ed that they howled more between the dark and the
daylight than at any time of the night.

VALUE 80

The sun was setting, giving a rosy glow to all the trees
standing tall black against the faintly tinted sky. Blue,
pink, green, yellow, like a conglomeration of paints dropped
carelessly onto a pale blue background. The trees were in such
great number that they looked like a mass of black crepe, each
with its individual, graceful form in view. The lake lay
smooth and unruffled, dimly reflecting the beautiful coloring
of the sky. The wind started madly up and blew over the lake's
glassy surface making mysterious murmurings blending in with
the chirping songs of the birds blew through the tree tops
setting the leaves rustling and whispering to one another. A
squirrel ran from his perch chattering, to the lofty
branches--a far and distant hoot echoed in the silence, and
soon night, over all came stealing, blotting out the scenery
and wrapping all in restful, mysterious darkness.

VALUE 90

Oh that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it! Blessed
were the wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding
through the woods, as the summons to an unknown wonder, and
approached its awful brink, in all the freshness of native
feeling. Had its own mysterious voice been the first to warn
me of its existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt down and
worshipped. But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of
foam and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down
out of the sky--a scene, in short, which nature had too much
good taste and calm simplicity to realize. My mind had
struggled to adapt these false conceptions to the reality, and
finding the effort vain, a wretched sense of disappointment
weighed me down. I climbed the precipice, and threw myself on
the earth feeling that I was unworthy to look at the Great
Falls, and careless about beholding them again.

A scale for measuring English composition in the eighth grade, which
takes account of different types of composition, such as narration,
description, and the like, has been developed by Dr. Frank W. Ballou, of
Boston.[27] For those interested in the following up of the problem of
English composition this scale will prove interesting and valuable.

Several scales have been developed for the