The great work celebrated last August was no less than the changing the bed of the Aar and the lowering of the three lakes mentioned. The Aar in this region is about the size of the Seine at Paris or of the Hudson at Troy, but it is subject to sudden floods that are the terror of dwellers and property-owners along its borders. A Swiss colonel named La Nicca was the author of the grand scheme for reclaiming Seeland. The proposition he made was accepted in 1867, and, thanks to the sacrifices of the citizens in the communes and cantons immediately interested, and also to a heavy national subsidy, the enterprise was commenced, and so vigorously and ably prosecuted that in ten years it was finished. To-day the Aar, turned out of its ancient bed near Aarsberg, runs nearly west instead of north-east toward Soleure, and empties into Lake Bienne near its middle. The new bed or canal made for this river is over five and a half miles long, and some of the way it is three hundred and twenty-eight feet deep. But this is only a part of the work. Another vast canal, also over five and a half miles long, at the eastern extremity of the lake, not far from the pretty village of Bienne, receives the overflow not only of Lake Bienne, but of Neufchatel and Morat, which are all three connected by broad canals, and are now in communication with the Rhine by steam navigation. The canal at the eastern extremity of Lake Bienne opens into the Aar some seven miles below where that river was cut off. It is in fact the bed of the river Thiele, deepened and reconstructed. The deepening of the bed of the Thiele, the natural outlet of Lake Bienne, was effected according to principles that would ensure the lowering of the water-level of all the three lakes some ten feet! Thus a vast territory of swampy land, which once bore only reeds, now yields abundant harvests of grain and fruits. Of course the lowering of these three lakes had to be effected gradually, for the volume of water removed--no less than three thousand two hundred and eighty million cubic feet--represents a stupendous force. By this enterprise the whole plain of Seeland has become higher than the surface of the lakes, and consequently drains into them naturally. Already a beautiful village, Witzwyl, has sprung up, surrounded by some seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of fine arable land reclaimed from a forbidding, malaria-exhaling marsh. M. H. LITERATURE OF THE DAY. The Ceramic Art: A Compendium of the History and Manufacture of Pottery and Porcelain. By Jennie J. Young. New York: Harper & Brothers. "More crockery!" exclaims one aweary of the ceramic craze. "And the biggest book of all!--the winding-up shower, let us hope," quoth another non-sympathizer.