HERE is a picture of the Eider Duck; a bird which few of our readers have seen. I believe it is not found in America farther south than Portland in the state of Maine. Its favorite regions are the rocky shores and islands about Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador. In some parts of these regions its nests are stated to be so numerous that a person can hardly walk abroad without treading on them.

The eider duck is about twice the size of the common duck; usually weighing from six to seven pounds. Its nest is generally formed of dry seaweed and other coarse grass, lined with a large quantity of down, which the female plucks from her own breast. Perhaps this duck is the only animal in the world-except man, the hunen animal

that ever robs itself, to keep its offspring warm or comfortable.

The eider duck usually lays five eggs, and if she leaves them she covers them with down. The people who hunt for down find the nest, and take away both the eggs and the down. The duck then lays again, and if she has no more down to cover her eggs with, plucks off her feathers for the purpose. If she is robbed again, she lays a third nest of eggs; and in this case the male bird, it is said, furnishes the down. If they still continue to be robbed, however, they at length abandon the place.

One female bird usually furnishes half a pound or so of down, which is worth about two dollars. As found in commerce, this down is in balls said to be about the size of a man's fist, and

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weighing from three to four pounds. It is so fine and elastic that when a ball is opened, and the down cautiously held over hot coals to expand, it will completely fill a quilt five feet square. The down plucked from a dead bird is of comparatively little value.

The general colour of the male eider duck is black, but the head and back are white; it has also a black crown. The female is of a reddish drab, spotted with black, with two white bands across the wings. The food of this bird is principally shell-fish; for which it will dive to very great depths. They often associate in large flocks.

The flesh of the eider duck is sometimes eaten by the Greenlanders; but it tastes strongly of fish. The eggs are much more esteemed as food than the flesh. For these and for the down, people are often let down by ropes from craggy steeps, at the peril of their lives. The Greenlanders sometimes use the skin, feathers and all, for under dresses. It costs a great deal of labor to clear the down, and much of it is lost in the process. Iceland furnishes annually from 1500 to 2000 pounds of down; but when cleaned, it does not make over 300. It is much used by the rich and luxurious for beds and coverlids, especially in very cold countries.

A good word for a bad one, is worth much, and costs little.

JOURNEY OVER THE ALLEGANY
MOUNTAINS.

(Concluded from our last number but one.)

Ar half past four in the morning, (May 12) a bell was rung for us to rise. We had travelled about forty miles during the night, and were now fifteen or twenty miles beyond Harrisburg. Crossing the Susquehanna twice, we came at length to the banks of the Juniata, and were carried across the stream 20 or thirty feet above its surface in an aqueduct.

The canal now runs along the very shore of the Susquehanna, a wild, wide, rugged, rocky river, occasionally swelling into calm and sleeping lakes, till at length leaving this stream, it crosses over to the banks of the smooth and placid Juniata. Now the lofty hills approach the river, leaving only just room enough for the river, the canal and the turnpike road.

This day we have not passed a single mile of country on which the beauties of nature have not been lavished in an unusual degree. One feels unwilling to leave the deck a moment. Every hour, too, we are passing boats heavily laden with merchandize for the interior, or the far west, or meeting packets filled with. passengers, or boats with produce, for the Atlantic market.

We arrived at Lewistown about six o'clock in the evening. It is an old, ug

brick houses, and many of rough hewn

logs, plastered between the crevices. We have not seen a tolerably pleasant village on our whole route. Most of the towns put down on the map are rude collections of desolate looking houses.

We have been most of the day moving along the banks of the Juniata, much of the time upon a raised embankment twenty or thirty feet above its surface, with the smooth, unrippled stream flowing on one side, and the craggy or deeply wooded mountain rising, now precipitately, and again by gradual ascent, many hundred feet above our heads, on the other. The mountains were at one place covered with trees of ever varied hues; at another, the rocky battlements frowned in gloomy grandeur, as if they had known no change since the creation. Again, acres of the steep mountain side, were covered with loose fragments of stone, presenting a most dreary aspect.

We passed, during the day, many places which were truly curious. Sometimes the high hills on both sides of us, would approach so near the Juniata, as barely to allow room for it to pass. In such places, a mill dam is often thrown across, and the canal boats are drawn for miles upon the waters of this beautiful stream.

We have come from Columbia, a distance of 172 miles, in forty-eight hours. I never enjoyed a more pleasant journey. It is now six o'clock in the afternoon, and we have just arrived at Holidaysburg. Here we rem..in till morn

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ing, and then take the rail-road cars across the mountains.

The morning has arrived. We have amused ourselves awhile in looking at the village, and in counting the canal boats here; there are more than forty. But it is now five o'clock, and the cars are starting, with about 100 passengers on board. We are drawn by horses at

a swift trot. At first, the track is nearly level for about four miles; after which we ascend, in the short space of half a mile, about 300 feet.

This last ascent was gained by machinery, and not by horse power. There were two tracks up the ascent, and a strong two-inch cable passed up one and down the other. To this cable our cars were attached at the bottom of the ascent, and a balance car on the other track, at the top. An engine was also placed at the top, by the motion of which the balance car was carried down the track on one side, and we were carried up that on the other.

But what if the cable should break while a car or a number of cars are being drawn along up this inclined plane? Would they not run back down the plane, and the passengers and cars be dashed in pieces? These are questions you will naturally ask, and I hasten to answer them.

When we are ascending, a safety car is placed behind us, running upon two very small wheels, at one end, and so constructed like a wedge that if the cable breaks, the passenger cars will run

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back and crowd upon this safety car, and by their great weight press the runners of the safety car upon the track, and greatly retard the speed of the passenger cars; and perhaps prevent any serious injury.

Having arrived at the top of this inclined plane in safety, we were drawn by horses over another level of about two miles, and then up another inclined plane, of about the same length and height with the former. Then comes another level of about a mile and a half; and then a third inclined plane half a mile long. Again the horses trotted along with us about a mile, when another engine grappled our cars and dragged us up another steep place; and at the surprising rate of fifteen or twenty miles an hour. A few rods more of level ground intervened; after which we were dragged up a fifth ascent, three quarters of a mile long, which left us, in triumph, on the top of the Allegany

mountains.

Here we were, old and young, mothers and babes, baggage and merchandize, raised to the mountain's top, in a single pleasant ride before breakfast. Here, at the height of 3,242 feet above the level of the sea, and 1,398 feet above where we were at five o'clock in the morning, we sat down to take some refreshment. There are two taverns here, on the top of the mountain; one of them is built of stone, the other is plastered. The top of the mountain is not rugged and rocky as I had expected to find it;

but tolerably level, and the soil is quite good.

Our descent towards Pittsburg was by five planes, similar to those we had before ascended. We saw, at one place, a noble viaduct of massive stone masonry, eighty feet high; and about midnight we passed through a tunnel of 800 or 900 feet, blown out of the rocky bowels of the mountain. It passes not only under a farm, but directly under the well.

I was on the whole disappointed in the scenery of the Allegany mountains. It is true we passed along the verge of some frightful precipices, where we could not but shudder to think. what would be the consequence, if the cars should get off from the track; but we passed many ridges, at some distance down the sides of the mountains, which appeared more towering than any which were nearer its top.

At half past four o'clock in the morning, May 14, we found ourselves passing, in a canal boat, along the beautiful and romantic banks of the Conemaugh creek. The Loyalhanna rivulet soon enlarges the stream, and we find ourselves sailing upon the shores of the Kiskiminitas.Every hour the elevations dwindle in size, and the mountains retire before the vallies. The trees assume a hue of richer verdure, and the fields appear in a higher state of cultivation.

About eleven o'clock, the silvery surface of the Allegany river became visible through the trees, and at length the canal passed over it. Following its

LETTER FROM UNCLE NEWBURY.

BE IN TIME.

SAY nothing, my boys, about the thous and things you have done, but rather tell me whether they were done in time. If you do not put up your umbrella till you are wet through, if you neglect to lock the door till the house is robbed, if you delay serving a friend till he has no need of your assistance,-why, you may just as well not do the things you intend to do; for they can only be useful when done in time.

One of my servants (and a good servant, too, in many respects) used to

think, that, if she did her work, the time and order in which it was done were of no importance: the consequence was, that she never did any thing in time. In a morning, instead of attending to my breakfast, she was preparing something for my dinner; and when dinner-time came, she as regularly was busy about tea or supper: so that not a meal could I have in peace or comfort, because she was busy in doing something which might have been as well done at another time. She would take the saucepan off the fire when the milk had boiled over, and drive the tom-cat