"I have said it," said the Stone. "I would see your wall trampled into dust, and the whole universe along with it, before I would surrender my great principle. Do what you please." "Go, then, refractory wronghead," exclaimed the mason, "go and enjoy your equality where none will be likely to dispute it!" And so saying, he cast the Stone from him with a vigorous jerk; and the Stone, after it had completed its journey through the air, fell down, and from the force of its own gravitation sank several feet low into the bottom of a deep and slimy pool. This was, for all historical purposes, the termination of its existence. What became of it in the pool ultimately, it is impossible to conjecture, for half a century has elapsed since; but as a total extinguisher was put upon its aspirations after notoriety by the accident, it is highly probable that if not worn quite away by the friction of the surrounding mud and water, it was at least gnawed to the core, in a moral sense, by its regrets for the folly of its past misconduct--regrets which we may suppose to have been shared in a pretty equal degree by its twin-brother of the preceding year, which had stickled so stoutly in its colloquy with the mason for its favourite theory of liberty and independence. THE AIR WE BREATHE. The objects which come every day before our eyes, the offices which involuntarily and almost unconsciously we at each moment must perform in order that we may live, are precisely the subjects concerning which the mass of mankind are least curious, and of the true nature and utility of which they are the most completely ignorant. It is thus with the air we breathe. There is no person but is aware of the necessity of breathing, and of the motion of the air caused by winds; but how few have asked themselves, What is air? How much is there of it? Could the same air be always used for breathing? How do fishes manage living in water in place of air? Yet the information thus obtainable might be the means of saving the lives of hundreds, as certainly the ignorance on these points has been the source of death, by painful and lingering torture, in many cases. We purpose, therefore, now to give some information about air, to show the importance of it to mankind, and to indicate how much we owe to the Omniscient Providence that has given to air the properties that we find it to possess.