Though hereafter we may again have to deal with this branch of our subject in its relations to the military and naval appliances engineering skill has provided, we may not inaptly conclude this chapter in the sentiments expressed by the American Minister, at the last annual banquet of the Institution of Civil Engineers held at Willis's Rooms, and rightly say that the Engineers of England are the makers and masters of the modern world so far as it is visible, palpable and serviceable to the rest of mankind.

They have enabled intercourse to be easy and free between distant countries.

They have annihilated time and space in such a sense as was never before thought possible.

And in regard to electricity there is no achievement of modern science which so touches the imagination as that narrow bridge which engineering skill has stretched through the profound and silent waters of the Atlantic, between this continent and the other,an intermedium that has made mankind contemporaries in a senses in which they never were contemporaries before.

CHAPTER III.

His stumbling,'founder'd jade can trot as high
As any other Pegasus can fly;

So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud,

Than all the swift finned racers of the flood"

Dorset.

From a consideration of the fruit of the earth let us turn to the brute creation that feed upon it, those domestic useful animals without which, or some of which the human inhabitants of this old world, could not we feel sure get through life.

We ought undoubtedly to commence with the Ass, that patient, long suffering, and now much abused quadruped. But to associate progress with such a creature, unless we take the engrafted Mule into account, would we fear in the present day seem like a travestie, though we know of many respectable donkeys in the possession of costermongers, whose speed along the streets of London will vie with. many a cab-horse.

On this question of going indeed the Scriptures are explicit, for the book of Proverbs decides the speed of the ass of that day to be superior to that of the horse.

The breeding of the asinine tribe however after all, so far at least as this country is concerned, does not appear to have resulted in any great improvement either in physique or otherwise, and we fear the ass of the period now, would but represent the ass of the period in the days of Balaam!

The Horse which in the old time was an animal, second in general importance to the ass, and used chiefly in battle, was we think a very different style of beast to that of the present day.

In our own time we can recollect the horse, the race horse particularly, as a much stouter set animal than that of these times-the old drawing of Looby at full stretch, though caricatured, was we think a fair sample of the racer of the day, which in comparison with the well bred and beautifully limbed horses of the present, had a thickness and uprightness of shoulder, betokening the absence of the speed since attained in the progress of breeding— yet instances of very great speed are not wanting in the racehorses of the latter portion of the 18th century, for we read of the celebrated Childers' whose time in doing the then course at Newmarket, which measured only 400 yards short of four miles, was six minutes and forty seconds!

Again we had the scarcely less famous 'Eclipse' whose strength indeed was said to be superior to 'Childers,' but whose going qualities were less, and whose proportions did not in any material point fulfil the requirements of the day-this horse however had a long life, if not a merry one, for notwithstanding his exertions, he he died in his twentieth year, in 1789.

If we refer to past history, and the illustrations afforded by the old paintings and prints, we cannot help being struck with the difference existing between

the horses of the last century, and those we now enjoy the use of. Whether we take the coach horse or the ambling galloway, the hunter, or Barclay & Perkins's greys-if we compare them with the horses of the by-gone age, we simply find that the general aspect of the latter as represented by reliable diagrams, presented more the features of those lighter or poorer kinds of draught horses of recent years-they were little or no better in fact although in those days considered to be improved types of the saddle and harness horse of the period.

To come back then to the likelihood or non-likelihood of our great discoveries being surpassed in time to come, we certainly are inclined to the belief that the perfection to which the breeding of horses has now attained is incapable of further advancement.

Who that has had the opportunity of riding to hounds in the great English counties where a meet of not less than a hundred ladies and gentlemen well mounted is a daily occurrence, has not taken a note of those splendid animals whose muscular quarters and staying powers are brought into play in a two hours "burst" across hill and dale ?

Who that has once in his life-time run down to that great olympian gathering at Epsom, and seen the struggle for the blue ribbon on the memorable "Derby Day" does not come away impressed with the grandeur of the scene at the starting point, or the perhaps more exciting struggle at the winning post!

And again who is he that loiters, may-be doing the 'lardy-dar' beside the railing and amongst the fashionable beauties of England in Hyde Park at seasonable seven, and views and digests the grand coup d'œil-watches the magnificent horses and equipages passing to and fro-who is he that can do this and not measure from it the wealth and superiority of old England? And again let him put down roughly the value of this pair of bright bays, that team of four chesnuts, and let him. go on adding up, and let him if he like include the costly, elegant carriages, coaches and harness, and in the end report roughly the sum total! He may be astonished-so may you.