In the mean while Spain has sent a note to the various powers, asking what they would be prepared to do if she should declare war on the United States. It is said that the European governments have given Spain to understand that if such an event occurs she will receive nothing stronger than diplomatic support from them. * * * * * The cruiser _Montgomery_ and the gunboat _Annapolis_ have been sent in search of the _Silver Heels_, but have returned to port without finding any traces of her. The number of patrol vessels on our coasts has been doubled, and every possible precaution is being taken to prevent another affair of the kind; but, in the mean while, the filibuster has got safely away. Cuban filibustering has, however, received a severe blow from England. Information was received by the magistrate of Andros Island that the Cubans had established a depot on one of the Bahamas Islands, of which Andros is the largest. These islands lie on the north and east of Cuba, and are a large group of coral islands, which are formed by those great coral reefs which are known as the Bahama Banks. Twenty of them are uninhabited, and many of them are mere reefs or keys. These islands are very interesting from the fact that they have all been built by the coral insects. Each of these tiny creatures gathers lime from the water in which it lives or the food which it eats, and develops from this a skeleton, which is the coral. They live in masses or colonies, and throw out buds above them which form fresh coral insects. These buds immediately set to work and gather lime to build up their own skeletons. In time the old coral insects below die, leaving behind them the hard limestone frame which they have built. The younger coral above lives on, sending forth buds which in turn do their share of the building, and in time,--in countless ages of time,--reefs and islands rise out of the mighty depths of the sea, built by the untiring energy of these marvellous little insects. This rock building is still going on in the Bahama group, and some geologists think that in ages to come the coral insects which are at work on the Bahamas and those that are so busy on the Florida reefs will build up a vast country where it is now sea, and that ages and ages hence the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and perhaps even the West Indian Islands may be a part of the main land. While this is only a theory, it should be interesting to you in making you realize that the building of the world is going on now, from day to day, as steadily as it did in the days when the bed of the Niagara River was carved out, and the wonders of the Yellowstone Park were being created by the gradual working of the waters. The forces of nature are building up and destroying to-day just as steadily as when the world first began.