fields in the north of England: and in the year 1767, Mr. Reynolds, of Shropshire "first put the crude materials of roads into the crucible of the refiner, and thus introduced the use of rails wholly of iron." In 1789, Mr. Jessop, a manufacturer and engineer of distinguished eminence, "had the merit of first employing the edge-rail. About ten years afterwards, Mr. Benjamin Outram introduced the plate-rail, with props of stone at the joinings of the rails instead of timber: both the edge and plate rails were made of cast iron; and in the year 1811, the former was first made wholly of malleable iron at Lord Carlisle's coal works in Cumberland." For twenty years more, the only motive force applied to the Rail was the horse. And, at the present day, it is not a little amusing to glance at the numberless experiments so anxiously conducted, in order to ascertain the effective power of an active horse" on all the varieties of level and inclined planes;-experiments, involving discussions about the proper criterion of animal strength to be employed-leading to the use of new mechanical instruments such as the dynamometer-and often terminating with grave lectures on comparative anatomy and muscular motion. But the immense extension of manufacturing industry and the successful application of steam, as a propelling force, to vessels on rivers, lakes, and seas, paved the way for experiments which issued in the triumphant application of the same potent agency to Railways. The opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway in 1830 was the signal for the introduction of the improved Railway system into almost every region of the civilized world, on both sides of the Atlantic, with a rapidity and to an extent, hitherto unparalleled in the history of the useful Arts-achieving prodigies of speed which convert the fables of Romance into the records of every day reality-and involving the voluntary expenditure of private capital surpassing in amount the hoarded stores of the mightiest potentate that ever seized or monopolized the wealth of subjugated kingdoms. And, now, what we plead for, is, the introduction, at once, into these Indian realms, of this most notable and worthy product of British genius, perseverance and industry, in its last and most perfected form, with all the concentrated advantages of past progressive improvement and accumulated experience. What a glorious contrast does the very prospect of such a consummation hold out in favour of British sway! Age after age, did the greatest of India's monarchs strive to perpetuate the memory of their name and rule, by lavishing on "Paynim" mosques, and idol temples, and proud mausoleums, those treasures of "barbaric pearl and gold," that were cruelly wrung from the tears,

the cries, and the miseries of a suffering people. Let it now be the glory of Imperial Britain, to confer on the same people a boon of inestimable value, in the form of a work of the greatest extent and utility which the world has yet seen;a work, which, by its facilities of intercommunion and rapid conveyance of the superabounding products of an exhaustless soil to the great emporia of commerce, shall help to arouse the dormant energies of millions-quicken their intellectual and moral powers-dissolve the spell of a thousand habits and customs consecrated by the superstitious reverence of ages-stimulate the creative industry that shall transmute the pestilential marsh into a healthful garden, teeming with fertility and verdure, and, by its incessant encroachments, literally cause the very desert "to rejoice and blossom as the rose ;"-a work, which, by the multifarious influences thus called into action, and the varied salutary tendencies thus enduringly impressed, shall, as an auxiliary to all other reformative agencies, lend its effective aid in contributing to raise long prostrate India from the dust, and exalt her to her rightful position as one of the most magnificent empires under the sun.

P. S.-At the time we are writing, no advices have come of any company having accepted the terms proposed by Govern

ment.

Since the early part of this article was written, we have had the good fortune to obtain sight again of the document alluded to at page 326, and dated towards the end of 1846. It is, we now find, in the form of a letter from a public office to an English mechanic whom the local authorities had engaged, but disappointed for the reason alleged in the letter; viz. that

"the Hon'ble the Court of Directors have given positive instructions prohibiting the employment of other than their Military Covenanted servants in the subordinate grades of the Department of Public Works."

The existence of such an order we extremely regret. To us it seems at once improvident and unjust to make employment in such a department as that of Public works, a monopoly. For the superintendence and execution of many of those works, working mechanics are much better qualified than military officers. The mechanic can lend a hand, as well as superintend, if necessary; while his services are cheaper. Lastly, such an order is an impolitic, and, according to the principle of the Charter Act, unconstitutional interference with the local authorities who must be the best judges on such details, and would err, if at all, on the side, of an undue preference for the covenanted services.

ΛΙ

ART. III.-1. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient. Par M. Pauthier. Paris, 1840.

2. Y-King, antiquissimus Sinarum liber quem ex latinâ interpretatione P. Regis aliorumque ex Soc. Jesu P. P. edidit Julius Mohl. Stuttgartiæ, 1834.

3. The Works of Confucius, by J. Marshman, Serampore, 1809. 4. Le Chou-king, traduit et enrichi de notes par Feu le P. Gaubil, &c. revu et corrigé sur le texte Chinois par M. De Guignes, &c. Paris, 1770.

5. China, or Illustrations of the Symbols, Philosophy, &c. of the Chinese, by S. Kidd. London, 1841.

THE contrast between the people of Asia and Europe is not less striking than that between the physical peculiarities of the two continents. Ever influenced to an extraordinary degree by the circumstances in which he may be placed, man exhibits in every different situation a different appearance. The burning deserts of central Africa, with their arid clouds of sand, are not more strikingly dissimilar from the hills and plains and forests of Europe, than are the wild negro tribes who wander through them, when compared even with the rudest of the European races. But even here the contrast is scarcely so striking as it is between the occupants of Asia and of Europe. The thickly peopled plains of India, of the Burman Peninsula, and of China, are, it is true, as different from the vast plains of central Asia as the Hindus, the Burmese, and the Chinese are from the wandering Tartars and Mongolians. All these are more or less contrasted with each other, but how slight do these differences appear when compared with those that present themselves, if we view together the civilized races of Europe and Asia. The Frenchman and the Chinese, the Englishman and the Hindu, the Italian and the native of Burmah are a kind of intellectual and moral antipodes to each other, differing, not less in their modes of thought and manner of life than in their dress and languages. The Frenchman, the Englishman and the Italian have yet a certain similarity to each other, just as the Chinese, the Hindu and the Burmese have, however they may differ in minor peculiarities. The causes of this striking contrast it will be well for us shortly to investigate as being immediately connected with our present subject.

The Physical Historian of the human race will, perhaps, point to his division of mankind into different families as the true explanation of the question. But this cannot assist us,—

it is but giving a different name to our enquiry, and unless he could shew us why the mind of the Mongolian appears to differ in its structure from that of the Circassian, as much as his body does in form, his nomenclature and subdivisions are of no avail.

It will be evident to every one who reflects on the matter, that no one cause or varying circumstance could have brought about so great a difference, and that we must look for its true explanation to a number of different influences co-operating with each other. There can be little doubt then, in the first place, that climate has a very considerable influence on the human frame-no one will probably be found to deny its influence on the body, although some may doubt whether it can affect the mind. Yet so intimate is the connection between the two, that a simple induction would lead us to believe, that what produces a difference in the one would have an effect, however small, or however evanescent, upon the other. That there is a difference between the habits and modes of thought amongst the inhabitants of the icy regions when compared with those of the torrid zone, cannot, we imagine, be doubted. The constant occupation of the mind upon one class of subjects different from those on which the others are employed, would, in itself, be sufficient in course of time to give it a bias or form differing from that impressed upon the other. The inhabitant of the icy regions, for instance, sees all nature around rugged and forbidding-bleak masses of rock, and no less bleak mountains of ice, are his constant companions. A perpetual war with the elements must be kept up even to support his life, and with a cheerless sky above him and a freezing atmosphere around, what wonder if he accustom his mind to melancholy and gloom? In the torrid zone, on the other hand, we see the swarthy inhabitant placed in the midst of nature's prodigality and unbounded fertility. He rests beneath the shade of a tree, and enjoys a delightful temperature-the forest around him supplies him with food-flowers are in his path, the woods are full of beautifully-tinted birds, who may delight him with their songs or plumage; in fact all nature calls him to enjoyment. What a mind must his be, if no fertile imagination bounds in it -if no contentment and joy take possession of it-and if it does not exult in the happiness of every thing around? Will it be said then, that an experience of even thirty years in two such different situations would not give rise to differently constituted minds? These of course are extreme cases, but if an extreme difference of climate would produce a difference in the modes of thinking and feeling of two races, every less difference would have a correspondingly diminishing influence.

In this manner, we conceive it may be shewn, that even his local situation and the circumstances that attend it have some influence in moulding the mind of man. If this be true, then, there can be little doubt that here we have at least one of the causes of that extraordinary contrast between the mind of Asia and Europe. How different is the local situation of Greece from that of India and Persia! and, again, as there is a general similarity between the vast plains of India, China, and Mongolia, so is there also a general similarity between the narrow peninsulas and islands of Europe, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Scandinavia and Britain. In the one case we have regions of excessive heat and excessive cold, in the other a climate rendered more or less temperate by the breezes of the ocean, and as there is a general similarity in the climates of Greece, Italy, &c. and in those of India, China and Mongolia, so is there also, as we have before stated, a reigning individuality, so to speak, in the mental manifestations of the two classes of countries, otherwise so strangely contrasted with each other.

Another, and a no less striking difference between the two, existed in the periods at which civilization reached them, and in the form of that civilization. Assuming, what indeed is almost an ascertained fact, that the great religious sects of Asia, took their rise somewhere in the North of India, or in Persia, we may speak of Indian civilization, as being in its great elements, identical with Asiatic civilization generally. Now, history assures us, that Europe received the elements of its philosophy, its religion, and its civilization from the East. In the East, then, these elements first existed, and it is therefore to be expected that they would exist in a different form from that which they assumed in the West. They were rudimental, and unformed, a rudis indigestaque moles, a vast and ill-understood synthesis, which although of practically little influence on the mass, was yet stamped with the brand of religion and orthodoxy, and thereby prevented from being examined or analysed. But into Greece and Europe they came in a very different form. The quarry was too large to be introduced in all its original bulkiness, and thus it came to be imported piecemeal. One philosopher and another got possession of this portion and of that, moulded it as suited his fancy or his inclination, and then threw it in, as another element of change on the stormy sea of Grecian institutions. In this way was it broken up into detached fragments, and much of the bad was rejected, whilst a great proportion of the good was introduced. Had the spirit of the East invaded Greece, at the outset of its career, in all its original entirety, Europe, like