colour of Prout's] liquid brown, and appearing well varnished. It looked so clean that I thought it was paint, and made some observation on its warm, comfortable, neat appearance, when the woman told me "it was smoke, and nothing but smoke." We began to wonder to each other whether anything could be made of it, and to talk of the creosote, umber, &c. She looked inquisitive and uneasy at our undertoned chat, so I told her that I believed had it been soot it might have proved of some advantage to her,--that there was a medicine made from soot, and that she might possibly have got a sale for it amongst the chemists. She interrupted my oration at every three or four words with "I'm sure of it," in the most knowing manner, which, as she never could have heard of it before, had a most ludicrous effect, and made me very merry as soon as we had with all courtesy taken our leave of her. This cottage of course was one of the better kind: their being all built of stone hereabouts gives them a substantial look, and raises their appearance far above the mud cabin, whatever their internal equality may be; bnt all the cottages have a melancholy look from the constant want of the little garden in front, the few china roses and holyoaks, and cabbages of an English cottage. To these little indulgences the climate is as much a bar as the habits of the people. The manners of the class just above the peasantry are generally extremely unpleasant: they seem to have a dread of being civil and respectful, and the want of civility and accommodation in most of the country shopkeepers is both ludicrous and provoking: they are quite affronted if their very ugly and very dear goods are not admired and purchased, and will not attend to orders sent, which is very inconvenient in these far-away regions. I was three week in getting some gray calico from a shop twenty miles off, as they were too lazy to match the pattern they had themselves supplied, and I had only a weekly communication by which I could return their repeated blunders. In a shop at Coleraine the woman tried very hard to find out our name by substituting Mr. ? with an interrogation, for Sir, which sounded very droll, and we enjoyed baffling her. In another shop the master stumped up and down with his hat on the whole time we were in the shop. The man who attended upon us had to apply to him frequently about the prices, &c: he actually would not sell us the writing paper we required. A quire or two they would have parted with, but half reams and reams they would not even show, and we were obliged to depart with a very limited supply. of I think the westerly winds blow over some American manners to this quarter of Ireland, very little to the advantage of the people. These same westerly gales are tremendous things: indeed from all quarters the winds here when they are disposed to rage do it with a violence and fury that is astonishing and awful to me; though by day there is so much wild grandeur in the scene that I gaze with a sort of shivering enjoyment. The sea with its angry leaden or greenish tints, heaving and curling from the farthest point that I can see, great waves rolling in and casting themselves upon the rocks, breaking with the roar of cannon, and throwing up jets spray twenty and thirty feet perpendicularly like Geysers; and if a little thought of a sunbeam should struggle through and brighten up the foam into silver, and catch the bluff foreheads of the cliffs, and so deepen the gloom of the ravines, the scene is truly magnificent. I have seen it so several times, but the thought of the peril of such moments to those whose business is in great waters is a great damper to the pleasure, and the moaning of the gale in the pauses of its fury is painfully ad. We have had wrecks, too, in these gales, happily without loss of life, though in some instances there has been much peril. A sloop struck, the crew left her; two men were stationed in her; the gale freshened, the painter of their boat broke and they were helpless; the vessel opening more and more till the water was up to their shoulders; they could not communicate with the shore. and it was so rough that no boat could go off: in this state they passed some hours, till day-light, calmer weather, and ebb-tide allowed them to get on shore, and in good time, for an hour after the ship broke in the middle and rolled over on one side, where I saw her. The next tide she was gone! not two timbers remained of the goodly bark of the day before. Some of the cargo of coal was saved, though mixed with sand, and more might have been saved but the people have very little idea of working hard on such occasions, and besides so much of the coal was stolen that the owner gave the matter up. Wrecks seem always to bring out the evil passions, and though not manifested here with the rapacious ferocity of the Cornish coast, there is quite enough to be very melancholy. Is it an animal or a vegetable? Although sponges have been known from the remotest antiquity, naturalists have differed considerably as to their true character. Some maintain that they are vegetables; others will have them to be animals; and several affirm that they are a sort of polyparia, formed by animals found in their excavations. The ancients admitted that they were endowed with sensation, because they seemed to avoid the hand which would touch them, and appeared to resist the efforts that were made to remove them from their submarine dwelling. They supposed sponges to hold an intermediate rank between animals and vegetables, and this opinion was supported, with certain modifications, down to the time of Rondelet, who denied that they possessed any sensibility. Hence arose the hypothesis that they were wholly vegetables, and they werc accordingly classed by Tournefort and Linnæus as such. In the present improved state of natural history sponges are regarded as zoophytes: they occupy the lowest station in the scale of organization, and the name Porifera has been assigned to them by Dr. Grant, to whom we are greatly indebted for our knowledge on this subject. The tribes of Porifera which form the various species of sponge are found in great abundance on every rocky coast of the ocean, from the shores of Greenland to those of Australia. They attain a larger growth within the tropics, and are found to be smaller and of a firmer texture as we approach the polar circles. They occur as well in places covered perpetually by the sea as in those which are left dry at every recess of the tide. They adhere to, and spread over the surface of, rocks and marine animals, and cling so firmly as not to be removed without laceration or injury to their bodies. Although they thrive best in the sheltered cavities of rocks, they come to maturity in situations exposed to the unbroken fury of the surge. They cover the nakedness of cliffs and boulders: they line, with a variegated and downy fleece, the walls of submarine caves, or hang in living stalactites from the roof. The external appearance of sponges approaches that of many plants, but the internal organization is altogether different from any known vegetable. They are composed of a soft flesh, intermingled with a tissue of fibres, some solid, others tubular, and the whole inter woven into a curiously complicated net-work. The solid portion, or basis of the sponge, (composed partly of a horny and partly of a flinty or chalky matter,) is called the axis of the zoophyte; and as it serves to support the softer substance of the animal, it may be said to perform the office of the skeleton in the higher orders of animals, by giving form and protection to the entire fabric. The fleshy portion of the sponge is of so tender and gelatinous a nature, and is so much injured by the slightest pressure, that the fluid parts escape, and the whole soon melts away into a thin oily liquid. The soft flesh, as seen by the microscope, appears to contain a number of minute grains, surrounded by transparent jelly. The surface of every part of a living sponge presents to the eye two kinds of orifices: the larger having a rounded shape, and usually raised margins, which form projecting nipples; the smaller being far more numerous, and very minute, constituting what are usually called the pores of the sponge. It is to the superficial layer of gelatinous substance that naturalists so long assigned sensibility, and a contractile power which enabled it to shrink from the touch. The round apertures visible on the surface of sponges were also supposed to dilate and contract, so as to establish numerous currents of water, whereby the function of nutrition was supposed to be served. Dr. Grant has, however, clearly proved that the sponge does not possess in any sensible degree that power of contraction which has for so many ages been ascribed to it; and he has also shown the true nature of the currents of fluid issuing at different points from the surface of these animals, as well as the absence of all visible movements in the orifices which give exit to the fluid. In the course of a large number of experiments, Dr. Grant could never detect the slightest appearance of contraction produced in any part of the sponge by pricking, tearing, burning, or otherwise injuring its texture, or by the application of corrosive chemical agents. He gives the following interesting account of his discovery of the fluid currents: I put a small branch of the Spongia coalita, with some sea-water, into a watch-glass, under the microscope, and on reflecting the light of a candle through the fluid, I soon perceived that there was some intestine motion in the opaque particles floating through the water. On moving the watchglass, so as to bring one of the apertures on the side of the sponge fully into view, I beheld, for the first time, the splendid spectacle of this living fountain, vomiting forth, from a circular cavity, an impetuous torrent of liquid matter, and hurling along, in rapid succession, opaque masses, which it strewed everywhere around. beauty and novelty of such a scene in the animal kingdom long arrested my attention, but after twenty-five minutes of constant observation, I was obliged to withdraw my eye, from fatigue, without having seen the torrent for one instant change its direction, or diminish, in the slightest degree, the rapidity of its course. I continued to watch the same orifice, at short intervals, for five hours, sometimes observing it for a quarter of an hour at a time, but still the stream rolled on with a constant and equal velocity. After this the current gradually declined in rapidity, and in the course of another hour ceased entirely. Dr. Grant afterwards observed similar currents in a large variety of species. They take place only from those parts which are under water, and cease as soon as the same parts are uncovered, or when the animal dies. Should any of our readers have an opportunity of procuring the living animal, the currents issuing from the larger, orifices may be observed by placing the sponge in a shallow vessel of sea-water, and strewing a little powdered chalk on the surface, the motions of which will render the currents very sensible to the eye. The appearance of these currents under the microscope is attempted to be shown in the figure. The round apertures in the surface of the living sponge seemed therefore to be destined for the discharge of a constant stream of water from the interior of the body, carrying away particles which separate from the sides of the canals. For the supply of these constant streams a large quantity of water enters into the body of the sponge by the myriads of minute pores which exist in every part of the surface, and this water conveys materials necessary to the support of the animal. The pores convey the fluid into the interior, where, after filtering through the numerous channels which pervade the whole substance, it is collected into wider passages, and finally discharged. The means by which the animal produces these currents, and extracts nutrition from them, are entirely unknown; they are most probably occasioned by some internal movements: the structure of other zoophytes would lead us by analogy to ascribe them to the action of fibrils projecting from the sides of the canals through which the streams pass, but the highest powers of the microscope have failed to detect these fibrils. The structure of sponges is as regular and determinate, and presents as systematic an arrangement of parts, as that of any other animal. In some species, as in the common sponge, the basis is horny and elastic, consisting of cylindric tubes, which mutually communicate, and form continuous canals throughout the whole mass. Others have a kind of skeleton, composed of a tissue of needle-shaped crystals of chalk or of flint, disposed around the internal canals of the sponge, so as to protect them from compression, and from the entrance of noxious substances. Although, in common with zoophytes in general, sponges are permanently attached to rocks and other solid bodies in the ocean, yet in the earlier stages of their growth they are endowed with considerable powers of locomotion. The means employed in the general economy of nature for the multiplication and dissemination of each race of beings, are calculated to excite our admiration and gratitude. The parent plant scatters its seeds around, where they take root in the adjacent soil, or they are borne by the winds or the waters to less populous localities. In animals which are endowed with a wide range of activity, the young are at first helpless, and require all the fostering care of the parent, unless, as in the case of some oviparous tribes, a store of nutriment is provided for the young one in the egg, where it remains until it has acquired locomotive powers, to enable it to go in search of food. In sponges the parent remains fixed to one spot, and sends away its young to seek a proper habitation, and these having done so, remair fixed during the remainder of their existence. At certain seasons of the year the parts of the Spongic panicea, which are naturally transparent, contain nume rous opaque yellow spots, which consist of groups o eggs, or more properly gemmules*, since they do no appear to have any external covering or shell. In the course of a few months, these gemmules enlarge in size each assuming an oval or pear-like shape: they may ther be seen projecting from the sides of the internal canal: of the parent sponge, to which they cling by their nar row extremities. In due time they become successively detached, and are swept along by the currents of fluid which are rapidly flowing from the larger orifices When thus detached, they do not sink to the bottom o the water, as would be the case if they were devoi of life, but by their own spontaneous motions they con tinue to swim about for two or three days after bein turned out of house and home. In their progress throug the water they carry their rounded broad extremity for wards. This part, when examined by the microscop appears covered with short filaments, or cilia, which ar in rapid vibration: they occupy about two-thirds of th surface, leaving the narrower portion, which has a white and more pellucid appearance, uncovered. These cil The word gemma, from which gemmule is derived, signifies, in Lati inclosed within an envelope or egg. a bud, and is applied to the young of those zoophytes which are 1 without any apparent regularity, but sufficient to give an After two or three days' wandering, the gemmules are observed to fix themselves on the sides or bottom of the vessel in which they are contained; and some of them are very minute and transparent, broadest at their base, and tapering to invisible points at their extremities: they strike the water by a rapid succession of inflexions, are found to expand like a thin membranous disk on the surface of the water. In the former case they cling by the narrow extremity, which gradually becomes by lateral expansion a broad base of attachment. In the mean time the cilia on the upper part are kept in rapid motion, scattering about the opaque particles which may be in the fluid. The vigour of these motions now relaxes, and ceases within a few hours after the animal has become fixed to its abode; and the cilia, being no longer wanted, disappear. The gemmule then has the appearance of a flattened disk containing granules like the flesh of the parent sponge, and also several spicula interspersed through the central part. Within twenty-four hours a transparent colourless margin has extended round the whole gemmule, and continues to surround it during its future growth. The spicula, which were at first small, conined to the central part, and not exceeding twenty in number, now become much larger and more numerous; and some of them shoot into the margin just noticed. It is remarkable that the spicula make their appearance completely formed, as if by sudden crystallization, and never afterwards increase in size. Two gemmules contained in a watch glass have been observed in the course of their spreading to come in contact, and the clear margins then unite, thicken, and produce spicula; in the course of a few days no distinction can be observed between them; they continue to grow as one animal. The same thing is said to occur to adult sponges, which on coming into contact unite permanently. A species of "animal grafting," as Dr. Roget aptly terms it, in which we find an analogy between the constitution of zoophytes and that of plants. In the course of a few weeks the spicula are arranged in groups as in the parent sponge; assuming circular arrangements, and presenting distinct sponges at the points they inclose. The young animal grows rapidly, becomes more convex and more compact and opaque; and before it has attained the tenth of an inch in diameter it presents to the eye when assisted by the microscope, a miniature representation of its parent. Thus has a power of spontaneous motion been given to what may be regarded as the embryo condition of animals, which are afterwards so remarkable for their inertness, and for the privation of all active powers; and it has been conferred vidently for the purpose of their being widely disseminated over the globe. Had not this apparatus of moving cilia been provided to the gemmules of such species as hang vertically from the roofs of caves, they would have sunk to the bottom of the water, and been crushed or buried among the moving ad, instead of supporting themselves while carried to a distance by the waves and tides of the ocean. Many species winch abound in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean have in this way been gradually transported, by the gulf stream, from the shores of the east to corresponding latitudes of the new world.-ROGET ON THE MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO- SOME of the most insignificant articles in daily use are The manufacture of tobacco-pipes is a branch of the potter's art, which thus acquires importance from the great demand for the article and the methods employed in producing it. Perhaps these methods may not be known to the generality of our readers; we shall therefore attempt to describe them. The clay of which tobacco-pipes are made is obtained chiefly from the island of Purbeck, in Dorsetshire, and is valuable on account of its extreme whiteness. Teignmouth, in Devonshire, also furnishes a fine clay employed for this purpose. Much diligence is necessary in purifying the clay from all extraneous matters, before it is used for the purposes of the manufacturer. It is therefore thrown into large pits of water, and softened, the mixture being well stirred up, that the stones and coarse matter may be deposited; the clayey mixture is then poured off into another pit, where it subsides and deposits the clay. The water is drawn off as soon as it is clear, and the clay at the bottom is left sufficiently dry for use. The clay is now spread out and beaten with iron bars to temper and to mix it, and when the purification is fully accomplished, the workman, from time to time cuts off small portions, each sufficient to form one pipe, and after kneading them thoroughly upon a table, rolls them out as nearly as possible to the form and size of a pipe, and sticks a small lump to the end of the cylinder to form the bowl. If he is an experienced workman he will make a very near approach to the proper dimensions, and will generally fill the mould, in which the clay is about to be placed, so accurately, as to leave but a trivial portion of surplus clay to be afterwards taken off. These rolls, however, are not placed in the moulds at once, but are allowed to harden, sometimes for a day or two, until they become sufficiently dry for the purpose. They have now to undergo a process which calls for considerable skill and address on the part of the workman, and which can only be satisfactorily accomplished after long experience. This is the boring of the stem by introducing an iron needle. For this purpose the roll is taken between the two fingers, which follow the point of the needle as it is gently pushed forward by means of its wooden handle. The needle has a circular enlargement near the point, which is oiled, and can be felt through the clay, and which renders the operation somewhat less difficult. The pipe is now ready to be placed in a folding brass or iron mould, channelled inside of the shape of the stem and bowl, and capable of being opened at the two ends. This mould is formed of two pieces, each hol TOBACCO-PIPE MOULD lowed out like a half pipe, and cut lengthwise, so as, when brought together, to make the exact space for one pipe. In one side of the mould there are small pins, and in the other, holes corresponding with them, by means of which the two parts are fitted together with precision. The workman lays the pipe, with the wire remaining in it, into the groove of one part of the mould, and taking the other part, brings the two smartly together and unites them by a clamp or vice. A lever is now brought down, which presses an oiled stopper into the bowl of the pipe, while it is in the mould, forcing it down sufficiently to form the cavity; the wire being at the same time thrust backwards and forwards, so as to pierce the tube completely through. The wire is now withdrawn, the jaws of the mould opened, the pipe taken out, and any redundant clay removed with a knife. The pipes are now again allowed to dry for a day or two, after which they are rubbed with an appropriate horn instrument, which is adapted for smoothing and perfecting the bowl. The stems are also bent into the desired form, or the pipe is placed a second time in the mould that any imperfections may be remedied. The last polish is given by rubbing them with flints, bored with holes, some of which are of the diameter of the pipe, while others are large enough to admit the bowl. So rapid and easy of accomplishment are all these processes, that a clever moulder will furnish 3500 pipes in a week. After the last polishing, the pipes are conveyed to the baking-kiln, the construction of which must next be described. Smoking, as I need not remind you, is a most important business in the life of almost every German of whatever condition. And to say the truth, I am rather inclined to consider it as a good thing for the common people. If they did not smoke, they would probably drink more. It is a sort of defence against cold and bad air, and supplies a cheap, tranquil, harmless amusement. But it is an odd way for a gentleman to pass his day. You know what sort of a government they have here a heavy, lazy, stupid, and stupifying despotism, but not violent nor cruel. and very debauched person; which is all natural enough, A great nobleman here is in general a dull, ill-informed, considering his wealth, his want of a career of honourable ambition, and his dignity, which enables him to trample A tobacco-pipe kiln should diffuse the heat of the fire with impunity upon those decencies which are held indisin an equal manner to every part of the interior, while pensable in a better-regulated society. The women seem to it excludes the smoke of the fire: The kiln is therefore deserve the character they enjoy all over Europe, of being built of brickwork, in a cylindrical form, the top form-far superior to the men. I understand, for instance, that ing a dome, and the chimney rising to a considerable Prince Metternich's daughter, who was a year or two ago married to a Count Esterhazy, very properly began his height in order to promote the draught. The inside is education by destroying his numerous and valuable colleclined with fire-brick, and at the bottom is a circular fire- tion of tobacco-pipes, and by teaching him to read. place. Over this fire-place stands the large crucible, or sagger, in which the pipes are to be backed. The construction of this crucible is ingenious: the bottom is composed of a great many fragments of pipe stems, radiating from the centre; these are coated at the circmference with a layer of clay. A number of bowls of broken pipes are inserted into this clay; and in these, other Young men of family are generally bred up at home by fragments are placed upright to a French tutor, who is often any thing but a respectable form the sides of the cylinder: person. You may easily imagine what an effect this must The dome of the crucible is form- produce. Among us, the defects of those who have had the misfortune to receive a private education, or, what is someed in the same lath-and-plaster times the same thing, no education at all, are corrected by way with broken pipes and clay; the influence and example of those that have been more and so also are some projecting lucky; but where such a system prevails exclusively, it ridges on the outside. This must occasion universal degradation. The public and method of making the crucible is private character of the Austrians seems to be pride withnot a mere economic arrange-out dignity. The country and the individuals rise at once, ment for the employment of old whenever they can, to the utmost height of unchastised insolence, and are equally capable of sinking to the lowest materials, but is preferable to any point of sycophancy and submission. The barbarian stateother mode on account of the liness of their grandees forms a most ludicrous contrast with thinness of the cylinder attained the humble anxiety with which they pay their court to by it, at the same time that the strength is so great as to power. The middling and lower orders are better than render it little liable to split asunder. Inside the crucible their superiors. They are rather rude and coarse, but still a pillar of clay is placed in the centre, and six hori- good weight enough. Crime seem scarce among them; and zontal ledges are left at equal distances round the sides. I must do Germany the justice to say, that it appears to me, Upon these ledges the bowls of the pipes are arranged, of all the countries I have been in, that in which there is while the stems are made to lean against the central lament very much that the governments are all despotic, the most tranquil and inoffensive enjoyment of life. pillar. The crucible is capable of containing in these The Germans, especially in the north, are capable of somesix divisions fifty gross of pipes, and if the heat of the thing better. They possess a very tolerable share of in furnace is properly kept up, these will be sufficiently struction; and their slowness, gravity, and phlegm, would baked in seven or eight hours. Between the crucible occasion them to respect the forms of a free constitution, and the lining of the kiln, a space of about four inches which French vivacity will always be trying to overleap. is left all round for the circulation of the flame, only Indeed, I have always considered it as a great misfortune to interrupted at intervals by the projecting ridges on the the cause of liberty, that the first grand experiment of outer side of the crucibles, which form so many flues for flammable materials. The republican parts of a German rumfordizing an old monarchy was made with such inthe direction of the heat. The well-known' property of constitution would be infinitely less liable to explode, to the tobacco-pipes of adhesiveness to the tongue, is owing to destruction of the rest, and the peril of the whole neighthe affinity which the clay has for water; a quality which bourhood.-LORD DUDLEY'S Letters. is much increased by the baking process. TOBACCO-PIPE CRUCIBLE. The tobacco-pipes of Natolia, in Asiatic Turkey, are prized above all others: They are made of meerschaum, a somewhat plastic magnesian stone, of a soft greasy feel, which is softened in water previous to the manufacture, and which becomes very hard and white in the kiln. LONDON: I TZIC, FROM THE RI It is Ar the distance of about five miles from the Baltic Sea, at moored close by. There is something in these scenes of busy life, which engages the fancy, and in a manner transports it to all four quarters of the globe. Whoever desires to form a correct idea of the mode of life in this singular city, which trades with almost all the nations of the earth, should walk over the long bridge on the Mottlau, where he will have a very diversified prospect of the river covered with innumerable little vessels and white sails, passing to and fro. A walk through the fishmarket, along the Mottlau, affords much variety with its incessant bustle, and the Speicherinsel presents also a scene of great animation. From this island the bridge called the Grüne Brücke (green bridge,) leads through the Grüne Thor (green gate,) into the interior of the city to the long market. Over the Grüne Thor is the spacious apartment in which the Society of Natural History in Dantzic holds its meetings. On the right of the market is a fine gothic building called Arthushof or Junkerhof. It consists of a large hall, the vaulted roof of which is supported by four slender pillars of polished granite: It contains many works of art, among which may be noticed the Day of Judgment, painted in the year 1601, by Anthony The original use of this hall Müller, pupil of Raphael. was as a place of meeting for the citizens, (called Junker in former times,) for their drinking feasts. To preserve order at these banquets, the Junker were divided into certain benches or seats, on which those only were allowed to sit who belonged to those benches and submitted to their regulations. Of these benches there were six: the Reinhold's bench; Christopher, or Lubeck bench; the bench of the Magi; the Marienburg bench; the Dutch bench; and the Seaman's bench. Reinhold's bench was the most distinguished. Including the suburbs, Dantzic has 5172 houses, and 54,756 inhabitants. The city is neither regular nor handsome, but is attractive and singular from the masts and flags rising above the roofs and the gates of the streets, which open on all sides towards the Mottlau, which is covered with numerous vessels. In the narrow streets near this river, the thoroughfare is often blocked up by a crane or a projecting shop, or a windlass raising bales of goods in the warehouse. In these same narrow streets we hear the cheerful songs of the workmen in the sail-cloth manufactories, who sit before the houses, mending the sails of some East Indiaman VOL. XX. 624 The |