now swept along with the speed of light towards the general's quarters, for life and death indeed depended on the cast. His tale was soon told, and an order for the suspension of the execution procured, the general not hesitating to grant it on viewing the new features which the case presented; and ten minutes afterwards, he placed the important document in the hands of the commander of the prisoners' guard, as that officer was in the act of delivering over his charge, to be dealt with by the provostmarshal according to their sentence!

At a later hour in the morning General Wayne directed the body of poor Benton to be exhumed for further examination. Every individual experienced in gunshot wounds who viewed it pronounced the wound which traversed the body to have been beyond all doubt inflicted by a rifle ball; and now that attention was directed to that point, declared with equal confidence that it was nearly double the size of the orifice which would have been caused by the largest bullet which a gun of the calibre of the ordinary western rifle, such as that carried by Charley Simmonds, would admit. With reference to the wound in the head, it was well known that Simmonds never carried a tomahawk, and it was shown to be physically impossible that it could have been inflicted by that of Chingowska. The axes employed in western warfare, it is well known, are of two kinds-one, the blade of which is narrow, and the edge from point to point long; the other having the face of the weapon short, but its depth from the edge to the eye considerable. That worn by Chingowska was of the former kind. A blow from it must have produced an incision nearly twice the length of that which the head of poor Benton exhibited, and could not possibly have made one much above half its depth. On applying one of the latter description, however, partaking of the form of the wedge rather than the hatchet, it was found to fit the wound with the greatest

exactness, so as to leave no doubt that the blow had been inflicted by a similar weapon.

The general inquired whether Tuckett was accustomed to use the tomahawk; and on hearing from a score of persons who were familiar with his habits that he carried one of the latter description, ordered him at once to be placed under arrest.

But that worthy had not been disposed to await the result of the investigation. The camp was searched; but he was nowhere to be found. Some of the heavier and less portable articles of his property were still at his quarters; but it soon became plain that, having heard of the discovery of the rifle ball, which was certain to bring home the murder to his own door, as the possessor of the only piece on the frontier that would carry one of the size, he had at once absconded, taking with him little besides his arms, including the very rifle which was so essentially connected with the discovery of his part in the catastrophe.

Whilst the excitement was at the highest, a man arrived in camp who had been absent on leave since the morning of the day on which the murder was committed, and who heard of the tragedy now for the first time. On being informed of the circumstantial evidence which had so nearly resulted in the death of the late prisoners, he at once stated that, on the evening previous to his departure, he had seen Tuckett tear a morsel of the fur from the trimming of the hunting shirt of Charley Simmonds, the latter having thrown the garment aside whilst engaged in some athletic exercise. He thought it odd of Tuckett, he said, but did not interfere, as he considered it no affair of his. The wampum belt of the Indian had doubtless been purloined whilst the owner lay in a state of helpless intoxication, and both deposited for obvious purposes in the place where they were subsequently dis

covered.

Shortly after it was ascertained that Tuckett had absconded, Chingowska was missing also. The day passed away, but no intelligence concerning him could be obtained. The night fell, but he was still absent. At an early hour on the following morning he entered the camp, with the much-prized rifle once more in his possession, and at his waist a human scalp, freshly torn from the

victim's head, depending from which, more than one individual asserted, was the long coal-black hair of Bill Tuckett, alias Sam Staples.

ANCIENT SEA-MARGINS. CHANGES of the relative level of sea and land, in times which may be described as recent in comparison with the earlier geological eras, are amongst the admitted shell deposits at various heights throughout not only truths of science. They are evidenced by terraces and this, but many other countries. For some years past, the predominant doctrine on this subject has been, that the changes of level were produced not by a depression of the sea, but by an upward movement of the land, this movement being understood to be usually confined to limited portions of the earth's surface. Such movements, as is well known, have been observed to take place on the coast of Chili, and on the north side of the Baltic; in the latter case, the rise of the land is believed to be going on at the rate of about forty inches in a century. This is one strong reason for believing that the land has in all cases been the moving element. Another, which was pointed out by Mr Playfair, is, that for the decline of the sea from the land, even to the extent of only a few feet, we should need to suppose the removal of a corresponding depth of water all over the globe, whereas the rise of a piece of land, even suppos ing it to be one of many hundred square miles, is a phenomenon which traffics with comparatively a small quantity of matter. So has stood the subject for some years, no one, however, making any strenuous efforts to arrive at a general view of the memorials of change of level which exist around these and other coasts, to ascertain how far any of them extend with strict horizontality, or to compare their heights at various places, It has been tacitly taken for granted that such objects are local, and consequently that, beyond the general fact of their existence, they say nothing as to the past history of the earth.

In the work quoted below*-to which, for obvious reasons, we cannot advert critically- -an account is given of a laborious series of personal investigations prosecuted in many parts of this island, and also in France and Ireland, from which the unexpected result has arisen that, besides the few specimens of ancient beaches hitherto observed within sixty feet above the present level of the sea, there are at least fifty more at different heights up to about 1300 feet, and furthermore, these are always horizontal, and the various fragments found in different districts observe particular levels; so that it would appear the relative level of sea and land in this island and the neighbouring lands has been shifted scores of times, without the land having been moved off its original plane to any percept ble extent. It will readily be observed that it is difficult to imagine such a result to have arisen throughout so wide a space, if the land had been moved every time that the sea was placed in a new relative level. The doctrine of the mobility of the land is therefore so far discountenanced by what is now brought before the public, and no small disturbance is consequently threatened to many of the conclusions arrived at by geologists. We have not, however, stated the whole case; for it also appears from this volume that there are ancient sea-margins in Norway and North America observing levels precisely correspondent with those of Britain and France; thus extending the uniformity of shift over a very con siderable portion of the globe. The probability for a movement of the sea as against a movement of the

*Ancient Sea-Margins, as Memorials of Changes in the Relative Level of Sea and Land. By Robert Chambers, Esq., F. R. S. E. Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers. London: W. S. Orr. 1848.

land, becomes, in regard to this portion of the earth, proportionally great, though it certainly would not be graceful to dogmatise on this point, while all the great masters of the science rest, however unsatisfactorily, on a different conclusion.

The lowest ancient beach of any note is one at about twenty feet above the present level of the sea. It generally appears in extensive plains of clay or sand-as, for example, the carses of Gowrie and Falkirk in Scotland, and the low plain between Portsmouth and Brighton, and that extending along the south shore of the Bristol Channel in Somersetshire. Another noted one is a little above forty feet; another about seventy feet; another at a medium of about 107, above which the land in many districts makes a more sudden and abrupt rise than at any other point. There is a great terrace at about 192 feet, which appears along the right side of the Avon valley at Bath, and other places in England, as well as all round the outskirts of Paris, and at other places on the Seine. At about 280 feet, there is a grand terrace seen at many places. Not less remarkable is one at about 393 feet; this appears at Abbotsford on Tweedside, at Colinton (near Edinburgh), in Dumfriesshire, and at Versailles. One of the level ridges beside Lake Ontario, which are believed to have been produced by a body of water resting there, is of the same height. It is also the height of a shoulder of Arthur's Seat (a hill near Edinburgh), where the rock, hollowed out into a kind of trough, is found to be all smoothed, as by some mechanical agent applied laterally, while the surface bears numerous scratches in the same directionthe work, it is believed, of ice. A sea, at this height, bearing along icebergs, would be adequate to produce the effects; and it therefore becomes important to learn that the ocean did once stand at this level. Another great terrace, in France and America, as in Britain, is at 545 feet. The table-land round Rouen is smoothed down to this level; so is one of the plateaux of the Paris basin (at Buc). Such is the height of the ancient beach above the falls of Niagara, and of one of the lakeridges of Ontario. At the same level, a terrace runs along both sides of the Tweed, and along its tributaries, portions of it affording sites to the towns of Selkirk and Peebles, and the ancient fastness of Newark. So also does the remarkable sandy plateau at Carstairs in Lanarkshire-about 684 feet above the sea-come into relation to a grand terrace connected with the Mawmee river on Lake Erie. Amongst the examples of ancient beaches of greater elevation, the celebrated parallel roads of Glenroy are by far the most remarkable. These have at length been ascertained by levelling as respectively 817, 1059, and 1139 feet above the sea, the latter being about the height of a terrace seen in several places in the centre of the island. The probability of these markings having been produced by the sea, and not, as has been supposed, by a lake, now becomes, for this and other reasons, very great.

All of these markings are such as to prove a shift of the level of the sea from a high point to that where it now rests, as the last great event in the history of the globe. They are connected with the most superficial formations namely, those beds of sand, gravel, and clay usually grouped under the name of alluvium. They denote a period of repose, like the present, but closely following on the disturbed period, of which the diluvium or drift* is the memorial. Some years ago, when the glacier theory was at its height, Dr Buckland, M. Agassiz, and Mr Lyell pointed out accumulations at the openings of many little glens in Scotland as indubitable examples of moraines, similar to those which are brought down by glaciers in the Alps at this day. These are here shown to be merely deltas-the detrital sheets brought down by the burns, and delivered into the estuaries once filling the glens. In the speculations on the lake origin of the Glenroy

The stiff blue clay mixed with boulders, usually called in Scot. land the till, resting immediately under the alluvial formations.

terraces, much stress was laid on the fact, that there was a head of a valley coinciding in height with each terrace, as if the water had there found its ancient outlet. It is now shown that, in a cluster of islands closely placed together, such as the mountain tops of Glenroy would once be, there is a tendency in the narrow intermediate sounds to be silted up, so as to be passable in a low state of the tide. Were the sea to withdraw from such an archipelago, it would leave terraces round the islands, and the silted-up sounds would become heads of valleys of corresponding level. Thus the great argument for the lake origin of the Glenroy terraces is taken away. Another novelty brought forward in this work is a view of the way in which lakes have in many instances been formed. In the Great Glen of Scotland, for instance, which is a deep trough amongst the hills, there is a range of lochs, of great depth, separated by gravelly isthmuses. Whence the isthmuses by which the lakes are confined? No great currents could have brought these accumulations, passing over profundities, amounting in the case of Loch Ness to seven hundred feet. They are shown to be the remains of detrital matter brought down by side rivulets when the sea filled the glen. A careful examination shows that all the side glens containing mountain rills of rapid descent, and consequent great power of bringing down débris, occur at the isthmuses.' Thus the Tarf and Chalder come in at the place between Loch Oich and Loch Ness. Loch Ness, again, is separated from the sea by a detrital mass, the remains of what was brought down by certain powerful rills which descend from the hills behind Dochfour. The rivulets Urquhart and Garry enter Loch Ness, it is true, at the broad side; but there are special circumstances in their cases, which have rendered them incapable of projecting a detrital mass across such a profound glen, and so forming an isthmus.

It is startling to find in this work so many of the sites of mansions and other remarkable edifices, and even of large towns, set down as ancient beaches, though it is only a natural consequence of the attraction which flat ground presents for building. Thus the bulk of Glasgow is on a beach, which rises to about twenty-six feet above the sea; the western portion of Liverpool is on an ancient beach, between sixty and seventy feet above the present sea-level; the terrace on which a large portion of northern London is situated is an ancient beach; and so forth. There is something, however, much more startling in the details given respecting the hill on which the Old Town of Edinburgh is situated. And here we shall indulge in the only extract which it seems proper to make from the section of local investigations.

The Old Town, as is well known, is [mainly composed of a street] built on a sloping ridge or tail of a mile long, stretching eastward from the Castle rock, and extending in vertical height from 108 feet above the sea at Holyrood Palace, to 325 at the Castle Hill. It may beforehand seem very unlikely that ground which has been the site of a city for the most part of a thousand years, and undergone all the changes incidental to frequent renewals of the buildings, should continue to exhibit with any distinctness traces of such peculiar natural markings as are the subject of this work. Nevertheless, having remarked a series of flats, or, as it were, landing-places, in the general ascent of the prin cipal street which runs along the top of the sloping ridge, I deemed it not impossible that they might be primitive features of the same character with indica tions which I had observed on similar hill-faces as yet in a state of nature. It appeared in the very first place as favourable to the idea of their being natural features at all, that out of the four flats, two were the sites of ancient public buildings of an important character, such as the best or most convenient ground would be selected for, while a third formed a demarcation between the city and its ancient suburb the Canongate. The crucial test, however, evidently lay in the levels. If these cor

responded with those of ancient beaches well-marked elsewhere, and especially in the neighbourhood of the city, then was it tolerably certain that the flats in question were indentations made by the sea, in the course of its subsidence to the present level. If it should prove otherwise, they might be presumed as accidental, or the result of causes not concerned in the present inquiry. Now the reader has already seen many examples of beaches of this range of elevation described. Let us, before taking any further notice of the Old Town indentations, advert to several markings in the immediate neighbourhood of the city.

Just beyond the suburb of Newington, an obscure rill called the Powburn pursues its way through a little valley, observing an easterly direction. On the upper brink of this valley, to the north, there is a terrace crowning a steep slope or bank, and presenting all the usual appearances of an ancient sea-margin. Part of it having lately been laid out as a public cemetery, we have had opportunities of ascertaining that the ground to a considerable depth is composed of a clayey sand. This terrace appears to be 170 or 171 feet above the sea. Passing westwards less than a mile, we find, behind Grange House, a terrace, more faint, yet sufficiently distinct, which can be traced along till it crosses the Canaan road into the grounds connected with the villas of that district, and so onward to Falcon Hall; on the other side of the valley of the Jordan Burn, opposite to these villas, the corresponding terrace is prominently marked; the two sides of an ancient creek of the sea, when that element stood rather more than 280 feet above its present level. The same flat is rudely marked on the skirt of the Blackford Hill, at Libberton West Mains. These markings, however, are all of them tame compared with a grand terrace of the same height on the north side of the little valley beyond the Libberton ridge. The fine old mansion of Moredun is situated upon it; it extends, with great distinctness, a good way eastward, affording site to Mr Lothian's villa at Ferneyside, but fades away on the slope under Edmondstone House.

When the sea beat on this terrace, the hill on the summit of which Craigmillar Castle is situated presented only a little rocky isle above the waves. This isle consisted of a mass of sandstone, which forms a vertical precipice to the south, just under the walls of the castle. A good way out from the bottom of this cliff, in all three directions, is a flat on which the castle garden, with its ancient quaint devices, may still be traced. That flat is 280 feet above the level of the sea. Answering in elevation, it has been too much disturbed by the hand of nian to present the required linearity. I am assured, however, by Mr Smith of Jordanhill, that the overhanging cliff bears much of that appearance of sea-wearing which he has observed in similar precipices that either are now, or have been at a comparatively recent period, exposed to the dash of the billows. Whether it does so or not, there can be no doubt that it once was exposed to this action, as the sea could not have laid down the Moredun terrace opposite without at the same time rolling its waves along the Craigmillar garden, in which case it must have impinged on the cliff at every high tide. How little could Mary, when she walked in this garden, pondering on her conjugal infelicity, imagine that we should in time learn of natural transactions which took place upon the same spot ages before her period!

'If, in the winter season, when the ground is comparatively clear for observation, we take a station at Dalkeith, and direct our eyes to the southward slope which there rises above the Esk valley, and along which the Kelso road proceeds, we shall very readily perceive that it is, as it were, laid out in flats, the straight horizontal outlines of which give a strong character to the ground. Some extend westwards, and fade on the hillside; others stretch far in the other direction, till they terminate in the sky line. To the east of Dalkeith, this terraced hill-face is distinctly seen rising out of a

broad plain, which seems to form no inconsiderable part of the park around Dalkeith Palace, and of which there is also a large section to the south of the park wall, the duke's kennel being situated upon it. This is from about 144 to a few feet more above the level of the sea. It is an unmistakable ancient sea-margin in its form; as to its constitution, the cutting for a coal mine near the kennel gives forty feet of sand slightly mixed with clay. The street of Dalkeith itself, and the flat ground to the south near Woodburn, form another level, about 168-73 feet; the South Esk intersecting the space.' On the hill-face above-mentioned, at Cowden and Whitehill, the terraces are respectively 280 and about 390 feet in elevation.

'Let us now return to the street-covered ridge of ancient Edinburgh. We start at the plain of Holyrood, 108 feet above the sea. From hence the street ascends, with no well-defined interruption, till we reach Milton House, where there is a flat of at least 100 yards in extent. This is 144 feet above the sea-level, agreeing with the plain at the duke's kennel, and with several markings in the north of Scotland. As being flat ground, it has been selected for the sites of some of the best mansions in the old city, particularly the elegant house and grounds of Lord Justice-Clerk Milton, and the hotel of the Lords Panmure, in which a greater than earls, the illustrious Adam Smith, dwelt for several years and died. After another ascent, there occurs another flat, even more extensive. From probably the same principle of preference, this gives site to the church and old court-house of the Canongate ; likewise to the supposed ancient mansion of the Gordon family, and to the palace of the Earls of Murray -the residence of Cromwell when in Edinburgh. It is 165-7 feet above the sea, corresponding with_numberless terraces already and to be described. In the preceding instances, the flat has been superficially as extensive as the ascent. The street has been fairly divided between the rise and the level. We now, however, pass along a somewhat longer ascent, and then come to a short, though very decided flat at the head of the Canongate, from 202 to 205 feet above the sea-level. [Terraces at this elevation occur in many parts of the country.] Another comparatively long ascent, and at St Giles's Church, we come to a fourth flat-one unusually broad and well-marked. Here the principal public buildings of the ancient city were congregated: the parish church (afterwards cathedral), the Tolbooth or town-house (both of them structures of great antiquity), and the Parliament House and courts of law. the ground has been slightly lowered in modern times, to the effect of softening the abruptness of the original transition from the ascent to the flat. The original height at the flat was about 280 feet above the sea-level

Here

a perfect coincidence with the terraces at Canaan, Moredun, and Cowden; as also with examples in other districts. It may be added parenthetically, that the tract of table-ground on which Heriot's Hospital and the Charity Workhouse stand is precisely of the same height. Thus is completed the series of indentations in the Edinburgh_ridge, all of them, it will be observed, coincident in elevation with distinct memorials of seamargins in the surrounding country, near, as well as far. It seems reasonable, accordingly, to infer that these marks were made by the tooth of the sea, at the pauses which it made in descending from between 300 and 100 feet over its present level. When we reflect on the many historical associations connected with the last group of buildings, it becomes a curious consideration that the locality of them all, from the commencement of the Civil War with the Liturgy riots, down to the seizing of Porteous in his prison, as well as the localisation of the supreme law-courts of the country, should have been, to all appearance, determined by a circumstance so different in its relations as the wearing of the sea on the face of a drift-formed hill, in an age so remote in comparison with the eldest of historical events!'

We shall return to this work for some details tending to show that the last shifts of the level of the sea took place after the country had received its human inhabitants.

GATHERING BLUE-BELLS.

Ir sometimes happens that, without any particular cause for anxiety or depression, the mind is unaccountably perplexed and weighed down; and at such seasons even a dream of the night may produce a painful effect, while our sad memories or futile regrets cannot altogether be dispelled even by the strongest exertion of our reasoning powers. I had arisen one morning to fulfil the daily round of appointed duties, but in a spiritless, discontented, and repining mood. Feelings of the kind usually hold their sway in the silent and secret recesses of the heart; for we know that it is weak and wrong to indulge in them, and we are ashamed to seek for sympathy, which indeed can be but sparingly accorded in such cases. Towards the afternoon I sallied forth to try the effect of a solitary ramble, knowing this to prove frequently the best restorative for a nervous or morbid temperament. In a secluded spot, from whence a gentle pastoral valley was visible, between the spreading branches of old linden - trees, overshadowing the pathway, which led onward amid a collection of mossy hillocks, on whose broken surface scanty heather tufts and delicate blue bells were scattered, an object attracted my attention. It moved slowly, and with apparent difficulty, now disappearing behind the hillocks, then emerging and stooping down, and altogether presenting a very peculiar appearance. I saw presently that it was a human figure, which I supposed at first to be some poor misshapen child seeking for blue-bells. But although correct as to the employment, I found, on nearer approach, that the gatherer was no child, but an unsightly and deformed cripple of mature years.

She supported herself on crutches, and besides the hideousness of the most unnatural distortion it is possible to imagine, added to dwarf-like stature, her wan but placid face was rendered yet more ghastly by heavy linen bandages bound around it, and across her forehead. Her well-patched coarse garments were scrupulously clean, while her long thin white fingers were eagerly stretched forth to pluck the blue-bells, which she added to her store with childish delight.

I volunteered my assistance, and soon not one more blue-bell was to be found. She thanked me in a sweet low voice, and quietly set herself down on a bank of moss, and began to arrange her humble nosegay: at first I had fancied that she was imbecile, but that thought was quickly dispelled on hearing her speak, and meeting the earnest intelligent gaze of her deeplysunken but bright black eyes.

On sitting down to rest beside her, and inquiring if she was fond of flowers, as she took such pains to collect them, 'Oh yes, ma'am !' she answered, I love them dearly; they do me so much good with their happy looks and sweet scents. I take them home with me, for they ease my pain when I have them near me to speak to. I am but a silly one; though I often remember Him who made both me and the flowers.'

I asked where she suffered the most pain. In my head, ma'am. It has been so ever since I can remember -sometimes better, sometimes worse; but I will sing you a song if you please, for helping me to gather this pretty nosegay.'

It was useless my requesting her to desist from the exertion; she began without heeding my remonstrance, and as if it were the return she habitually made for kindness, warbling the words of a bygone and very beautiful ballad. An attempt at sentimental description, when speaking of this poor creature, would be

She had been an orphan since the age of sixteen. Her father, who was a woodman, had been killed by an accident before her birth, when engaged in felling trees in the New Forest. The widow supported herself and the fields when she could get work to do; for as the her child by singing about the country, and working in daughter of a wandering Welsh harpist, the gift of song and the love of roving were in her hereditary. The unhappy circumstances, however, attending the birth of her infant had fallen heavily on the little innocent, occasioning, it was supposed, some organic derangement of the complex vessels of the head, and owing to the ignorant treatment of quacks, to whom her mother resorted, and a fall received in early infancy, making her, in her own sad words, What you see, ma'am.' When her mother died, a benevolent physician, to whom her case became known, had given her a recommendation to a London hospital, defraying her expenses thither; naturally concluding that clever and multiplied advice, together with care and judicious management, might do much towards effecting a cure, or at anyrate ameliorating her condition. But after a long time,' she added, all the doctors agreed that my case was an incurable one, and that fresh air and perfect freedom were the only things they could recommend as likely to ease my pain.'

She told me the name of the worthy practitioner who had originally befriended her, and who had continued to allow her a small sum weekly, sufficient for her maintenance, until two years previous to this period, when death had deprived the orphan cripple of her benefactor.

Since then, walking all over England and Wales, she had supported herself by singing, when able to do so, and by the gifts of the charitable. The open air was as necessary and nutritious to her as daily food, while her childish delight in gathering wild flowers formed the sole recreation and solace of her lonely existencelonely as that of the lepers of old.

The outcast added in a gentle deprecatory tone, but far removed from the whine of the common mendicant, and putting her hand involuntarily on her bandaged brow, God is very good to me, for I have never wanted; and though He sees fit to send me pain, yet with the pain there is healing, for I often forget it all when I look on the beautiful things of His making. Indeed I am very happy; for if such fair flowers are to be found on earth, where the birds sing, and the waters are so clear, and the trees are so grand, how much more beautiful our home in heaven will be!'

But are we so sure of seeing heaven?' I hesitatingly said, wishing to hear the answer. Her answer was a silent smile, but a serious and solemn one, only faintly lighting up her pallid suffering countenance; and when I parted with her, it was in the earnest and full con viction that this destitute cripple was indeed, as she affirmed, very happy; and passing rich also in the possession of the priceless graces of patient cheerfulness, resignation, and faith.

This little adventure had given me a lesson, and administered a reproof, which all discontented and repining individuals may not have the good fortune to