MISCELLANEOUS WONDERS.
Having dwelt so long on the WONDERS OF NATURE, and the WONDERS OF ART, both ancient and modern, we pass to some of the wonders and curiosities of the world of a miscellaneous nature. Some things are wonders only through their associations, as is the case with many of the localities of Palestine, for example, where the Saviour lived and walked, and wrought his miracles of power and mercy. Some are wonders as exhibiting the inventive powers of man, or the progress of our age as compared with another; some as exhibiting the singularities of nature; and some as combining the wonders both of science and art. The steamboat, the printing-press, the air-balloon, the residence of Washington, the hut of the Kamtschatkadale, the spot where the “Pilgrim Fathers” landed, the telegraph, the diving-bell or armor, the prairie on fire, the nest of the African tailor-bird, each of these, and of a multitude of other things that might be enumerated, is, in some way, or for some reason, associated to our minds with what is more or less wonderful, while still it may not be strictly a wonder either of nature or of art. Some of these we propose now to notice, interspersing them at intervals with some of the more miscellaneous wonders of nature, or art, or both, so as to give variety to the pages that follow. And the first of this class of wonders we will notice, is,