d that the
sun was traveling along the northern heavens. I observed, too, that the
south wind was cold, and the north wind hot."

"You are quite right," said the gentleman; "and if you have been
studying the barometer, you have found that it falls with the northerly
wind and rises with the southerly one. When you travel over the country,
you will find that the valleys are cool and the mountain tops warm. The
bees have no sting, and many of the beautiful flowers have no smell. The
leaves of the trees are nearly always perpendicular instead of
horizontal, as in your country, and consequently one gets very little
shade under an Australian tree."

"I have heard," said Ned, "that the trees shed their bark instead of
their leaves. Is that really so?"

"It is so with most of the trees," was the reply; "in fact, with nearly
all of them. A few shed their leaves every year, and on many of the
trees the leaves remain unchanged, while the bark is thrown off. One
tree is called the stringy bark, on account of the ragged appearance of
its covering at the time it is shed.

"In your part of the world," the gentleman continued, "cherries grow
with the stones inside; but here in Australia we have cherries with the
stones on the outside. We have birds of beautiful plumage and very
little song; the owls are quiet at night, and screech and hoot in the
daytime, which certainly is not a characteristic of the English or
American owl. The geological formation of the country is also peculiar,
and the scientific men who have come here from England and America are a
good deal puzzled at the state of affairs they find in Australia. Would
it not surprise you to learn that we have coal in this country as white
as chalk?"

"That is, indeed, a surprise," one of the youths remarked. "I wonder if
the conditions are continued so that your chalk is black."

"The contrasts do not go quite so far as that," said the gentleman, with
a laugh, "as the chalk of Australia is as white as that of England. I
don't mean to say that all our coal is white, but only the coal of
certain localities. It generally takes the stranger by surprise to see a
grateful of white coal burning brightly, and throwing out smoke at the
same time. I must tell you that this coal is bituminous, and not
anthracite."

"I hope," said Ned, "that men's heads do not grow out of their sides, or
from their breasts, and that they do not walk topsy-turvy, with their
feet in the air."

"No,