d most soluble
parts of the neighbouring lands, with a portion of animal and vegetable
matter, affording an inexhaustible store of nourishment--_Trans.
Horticultural Society_.

_Watch Alarum._

A patent has recently been procured for a most useful appendage to a
watch, for giving alarm at any hour during the night. Instead of
encumbering a watch designed to be worn in the pocket with the striking
apparatus, (by which it would be increased to double the ordinary
thickness), this ingenious invention has the alarum or striking part
detached, and forming a bed on which the watch is to be laid; a
communication being made by a lever, projecting through the watch case,
to connect the works. This appendage is described to be applicable to
any watch of the usual construction, and is by no means expensive.

* * * * *

THE MONTHS.

[Illustration]

NOVEMBER.

November is associated with gloom, inasmuch as its days and nights are,
for the most part, sullen and sad. But the transition to this gloom is
slow, gradual, and almost imperceptible. The mornings of the month are
generally foggy, and are thus described by a modern poet:--

"Not pleasureless the morn, when dismal fog
Rolls o'er the dewy plain, or thin mist drives;
When the lone timber's saturated branch
Drips freely."

In the progress of day,

"Shorn of his glory through the dim profound,
With melancholy aspect looks the orb
Of stifled day, and while he strives to pierce
And dissipate the slow reluctant gloom,
Seems but a rayless globe, an autumn moon,
That gilds opaque the purple zone of eve,
And yet distributes of her thrifty beam.
Lo! now he conquers; now, subdued awhile,
Awhile subduing, the departed mist
Yields in a brighter beam, or darker clouds
His crimson disk obscure."

The country has now exchanged its refreshing varieties of greens for the
hues of saffron, russet, and dark brown. "The trees," says an amusing
observer of nature, "generally lose their leaves in the following
succession:--walnut, mulberry, horse-chestnut, sycamore, lime, ash,
then, after an interval, elm:

"----'To him who walks
Now in the sheltered mead, loud roars above,
Among the naked branches of the elm,
Still freshening as the hurried cloud departs,
The strong Atlantic gale.'

"Then beech and oak, then apple and peach trees, sometimes not till the
end of November; and lastly, pollard-oaks and young