bblestones, and wonder why they should be there instead of in the
street, where they seem to belong. But these ordinary-looking stones
are, in the eyes of scholars, among the most precious objects of
history: they are covered with writings in some unknown, and even
unheard-of, tongue. Some of the writing is fine, some coarse: sometimes
the lines are straight, from right to left, and sometimes they wind
about, like the trail of a serpent, in every direction. Saffah is a
desert plain in Syria extending east from the lakes of Damascus, and a
part of it is covered with these curious stones. Antiquaries like Renan,
Ganneau, De Vogue, Waddington and Pierret are sorely puzzled over the
writing on them, for the character resembles none that has yet been
deciphered. They will not, however, abandon the task, for antiquaries
are Patience personified; and we shall one day know the history,
language, manners and customs of a race whose very existence up to the
present time has not even been suspected.

M. H.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The published statistics of the Russian press are manifestly
untrustworthy; but the post-office returns of St. Petersburg show that
82,000 copies of daily and 40,000 of weekly papers, with 50,000 copies
of monthly periodicals, are yearly sent to the provinces. The largest
circulation (26,000) belongs to M. Katkoff's _Moscow Gazette_
(_Moskovskiya Vedomosti_). Besides the native journals, 17 German
papers, 5 French, 4 Polish, 2 Tartar and 1 Hebrew are published in
Russia. Of English papers, the _Manchester Guardian_, thanks to the
number of Lancashire workmen in the interior, has the widest
circulation: the _Times_ comes second, the _Illustrated London News_
third.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

The Atlantic Islands as Resorts of Health and Pleasure. By S. G. W.
Benjamin. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Invalids and pleasure-seekers have here a guidebook to the summer and
winter resorts of the North Atlantic, from the desolate rocks called the
Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the ever-bland Madeira
and the over-bright Bahamas. The varied company of the isles embraces
even Wight, where Cockney consumptives go to get out of the mist, and
the Norman group consecrated to cream and Victor Hugo. The author's good
descriptive powers are assisted by a number of drawings, many of which
are finely done and well discriminate the local character of the
different places, latitudes and circumstances