The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then sent to the mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for manure. 7. Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of the horn are applied, the clippings which arise in comb-making are sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year after they are spread over the soil they have comparatively little effect, but during the next four or five their efficiency is considerable. The shavings which form the refuse of the lantern-maker, are of a much thinner texture: some of them are cut into various figures, and painted, and used as toys; for being hygrometric, they curl up when placed on the palm of a warm hand. But the greater part of these shav ings also are sold for manure, and from their extremely thin and divided form, the full effect is produced upon the first crop.

In many of the large establishments of our manufacturing districts, substances are employed which are the produce of remote countries, and which are, in several instances, almost peculiar to a few situations. The discovery of any new locality, where such articles exist in abundance, is a matter of great importance to any establishment which consumes them in large quantities; and it has been found, in some instances, that the expense of sending persons to great distances, purposely to discover and to collect such produce, has been amply repaid. Thus it has happened, that the snowy mountains of Sweden and Norway, as well as the warmer hills of Corsica, have been almost stripped of one of their vegetable productions, by agents sent expressly from one of our largest establishments for the dyeing of calicoes. Owing to the same command of capital, and to the scale upon which the operations of large factories are carried on, their returns admit of the expense of sending out agents to examine into the wants and tastes of distant countries, as well as of trying experiments, which, although profitable to them, would be ruinous to smaller establishments possessing more limited resources.

When capital has been invested in machinery, and in buildings for its accommodation, and when the inhabitants of the neighborhood have acquired a knowledge of the modes of working at the machines, reasons of considerable weight are required to cause their removal. Such changes of position do, however, occur; and they have been alluded to by the committee on the fluctuation of manufacturers' employment, as one of the causes interfering most materially with a uniform rate of wages; it is therefore of particular importance to the workmen to be acquainted with the real causes which have driven manufactures from their ancient seats. "The migration or change of place of any manufacture has sometimes arisen from improvements of machinery not applicable

to the spot where such manufacture was carried on, as appears to have been the case with the woollen manufacture, which has in great measure migrated from Essex, Suffolk, and other southern counties, to the northern districts, where coal for the use of the steam engine is much cheaper. But this change has, in some instances, been caused or accelerated by the conduct of the work. men, in refusing a reasonable reduction of wages, or opposing the introduction of some kind of improved machinery or process; so that, during the dispute, another spot has in great measure supplied their place in the market. Any violence used by the work. men against the property of their employers, and any unreasonable combination on their part, is almost sure thus to be injurious to themselves."

These removals become of serious consequence when the factories have been long established, because a population commensurate with their wants invariably grows up around them. The combinations in Nottinghamshire, of persons under the name of Luddites, drove a great number of lace-frames from that district, and caused establishments to be formed in Devonshire. We ought also to observe, that the effect of driving any establishment into a new district, where similar works have not previously existed, is not merely to place it out of the reach of such combinations, but, after a few years, the example of its success will most probably induce our capitalists in the new district to engage in the same manufac ture: and thus, although one establishment only should be driven away, the workmen, through whose combination its removal is effected, will not merely suffer by the loss of that portion of demand for their labor which the factory caused; but the value of that labor will itself be reduced by the competition of a new field of production.

It is of great importance that the more intelligent amongst the class of workmen should examine into the correctness of these views; because, without having their attention directed to them, the whole class may, in some instances, be led by designing persons to pursue a course, which, although plausible in appearance, is in reality at variance with their own best interests.-Babbage's Economy of Man.

The Mechanical Fiddler.

One of the most extraordinary and the best attested instances of enthusiasm, existing in conjunction with perseverance, is related of the founder of the F- family. This man, who was a fiddler living near Stourbridge, was often witness of the immense labor

and loss of time caused by dividing the rods of iron necessary in the process of making nails. The discovery of the process called splitting, in works called splitting-mills, was first made in Sweden; and the consequences of this advance in art were most disastrous to the manufacturers of iron about Stourbridge. F the fiddler was shortly missed from his accustomed rounds, and was not again seen for many years. He had mentally resolved to ascertain by what means the process of splitting bars of iron was accomplished; and without communicating his intention to a single human being, he proceeded to Hull, and, without funds, worked his passage to the Swedish iron port. Arrived in Sweden, he begged and fiddled his way to the iron foundries, where he, after a time, became a universal favorite with the workmen; and from the apparent entire absence of intelligence, or any thing like ultimate object, he was received into the works, to every part of which he had access. He took the advantage thus offered, and, having stored his memory with observations, and all the combinations, he disappeared from amongst his kind friends as he had appeared, no one knew whence or whither.

On his return to England, he communicated his voyage and its result to Mr. Knight and another person in the neighborhood, with whom he was associated, and by whom the necessary buildings were erected, and machinery provided. When at length every thing was prepared, it was found that the machinery would not act; at all events it did not answer the sole end of its erection-it would not split the bar of iron. F disappeared again; it was con cluded that shame and mortification at his failure had driven him away forever. Not so; again, though somewhat more speedily, he found his way to the Swedish iron-works, where he was receiv ed most joyfully, and, to make sure of their fiddler, he was lodged in the splitting-mill itself. Here was the very aim and end of his life attained, beyond his utmost hope. He examined the works, and very soon discovered the cause of his failure. He now made drawings, or rude tracings; and having abided an ample time to verify his observations, and to impress them clearly and vividly on his mind, he made his way to the port, and once more returned to England. This time he was completely successful, and by the results of his experience enriched himself and greatly benefited his countrymen, who doubtless came to the conclusion that he at least fiddled to some purpose.

Corn Mills in Ancient Times.

Till about fifty years before the commencement of the Christian era, the ancients had no large mills forced round by water, but ground their corn in small mills of one stone rolling rapidly round upon another, and impelled by the hands of women-servants or slaves. The stones used for that purpose were circular, portable, nicely wrought, and adapted for turning; the upper one being the smaller of the two, with an iron or wooden handle fixed into its edge; the lower being larger, and probably harder—at least if we may infer from an expression in the book of Job, "hard as a piece of the nether millstone." An excellent quarry in the neighborhood of Babylon (we are informed by Xenophon) supplied all the countries of the East with such millstones.

That women, or maid-servants, generally performed this piece of domestic labor, we are assured by the very first mention made of grinding with mills, that in Exodus, (xi. 5,) "All the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon the throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill;" in which passage, from the contrasted states of dignity and meanness, it is plain, that, in Egypt at least, the drudgery of grinding was deemed the lowest possible. Two women were generally employed; they sat fronting each other, with the millstone between them, which was kept whirling by alternate impulsions of the hand. Slaves taken in war were frequently doomed to undergo this tedious penance; Samson "did grind in the prison-house of the Philistines;" the Hebrews, in their Babylonish captivity, were subjected to its degradation; "they took our young men to grind," says Jeremiah in his Lamentations; and Isaiah, in his prophetic declaration to Babylon of her impending state of captivity, bids her, as a proper badge of her servile subjection, "take millstones and grind meal." The piece of a millstone whereby Abimelech was slain, when he was attacking the tower of Thebez, was cast upon his head by a "certain woman," whom it befitted to wield as a weapon, the humble utensil of her daily occupation.

Portable millstones of this description must have been brought by the children of Israel from Egypt, and carried with them all the way through the wilderness, as we read in Numbers, (xi. 8,) that "the people ground the manna in mills." As by the laws of Athens no creditor was allowed to distrain the plough and other simple and necessary utensils of rustic labor, so by the laws of Moses, (Deut. xxiv. 6,) it was permitted to no man 66 to take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge"-in other words, to take

them by distraint in lieu of any debt. The morning, before or at sunrise, was the time allotted in the domestic arrangement for grinding for the family as much flour as was needful for the consumption of the day.

An interesting particular connected with the practice of noctur. nal grinding, may be quoted from the military history of Julian. His forces, when besieging some strong place on the Tigris, had wrought a deep mine under the walls and buildings to the very centre of the city, when his soldiers, on digging the earth upwards to the surface, found themselves after midnight in the middle of the house of a poor woman, who was busily employed in grinding corn for flour-bread, and who, doubtless, was not a little astonished at the emersion into her solitary chamber of such extraordinary visitants.

The operation of grinding by the females was always accompa nied, as it still is in the East, with melodious and shrill-trilled ditties, sung in chorus, which sounded strong enough to be heard out of doors throughout all the lanes and streets; the pleasant jolity of which, associated as it was with the just apparent brightness of dawn, and announcing the approaching activity of village or city population just awaking to their daily labor, gave to this simple domestic operation a peculiar character of happiness, peaceful industry, and tranquillity. The Hebrew writers, accordingly, always connect the sound of the morning mill with prosperity and repose, coupling it, in its degree of vivacity, with "the voice of harpers and musicians;" its cessation they associate with the presence of melancholy, trouble, and adversity. Thus, when the wise man wishes to describe the dreary melancholy of old age, he expresses it by the "sound of the grinding" being "low." "I will take away the sound of the millstone," says Jeremiah, to express utter desolation. We are informed by travellers that such lively chants are still sung by females in Persia and Africa when engaged in grinding. The heart of Mungo Park, in the Afric desert, was softened and reminded of his home by the chant of the women grinding. The Grecian women, also, had a ditty of this kind, called the Song of the Mill. It began, " Grind, mill, grind; even Pittacus king of Mitylene doth grind." For it seems that Pittacus, king, or tyrant, as he was called, of Mitylene, and reckoned also one of the seven wise men of Greece, had been accustomed, in moments of unoccupied languor, to resort for amusement to the grinding-mill, that being, as he called it, his best gymnasium, or pleasantest exercise in smallest space. As sometimes for health, so sometimes also for obtaining an honest livelihood, was grinding resorted to by persons above the common order. There is a story