet shape, closed with platinum net , may be adapted to the Bunsen burner. By use of a fan- blower to supply the air current, sev eral lamps may be kept in action, for the lighting of halls, workshops, etc., the effect being much like that of in candescent electric lamps. A large weighted bellows will keep one of the lamp* going for several hours. The lamp would be useful to doctors in ex amination of the throat, ear, eto. The uost of maiuteuance is triffiiug. C » . -— For Our Youth, Bad Bargains. Once a 9ehooI teacher remarked th t he who buys the truth makes a good bargain, and inquired if any scholar recollected an instance in Scripture of a bail bargain. "I do,” replitda boy; “Esau made a bad bargain when he sold his birth right for a mess of pottage.” A second said, “Judas made a bad bargain when he sold his Lord for thiriy pieces of silver.” “A third boy replied : “Our Lord tells us that he makes a bad bargain who, to gain the whole world, loses his own soul.” “Boy, what will jou take to tell a lie fur me ?” asked a mate of one of the little cabin boys on board of a fine English ship. “Not all the gold of California, sir,” was the prompt reply. A Mother’s Counsel. The great men of the world have generally owed much to the character and i raining of their mothers. If we go back to their childhood we see there the maternal influences which form the aims and habits of their future life. Bayard, the flower of the French knighthood, the soldier without fear or reproach, never forgot the parting words of his mother when he left home at fourteen to become the page of a nobleman. She said to him with the tenderness of a loving heart: “My boy, serve God first. Pray to Him night and morning. Be kind and charitable to all. Beware of flat terers, and never become one your- aelf. Avoid envy, hatred and lying, as vices unworthy of a Christian, and uever neglect to comfort the widows and orphans.” When Bayard was foremost in the battle, confessedly the bravest warrior in the field, or when in his own great thirst he was giving water to a dying enemy, he was only carrying out his mother’s counsel, and striving to be worthy of her name. The memory of a mother’s love is a talisman against temptation, and a stimulus to a good life. The Diamond Ring and the False Friend. William and Frank had been fast lends from their early childhood, bey went to the same school and ayed at the same school. r illiam sometimes engaged in ctical jokes at Frank’s expense; t Frank was generous and forgiving, did not permit William’s little Us, whioh he ascribed to playful to cool the warmth of his friend P ailed away on a journey which Id occasion a long absence from e, Frank entrusted to William afe keeping, a ring in whiqh was a diamond of greut value. Frank ,d the ring more as a family hevr- han a rich jewel. y Frank, after four years’ alw returned home, he was not a urptised to And that William to avoid him, for he came not ome him as a true friend Calling soon after on William, Frank demanded his ring, and was sur prised, or rather shocked, when Wil liam denied having ever seen it. Brought before a court of justice, William persisted in his denial of all knowledge of the ring. Frank stated that he gave him the ring while each stood under an oak tree, immediately before his departure. But William hastily answered that he knew no more of the tree than he did of the ring. “Go, Frank,” said the judge, “and bring me a twig from that tree. I wish to see it.” The judge, expressing impatience at Frank’s long absence, William ex plained that the tree was more than a mile from court. “Ah!” said the judge, “I see that you know about the tree. I believe you know about the ring too.” Thus falsehood and dishonesty are frequently discovered, and indulgence in petty tricks sometimes lead to the commission of serious wrong. Never Be Haughty. A humming bird met a beautiful butterfly, and, being pleased with the beauty of its person and the glory of its wings, made an offer of perpetual friendship. “I cannot think of it,” was the re ply, as you once spurned me, and called me a drolling dolt.” “Impossible!” exclaimed the hum ming-bird. “I always entertained the highest respect for such beautiful crea tures as you.” “Perhaps you do now,” said the other; “but when you insulted me I was a caterpillar. 80 let me give you a piece of advice. Never insult the humble, as they may some day be come your supeiiors.” The Northern Lights. An Astronomer’s Views—He Thinks the Aurora Borealis i» Caused in Some Manner by tna Spot on the Sun. “I am sure I don’t know,” said Pro fessor Sharpless, of Harvard college, the well-known astronomer, last even ing to a Press reporter when asked the cause of the northern lights, that have recently appeared in such splendor. “Like a rain-storm, they come with out apparent cause. It has been no ticed, however, that they are more likely to occur in winter than in sum mer We know that they are the result of some disturbance among the electric currents in the regions above the earth’s atmosphere, but now we come to a subject about which little is known. The earth’s atmo-phere ex tends up about one hundred miles, but it not known what substance ex ists above that. I call it substance, for it is some form of matter. These phenomena take place at a height of 500 or6t0 miles fbove the earth, as has been determined by observations of the same streams of light by differ ent persons at different stations and mathematical calculations. The spec troscope seems to show the presence at this height of a substance new to sci ence, and something that is not known to our atmosphere, but nothing more than that. There are theories, of course, as to what this unknown sub stance in, but they are not well estab lished, and a good chance is open for some one to distinguish himself by a grand discovery. Just at present the spectroscope is the only means of find ing out the matter, and as it has not succeeded, no new discovery is likely to be made immediately. The Cause of Auroras. Dangerous Dome of St. Sophia. Great consternation has been caused in Constantinople by a report that the mo-que of St. Sophia is in danger of collapsiug; for there is a tradition among the Turks that the fall of this basilica will herald the dismember ment of the empire. The mosque was restored at a great expense by the Sul tan Abdul Medjid in 1649, under the susperintendence of the Italian archi tect, Fossati. But the work does not appear to have been very well execu ted, for the grand done, which is 120 feet in diameter and 270 ftet high, is so insecure that, according to the re port of the architect who has been called in by the Minister of Public Works, it may fall at any moment. In other respects the Interior of the mosque is iu a fairly good state of preservation. AmoDg the many relics preserved in the mosque of St. Sophia is the carpet upon which Mohammed was wont to bray, and close to the place where the carpet Is suspended stands the pulpit from which the Kbatib reads tbe koran every, Friday holding in his hand a drawn sword as sym' olic of St. S >phia having been conquered from the infidel. Another of the relics preserved iu St. S >phia is the cradle of our Savior, wnich, accor ding to tradition, was brought from Bethlehem, together with a sort of ba sin in which his mother washed him. The walls of the motque are covered with green slabs, on which verses from the koran are engraved in etters of gold. Forestry. In answering an invitation to be present at the forestry convention at Cincinnati, John G Whittier, who, like ail men of sensibility, is a lover of trees, wrote: “My indignation is yearly aroused by the needless sacri fice of some noble oak or elm, and es pecially of the white pine, the grand est tree in our woods, whioh I would not exchange for Oriental palms. My thanks will be due to the # public school which is to plant a group of trees iu my honor. I could ask no better memorial. I have always ad mired the good taste of the Sakt.kis Indians around Sebago lake, who, when their chief died, dug around a bteoh tree, swaying it down, and placed his body in the rent, and then let the noble tree fall back into its original place—a green and beautiful monument for the son of the forest.” Restoring the Color of the Hair. It is said that equal parts of butter nut bark and black tea, with water, in whioh a few rusty nails have been thrown, will restore hair that is pre maturely turning gray to ics original well and saturate the There is nothing mixture any raty, \ “Tbe theory which is now generally held by men of science as to the real cause of these auroras is that they are in some w*iy connected with the sun spots. When there are the most spots there are the most auroras. There are m ire than the usual number of spots ou the sun just now, and, on the morning after the brilliant display of Sjnday night, I examined the sun and noticed over a doz-n on its sur face. The proof of this connection between the two occurences is that the maximum number of sun spots and the aurora displays come at the same time. The periods when these maximum numbers of sun sp r ta occur are about eleven years apart, and at thetimeof their occurrence in 1859 and 1870 it was noticeable that the north ern lights were unusually br’ght. I never saw such a brilliant sight as that of Sunday night, however. The periodicity of the maximum number of sun spots being eleven years, and the last having been iu 1870, last year should have witnessed the expected display. It was a little late, but there were several bright auroras in the last part of the year, in the fall and win ter. The time for the displays will last through this year, I expect, and they will probably be more frequent than they have been. For the first half of the periods which mark the occurrence of the maximum number of sun spots there is a diminution i* their number, so that there were none at all to be seen in 1875 and 1876, and after that they began to increase. This, you see, would bring the time for the greatest expected display up to the present. “By sun spots, whose occurrence in greatest numbers I have said corre sponded with the times of the most brilliant and frequent auroral displays, I mean tbe dark marks that are seen on the sun’s surface. They are hol lows and depressions in the surfaoe and are due to some change in the molten liquid substance. The surface is continually changing and these de pressions are probably tbe result of some upheaval caused by tbe gasses within. They don’t cover a very big proportion of the sun’s surface, how ever. Some are as big as 100,000 miles across, but that is an exception, aud most of them are below 10,000 miles in width. They come and disappear quite suddenly, often, sometimes in a stormy than others, but I do not con sider this well established. The appearance of the streamers all radi ating from a common centre, which was bo noticeable Sunday night, may, in a certain sense, be called an optical delusion. They are really parallel, and the centre from which they sferu to start is really the direction in which they are pointed. As for the flashing of the lights, that is probably the ef fect of the passage of electric currents, but not much is known about that. Nor can we tell what causes the differ ent colors to be seen. Much the same tflfect is to be produced, however, by the passing of an electric current through a vacuum tube. These dis plays are very apt to extend over the entire surface of the globe lying in the same latitude, and it has been noticed that they usually occur on the same night here and in Europe. The cause is the same for all. They are not to be seen in tbe tropics, but Arctic trav elers speak of their frequency and brilliancy, they coming every night. This is accounted for by the fact that the north pole is near the magnetic pole of the earth. Speaking of mag netism, the sun spots which I have mentioned have an effect on the mag. netic needle, and it has been noticed that during the period of their occur currence in greatest number the needle is most apt to deviate from its true direction. The whole matter is one of electricity and magnetism. These brilliant displays may be going on all day for what we know, but there is no way of telling. There is no reason to suppose that the sun would spoil them, ouly they would be invisible. There is no telling whether the next display will be brighter than the last, or when it will come. That is ail uncertain But the theory that the displays are caused by the sun spots is, £ think well established.” For the Fair Sex. green ana m, worthy of trial. Yellow flowers trim dark straw bonnets. Velvet strings and a velvet Alsatiau bow trim new bonnets. Visites made of India cashmere shawls are favorite wraps. White suits for summer arc of wool in preference to lawn. White net embroidery is used for neckties and chemisettes. Soft toques of wool like the dress are worn with travelling dresses. Amvia is the name given to a new and lovely shade of yellowish pink. Iu Paris children’s stockings musi match their dresses; this is obligatory Long stocking mitts will be much worn with light costumes In mid summer. The designs aud colorings of new stockings are artistic in the highest degree. Natural flowers have entirely sup erseded artificial ones for trimming dresses. The newest cloih goods have round spots as large as the palm of a lady’s hand. Mother Hubbard styles are now confined to morning wrappers and night dresses. Fruit and flower designs in close printed patterns appear on new lisle- thread stockings. The favorite blue for children’s flan nels and cheviots is the old gendarme or china blue. Simple house dresses now in prepar ation for early spring are made chiefly of soft wool materials alone, or they have a moderate combination of silk surah or a flue cord lustrous gros grain. The latter fabric, having been laid aside foY satins and lustrous surahs, is once more being used, aud, consider ing its durability, ladies of geod taste wtar it iu preference to any other ma terial iu the house. Among the special novelties for sea side wear are costumes of cheese-cloth, with bonnet and parasol complete. The drt sses are trimmed with kilte 1 flounces tuarrow) across the front, al- newest thing. India pongee has perienced an enormous revival, perhaps, to the trouble of procur other art materials. Pongees we always—it is not extravagantly and it is on6 of the :oolest, ci and daintiest of summer fa China crepe it revived, but ouly fd few, for it is to costly for wear by many. A few pieces of terra-cotta have been eagerly bought up made iuto couutry bouse and dresses trimmed with white, worn with white lace hat i^d paras The Tusf-ore silks are fine and sof very cool, ^nd with their India ti and clinving quality make oesthe dresses. In washing materials t new satinets have easily taken t first rank. The gowns are well co ered with lovtly and most original d signs, and though some of these latte: are bizarre, there are enough of thosi that are both pretty and original to re deem them. The new rose design has dark grounds—olive or chocolate—an< some a dull china blue. Upon thesi are shaded roses, Mareschal Neil dark red and others, with brown stemi and fading foliage. There are als Kate Greenway patterns, the quai designs of little folks, which are well known, furnishing the bord ings to small leafy patterns. The n row cbene-striped ginghams, linen finish are among the prett and most suitable materials for su mer morning dresses. They are m with a kilted front, draped back a shirred basque bodice or blouse wa and trimmed with Maderia embr dery or Belgian lace. Very usefi summer skirts are made short, of somewhat coarse but churaba. kind French batiste, flounced, fluish with a drawing string at the back ai to mass the fulness into a Span is flounce. Above this a series of ruffl supplies all the tournure need Skirts of this description have her fore been very high, and only obt able at a few small importing hou now they are supplied more freely at much lower rates. ' Traveling dresses have reached fectiou, so far as the limifa'ions of t case will admit, in the English tailo made coi-tumes imported from the be house. Only the best cloth, b shades, best colors, and best workma ship are put on these seemingly, pie suits, which are, however, no all cheap. The stitching and the b ons are all the trimmiugs; but^ finish is equal to that put upon finest coats for men. For a long jo ney one of these suits, a Newmar coat and a soft felt hat with flexi brim, along gauze veil and a.yt\ long wash-leather gloves form an cellent outfit. ternatiug with pleated ruffles of lace, half hour, and again they may last for l which are placed partly under those of Precept and Practice. The good story is told of an excel lent American minister who, happen ing one day to pass by the open d of a room where his daughters some young friends wereassem' thought, from what he over’ that they were making too tf the character of their neighb^ after their visitors had depaftf gave his children a lecture on tlie fulness of scandal. They answe “But, father, what thall wo about?” “If you can’t do anyt else,” replied he, “get a pumpkin roll it about; that will at least he nocent diversion.” A short time a an association of ministers met house, an# during the evepin discussions on points of doctrfii earnest, and their voices were as to indie ite the danger of loal their Christian temper ; when his el est daughter, overhearing them, pr cured a pumpkin and, entering th room, gave it to her father, and said “There, father, roll it about.” Th mini-ter was obliged to explainjo his brethern, aud g<#od humor wa stantly restored. two or three months. They gradually grow smaller and decline, and their average duration is about a month. It is the general coincidence, though, that proves the relation between the maximum number of these spots and the auroras. The years which witness tbe most spotB will have the most dis plays. ^ Th* Sun Spots Connection. “There may be some connection be tween these spots and the weathe^ Some have thought that the, y their greatest numbers we’ the cheehe cloth. The heading is a band of what looks like embroidery, but is in reality an application of cre tonne, outlined with buttonhole stiteb. This is repeated three times acioss tbe front aud also upon the batque, lace plel every pari are imporj have tal kuo\ ^aud parasol. The fine also reappear upon [the dress. TU^Hbumes complete. |e place of wl silkl The Soothing Panacea. 1 It is easy enough to win a husband. Most any attractive little dumpling with a bright eye and a coaxing voice can gather in a noble husband, but it is pretty difficult to retaiu him. Noble husbands aro thicker than hair on a dog, but the graud difficulty is to draw out their true nobility and se cure it at home. If the wife only understands her business she can introduce thesoothi ing racket in hej< qew fic^L tions and walk business. Most and soothed, the man’s great] that oan be with gentleness' ’rffht vv