being free from any obstruction to the passage of the birds through the avenue. "The interest of this curious bower is much enhanced by the manner in which it is decorated, at and near the entrance, with the most gaily-coloured articles that can be collected, such as the blue tail feathers of the Rosehill and Pennantean parrots, bleached bones, the shells of snails, etc. Some of the feathers are stuck in among the twigs, while others, together with the bones and shells, are strewed about near the entrance. "The propensity of these birds to pick up and fly off with any attractive object is so well known to the natives, that they always search the runs, for any missing article, as the bowl of a pipe, etc., that may have been accidentally dropped on the brush. I, myself, found, at the entrance of one of them a small neatlyworked stone tomahawk, of an inch and a half in length, together with some slips of blue cotton rags, which the birds had, doubtless, picked up at a deserted encampment of the natives." This fondness of birds for bright and gaudy articles, together with a penchant for carrying them away, and hiding them, or depositing them in their nests, is exhibited by several of our European birds, and especially by the magpie and jackdaw. Keys, pencil cases, thimbles, and the like, are by no means safe, in a house where a tame magpie is kept at large; and probably the case would be the same, were the magpie replaced by the satin bower-bird. With regard to the bowers of this species, or rather its arched avenues, a very natural query arises, namely, For what purpose are they constructed? what is the end to be accomplished by their formation? The answer is difficult. There are numerous points in the habits and economy of animals, the design of which we cannot penetrate, and which appear to lead to no definite results. As God delights in his works, and provides for the happiness of all creatures, according to their capability of enjoyment, it may be that these bowers are instinctively arranged, with no farther object than to afford pleasure. Certainly, as Mr. Gould affirms, they are not used as nests, but as places of resort for many individuals of both sexes, which when there assembled, run through and round the bower in a sportive and playful manner, and that so constantly, that it is seldom entirely deserted, at least during the spring and summer. "The proceedings of these birds," says Mr. Gould, "have not been sufficiently watched, to render it certain, whether the runs are frequented throughout the whole year or not; but it is highly probable, that they are merely resorted to as a rendezvous, or playing-ground, at the pairing time, and during the season of incubation. It was evidently at this period, as I judged from the state of the plumage, and other indications, that I visited these localities. The bowers I found had been recently renewed; and it was evident, from the appearance of a portion of the accumulated mass of sticks, and other things, that the same spot had been used as a place of resort for many years. Mr. Charles Coxen informed me, that after having destroyed one of these bowers, and secreted himself, he had the satisfaction of seeing it partially reconstructed. The birds engaged in this task," he added, "were females." Mr. Gould succeeded in the difficult operation of removing entire, and without disarranging the twigs, two of these curious bowers, which safely arrived in England. is now preserved in the British Museum ; and those who read this account, and have the opportunity, would doubtless feel gratified in inspecting it. The other bower now adorns the museum of Leyden. One With respect to the nidification of the satin bower-bird, nothing is ascertained; a circumstance the more strange, when we consider that the bird is by no means uncommon, and that its embowered avenues are continually met with. "I regret to state," says Mr. Gould, "that although I used my utmost endeavours, I could never discover the nest and eggs of this species, neither could I obtain any authentic information respecting them, either from the natives or the colonists, of whom I made frequent inquiries.' That the natives should be ignorant of the nest of this bird, knowing as we do how intimately they are acquainted with the habits and manners of the animals of their country, is sufficient to prove the caution and artifice which it employs in its concealment.-M. BRICK MAKING.-No. II. In England, from the time of the Romans to the eleventh century, there is no evidence of use of bricks as a material for building. But about that time, the abbey of St. Albans was erected, and bricks were employed in its construction: the probability, however, is, that these materials were obtained from the ruins of the adjacent Roman town of Verulam. St. Botolph's priory, at Colchester, was founded thirty years after the abbey of St. Albans, and of this building brick is the principal material. The form of these bricks might justify a suspicion that | these likewise were taken from some Roman building; but it is just as likely that the Roman bricks would furnish the model for the earliest made English bricks, and an additional reason for this may be derived from the name wall tile having long preceded that of brick. King's Hall, Cambridge, was built of bricks in the reign of Edward 111., at which time it appears that the price of them was from 6s. to 6s. 1d. per thousand.* The use of this material seems, however, to have been, for some centuries, almost wholly confined to public buildings and large mansions; for Holinshed, in the introduction of his "History of Queen Elizabeth," enumerating the materials employed at that time for building houses, omits all mention of brick. Till lately, bricks appear to have been made in this country in a very rude man ner. The clay was dug in the autumn, and exposed to the winter frosts to mellow; it was then mixed, or not, with coal ashes, and tempered by being trodden by horses or men, and was afterwards moulded, without it being considered necessary to take out the stones. The bricks were burned in kilns, or in clamps: the former was the original mode, the latter having been resorted to from motives of economy. When clamps began to be employed, I do not know; but they are mentioned in an act of Parliament passed in 1726, and therefore were in use prior to that date. The following, in few words, is the present process of brick making in the vicinity of London, for the practical particulars of which I am indebted to Mr. Deville and Mr. Gibbs. It is chiefly, I believe entirely, from the alluvial deposits above the London clay, that bricks are made in the vicinity of the metropolis; and a section of these deposits generally presents the following series, such as would naturally result from a mixture of stones, and sand, and clay, and chalk, brought together by the force of water, and then allowed to subside. The lower part of the bed is gravel, mixed more or less with coarse sandy clay, and pieces * I Essex in Archeologia, iv. 73. of chalk; this by degrees passes into what is technically called malm, which is a mixture of sand, comminuted chalk, and clay; and this graduates into the upper earth, or strong clay, in which the clay is the prevailing or characterizing ingredient, the proportion of chalk being so small that the earth makes no sensible effervescence with acids. Bricks made of the upper earth, without any addition, are apt to crack in drying, and in burning they are very liable to warp, as well as to contract considerably in all their dimensions: on this account, they cannot be used for the exterior of walls; and a greater number of such are required for any given quantity of work than of bricks, which, though made in the same mould, shrink less in the baking. The texture, however, of such bricks is compact, which makes them strong and durable. Bricks formed of this clay, whether mixed or unmixed, are called stocks; it was formerly used unwashed, and when the bricks were intended to be kiln-burned, or flame-burned, to use the technical word, no addition was made to the clay. If they were intended to be clamp-burned, coal ash was mixed during the tempering. Of these and all other clamp-burned bricks the builders distinguish two kinds, namely, the well-burned ones from the interior, and the half-burned ones, or place bricks, from the outside of the kiln. The calcareous clay or malm earth requires no addition of sand or chalk, but only of ashes. The bricks made of it differ from those made of the top earth, in being of a pale or liver brown colour, mixed more or less with yellow, which is an indication of magnesia. The hardest of the malm bricks are of a pale brown colour, and are known by the name of grey stocks; those next in hardness are called seconds, and are employed for fronts of the better kind of house; the yellowish and softest are called cutters, from the facility with which they can be cut or rubbed down, and are used chiefly for turning the arches of windows. What I have said of top earth and malm earth must be understood, however, to refer to well-characterized samples of these varieties; but, as might be expected, there are several brick fields that yield a material partaking more or less of the qualities of both, and therefore requiring corresponding modifications in its manufacture. Brick earth is usually begun to be dug in September, and is heaped rough, to the height of from four to six feet, on a The price of bricks varies from forty to sixty shillings a thousand, of which not more than one shilling and three pence a thousand, at the utmost, can be the cost of moulding, assuming the average work of a moulder to be five thousand in a day; any improvement, therefore, calculated to save time in this department of brick-making, by the introduction of machinery worked by steam or by horse power, can only amount to a benefit equal to a fraction of one thirty-second or one forty-eighth of the entire price of the commodity. If we assume such machine to produce fifty-two million bricks in a year, this amounts to two millions a week, (for the season for brick-making in this country continues no longer than from April to September inclusive,) or three hundred and thirty thousand in a day, equal to the labour of sixty-six men or eleven horses, without making any allowance for friction, or any deduction on account of temporary repairs. The cost of hand-moulding fiftytwo million bricks at one shilling and three pence per thousand is 3250l., from which, if we deduct the first cost and repair of machinery, the expense of fuel or of horses, of superintendence, etc., it would probably be found that nothing would remain for profit. surface prepared to receive it, that it may have the benefit of the frost in mellowing it and breaking it down. It is then washed by grinding it in water, and passing it through a grating, the bars of which are close enough to separate even small stones. The mud runs into shallow pits, and is here mixed with chalk ground with water to the consistence of cream, if any calcareous ingredient is required. When it has become tolerably stiff by drying, coal ashes (separated by sifting from the cinders and small pieces of coal) are added, in the proportion of from one to two and a half inches in depth of this latter to three feet of clay, the most tenacious clay requiring the greatest quantity of ashes. The ingredients are then to be well mixed; and, finally, the composition is to be passed through the pug mill,* in order to complete the mixture and to temper it. The moulder stands at a table, and the tempered clay is brought to him in lumps of about seven to eight pounds: the mould is a box without top or bottom, 9 inches long, 4 wide, and 24 deep;† it lies on a table: a little sand is first sprinkled in, and then the lump of clay is forcibly dashed into the mould, the workman at the same time rapidly working it by his fingers, so as to make it completely close up to the corners; next he scrapes off, with a wetted stick, the superfluous clay, throws sand on the top, and shakes the brick dexterously out of the mould, on to a flat piece of board, on which it is carried to a place called the hacks; here it remains till dry enough to handle: the bricks are then formed into open hollow walls, which are covered with straw to keep off the rain; here they dry gradually, and harden till they are fit to The consumption of London is for the be burned. A raw brick weighs between most part supplied from the brick fields six and seven pounds; when ready for the that surround it in all directions, the clamp, it has lost about one pound of principal of which, however, are situated water by evaporation. A first-rate moulder north of the Thames, at Stepney, Hackhas been known to deliver from ten thou-ney, Tottenham, Enfield, Islington, Kingssand to eleven thousand bricks in the course of a long summer's day, but the average produce is not much more than half this number. The pug mill is an iron cylinder set upright, in the axis of which an arbor or shaft revolves, having several knives, with their edges somewhat depressed, projecting from it and arranged in a spiral manner round the arbor. By the revolution of the arbor, the clay is brought within the action of the knives, by which it is cut and kneaded, and finally is forced through a hole in the bottom of the cylinder. † A malm brick of the above dimensions will shrink by burning to the length of 9 or 94 inches. A brick made of top clay, without any mixture of chalk, will often shrink to 8 inches. Bricks are burned either in kilns, or in clamps. In the former, the burning is completed in twenty-four hours; in the latter, it requires from twenty to thirty days, but is on the whole cheaper, notwithstanding that the loss from overburning, from under-burning, and other accidents, amounts to one-tenth of the whole number of bricks. land, Hammersmith, Cowley, Acton, and Brentford. Those made at Grays Thurrock, Purfleet, and Sittingbourne, are of a very good quality, and a fine yellow colour; stone-coloured ones are made near Ipswich, and have been largely employed in the outside walls of some of the new churches of the metropolis. At Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, is a bed of malm earth of the finest quality, no less than twenty-five feet in depth; from this are made the best small kiln-burned bricks, called paviers. They are hard, absorb very little water, and are used for paving Tiles, from the purpose to which they are applied, namely, roofing houses in order to shoot off the rain, require a texture as compact as can be given to them, consistent with a due regard to economy. The fattest and most unctuous clays are, therefore, those which answer the best, especially if free from gravel and the coarsest sand. The price of tiles, compared with that of bricks, is such that the manufacturer can afford to dry them under cover; while, being not more than one quarter of the thickness of bricks, the drying is more speedily performed, and with far less hazard of warping or cracking; the same also is the case with the baking. Sand is added to the clay, but sparingly; for if, on the one hand, it prevents the ware from warping, yet, on the other hand, it increases the porosity, which is a fault especially to be avoided. The general manipulations of grinding the clay and tempering it are analogous to those already described for making bricks; but more pains are bestowed in getting it to the utmost degree of plasticity, so as to allow of its being rolled, like dough, into cakes of a proper thickness, which are afterwards brought to the required shape by pressing them into a mould. The material employed at the manufactories of tiles in the neighbourhood of London is either the bed of blue clay, called by geologists the London clay, or the plastic clay which lies below the former. The tileries north of the Thames, at Hackney, Clapton Terrace, Hornsey, and Child's Hill, near Hampstead, are on London clay; those near Woolwich are on the plastic clay. The same clay answers well for sugar cones, for garden pots, and all articles of common red ware that do not require to be glazed, and in which a certain degree of porousness is no objection to their use.-Aikin's Arts and Manufactures. The whole number of bricks made in Great Britain and Ireland in the year 1835, on which the excise duty was paid, was 1380 millions. SALVATION BY GRACE.* As the reader passes, with interest and profit, from piece to piece, the writer would ask for his attention to a subject of paramount importance, which relates to the Being who is supreme, and to the soul which is immortal, namely, salvation by grace. We might have a glimpse of the character of God as we plucked a leaf or a blossom from a tree, but we are now to contemplate the perfections of Deity in their united and resplendent glory. We might notice various subjects connected with man as the inmate of a tabernacle of clay, but we have now to do with his eternal salvation. Salvation! Where is the pen that can trace, the tongue that can describe, or the mind that can conceive the full import of that word? It includes deliverance from the prison of the eternally condemned; but what is hell? The angels who kept their first estate, cannot answer the question: they never endured one spark from that fire of righteous indignation which in full measure is to be the doom of the finally impenitent. Even those who are "reserved under chains and darkness against the judgment of the great day," have yet experienced only the beginning of sorrows. Nor do the holy men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, unveil to us fully the gloomy world in which these wretched spirits dwell; where God appears only in all the terrors of his outraged holiness, justice, truth, power, and mercy, as a destroyer; where the eye of the soul dwells only on scenes of horror, and the conscience never ceases to upbraid, and the heart is full of raging but ungratified lusts, and every power of the spirit ministers to its agony; and where its misery is increased by endless companionship with the devil and his angels. No! what hell is, cannot be described; but we know that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." O Lord, "who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath,' Heb. xi. 31; Psa. xc. 11. One part of salvation consists, therefore, in redemption from hell; another part consists in admission to heaven! But what is heaven? To aid their conceptions, some have thought of Eden, where, in scenes of surpassing beauty, man, in From Companion for Leisure Hours, published by the Religious Tract Society. days of innocence, held delightful communion with his Creator and his God. Yet Eden, with the serenity of its sky and the brightness of its sunshine; Eden, with the luxuriance of its plants and the fragrance of its flowers; Eden, though concentrating within itself the fairest and richest productions of this world, is not to be compared for a moment with heaven. That is a state of knowledge eternally on the increase; a state of rectitude from which there can be no fall; a state where the angels of God and "the spirits of just men made perfect" form but one family; a state where Jesus is seen as he is, and where those who behold him are conformed to his image. It would, however, be a serious error to suppose that the " great salvation is entirely future; on the contrary, it is to be experienced in the present world as a preparative for, and an earnest of its full and ultimate enjoyment. Wherever the gospel comes, it says emphatically, You must be saved now, or never; you must have the love of sin dethroned in your soul, or you cannot be released from its eternal condemnation; you must be transformed by the renewing of your mind, or you cannot be admitted to the presence of the Holy One. When the great apostle of the Gentiles wrote to the Ephesians, he did not say, By grace ye shall be saved, but, By grace ye are saved; and to this he adds, "God hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;" thus intimating, that all who believe in the Redeemer, may be described as sharing his exaltation; because there is an assurance of this glory in the quickening energy they experienced when they exchanged a death of sin for a life of righteousness. The difference between a Christian on earth and a Christian in heaven, is one not of kind, but only of degree. A state of glory is in fact the issue, the development of a state of grace. The one is like the bud, the other the flower. The one is like the dawn, the other the brightness of noon. As the babe lying in its cradle has within its little frame all the elements of the scholar, the statesman, the monarch; so the follower of the Lamb, when born again, had heaven begun; and as sanctification advanced in his soul, he became more fully a partaker of "the Divine nature." Eternity itself will perfect and perpetuate the holiness which he now possesses, and the happiness of which he has now the foretaste. In contemplating this salvation, it is of the utmost importance to form scriptural views of the way in which it is to be obtained: on this, then, let us proceed to dwell. That it may be enjoyed as the reward of their own doings, is supposed by many: reader, is it so with you? Then let your condition be faithfully examined. As a subject of the moral government of God, you are placed under a law which, like himself, is holy, just, and good; a law demanding supreme affection för Him, and displaying its influence in habitual and unceasing obedience to all his requirements. Has, then, such an obedience been yours? If so, as an innocent being you stand in no need of pardon, and need suffer no dread of the punishment denounced against iniquity. But such you cannot be; for it is written, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," and therefore, "every mouth must be stopped," and the whole world stand guilty in his sight. So far from your righteousness being a spotless robe, it is described in the words of the prophet "as filthy rags;" and so far from your being accepted before God, your iniquities, which have risen up to the heavens, have invoked his wrath, and caused you to be "condemned already." Nor can the sentence that has gone forth against you be like that denounced against those who have not your advantages. With the Bible, charging you to "seek for knowledge as silver,' and to "search for it as for hidden treasure;" with the ambassadors for Christ entreating you as in his stead to be reconciled to God; with displays of love the most melting, opened before you, more grievous woes than will alight on myriads, await you, if you reject "the glorious gospel.' How powerful, then, are the inducements to escape this misery, and to pursue the happiness which is indissolubly connected with deliverance. It has been manifest already that you cannot be saved on the ground of your own righteousness, nor is it less clear that there is no possibility of any union between merit and grace, so that you can supply your deficiencies by adding to them the merits of the Son of God. As well might you expect to be your own saviour, as that Jesus would share with you the work of your salvation. For can you unite on one spot at the same time the brightness and lux |