The puzzled and astonished archeologist went to his tent with his treasures, the papyrus and the glass, and for weeks he studied them that he might learn to use the instrument. Sometimes it seemed to him as though his search were to be rewarded, but the truth constantly eluded him, although by a smaller and smaller margin, or so he was pleased to think. One day he brought his glass once more to the banks of the Nile near Karnac. Victory seemed very near just now. Carefully he opened the instrument to its full extent--and saw a savage people warring with each other on the peaceful river bank. Then came a stronger tribe, and then a stronger still, until at length he saw the mighty procession of the Pharaoh coming to inspect the temple of Karnac. He saw the rise and fall of nations: the slow march of the ages passed before his vision like the gliding of a dream. The Egyptian had written truth: "I have made an instrument which will gather up the scattered and tangled images of the past, and focus them upon the present." Appalled at the magnitude of his discovery, Dr. Aukirt stood in silence, and then the thought came, "Victory is not complete, the instrument can be so adjusted as to presage the future." He made what seemed to him the necessary changes; but when he attempted to look through his glass again, there was no light; the lens was broken. --Hazel Adelle Orcutt. =Up a Water-Spout= I was a poor, hard-working sailor on a fishing smack plying between Nantucket Island and Cape Cod. My parents before me had been of scanty means, living from hand to mouth, and I was compelled early in life to provide for myself. Naturally, I had little education; that is, education from books; but if traveling possesses half the advantages attributed to it in that line, I own I must be the best educated man--I say this with all modesty--on this small globe of ours. Once a year the captains of the several boats with their respective crews made a more extended trip down the coast for pickerel. This year with the usual company of fishing-craft we sailed southward toward the Bahamas. Favorable winds hastened our journey until at a point just off Cape Fear we ran into a dead calm. For four days we never moved. The heat was scorching. The boards warped and cracked, and not even a flapping sail indicated the slightest disturbance in the air. All the boats had dropped anchor within hailing distance of each other, so with the aid of the dories to carry us around from one ship to another we passed the time quite agreeably.