To us the mammoth is known as the Elephas primigenus, an extinct and northern cousin of the Indian elephant of to-day. It lived above the parallel of forty degrees in Europe, Northern Asia, and North-western North America, during what is known in geology as the Quaternary age. In those days, North America presented an entirely different appearance from the present. What are now the coast States, from Maine to Central America, were then nearly, if not entirely, under water, while Florida existed, if at all, merely as a deep coral-reef. A great arm of the sea or ocean extended up the St. Lawrence nearly to Lake Ontario, covering Lake Champlain and many other Canadian lakes. The site of the present city of Montreal was then five hundred feet under water, and whales swam at will over what is now Lake Champlain - a fact sufficiently proved by the discovery of one sixty feet above the borders of the present lake, and one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the Atlantic Ocean.

The animals that lived with the mammoth in that far-off, wonderful age were equally interesting. In 1772, a hairy rhinoceros was found in the ice at Wilni, Siberia, preserved in the same manner as the Shumarhoff mammoth. England, the northern part of Europe and Asia, and probably North

America also, were the roaming-grounds of a huge two-horned rhinoceros, that probably waged war with the mammoth. The streams, rivers, and swamps were then populated with gigantic hippopotamuses, armed with terrible tusks, while on the higher plains were oxen and deer, compared to which our modern cattle are dwarfs and pigmies. Among the tiger tribe was one now called the Marchaerodus, with sharp, saber-like teeth eight or nine inches long-one of the most formidable creatures of this age of wonders. It waged deadly warfare against the vast herds of wild horses that roamed the eastern plains in those days. Besides these were savage hyenas of great size, that traversed the country in troops, leaving devastation in their track.

Other great elephants are known to the geologist: as the mastodon, specimens of which have been unearthed at Newburg and Cohoes, N. Y., in Salem County, N. J., and in many other parts of this country. There is also record of a great fossil elephant, with tusks fifteen feet long, that was excavated from the Sewalik Hills of India; but none of these approached the hairy mammoth in size. It is surely a fitting monument of this ancient time, when man-if he existed at all-was but a savage, and the earth seemingly incomplete.

FEW days ago, my dear Kitty, I saw a little girl making a new face for herself, although she did n't know what she was doing. Indeed, I often see boys and girls tracing upon them

selves lines that, after a time, become as distinct, though not colored, as the tattoo

markings

of the South Sea Islanders. In fact, you were the little girl who was changing her face; and I have thought that, if I wrote you what the politicians call "an open letter" about it, both you and other little friends of ST. NICHOLAS might thank me in your hearts. You have often heard the saying that "Beauty is only skin deep"; and there is another that may be new to you, that "God makes our faces, but we make our mouths." Now, like most proverbs, these are truths, but they are not complete truths. But

I think I can show you how in great measure we do make our own mouths and our own faces.

You know very well that a blacksmith's arm is not only strong, but large, because hard work has developed its muscles. And it is a general truth that all muscles increase by exercise. But you do not see how a blacksmith's arm illustrates anything in a little girl's face? Let us "make haste slowly," as the wise old Romans used to say, and then my meaning may be clearer.

What does our skin, so soft and smooth in childhood, and often so harsh and wrinkled in old age, cover? You say, flesh? Yes. And some other little girl adds, fat? Very well. And the boy who is studying physiology adds, nerves and tendons? True. And then you all know that bones support the human structure-are the frame-just as the beams and timbers of a wooden house, or of a ship, are its frame. But what is flesh? Is it merely so much softer fabric thrown over and fastened to the bones in a thick sheet, like the soft seat on the hard frame of your parlor sofa? Not at all. The

flesh is separated into several hundred divisions, or little bundles, called muscles.

Muscles and flesh are different names for the same thing, just as the bricks and the wall of a house, or the stones and the pavement of a street, are the same. Only the muscles, unlike the bricks and stones, are all changeable as to size within certain limits; for each muscle is attached to the bone beneath it by the tough, inelastic tendon. Now, you know the bones can neither bend nor change their length. But how, for example, does your hand reach your mouth when you eat? Because your arm is jointed, and some large muscles are fastened by one end to its upper part, near the shoulder, and by the other end below the elbow. The muscles contract, which, as your Latin reminds you, means "draw together," and thus grow shorter, and by means of the elbow-joint the lower part of the arm (for the bone can not shorten) is carried around and toward the shoulder or the face, as the case may be. But, becoming shorter, the muscles must become thicker, just as, when a stretched piece of India-rubber contracts, you see it grow thicker and stouter as it grows shorter. By putting your hand upon it, you can feel the muscle of your arm swell as it does its work. But you already know that continuous and forcible exercise causes the arm- that is, its muscles-to grow much more marked and bulky. Let us stop a moment to see exactly what muscle means. Your Latin dictionary will tell you, if you don't already know, that mus means mouse, and musculus a little mouse. old anatomists who began to pry into Nature's secrets were impressed with the mouse-like outline of these tissues when contracted, and so called them little mice-muscles. So all our flesh is muscle, and it is these little mice running under the skin that are the tell-tales of what is going on or has been done.

The

Now your dear, soft face has its many muscles, too, much finer and more delicate than those of the body, by the exercise of which you express the emotions you feel. It would take too long to explain how or why certain of them respond to and illustrate certain feelings, and for the present you must accept it as a fact. Now, the secret of our first proverb lies in the further fact that around the mouth is one of the few muscles in the body that is not attached to bone. It is a muscular ring, to which other muscles are fastened, and moves in whatever direction it may be influenced, retaining the set and fashion into which it may be

drawn. And as the bony parts of the face, the nose, the forehead, the cheek-bones, the jaws, the whole fixed contour, are what we have inherited, we can not of ourselves make much alteration in them. So, also, we inherit our mouth; but this, as well as a part of the surface of the countenance, we can, and often do, materially alter; and it is to these alterations,—this making of faces,—that we all, old and young, should give heed.

I will not tire you, my darling, by going into those details which belong to a study that is beyond your years, but I want you to remember that those who are peevish and knit their eyebrows and wrinkle their foreheads — cloud their brows, it is called-do so only by the operation of little muscles, that work more easily and grow a very little every time they are so employed. There are a set of snarling muscles that draw up the cor

ners of the mouth and expose the canine teeth, which, in the savage flesh-eaters of the forest and jungle, are coarse and strong, and always at work, and which, I am sorry to say, are sometimes too well marked in boys and men. There is a little, but mischievous muscle, called superbus (which does not mean "superb," but "proud"), that, with a human helper, draws down and pouts out the proud and sullen lower lip. But, regardless of names, what I want you to particularly bear in mind is, that as every expression the features can assume becomes easier the oftener it is repeated, so the little mice run away with beauty and goodness of face when these expressions are unkind; and, in like manner, they are fairy messengers, bringing pleasant gifts for both present and future use, when the face becomes the mask of a good and willing heart. Your affectionate UNCLE ALFRED.