TAR.--One of the commonest substances met with in city or town is tar. A paper roof covered with tar makes a very good protection against sun and rain provided a suitable amount of gravel covers the tar. The kind of tar most used is called coal-tar or gas-tar. This is made at the gas factory from the distilling of soft coal. Tar that comes from different varieties of pine and spruce is used to cover ropes and hulls of ships. It is from his having some of it usually clinging to his hands and clothes that the sailor boy came to be called "Jack Tar," and from his fondness for the sea one of the royal family of England got the pet name of "Royal Tarry Breeks." It is strange that there has been no change in the work of getting this kind of tar from the wood for over twenty-three hundred years. The wood is placed in holes dug in the ground and covered carefully with turf so as to keep out the air and prevent too much burning. Some of the wood is left free so the air may get at it and burn it enough to make heat enough to distil the pitch from the rest of it. This is gathered into barrels and is black because of the smoke that gets into it. It was this sort of tar that Benjamin Franklin had his experience with one time in Philadelphia. He was running along on the tops of tar barrels on the wharf one fine day with his Sunday clothes on. The head of one barrel was not in good condition, and so Benjamin went down into it. The next issue of his paper had a very amusing account of the accident in which Franklin used his powers to make puns to great advantage in making fun at his own expense.