unassisted powers of nature, forget the paucity of our real necessities, and overlook the easy methods by which they may be supplied. It were a speculation worthy of a philosophical mind, to examine how much is taken away from our native abilities, as well as added to them, by artificial expedients. We are so accustomed to give and receive assistance, that each of us singly can do little for himself; and there is scarce any one among us, however contracted may be his form of life, who does not enjoy the labour of a thousand artists. But a survey of the various nations, that inhabit the earth, will inform us, that life may be supported with less assistance; and that the dexterity, which practice, enforced by necessity, produces, is able to effect much by very scanty means. The nations of Mexico and Peru erected cities and temples without the use of iron; and, at this day, the rude Indian supplies himself with all the necessaries of life. Sent, like the rest of mankind, naked into the world, as soon as his parents have nursed him up to strength, he is to provide, by his own labour, for his own support. His first care is to find a sharp flint among the rocks with this he undertakes to fell the trees of the forest. He shapes his bow, heads his arrows, builds his cottage, and hollows his canoe; and, from that time, lives in a state of plenty and prosperity. He is sheltered from the storms, he is fortified against beasts of prey, he is enabled to pursue the fish of the sea, and the deer of the mountains: and, as he does not know, does not envy, the happiness of polished nations, where gold can supply the want of fortitude and skill, and he, whose laborious ancestors have made him rich, may be stretched upon a couch, and see all the treasures of all the elements poured down before him.This picture of a savage life, if it shows how much individuals may perform, shows likewise how much society is to be desired. Though the perseverance and address of the Indian excite our admiration, they, nevertheless, cannot procure him the conveniences, which are enjoyed by the vagrant beggar of a civilized country. He hunts, like a wild beast, to satisfy his hunger: and, when he lies down to rest after a successful chase, cannot pronounce himself secure against the

danger of perishing in a few days. He is perhaps content with his condition, because he knows not that a better is attainable by man: as he, that is born blind, does not long for the perception of light, because he cannot conceive the advantages, which light would afford him. But hunger, wounds, and weariness are real evils, though he believes them equally incident to all his fellow-creatures: and, when a tempest compels him to lie starving in his hut, he cannot justly be concluded equally happy with those, whom art has exempted from the power of chance, and who make the foregoing year provide for the following. To receive and to communicate assistance constitutes the happiness of human life. Man may, indeed, preserve his existence in solitude, but can enjoy it only in society. The greatest understanding of an individual, doomed to procure food and clothing for himself, will barely supply him expedients to keep off death from day to day but as one of a large community, performing only his share of the common business, he gains leisure for intellectual pleasure, and enjoys the happiness of reason and reflection. Johnson.

MEUX'S BREWERY.

IN Meux's brewery every thing is as filthy, as steam, and smoke, and dust, and rust, can make it; except the steam-engine, which is as polished and as clean, as the bars of a drawing-room grate. The first operation of this engine is to stir the malt in vats of twenty-eight feet diameter, filled with boiling water: the second is, in due time, to raise the wort to the coolers, in the floor above: then this wort is conveyed by leaden pipes into the tub, where it is to ferment; and afterwards into the casks, where the porter is first deposited. One of these casks, which I saw, measures seventy feet in diameter, and is said to have cost L.10,000; the iron hoop on it weighs eighty tons; and we were told, that it actually contained, when we saw it, 18,000 barrels, or L.40,000 worth of porter. Another contained 16,000 barrels, and from thence to 4000. There are above seventy casks in the store. Mrs Brunton.

PORCELAIN MANUFACTORY AT WORCESTER.

MR F., a most polite and obliging person, called early, and introduced us at Chamberlayne's porcelain manufactory. Every part of this process was shown to us. Flints are first calcined, which whitens them perfectly; then, mixed in certain proportions with gray Cornish granite, they are ground to so fine a powder, as to pass through the closest silk. Water is poured upon this powder, and it is twice strained through silk sieves. The mixture is boiled till it is as thick as cream, and evaporated till it becomes a tough paste. Pieces of it are then placed upon a turning-wheel; and moulded, solely by the hand, with wonderful precision and rapidity. This is the case, at least, with all the pieces of a circular form; such as bowls, plates, cups, and saucers. Dishes of other forms are made in gypsum moulds; which, though they fit closely at first, soon absorb the moisture, so as to part very freely with the vessel, which they have modelled. Every piece is then placed in a separate clay case. The furnace is filled with these, built closely up, and subjected to a red heat for sixty hours. It is then allowed to cool; the porcelain is withdrawn, and in this state is called the biscuit. It is greatly diminished in size by this process. It is now ready to receive the blue colour, which is cobalt, and looks of a dirty gray, till exposed to the action of the glazing. The glazing consists of lead and glass ground to an impalpable powder, mixed with certain secret ingredients in water. The biscuit is merely dipt into the glazing, and is then baked again for forty hours. It is now ready to receive all other colours which the pattern may require, and the gilding. It is then baked a third time, for ten hours, or more, according to the colours employed. Lastly, the gilding is burnished with bloodstone or agate, and the china is ready for the wareroom. The colours are changed by baking. The greens, when laid on, are very imperfect: the rosecolour is a dull purple; and the gilding is as black as ink. The painting-room had an unwholesome smell,

and the inmates looked sickly. This manufacture is perfectly intelligible throughout, and therefore interesting. You can follow the flint and granite, till, through seventeen different processes, they become a gilded teacup. Mrs Brunton.

MANUFACTURE OF BUTTON-EYES AND STEEL PLATING.

SPENT the afternoon very agreeably in inspecting Thomason's manufactory (at Birmingham). What seemed the most ingenious machine of all was that, by which button-eyes are made. One part of it pushes forward the wire; a second bends it into a loop; a third cuts it; a fourth flattens the points, that they may join the better with the button; a fifth pushes the eye, when completed, out of the machine. The plating on steel is executed after the article is perfectly formed. The iron knife, fork, or spoon, is dipt into a solution of sal-ammoniac, to cleanse it from grease. It is then powdered with resin to make the solder adhere to the steel, with which it has no affinity. Next it is dipt in the boiling solder,-lead and tin. Then it is instantly fitted with a coat of pure silver, rolled out thin and perfectly flexible: this is pared round the edges with a knife. The article, whatever it is, is then passed through a heat strong enough to melt this solder without affecting the silver. The solder is squeezed out, and falls away in drops; the silver remains adhering perfectly to the steel. One side only of each article is plated at a time; the silver, by this means, overlaps at the edges, and is double where it is the most liable to waste. When the goods are finished, they are polished; first by a fine file, then by a leathern wheel, and lastly by the human hand, Whether it was occasioned by the nature of their work, or by their practice in explaining it, I do not know: but the people employed here showed more intelligence, than any persons of their station whom we have seen in England. I dare say it is good policy to let them show their work: the attempts to explain it will lead them to understand it; and that will help them to inventions and improvements.

Mrs Brunton.

MANUFACTURE OF BALL-CARTRIDGES.

AT Woolwich we saw mountains of balls and thousands of cannon! We saw the whole process of making ball-cartridges. The balls are cast in a mould, two together, connected by a bar of an inch or two long; they are then cut asunder, close by each ball, and the little bar is thrown back into the melting-pot; then each ball is tied in a rag; then in a paper cone, with room left above it for powder. The powder is run by measure into the cone, and the top is fastened down the cartridges are then packed in small parcels, and the business is finished. Each of these operations is performed by a different hand, and with despatch almost incredible. One boy fills 4000 cartridges in a day little creatures, who would scarcely be intrusted in Orkney with the pastoral care of three geese, earn eight or nine shillings a-week in this way. Mrs Brunton.

GRADUAL RISE OF MANUFACTURES.

It is pleasing to contemplate a manufacture rising gradually from its first mean state, by the successive labours of innumerable minds; to consider the first hollow trunk of an oak, in which, perhaps, the shepherd could scarce venture to cross a brook swelled with a shower, enlarged at last into a ship of war, attacking fortresses, terrifying nations, setting storms and billows at defiance, and visiting the remotest parts of the globe. Who, when he saw the first sand or ashes, by a casual intenseness of heat, melted into a metalline form, rugged with excrescences, and clouded with impurities, would have imagined, that, in this shapeless lump, lay concealed so many conveniences of life, as would, in time, constitute a great part of the happiness of the world? Yet, by some such fortuitous liquefaction, was mankind taught to procure a body, at once, in a high degree, solid and transparent,-which might admit the light of the sun, and exclude the violence of the wind:-w -which might extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence; and charm him, at one time, with the