to be exposed to the light for an hour, after, which the varnish may be removed by oil of turpentine.  The design will now appear permanently impressed on the ivory, and of a black or blackish brown colour, which will come to its full tint after exposure for a day or two to the light.  Varieties of colour may be given by substituting the salt of gold, platina, copper, &c. for the solution of silver.—­Trans. of the Society of Arts.

Geology.

Among the fossil bones lately dug from under the lava of the mountain of Boulade, in the neighbourhood of Issoire, in France, none have been discovered belonging to the human body.  The same is the case in the other mountains of the vicinity.  But, although there are no human bones, in several places, and especially in the mountain of Boutaresa, (which is not far from the mountain of Boulade,) pieces of wood have been discovered, buried under the ancient lava, which observers worthy of credit declare seem to have been fashioned by the hand of man, and to have been cut with a hatchet, although rudely, and as might be expected in the infancy of the arts.  Did man exist then, at that remote period when elephants, lions, and tapirs, lived in Europe, with rein-deer and bears?  This is an exceedingly difficult question, and one which hitherto does not, by any means, appear to have been satisfactorily resolved.—­New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

THE MONTHS.

[Illustration:  THE MONTHS.  DECEMBER.]

The characteristics of November, for the most part, extend through the present month.  Wind, rain, and gloom are its attributes; the sun

  Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day,
  Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
  His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
  Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,
  Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
  And soon descending, to the long dark night. 
  Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.

Such is the gloomy picture of December, as drawn by the poet of the year.

To the contemplatist, and the man who has

----------No enemy,
But winter and rough weather,

the rural walk at this season is equally inviting with any of its predecessors; whilst he who can “suck melancholy from a song,” will find melody in its storms and music in its wind.  What are more beautiful than the fretwork frostings of rime and hoar spread on the hedges, glistening in the broad sun-beam, and in brilliancy and variety of colours vying with the richest display of oriental splendour—­with here and there berries clustering on evergreens, or pendent in solitary beauty, like the “rich jewel in the Aethiop’s ear.”  The winter stillness of animal life is a sublime subject for our meditation.  Insects which floated on the gay sunshine of summer and autumn have now retired to their winter quarters, there to remain dormant till regenerated in the enlivening warmth of spring; and even the labours of husbandry are in a state of torpidity.