There are pearls, according to Möbius, which consist of three different systems of layers, like the shells in which they are formed; with this difference, that these layers are _reversed_: in the shell the nacre forms the innermost layer, in the pearl it forms the outermost. Hence the qualities of the pearl depend on the shell, and on the different proportions of nacre and carbonate of lime. Since we know how pearls are made, may it not be expected that we should learn to make them? Ever since the days of Linnæus the hope has been entertained, and it is now becoming every day more likely to be realized. Imperfect pearls have been made in abundance. The Chinese have long practised the art. They simply remove the large fresh-water mussel from the water, insert a foreign substance under the mantle, and in two or three years (if I remember rightly) they take the mussels up again, and find the pearls formed. In this way they make little mother-of-pearl Josses, which are sold for a penny each; and I remember seeing a couple of large shells in the Anatomical Museum at Munich, the whole length of which was occupied by rows of little squab Josses, very comical to behold. I was informed that a copper chain of these deities had been inserted under the mollusc’s mantle, and this was the result. FOOTNOTES [12] FLOURENS: _Cours de Physiologie Comparée_, 1856, p. 9. [13] BURDACH: _Physiologie_, ii. 245. [14] DARWIN: _Origin of Species_, p. 128. [15] ISIDORE GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE: _Hist. Nat. Générale des Règnes Organiques_, 1860, iii. 207 _sq._ BROCA: _Mémoire sur l’Hybridité_, in BROWN-SEQUARD’S _Journal de la Physiologie_, 1859. [16] See their interesting essays in MÜLLER’S _Archiv._ 1856. Paterfamilias to the Editor of the “Cornhill Magazine.” Sir,—To a person returning to England after an absence of many years, few things can be more striking than the progress which has been made in the art and practice of education since the commencement of the present century, the methods and contrivances which have been ingeniously and mercifully invented for imparting with greater ease the rudiments of knowledge to the young, and the new books and new devices which really merit the Old World title of _Reading made Easy_. Formerly, any old paupers, who could read or write more or less intelligibly, and who were too worn or too weak to earn their subsistence in any other manner, used to be considered as perfectly qualified to instruct the rising generation of the parish to which they belonged in those necessary arts; and dire used to be the sufferings which the unhappy village children underwent, solely because their broken-down and incompetent teachers knew but little themselves, and knew not at all how to impart that little to others.