to the present time, proved quite correct; for they affirm, that no human being has ever been saved by taking refuge in any one of them. And the reason is obvious. It is generally in the darkest nights that ships get upon these shoals, and then the refuge beacon cannot be found by the bewildered and benumbed mariners.

On an average, fourteen ships are wrecked on the Goodwins every year. This is not a large number, comparatively speaking; and notwithstanding their terrible reputation, there is very little doubt that the Goodwin Sands are a real benefit to mariners, and the cause of far more safety than danger... They very efficiently serve the purpose of a breakwater to the anchorage of the Downs; and it is precisely because of the existence of the Sands that the Downs are so safe a refuge in tempest... If the Goodwins were removed, the ships in these narrow seas would be exposed to almost all the winds that blow; and from being the most thronged anchorage in the world, the Downs would become one of the most avoided. Boys' Magazine.

TENBY.

THE very centre of the picture is filled by an object of great interest to all visitors of Tenby-St. Catherine's Island.

It is an isolated rock of considerable size, and of bold and picturesque outline, springing abruptly from the sand and gravel at the water's edge at low tide, so that while the further end is in somewhat deep water, the nearer is left quite dry by the ebb of even ordinary tides... It is an immense block of compact limestone, forming deep receding coves and projecting headlands; and split everywhere into fissures, which in many places have been enlarged into caverns... Towards the nearer or western end, either some vulsion of nature, or the wearing action of winds and seas, has entirely pierced the island in several places, so that we can pass quite through from one side to the other.

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A winding path of rude steps cut in the rock, aided by natural projections and slopes, leads to the summit. Here

there is a short sweet turf which supports a few sheep, half wild creatures, that run, turn and look, run again, and leap from crag to crag, almost with the agility of the Alpine chamois.

It is one interesting peculiarity in this region of old historic fame, that almost every little knoll, or point, or island rock, has its ruin. Castles, abbeys, and priories, in mouldering decay, remain everywhere in the principality to attest the grandeur of the ancient inhabitants...This little rock has its highest point crowned with the grey and mossy walls of an old chapel, dedicated to Saint Catherine, after whom the island itself was named.

A fine commanding view is obtained from this spot, both inland and seaward. At the rear, the entire town of Tenby is seen, the southern terraces and houses just in front crowning the rugged cliffs, with flights of steps leading down to the sands; and the ancient wall pierced by the arch of the south gate of the town, running up the Castle-hill... Over the gate we see the northern terraces crowning another range of cliffs, scarcely less lofty; and more beautiful, from the trees and bushes which clothe them to the water's edge. The old church, with a modern but very elegant spire, forms a picturesque finish to the town, rising from its centre, the loftiest part, and piercing the sky with its long-drawn point.

All around, the prospect is pleasing. Northward and eastward we trace the cliffs projecting in bluffs of stern grandeur, and receding gradually till they run out into the spit of isolated rocks known as Monkstone Point...Then follow, much more remote, the hills, chequered with fields that make the ample sweep of Caermarthen Bay. More and more the coast, as it stretches to the east, fades into the uniform blue of distance, dwindling to a line where the Burry estuary cleaves the land. There clouds of dense smoke, white in the sunbeams, are seen rising, and a telescope enables us to see the tall chimneys that mark the smelting furnaces of Pembrey.

Far beyond this, so faint and dim that it can be discerned only in a peculiarly moist condition of the atmosphere, is * i.e., Wales.

the coast of Devonshire, about Ilfracombe, and on towards Hartland Point...It would be nothing to most people, but to me it is interesting to gaze upon it, slight and shadowy as its outline is, because it recalls the pleasant memories of Ilfracombe. Lundy, almost as dim, appears like a little Gosse.

cloud on the south-west horizon.

THE SCILLY ISLES.

It is puzzling to determine the number of the Scilly Isles, because, where the largest, St. Mary's, is on a scale of no greater magnitude than nine miles in circumference, it becomes a nice point to settle how small a patch of rock is to be reckoned as an island... There are some hundred or hundred and twenty distinct islets, but of inhabited islands only six. The area in statute acres is 3560, and the population in 1851 was, according to the census, 2600 in 511 houses...The average of deaths is 16 in 1000; in other parts of England it is 23 in 1000, showing a decided superiority in favor of Scilly...Much arable land there is not, but an occasional upland smiles prosperity at you, and in the sheltered nooks of Holy Vale you are startled with the appearance of what almost looks like a tree. In the other parts no tree is discoverable without the aid of a microscope...The lanes are formed of stone fences, as in Devonshire and Cornwall... These are decked with the furze, with its profuse bunches of gold; from the crevices peep the stonecrop, the leaves of the fox-glove, penny-wort, and a multitude of other wall-loving plants, dear to my eye, though unknown by name; already the dog-violet and celandine are gay with color, and the mosses tint the stone with delicate pale greys or greens, deep orange, or bright gold.

The grouping of the islands is very picturesque, forming several good sounds, where vessels of great tonnage find secure anchorage, and give a pleasant aspect to the scene... Standing on any of the eminences, we gaze down upon the deep blue of the bays, the white sweep of sands, and rugged reefs, and purple masses of the opposite shores; the plaint of the sea gull, floating overhead, being almost the only

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sound audible, except the never-ending music of the waters... As we ramble round the coast, the successive scenes of the unfolding panorama make us long to have the artist's power of transferring them to our sketch-book.

The rocks are entirely of granite, and the huge waveworn boulders, sudden pillars, and piles of broad ledges into which they have been disrupted, give endless variety to their forms. Sometimes they have a castellated aspect, as at "Giants' Castle," on the southern coast, a noble edifice of nature's cunning architecture... Beautiful are the outlines of its topmost grey shelving ledges, softened with shaggy pale green lichen-beautiful its huge masses of warm light brown, darkening downwards to the shining reefs that jut from the Atlantic waves, which lift their curling masses of crystal greenness into momentary splendor, and then dash, and break, and whirl in milky eddies among the ever-passive rocks... Passive are they? Yes; and yet passivity itself is only a slower action which escapes our notice. The rocks, too, are mutinous with change, could our eyes but follow it ... They, too, grow, and change, and die. Changeless they seem, in contrast with the impatient waters; and yet they give up their elements to the wooing breeze, and to the restless wave, which gradually round off their angles and smooth their rugged roughness...Mysterious and beautiful law, which ordains that the stubborn skeleton shall take its moulding from the gentle pressure of the softer flesh, as the sterner asperities of life are moulded finally by tenderness and love!

CORNISII MINERS.

Sea Side Studies.

IF you can get up before the Cornish miners, you may see all the cottages, scattered over a populous little district near the mines, quiet and dull enough in the grey morning... Soon, however, the scene becomes very lively for this part of the country, and if you stand on a height you see, as far as the eye can reach, men, women, and children of all ages, beginning to creep out of low cottage doors. You watch their course, and observe that, after various

windings, all begin to converge towards one spot, and that one spot is the mine and its shaft... To that entrance the old men walk direct and grave, while the maidens and boys skip or move towards it more indirectly. On their arrival at the mine each set diverges to its different tasks, the women and children to the rough sheds under which they work at the surface work of the mine...The men retire into a house, and, having stripped, put on their underground clothes, composed of coarse flannel, and generally much the worse for wear...These underground miners now begin to descend, not in threes, fours, and fives, as in the northern coal pits, but one by one, as they generally descend by long and numerous ladders.

Where they descend by the man machines their journey is easy both down and up; where by ladders, it is a sad prospect for them, both in going in and returning...A very short space of time serves thus to separate fathers and brothers from sons, and daughters, and sisters; and presently the latter are working cheerily above ground, while the former are blasting, and hammering, and picking, thousands of feet below them.

Now a remarkable deadness prevails all around. The tall chimneys of the steam-engine emit no smoke, and nothing is in motion but the great bobs or levers of those gigantic machines, which, as they slowly and solemnly rise and fall, exert their power either to lift the water or produce from the mine, or to stamp the ores. Man, the lord of the earth, is now at this spot much below the cattle: they are lazily browsing or ruminating on the scanty surface, under the open influence of sun and air, while he is toiling away in far, deep darkness, and rocky seclusion... The distance he goes underground, and the places he continues to work in when he arrives at his "pitch," are known to few besides the Cornish miner himself!... A practical miner can work in a level 600 feet from a shaft without inconvenience, if there be good ventilation, but men have been known to lose five or six pounds of weight at a single "spell" of labor. This loss arises from profuse perspiration at the bottom of a deep mine, where the temperature is often nearer ninety than eighty degrees.