slightly iridescent lower down. The smooth pecten orbicularis, and the delicately striated arcuatus, are generally found in separate valves. The abundant small cucullaa is the last of the brown shells.

We may now enumerate a few of the most prominent univalves, for the clay is in many places a rich storehouse for the microscope. The chief in beauty and perfection, as before alluded to, is the pleurotomaria, not only exhibiting a brilliant nacre, but in many places even the brown, wrinkled, and dotted epidermis above it, which in recent shells is the proof of their having been live shells, that is, inhabited when caught. Dr. Lee possesses four specimens of this, in various degrees of preservation. The ammonites biplex is in this stratum very abundant, splendid in nacre, and varying in size from a couple of inches up to a foot, though the large specimens are so broken, and the fragments so dispersed, as to render it difficult to estimate the entire diameter. There are also many turritella and neritæ, and more small shells than in the limestone above; these it would require much investigation to enumerate. The exuviæ of the astacus crab, identified by the Rev. Mr. Reade, rarely occur, but the elaborately-punctuated claw is frequently found.

The clay of this vicinity makes red bricks and tiles; whilst that from near Quainton, only seven miles distant, is positively white when baked, and for some purposes is preferred, as less absorbent of water. The saponaceous blue stratum of Aylesbury is designated the oak-tree clay, and in the Chiltern Hills to the southward passes into chalk and flints.

$7. PRODUCE.

It will readily be granted by economists, that agriculture could not be carried on if it did not yield an equal return for capital and industry employed in it as other businesses do: it is therefore but just that fair remunerating prices should have usually attended the exertions made in the principles and practice

richness of his meadows, lies on his oars and turns a deaf ear to every suggestion of an instructive tendency. Is it so? The steadiness may merely

be an habitual objection to the leaps and crotchets of speculation. From local peculiarities, there are but few handicrafts at Hartwell; and the only manufacture it possessed was that of lace-making with bobbins, an injurious employment for women, and wretchedly ill-paid, which has happily been reduced to almost zero by the frame-workers of Nottingham and other factory places. The men are therefore all husbandmen, laborious and well-conducted, while their wives and daughters find sufficient occupation in looking after their dwellings, children, dairies, and stock; which latter they manage without being so intrepidly reckless as their friends of Aylesbury, into whose dirty duck-rearing bed-rooms the grim blue-visaged Cholera found a suitable welcome, when he first visited England at the close of 1831. The farmers may hasten slowly, but it is taking the true road to health and competence, whatever any Manchester man may advance to the contrary. And I should venture to assert that the art of husbandry, as exhibited in the fences, drains, and dressings-the successive treatment of crops-the management of natural and artificial grasses-the cultivation of fruit and timber trees-and the general management of live stock, must be allowed to have here attained great excellency, however capable it may yet be of improvement. The whisperer above alluded to should therefore read Quevedo, who draws the pretty picture of a slanderer eating his own tongue.

In one respect the men of Aylesbury shewed that they-unlike their brethren of Northampton-kept a weather-eye open towards the march of improvement; and, instead of opposing the strides of philosophy by ignorance and prejudice, they were among the very first to effect a communication between their town and the London and Birmingham Railway. Kicking aside the "vested rights" of turnpike trusts, they constructed an arterial branch, or tributary, about seven miles in length, at an expense of 60,000l.; thereby placing themselves within ninety-five minutes' distance from London instead of its former six hours, and gaining a position for reaping some of the manifold

advantages opened by facilitating intercourse and extending draught power, of the new and wonderful system of locomotion. This line was commenced in the winter of 1837, and opened on the 10th June, 1839; an occasion celebrated by the striking of a medal, bearing on its obverse the head of Mr. George Carrington, the Chairman of the Board of Direction, and on the reverse the names of the

This spirited undertaking is already working its destinies: but even in only alluding to personal convenience, what a contrast appears between the roomy train-carriages, whisking one smoothly and safely along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and the favourite old coach ycleped DISPATCH-good of its genus-which the trusty James Wyatt drove at a pace of seven or eight miles in the same time, and at double the expense and trouble of transit!

8. THE HOME-STEAD.

Such is the estate; but on approaching the home domain near the middle of it, the grounds increase in beauty, and upwards of seventy acres around the mansion are thus characterised: