.

WATER.
NEXT to Fire we must rank Water in its two forms, liquid and vapour, as the greatest destroyer of books.

Thousands of volumes have been actually drowned at Sea, and no more heard of them than of the Sailors to whose charge they were committed.

D'Israeli narrates that, about the year 1700, Heer Hudde, an opulent burgomaster of Middleburgh, travelled for 30 years disguised as a mandarin, throughout the length and breadth of the Celestial Empire.

Everywhere he collected books, and his extensive literary treasures were at length safely shipped for transmission to Europe, but, to the irreparable loss of his native country, they never reached their destination, the vessel having foundered in a storm.
In 1785 died the famous Maffei Pinelli, whose library was celebrated throughout the world.