s that fishermen's nets were sometimes
entangled in what appeared to be masses of masonry, of which fragments
were brought up from the sea-bed. A year or two ago a diver declared
that he had seen walls and streets below the water.

The city authorities recently decided to investigate. They sent down a
diver who, at the depth of eighty-five feet, found himself surrounded on
the bottom of the sea by ruined walls. He says he knows they were the
work of man. He is a builder by trade, and he recognized the layers of
mortar.

Continuing his explorations, he traced the line of walls, and was able
to distinguish how the streets were laid out. He did not see any doors
or window openings, for they were hidden by masses of seaweed and
incrustations.

He traced the masonry for a distance of one hundred feet, where he had
to stop, as his diving cord did not permit him to go further. He had
proved beyond a doubt that he had found the ruins of an inhabited town,
which, through some catastrophe, had been sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Some people think that they identify this lost town with the island
mentioned by Pliny the Elder, under the name of Cissa, near Istria. This
island cannot be found now, and it is thought the submerged town may
have been a settlement on the island that so mysteriously disappeared.

ST. NICHOLAS.

A very pretty legend from Germany tells how St. Nicholas came to be
considered the patron saint of children. One day, so the story goes, he
was passing by a miserable house, when he heard the sound of weeping
within.

Stepping softly to the open window, he heard a father lamenting the
wretched fate to which his three lovely young daughters were doomed by
poverty. St. Nicholas' gentle heart was touched. He returned at night
and threw in at the window three bags of gold sufficient for the dowry
of the girls. His kindness to them, and to many others equally wretched,
made him regarded as the especial benefactor of children.

In Russia he is reverenced as the chief saint of the Greek Church, but
in Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Austria it is as the children's
saint that he is chiefly honored. The good Dutch burghers who founded
New Amsterdam placed the little settlement under his care. It has grown
to be the great city of New York, but his name is no less honored in the
splendid metropolis than in the humble Dutch town.

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