erage rate of ten miles per the weight, including engine, à attendants of each carriage, rteen passengers, need not cons; that in economy such d be superior to horse-carefficiency scarcely inferior to ances, while they would tend any existing interests, inested in near 20,000 miles of d highway, which railways estroy. Several difficulties, nted themselves as regarded n of roads, which, it is prey met by the invention here d, although it may perhaps interfere with existing railts in England, the tabula appears to present a most for enterprise in the extenon of such a method. roads or tramways, the durah is insured by the process o, steam carriages can mainf thirty miles an hour; and cost of a railway is from 70,000 per mile, that of a uld not exceed one-fourth of

ODEN RVILWAYS.

knowledged that wood, even d, will not secure all the proand, accordingly, experience the flange, in ordinary use on els, threatens the abrasion of il. This apparent difficulty h to a new discovery, which grown out of the experience he experiments made to test › which the present invention subservient; and the patent 'Mr. Prosser effectually sue of the flange, and not only Tood from this solitary peril, ew security to the lives of railways, and the safety of

experiments made at the lery, in London, upon a ay, prepared of metallised ed the following results:place as to the capability of ssure a piece of prepared nches and a half by three half, was submitted to the ) tons, upon a segment of an ur feet diameter and three tire, which indented it only

of an inab of

when

on which short space there was a curve whose radius was 720 feet; and gradients of one in nine, one in twenty-four, and one in ninety-five; the steepest of which ascents the engine overcame without any previous impetus by the steam being turned on at the commencement of the incline. The brake, too, was constantly in use, without producing the least abrasion; and all this was done during the space of two months without even obliterating the saw-marks. The following scale is the result of experiments relative to its superiority over unprepared timber, in sustaining weight horizontally, at a bearing of two feet ten inches. A piece of pine, one inch by one inch, under an impress of six inches long, bore seven pounds more than the unprepared piece, similar in all respects; one and a quarter inch, by one and a quarter inch, 28lbs.; one and a half inch by one and a half inch, 70lbs. And in perpendicular pressure, the prepared wood has an advantage of twenty per cent.

The introduction of wooden railways would be not less advantageous to existing railway interests than to the public. Not only in Ireland, but in England, it will give facility to the construction of branch lines, connecting parishes, towns, and villages, which, under the present system, would be for ever deprived of easy access to the great lines, and would promote the interests of all classes by re-opening a communication by the existing highways of Great Britain. It is well known that many of the present railroads, to avoid mechanical difficulties and great expense, have been carried through barren and unpeopled districts; not only this, but vast cuttings, tunnellings, and similar expensive works, have been incurred to avoid gradients and curves, which the greater bite of a wooden rail would render totally unnecessary.

From such saving in expenditure, it has been calculated that fares of twopence and one penny would be amply remunerative; thus extending to all classes an advantage which has been hitherto confined almost exclusively to the middle and higher sections of society.

Before passing from this subject, a short description of Mr. Prosser's invention, to which we have already referred, may be excused. The rails of beech or fir, six to eight inches square, are let into wooden sleepers, and secured thereon by wooden wedges, forming one great frame or wooden

omoting of longitudinal and onoce sloonora

The principal carriage wheels are flat, without flanges; but before and behind each carriage, are placed two bevel wheels upon axles, at angles of 45 degrees; by a deep groove in their circumference, they move along the upper and inner angle of the wooden rail, and thus guide the carriage with perfect safety, either on a straight line or the sharpest curve; and in the event of any accident to the main wheels, would carry the whole machine of themselves. An engine of this construction, weighing ten tons, running in wood, has more tractive power than one weighing eighteen tons running in iron; and a locomotive, running on wood, will wear longer than three running in iron. The converse of the advantage of iron wheels running upon wood has been successfully shown in the care of her majesty's special train, on the Great Western, where wooden wheels are made to run upon iron.

WOODEN DRAINS.

In this paper we have thought it useful to urge together two great objects, the affinity of which to one another will be strikingly increased by the application of the process here advocated. For it is highly probable that it will be extensively made use of in drainage as well as in railway operations, and those connected with house and ship building, and indeed in all works in which wood is generally employed, and for which the commonest wood is thus rendered equally applicable with the hardest and dearest. To employ wooden lengths, cut from the abundant forests of Scotch fir, as substitutes for tiles and stones, both for top and bottom, in ordinary drainage, will not appear Utopian, wheu the incorruptible qualities of paynized wood are taken into account. The advantages in point of cheapness and convenience will at once suggest themselves, and the suitableness of such a mode, and the prospective mutual benefit to the Scotch landlords and the Irish people which would accrue from its adoption, has indeed occurred forcibly to an English nobleman of great influence and practical acquaintance with agricultural operations.

To enter further into detail on this subject appears to us unnecessary: especially as we are given to understand that Mr. George Stephenson, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and various other eminent authorities, have given their sanction to the use of the process: while certain distinguished friends of Ireland are deeply impressed with the necessity of some modification of existing railway arrangements to meet the peculiar circumstances of that country.

CONCLUSION.

To sum up, then, the advantages of employing wooden lines:-they would act as auxiliaries to feed the great and central lines already formed; reduce the preliminary ex

penses by parliamentary contests; render unnecessary deep embankments, cuttings, and tunnels; insure to shareholders a handsome return on their investment; preserve to the inhabitants of towns, to innkeepers, and others, their traffic and existing interests; secure to landowners a home consumption for their plantations, to the Scotch landowner in particular, for his abundant firs, for which, and similar porous woods, the process of metallization is peculiarly adapt ed; prevent the possibility of accidents to passengers or property from the breaking of either wheels or axles; above all, would render available to the poorest class the comfort as well as the other benefits of railway travelling; and as regards Ireland, would not only give immediate employment to the people, but by its economy would leave scope for, while it would directly promote the developement of her unmeasured resources, open markets for her produce, unite her more closely with other countries, and increase the happiness and comforts of her inhabitants.

If we have been successful in directing the attention of the public to this important topic, we shall be more than satisfied; to more practical minds must be left the task of organising such experiments as may be necessary.

SCENES ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.

NO. II.-GIBRALTAR. Few have visited this celebrated rockthe Fretum Herculaneum or Graditaneum of the Romans, the Estrecho de Gibralter of the Spaniards-without being struck with awe and wonder at the magnificence, the sublimity of nature's works;;-no one can allow his eye to wander from the promontory of Calpe or Gibraltar, over two seas and five kingdoms-Seville and Granada in Spain, and Barbary, Fez, and Morocco, in Africa-without inwardly acknowledging the vastness of the workings of the Omnipotent.

On casting our eye over the kingdoms of Granada and Seville, the lofty ridges of the desert Del Cuervo, the mountains of Hagen Sanorra, and to the east the new town of Algeziras, the chain of mountains called the Sierra de Ronda, abounding in fruits and aromatic plants, meet our view. Near there stood Munda, celebrated in Roman history as the scene of the battle which took place between the sons of Pompey and Augustus, when they were disputing the empire of the world.

The name Gibraltar is derived from Gabel, an Arabic word, signifying mountain; and Tarik, a Moorish general, who conquered Spain, and disembarked near this place. The origin and foundation of the town are lost in obscurity. It is certain

ENGLISH LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

CHAPTER XI.-MONEY, THE COINAGE, AND MODES OF TRAVELLING.

I am not about to enter upon any elaborate inquiry, or to write an unfathomable essay on political economy, and the interminable bullion question. And, yet, methinks I hear you inquire, "What, then, means this superscription-Money and the Coinage?' It imports simply the literal and confined sense of the words. and has no allusion to their more extended signification. It is not my purpose, or my pleasure, to bewilder my readers with a deep discourse on "specie," "the currency," or "the circulating medium," but only to mention the various, now absolute, coins which were in circulation during the eighteenth century.

I remember the fag-end of some popular ballad of bygone days ran thus:

66

"Pick him up, pick him up,

He fell out of yonder boat,
We shall get a guinea, or
A one-pound note.'

What means this? Aguinea," and a one-pound note!" things which now exist

not.

We still have an imaginary piece of money called a "guinea," but this is made up of a sovereign and a shilling, being equal to twenty-one shillings. But in the last century, a guinea was a coin of gold, somewhat larger than our present sovereign, but, save that it was flatter, of a similar appearance. The latter coin was not then in existence, its value being represented by a thin piece of paper, issued by the Bank, and called a 66 one-pound note," or by the lower classes, a flimsey. Then there were "half-guineas," ""seven-shilling-pieces," and 'quarter-guineas," all gold coins, and, descending lower still, silver pence. The size of these pence was rather smaller in diameter, and very considerably thinner than our "four-pences," the obverse bearing an effigy of the king, while on the reverse was inscribed the figure I, surmounted by a crown, both inscriptions being surrounded by the usual legends. These, I believe, continue to be used to pay what is called Maundy money, an annual gift of the sovereign to poor people.

66

Tokens," or promissory coins, were also very widely circulated, being coined and issued during a scarcity of money, or in consequence of the depreciation of the coin of the realm, by private individuals under authority of the government. These coins were generally copper, and consisted principally of pence and half-pence. The legends and inscriptions were various, according to the tastes or trades of the proprietors, and it is believed that upwards of two thousand varieties were coined be

The offences of counterfeiting, and of clipping and defacing the coin of the realm, were very frequent in the last century, and both crimes were, with the characteristic severity of the time, punishable by death. Stealthily exporting coin to the continent during the war, also subjected the offender to heavy penalties, but was, nevertheless, ingeniously and very frequently practised by the guards of the Dover mail, some of whom realised a considerable fortune by it, the price of a sovereign on the continent being 22s. 6d., and, in many instances, a much larger sum is known to have been given, reaching at one period twenty-eight shillings. One of these speculative offenders against the law was detected through the very means by which he had hoped to realise a fortune. In his anxiety to make an extensive exportation he had over-estimated the strength of the mail to such a degree, that, in passing over Shooter's Hill, it gave way beneath its heavy burthen, and what were supposed to have been mail-bags filled with letters were discovered to be sacks of shining sovereigns. The money was forfeited, and carried to the mint, and the offender arrested and carried to Newgate.

What an unintelligible language is that in which our grandfathers talk to us of the days of their youth! The reminiscences of their favourite dresses are obscured by such obsolete words as "robins," "hoops," and "ruffles;" they tell us of the "hays" and "cotillions" which they used to dance, and, to crown all, relate to us their adventures during a perilous voyage of some day or two's duration, in a Margate "hoy." And what was a 66 Margate hoy?" Alas, for the elucidation of the manners and customs of the olden time! deeply do I grieve to say, I am unable to convey a faint idea of those Argos of the eighteenth century, but, from the narratives which I have heard, of the dangers of the deep, and, above all, of the mighty perils which terrified_the_voyager from the vicinity of old London Bridge, I am inclined to believe that a passage down the Thames was by no means the commonplace, every-day occurrence which steampackets and cheap fares have since made it, and so far from being a pleasant trip of some half-a-dozen hours, was then a hazardous passage, occupying, at least, the four-and-twenty, and sometimes several days.

Nor was travelling upon land more secure or expeditious than that upon the river. Independent of the dangers arising from highwaymen, or ill-paved and ill-lighted roads, the vehicles themselves were so clumsy and unwieldy, that if a passenger were, by special good fortune, enabled to come to his journey's end without an accident of some sort, it was an occurrence so rare as to be viewed almost a miracle, and afford him subject of boast and conversation for a week. So perilous an affair was a stage-coach journey considered that, in the early part of last century, a lady published to the world the journal of her tour from London to Exeter-a distance of some hundred and seventy miles-which she traversed by the fastest conveyance, the "flying coach," in four days! The coach started from London at three o'clock in the morning; at ten o'clock, the passengers were permitted to alight and take-hear it, ye fashionables, with appropriate horror!their dinner, at a road-side inn, and at three in the afternoon the day's journey was concluded, and the coach left in the inn-yard for the night.

The vehicle was as unwieldy and shapeless a mass as could well be made to answer its purposes, suspended above four huge wheels, and dragged (not drawn) along by three sorry nags, on the foremost of which rode the postillion. On the box sat the coachman and guard, with their cocked-hats and loaded carbines; upon the roof lay the outside passengers, and a "basket," projecting from the back of the vehicle, contained travellers of an inferior class; and thus jogged on the old stagecoach of 1720, at the rate of something less than four miles an hour.

The "flying machines" of 1760 were superior, traversing the roads to the admiration of all beholders, at the increased speed of six miles an hour, and whirling along, at this dizzy rate, their eight inside and ten outside passengers, travelling by night as well as by day, and, in fact, surprising our worthy grandsires by their size, their speed, and the boldness of their achievements. Yet a journey by a stagecoach was still fully as dangerous as it was fifty years before-nay, the increased speed with which long journies were performed made them more perilous. The height at which the stage was mounted, and the weight of the outside passengers, rendered it liable to be easily overturned upon the rugged and uneven roads, and it was not until the commencement of the present century that accidents became less frequent, and a stage-coach was thought a safe, cheap, and rapid mode of conveyance.

ALEXANDER ANDREWS.

Arms. Quarterly; first and fourth gyronny of eight, or. and sa., for Campbell. Second and third argent, a galley or lymphad sa., sails furled up, flag and pennants fiying gu., for the lordship of Lorn. Behind the arms two honourable badges in saltier, namely, first, a baton gu., semée of thistles, or ensigned with imperial crowns, p. p. r.; thereon the crest for Scotland. The other badge a sword, p. p. r.; hilt and pommel, or. These badges are borne as hereditary grand master of the household, and justice-general of Argyleshire.

Crest. A boar's head, fessewise couped or., and above, the words, "Ne obliviscaris."

Supporters. Two lions, guardant, gu.

Motto. Vix ea vostra voco-" These things we scarcely call our own."

The family of Campbell is one of the most distinguished in Scotland, and its head, the duke of Argyle, has long been regarded as the most powerful subject in the kingdom. Gillespick Campbell, eight centuries ago, acquired by marriage the lordship of Lochow, in Argyleshire. From him descended Sir Colin Campbell, of Lochow, who made great addition to the estates, and was renowned as a warrior. He obtained the title of more, or great, and from him the chief of the family is still called in the Gaelic, Mac Callum More. In 1280 he was knighted by Alexander III., and was one of the nominees in 1291 of Robert Bruce, in the contest then waged for the crown of Scotland. He was slain in a conflict with his warlike neighbour the lord of Lorn, at the String of Cowal, where a great obelisk is erected over his grave. For a series of years desperate feuds continued between the two houses, which, at length, were terminated by the marriage of the first earl of Argyle with the heiress of Lorn. Sir Colin married a lady of the name of St. Clair, and had issue, Niel, his successor, Donald, the progenitor of the Campbells of Loudoun, Dugald and Arthur, who having sworn fealty to King Edward, afterwards went over to Robert Bruce, and Duncan, who was likewise one of the supporters of Bruce. Sir Niel Campbell having succeeded Sir Colin, was knighted by Alexander towards the close of his reign. He dreaded Edward, and faithfully adhered to Robert Bruce, and fought in almost every battle from the fight of Methuen to that of Bannockburn. The