concealment? Surely, after we were at sea——' "We were officers of a national vessel, and our government was responsible for any violation of the strict laws of neutrality. If the king of Spain could show that De Valero was brought to this country by one of our frigates, how should we resist his right to have him rendered up? How he reached this country is therefore his own secret; and, remember, you yet only know by conjecture the contents of the messchest." Atlantic Club Book.

THE MOTHER'S VIGIL.

The chamber's glimm`ring lamp, a child

In restless sleep betray'd,

Of aspect delicate and mild,

For patient suff'ring made:

Her cheek was pale as death,

And pale her lips! whose breath Disturbed at times bright locks of silken hair, As gossamer is moved by summer air.

And there was slumbering a boy

Of strong and healthy limb,
To him all visions were of joy,
No sorrow burdened him,

Still smiling as he dreamed:
How different they seemed!

He like a full-blown rose of beauteous May;
While she, as pale and drooping jasmin lay.
The mother watched, with silent grief,
Beheld her child expire,

As rain-drops gradual quit the leaf,
Or as lute-tones retire;

Full oftimes would she bend

In prayer, then hope would blend

A moment with her thoughts, till all doubts fled The speechless look-the coldness of the dead.

THE LAST OPERATION.

FOUNDED ON FACT.

. C.

"Is it really so, Mr. ? Are the indentured tyros of the profession dissatisfied with me? and dare they to brand upon my character and name, the scorn and stigma of the superannuated ? Is solve senescentem' to be prescribed for my case? And think you, Sir, that I will yield to the puerile attempt to force me to retire, and resign the post which I won and retained by my own honorable and untiring exertions ?--But I will never quit the stage while I can play my part; not even, Sir, for the free benefit so generously promised." But, Doctor, you misunderstand the purpose-you mistake the motive."

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Sir, I shall not irritate myself by further discussion. You will have the goodness to meet me at the hospital to-morrow morning-I shall myself operate upon the case you allude to; you will then see I have not forgotten the little skill you liberally admit I did possess. I have determined, Sir, and will abide the result with my life.”

Such was the conclusion of a conversation I was an auditor of, that passed between Doctor - and a gentlemen, the bearer of a proposal from several junior professional expectants, who were desirous to induce him, by the offer of a considerable som, to retire from a high medical situation he had held for nearly half a century, being of opinion his age and consequent infirmities now demanded a release and repose from anxiety

and toil; but the pride of former fame, and the selfknowledge of intellectual power, which time could not utterly corrode, yet sustained the veteran practitioner, and bore him buoyantly over the waves of envious and covetous jealousy. He and I were left alone in his library where the dialogue had occured, and for some minutes he was bitterly and deeply fretted and excited. It mortifies our vanity indelibly, and sears us to the core of the heart, to discover that the world is tired of us-that the old favourite is no longer to be greeted and welcomed with the customary applause. No man wishes to resign, not even to his child, his rank and station in existence :-the very labours and annoyances of office are, by long time and use, endeared to us: we look on them as on old friends, and I do not think that even the gladiator of old would accept the Rudis willingly and with joy, even though it freed him for ever from the blood-shedding and mortal combat of the

arena.

"How ungrateful is our fellow-man," said Doctor to me. "I gave my life and all its powers for the benefit of the necessitous, and to reward me they push me from my seat; and I who always abhorred the ostentation that is generated by success, must terminate my life and practice with a boyish boast."

I said every thing that could calm and console him, and at his request promised to accompany him on the morrow and give him any assistance he should require. The next day rose black and wintry, and my spirits were frosen and desponding as I proceeded to my appointment; not that I ditrusted either the steadiness or ability of my friend, but remembering the stake he had to play for; two lives were on the chance, and the difficulty he would encounter in trampling down and disregarding the stingings of an inflamed temper, conspired to alarm me for the event which rested so entirely upon the stoical calmness of the operator. When I called at his house his servant informed me that he had driven off an hour before. When I reached the hospital the operating-room was filled with the pupils who walked the several wards; they sat on the benches arranged round and close to the walls. In the centre the space was kept clear for the several instruments, and the chair in which the unfortunate sufferer was to be screwed down. I took up my place close to Doctor who was speaking to some of the elite of the profession who had met to consult and detail the case. He requested me to give some directions to his assistants, and to stand near him during the operation. All in the room were now silent-awfully so; every preparation was complete, and the opening of the doors looked for with a harrowing anxiety. Doctor

was certainly the most collected and resolute of the assemblage; his feelings were heroically braced up, and strengthened by a noble struggle of fortitude: a slight and involuntary shudder was observed when we heard the order, "bring up the patient." The man was immediately carried into the room attended by his only son, who was scarcely able to veil his trembling and fearful apprehension; his face was pale-paler than his father's, and he appeared as if he was suffering in his own person the pain and torment of his parent."Which is the Doctor, Richard ?" The boy pointed him out, and they looked on one another as two opponents in deadly fight might gaze, before they crossed their blades, upon the face and weapon of their adver

sary, knowing they were the arbiters of their mutual fate. In the eyes of both were reflected the coolness and courage of men who had summoned from the depths of their spirits and the strongest tension of their nerves, the resolution and the power to perform and endure the deed and crisis that now awaited them. Doctor walked over to his patient, kindly grasped his hand, and asked him did he feel himself quite strong and preprared.

"I have made my peace with heaven, Sir, and trust my life into your hands, with confidence and without fear; only it would give me ease if you would comfort my poor boy, and persuade him to think no more of staying near me: it would break the poor child's heart to see me die." But the boy kept fast clinging to his father's hand, and would not quit him. The first and only tear then trickled down the father's cheek, and he whispered a blessing on his faithful son; and drawing him near to the chair, looked faint at him, and then to Doctor "I am ready now, Sir; go on in God's name." The nerve, the promptitude, and the energy with which the amputation was commenced and ended, worked a wondrous change in the manner of the spectators; they were baffled in the calculation of a probable failure, and confessed with surprise, the flaming forth of the old fire of enthusiastic ardour and ability that had lighted on the veteran to his pristine reputation. The man fainted, however, and remained in a stupor and total dereliction of the animal functions for some minutes: during this time the operator watched the scarcely breathing form, as Niobe would be supposed to look upon her expiring offspring while yet a hope remained that God might spare them. His opinion relieved the load that pressed upon my heart, when he said calmly, but still with scorn and triumph, “The man will live," and the boy, in a convulsion of weeping, embraced his parent's deliverer.

Professional etiquette and decorum did not restrain the tribute and expression of congratulating praise which was warmly and passionately expressed. My friend did not then appear to feel or regard their wavering testimony to his merit. I saw him suddenly shudder, drop powerless the knife, and sink, pale and fainting on the chair, the object of his anxiety had lately vacated. We threw up the window of the apartment and procured him water, but he stirred not, and his limbs drooped more and more to the ground, as a tree inclines gradually to its fall at last he raised his eyes to mine, and in fluttering accents said, Well, I won that plaudit before I resigned. The old despised hound could yet track out the game, and show the yelping pack the course to follow. I am dying-the physician cannot heal himself." (Delirium then came on.) "In a week that man will be discharged cured: and mark you no monument over me my name will live, for I have been my own sculptor. Resign! never—but I will die-I am expiring. Hold me-firmly." The torment all must feel when life is disunited from its casket then subdued him. One groan-one sigh-and we looked upon the lifeless being that had saved the life, but who was stretched a sacrifice to his nervous apprehension and too sensitive feeling.-Irish Monthly Magazine.

SAY, WHAT IS LOVE?

Say, what is love? a fond day dream,
Where nothing is, but all things seem;
Where souls in tender trances lie,
And passion feeds upon the eye.

A thought now sooths and now alarms;
A sigh, a tear, a folly chaims;

Why, Reason, why the slumber break! Ah, spare the agony to awake.

THE INCONVENIENCE OF HAVING AN ELDER BROTHER.

I do not care for the paternal acres. To say the truth, Halber Hall never pleased me. As a child, I detested the long, dark avenues of stunted trees; and the heavy, melancholy stream of moaning water; and the long passages, with their doleful echoes and their count less doors, and the vast chambers, with all their pomp and pageantry of faded furniture and family portraits. I am happier here in Lincoln's Inn, though one floor is my palace, and one lackey my establishment; and I leave the Hall, without a sigh, to my elder brother.

I shall not die for the lack of ten thousand a-year. I never longed to keep hounds, or an opera dancer: to give champagne dinners, or to represent a county; to win at Doncaster, or to lose at Rouge et Noir. Your true Epicurian does not need great wealth. I can afford to wear a tolerable coat, and drive an unexceptionable cabriolet; to be seen sometimes at the Opera, and keep myself out of reach of the Bench; to throw away a trifle at Piquet, and cook a wild duck for my antagonist. These things content me; and, except when some unusual temptation has awakened my appetite, or some more than common loss ruffled, for a time, my philosophy, I would not readily exchange them for the rent-roll and the three per cents. of my elder brother.

As for the title, it is not to be mentioned seriously as the object of a reasonable man's ambition. In old times, a belted lord had certain privileges and pastimes, which might make life pass pleasantly enough. It was interesting to war upon his equals; it was amusing to trample on his inferiors; there was some merriment in the demolition of an abbey-there was some excitement in the settlement of a succession. Now-a-days, it is as well to be called Tom, as my lord; unless you have a mind to dine at the dullest tables, and make speeches to the drowsiest audience in the world. So I resign my chance of the peerage without reluctance ; and, besides, the coronet must pass from the temples of its present apoplectic possessor over an artillery officer, a rural dean, and an attaché to an embassy, before it decorates the honored brows of my elder brother.

But when I have resigned philosophically all longings after these distinctions and advantages, which would be mine if I could date my birth but a twelvemonth earlier when I have congratulated myself that I am not bound, by any necessity or interest, to do battle for the privileges of the Order, or talk nonsense in support of the game laws-why am I to be crossed at every turning by some hateful momento of the inferiority to which my unlucky planets have doomed me? why are smiles to grow colder, and conversation more constrained, at my approach?-why are my witticisms listened to with such imperturbable gravity ?-and why does Lady Mondragon look zero when I bow, and turn

away to whisper viper' in her daughter's ear?

Thus it has been from my infancy. My mother, to be sure, had the usual maternal peculiarities, and was always in our nursery squabbles the unfailing protectress of the party which was most immediately dependent upon her protection. But she died, poor lady, almost before I could be sensible how much I needed her alliance, leaving me to carry on the war unaided against an adversary whose auxiliaries were many and zealous, in the butler's pantry and the servant's hall, in the tenant's cottage, and the keeper's lodge. I was as handsome as Frederick, but his dress was more carefully tended, and his dress more studiously arranged; I was as ravenous as Frederick, but his acquaintance with the cellar was more close, and his visits to the store closet more frequent; I was the bolder rider, but my pony was as rough as a bear; I was the better shot, but my gun was as heavy as a blunderb iss; both learned the same lesson, but the praise and the shilling were for him; both plundered the orchard, but the reproof and the correction were for me. And when our father, with an unwonted exertion of impartiality, sent us to the same school, and supplied us with the same means of extravagance, though my hexameter was as smooth and my laugh as hearty, my scholarship as sound, and my pluck as indisputable as my brother's, he had more patrons and more friends than I had; and, some how or other, between Halbert major and Halbert minor there was a plaguy difference, though I scarcely yet suspected where it lay.

But I was soon able to discover of what materials the talisman was composed. My father broke his neck in a fox-chase, and my brother was master of the kennel stud; my uncle died of a late division, and my brother represented the borough. We came into the world, and began to jostle for places like the rest of its industrious citizens,

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I met Lord Fortalice at a dinner party. What could be more condescending than his Lordship's manner, or more flattering than his expressions? He had heard of my renown at college; he was confident of my success in life; he knew a host of my connexions; he had had the sincerest respect for my father he could assure me the Duke of Merino entertained the highest opinion of my talents, and the Lady Eleanor had pointed me out last week as a model to her son. But when at last his Lordship hoped my principles would allow me to support the Bill which was next week to be before Parliament, and understood from me that the interests of sixty-seven independent men were in my brother's hands, not mine, he gradually withdrew his civilities from me, and devoted himself thenceforth to the entertainment of a pursy divine, who spoke in monosyllables, and took an appalling quantity of snuff.

It was introduced to Tom Manille at the Opera. He was charmed to make my acquaintance; he had been told of my good fortune at the Salon, and was aware what a favourite I had been with the Baronne de Lusignan. Did I want a servant ?-a friend of his was going to dismiss one who was worth all the Indies. Was I looking for a hunter?-His cousin had one which would suit my weight exactly. He would make my betting-book, he would superintend my cellar,-he would take me to a soirée chez Mademoiselle,-he would give me a special recommendation to his tailor.

He must make me known to the Somerses,—their cook was Ude's first pupil ;-of course I should belong to the club,-his influence was omnipotent there, A few weeks elapsed; and Tom Manille was riding my brother's horses, and drinking my brother's chambertin. He always calls me my dear fellow,' and never passes me without a most encouraging nod; but I have never dined with the Somerses, and last week I was black-balled at the club.

I wrote a treatise on the state of the nation, and submitted it to an eminent publisher He was wonderfully delighted with the work. The views were so sound, the arguments so convincing, the style so pure, the illustrations so apposite. I began to look forward to an infinity of popularity and an eternity of fame; I dreamed of laurel wreaths, calculated the profits of tenth editions. In imagination I was already the pilot of popular opinion, the setter up and the putter-down of cabinets. But when I struck out the magical M.P. from the proof sheet of my title-page, my fall was immediate and disastrous. My language lost its elegance, and my subject its importance; and my pamphlet lies forgotten in the limbo of unpublished embryos, wanting only life, and willing to win immortality. I should have. been the most influential writer of the day, if I had not had an elder brother.

At Brighton I fell in love with Caroline Merton. She was an angel, of course, and it is not necessary to describe her more particularly. Her mother behaved to me with the greatest kindness: she was a respectable old lady who wore a magnificent cap, and played cassino while her daughter was waltzing. Caroline liked me, I am sure, for she discarded a dress because I disliked the colour, and insulted a colonel because I thought him a fool. I was in the seventh heaven for a fortnight; I rode with her on the downs, and walked with her on the Chain Pier. I drew sketches for her scrapbook, and scribbled poetry in her album. I gave her the loveliest poodle that ever was washed with rosewater, and called out a corpulent gentleman for talking politics while she played. Caroline was a fairy of a thousand spells; she danced like a mountain-nymph, and sang like a syren; she made beautiful card-racks, and knew Wordsworth by heart: but to me her deepest fascination was her simplicity of feeling, her independence of every mercenary consideration, her scorn of stars and garters, her penchant for cottages and waterfalls. I was already meditating what county she would choose for her retirement, and what furniture she would prefer for her boudoir, when she asked me at an ill-omened fancy-ball, who was that clumsy Turk, in the green turban and the saffron slippers. It was my elder brother. She did not start, nor change colour: welltaught beauties never do but she danced that night with the clumsy Turk, in the green turban and the saffron slippers; and when I made my next visit she was just sealing a note of invitation to him, and had lighted her taper with the prettiest verses I ever wrote in my life.

If your father was an alderman, you may nevertheles be voted comme il faut : if your nose is as long as the spire of Strasburg, you may yet be considered goodlooking if you have published a sermon, you may still be reputed a wit: if you have picked a pocket, you may by-and-bye be restored to society. But if you have an elder brother, migrate, go to Crim-Tartary

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or to Cochin-China, wash the Hottentot, convert the Hindoo at home you cannot escape the stigma that pursues you. You may have honesty, genius, industry -no matter you are a detrimental' for all that.

Last summer I saw Scribe's amusing scenes "Avant, Pendant et Après" at the Théâtre de Madame. In the “Avant," when the Duchess of the old regime, after bestowing on her eldest son unearned military rank, and the richest parti in all France, was quietly dooming her youngest-born to live poor, unknown, and Chevalier of Malta, a fine little fellow, who was sitting in the front row before me, looked up at his father, and cried,

IT is probable that weaving at first consisted merely in intermixing substances which had undergone little or no previous preparation; while, in later times, the material to be woven was spun. The first invented cloth was, perhaps, composed of rushes, straws, or shreds of the bark and fibrous parts of trees or plants, which needed no such process. When substances were found that might be so united by twisting as to form continuous and unbroken threads, whose strength allowed of their displacing ruder materials, great advancement was made in the art. It is remarkable, too, that improvements in the loom are of recent date; and that even now the artisan often prefers it in its original simplicity. But I have seen at Manchester and Black, burn, hundreds of looms worked by steam; and in Leeds I had the pleasure of inspeeting an extensive manufactory where the wool goes in just as it comes from the back of the sheep, and from whence it is sent out the best cloth that can be made.

Travellers assert that weaving, in some form or other, has been pursued in almost every country where the inhabitants are led by the nature of the climate to seek protection from its inclemency. Its origin is, therefore, involved in deep obscurity; but, doubtless, it was practised by inferior creatures long before it was discovered by man. For instance, there is a marsh not far

from Long-champs which abounds with a water-plant called pondweed. Its shining leaves, which are as large as those of the laurel or orange tree, but thicker and more fleshy, are spread on the surface of the water; aud beneath one of these Reaumur discovered the cell of a caterpillar, which is called the pondweed tent maker; and afterwards minutely watched its movements. Having fastened a patch of leaf, of the size and shape suited to his purpose, to another leaf, or the underside of its own, so as to form a hollow cell, and secured the leaf by threads of white silk; it weaves a cocoon in the cavity, which is somewhat thin, but of very close tissue, and there shuts itself up only to emerge as a perfect insect. This cocoon of leaves, lined with silk, is constructed underneath the water; thus showing that the caterpillar has a particular art, by which it repels the water from between the leaves. I may mention, too, that the caterpillar of the emperormoth feeds on fruit-trees and on the willow, and spins a cocoon, in the form of a Florence flask, of strong silk, so thickly woven, that it appears almost like damask or leather. It differs from most other cocoons, in not being closed at the upper or smaller end, which terminates in a narrow circular opening, formed by the converging of little bundles of silk, gummed together, and almost as elastic as whalebone. As all these ends are in needle-shaped points, the entrance of depredators is guarded against, on the principle which prevents the escape of a mouse from a wire-trap. Not contented, however, with this protection, the insect constructs another, within the external aperture, in the form of a canopy or dome, so as effectually to defend the chrysa lis. But though the cocoon is thus, in some measure, impenetrable from without, it is readily opened from within; and when the moth issues from it case, it easily passes through, without either the acid or eyefiles ascribed to the silk-worm. The elastic silk gives way on being pushed from within; and when the insect is fairly out, it shuts of its own accord, like a door with spring hinges.

A curious fact was mentioned to me, some days ago, by a gentleman who has resided many years in the island of Antigua. He says he has often observed a large spider, which generally lives in houses, and never spins a net, but weaves a silken bag, about as large as a sixpence, which is always carried wherever it goes, and in which its eggs are deposited. On this, too, it seems to sit as a hen does; and when the eggs are hatched, the young spiders make their way through the woven substance, which is remarkably strong, and is then abandoned by them and the parent insect. The nests of the larger hunting spiders are of a very close satin-like texture. Some have been examined which were about two inches high, and had two parallel chambers placed perpendicularly, in which position the inhabitant reposed there through the day, going abroad to prey, it is imagined, during the night. But the most remarkable circumstance was, that the openings, two above and two below, were so elastic as to shut almost close. In Evelyn's Travels in Italy, we find the following account of these little creatures :—

"Of all sorts of insects, none have afforded me more divertisement than the yenatores, which are a sort of lupi, that have their dens in rugged walls and crevices of houses; a small brown and delicately spotted kind of spiders, whose hinder legs are longer than the rest.

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Such I did frequently observe at Rome, which, espying a fly at three yards distance, upon the balcony where I stood, would not make directly to her, but crawl under the rail, till, being arrived at the antipodes it steals up, seldom missing its aim; but if she chanced to want any thing of being perfectly opposite, would at first peep, immediately slide down again,-till, taking better. notice, it would come the next time exactly upon the fly's back but if this happened not to be within a competent leap, then would this insect move so softly, as the very shadow of the gnomen seemed not to be more perceptible, unless the fly moved; and then would the spider move also in the same proportion, keeping that just time with her motion, as if the same soul had animated both these little bodies: and, whether it was forwards, backwards, or to either side, without at all turning her body, like a well-managed horse: but if the capricious fly took wing, and pitched upon another place, behind our huntress, then would the spider whirl its body so nimbly about as nothing could be imagined more swift; by which means she always kept the head towards her prey, though, to appearance, as unmoveable as if it had been a nail driven into the wood; till, by that indiscernible progress (being arrived within the sphere of her reach,) she made a fatal leap, swift as lightning, upon the fly, catching him in the pole, where she never quitted hold till her belly was full, and then carried the remainder home."

One of these small hunters, with a back striped with black and white, like a zebra, is very common in Britain. The abode of the labyrinthic spider is, however, a contrast to the little elastic satin nest of the hunter; and is often seen spread out, like a broad sheet, in hedges, furze, and other low bushes, and sometimes on the ground. The middle of this sheet, which is of a close texture, is swung, like a sailor's hammock, by silken ropes extended all around to the higher branches; but the whole curves upwards and backwards, sloping down to a long funnel-shaped gallery, about a quarter of an inch in diameter. This is much more closely woven than the sheet part of the web, and sometimes descends into a hole in the ground, though oftener into a group of crowded twigs, or a tuft of grass. Here the spider dwells secure, frequently resting with her legs extended from the entrance of the gallery, ready to spring out on whatever insect may fall into her sheet-net.

In the nest of the hedge-sparrow, which is formed of green moss, rather loosely, on a foundation of a few dry twigs, there is a circular piece of hair-cloth, curiously wrought, which in some cases is of considerable thickness, though it is often so thin as not to cover the moss; but the hairs are always collected and interwoven into the structure singly, and, moreover, bent carefully, so as to lie smooth in the circular cup of the nest. Not a single end is left projecting; but all are pushed in among the moss in the exterior. Other birds are still more skilful in weaving the pied wagtail forms a texture of hair more than half an inch thick, and the interior presents a smooth, uniform surface; but, perhaps, the preference must be given to the chaffinch. Mr. Rennie says, We have one chaffinch's nest, which appears more beautiful than usual, from being lined with a smooth, thick texture of cow's hair, all of an orange-brown colour, which forms a fine contrast to the white wool, intermixed with grey lichens and green

moss around the brim. In some specimens, again, the hairs are nearly all white, and in others nearly all black, though seldom in a mass, and almost wholly worked in hair by hair. If a tuft of hair is procured, therefore, from a tree or a gate-post where cattle have been rubbing themselves, the chafinch seems to pull it minutely to pieces before interweaving it, while the wagtail and some other birds merely flatten it to make it lie smooth."

There is a bird called "the weaver oriole," which is supposed to be a native of Senegal. Two that were taken to France seemed to be of different ages, the older having a kind of crown, which appeared in sunlight of a glossy golden brown colour; but at the autumnal moult this disappeared, leaving the head of a yellow colour, though its golden brown always returned in the spring. The principal colour of the body was yellowish orange, but the wings and tail had a blackish ground. The younger bird had not the golden brown on the head till the end of the second year, from which it was supposed to be a female, as female birds look young for a longer time than the males. The two birds were kept in the same cage, and lived at first on the best terms with one another. Having been observed in the spring to interweave chickweed into the wire of their cage, it was thought they wished to nestle, and on being supplied with fine rushes, they built a nest so capacious as entirely to conceal one of them. In the following year they renewed their labours; but the younger, which had now acquired its full plumage, was driven off by the other from the nest first begun. It, however, commenced one for itself in the opposite corner of the cage; but the elder continuing his persecution, the birds were separated. They went on working at their several buildings; but what was built one day was generally destroyed the next. It is said that one of them, having by chance obtained a bit of sewing silk, wove it among the wires; which being observed, more was given him, when the bird interlaced the whole, but very confusedly, so as to hinder the greater part of one side of the cage from being seen through.

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Weaving is, indeed, a common process among foreign birds. One weaves a hemispherical structure of dry grass, the blades of which it winds round the adjacent branches of a tree; another constructs a neat conical hanging nest, which outwardly is formed of various light materials, bits of rotten wood, fibres of dry stalks of weeds, pieces of paper, commonly newspapers-so that some call it the "politician"-all interwoven with the silk of caterpillars; and, Vailant has given us a description of a nest which is very beautiful. "In one of our journeys," he says, through a wood of mimosas, in the country of the Caffres, my good Klaas discovered and brought me this nest, having seen and particularly observed a male and female tehitree occupied in constructing it. It is remarkable for its peculiar form, bearing a strong resemblance to a small horn suspended with the point downwards, between two branches. Its greatest diameter was two inches and a half, and gradually diminishing towards the base. It would be diffi cult to explain the principle upon which such a nest had been built, particularly as three fourths of it appeared to be entirely useless and idly made; for the part which was to contain the eggs, and which was alone indispensible, was not more than three inches from the surface. All the rest of this edifice, which was a tissue