moderately sagacious, and sufficiently patient, observer may soon become familiar. In proof of this, look at the astonishing amount of information concerning the resources of a strange country which a single intelligent traveller can give us. The solitary example of Livingstone is sufficient for my purpose. He had far fewer advantages, before he left this country-as I who was his fellow-student know well-than could be placed at the disposal of travellers now-a-days; but he made himself as skilful as he could in the knowledge likely to be serviceable to him in Africa, and he turned it all to excellent

account.

Some of our industrialists have discovered the importance of systematically employing trained agents abroad, and have profited by the discovery. Foremost among them are the horticulturists and florists of the country who have long been in the habit of sending skilful practical botanists to distant regions, to select and send home their rare and useful plants. All whom I address are familiar, presume, with one or more of the works on China by Mr Robert Fortune, formerly attached to the Botanic Garden here; and know how much he has done to introduce Chinese plants into this country, as well as into India.

Recently, this example has been followed, in even a more interesting way, by the great English firm, Price's Candle Company, who have published directions for the use of all visitants of distant lands who care to look out for plants yielding wax, butter, or oil, and desire to form on the spot some notion of their value, as sources of candle and lamp-fuel, and as elements of importance in the soap-manufacture.

This example has in turn been followed by the energetic scientific officers and civilians in India, in all the Presidencies. One of those gentlemen, in particular, Dr A. Hunter of Madras, has drawn up rules for the selection and treatment of textile fibres from new plants found in the East, which would serve for the guidance of searchers for such in all parts of the world.

Next to the horticulturists, in recognition of the principle under notice, are the metallurgists. The great metal merchants of Birmingham despatch over the world skilful mineralogists to seek for precious ores. One former assistant and friend of mine is at present in Spain on such a

search; another, who knows all the mines of Northern Europe, is, whilst I speak, sailing to Chili on a similar errand.

I may also refer here to the volume of Lectures on Gold, published by the Government School of Mines in London a few years ago, as a guide to the multitudes of our countrymen flocking at that time to the gold fields of Australia. It illustrated the perfect possibility of equipping travellers intellectually for the reaping of that industrial harvest which awaits the sagacious in every land. Contrast with this the vast amount of time, labour, money, and energy which have been wasted in vain attempts to discover by chance, or through glimpses of half-knowledge, the riches of unknown regions. Bags of iron pyrites have been sent home as gold-dust; lumps of red oxide of iron, as the cinnabar ore of quicksilver; pieces of flattened lead-shot, as grains of platina. Men have exchanged abroad heavy gold dust for light diamonds, alas, too light! for they proved, on reaching home, to be quartz crystals; and single-witted knaves have felt so confident of the general ignorance, that sham nuggets, manufactured in Birmingham, have been sent out to the golddiggings, where they were scattered on Sunday mornings over exhausted mines about to be offered up for sale: entry immediate.

Let any one, indeed, take a map, and mark upon it all of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, which is still unexplored, and after reflecting upon the immensity of the area thus brought into view, ask himself how its material riches are to be ascertained, and he will not, I imagine, propose to leave them to be stumbled on by such chance visiters as may wander aimlessly and ignorantly through that region.

Many Thoughts on Many Things: being a Treasury of Reference, consisting of Selections from the Writings of the Known Great and the Great Unknown. Compiled and Analytically Arranged by Henry Southgate. 4tc, 656 pp. London: George Routledge & Co.

INCOME.

No one is less respected than a man who muddles away large income nobody knows how. For all expenditure there should be something to show, and that something ought to have either use

fulness, or dignity, or permanence to recommend it. But every now and then we meet with cases of expenditure perfectly mysterious. A man of princely inheritance or preferment does nothing, makes no figure, helps nobody, has no expensive taste, yet not only spends every sixpence of his income, but gets into difficulties. His domain is neglected, his house illfurnished, his equipages shabby, his servants ill-paid, his subscriptions in arrears, his hospitality mean, his sons stinted, his daughters portionless, his estate encumbered; in fact, everything goes to rack and ruin about him. Instead of performing his part in sustaining the great fabric of society, as far as his influence extends, there is one vast dilapidation. He may be said to crumble and crash in every direction. Nobody can say where the money is gone. It has not benefited friends, assisted dependants, built churches, fertilised the soil, ornamented the country, delighted the town, or done anything that a man can lay his hand upon. has all been dribbled and fribbled away on hollow pretences and petty occasions, without either system or object; it has won neither gratitude, nor admiration, nor respect.

LAUGHTER.

It

Laughter is not altogether a foolish thing. Sometimes there is even wisdom in it. Solomon himself admits there is a time to laugh,' as well as a time to mourn. Man only laughs; man, the highest organised being; and hence the definition that has been proposed of 'Man, a laughing animal.' Certainly, it defines him as well as a 'cooking animal,' a 'tool-making animal,' a 'money-making animal,' a 'political animal,' or such-like. Laughter very often shows the bright side of a man. It brings out his happier nature, and shows of what sort of stuff he is really made. Somehow we feel as if we never thoroughly know a man until we hear him laugh. We do not feel 'at home' with him till then. We do not mean a mere snigger, but a good, round, hearty laugh. The solemn, sober visage, like a Sunday's dress, tells nothing of the real man. He may be very silly, or very profound; very cross, or very jolly. Let us hear him laugh, and we can decipher him at once, and tell how his heart beats. We are disposed to suspect the man who

never laughs. At all events, there is a repulsion about him which we cannot get over. Lavater says, 'Shun that man who never laughs, who dislikes music, or the glad face of a child.' This is what everybody feels, and none more than children, who are quick at reading characters; and their strong instinct rarely deceives them.

MANNERS.

The custom-house officers of every nation I have yet travelled through have a different manner of examining your lugman turns over each article separately, gage. Your crusty phlegmatic Englishbut carefully; your stupid Belgian rummages your trunk as if he were trying to catch a lizard; your courteous Frenchman either lightly and gracefully turns up your fine linen, as though he were making a lobster salad, or, much more frequently, if you tell him you have nothing to declare, and are polite to him, just peeps into one corner of your portmanteau, and says, 'C'est assez. Your sententious German ponders deeply over your trunk, pokes his fat forefinger into the bosom of your dress-shirts, and motions you to shut it again.

But none of these peculiarities had the Russians. They had a way of their own. They twisted, they tousted, they turned over, they held writing-cases open, bottom upwards, and shook out the manuscript contents like snow-flakes; they held up coats and shirts, and examined them like pawnbrokers; they fingered ladies' dresses like Jew clothesmen; they punched hats, and looked into their linings; passed Cashmere shawls from one to the other for inspection; opened letters, and tried to read their contents (upside down); drew silk stockings over their arms; held boots by the toes, and shook them; opened bottles, and closed them again with wrong corks; left the impress of their dirty hands upon clean linen and virgin writing-papers; crammed ladies' under-garments into gentlemen's carpet-bags; forced a bootjack into the little French actress's reticule; dropped things under-foot, trod on them, tore them, and laughed; spilled eaude Cologne, greased silk with pornatum, forced hinges, sprained locks, ruined springs, broke cigars, rumpled muslin, and raised a cloud of puff-powder and dentifrice.

WHEN the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater consulted a regularly bred engineer about the practicability of the upstart Brindley's plan for the famous Bridgewater Canal, the regularly bred engineer replied, that he had heard of castles in the air, but he had never seen any built and so the regularly bred shipbuilders, if they had been consulted about the great ship at Milwall, would probably have said that they believed in Noah's ark, but thought it impossible in the present day. Yet, notwithstanding the opposition and sneers of regular professionals, Brindley's castle in the air was built, and Mr Brunel's impious attempt to rival Noah's ark has succeeded. It is curious that nearly all the greatest engineers and inventors of modern times have never been regularly brought up to their calling. Smeaton, who commenced as an architect, finished as an engineer; Telford commenced life as a builder of dry dykes, and taught himself how to build bridges and make canals; James Watt was a mathematical instrument maker before he became a machinist; Robert Stephenson was a smith; Paxton, a gardener, now an architect; and so among the shipbuilders, Sir William Symonds was an officer in the queen's navy; and Brunel has been, and is, an engineer. Amongst all these, there is not one that was regularly educated to his ultimate destiny. Steam, which owed its first step to Newcomen, a village blacksmith, its second to Smeaton, the architect, another to Watt, the mathematical instrument maker, and yet another VOL. XXVI.-APRIL, 1858.

common

to Stephenson, the colliery smith, now is indebted for its last, not to a shipbuilder or engine-maker, but to a civil engineer. Ocean steam-navigation seems to be indebted for everything to Brunel: he was the architect of the Great Western, the first steamer that crossed the Atlantic; also of the Great Britain, the first steamer in which the screw proved its pre-eminence over the paddle, and in which iron showed itself preferable to wood; and now he completes his work by building a vessel capable of performing the circuit of the earth by means of steam.

The Great Western had, indeed, two predecessors claiming the honour of being the first sea-going steamersnamely, the American ship Savannah, and the British ship Enterprise, built for India in August, 1825. But the story of the Savannah having crossed the Atlantic under steam in 1819, though told and re-told by Brother Jonathan with the most circumstantial details, is compelled by stern evidence to yield to be included among the other myths connected with steamnavigation in America.

The Enterprise was built to win a prize offered by the India merchants of a lac of rupees to the vessel that should perform the first steam-voyage out and home, averaging seventy days either way. This vessel, after several postponements, finally started from Falmouth on the 16th August, 1825. Only one depôt of coal had been provided, contrary to the suggestion of the captain, who had urged the adoption of at least three (at the Cape de Verde, the Cape of Good Hope, and

2 B

the Mauritius). In order to make her coal last to the Cape, she was loaded with as much coal as she could carry, bags of coal being even stowed over her boiler, which nearly caused her loss by fire. She was also furnished with iron boxes full of coal as ballast, these being intended to be filled with water when the coal was exhausted. The apertures of these being extremely small, rendered the labour of shipping the coal extremely heavy, and the men actually fainted in extracting it from some of the tanks near the flue. The captain was finally obliged to make St Thomas, to shift coal, clean boilers, and to water. After remaining there three days, he proceeded to Table Bay under canvas. Having coaled there, he proceeded, and reached Calcutta (where he had been anxiously expected) on the 8th December. The period of the voyage, including the detentions, had been 114 days, of which 63 were under steam and 40 under sail. The result of this experiment greatly disappointed the public and the shareholders, for it appeared impossible for the Enterprise to do the voyage under 85 days. As a speculation she had failed, as she took very few passengers, and the inconvenience they suffered from coal dust and heat, and the length of the voyage, rendered it very unlikely that she would command passengers for the homeward voyage. Thus the first attempt at ocean-steaming was a failure. For tunately in this case the government had learned to appreciate the aid of steam in military purposes, and bought the Enterprise for £40,000, so that the speculators lost only £3000.

Thus, in the case of the Enterprise, an attempt at long voyages by steamnavigation had failed, but by the presence of this ship in India the military importance of steam was established. This fact soon began to have an influence in the construction of vessels in the British navy, especially for the Indian station. Another idea in connection with ocean steam-navigation was the first (an unsuccessful) attempt to establish the overland route. The projectors of this latter plan, taking warning from the disagreeables of the voyage of the Enterprise, made use of a tug, instead of a vessel carrying her own engines. The ship that was tugged,

however, acted as a tender to the tug, carrying her coals for her, herself at the same time furnishing room for cargo and passengers. The first trip with this tug (the Emulous) and its tender proved that the whole thing must of necessity be a failure.

Yet this attempt of the Emulous was the precursor of the overland route to India. That mode of reaching India having been proved, by the indefatigable Lieutenant Waghorn, to be possible in less than two months even by sailing-vessels, and some years after the attempt of the Emulous, the Peninsular and Oriental Company was established. The ships of this company are able to coal at two points at least in going (as well as at Alexandria)-namely, at Gibraltar and Malta-and consequently, without using very large vessels, are able to carry sufficient coal for the voyage from station to station. The passengers having crossed the desert to Suez, are met by a vessel from India; here again coaling stations are found at Aden, situated at the mouth of the Red Sea, and also at the Mauritius, half-way between Aden and India. This route, though so successful in speed, is of necessity expensive, as very little cargo beyond treasure and goods of great value in a small compass can be carried; and on account of the great value coals acquire before they reach Aden round the Cape of Good Hope, the fares for passengers were and still are enormously high. Yet the Oriental and Peninsular Company has been a successful company, and from year to year has built larger, swifter, and more comfortable steamers. They were in modern times the builders of the Himalaya, which was sold to government during the Russian war, and which did so much service as a transport; this, indeed, was more than twenty years after their establishment, but it shows the energy of this company that they now possess some of the largest, and have at one time owned the very largest steamer in the world.

Undoubtedly it was greatly owing to the success of the Peninsular and Oriental Company that steam-navigation has reached its present wondrous development. When men could reach India in six weeks, they naturally began to grumble at being nearly a month

in attaining New York from Liverpool, scarcely one-third of the distance. Consequently the feat of reaching New York by steam became a favourite enterprise among 'men that go down to the sea in ships. It was discussed by sailors over their grog, and by philosophers over their wine or tea, and by both pronounced to be impossible, nay, ridiculous, in short, an insane project. There was one man, however, who was neither a sailor nor a philosopher, but a mixture of both, that thought differently. If he was not a book-worm mathematician, he had extensively applied the principles of science in practice; if he had not been much on the water, he had been a good deal under it, for he had helped his father to build the Thames Tunnel; in that situation he had learned the perseverance of the seaman without his prejudice. Isambart Brunel proposed to steam across the Atlantic. Why not?'-'Because you'll run out of coal, as between England and New York you cannot establish a coaling station without quitting your course. But suppose I do not require a coaling station?'-'Ay!'Why, by building a ship large enough to carry her own coals.'- Oh! oh! quite impossible; you'll require a ship, sir, at least of 1300 or 1400 tons, and 236 feet long.'-'Yes, that's about it.' -'Indeed, why that's larger than the largest man-of-war ever built; she won't float-she won't launch-she'll break her back between the waves. Then look at the weight of the engines you'll require; why, sir, they'll go through her bottom.'-'Oh, sir, we can avoid all these things.'-'Can you?' -'Yes; at least we intend to try.''Madness!' (Exit conservative seaman.) Such is the kind of conversation that may be supposed by analogy to have taken place many a time with Brunel concerning the Great Western, for the same class of arguments have been produced by the never-dying old school, ever since man was permitted to exercise ingenuity.

Brunel not only did try, but persuaded several persons with purses to aid in trying, and in 1836 the company was formed, and commenced their operations by building the Great Western. She was considered a marvel of size at the time, and made almost as much sensation as the Leviathan of to-day;

and the same wise prophecies were made about her as are now made about her great successor; such as, she was too big to swim,' that 'she would be doubled up' as she rested on the crests of the waves, &c. We all know how those prophecies were fulfilled. Every coasting-skipper thought himself a better judge of the question than the distinguished projector himself; just as every clown who keeps a donkey thinks himself a judge of a racer. The expectations of this company were considered very extravagant at that time, but would be considered singularly modest now: they expected to make the outward voyage in twenty, and the home voyage in thirteen days. They succeeded in making the first voyage in 14 days. So successful was this vessel, that, between 1838 and 1844, she made in all 84 voyages, her longest being 15, her average 13, and her shortest 124 days. This vessel, thought to be so enormous, that, on her arrival, all New York turned out to see her, was only 1350 tons, and 236 feet long; or about one-third in length of the Leviathan, and' one-ninth in tonnage. She carried 600 tons of coals, consuming about 30 tons in the 24 hours.

With the success of the Great Western may be said to have arisen ocean steam-navigation in the true sense of the word, for that could scarcely be called steam-navigation that required the aid of sailing-vessels to coal the swifter ships. The example of the Great Western was soon followed; and it having been proved that a ship large enough to carry its own coals for 3000 miles, not only would swim and not break her back, but perform rapid voyages, English enterprise and speculation immediately took the direction of ocean steamers. In 1842 was started the West India Mail Company, the owners of the unfortunate Amazon, and also of the largest paddle-wheel iron steamer existing, the Atrato, of 3500 tons, nearly double the tonnage of that pioneer, the Great Western. Two years previously, in 1840, the Cunard Mail Company established a line of steamers to run between Liverpool and Halifax, and subsequently to New York. They have since had a rival in the American line of Collins; so that the Atlantic has been for the last few years a steam race-course, on