business of the ---- nation he was going upon went his way, and having
discharged his duty, hurried back to Pera, where he told this story,
where it was universally believed from the veracity and character and
dignity of the narrator, and where the narrator himself is still living.
Very possibly, while I am writing he is telling his rencounter with the
wizard, for he tells it to every stranger--_Metropolitan_.

* * * * *



NOTES OF A READER.


* * * * *


PRECIOUS STONES.

(_From Part 15, of Knowledge for the People--Mineralogy and Geology_.)


_Why was crystal so named?_

Because it was probably the first substance ever noticed as occurring in
a regular form, and the ancients believing it to be water permanently
congealed by extreme cold, from its transparency, called it
_Krustallos_, signifying ice; but in time the word became used without
attention being paid to its original meaning, and was applied to all the
regular figures observed in minerals.