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from an elevation of about forty feet; and you enter a large room, which is called the Tan-yard. This, like some of the rest, is an absurd name; but it has been adopted from the force of association. There are in the rocky floor of this room large cavities which may be thought to resemble the tan-pits; and fromthe ceiling are suspended large sheets of beautiful stalactites, which resemble the tanner's hides. You advance to an upper floor in this room, which has chiefly one ornament, and that is sufficient. There is, extending along the room, and from roof to floor, an immense sheet of the finest stalactite. When it is struck with the hand, it emits deep and mellow sounds, like those of a muffled drum, and it is called the Drum-room.

You now rise by some natural steps to a platform, which you have again to descend, and then find yourself in what is named the Ball-room. It is a handsome and large apartment, about 100 feet long, 36 wide, and 26 high. Its floor is so level as to admit of dancing, and it has been used for this purpose. There is in the centre of it a large calcareous deposite, which has received the name of Paganini's Statue: the whole room is relieved by grotesque concretions; and the effect of the lights burning at every elevation, and leaving hidden more than they reveal, is exceedingly fine.

From the Ball-room you make an ascent of 40 feet. This is named Frenchman's Hill; from the circumstance that a visitor from France, with his guide, had their lights extinguished near this spot. Happily the guide had such an accurate knowledge of the locality, that, after much difficulty, they got safely back, a distance of more than 500 feet. You wind your way through passages, and make a descent of nearly thirty feet, by what is known as Jacob's Ladder, with pits and caverns opening about you, and come into the Senate Chamber, and afterwards to Congress Hall. The last is a fine room, very like the Ball-room, but with an uneven floor. As you leave it, an immense cavern spreads itself before you, with the dim lights gleaming over its mouth, so as to make its unfathomed darkness horrible. You gaze on it with amazement, and instinctively long to pass on, lest it should drink

you up. It has received the name of Infernal Regions. By another lobby, and another descent, you enter Washington Hall. This is the most wonderful opening of the whole. It is 250 feet

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long, and 33 feet high. There is a fine sheet of rock-work running up the centre of this room, and giving it the aspect of two separate and noble galleries, till you look above, where you observe the partition rises only 20 feet towards the roof, and leaves the fine arch expanding over your head untouched. There is a beautiful concretion here standing out in the room, which certainly has the form and drapery of a gigantic statue; it bears the name of the Nation's Hero, and the whole place is filled with those projections; appearances which excite the imagination by suggesting resemblances, and leaving them unfinished. The general effect, too, was, perhaps, indescribable. The fine perspective of this room, four times the length of an ordinary church ; the numerous tapers, when near you, so encumbered by deep shadows as to give only a dim religious light, and when at a distance, appearing in their various attitudes like twinkling stars on a deep dark heaven; the amazing vaulted roof spread over you, with its carved and knotted surface, to which the streaming lights below in vain endeavoured to convey their radiance; together with the impression that you had made so deep an entrance, and were so entirely cut off from the living world and ordinary things, produces an effect which, perhaps, the mind can receive but once, and will retain for ever.

On leaving these striking apartments, you pass through a passage in which is standing some grand formation, named Cleopatra's Needle and the Pyramids, and then enter a room called the Church. The appearances in this instance suggest the name. It has about the dimensions of a church, and has an elevation of about 50 feet. There is at one end an elevated recess, which has the air of a gallery. At the back of this gallery there are a great number of pendent stalactites, of an unusual size and beauty. They are as large as the pipes of a fullsized organ, and are ranged similarly. They emit, when struck, mellow sounds of various keys; and if a stick is run over them, as we run the finger over musical glasses, they make pleasant music. There is nothing forced in giving this instrument the appellation of organ; it is one of the best that nature ever made, and the most remarkable that I ever be held. At the other extremity there rises from the ground (not stuck on a roof, as we frequently see) a beautiful spire of

considerable height; and this is the | tiful concretion. It is a tower, about

steeple.

You pass by the steeple, and come into an apartment, which has the name of the Dining-room. It has similar dimensions to the church; and on its left side there is a continued elevation, resembling a table. You now enter an immense gallery about 10 feet wide, and some 121 feet long, and from 80 to 100 feet high. You turn aside to visit a small apartment, but of exquisite beauty. Here the most singular sparry concretions hang pendent from the roof, while an equal number are growing up from the ground in several degrees of progress, many of them meeting in the centre and becoming one. Winding passages are left amongst them, which make a sort of labyrinth ; | and as they are semi-pellucid, the passing of the lights through the several alleys, has a very singular effect. This has the name of the Garden of Eden.

You return to the Dining-room, and pass by a dark opening at your feet, which is the mouth of a cavern, into which the foot of man has never been. It can only be explored by rope ladders; and it is supposed, though I think without sufficient reason, to be charged with mephitic gases, fatal to life. You may now make an ascent of some 50 feet, if your nerves allow, and your reward will be adequate to your pains. You must climb over the face of the rock, which has nearly a perpendicular pitch, and you will then find yourself on an elevated platform, and surrounded by loop-holes and striking figures. You may now look down from your eminence, which is the Giant's Causeway, into the large illuminated rooms you have left, and perhaps see a small party moving over the floors in misty shadow. Here stands out in relief before you, and on the very verge of the platform, a fine groupe of stalagmites, white as alabaster, and suggesting to the fancy the figures of a small party of horse moving over high and dangerous precipices. They are Buonaparte and his Guards. There is a fine arch expanding before you over the scene below; you may, with caution, ascend on its head, and by this means gain a more commanding view of the objects so far beneath you.

But we must hasten on. When you have made your descent to the ordinary level, and move on your returning course, you pass by an enormous and most beau

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thirty feet each way at the base; and rising in diminished squares to the height of thirty fect. It is a stalagmite; nearly as white and clear as alabaster, and dazzles you by its capacity to reflect lights.

You pass, also, some fine springs, at which you may refresh yourself on the way. There is one I must distinguish before we leave. You ascend, in getting to it, a steep of twelve feet, by a ladder, and then, by a little hard climbing, attain to the end of the recess, and stand before what is named the Source of the Nile. It is a fine transparent spring, and is very remarkable for being covered with a thin pellicle of stalagmite. It is strong enough to bear you; and has a hole cut in the centre, which gives you access to the water.

I hope you will not think you have been detained too long on this spectacle. My regret is, that I have only described onehalf of what it unfolds, and that with haste and imperfection. It is, in my judgment, one of the great natural wonders of this New World; and for its eminence in its own class, deserves to be ranked with the Natural Bridge and Niagara, while it is far less known than either. Its dimensions, by the most direct course, are more than 1,600 feet; and by the more winding paths, twice that length; and its objects are remarkable for their variety, formation, and beauty. In both respects it will, I think, compare, without injury to itself, with the celebrated Grotto of Antiparos.

For myself, I acknowledge the spectacle to have been most interesting; but, to be so, it must be illuminated, as on this occasion. I had thought that this circumstance might give to the whole a toyish effect; but the influence of 2000 or 3000 lights on these immense caverns is only such as to reveal the objects, without disturbing the solemn and sublime obscurity which sleeps on every thing. Scarcely any scenes can awaken so many passions at once, and so deeply. Curiosity, apprehension, terror, surprise, admiration, and delight, by turns, and together, arrest and possess you. I have had before, from other objects, one simple impression made with greater power: but I never had so many impressions made, and with so much power before. If the interesting and the awful are the elements of the sublime, here sublimity reigns, as in her own domain, in darkness, silence, and deeps profound.— Reed and Matheson's Visit to the American Churches.

THE MANNER OF KNOWING. THE difference between believers and unbelievers as to knowledge, is not as much in the matter of their knowledge, as in the manner of knowing. Unbelievers, some of them, may know more and be able to say more of God, his perfections and will, than many believers; but they know nothing as they ought, nothing in a right manner, nothing spiritually and savingly, nothing with a holy, heavenly light. The excellency of a believer is, not that he hath a large apprehension of things, but that what he doth apprehend, which may perhaps be very little, he sees it in the light of the Spirit of God, in a saving, soul-transforming light: and this is that which gives us communion with God, and not prying thoughts, or curious raised notions. Owen.

SPIRIT DRINKING.

AMONG other destructive vices, spirit drinking is pre-eminently fatal. It impairs the health of its victim, extracting the colour from his cheek, and stealing the vigour from his limbs. It makes him despondent, delirious, insane. By the waste of his money, the consumption of his time, the destruction of his energies, and the ruin of his character, it conducts him, by a sure road, to destitution. Thus it robs his house of its furniture, his children of their food; and, inspiring him with ferocious malice against the unhappy mother who complains of his unnatural selfishness, thus tears up by the root the last flower of domestic happiness.

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142,453 men, 108,593 women, 18,391 children; total 269,437.

As it is improbable that the observers recognised individuals who entered more than once, I will suppose that these were the whole number of visits to the shops in that week, and that each person visited it once a day then the number of persons visiting those shops would be 269,437 divided by 7, or 38,491.

Thirty-eight thousand four hundred and ninety-one persons, the women and children being nearly equal to the men, habitually attend these fourteen shops; how many, then, must contribute to the support of the other 4059 shops with which the metropolis is disgraced! Either immense multitudes must be infected with this vice, or else, those who are infected must be ruinously devoted to its indulgence. It is well known how it grows upon those who yield to it; and some idea of the degree in which it prevails in London may be formed from the fact, that above 23,000 persons are annually taken up by the police, for drunkenness alone. The numbers taken up by the police for drunkenness in the years 1831, 1832, and 1833, were as follow:1831; 19,748 males, 11,605 females, total 31,053.

1832; 20,304 males, 12,332 females, total 32,636.

1833; 18,268 males, 11,612 females, total 29,880.

A circumstance which renders this amount of drunkenness still more appalling is, that it, for the most part, is so indulged as that it excludes the drunkard Whether this vice is more or less preva- from all the means of grace on the sablent in London than formerly, I do not bath-day. Labourers and artizans, being know; but it prevails sufficiently to do in- paid their wages on saturday, devote that calculable mischief to the population. The evening to revelry. The public-houses in number of public-houses and gin-shops in Lambeth, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, St. the metropolis is 4073, besides 1182 beer- Giles's, and Covent Garden, are filled with shops, and great numbers of coffee-shops, persons drinking, till a late hour on saturmany of which are said to be, at present, day night. Early on sunday morning they worse than the worst public-houses, as fill again, (some having been open all schools of profligacy. Hence we may night;) and just before eleven o'clock turn judge of the numbers infected. Not long out their disgusting herds, to roll along the since, the following numbers were observed streets, or lie in the gutter till they are to enter two principal shops, one in Hol-picked up by the police. Saturday night born and the other in Whitechapel, in one day :

Holborn shop, 2880 men, 1855 women, 289 children; total 5024.

Whitechapel shop, 3146 men, 2186 women, 686 children; total 6018.

The following numbers were also ob

and sunday morning, in those low neighbourhoods, are the scenes of drunken frays and revolting vice. Men fight with men, and women with women, till the clothes are torn from their backs; defy and insult the police; and then spend their sabbaths in the watch-house.-B. W. Noel.

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of Britain. The land so held was called a fee, feud, or, fief; hence the conditions were named the feudal system. The occupiers were tenants of the land and vassals of the lord. But the vassal could not alienate or dispose of such possessions, without the consent of the lord, upon the performance of certain oppressive duties. -Domestic Life in England.

THE PORPOISE.

If we examine the structure of a porpoise's head, we find its cavities capable of great distention, and such that he can fill them at pleasure with air or with water, according as he would mount, float, or sink. By closing the blow-hole, he shuts out the water; by letting in the water, he can sink; by blowing from the lungs against the cavities, he can force out the water, and fill the hollows with air, in order to rise.

All landed estates amongst the AngloSaxons were cultivated by great numbers of slaves, who were not so much the property of the master, as, so to speak, that of the soil; the two being bought and sold together. There are some instances of freemen selling themselves for slaves; and, on the occasion of a famine in England, many persons, having no means of subsistence, sold themselves into slavery. Theft was in some cases punished with loss of liberty; but the great supply of slaves arose from the capture of prisoners of war. A father had the power of selling his son into slavery for seven years, but for no No one can doubt, that such facts afford longer. There were not only slaves who direct evidence of an apt contrivance ditilled the land, but those who took charge of rected towards a specific object, and adoptthe household affairs of their lord. Never-ed by some Power thoroughly acquainted theless, all slaves were allowed to redeem with the laws of hydrostatics, as well as themselves, on payment of a sum of money; perfectly skilful in workmanship. —Lord after which each enjoyed all the privileges Brougham. of a freeman. Guthred, for example, rose from a slave to fill the throne of Northumberland.

The lords possessed extraordinary power over their vassals: for, Aubrey tells us, that at Tormarton, in Gloucestershire, anciently the seat of the Rivers family, is a dungeon fourteen feet deep: about four feet high are iron rings, fastened to the wall, which were probably to tie of fending vassals to; as all lords of manors had this power over their vassals, and had all of them, no doubt, such places for their punishment. Aubrey adds: "it is well known that all castles had dungeons; and so, I believe, had monasteries; for they had often within themselves, power of life and death." In latter times, even the porter's lodge had a dungeon, and was a place of smaller punishment for the servants and dependants of the great.

What is called in history the feudal system, which was at its greatest height under William the Conqueror, was throughout a scheme of slavery. It was, indeed, a system of government and landed property, under which tenants, or vassals, as they were called, held land upon condition of certain services to the lords, or followers of the Norman Conqueror, among whom he parcelled out the whole

THE COVENANT OF GRACE.-If any thing ought to be accounted worthy of the most attentive consideration, it is indeed the covenant of grace. Here a way is shown unto a better paradise than the earthly, and to a more certain and more stable happiness than that from which Adam fell. Here new hopes shine upon ruined mortals, which by so much ought the more to be acceptable, by how much it came more unexpected. Here conditions are offered, to which eternal life is annexed; conditions not again by us to be performed, which would cause the mind to despond; but by Him who departed not this life, before He had truly said, "It is finished," Rom. x. 4.—Witsius.

GOD'S TIME.-One minute sooner than God's time would not be his people's mercy, Exod. xii. 41, Psalm xxxi. 15.Fleming.

JOHN DAVIS, 56, Paternoster Row, London. Price d. each, or in Monthly Parts, containing Five Numbers in a Cover, 3d.

W. J'yler, Printer, Bolt-court, Fleet-street.

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SPIDERS' EGGS.

ZEBRA SPIDER, AND ITS NEST.

THE purposes for which an all-wise Providence has bestowed on spiders the power of spinning silk from their bodies are very various. By this they can construct for themselves a place of concealment from their enemies, or sheltering canopy from rain and storms, and nets and snares to entrap the insect-prey upon which they feed, besides what we shall now advert to, the covering which they manufacture for their eggs, and which may be called a nest, is a very curious and interesting object of observation for those who delight to trace the working of providential wisdom among the minor beings of creation.

Looking at the size of a spider, and at that of the eggs which it lays, it appears almost incomprehensible how they could be contained in so small a body; but by observing them more closely it may be discovered that they have not, like the eggs of birds, a hard shell, being, on the contrary, soft and compressive. Accordingly, before they are laid, they lie in the egg-bag,

VOL. III.

(ovarium) within the spider's body, squeezed together in a flat manner, and only come into a globular form after they are laid, in consequence of the equal pressure of the air on every side, in the same way as we see dew drops and globules of quicksilver formed from the same cause.

The eggs of spiders, it is worthy of remark, are in most cases, though not always, placed in a roundish ball; and as there is nothing in creation without some good reason, if we can discover it, we may infer that this form is designed to economize the materials of the silken web, which the mother spins around them by way of protection. Whether we are right or not in this conjecture, there can be no question as to the manner in which the ball is shaped, as we have often observed the process. The mother-spider, in such cases, uses her own body as a gauge to measure her work, in the same way as a bird uses its body to gauge the size and form of its nest. The spider first spreads a thin coating of silk as a foundation, taking care to have it

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