FLINT ONCE WAS SPONGE.
You never would think it, would you, my dears? But the Little Schoolma'am says that it was; and she always is right.
She says that flint really is nothing more nor less than sponge turned to stone. Once the sponge grew at the bottom of the sea, as other sponges grow now; but that was ages and ages ago, and since then the sponge, turned to flint, has lain covered by rocks and earth of many kinds piled thick above it. Seen with a microscope, flint shows the make of sponge in its fibers; and sometimes you can see, bedded in it, the shells of the tiny creatures on which the sponge had fed. Now and then, inside a flint, will be found bits of the sponge not yet changed.
That last proof settles it; but I must say it's hard to believe;—hard as the flint, almost.
SOME OLD PUZZLES.
Here are two letters, with old puzzles in them, that may amuse you for a while on one of these shivery evenings, my chicks. I'll tell you the answers next month.
Michigan.
DEAR JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT: The other night one of my brothers said he did not believe we could pronounce a certain word after he should have spelled it. I will tell you what it is, though you may have heard about it already:
A cross, a circle complete,
An upright where two semi-circles do meet,
A triangle standing upon two feet,
Two semi-circles, a circle complete.
Yours truly, CORA.
Oswego, N.Y.
DEAR JACK: I send you a riddle which I found. I take ST. NICHOLAS and like it very much. I have all of the volumes from 1874.
I am a word of plural number,
A foe to peace and human slumber,
Yet, do but add the letter S,—
Lo! what a metamorphosis!
What plural was, is plural now no more,
And sweet's what bitter was before.
Yours truly, KITTIE.
Talking about riddles, reminds me of one that was made by Richard Whately, an archbishop of Dublin, as I've heard. This is it: