on on the top having protected these particular
pieces and preserved them.

No accurate estimate can be made of the thousands of years this work of
the elements has been in progress. There are perhaps a hundred of the
peculiar formations of different sizes and shapes, some of which are
really fantastic.

The Garden of the Gods is also a remarkable freak of Nature, partaking
somewhat more of the grand and imposing.

It is a secluded spot, hemmed in by great rocks stood up on edge and on
end. They are some of the more marked of the numerous evidences on every
hand here of a grand upheaval some time in the past.

Imagine tremendous flat rocks, large enough to cover a quarter of an
acre of ground, standing up on edge, 330 feet high, and you will have
some idea of what forms the chief wonder of this garden.

G. B. G.

BACKLOGS MADE OF STONE.

It will surprise many persons of the present day to be told that the
"backlog" of which we read so much in old-time stories was a large
stone, a porous stone being preferred if possible. This stone was buried
in the ashes, and on top was placed the "back stick." The back stone in
those primitive times played a very important part in the economy of
early housekeeping. Matches were not then invented. Flint, steel and tow
were the only means of lighting a fire or a lamp. Imagine for a moment
the Bridget of to-day thus engaged, with the thermometer ten degrees
below zero in the kitchen. The stone, together with the ashes with which
it was covered, served to retain fire and heat through the night, and
all that was necessary in the morning was a little kindling and gentle
use of the indispensable bellows, and a fire was as readily made as at
the present day.

[Illustration]

MAMIE'S LETTER TO HEAVEN.

BY J. W. WATSON, AUTHOR OF "BEAUTIFUL SNOW."

An humble room in a tenement house,
Four stories above the street,
Where a scanty fire, a scanty light,
And a scanty larder meet;
A woman sits at her daily toil,
Plying the needle and thread;
Her face is pallid with want and care,
And her hand as heavy as lead.

There she sits with her weary thought,
While the tears drop full and fast;
There she sits and stitches away,
With her memory in the past;
Beside her, perched on her little stool,
Sits Mamie, a six-year-old,
Who says she is never hungry at all,
And never admits she is cold.

There she sits and chatters