price was increased only by the profit of the cotton factor. A profit which was the remuneration of his abstinence in delaying, for five or six months, the gratification which he might have obtained by the expenditure on himself of the price paid by him to the planter. The Liverpool merchant brought it to England, and sold it to a Manchester spinner. He must have sold it at a price which would repay, in the first place, the price at which it was bought from the factor at New Orleans; in the second place, the freight from thence to Liverpool; (which freight includes a portion of the wages of the seamen, and of the wages of those who built the vessel, of the profits of those who advanced those wages before the vessel was completed, of the wages and profits of those who imported the materials of which that vessel was built, and, in fact, of a chain of wages and profits extending to the earliest dawn of civilization;) and, thirdly, the merchant's profit for the time that these payments were made, before his sale to the manufacturer was completed.

The spinner subjected it to the action of his work-people and machinery, until he reduced part of it into the thread applicable to weaving muslin, and part into the still finer thread that can be formed into lace.

The thread thus produced he sold to the weaver and to the lace-maker; at a price repaying, in addition to the price that was paid to the merchant, first, the wages of the work-people immediately engaged in the manufacture; secondly, the wages and profits of all those who supplied, by the labour of previous years, the buildings and machinery; and, thirdly, the profit of the master spinner. It would be tedious to trace the transmission of the thread from the weaver to the bleacher, from the bleacher to the printer, from the printer to the wholesale warehouseman, from him to the retailer, and thence to the ultimate purchaser. At every step a fresh capitalist repays all the previous advances, subjects the article, if unfinished, to further processes, advances the wages of those engaged in its further manufacture and transport, and is ultimately repaid, by the capitalist next in order, all his own advances, and a profit proportioned to the time during which he has abstained from the unproductive enjoyment of the capital thus employed.

We should probably be understating the difference of the value of a pound of cotton, from the time it was gathered on the banks of the Mississippi, till it appears in a Bond-street window as a piece of elaborate lace, if we were to say that the last price was a thousand times the first. The price of a pound of the finest cotton wool, as it is gathered, is less than two shillings. A pound of the finest cotton lace might easily be worth more than a hundred guineas. No means, except the separation of the functions of the capitalist from those of the labourer, and the constant advance of capital from one capitalist to another, could enable so many thousand producers to direct their efforts to one object, to continue them for so long a period, and to adjust the reward for their respective sacrifices.-Senior.

LESSON II.-TUESDAY.

MATTER-ITS ELEMENTARY CONDITIONS.

Matter possesses bulk, and is capable of being acted on by force. Ponderable matter has weight, and imponderable matter, as heat, light, and electricity, is without weight. Platinum is the heaviest, and hydrogen the lightest of ponderable substances; the one being twenty-one times heavier, and the other twelve thousand times lighter than

water.

Detached portions of matter are called bodies or masses. All masses are made up of ultimate particles, atoms, or molecules, of a definite magnitude, and having the same properties as the masses they constitute, but so minute as to be supposed incapable of further subdivision. A grain of sulphate of copper (blue vitriol) will impart a blue tinge to 10 lbs. of water. This quantity of water contains six hundred and twenty thousand drops, and if one thousand particles of sulphate of copper are required to give each drop a uniform tinge, the weight of one particle will be the sixty-two millionth part of a grain. But each particle of the sulphate of copper contains one atom of sulphur, one of copper, and four of oxygen; and if these are of uniform weight, one of them cannot be more than the three thousand seven hundred millionth part of a grain. A species of fungus, the

These

cellules of which Dr. Lindley supposes to be about the two hundredth part of an inch in diameter, has been known to attain the size of a gourd in twelve hours. It would then contain forty-seven thousand millions of cellules. must have been developed at the rate of four thousand millions per hour, and every separate cellule consists of innumerable atoms of the substance of which it is formed, each atom being compounded of several elementary atoms. There are animalcules, according to the researches of Ehrenburgh, so small, that millions would not equal in bulk a single grain of sand. Forty thousand millions of one of these are contained in a cubic inch of slate, formed almost entirely of their fossilized remains. Each of these animalcules is influenced by the same appetites as the largest animals, and possesses a perfect organism, having limbs, heart, and digestive organs. Vast as is the number of material molecules so wonderfully brought together by the Creator to form each curious structure,-every molecule, by chemical processes, may be resolved into separate elements.

The molecules of matter are held together in the masses they constitute with various degrees of force. In solid bodies the atoms cohere so firmly, as to prevent any disturbance in their relative position, without the application of some force additional to that of gravity. A piece of iron or wood resting on the ground does not fall to pieces by the mere influence of its weight, nor is its shape altered in any manner if it be not subjected to violence. The stability of buildings, and of animal and vegetable structures, depends on this property. In liquid bodies, the atoms are free to move and change their relative positions by the application of the smallest force. To build up a quantity of water on a flat surface into the shape of a house, a man, or a tree, would be impossible, since the force of gravity would not allow any one particle to occupy a higher position than another, but would reduce them all to the level of the surface on which the water is placed. The atoms of gaseous bodies have a mutual tendency to fly off from each other, and are only kept together by external pressure. Air, in the minutest quantity, admitted into the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, however large, is immediately distributed equally throughout the entire space.

Solid, liquid, and gaseous, are terms which express the aggregate forms of matter. Many bodies exist in each of these states. At a temperature below 32°, water is a solid; at ordinary temperatures it is a liquid; at 212°, and upwards, it is a gas. The instances of similar changes are so numerous, that it may be inferred that all bodies might be made to undergo the same modifications, if a sufficient range of temperature and pressure were attainable. These states of aggregation in which matter presents itself are adapted with such wonderful precision to the wants of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, as to make it obvious that the forces which cause them are under the control of an all-wise Creator, and subserve His purposes in the economy of the universe.

LESSON III.-WEDNESDAY.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

Whence but from heav'n could men unskill'd in arts, In several ages born, in several parts,

Weave such agreeing truths? or how or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the Book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles, which must convince,
For heav'n in them appeals to human sense;
And though they prove not, they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws.
Then, for the style: majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in ev'ry line;
Commanding words, whose force is still the same,
As the first fiat that produced our frame.

All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend,

Or sense indulged has made mankind their friend;
This only doctrine does our lusts oppose;
Unfed by nature's soil, on which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin,
Oppress'd without, and undermined within,

It thrives through pain, its own tormentors tires,
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
To what can reason such effects assign,
Transcending nature, but to laws divine,
Which in that sacred volume are contain❜d,
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordain'd?-Dryden.

LESSON IV.-THURSDAY.

BRITAIN UNDER THE ROMANS.

The first events in the authentic history of Britain are the landing of Cæsar on the eastern shores, B.C. 55, and his invasion of the country in the following year. At the time of Cæsar's landing, Great Britain was inhabited by a multitude of tribes. The number of such tribes living in a lawless independence is alone a sufficient proof of their barbarism. These tribes were composed of three classes, or orders; the sacerdotal order named Druids, the nobility, and the common people. The Druids were the priests, the philosophers, and the judges of the people; and as the Celtic race has been at all times prone to superstition, this weapon was as powerful in their hands, as in those of the Romish clergy of after ages. Into the maritime provinces southward of the Thames, colonies probably recent from Belgic Gaul began to introduce tillage; they retained the names of their parent tribes on the continent; and far surpassed the rest in the arts and manners of civil life. The inhabitants of the interior appear to have been more rude and more fierce than any neighbouring people. The greater part of them raised no corn; they subsisted on milk and flesh, and were clothed in the skins of the beasts whom they destroyed for food. They painted and punctured their bodies, that their aspect might be more horrible in war. The use of carriages in war is a singular instance of labour and skill among such a people. It is vain to inquire into the forms of government prevalent among a people in so low a state of culture. The Britons had a government rather occasional than constant, and in which different political principles prevailed by turns. The countries since called Scotland and Ireland were probably not more advanced in civilization.