inquiry.

The Editor is fully aware of the very large circulation and wide
reading to which this little volume will soon be subjected. For this
reason he has taken proper pains to make the work of such merit as may
justly recommend it to the thoughtful as well as the transient and
unthoughtful reader. It cannot, we think, prove to be a wholly
profitless task to offer these different studies, gathered from the
highways and byways of the great century, to the thousands of good and
busy people into whose hands the volume will fall. To all such the
Editor hopes that it may carry a measure of profit as well as a
message of peace.

J.C.R.

CONTENTS.

[All articles not otherwise designated are by the Editor.]

CRISES IN CIVIL SOCIETY.
PAGE.

Brumaire--The Overthrow Of The French Directory, 9
How the Son of Equality Became King of France, 14
The Coup d'Etat of 1851, 19
The Chartist Agitation in England, 23
The Abolition of Human Bondage, 27
The Peril of Our Centennial Year, 35
The Double Fete in France and Germany, 40

GREAT BATTLES.

Trafalgar, 44
Campaign of Austerlitz, 50
"Friedland--1807", 55
Under the Russian Snows, 59
Waterloo, 63
Sebastopol, 71
Sadowa, 77
Capture of Mexico, 84
Vicksburg, 89
Gettysburg, 95
Spottsylvania, 104
Appomattox, 112
Sedan, by Victor Hugo, 118
Bazaine and Metz, 129

ASTRONOMICAL VISTAS.

The Century of the Asteroids, 136
The Story of Neptune, 146
Evolution of the Telescope, 156
The New Astronomy, 165
What the Worlds Are Made Of, 175

PROGRESS IN DISCOVERY AND INVENTION.

The First Steamboat and its M