have made in its wild state, with brooms, sticks, brush-es, or a-ny thing else that might lie in its way. A cru-el prac-tice pre-vails a-mong mankind, which is to de-prive the bea-ver of sight, when caught to be tam-ed; and this is said to be done with a view of keep-ing it from the wa-ter, in-to which if it once es-cape, it is not ea-sy to make it re-turn to the state in which it was before. But I think few per-sons would be found, at the pres-ent day, to sanc-tion this wan-ton and use-less cus-tom: in-deed, as a mod-ern wri-ter ve-ry just-ly ob-serves, "it is to be wish-ed that men of for-tune who pos-sess land-ed es-tates, and have large parks with streams of wa-ter running a-cross them in ma-ny pla-ces, such as beavers fre-quent in a state of na-ture, would attempt to form bea-ver pre-serves. The crea-tures would doubt-less pre-sent a ve-ry nov-el ob-ject: their flesh, if they were fed up-on jui-cy plants, would per-haps be found to e-qual, if not sur-pass, that of hares; and their fur is sure-ly of much great-er val-ue. Now it would seem that, e-ven as a mat-ter of pro-fit, it would be much wi-ser for per-sons to give up a few a-cres of o-sier ground a-long the mar-gin of the wa-ters to a harm-less tribe of bea-vers, than to keep preserves of hares and pheas-ants which plun-der the crops of wheat, bar-ley, and oth-er grain for ma-ny miles a-round, and pre-sent in them-selves noth-ing half so wor-thy of no-tice to a lov-er of the works of na-ture." A col-umn is a round pil-lar, and if we trace it to the most ear-ly date we shall find that it was, at first, mere-ly the trunk of a tree; or a mod-el of the same in stone, u-sed to sup-port the roof of a build-ing. The parts of a complete col-umn are its base, on which it rests; its bo-dy, call-ed the shaft; and its head, or capi-tal. The Greeks u-sed mar-ble of the fi-nest kind, of which they had plen-ty in their coun-try, for their col-umns. The Ro-mans had one near the tem-ple of Ja-nus; from which they u-sed to pro-claim war, by the con-sul cast-ing a spear from the top of it to-wards the coun-try of their foe. If a-ny of my young friends should ev-er trav-el in-to E-gypt, they will be much pleas-ed to vis-it Pom-pey's pil-lar; which is a ve-ry hand-some col-umn, and mea-sures from the ground a height of nine-ty-two feet. It is thought by some to have been rais-ed by Pom-pey, or to his hon-our: but there are ma-ny wri-ters, who are by no means a-greed that such was the fact be that as it may, it is a ve-ry chaste work of art, and well : wor-thy of no-tice. A sto-ry is told of some En-glish sail-ors, who wish-ing to as-cend this col-umn, and to drink a bowl of punch at the top, flew a pa-per kite o-ver it, which fall-ing on the oth-er side, lodg-ed on the pil-lar. A thick rope was then tied to the end of the string, and drawn o-ver the col-umn by the end to which the kite was fix-ed. By this rope one of the men climb-ed to the top, and in less than an hour a kind of rope lad-der was made, by which the whole par-ty went up a-midst the shouts and claps of the mot-ley group who were stand-ing a-bout to wit-ness so no-vel a sight. A-mong the ma-ny hand-some col-umns in England we may notice, that in the park at Blenheim; that on Fish-street-hill, London; the one in the Pho-nix-park, Dublin; the Duke of York's col-umn, on the site where Carl-ton pal-ace once stood; and the Nel-son col-umn at Yar-mouth, which was rais-ed in hon-our of Lord Nel-son, and forms a sea-mark that can be seen at an im-mense dis-tance. It was a fine winter's day; the sun shone bright-ly with-out a cloud, which made the whiteness of the snow still more daz-zling. There had been a sharp frost dur-ing the night, and the wa-ters were fro-zen o-ver, strong e-nough to in |