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                           THE PENNY MAGAZINE

                                 OF THE

             Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 13.]                   PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.        [June 16, 1832

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                    THE NATURAL BRIDGE OF VIRGINIA.

 [Illustration: A rock formation in the form of a natural stone bridge,
                 with a stream running underneath it.]

Virginia, the largest state in the American Union, is intersected by a
chain of mountains called the Blue Ridge, which, running in their
general direction parallel to the Atlantic coast, divide the state into
two parts not differing very considerably in extent. The portion
immediately to the west of the Blue Ridge is an extensive and fertile
valley of limestone formation. It is principally watered by one stream,
the Shenandoah, which unites with another, the Potomac, at a place
called Harper’s Ferry. At their point of junction, on the _west_ side of
the Blue Ridge, the spectator, as he takes his stand on the high ground
above the small town of Harper’s Ferry, sees before him a wide opening
in the mountain chain through which the united current finds its way. On
each side the mountains rise in some parts very abruptly, and their
rugged faces and the shattered appearance of the whole of this
magnificent natural canal show evident traces of a violent disruption.

This passage at Harper’s Ferry has been often described by different
travellers, but never, as far as we have seen, in a way calculated to
give an accurate conception of what it really is. Nor do we intend to
attempt this description, but only to notice briefly another natural
phenomenon of the Valley of Shenandoah, which, though less talked of and
visited than Harper’s Ferry, is for beauty and grandeur perhaps
unrivalled. We allude to the Natural Bridge, or Rock-Bridge, as it is
familiarly called by the people who live near it, which is situated a
few miles on the west side of the Blue Ridge, on a small stream in the
upper part of the great valley, and in the county of Rock-Bridge.

From a small and uncomfortable tavern in the neighbourhood, kept by a
Mr. Galbraith, (we wish this could meet his eye and make him mend his
fare,) we pass for about two miles over uneven ground, and after
ascending a small hill, we find a piece of rough stony road with a few
stunted firs and scrub oaks on the right hand and on the left. A
traveller might proceed without making any other observation, as the
common road runs right over the bridge, and it is said that some people
have actually passed over without being aware of it. But though this is
certainly a possible occurrence if a person should be in a closed
carriage, it can hardly have happened to a man on foot or on horseback,
who is accustomed to keep his eyes open when he is travelling. On the
right and left he will perceive that the slope of the hill is
interrupted by a deep and sudden descent; and on going nearer to the
right side of the road, he finds himself on the edge of a tremendous
precipice. At the bottom a small stream is seen making its way amidst
broken rocks. Going to the opposite side of the road and looking down
there, he will observe the little river continuing its course in a deep
channel down a narrow valley. The traveller is now on the Natural
Bridge; he is standing on a stupendous natural arch of limestone; and
though he may form some conjecture of his situation by looking down from
the edge of the precipice, he can have no adequate conception without
viewing it from below. The arch is best seen from the bed of the
rivulet, and from a point just under it. On looking up you behold a
noble arch of one solid mass of stone hanging over your head, somewhat
curved in its highest part, and almost like the work of man. The same
native rock forms, on each side, the supports of this enormous arch,
which is said to be about 80 feet wide near the top; at the level of the
water the width is only about forty. The whole height from the outer top
of the arch to the water is about 210 feet, as ascertained by
measurement with a string and a stone at the end. This is greater than
the height of the London monument. The vertical thickness of the arch is
probably about 30 feet. Like many other great works both of nature and
art it is not the first sight that produces the deepest impression. On a
second visit we found that we had learned to form more accurate
conceptions of this wonderful bridge, beneath which a man might sit and
gaze for hours with still increasing astonishment at the majestic arch
which nature constructed before man began his work, and which seems
likely to outlive the most durable of his monuments. Whatever may have
been the origin of this bridge, it seems pretty certain, from an
inspection of it, that it has not been produced by any sudden and
violent cause.

The stream that runs beneath, called Cedar Creek, though inconsiderable,
adds to the general effect. When we visited the place, drops of water,
filtered through the limestone, were falling in quick succession from
the arch, and by the time occupied in their descent, their increasing
velocity, and their full bright appearance, served to give a measure of
the height from which they fell, and to increase the beauty of the
scene. There is another natural bridge in Virginia, in Scot county,
which is said to be above 340 feet high, but is inferior to that of
Cedar Creek in form and completeness.

The Prebischthor, in the Saxon Switzerland, has sometimes been compared
with this Virginia Bridge, but it is a very different kind of thing.

The accompanying view, taken from the N.W. side, at the level of the
water, has hardly any pretensions beyond showing the general shape of
the arch and the view through it, which is very confined and altogether
devoid of interest.

The chain[1] of the Andes in South America presents most striking
natural phenomena in the immense clefts, or _crevasses_ as they are
sometimes called, which separate two contiguous masses of mountain, and
in some instances are near 5000 feet deep. If Mount Vesuvius were
plunged into one of these frightful abysses, its summit would not reach
to the peaks of the highest rocks on each side; while the bottom of the
cleft would be only one-fourth less elevated above the level of the sea
than the passes of St. Gothard and Mont Cenis in the Alps.

The valley of Icononzo is less remarkable for its dimensions than for
the extraordinary form of its rocks, which seem as if they had been cut
by the hand of man. Their naked and arid summits form a most picturesque
contrast with the tufts of trees and herbaceous plants which cover the
borders of the _crevasse_. A little torrent has made itself a way
through the valley, and lies sunk in a channel, which is so difficult of
approach, that the river would hardly be passable if nature herself had
not formed two bridges of rock, which are justly regarded as the
greatest curiosity in that country. Humboldt and Bonpland crossed these
natural bridges in 1801, on their route from Santa Fé de Bogota to
Popayan and Quito.

In the valley of Icononzo the _grès_ or sandstone is composed of two
distinct kinds of rock--one very compact and quartzose without any marks
of fissure or stratification--the other a fine-grained sandstone, formed
of an infinite number of thin and almost horizontal layers. We may
imagine that the compact material resisted the force which rent the
mountains asunder, and that it is the unbroken mass of this rock which
forms the bridge by which the traveller now crosses from one side of the
valley to the other. This natural arch is about 47½ feet long, 41½ wide,
and about 8 feet thick at the centre. By very careful experiments made
on falling bodies, with the assistance of a good chronometer, combined
with the measurement obtained by a plummet, it appears that the height
of the upper of the two natural bridges, above the level of the torrent,
is about 313 feet.

Sixty feet below the first natural bridge there is another formed by
three enormous masses of rock, which have fallen in such a way as to
support one another. The centre rock forms the key of the arch.

-----

Footnote 1:

  Humboldt, Vue des Cordillères, &c. 8vo. Paris.


                         ---------------------


                           STATISTICAL NOTES.

                     ENGLAND AND WALES (CONTINUED)

(20.) Of the state of English agriculture in early ages some notion may
be formed from the fact of the prohibition for many years, and
subsequently the taxation, of the exportation of corn. It was not till
the reign of Charles II that the export of corn was exempted from a tax;
and it is from 1689 that may be dated that fundamental change in our
corn-laws which encouraged exportation by a bounty. Since that period
the fluctuations in the price of corn have been remarkable. The price of
wheat which in the beginning of the last century was 50_s._ the quarter,
became reduced in the ten years between 1740 and 1750 to 24_s._ the
quarter. The culture of corn thus received a check, and a large
proportion of arable land was transferred from tillage to grazing. The
effect of this conversion and of an increasing population raised the
price of corn in the ten years from 1750 to 1760 to an average of 42_s._
6_d._ per quarter, and soon changed the scale from export to import,
which has continued ever since. From 1764 to 1790 the average price of
wheat varied from 42_s._ to 50_s._; our annual imports from 200,000 to
500,000 quarters of corn. But since 1792 our annual imports, under
differently regulated systems of law, have been from half a million to
above two million quarters of corn of all kinds; and the average prices
of wheat have varied from 2_l._ to 6_l._ per quarter. In 1792 the price
of wheat was 2_l._ 2_s._ 11_d._; in 1800, 5_l._ 13_s._ 7_d._; in 1812,
6_l._ 5_s._ 5_d._; in 1822, 2_l._ 4_s._ 1_d._; and in 1831, 3_l._ 10_s._
3_d_. The annual consumption of wheat in the United Kingdom has been
estimated at 12,000,000 quarters; and that of other grain at 36,000,000
quarters, making together 48,000,000, of which not one-twentieth part
has during any year been imported, and, in general, a far less
proportionate quantity. The daily consumption of wheat in the United
Kingdom may be taken at 36,000, and of all other grain at 108,000
quarters, making together 144,000 quarters a day.

(21.) During the last century, upwards of five millions of acres in
England and Wales have been enclosed under Acts of Parliament, the
average extent of each enclosure being 1200 acres, and the outlay about
10_l._ per acre. From 1719 to 1759, the average number of enclosure Acts
passed was 8 a year; 1780 to 1794, it was 30; 1797 to 1803, it was 83;
in 1811 it was 134, (the highest number known); in 1814, 119; in 1816,
49; in 1827, 21; in 1829, 24; and in 1831, only 10. The great extent to
which the enclosure system thus appears to have already been carried,
now necessarily diminishes the progress of enclosures every year.

(22.) Among the various causes of the superiority of English husbandry
over that of the Continent, is that of the medium size of our farms,
which differ both from such large unmanageable tracts as those held by
Polish noblemen, and from such diminutive occupancies as those which
have prevailed in France since the first Revolution, in consequence of
the abolition of the law of primogeniture. The size of English farms is
the greatest in the best cultivated districts; such as Kent, Essex,
Suffolk, Norfolk, and Northumberland. In these counties the engagements
of the farmers are very large, and frequently amount to 1000_l._ a year
and upwards. In more retired districts, as in Cumberland, Westmorland,
and Wales, the occupancies are, in general, small, and an average of all
the farms in England and Wales would, perhaps, not exceed 150_l._ a
year. Leases are, for the most part, granted for seven years only, and
farms are occasionally let from year to year upon written agreements,
with specified covenants subjecting the tenants to fines in the event of
deviation from them. The tenants of great landholders, particularly of
the old nobility, often hold at will, without leases, upon the
understanding of conformity to the rules laid down by the lord for the
observance of all his tenants; and such tenants are found to occupy from
father to son for many generations. Upon the whole, the tenure of
leasehold property in England is considered to be too short to admit of
the improvements that tenants might otherwise be expected to make in our
system of agriculture.

(23.) The expense of cultivation of land in England has much increased
of late years, as appears by the returns to the Board of Agriculture,
which state that the average expenses of cultivating one hundred acres
of land was in 1790, 411_l._; in 1803, 547_l._; and in 1813, 771_l._
Since the latter year there have been reductions in labour and taxes,
and also, to a considerable extent, in rent. Surveyors calculate that
highly cultivated land ought to produce a threefold return, viz.:
one-third of the gross produce to the landlord for rent, another for the
expenses, and the remainder for the farmer’s profit; the rent of
inferior land being only a fourth, or even a fifth of the gross produce,
by reason of the additional expense of cultivation.

(24.) A century ago, our cattle, from the inferiority of their feed,
were not one-half, sometimes even not one-third, of their present
weight. It is computed that England and Wales now contain, at least,
five million oxen, and a million and a half of horses, of which about a
million are used in husbandry, 200,000 for pleasure, and 300,000 are
colts and breeding mares. The number of sheep is about twenty millions,
and eight million lambs. The number of long-wooled sheep is about five
millions, their fleeces averaging 7 or 8 lbs.; and of short-wooled sheep
fifteen millions, the weight of fleece averaging from 3 to 3½ lbs. The
whole quantity of wool annually shorn in England is from eighty to
eighty-five million of pounds. The Merino were introduced about the
beginning of the present century, and were imported in large numbers
after our alliance with Spain in 1809. The great pasturage counties are
Leicester, Northampton, Lincoln, and Somerset; and for butter and
cheese, Cheshire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire. The import of butter
and cheese from foreign countries is checked by duties, but these are
important articles of Irish commerce with England.

(25) The annual amount of profit from farming is not very susceptible of
exact calculation, but was estimated some fifteen years since at thirty
millions sterling, being a sum equivalent to the rental of England and
Wales. The probable amount of the farming capital of the country was
estimated at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred millions
sterling. In regard to the value of the total annual produce of the
land, this is necessarily subject to the fluctuations of seasons, but
taking wheat at the medium of 80_s._ and other corn in proportion, we
shall find an average produce of more than sixty millions sterling in
corn, to which adding a similar value in pasturage, and a further
allowance for hops, fruit, and vegetables, we have a total of from 130
to 140 millions. In Scotland the rent bears a higher proportion to the
gross produce, being, in general, not less than one-third. Our chief
superiority over the Continent consists in machinery and live stock.
Much valuable information on the state of agriculture on the Continent
is to be found in the Reports to the Government of Mr. Jacob, who
travelled a few years since with a view of ascertaining the effect that
would be produced by the modification of our corn-laws. From these
Reports it seems that the difficulties of transport in the corn
countries, and other impediments to production, are such as to render
the probable extent of importation under a more free system much less
than is commonly imagined. There are many improvements of which English
agriculture is susceptible, such as in the size of farms in many
counties, the length of leases, the course of husbandry, the
construction of ploughs, and the misapplication of animal strength in
labour. With attention to these points and the application of further
capital, not to wastes, but to fertile land already under culture, there
is every hope that our agriculture may be yet considerably advanced in
productiveness and in national value.

                           [To be continued.]


                         ---------------------


An officer in the forty-fourth regiment, who had occasion, when in
Paris, to pass one of the bridges across the Seine, had his boots, which
had been previously well-polished, dirted by a poodle-dog rubbing
against them. He, in consequence, went to a man who was stationed on the
bridge, and had them cleaned. The same circumstance having occurred more
than once, his curiosity was excited, and he watched the dog. He saw him
roll himself in the mud of the river, and then watch for a person with
well-polished boots, against which he contrived to rub himself. Finding
that the shoe-black was the owner of the dog, he taxed him with the
artifice; and after a little hesitation, he confessed that he had taught
the dog the trick in order to procure customers for himself. The officer
being much struck with the dog’s sagacity, purchased him at a high
price, and brought him to England. He kept him tied up in London some
time, and then released him. The dog remained with him a day or two, and
then made his escape. A fortnight afterwards he was found with his
former master, pursuing his old trade on the bridge.--_Jesse’s Gleanings
of Natural History_


                         ---------------------


                          THE MAHOGANY TABLE.

Milton, who was at once the most sublime and the most practical of
writers, has said,

                            ------ “To know
                That which before us lies in daily life,
                Is the prime wisdom.”

The poet more especially had in view that knowledge to which all other
knowledge is secondary--we mean the knowledge of ourselves. But we may
not improperly adopt his forcible expressions as a motto to a series of
articles which we shall occasionally publish, which will have for their
object to collect some of the most striking facts belonging to the
commonest things by which we are surrounded in our every-day life,
particularly those comforts and conveniences which the humblest man
possesses in a state of advanced civilization. The history of a knife,
or a button, or a coat, or a watch, or an earthen pan, or a candle, or a
lump of coal, or a mahogany table, or a Penny Magazine, suggests to our
minds more precise and satisfactory notions of the progress of society,
and therefore of the real history of the people of these kingdoms, than
all the details of wars and treaties and state intrigues, of which
history is in general made up. In the execution of such a purpose it is
not important to pursue any systematic plan. The most material
consideration will be to select those things of ordinary use which are
so common, that it would be difficult to find a single reader who is not
more or less indebted to them for some of his enjoyments.

We will begin with a Mahogany Table. If we had been speaking about a
mahogany table, or any other article of mahogany, thirty or forty years
ago, we should have expected only to have interested the rich in the
description of this important material of English furniture. Now, what
tradesman, or mechanic, or even cottager, does not possess some article
of mahogany--if it be only a tea-caddy? The universal employment of
mahogany for articles of furniture, whose price does not operate as a
prohibition against their use in general society, has been produced by
the large application of capital to the commercial speculation of
bringing mahogany logs to this country from the West Indies,--and,
further, by the invention of machinery for cutting those logs into thin
layers, called veneers, by which operation the finest wood is brought
within a reasonable cost. Now observe what commercial enterprise and
mechanical ingenuity will accomplish in a comparatively small period.
Some piece of mahogany furniture is now, probably, found in every house
in England;--a hundred and eight years ago the wood was unknown here. A
physician of the name of Gibbons, who resided in London, received in
1724 a present of some mahogany planks from his brother, a West-India
captain. Dr. Gibbons was then building a house in King-street,
Covent-garden, and he desired his carpenter to work up the wood. The
carpenter had no tool hard enough to touch it; so the planks were laid
aside. The doctor’s wife, after the house was finished, wanted a
candle-box, and the mahogany was again thought of. A cabinet-maker of
the name of Wollaston was applied to; and he also complained that his
tools were too soft. But he persevered, and the candle-box was at length
completed--after a rude fashion no doubt. The candle-box was so much
admired, that the physician resolved to have a mahogany bureau; and when
the bureau was finished, all the people of fashion came to see it. The
cabinet-maker procured more planks, and made a fortune by the numerous
customers he obtained. From that time the use of mahogany furniture went
forward amongst the luxurious;--and the drawers and bureaus of
walnut-tree and pear-tree were gradually superseded in the houses of the
rich. To show the present extensive use of mahogany in this country it
may be sufficient to mention that in 1829 the importation of this wood
amounted to 19,335 tons.

The common mahogany (called by botanists _Swietenia mahagoni_) is one of
the most majestic trees of the whole world. There are trees of greater
height than the mahogany;--but in Cuba and Honduras this tree, during a
growth of two centuries, expands to such a gigantic trunk, throws out
such massive arms, and spreads the shade of its shining green leaves
over such a vast surface, that even the proudest oaks of our forests
appear insignificant in comparison with it. A single log, such as is
brought to this country from Honduras, not unfrequently weighs six or
seven tons.

                     [Illustration: Mahogany Tree.]

When we consider the enormous size of a trunk of mahogany, and further
learn that the most valuable timber grows in the most inaccessible
situations, it must be evident that a great portion of the price of this
timber must be made up of the cost of the labour required for
transporting it from its native forests to the place of its embarkation
for England. The mode in which this difficult work is accomplished is
highly interesting; and we have, fortunately, the means of giving an
account of the process (which, we believe, has never before been
described in any English publication,) from some statements printed in a
Honduras Almanac, which has been kindly put into our hands for this
purpose.

The season for cutting the mahogany usually commences about the month of
August. The gangs of labourers employed in this work consist of from
twenty to fifty each, but few exceed the latter number. They are
composed of slaves and free persons, without any comparative distinction
of rank, and it very frequently occurs that the conductor of such work,
here styled the Captain, is a slave. Each gang has also one person
belonging to it termed the Huntsman. He is generally selected from the
most intelligent of his fellows, and his chief occupation is to search
the woods, or, as it is called, _the bush_, to find labour for the
whole. Accordingly, about the beginning of August, the huntsman is
despatched on his important mission. He cuts his way through the
thickest of the woods to some elevated situation, and climbs the tallest
tree he finds, from which he minutely surveys the surrounding country.
At this season the leaves of the mahogany tree are invariably of a
yellow reddish hue, and an eye accustomed to this kind of exercise, can,
at a great distance, discern the places where the wood is most abundant.
He now descends, and to such places his steps are directed; and, without
compass, or other guide than what observation has imprinted on his
recollection, he never fails to reach the exact point at which he aims.
On some occasions no ordinary stratagem is necessary to be resorted to,
by the huntsman, to prevent others from availing themselves of the
advantage of his discoveries; for, if his steps be traced by those who
may be engaged in the same pursuit, which is a very common thing, all
his ingenuity must be exerted to beguile them from the true scent. In
this, however, he is not always successful, being followed by those who
are entirely aware of all the arts he may use, and whose eyes are so
quick that the lightest turn of a leaf, or the faintest impression of
the foot, is unerringly perceived. The treasure being, however, reached
by one party or another, the next operation is the felling of a
sufficient number of trees to employ the gang during the season. The
mahogany tree is commonly cut about ten or twelve feet from the ground,
a stage being erected for the axe-man employed in levelling it. The
trunk of the tree, from the dimensions of the wood it furnishes, is
deemed the most valuable; but, for ornamental purposes, the limbs, or
branches, are generally preferred.

A sufficient number of trees being felled to occupy the gang during the
season, they commence cutting the roads upon which they are to be
transported. This may fairly be estimated at two-thirds of the labour
and expense of mahogany cutting. Each mahogany work forms in itself a
small village on the bank of a river,--the choice of situation being
always regulated by the proximity of such river to the mahogany intended
as the object of future operations.

After completing the establishment of a sufficient number of huts for
the accommodation of the workmen, a main road is opened from the
settlement, in a direction as near as possible to the centre of the body
of trees so felled, into which branch-roads are afterwards introduced,
the ground through which the roads are to run being yet a mass of dense
forest, both of high trees and underwood. The labourers commence by
clearing away the underwood with cutlasses. This labour is usually
performed by task-work, of one hundred yards, each man, per day. The
underwood being removed, the larger trees are then cut down by the axe,
as even with the ground as possible, the task being also at this work
one hundred yards per day to each labourer. The hard woods growing here,
on failure of the axe, are removed by the application of fire. The
trunks of these trees, although many of them are valuable, such as
bullet-tree, ironwood, redwood, and sapodilla, are thrown away as
useless, unless they happen to be adjacent to some creek or small river,
which may intersect the road. In that case they are applied to the
construction of bridges, which are frequently of considerable size, and
require great labour to make them of sufficient strength to bear such
immense loads as are brought over them.

If the mahogany trees are much dispersed or scattered, the labour and
extent of road-cutting is, of course, greatly increased. It not
unfrequently occurs that miles of road and many bridges are made to a
single tree, that may ultimately yield but one log. When roads are
cleared of brush-wood, they still require the labour of hoes, pick-axes,
and sledge hammers to level down the hillocks, to break the rocks, and
to cut such of the remaining stumps as might impede the wheels that are
hereafter to pass over them.

The roads being now in a state of readiness, which may generally be
effected by the month of December, the cross cutting, as it is
technically called, commences. This is merely dividing crosswise, by
means of saws, each mahogany tree into logs, according to their length;
and it often occurs, that while some are but long enough for one log,
others, on the contrary, will admit of four or five being cut from the
same trunk or stem. The chief guide for dividing the trees into logs is
the necessity for equalizing the loads the cattle have to draw.
Consequently, as the tree increases in thickness, the logs are reduced
in length. This, however, does not altogether obviate the irregularity
of the loads, and a supply of oxen are constantly kept in readiness to
add to the usual number, according to the weight of the log. This
becomes unavoidable, from the very great difference of size of the
mahogany trees, the logs taken from one tree being about 300 cubic feet,
while those from the next may be as many thousand. The largest log ever
cut in Honduras was of the following dimensions:--Length, 17 feet;
breadth, 57 inches; depth, 64 inches; measuring 5,168 superficial feet,
or 15 tons weight.

The sawing being now completed, the logs are reduced, by means of the
axe, from the round or natural form, into the square. The month of March
is now reached, when all the preparation before described is, or ought
to be, completed; when the dry season, or time of drawing down the logs
from the place of their growth, commences. This process can only be
carried on in the months of April and May; the ground, during all the
rest of the year, being too soft to admit of a heavily laden truck to
pass over it without sinking. It is now necessary that not a moment
should be lost in drawing out the wood to the river.

A gang of forty men is generally capable of working six trucks. Each
truck requires seven pair of oxen and two drivers; sixteen to cut food
for the cattle, and twelve to load or put the logs on the carriages.
From the intense heat of the sun, the cattle, especially, would be
unable to work during its influence; and, consequently, the loading and
carriage of the timber is performed in the night. The logs are placed
upon the trucks by means of a temporary platform laid from the edge of
the truck to a sufficient distance upon the ground, so as to make an
inclined plane, upon which the log is gradually pushed up by bodily
labour, without any further mechanical aid.

The operations of loading and carrying are thus principally performed
during the hours of darkness. The torches employed are pieces of wood
split from the trunk of the pitch-pine. The river-side is generally
reached by the wearied drivers and cattle before the sun is at its
highest power; and the logs, marked with the owner’s initials, are
thrown into the river.

About the end of May the periodical rains again commence; the torrents
of water discharged from the clouds are so great as to render the roads
impassable in the course of a few hours, when all trucking ceases. About
the middle of June the rivers are swollen to an immense height. The logs
then float down a distance of two hundred miles, being followed by the
gang in pitpans (a kind of flat-bottomed canoe), to disengage them from
the branches of the overhanging trees, until they are stopped by a boom
placed in some situation convenient to the mouth of the river. Each gang
then separates its own cutting, by the marks on the ends of the logs,
and forms them into large rafts; in which state they are brought down to
the wharves of the proprietors, where they are taken out of the water,
and undergo a second process of the axe, to make the surface smooth. The
ends, which frequently get split and rent by being dashed against rocks
in the river by the force of the current, are also sawed off. They are
now ready for shipping.

The ships clearing out from Belize, the principal port of Honduras, with
their valuable freight of mahogany, either come direct to England, or
take their cargo to some free warehousing port of the British
possessions in the West Indies or America.

We must describe the beautiful process of cutting mahogany logs into
veneers, before we have reached the point when the skill of the
cabinet-maker is employed to produce a mahogany table. This shall be
done in an early number.

                   [Illustration: Trucking Mahogany.]


                         ---------------------


                           WHAT IS EDUCATION?

This may seem a very simple question, and very easily answered; but many
who think so, would really be very much at a loss to answer it
correctly. Every man, in a free country, wants three sorts of
education:--one, to fit him for his own particular trade or
calling,--this is professional education;--another, to teach him his
duties as a man and a citizen,--this is moral and political
education;--and a third, to fit him for his higher relations, as God’s
creature, designed for immortality,--this is religious education. Now,
in point of fact, that is most useful to a man which tends most to his
happiness; a thing so plain, that it seems foolish to state it. Yet
people constantly take the word “useful” in another sense, and mean by
it, not what tends most to a man’s happiness, but what tends most to get
money for him; and therefore they call professional education a very
useful thing: but the time which is spent in general education, whether
moral or religious, they are apt to grudge as thrown away, especially if
it interferes with the other education, to which they confine the name
of “useful;” that is, the education which enables a man to gain his
livelihood. Yet we might all be excellent in our several trades and
professions, and still be very ignorant, very miserable, and very
wicked. We might do pretty well just while we were at work on our
business; but no man is at work always. There is a time which we spend
with our families; a time which we spend with our friends and
neighbours; and a very important time which we spend with ourselves. If
we know not how to pass these times well, we are very contemptible and
worthless _men_, though we may be very excellent lawyers, surgeons,
chemists, engineers, mechanics, labourers, or whatever else may be our
particular employment. Now, what enables us to pass these times well,
and our times of business also, is not our _professional_ education, but
our _general_ one. It is the education which all need equally--namely,
that which teaches a man, in the first place, his duty to God and his
neighbour; which trains him to good principles and good temper; to think
of others, and not only of himself. It is that education which teaches
him, in the next place, his duties as a citizen--to obey the laws
always, but to try to get them made as perfect as possible; to
understand that a good and just government cannot consult the interests
of one particular class of calling, in preference to another, but must
see what is for the good of the whole; that every interest, and every
order of men, must give and take; and that if each were to insist upon
having everything its own way, there would be nothing but the wildest
confusion, or the merest tyranny. And because a great part of all that
goes wrong in public or private life arises from ignorance and bad
reasoning, all that teaches us, in the third place, to reason justly,
and puts us on our guard against the common tricks of unfair writers and
talkers, or the confusions of such as are puzzle-headed, is a most
valuable part of a man’s education, and one of which he will find the
benefit whenever he has occasion to open his mouth to speak, or his ears
to hear. And, finally, all that makes a man’s mind more active, and the
ideas which enter it nobler and more beautiful, is a great addition to
his happiness whenever he is alone, and to the pleasure which others
derive from his company when he is in society. Therefore it is most
_useful_ to learn to love and understand what is _beautiful_, whether in
the works of God, or in those of man; whether in the flowers and fields,
and rocks and woods, and rivers, and sea and sky; or in fine buildings,
or fine pictures, or fine music; and in the noble thoughts and glorious
images of poetry. This is the education which will make a man and a
people good, and wise, and happy. Give this,--and the ends of
professional education can never be altogether lost; for good sense and
good principle will ensure a man’s knowing his particular business; but
knowledge of his business, on the other hand, will not ensure _them_;
and not only are sense and goodness the rarest and most profitable
qualities with which any man can enter upon life now, but they are
articles of which there never can be a glut: no competition or
over-production will lessen their value; but the more of them that we
can succeed in manufacturing, so much the higher will be their price,
because there will be more to understand and to love them.


                         ---------------------


_Honesty is the best Policy._--Irritated one day at the bad faith of
Madame Jay, Mirabeau said to her in my presence, “Madam Jay, if probity
did not exist, we ought to invent it, as the best means of getting
rich.”--_Dumont_


                         ---------------------


                               THE WEEK.

                 [Illustration: The Rev. John Wesley.]

June 17.--The birth-day of JOHN WESLEY, the celebrated founder of the
more numerous division of the English Methodists. He was the second son
of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire, where he
was born in the year 1703. Although his father was a man of considerable
literary attainments, being known to the public as the author of various
works in verse, it was to his mother, a woman of a much more zealous and
active character than her husband, that Wesley was chiefly indebted for
his early education, and probably also for the seeds of many of his
distinguished mental habits.

After receiving a very systematic elementary tuition from his mother,
John Wesley was sent to the Charterhouse, from whence he removed at the
usual time to Christ-church College, Oxford. Here he distinguished
himself greatly by his diligence and success as a student, showing from
the first, in the distribution of his time, the same punctual and
persevering regard to method by means of which he mainly achieved all
the greater objects of his life. The reading of some religious works,
and especially of ‘Law’s Serious Call,’ awakened in him a strong spirit
of religious fervour; and he formed that association with a number of
his college acquaintances of similar views and feelings, to which, from
the punctilious regularity of the members in their devotions and general
demeanour, the epithet of “methodists” was given as a name of reproach
by the wags of the university. As has happened in other cases, the
objects of the intended satire were much too earnest in the views they
had adopted to feel or to regard any point of ridicule which it might be
supposed to possess, and frankly adopted the nick-name thus bestowed
upon them by their opponents, as their proper designation. Among their
number, besides Wesley, was the afterwards equally celebrated George
Whitfield.

We cannot here attempt to pursue minutely the remainder of the course of
Wesley’s busy life, or to trace the rise of that extensive fabric of
ecclesiastical policy of which he was the founder. Suffice it to say,
that having commenced his public labours as a religious teacher in the
newly-formed colony of Georgia, in America, in the year 1735, he pursued
from this time a course of almost constant journeying, preaching, and
writing, till within a week of his death, on the 2d of March, 1791, in
the eighty-eighth year of his age. During the greater part of this long
period he rarely preached less than twice, and often four or five times
a day; while, besides presiding with the most minute superintendence
over all the public affairs of the large and rapidly growing community
which acknowledged him as its head, and transacting a great deal of
private business, he found time to send to the press a succession of
works, which, in the collected edition, amount to between thirty and
forty volumes. Mr. Southey, who has made the life of this extraordinary
man one of the most interesting books in the language, has given us the
following account of the manner in which he contrived to get through all
this occupation. “Leisure and I,” said Wesley, “have taken leave of one
another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long
indulged to me.” This resolution was made in the prime of life, and
never was resolution more punctually observed. “Lord, let me not live to
be useless!” was the prayer which he uttered after seeing one whom he
had long known as an active and useful magistrate, reduced by age to be
“a picture of human nature in disgrace, feeble in body and mind, slow of
speech and understanding.” He was favoured with a constitution vigorous
beyond that of ordinary men, and with an activity of spirit which is
even rarer than his singular felicity of health and strength. Ten
thousand cares of various kinds, he said, were no more weight or burthen
to his mind than ten thousand hairs were to his head.... His manner of
life was the most favourable that could have been devised for longevity.
He rose early, and lay down at night with nothing to keep him waking, or
trouble him in sleep. His mind was always in a pleasurable and wholesome
state of activity; he was temperate in his diet, and lived in perpetual
locomotion. And frequent change of air is, perhaps, of all things, that
which most conduces to joyous health and long life. The time which Mr.
Wesley spent in travelling was not lost. “History, poetry, and
philosophy,” said he, “I commonly read on horseback, having other
employment at other times.” He used to throw the reins on his horse’s
neck, and in this way he rode, in the course of his life, above a
hundred thousand miles, without any accident of sufficient magnitude to
make him sensible of the danger which he incurred.

June 21.--_The Longest Day._--On this day there is an interval of
sixteen hours and thirty-four minutes between the rising and the setting
of the sun, which interval is longer than on any other day in the year.
Up to this point, from the 21st December (the shortest day), the days
have steadily increased in length; from this point they will steadily
decrease. We may more properly, at some future time, explain in a series
of papers some of the more remarkable phenomena of the changes of
seasons. At present we shall call our reader’s attention to the moral
reflections which the recurrence of “The Longest Day” suggests, by
re-printing a few stanzas of a poem by Mr. Wordsworth on this subject:--

               Summer ebbs;--each day that follows
               Is a reflux from on high,
               Tending to the darksome hollows
               Where the frosts of winter lie.

               He who governs the creation,
               In his providence assign’d
               Such a gradual declination
               To the life of human kind.

               Yet we mark it not;--fruits redden,
               Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown,
               And the heart is loth to deaden
               Hopes that she so long hath known.

               Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden!
               And when thy decline shall come,
               Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden,
               Hide the knowledge of thy doom.

               Now, even now, ere wrapp’d in slumber.
               Fix thine eyes upon the sea
               That absorbs time, space, and number;
               Look towards eternity!

               Follow thou the flowing river,
               On whose breast are thither borne
               All deceived, and each deceiver,
               Through the gates of night and morn;

               Through the year’s successive portals;
               Through the bounds which many a star
               Marks, not mindless of frail mortals,
               When his light returns from far.

               Thus when Thou with Time hast travell’d
               Tow’rds the mighty gulf of things,
               And the mazy stream unravell’d
               With thy best imaginings;

               Think, if thou on beauty leanest,
               Think how pitiful that stay,
               Did not virtue give the meanest
               Charms superior to decay.

               Duty, like a strict preceptor,
               Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;
               Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
               While thy brow youth’s roses crown.


                         ---------------------


                          GENIUS AND INDUSTRY.

Whilst we believe that education is the greatest gift that can be
conferred on a human creature, we are not sanguine enough to expect that
its more general diffusion will increase the number of men of genius.
There is a perversity in human nature which makes us relax our efforts
at the moment when they might be rewarded with the most splendid
success. It does not follow that a shepherd-boy, who passes his long day
on the side of a hill, and who acquires the principles of mechanics, or
forms for himself a plan of the stars, shall make proportionate
advancement if full opportunity of study be afforded to him.

Nor does it follow that a young man who teaches himself to read by the
light of a shop window in the street, shall become a learned man when
admitted to libraries and encouraged by applause.

We do not think the illustration a correct one, which represents the
scholar as like the weary traveller who plods on contentedly through
woods and over irregular ground which conceal the prospect, and who
faints when he has ascended to the top of the hill and sees the whole
extent of the road before him.

The truth seems rather to be, that energy of mind, like strength of
body, must be acquired by exercise, and that the consciousness of desert
in encountering difficulties, must be felt to enable us to accomplish
any great work. Sir Joshua Reynolds has happily expressed this:--

“It is not uncommon to see young artists, whilst they are struggling
with every obstacle in their way, exert themselves with such success as
to outstrip competitors possessed of every means of improvement. The
promising expectation which was formed on so much being done with so
little means, has recommended them to a patron, who has supplied them
with every convenience of study; from that time their industry and
eagerness of pursuit have forsaken them; they stand still and see others
rush on before them.

“Such men are like certain animals, who will feed only where there is
little provender, and that got at with difficulty through the bars of a
rack, but refuse to touch it where there is an abundance before
them[2].”

From this it appears to be essential to success that a young man should
study to acquire confidence in his own powers. This is a condition of
mind entirely different from conceit; it exhibits itself in no vain
boasting, but essentially consists in a secret resolution to make great
efforts by persevering industry, to gain the object of his ambition.

We believe that young men would entertain these notions oftener, if they
were not deterred by an erroneous fancy of what belongs to genius. They
think that such exertions as we recommend belong only to a plodding
fellow, whilst the man of genius does every thing by a sudden act which
costs him nothing.

This is an unhappy mistake. All our eminent men have been distinguished
by fixing upon some great object, and possessing themselves with such a
lively conception of it that it has led them on through years of toil.

-----

Footnote 2:

  Sir J. Reynolds’ Works, vol. ii. p. 80.


                         ---------------------


                      HOW TO UNDERSTAND GEOGRAPHY.

Every one says that geography is one of the most useful things that can
be learnt; yet nothing is learnt so ill, because nothing is taught so
ill. Look into any of the elementary books of geography, and read what
is said about England. First, we are told that it is divided into forty
counties; then, perhaps, follows an account of the several law circuits;
and then, after some short notices about religion, government, produce,
and manufactures, there are given lists of the chief towns, mountains,
rivers, and lakes. But all these things are given without any connexion
with each other, and it is a mere matter of memory to recollect what is
no more than a string of names. And if a man does recollect them, still
he is not much the wiser for them; he has got no clear and instructive
notions about the country, but has merely learnt his map, and knows
where to find certain names and lines upon it.

If we wish to know geography really, we must set about it in a very
different manner. Take one of the skeleton maps published by the Useful
Knowledge Society; there is not a single name upon them, nothing is
given but the hills and the rivers. These are the true alphabet of
geography. The hills are the bones of a country, and determine its form,
just as the bones of an animal do. For according to the direction of the
hills must be the course of the rivers: if the hills come very near the
sea, it makes the rivers very short and their course very rapid; if they
are a long way from the sea, it makes the rivers long and gentle. But
rivers of this latter sort are generally navigable, and become so large
near the sea as to be capable of receiving ships of large size. Here
then towns will be built, and these towns will become rich and populous,
and so will acquire political importance. Again, on the nature of the
hills depend the mineral riches of a country; if they are composed of
granite or slate, they may contain gold, silver, tin, and copper; if
they are composed of the limestone of Derbyshire or Durham, they are
very likely to have lead mines; if of the sand or gritstone of
Northumberland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, it is probable that there
will be coal at no great distance. On the contrary, if they are made up
of the yellow limestone of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and
Northamptonshire, or of chalk like the hills in Wiltshire, Berkshire,
and Hampshire, or of clay like those about London, it is quite certain
that they will contain neither coal, nor lead, nor any valuable mineral
whatsoever. But on the mineral wealth of a country, and particularly on
its having coal or not having it, depends the nature of the employment
of its inhabitants. Manufactories are sure to follow coal mines;
whereas, in all those districts of England where there is no coal, that
is, in all the counties to the south-east of a line drawn from the Wash
in Lincolnshire to Plymouth, there are, generally speaking, no
manufactories; but the great bulk of the people are employed in
agriculture.

Thus then on the direction and composition of the hills of a country
depend, first of all, the size and character of its rivers. On the
character of its rivers depend the situation and importance of its
towns, and its greater or less facilities for internal communication and
foreign trade. And again, on the composition of the hills depend the
employment of the people, their numbers on a given space, and in a great
degree their state of morals, intelligence, and political independence.
And here we have a reason for things, and see them connected with one
another in a manner at once easier to remember, and much more
satisfactory to understand when we do remember it. Some instances of
this, given in detail, may appear in one of our future numbers.


                         ---------------------


_The Flower Garden_ (June).--It will now be time for you to take up
those bulbs, of which the leaves are nearly decayed. I can fix no
particular day for this operation; because, as the bulbs flower at
different seasons, so the leaves will decay in like manner; but the
general rule is, to take them up carefully as soon as the leaves have
turned yellow, and to lay them under a south wall to dry and ripen;
taking care to cover them with fine, dry, sandy earth, in layers, so
that they may not touch each other. When the leaves are quite decayed,
the bulbs must be removed, and spread again to dry under shelter of a
green-house, or in a room; and, finally, after cleaning them from the
dirt, take off their old coats, or skins, and put them away in bags, or
drawers, in a cool dry place, till they are wanted for replanting in the
autumn. I must here explain why bulbs are taken up every year: the great
object is in this, as in all other operations of gardening, to imitate
Nature; to make the existence of foreign plants as near as it can be to
what they enjoy in their native place. Tulips, hyacinths, and most of
those bulbs which are taken up, come from countries where the whole
summer is dry, and in winter the ground is covered with snow; the spring
rains alone call them into life and flower. Travellers describe whole
regions in Persia as being covered in the spring with enamelled carpets
of scilla (hyacinths), tulips, and other bulbous plants: long drought
succeeds the rains of spring, the leaves die away, and the plant rests
again under the dry earth till the following spring. As in our country
they can have no dry earth naturally to rest in during the summer, the
best imitation of it is to take up the bulb, which would otherwise be
rotted by the summer rains, or caused to grow in the autumn; in which
latter case, the plant would not flower in the spring, as the
flower-stalks would be killed by the wet and cold of winter, before it
came to the surface.

⁂ From ‘The Garden,’ a very agreeable and instructive book for children,
forming one of the volumes of a series called ‘The Little Library.’


                         ---------------------


“_A little Learning is a dangerous Thing._”--Then make it greater. No
learning at all is surely the most dangerous thing in the world; and it
is fortunate that, in this country at least, it is a danger which cannot
possibly exist. After all, learning is acquired knowledge, and nothing
else. A man who can read his Bible has a little learning; a man who can
only plough or dig, has less; a man who can only break stones on the
road, less still, but he has some. The savages in one of the islands in
the South Sea, stood with great reverence round a sailor who had lighted
a fire to boil some water in a saucepan, but as soon as the water began
to boil, they ran away in an agony of terror. Compared with the savages,
there is no boy in Europe, of the age of ten years, who may not be
called learned. He has acquired a certain quantity of practical
knowledge in physics; and, as this knowledge is more than instinct, it
is learning; learning which differs in degree only from that which
enables a chemist to separate the simple metals from soda or potash.

The geographer Malte Brun remarks, that in many cities of the United
States, that which is called a mob scarcely exists. Now it will be found
that in these Cities education has been unstintedly bestowed upon all
classes, down to the very lowest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                LONDON:--CHARLES KNIGHT, PALL-MALL EAST.

  _Shopkeepers and Hawkers may be supplied Wholesale by the following
                            Booksellers:_--

 _London_, GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row.
 _Bath_, SIMMS.
 _Birmingham_, DRAKE.
 _Bristol_, WESTLEY and Co.
 _Carlisle_, THURNAM.
 _Derby_, WILKINS and SON.
 _Falmouth_, PHILIP.
 _Hull_, STEPHENSON.
 _Leeds_, BAINES and NEWSOME.
 _Lincoln_, BROOKE and SON.
 _Liverpool_, WILLMER and SMITH.
 _Manchester_, ROBINSON; and WEBB and SIMMS.
 _Newcastle-upon-Tyne_, CHARNLEY.
 _Norwich_, JERROLD and SON.
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 _Dublin_, WAKEMAN.
 _Edinburgh_, OLIVER and BOYD.
 _Glasgow_, ATKINSON and Co.

               Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Stamford Street.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          Transcriber’s Notes


This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover
art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized
changes from the original text:

 • p. 106: Added faint or unprinted dash to “one-third” in phrase “were
   not one-half, sometimes even not one-third, of their present weight.”
 • p. 107: Replaced “o” with “of” in phrase “a series of articles which
   we shall occasionally publish.”
 • p. 109: Supplied missing “l” in “principal” in phrase “the principal
   port of Honduras.”
 • p. 109: Replaced “Charter house” with “Charterhouse” in phrase “John
   Wesley was sent to the Charterhouse.”



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76818 ***