Strasbourg is the great market for _pates de foies gras_, made, as it is known, of the livers of geese. These poor creatures are shut up in coops, so narrow they cannot turn round in them, and then stuffed twice a day with Indian corn, to enlarge their livers, which have been known to swell till they reached the enormous weight of two pounds and a half. Garlick, steeped in water, is given them, to increase their appetites. This invention is worthy of the French nation, where cooks are great as nobles. INSCRIPTION IN CONWAY CHURCH. Here lyeth the body of Nicholas Hookes, of Conway, gentleman, (who was the forty-first child of his father, Wm. Hookes, Esq., by Alice, his wife,) the father of twenty-seven children, who died the 27th day of March, 1637. DROPPING-WELLS. If you journey through Yorkshire, be sure to stop opposite the ruins of Knaresborough Castle, because, on the south-west bank of the river Nidd, you will observe the petrifying spring of Knaresborough,--the celebrated dropping-well--where the peasants and the needy crowd to make their humble fortunes by afterwards retailing small sprigs of trees, such as the elder or ash, or pieces of the elegant geranium, the wild angelica, or the lovely violet, turned into "obdurate stone." [Illustration: [++] The Petrifying Spring of Knaresborough.] Every spring does not possess the petrifying properties of that of Knaresborough; but there are, doubtless, many dropping-wells distributed over the earth's crust; and some of these are well known to possess the property of petrifying various objects submitted to the action of their waters. For example: we have seen birds' nests, with the eggs, and delicate sprigs of moss surrounding them, and even the fibres of wool turned into stone, aye, and delicate flowers. Whence is this extraordinary power? From the soil over which the waters flow! The limpid streams absorb the silicious particles, and deposit them in the intimate structure of the materials submitted to the action of the waters; and thus we find the materials of which the earth's crust is composed, always undergoing a change. Twenty gallons are poured forth every minute from the top of the Knaresborough cliff, and the beauty of the scene can only be appreciated by those who have stood upon the margin of those "stony waters" and beheld the crystal fluid descend from above with metallic fall. CHINESE IVORY BALLS.