and that the story of this son and mother is one of them. In recalling it to our imagination, we have driven out all our less sad impressions of Kensal Green Cemetery, and for its remainining objects of interest must refer our London readers to itself; merely reminding them, that the lateral path from Ducrow's mausoleum, leads to the uncovered grave of Hood, which to all appearance, echoes of the sleeping poet's song, we could remind his world-wide readers of all they owe to him; the visitors to Kensal Green would not long have to inquire his whereabout, but a gracious monument wrought with the images of his own sweet thoughts, would point out by the perfection of its beauty, the sacred spot where genius finds its rest.

shapely swords and clumsy shakos, on the graves of military men, with whom the trappings of their profession appear to be a favourite device, nor any want of disproportionate and awkward figures; but the exhibition of these faults will naturally work their amendment, and beauties equally displayed lead to emulation in overtaking them. In one corner, where a cluster of the dark and shining foliage of Portugal laurel throws its shade," Nobody owns!" How we wish, that in waking the and two willow trees wave mournfully their branchy trosses above a group of simple graves, we noticed a plain stone slab, with a wreath of roses sculptured in white marble, that looked as if just thrown down, round its two words of inscription, "To Bessie!" and close at hand, as if to show how nearly the artist copied nature, a square garden and monument, perfectly beautiful with white cluster roses. Not far from the burial place of Madame Soyer, the eye falls on the unshapely odd-looking monument of an old Indian resident, painted red; its intense capsicum colour, strongly contrasted by a snowy shroud of tangled clematis, which covers with a scented sheet of flowers the adjacent grave of a Don Custodio Castello. It is this mingling of floral beauty with the imagery of death, that makes these funeral demesnes so pleasant; how stark, and cold, and stony, and grotesque would this vast area of statuary appear, but that it has the green sward for the ground-work, and shading trees, and spots all rosy, or mosaicked with flowers, shining amidst and round its monumental marbles? That low white cross, with pendent wreaths of yellow amaranths (offerings of living love to the dust-in-dust beneath it), looks still purer, for its soft green leaves and scarlet clusters of the globe geranium, lifting its glowing petals at its feet.

We love those flowery shrines above the dead, wrapping them in a shroud of perfumed beauty, and exchanging charnel exhalations for the pure breath of life; and would rather choose a lowly grave we saw, covered with pink acacia, bright red roses, and the starry blossoms of the clematis, than be enclosed in a less simple tomb! We like not the cold grandeur of the mausoleums, nor the dreary conservatism of the catacombs, since, however long we put it off, "to this complexion we must come at last,"let the earth take her own! Where is the use of lengthening, like a troublesome creditor, the inevitable period of requital, and lapping ourselves in lead? The inmate of an elevated coffer, with its stone canopy, and supporting Mamelukes, sleeps not more secure from the crumbling fingers of decay than the lowliest pillowed in this solemn garden; so that it be "larded all with sweet flowers," and deep and undisturbed, the grave that soonest blends us with our primal mother seems in our eyes the most desirable.

But we are forgetting one, that above all others in this funeral field most interested us,-raised for the cenotaph of the son, it has become the monument of the mother, who died within a month after his death. Here there is neither sword or shako, casque or plume, or any other martial bravery; but the words,

"Ferozeshah, Sobraon !"

within a wreath beneath a draped urn pedestaled, speak much more forcibly the profession of the early dead, to whose memory it is set up. There is a legend attached, detailing the circumstances under which he died, and ending with the exclamation of the poet, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." And yet, as has been been said of Trajan, as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst for military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. There are hearts still beating that would bleed afresh, were we to unfold the history locked within this single cenotaph, or we might prove this paragraph too true; let it suffice that there are tragedies buried in the chronicles of churchyards and cemeteries, more solemn, startling, and profound, than those that pass before us on the proscenium;

SONNET.

When we compare the creeds that most prevail
To the immensity of Truth sublime,
Or measure human history with Time,
They seem but as an idle nursery tale
Told unto children-as the frequent trail

Of serpent error and red-footed crime
Are over all earth's records since its prime,
For Ignorance has clothed it as a veil.
But, centuries ago, a child was born,

And christen'd PRINTING-and its finger-ends
Have waxed so strong with every opening morn,
That, now in very mockery it rends
That veil to ribbons, till the light extends
Widely enough to laugh the dark to scorn.

HENRY FRANK LOTT.

GEOLOGICAL OUTLINES.

PART I.

GEOLOGY is derived from two Greek words-Ge (the earth), and logos (a discourse or treatise)-and is the science which treats upon the original conformation, chemical, atmospherical, and mechanical changes, and other subjects connected with the crust of the globe we inhabit, so far as we have at present the means of judging from scientific research, and the various theories founded thereon.

Geography, though derived from two words of almost the same signification, refers merely to the surface; while geology treats of the sectional properties of the

earth's crust.

There are no mines which penetrate deeper below the surface than 2,700 feet; nor are there any mountains which much exceed 30,000 feet in height, so that our knowledge of the interior crust of the globe would be very limited were it not for the wonderful effects of volcanic agency, which causes the mineral rocks to boil up, as it were, crack the stratified rocks which lie over them, sometimes turn them up on end (though more than 60,000 feet in thickness), and overflow the upper surface with lava.

The immense power which cracks and upheaves such a depth of stratified solid rock is so enormous as to bo almost inconceivable; and, probably, some of the most violent of these earthquakes happened at an era long antecedent to the creation of the human race. The effect, however, has been to turn it up on an edge just as a flag of stone or marble could be turned up from any part of a pavement, so that we are enabled to walk over and examine the sectional part of the earth's crust.

Amongst numerous wise purposes for which this immense force has been exerted by the agency of the benevolent Creator of the universe (many of which must be entirely concealed from our limited understandings), one

that appears to have been especially designed for the ad-
vantage of mankind, is the turning up of the coal and
mineral stratification, so as to be easily worked by the

miner.

Where would the manufacturing power of England be, where would civilization be found, if we had to go down 30,000 feet to find our coal, or 60,000 to find iron and the other metals? What mineralogical science could penetrate the earth or bring up material at such a depth? Turn back the crust again, and the world would, in a few centuries, be inhabited by a degenerate race of savages. One of the most delightful effects of the study of geology is, that the reasoning, founded upon the discoveries we make, is constantly leading us to the Great Creator of the world, who has provided for the comfort of his creatures ages before they existed.

There are two grand operations going on upon the crust of the earth: one clevating, the other degrading. The elevating cause, by the agency of fire, or volcanic heat, earthquakes, &c., is constantly heaving up, sometimes slowly and continually, sometimes with violence, and at greater intervals, immense masses of molten rock, which, breaking through the stratified rock, form mountains, when cool, of 30,000 feet in height.

The degrading causes, on the contrary, act precisely in the contrary direction, and by the agency of snow, frost, rain, springs, gas, atmospheric air, running streams, &c., tend to break up, and disintegrate the loftiest rock, convert it into a loose and friable soil, and gradually deposit it in the beds of valleys, or the bottoms of lakes and seas. The degrading causes, if not counteracted by the elevating or volcanic causes, would, in the course of time, bring the earth to a perfect level; that is, it would become an oblate spheroid, covered with water, and only inhabitable by fishes and marshy reptiles.

It is a curious fact, connected with the above remark, that in the older stratified series, we find none but the remains of such animals, and as they were not disrupted by volcanic force until after their stratification, it is more than probable that such was nearly the form of the earth at that time-a fact also further proved, by the immense production of gigantic vegetables, (which flourish only in a hot, humid, marshy country,) during the formation of the coal stratification.

All stratified rocks which contain fossil remains of fish or animals are called fossiliferous, or aqueous rocks, from the fact of their having been originally deposited under water by a very slow process, and afterwards consolidated by immense superincumbent oceanic pressure, and, with the exception of conglomerate rocks, in still

water.

It would have been impossible for the beautifully fragile fossil remains of shells, fern leaves, &c., to have remained perfect, and in true horizontal layers in the bed of a torrent, or in any but calm water; and they must have been deposited in this horizontal manner before they were upturned and set on edge by volcanic agency; there is no conceivable way of explaining how shells and fern leaves could be deposited in vertical or diagonal lines, and therefore it may be taken for granted that the dips and ruptures were caused by volcanic eruptions after they were deposited.

The disintegration of the older plutonic, or mineral rocks, is carried on much faster than might be generally imagined.

The following are some of the active agencies at work. All mineral rocks have a strong chemical affinity for the excess of carbonic acid and oxygen, which they attract in large quantities from the atmosphere, and which rapidly causes their decomposition. Carbonic acid appears to be given out again from the mineral springs, also from the lungs of men and animals; it is re-absorbed by vegetables, which give out oxygen in return, again rendering the air fit for breathing.

79

the older rocks, which gives them their different colours; It is the absorption of oxygen by the metallic bases of the same thing makes rusty iron a red colour.

1000 of atmospheric air; it varies however, being greater Carbonic acid is generally in the proportion of 1 to by night than by day, and in summer than in winter.

more particularly in the higher and colder regions, Frost is another powerful agent in splitting rock, and on the summits of mountains. Snow and rain are attracted in large quantities. Snow melts and freezes alternately; water when converted into ice, and falling into a crevice, increases one-tenth in bulk; acts like a powerful wedge, splits the rock open; more falls in, and again freezes and splits it wider-and so on, till immense masses, weighing perhaps millions of tons, are disrupted, and thunder down the precipices into the plains.

Landslips will sometimes occur to an enormous extent; of clay or sand which has been disrupted and lifted up we may easily imagine a stratified rock lying upon a bed as the clayey or marley stratification remains dry, it at an angle to the horizon by igneous agency. coheres together; but the action of rain, melted snow, or So long blind springs, percolating the strata gradually, softens it, and down slides the rock into the valley below.

zerland, from the above cause, which entirely filled the In 1806, a slide of rock occurred at Ruffbeg, in Switvalley below, and caused the destruction of upwards of 800 lives.

since, which overwhelmed several villages, and by which In a district of the Alps a landslip occurred many years upwards of three millions of cubical yards of rock were hurled down into the plain; equal to the sum of all the embankments of some of the largest lines of railway in England.

and snow, into crevices of rock, followed by frost, has The continual action of wind storms, driving hail, rain, also a considerable effect in the higher regions of the earth.

THE CLERGY OF CANTON.

temples, dedicated and consecrated to the three heathen In Canton, there are one hundred and twenty-three cius; to these various temples belong, about two thousand sects, namely, Taou, Buddh, and Ju-kea-su, or Confupriests, and one thousand nuns, who are maintained out of the funds appertaining to the several places of worship: the revenues of which arise from estates, and money bestowed by the Emperor, and wealthy individuals, for the maintenance of these temples of sin and vice. The priests former frequently seeking refuge in a temple, and beand nuns are a vile, dissolute, profligate, illiterate set, the coming priests to avoid paying the penalty of theft or sion, having no other means of livelihood, and from being murder; whilst others will embrace the priestly profestenance of temples, priests, and nuns in Canton, exceeds too lazy to work. The revenues, set aside for the main£108,335.-China and the Chinese.

SOOT AS A MANURE FOR POTATOES.

of the finest fields of potatoes that we have met with since We saw a few days ago, a few miles from this city, one the intelligent occupier of the farm that the manure used the rot appeared some years ago; and we are told by was soot, and that he has tried it both with early and late healthy. potatoes with great success, the crop being large and very local letter:-"As very contradictory rumours are afloat Since then we have met with the following as to the result of this year's potatoe crop, I should wish you to know that, as regards the few I grow, and of which the second crop has been gathered to-day, one root alone produced 87 potatoes, and the most of them good sized and perfectly sound, as all the rest of the crop were, some bearing 40, others 50, to each root. (Manured with soot.)"-Gloucester Chronicle.

IF

PRECOCITY.

you were to ask twenty men to point out the peculiar wonder of this most wonderful age, it is more than probable that at least nineteen out of the twenty would indicate some one or other of the great efforts of mechanical skill, or of scientific invention, which are undoubtedly marvellous characteristics of our era. Some would turn your attention to that vast tubular bridge spanning the Menai Straits, a great iron monster genius of "progress," in the most literal sense of the word, and affording a high example of the daring enterprise and ingenuity of the men of the nineteenth century, casting into the shade, by a matter-of-fact production-a real tangible labour-the fabled wonders springing from the utmost workings of the wildest imagination among the romancists of bygone ages. Others would instance the conquest over that subtle element electricity, by which it is forced to run along the far-stretching wires, the humble errand-boy of its human masters. Others again would allude to our gigantic commerce, stretching itself like a vast giant of gain over the whole of the known world, and extending itself alike to the denizens of the most civilized countries, and the barbarous inhabitants of the islands and continents of the Southern Ocean, suiting all their varied tastes, and ministering to their myriad wants and necessities; at once exchanging the products of our labours with the inhabitants of the northern New World for the staff of life for our multitudes, and supplying the goods which the nefarious traders of the southern hemisphere of that same New World exchange for human beings in Africa. Others would speak of the vapour-winged barks, braving the wind and breasting tides and waves, the tracks of which are never absent from the rivers and oceans. And others again of those vast machines, with limbs of iron and sinews of steel, and heart of fire and breath of steam, which, as though in contempt of the puniness of humanity, go on unweariedly performing the work of thousands of men, in labours requiring the utmost force and the greatest delicacy and skill; now crushing a ponderous mass of iron, now dealing as tenderly as if with an infant's or a woman's hand, with threads almost as fine as gosI remember seeing somewhere an account of the varied powers of the elephant's trunk, which could either

samer.

[PRICE 1d.

uproot a tree or pick up a pin; but even that is obscured by that vast hammer in one of our dockyards, which, as we have all seen in the papers, can be swayed by a lender lever at the pleasure of its masters, to strike with a force of several tons, or crack the fragile shell of a nut without bruising the kernel. Such a union of force, precision, and gentleness is astounding. Truly the results of mechanical and scientific improvement are marvels out-heroding fiction, and prominent characteris. tics of our time; but if I were the twentieth man, without any desire to undervalue our powers and knowledge, without withholding my admiration of our commerce, at once barbarizing and civilizing different portions of the globe, I think that I should be tempted to point to something apparently infinitely more insignificant, but in my eyes as note-worthy and remarkable. I am quite prepared to see the human intellect expanding itself and growing up into colossal proportions, conquering the elements of nature, reversing in part the first curse by which man is doomed to toil; fetching from the mines dark gnomes of mineral and metal to force the winds to do its bidding, the waves to obey its behests, and the lightning to become its intelligencer. That I think the natural and inevitable destiny of man, and I almost cease to be surprised at his victories over his inanimate, unconscious, and involuntary agents; but I regard with great curiosity all changes in mental character, and in the habits and customs of people, and think them of at least equal importance; and if I were asked to point out what most astonished me, assuredly one of the things would be the precocity of the rising generation, which is really a most remarkable characteristic of the century.

It was once said of a certain man, "that he had never been a boy." That was meant to point him out ironically as a grand exception to the common race of mortals; but what was the exception then really seems to have become the rule now, and I am tempted to think that the race of boys is fast becoming utterly extinct, and being replaced by a race of mannikins, wanting alike in the grave power of maturity and the light-hearted wildness of childhood. I have seen upon the same apple-tree fruit unripe indeed, but full, and juicy, and promising luscious mouthfuls when the sun should have matured them; and close by a little, half-withered, prematurely-shrivelled thing, looking as if it had forgotten to grow last year, and was not thought worth gathering; and I could not help thinking