Einsamkeit,-onesomeness. palmettos would swarm to the stream and line its banks. Thus for nine miles, counting our gigantic rosary of waterwonders and loveliness, we fared on.

Then, again, the cypress and

Then we rounded to, in the very bosom of the Silver Spring itself, and came to wharf. Here there were warehouses, a turpentine-distillery, men running about with boxes of freight and crates of Florida cucumbers for the Northern market, country stores with wondrous assortments of goods,-fiddles, clothes, physic, groceries, schoolbooks, what not,-and, a little farther up the shore, a tavern. I learned, in a hasty way, that Ocala was five miles distant, that one could get a very good conveyance from the tavern to that place, and that on the next day— Sunday-a stage would leave Ocala for Gainesville, some forty miles distant, being the third relay of the long stageline which runs three times a week between Tampa and Gainesville, via Brooksville and Ocala.

Then the claims of scientific fact and of guide-book information could hold me no longer. I ceased to acquire knowledge, and got me back to the wonderful spring, drifting over it, face downwards, as over a new world of delight.

It is sixty feet deep a few feet off shore, and covers an irregular space of several acres before contracting into its outlet, the Run. But this sixty feet does not at all represent the actual impression of depth which one receives as one looks through the superincumbent water down to the clearly-revealed bottom. The distinct sensation is, that although the bottom there is clearly seen, and although all the objects in it are of their natural size, undiminished by any narrowing of the visual angle, yet it and they are seen from a great distance. It is as if depth itself that subtle abstraction-had been compressed into

a crystal lymph, one inch of which would represent miles of ordinary depth.

As one rises from gazing into these quaint profundities and glances across the broad surface of the spring, one's eye is met by a charming mosaic of brilliant hues. The water-plain varies in color, according to what it lies upon. Over the pure white limestone and shells of the bottom it is perfect malachite green; over the water-grass it is a much darker green; over the sombre moss it is that rich brown-and-green which Bodmer's forest-engravings so vividly suggest; over neutral bottoms it reflects the sky's or the clouds' colors. All these hues are further varied by mixture with the manifold shades of foliage-reflections cast from overhanging boscage near the shore, and still further by the angle of the observer's eye.

One would think these elements of color-variation were numerous enough; but they were not nearly all. Presently the splash of an oar in a distant part of the spring sent a succession of ripples circling over the pool. Instantly it broke into a thousandfold prism. Every ripple was a long curve of variegated sheen. The fundamental hues of the pool when at rest were distributed into innumerable kaleidoscopic flashes and brilliancies, the multitudes. of fish became multitudes of animated gems, and the prismatic lights seemed actually to waver and play through their translucent bodies, until the whole spring, in a great blaze of sunlight, shone like an enormous fluid jewel that, without decreasing, forever lapsed away upward in successive exhalations of dissolving sheens and glittering colors.

TWELVE HUNDRED MILES THROUGH THE AIR.

JOHN WISE.

[The veteran aeronaut of America, John Wise, has written some highly-interesting details of his life in the air, which are of value as introducing us to scenes and conditions widely removed from those of ordinary life. The description appended is a portion of the record of an ascension made from St. Louis in 1859, with a subsequent journey nearly to the Atlantic. The air-voyage ended in a furious storm, which wrecked the balloon and very nearly ended the mortal career of the balloonists. We omit this concluding portion, as of less general importance than that given.]

THE Atlantic had at six P.M. received her crew and been stocked with nearly a thousand pounds of sand-ballast. Her larder also was stored with provisions, water, ice, a bucket of lemonade, and, through the interposition of some kind friends, a basket of wine and sundry well-cooked articles of game.

There was rigged on the stern of the boat a propeller, intended to be worked by manual labor. Messrs. Gager, Lamountane, and Hyde took their stations in the boat, and Mr. John Wise, as chief director, in the wicker car above, into which descended the valve-rope. Everything being now in readiness, the Atlantic was cut loose from the earth at a quarter before seven o'clock in the evening. The ascent was graceful and easy, the balloon moving off in an easterly direction. The cheers of the audience, inside and outside of the arena, were of the heartiest kind. We responded with a parting farewell and a lingering look upon the thousands of upturned faces that cheered us onward.

In a few minutes after we started we were crossing the great father of American waters, the Mississippi. For

many miles up and down we scanned its tortuous course of turbid water. Its tributaries-the Missouri and Illinois -added interest to the magnificent view. The clearer water of the Missouri, as it was pouring itself into the capacious maw of the great recipient of the Mississippi Valley, could be traced, by its more brilliant reflection, far into the body of its muddied parent.

The city of St. Louis, covering a large area of territory, appeared to be gradually contracting its circumferential. lines, and finally hid itself under a dark mantle of smoke. With the clatter and clang of its multifarious workshops, and the heterogeneous noises of a great commercial emporium, it gave out sounds more like a pandemonium than that of a great civilized choir of music. At greater heights these sounds were modulated into cadences. gazed upon the fading outlines of the country with sentimental yearnings, as we recurred to the parting farewell of the kind friends left behind, while at the same time our hearts were filled with joy upon the prospects of a glorious voyage to our friends in the East, to whom was already announced the fact of our coming.

We

The fruitful fields of Illinois were now passing rapidly underneath us, seemingly bound for a more western empire, while we were hanging, apparently, listlessly and passively, in ethereal space. The plantations and farmhouses appeared to be travelling at the rate of fifty miles per hour, with an occasional gyration about our common centre, as the turning round of the air-ship would make it

appear.

The "man in the moon," dressed in his new cocked hat, lent us the light of his silvery countenance for the beginning of our voyage.

In the mellow twilight of the evening we espied Mr. Brooks, a little to the north of our track, in the careful

keeping of a crowd of Illinois farmers, among whom he had alighted.

Having now attained a height of eight thousand feet, and having settled into a state of composure after the labor and excitement incident to our preparation and departure, I took an observation of the trim and bearing of our noble ship.

The net-work was constructed in such a way that the increase of meshes was at six different points made in direct lines from the top to the bottom, and this made those parts really shorter than the intervening spaces; consequently, when the cords attached to its lower circumference were fastened to the concentrating hoop by equal lengths, it was found that the whole weight of the balloon's burden was being borne by the six ropes secured at those points; and, as the balloon was expanding from diminished pressure, these six shorter cords were cutting, or rather pressing into, the body of the balloon in a most appalling manner. In a moment I summoned Mr. Gager up into the wicker car, and in half an hour, at the expense of abraded fingers, we adjusted the ropes so that they would receive an equal bearing. There were thirty-six of them.

The feeble shimmer of the new moon was now mantling the earth beneath in a mellow light, and the western horizon was painted with gold and purple. Nothing could exceed the solemn grandeur of the scene. All was as quiet and still as death; not a word was passing from the lips of the crew; every one seemed to be impressed with the profound silence that hung around us. The coy-looking moon was lowering itself into the golden billows of the Occident, and the greater stars began to peep through the curtains of the vasty deep one by one. Still silence reigned supreme. It seemed as though all nature had