all the electricity of a thunder-cloud to the earth, it will pass along it quietly and harmlessly. Hence we raise a little above the highest point of a building a rod of copper, and continue it to the lowest point, connecting it with the moist earth. In our ships we carry a band of the same metal from the topmast to the copper sheeting beneath the water, and thus all is rendered secure. There has been a popular error that lightning conductors may become lightning attractors. There are no such thing as attractors of electricity; it strikes a tall tree or church spire, because such objects offer the easiest road for it to return to the earth and restore the electric equilibrium. The lightning copper conductor bears precisely the same relation to the atmospheric electricity, that the pipes which we place from the roofs of our houses, and continue to the earth, do to the rain which falls from a condensing cloud. Neither the rain nor the electricity seeks the channels, but they are provided, and through these they flow. By a good system of lightning conductors, any extent of country might be protected from thunder-storms; indeed, science proves that it is within the power of man to establish such channels of communication between the solid earth and the ambient air as to maintain a constant balance in the electrical conditions of both, and thus prevent the development of the thunder-storm. imposing array of them; but when told, in answer to our inquiries, that they were full of nothing more than hogs' bristles, the story of much cry and little wool passed across our memory, and, unbending into a smile, we remarked to our friend, that hogs' bristles were probably not a very valuable commodity. "Oh! so, so," replied he; "we are not very full at present; you do not see before you more than some fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth." Fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth of hogs' bristles! That seemed fabulous; and it was only by slow degrees, and after much cross-questioning, we arrived at the conviction, that the small article which serves as a jacket to the hog, as a needle to Crispin, and the subject of our paper, is in itself important enough to give the dealers in it a high rank among the merchant-princes of London. How many who daily use an assemblage of brustles or bristles, named, from these materials, brush, whether hair-brush, toothbrush, nail-brush, clothes-brush, hat-brush, or scrubbing-brush, give a single thought as to its origin, or suffer the thought, if entertained, to go beyond the truism, that the hair comes off the hog's back? Even the gentleman to whom we were indebted for a sight of his stores, frankly confessed that his knowledge of a hog's bristle was much more complete with regard to its quality and value, than to its production and physiology. The vineyards of the south of France for- We may mention, however, that, unlike hair, merly suffered severely from devastating hail- wool, and other analogous animal coverings, storms, produced by the sudden congelation of it has two capillary vessels instead of one. the water of the rain-cloud by its being robbed It differs, also, in having (technically) a of its latent heat through a sudden electric" flag," or a separation of the end into several discharge. Experience has taught the vinegrowers that, by raising lightning conductors over their gardens, they quietly discharge the surplus electricity in the air, prevent the congelation of the water, and consequently remove the cause of injury. The paragrailles, as they are called, are the safeguards to the vinegrower, and where they are plentifully distributed, severe hail-storms are now rarely known. Thus it is that, by investigating some of the most minute and apparently uninstructive phenomena, we arrive at great truths. The attractive power of amber, first observed by Thales, has led to the solution of the mystery of the thunder-storm; has instructed us how to disarm it of its terrors; and there are yet other points of interest, to which we shall return, showing the advantages which man has derived from studying the flies in amber. parts. The rough projections on the surface of other kinds of hair, revealed to the eye by the microscope, and to the touch by drawing them between the thumb and finger, are absent in the bristle. With the cobbler, the flag serves to interweave and fasten his threads, while he sews with the root-end; just as if a tailor were to thread his needle at the point, and work with the eye. All this we introduce parenthetically, just to show the reader that we are "well up" in the subject, and that he may rely upon our learning. One would imagine that so common a thing as a bristle, identified with the morning-experience of the man who shaves, and of the maid who scours the floor, would have its history narrated in every book of reference upon our shelves. Just so thought we when we shook our friend by the hand, and started off to verify what he had told us, and to add to the stock of knowledge already amassed. Our Britannicas, Metropolitanas, and Jury Reports, however, were searched in vain for WE went one day to call upon a mercantile additional lore. So unimportant in its details friend, and found him in his store. The place is the subject considered, that it figures in was greatly choked up with casks-quite an' books only as an item among other things, From Chambers' Journal. A WORD ON BRISTLES. and, by means of books, can be traced back to the chief place of export no further. But there it forms a something worth observing. We had been through a friend's warehouse, as we have said, and had been astonished over and over again, as we peeped into a tub, and were told that the bristles it contained were valued at from one to two hundred pounds. Having passed a small dark counting-house, whose aspect hardly testified to the real extent of bristle transactions, we were initiated into the chief arcana of the craft. Craft is the proper word; a bristle has to undergo so many processes before it reaches the hand of the brushmaker, that it becomes really a manufactured ware. Arranged on a series of shelves were many bundles, not striking in their appearance, yet very striking as an exemplification of the unthought-of value of familiar things. These bundles represented a goodly number of Russian. rubles. They were of various sizes, tied up very neatly, and, in appearance, like corpulent dustingbrushes without handles. Some of them were as they had left their own shores, others had undergone a good many operations washing, cleansing, combing, bleaching, dyeing. They come over occasionally just as they have been pulled out of the hog's backdirty, mixed with wool, and saturated with a disagreeable dust; the last a thing which often draws worse than blessings from the dressers, who, to the great prejudice of health, necessarily breathe it into their lungs. Hogs in Siberia, and in other parts where the climate is cold, have an under-coat of woolly hair, of little value in trade, although sometimes it is curled, and serves to stuff cushioned furniture. It has to be combed from the bristle either here or abroad; but as the wool adds materially to the weight, and allowing it to remain saves a good deal of trouble, the folks abroad often remember to forget this part of the manipulation. swine to make their habitation beneath. Germany exports the greater quantity next to Russia. The notoriety of Westphalia hams, generally accredited bear hams, is our guarantee for the prevalence of hogs in that country. Included in the supplies is much that is gathered in the provinces of Austria, particularly in the south countries and the mountains of Transylvania. Forests abound in these parts, and the wild boar is common; about one third is forest-land, and food for the hog is profuse. Oak-apples to the extent of 200,000 bushels are thence exported annually. The fact will serve as a clue to the boars' means for nourishment; for where there are oak-apples, there will also be mast― the favorite food. France and Belgium provide a few fine sorts, which overmatch in delicacy but do not approach in quantity the amount from other sources. A small box upon the merchant's bench-say, three feet by one, and one foot deepas beautifully packed with small pencils of hair as a case of perfumery or chemicals, all as beautifully white as bleached bristles can be made, illustrated well the characteristic délicatesse of the French. Of late years, some have also arrived from America, chiefly from Cincinnati, but in parcels so small, that they hardly form an item in the trade. It is rather remarkable, that the huge continent, covered as it is with mighty forests, where countless hogs run wild, is not more prolific in bristles. Its goahead inhabitants have assuredly found out their value, for what involving a profit cannot they espy? Pig-meat is at a discount, and only eaten, as a rule, by the poorest; yet bristles are purchased by America, and in larger parcels than by any other country, next to England, which possesses almost a monopoly of the trade. The Russian and British markets are linked together, and have very little connection with any other in this article. So far as Russia is concerned, the same might be said, indeed, for the whole commerce of the empire. The balance of dealings with any other country almost invariably goes through an English banker. Bristles are of various colors-black, white, and intermediate tints. Upon the color the value in some degree depends. White is most valuable, and yellow second; black and Not many years ago, the bristles which gray are inferior. The color of the light va- now come over so nicely prepared, arrived in rieties is improved by bleaching, and defect- a higgledy-piggledy state. All lengths and ive colors are dyed black. Incidentally, we qualities were tied together with a garter — wonder that old-fashioned sulphur is still we fall back on our friend's experience used as a bleaching agent, and that the more a piece of rag, hide, tow, matting, or any effective power of the modern chlorides has other rude band. The difference is at present not been applied. Is it that the trade, in so great, that the brushmaker now seeks to its manipulations, pursues the even tenor of emulate him who was once his pupil. The its way just as in its closeness as a craft? Russians have little claim to originality, but Nearly all the bristles come from Russia. It they can copy so well what they see done, is commonly said, that a squirrel might leap that they often excel their preceptors in from tree to tree between St. Petersburg and skill. The value of a bristle is materially Moscow and not touch the ground. The same trees whose branches form tenements for the squirrel, tempt innumerable herds of increased by the dressing it undergoes. From time to time, a perceptible difference shows itself in all Russian merchandise, as the dealers gain information about the subsequent | near the Salgans, or tallow-houses of Russia; processes and uses of the articles. The fac- buildings used for boiling down fat oxen, which tories of the country are very freely open to are so numerous as to be slaughtered for their the inspection of foreign merchants, for, as hides and tallow. In the inelting season, our friend remarked, they have everything to many herds of swine are farmed by the progain and nothing to lose from the intercourse. prietors, and fed upon the refuse. A month or Some of the bundles shown to us, not the two will make them so sleek and greasy, largest, had a circumference of two feet. All that they are driven off to the steppe, and the bristles were placed in one direction, and given a few feeds of corn, to refine their flavor. tied round the base with cord made of twisted They are so fat, that it is easy to conjecture bark. The roots of the bristle remained, the hair to have no very tenacious root. With clearly showing that the porcine race are the owners of these animals, the bristle harvest subjected to being plucked, just like a goose takes a place analogous to shearing in Engof the fens, or a young collegian. It puzzled land; but, as we remarked, it is only in the us a good deal to know how so large a quan-aggregate we know much about the matter. tity could be made up in one bundle. When Bristles, in their history, have escaped the a bundle was opened, however, it puzzled us notice alike of travellers, authors, and merstill more, for the mass consisted of several chants. An author, however, states from hearvarieties kept quite distinct. The centreplug of a bundle was of one quality and color, while round it was a casing of another kind, which, again and again, had a concentric band of other hues. We incidentally mentioned that the bristles are brought over in casks. Arranged in our friend's capacious rooms were half a thousand of them, weighing four or five hundredweight each a stock about enough, we remarked in our simplicity, to supply every awl with waxend hairs for life, and the whole world, including savages, with brushes. Yet this was not a large stock. The trade had been brisk throughout the season, and had reduced it; while an early winter in the north had frozen in the fresh consignments, and prevented the replenishment of the stores. Some of those we saw were strong horny spines, seven inches long. Some even reached ten inches; but what they gained in length they lost in a great desideratum. The best bristles vary from five and a half to seven inches. wiriness The English pig, which is domesticated for its flesh, supplies no bristle worth preserving, it is the semi-tame herds in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, and in the interior of Russia, which provide the bulk of the bristles; the strongest come from the wild boar, and are used by the shoemaker for his thread, and by the shearman in the brush with which he lays the nap after shearing cloth for the last time. The names distinguishing the various qualities, even of the produce of Germany, are Russian. After the fashion that obtains in zoological collections, a twofold nomenclature is used. The first name refers to the merchant or place, the second to the quality. Here is a specimen. "Mesdrikoff's Okatkas" are highest on the list; then follow successively, "Moscatineff's first sort;""Kooschinikoff's Suchoi ;""Siberian or Veliko Looki, second Bort;""Mettschoffsky's Brack or Riflings" - that is, refuse. The half-wild animals referred to are bred say, that a large number of the creatures being driven into a confined spot, the atmosphere is heated to a degree that irritates the skin and makes it soft; and when in this condition, the crop is gathered, and the animal set free. Every peasant, from the Baltic to Kamtschatka, knows that bristles are available for trade. Agents traverse the continent, and gather in the results of cottage economy in the bristles that have been laid aside. These, with other rural produce, are then transferred to the great fairs of Russia, and disposed of on a gigantic scale. In our own country, where trade is dispersed, we can have no proper idea of the business done at these fairs; at that of Novgorod, it is said that sales are transacted to the extent of 7,000,000l. sterling. Purchased by merchants principally at these fairs, bristles form an important article of export from Russia. In 1852 the quantity exported from St. Petersburg alone amounted to 2,187,516 lbs. Think of nearly 3,000,000 poundweights of hogs' bristles leaving one port of one country in one year! Russian trade, however, depends upon the frost; even hogs' bristles are at its mercy. Winter sometimes approaches so rapidly, that the calculations of the merchants are at fault. The breaking up of winter is equally peculiar, one day serving to crumble into floating mountains what was the day before a continent of ice. Last season, the winter set in so severely, and so early, that many merchantmen were caught and locked in the ice; and our friend himself has at present a store of bristles icebound. It will serve to show the magnitude of this extraordinary trade, when we say, that the project was seriously entertained of cutting out the ship, rather than suffer a delay of six months in the consignment. What is more, the project would actually have been carried out if the frost had not been too sharp upon the enterprising projectors. Altogether, 3000 poods, or 108,000 lbs., have been thus kept back at the depot by the frost. THE LOVE-TEST. AN ALLEGORY. A NOBLE maid in olden time, When lowly love was deemed a crime, Looked with a gracious eye On one, whose soul with thoughts sublime, Yet was his birth beneath her state, And royal ancestry, While his were poor; and ruthless fate Yet worthy of her love, as well Her modest heart to him denied The father, as the tale was told, "Carry the girl to yon hill-top- The cold and cheerless grave!" He dares the chance, and woos the strife, At once the trial must begin: The hill was high and steep; the road, Was rough, and all o'ergrown The lady trembling stood, her hand She lies within his proud embrace, With joyful looks, as though it were He braves the steep ascent; From the New Monthly Magazine. tation of the leeward bank prevented our taking the wind of the water-fowl. This became apparent, when a couple of matchTHE pean of the Falcons is being sung lock balls whizzing through the air, and the loud again. An amusement originally derived report ringing upon the surface of the Jheel, from the East, where the "Grand Seignior" tions. Those that caught sight of the hawks fled startled its occupants from their proper occupa once boasted of a retinue of 6000 falconers, shrieking down the wind towards another pond, and still almost universally practised in coun-in a straight line, so that pursuit would have tries where people are too indolent for the more active sports of the field, is about to be brought back from the same country, and is again spoken of as a most noble and gentle pursuit-fit for "knight and ladye fair;" a source of healthy and innocent enjoyment, and, above all, "a pageant of past glory." Knox, in his pretty little treatise on Game Birds and Wild Fowl," has given a graphic account of this exhilarating sport; Mr. W. B. Barker, who has had much experience of the art as practised in the Levant, has devoted two interesting chapters to the subject in his work on "Cilicia ;" and we have now before us a still more graphic and amusing sketch of Oriental falconry, in Mr. Burton's "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus."* It would be more difficult, indeed, to imagine scenes for sport of any description more prolific or more gorgeous than are presented by the long Valley of the Indus. inevitably entailed the loss of a Bashah. Others, with instinctive cunning, wheeled round and round the crystal floor, never passing its limits, till fear allowed them to settle again. A few, but so few, exposed themselves to danger, that we lost nearly two hours in "bagging" half a dozen snipe and teal. Presently we left the marsh. Our Bazdar had remarked, with many curses, a huge "tiger of pride of the air," an Ukab towering in his “ place," high above the dense vapors and the reflected heat of the plains. He was apparently determined to dine on a Bashah, for, fast as we shifted our position, he followed us from Jheel to Jheel, and ended by triumphantly ejecting us from his hunting-grounds. The Ukab, or Scinde vulture, alluded to in this extract, is a mortal enemy to every species of hawk: witness the following example, related to Mr. Burton, by the Ameer Ibrahim Khan Talpur : her ་་ 'Well, Sahib," continued the Ameer, speakIt was a heart-gladdening spectacle for a sportsman. The pure blue sheet of water, lined ing by jerks, as his breathlessness allowed him;. one day I flew my beautiful Bahri after a little with a fringe of vivid green, was literally covered with feathered life. The king-curlew with his heron, which we all expected to see killed in a ruby crown, and the common curlew so cele-moment. They took the air well together, when, of a sudden, See the Ukab! oh, the Ukab!" brated, despite his homely garb, for the soaring cried the Bazdar. True enough! High above and racing chase he affords, were pacing the us was the wretch, a black dot in the blue sky, banks in busy troops. Gulls and graceful terns hovered over the marsh, here alone in the air, looking out, like an Affghan, for what he could -we waved the lure; there mingled with flights of red and white plunder. We shouted Brahminee ducks, wheeling about in search of unfortunately my poor Bahri was so eager after a spot to light on. The tall Saras stood in pairs, destruction. Then the Ukab disappeared from quarry, that nothing could tempt her out of now plunging their bills into the shallow waters, now scattering pearly drops from their pink been frightened by our noise. The falcon and the our eyes, and we thought that the Maloon had throats; the bittern's ruff peeped out of the green weeds, and the snowy white cloak of the little heron kept rising and rising, till we lost paddy-bird glistened dazzlingly amongst the sight of them also. Presently, by the Prophet's beard I swear to you, Sahib, as we stood looking russet-colored uniforms of duck and diver, snipe and snippet, plover and wild goose. Lank herons upwards with straining eyes, a speck appeared were there, and stout, matronly pelicans gazing the instant after, plump fell a body at my feet like a fly in the air larger; and larger it grew; stolidly before them, with bustards large as turkeys, and a goodly array of plump little teal; vulture had shattered her skull with his foul It was poor Sohni, my falcon. the painted snipe with beautiful dark colors beak. And since that day I have liberally dis ornamenting his wings; the mallard with his gor-pensed Kisas to all his breed." geous plume, and many varieties of quiet-looking cranes swam and dived, and shook, and splashed, all screaming, each in his own tongue, their natural joy in a life to them at that moment full of charms. The fates protected the denizens of that marsh. Hawks generally dislike flying at birds over water; and unfortunately for us the thick vege The accursed Mr. Burton and Mr. Barker both agree that the round-winged hawks have been much neglected in this country. Both in the Levant and on the Indus they are principally used, although by far the more expensive to purchase, reclaim, and keep. “İ doubt,” says Mr. Burton, "whether Falco gentilis in the West ever gave better sport than does one of Ibrahim Khan's favorite goshawk's." Our old authors appear to have been fond of commending the goshawk. Tubervile, in |