at this time of the year we should have to go in a sail-boat, which would be much better."

"Why would it be better ?" asked Mrs Morelle.

"Because it would be more of an adventure for us," said Grimkie.

ence.

"I am afraid to go in a sail-boat," said Flor"I am always afraid of tipping over." "Oh, there is not any danger of that!" said John. "The boat tips a little, I know, when the wind is on the beam, but it can't tip far, for they always have some heavy irons or stones in the bottom for ballast, and that keeps the boat right side up."

"Is that the way they do it ?" asked Florence. "Yes," said John; "it is the ballast in a ship or a boat that keeps it from upsetting. Whenever you see a ship or a brig, or even a sail-boat going along with a side wind, and leaning over to leeward, you must always think of the heavy irons or stones there are in the bottom of it, which keep the bottom down in the water and prevent her from turning over."

This was a new idea to Florence, and as it happened that a vessel was then in sight, very near, and that it was leaning over considerably to one side, under the pressure of the wind, Florence looked at it with a great deal of inter

est and curiosity, wondering if there really was a load of stones or iron along the bottom to keep the bottom down.

"It seems rather strange," said Florence, "to put stones or iron into a vessel to keep it from upsetting and sinking."

"It is curious," said Grimkie. "But it is true. You can try it with a tin pail. If you put a tin pail with nothing in it into the water, even if the water is smooth, the pail will fall over upon its side and the water will run into it, and then when it is full it will sink. But now if you put a heavy stone into it the stone will keep the bottom down so that it can't fall over upon its side, and so no water can get in, and it does not sink."

"It is very curious," said Florence, “that a stone should keep anything from sinking."

"But it is a fact-about the tin pail," said John. "I have tried it myself. And the heavier the stone was the steadier the tin pail sailed in the water."

Florence was quite interested in this explanation; and so indeed was Mrs. Morelle, who had had no clear idea before in respect to the function performed by the ballasting of the ship.

"See how high the rocks are !" said Grimkie, pointing to the precipitous shores of the island.

"There are only a very few places where even a boat can land. There is no town on the island, and no inn—or scarcely any. Only a farm house where people put up."

"Is that one of the reasons why you wished to go there ?" asked Mrs. Morelle.

"Not exactly," said Grimkie; "but there would be something new in putting up at a farm house after all the grand hotels we have seen. But then there really are some very curious things to see in Sark. For instance there's the pot.",

"The pot?" repeated Mrs. Morelle.

"Yes, that's what they call it, Auntie,” said Grimkie. "It is like an immense iron pot with potatoes boiling in it. The potatoes are immense rounded stones lying in it, and the boiling is the whirling and roaring and dashing of the sea that comes in through a kind of tunnel below."

"A tunnel ?" asked Mrs. Morelle.

"Yes, Auntie. It is a subterranean passage that the sea has worn in the rocks, and the waves roll in there furiously when the tide is rising, and make boiling enough inside to cook the rocks, if there could be any such thing as cooking rocks by the boiling of cold water. People who go to see the pot stand on the margin at the top and look down. There is a growth of grass and

ferns and bushes that extends down a little way from the margin, but below that the sides are of rock all the way down to the water. But I believe there is a place where people can climb down,"

"I am sure I should not wish to go down," said Florence, shaking her head.

"Oh, Florence!" said John. "It is exactly what I should like to go down there."

"There is another way of getting into it," said Grimkie, "if you don't like climbing down the rocks; and that is, by going through the tunnel in a boat. You can do that well enough when the tide is low. But when the tide is high the waves roll in there so tremendously that no boat could possibly live."

"It must be a curious place," said Mrs. Morelle. "What else is there in Sark that we should have liked to see ?"

"There are two other places something like the pot, which I call the big dig-out and the little dig-out," said Grimkie.

"What makes you call them so ?" asked Flor

ence.

"Those are the names of them," said Grimkie. "At least those are the translations of the names. The real names are French, but that is what they mean You see they are immense holes.

dug out by the sea. One of them is two hundred feet deep. That is twice as deep as from the top of a tall spire of a church. The sea breaks into it between some immense masses of rock which stand at the entrance of it, and look like broken columns."

The account which Grimkie thus gave of some of the wonders of Sark was pretty correct. He had obtained his information from the guidebook, which he had carefully studied, and also from some boatmen that he and John had become acquainted with on the pier at St. Peter's

Port.

The truth is that Sark is only the remains left by the sea of what was once a much larger island, and the sea is still incessantly at work undermining the cliffs and wearing the rocks away. It happens, moreover, that the rock of which the substance of the island is composed, is of a soft texture and very variable in its structure, so that the waves wear away some portions much faster than others. The consequence of this is that in the lapse of ages the sea has worked out upon the coast a great number of strange and fantastic forms.

In some places the waves have eaten far into the land, and have formed deep caves. When ⚫ these caves reach a certain magnitude the roof