was not without its due effect upon the government. There are to-day ten infant schools and seventy-six primary schools in the city of Valletta. The visit of the Queen Dowager lasted three months, during which time she endeared herself very much to the Maltese by her kindness and consideration. The excellent and melodious organ used in St. Paul's Church was removed from the cathedral in the quaint old city of Chester, England, where it had long served its purpose, being replaced there by a very superior modern instrument. The atmosphere of this region is so clear that the grand, solitary, sulphurous cone of Mount Ætna can be sometimes seen, though it is situated a hundred and thirty miles away, in Sicily. The coast, stretching east and west from Cape Passaro, which is the nearest point to the Maltese islands, is also occasionally visible. The mountain, when seen against the northern sky, assumes the shape of an irregular cone with a widespread base. Some not clearly understood law of refraction must aid the human vision to discern these objects at such great distances beyond the horizon. The most favorable time of the day to seek a view of far-away Ætna is at sunrise or near sunset. The reader familiar with the White Mountains of New Hampshire has doubtless seen Portland harbor, in the State of Maine, from the top of Mount Washington, though this is a distance of about eighty miles. In this case, the object which is sighted at such long range is at sea level, while Ætna is over ten thousand feet above the surface of the Mediterranean Sea. Sailors describe the view of far-distant objects as promoted by "atmospheric looming," which perhaps applies in this instance, when one not only sees the low-lying coast of Italy, but it appears to be hardly more than twenty or thirty miles away.