of the Piedmontese, has resigned the command
to Sirtori.

Nov. 1. Drove out with a friend to the
bridge of St. Torio; leaving the carriage, we
crossed over, ascended the hill, Jerusalem, and
visited the four-gun battery of the enemy, with
which we had fought an unsuccessful duel on
the tenth of October. Returning to St. Torio,
we encountered St. Dash and Cowper. The
latter proposed to us to go down and visit a new
mortar-battery established about six hundred
yards from the walls in readiness to begin. As
all seemed quiet, and it was now nearly four
o'clock, the idea of a bombardment to-day,
grew fainter; we therefore strolled down to
the spot, and found what Cowper described as
a remarkably pretty work—the most alluring
part of which was, certainly, a little bomb-proof
bower, into whose recesses it was not, however,
permissible to enter. It was, in effect, the
magazine. A great mamma-mortar, and a little
daughter-mortar with a movable chin, together
with a twenty-four pounder, comprised the
armament; an enormous grandmamma-mortar,
drawn by sixteen oxen, having sunk down helpless
in the adjoining field. Owing to the height
of the sand-bag parapet, and the surrounding
trees, the city was wholly invisible; but a
couple of steel rods placed on the parapet were
supposed to be in a direct line between the
mortar's mouth and the cross on the cathedral.

Being thus near the walls, a fancy seized a
member of our party to advance still nearer.
Accordingly, availing ourselves of what shelter
we could, we crept gradually forward, until we
were almost within speaking distance of the
enemy, whose artillerymen lined the ramparts in
crowds. A few paces beyond the last trees there
was a small shed, with a roof but no walls; and
this commanded so complete a view, that, trusting
to the politeness of our friends on the wall,
we ventured thus far, and were calmly using our
opera-glasses, when Cowper's experienced eye
detected a quiet movement, and we became
aware that a gun was revolving silently in our
direction.

It was useless to walk away, and it is not held
pretty to run. We had to stand our ground,
come what might. It came—a shell—well enough
aimed in point of distance, but too much to the
left, my friends! We dropped, and the fragments
whistled among the trees. As we moved
off, they sent us a present of grape, with no better
effect. Scarcely had we set foot once more in
the mortar-battery, than up went a signal from
the hill of St. Angelo, whither King Victor Emmanuel
had "come to see," and whiz! went
from our battery the first bomb against Capua.
Quick as lightning, the enemy returned it
with a splendid shot from a gun that had probably
been laid for hours waiting to reply. The
shell passed close to my friend's head, who had
climbed up to peep over the parapet; went between
a horse's legs; and exploded in the rear of
the work, without mischief. The thundering now
became incessant. We had five batteries at
work; the Sardinians three; while the city,
firing from three faces, beat us all to nothing
in rapidity and skill.

A poor sergeant in our battery was hit on the
left side by a large fragment of shell that passed
nearly through his body.

"Ahi, signor capitano! Son morto," he
gasped out to Cowper, who stood upon the
parapet, watching the effect of our shells.

Cowper leaped to the ground and crammed two
handkerchiefs into the frightful wound; but the
poor fellow died as he was borne away.

Returning from the hill of St. Angelo, whence
we witnessed the remainder of the contest,
we learned that the entire loss was only five
killed and twenty wounded. One of our batteries
had received no less than forty shots,
and was entirely silenced. The advantage, in fact,
had all been on the side of our antagonists, who
had sustained little or no damage. On the following
morning, Capua, admitting that we were
too much for her, hung out the white flag, and
sent out nine thousand men to deposit their
glittering arms upon the glacis.

They did not seem unhappy.

WATER EVERYWHERE.

THERE are worse things to gossip about, than
geology, than the chronicles of the earthquake
and volcano, the flood and the geyser, the olden
times of the mighty lizards and mammoths.
By means of such gossip, the reader may acquire
a knowledge of the essentials of the science,
and the writer may teach many weighty truths,
without everlastingly using repellantly learned
words and phrases. This is what PROFESSOR
ANSTED has undertaken to do by his admirable
Geological Gossip, and we hope that in return
for his very successful achievement, he will not
be torn limb from limb by those devotees of
science who consider an impracticable phraseology
as an integral part of every orthodox creed.

To a vast number of persons, beyond the immediate
interest taken in a flood or a drought, the
doings of the great waters are of little moment.
They know that without rain, corn and grass
will turn to useless stubble; that the flower will
no longer bloom, and the deep-rooted tree will
wither in the ground; but they no more think of
the mighty chemistry involved in the question,
than the schoolboy who is told that "three-
fourths of the globe are covered with water,"
and that water "enters largely into the composition
of plants and animals."

Water is the blood and chyle of this crusted
globe; without water there could be no life,
as we understand the term—no stir and bustle.
"Death would reign everywhere, silence and
stillness would take the place of that universal
movement which now characterises our
earth. The face of nature would present a
dreary blank, in which the intensest glare
of sunshine would alternate with the intense
blackness of perfect night." Of all the agents
concerned in the transformation continually
going on in our earth, the first place must