that such immense undertakings with the aid of the electric light at night, are now so rapidly completed with the few hands employed.

On the same works we saw the process of 'tipping' we have before described still further developed, for where in former years the horse was used and detached, we now observed that a small engine pushed the waggon load on to the point required. The whole of the operations in fact were directed and performed with an ease and regularity resembling the simplicity of children at play. We do not apprehend that we take any very great licence when we state that all this we for the first time saw most effectively in use on the new dock works at Swansea where the contractor seems to have introduced the 'Steam Navvy' with great and wonderful results.

Another illustration of the advance in engineering science is that of the machine which has for some years past been applied in the construction of that rocky tunnel in southern Europe recently completed— namely St. Gothard's-a process of eternal quarrying scraping and digging-out of solid adamantine substances, whereby a way to be used as a railway has been cut, the whole work occupying a period of what we might by comparison term months, instead of years or a life-time, and in the carrying out of which nothing but such a machine could have been relied on.

To jump back for the moment to more homely examples let us also in agriculture contemplate the now somewhat antiquated scythe used in the mowing of crops the sickle for the corn, or the plain

wooden handrake in the hay field, let us compare these old fashioned yet useful implements with the wholesale grass cutting and reaping machines and the horse rake, to say nothing of the steam ploughs, threshing machines and other appliances of the present day.

Do not all these inventions teach a lesson somewhere-are they not one and all the outcome of man's appeal to the maternal influence of their parent' necessity'! The steam navvy, the improved farming implements, the coal cutting machines and such like, are they not the improvised antidotes to the strikes, and overbearing demands of labour we have so frequently heard of, rescuing positively those large employers, without whose enterprise this great country would sink into insignificance.

If there be a depreciation in the value of labour by reason of the discoveries pressed upon the ingenuity of man, let the saddle be placed upon the right horse, for in discussing a subject like this we cannot but perceive that whilst one section of the community would by an obstructive policy retard-sans advancement sans improvement-merely to keep up the demand for labour, the other section lays hold of that policy as a spur, the outcome of which through man's inventive genius possesses it with greater things rendering that opposing policy futile. Truly the labourer may be worthy of his hire, but if he stand still, the employer of labour from that cause progresses.

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CHAPTER XVI.

A ship-carpenter of old Rome could not have talked more judiciously."
ADDISON.

In getting to conclusions on the general condition of things-the past, the present, and the future—we must regard the circumstances all round.

In the first place we must take a careful, and so far as we are able a complete view of the original state of the matter we are going to deal with.

Secondly we must, as far as in us lies, ascertain definitively the capabilities it presents of development -and thirdly we must exercise to the utmost, those mental endowments we possess, aided by the experience of our past lives in order to arrive at a right and proper judgment.

A log of wood in the forest, the growth of a century lies inert. If left there exposed to the natural elements, it will in time decay and become useless, so far at least as our limited knowledge enables us to predict; but the bark of it assuredly may be required for the tanning of hides, and its heart in the building or decoration of a palace!-All then that is requisite to make it at once available is to strip it, and saw it and manufacture it into convenient sizes, and finally affix it in places where possibly in centuries to come the intricate and elegant carving of a former period, the work of man's handicraft, the old oak ornamentations of ages gone by, as may then be said, will be a work of art and wonder, placed may be in a museum

of antiquities, or perchance re-instated as a chef d'œuvre, or affixed to the walls of some new home where its grandeur may be even more prominent than it ever was before.

We arrive at these various conclusions by the excercise of our mental powers, assisted by that knowledge which instinct, tuition and experience give us. There are no doubt various other ways in which the log of wood might be utilized, and with which we are perfectly well acquainted, but with all our knowledge-and this is the point we have desired to arrive at-with all our knowledge of them, who shall say that there is not some other more useful mode of dealing with it, which has not even yet been encompassed by the limits of human intellect !

In any case notwithstanding all manipulations that may be exerted thereon by our ingenuity, the essential elements remain the same whether their treatment result in improvement or spoliation.

The minutest, or to our restricted senses, most offensive object amongst God's creatures may appear to be of no kind of earthly use to us, but what right have we to take upon ourselves the assumption that such is really the case!

Where does our presumption begin, and where does it end?

We are given certain data, certain materials substantial and elementary, and the development of these is governed by certain fixed principles.

Commencing with existence, we have relation and the confixity of particles-we have comparative quantity

and magnitude and combined totality-solid matteralso uniformity, gradation and arrangement, as well as precedence, continuity and power.

In dealing with matter we discover that it is made up of a great variety of particular compounds and that so constructed it is available to our material use, but if by experiment or trifling those parts be disintegrated, then the great service it was able to render is destroyed.-The charm is gone! Like a watch complete in itself, if its works be taken out and distributed, its utility is gone!

Does this not teach us that in all the institutions of life we must be cautious how we interfere with those set laws whether they be nature's laws, or the laws which were built on the solid rock of usage and requirement-usage indeed which for centuries may have remained unchanged!

liberal

'We must go with the times,' is an expression which has now and again received a very construction, but has been so far strained as we think by those least qualified to form an opinion on such a subject, namely the uneducated or partially educated, amongst whom a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' that some of the old and valuable institutions, the very props of the constitution of which we English in bulk are so proud, have been chipped though scarcely weakened.

To re-form the ruins of an ancient sanctuary into a place for holy worship is one thing-to transform it into a range of stables and beast houses is another!