&c. But several of these are now joined to gether; and, to a stranger, the entire district has the appearance of a large, straggling, town. A very large proportion of the population is employed in, and a still greater is dependent for support on, the manufacture. With the exception of gold, most of the materials made use of are worth very little; so that the value of the finished articles, as well as their exquisite beauty, and aptitude to every purpose of utility and ornament, is mainly ascribable to the skill and labour employed upon them. The wives and children of the workmen are usually employed; and, though they work together in factories, yet, as they reside in separate cottages, the manufacturer partakes largely of the domestic character. The wages of a whole family amount to a very considerable sum. The noxious process of glazing, so injurious to the health of those employed, has been rendered nearly free from its deleterious effects by the substitution of boracic acid for lead, what was formerly used in the proportion of 100 per cent., but now only of 8 per cent. The people employed in that branch were formerly not admissible into clubs, and were considered as degraded objects, from the insalubrity of their employment; but they are now gladly received into benefit societies (First Factory Report, B 2, p. 78). On the whole, the workpeople have a healthy, comfortable appearance. The population of the new parliamentary borough of Stoke, comprising the principal places in the potteries, is about 57,000, and of this number 12,997 were in 1833 attendants upon Sunday schools,

"Owing to its extreme cheapness, excellent cream and blue-coloured stone-ware is now found in every cottage; and it has every where superseded not only the old, ill-glazed clumsy delft ware, but also pewter plates, and the greater part of the wooden dishes that were formerly used in the kitchen and the dairy. It is not easy to overrate the influence of this change, in diffusing a taste for cleanliness, and for increased comforts and conveniences, nor have its advantages been confined to this country. It is now widely spread over all parts of the world; the annual value of the exported articles being at present very near 500,000. merly, as we have seen, we imported large quantities of stone-ware from France, and at a previous period from the Dutch potteries at Delft; but the produce of our own potteries is now every where held in the highest estimation. An intelligent foreigner, M. Faujas de St. Fond, when noticing the English earthenware, observes:- Its excellent workmanship, its solidity, the advantage which it possesses of sustaining the action of fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to acids, the beauty and convenience of its form, and the

VOL. XXI,

For

cheapness of its price, have given rise to a commerce so active and universal, that, in travelling from Paris to Petersburgh, from Amsterdam to the extremity of the South of France, one is served at every inn upon English ware. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are supplied with it; and vessels are loaded with it for the East Indies, the West Indies, and the Continent of America.””-Vol. ii. p. 121.

The long section on the "Cotton Manufacture, of course is full of interesting details: among others, we have a specimen of the way in which the talent of useful, invention is rewarded in America. The story of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, is not unknown already to the readers of the Mechanics' Magazine; they are aware that his patent was invaded with perfect impunity, and that he died without any adequate reward for his wonder-working invention ; but even they may be surprised to learn that its effects have been so astonishing, in producing the exportation of cotton, which, without the machine, would have been useless; that, according to Pilkin's American Statistics, it has produced to the countrymen of the persecuted and unrewarded inventor, a clear profit of two hundred millions of pounds sterling! The fact seems incredible, but then it must be borne in mind, that all the sta tistical details of the Cotton Manufacture are of colossal dimensions.

It will be perceived that, notwithstanding the space Mr. M'Culloch has devoted to the subject, his chapter on "Manufactures" is far from being complete. There is one, of considerable importance too, and with which our author is practically acquainted, which we are surprised to find omitted; we allude to "Bookmaking." It is true, we have a section on "Paper-making," but the rest of the literary arts (author-craft among them) are passed over in silence. This is not as it should be; the statistics of literature ought to have occupied a very prominent place in such a work, more especially those of the Periodical Press. In these times, it is hardly pardonable to make no mention of "the fourth estate" in a production which aims at giving an idea of the condition of the people. Here are many other remarkable omissions in this division of "Manufactures," or rather, perhaps, a whole division has been omitted, which should have been given

F F

on the more common Trades and Handicrafts. Every body in the kingdom must be lodged and clothed, somehow or somewhere, yet we have no sections dedicated to either of the arts of building, or of tailoring, highly important and indispensable as both of them are; and it is the same with almost all the other most familiar and most useful trades.

COLONEL MACERONI'S GALVANO-MAGNETIC THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

(Continued from p. 110.)

we certainly ought to be informed of the nature, the matter, and derivation of that substance (for substance it must be which acts upon substance), but which is no ways indicated by the mere word gravitation! It cannot be denied that the phenomena of the solar and planetary movements are well accounted for and calculated, through the agency of the cause called gravitation. Still it is but a word, until we look for a meaning, which I think will be found in the expansive emanations from the infinity of globes, acting upon each other as above

mical Affinity, &c. &c.

Sir,Illness has delayed the continuation of my hints on the galvanic or magnetic theory of the universe. In my last letter I was proceeding to say that a fluid medium, tranquillity, heat, and the magnetic combination or duality, are necessary, and are the cause of the development of all animal and vegetable life and organisations. But before I enter on that subject, I find that it is incumbent on me to say a word on the word gravitation, which I see I have omitted to do in the foregoing cogitations. The immortal Newton has demonstrated the movements and the respective actions and re-actions of the globes composing our solar system, as depending on a law which he calls gravitation. But I think it must be allowed, by all free inquirers, that the word so used is but a word, without any definition of the means, physical parts, action, or power which actually impinge, push, or draw in the operation. Newton himself tells us, that no body can have any action, or exert any force upon, or cause any motion in, another body, except through the means of some physical agent in contact with and communicating between the two. What, then, is this gravitation ? What the matter? What the modus operandi? How does this "attraction" and 66 pulsion” between suns, and planets, and satellites, act in opposite directions at the same instant of time ? for so it must, according to the Newtonian word and demonstration! When we are told that two positively impinging, drawing, repelling, mechanical actions or powers, are constantly in operation between two bodies (the sun and our globe, for instance) on the same line and in contrary directions,

re

verse is sustained and governed by force; and this, not only in every existence and action, which we call "physical," but also in the things and relations we denominate "moral." And there can be but one law for all things, as there is but one substance. The substance is the substance of the suns, stars, and planets, which I have briefly endeavoured to show is the same as that of animals, plants, minerals, fluids, gases, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, light. The force deciding the modes and motions of matter is that eternally inherent to the nature of matter. This has been called gravitation. We may give it what name we please, but its absolute nature was not stated by Newton, who allows that it must be a substance. I have endeavoured to show, that with respect to the primary formations or globes, it is the radiating perspiration of each, reciprocally impinging on all surrounding ones.

Chemical affinity is nothing more than another exhibition of galvanic or magnetic action. All bodies which we may bring into contact, are either in a similar magnetic or galvanic state, or they are in different states. In the first case, they have a mutual indifference to each other. If the substances which we place in intimate contact, or mixture, are in a different state of electric action, and that such difference be simple and harmonious, like that of the major and the minor fluids of the electro-motive apparatus, or the magnetic bar, that is, as 1 is to 2, 2 is to 3, an harmonious electric arrangement or galvanic superposition takes place between the substances, as between the two poles of the electro-motive apparatus, mutual infusion; multiplied contact; rapid electrical combinations are formed, which crossing each other in

every sense, set free a quantity of the major and the minor elementary fluids, which, regaining their expansive liberty, produce heat and sometimes light perceivable to our senses. The produce of such a chemical union is a compound of increased density and hardness, in which there now is neutralisation and uniformity of electric condition. This process of mutual infusion, disengagement of heat, mutual neutralisation, and the faculty of new combinations, or supercompositions, if I may so call them, is especially illustratable in the union of alkalies with acids.

The chemical action is easy and prompt alone in substances that are in a liquid state, which alone can enable the molecules to place themselves in numerous points of contact. Solid bodies, even in a state of powder, are far from having this power of intimate contact. A fluid can, however, touch, and, as it were, embrace a solid; and the latter, upon being withdrawn from amidst the former, will be either wet or dry. If it be wet, that is, if its surface be covered with a number of the molecules of the liquid, it is a proof that there has been magnetic gravitation between its substance and currents, and that of the liquid. If, on the other hand, the solid comes dry from the liquid, mutual repulsion has taken place. These facts, which accompany the emersion of a solid into a fluid, appear to me as explanatory of what is called capillary attraction. Water wets glass, and will be seen to rise upon its perpendicular surface. The water and the glass are equally solicited by the mutual gravitation. The water alone is capable of motion. The surface alone of the glass can be affected by the contact. The cavity of a small tube is nearly all surface, and the more so, in proportion to its smallness. The water rises in the tube. On the other hand, water and fatty substances repel each other. Grease the inside of the glass tube, and the water will be depressed below its own level within its cavity instead of rising. Mercury does not wet, or attach itself to glass; it consequently descends in such a tube, but it will rise in tubes of gold, silver, copper, or tin. Capillary action is only an attempt at a chemical action or combination of galvanic sympathy.

This part of the subject alone would require a volume, so I will only add

another remark or two, as an index to those who may be inclined to meditate upon the few hints which I have space to furnish. The immediate cause of the election which the molecules of liquids make of each other, when their relative electric conditions are in harmonious relationship, appears to be the following:

All the electric fluids, already spoken of, whether they be of the major or the minor order, i. e. positive or negative, consist of elastic globules. Caloric, which is a uniform mixture or equilibrium of the electric fluids, is eminently elastic; upon impinging upon any body, it is reflected with vigour and regularity, according to the mechanical laws of motion. Now I have already suggested, that all elastic globes are in a state of constant vibration. It is therefore according to the universal law of equilibrium that unions are more readily formed between the elastic globules or gases, the vibrations of which approach to uniformity. Two elastic globules of different origins cannot possibly vibrate in a more analogous way than those of the oxygen and hydrogen gases, which I have already shown are the electric relation of double the mass with one vibration, and half the mass with two vibrations. In proportion to the more or less accordance in the vibrations of globules to mathematical simplicity, is the frequency and facility of chemical combinations. Discord, disorder, repulsion, prevent the union of globules which have no agreement in their vibrations. They must fly away and seek their affinities and their place, -which they are sure to find somewhere in space.

The phenomena of sound are very closely dependent upon the foregoing conditions and constitutions of matter. Liquid bodies produce no sound, except by impingement on the air, which is an assemblage of elastic globules. Elastic solids emit sound upon being struck, and, under certain circumstances, without being struck, as a metal wire stretched between two posts in the open air, will give forth sounds independently of any impingement, either of a solid or of the air. The sound emitted by an elastic solid is part and parcel of the sounding substance; elastic globules belonging t its most intimate substance, take their flight in convulsive movements successive, equal and regular. The sonorous

particles may well be said to be squeezed out of the sounding substance, by the percussion and the consequent agitation. The analogy between the globules of sound and those of the electric or galvanic fluid, are most striking in their action in vacuo, and, indeed, in every other way, including the laws of chemical affinities and even of animal life. But I must leave my remarks on this interesting subject to another and more especial disquisition. By-the-bye, I have often been struck by the singular humming, buzzing, singing noise with which we are assailed upon plunging over head and ears in water, and particularly in diving to a considerable depth into the sea. Through the aid of a heavy iron weight, I have plunged to the bottom of the sea, to a depth of eighty-six feet. On such occasions, the internal noise I allude to, is particularly loud and various. Now I am inclined to attribute it to the different motions and frictions of our muscles, blood, heart, intestines, eyes, and even brain, giving out different sounds which are compressed and concentrated by the surrounding and superjacent wa

ON THE SOURCE OF ELECTRICITY AND ITS ACTION ON PLANTS IN THEIR MATURING PROCESS.

Sir,-In what has been advanced by me upon the subject of electro-vegetation in your pages, I trust it will have been perceived that there has been a constant endeavour to avoid mere theory, and to build as much as possible on facts. Still as several general positions have been stated which differ, in terms at least, from those which have been laid down in treatises, and as some of them cannot pretend to a higher support than that of probability, I feel that in proceeding to such considerable lengths, I am treading on tender ground. But I write under the persuasion that truth, or some near approaches to it, ordinarily presents itself under the form of probability, before it can have been sufficiently investigated to determine its certainty; nor can I help

thinking that as human nature is ever prone to exrtemes, so that of caution in the bare announcement of facts, without attempting to advance a step farther than the facts seemed absolutely to demonstrate, has imposed a restraint on the bounds of probable truth, which has ope rated to some extent in precluding the steps towards its more certain and exact attainment. This restraint upon the operations of the mind seems moreover to have been attended with another unfavourable result of an opposite description for its propensity to generalise, breaking through its preternatural bonds, appears to have led to several hasty conclusions, both of a negative and positive description. Thus it has been laid down as so many established positions, that light, heat, and electricity, are not different effects or phenomena, attendant on the operations of one imponderable, alldiffusive, fluid, but of three or even four different fluids of this description; although it cannot be denied that they are frequently observed under circumstances of such intimate connecxon, that they have every appearance of proceeding from one uniform cause. Indeed, it seems next to impossible to observe the powerful electrical effects resulting from the arrangements of a galvanic battery, accompanied with a corresponding inten sity of heat, and a light more nearly approaching that of day than can be produced by any other artificial means, without concluding, for the moment at least, that they are different effects produced by the operations, of the same fluid, which is thus drawn from its general diffusion through gravitating matter, and concentrated to one spot. In like manner, when we observe light and heat issuing from the sun, and diffused through the atmosphere under every appearance of a common result of the same fluid proceeding from one source, we seem almost unavoidably led to the inference of their common origin and nature. We do not, indeed, find them always united, at least in an equal degree; but may not this circumstance admit of an easier explanation from regarding them as different effects produced by the same fluid in whose operations they are so often seen to be closely united, than by viewing them as absolutely separate and distinct in their essential properties? Do we not often perceive light becoming latent

under the form of caloric, and again set at liberty in the form of both light and heat ? We do not observe electrical effects to be the usual or very frequent effects of the fluid issuing from the sun; but a dry air, over which the sun's rays are dispensed, is now well known to be in a constant state of positive electricity. The air, in its relation to the sun, may justly be compared to a great electrical machine, which is constantly receiving its supplies from above, and either imbibing them into its substances, or transmitting them to the earth and its vegetable productions, through the medium of those exquisite conductors with which they are furnished. That these effects are so little open to our observation is not because electricity, or the fluid by which it is produced, is not very extensively dispensed in nature, has recently been shown in a striking manner by that ingenious practitioner,* who has collected it in such formidable and effective states by means of wires extending through the atmosphere. But whereas the efforts of art are directed to collect it at particular spots, those of nature are almost uniformly directed to the opposite purpose of dispensing it in those regular and nearly imperceptible quantities, which are at once essential to maintain the existence and preserve the harmony and tranquillity of the system. It does appear with considerable evidence that light, heat, and electricity, are continually dispensed into our atmosphere from that great central body, which is perhaps equally necessary to the repellant as to the gravitating properties of the planetary bodies. It is surely evident that, since myriads of conductors fitted to imbibe electricity from clouds at elevations on which metallic points can have no influence, every where shooting up from the surface of the earth, are insufficient to prevent a con stant state of positive electricity in the atmosphere, supplies of this fluid must be as constantly administered to it from above as of light and caloric; and from whence can these continual supplies of electric matter proceed but from the same common source? But that divine skill which regulates the quantities and manifestations of light and heat, and of the principle of expansion in those proportions which are requisite or conducive

Andrew Crosse, Esq.

to life and enjoyment, is applied in causing the electrical operations of the same fluid to proceed almost imperceptibly in producing many other effects, no less essential or conducive to the same results.

There is reason to believe that the third and concluding process of vegetation to which we shall now immediately attend, is influential in a far greater degree in carrying forward this design than either. of the preceding processes. As the solar beams increase in number and intensity, vegetation advances; its branches extend and send forth innumerable ramifications, and its leaves, in a manifold greater numeral proportion, expand into palmated shapes of a porous structure, fitted for the reception of immense quantities of light, and furnishing continual supplies of water, which, by combining with it in the state of transparent vapour, neutralizes their action, and makes provision for a sheltering canopy over our heads, adn for a seasonable supply of moisture both upon the soil and plants. As animal life also of every kind is now rapidly advancing, and oxygen gas is by the action of the respiratory organs rapidly exchanged for carbonic acid, the leaves of plants appear to be now constantly engaged in the function of absorbing this deleterious gas, which, with the returns of light, is reconverted into pure oxygen air; and thus another great and essential benefit to both the animal and vegetable systems is effected. The presence of carbonic acid is essential to plants; "it has been ascertained that feed plants, as you will, they will neither grow nor live, whether you offer them oxygen, hydrogen, or azote, or any other gaseous or fluid principle, unless carbonic acid is present."+ It is evidently decomposed by the action of light, the carbon remaining in the substance of the leaves, or uniting with the descending portion of the sap, while the oxygen retaining the gaseous form is restored to the atmosphere.

I flatter myself it will have appeared from the above and the foregoing statements, that the three processes which have been assigned to vegetation, corresponding with the principal elements of the atmosphere, are attended with considerable evidence. If its action in each of these processes is electrical, in proof of which,

+ Prout on Chemistry, p. 451.