of the water. But with the screw, the resistance is always nearly the same, whatever be the condition of the wind or water. A greater average efficacy is thus attained than when the engines are working, some times above, and sometimes below, the most advantageous speed; and the engines are protected from the violent shocks and strains which flow from irregular movements. The applicability of the screw, as an auxiliary power to sailing-ships, is obvious, and there would be great advantages arising from abolising paddle-boxes. The introduction of the screw propeller as a substitute for paddle-wheels, has done much towards increasing the efficiency of war steamers, by the propelling apparatus being placed below the surface of the water, and, consequently, protected from the gunshot of an enemy. But something more is necessary to be done, in order to render a ship, fully equipped with steam machinery, capable of engaging with an enemy at close quarters, or even defending herself in a time of need. Steam engines, as arranged for paddle-fitted vessels, must of necessity be considerably above the water line, to give the required motion to the cranks, which usually work as high as the deck of the vessel, and, in some cases, a little above it; and are, thereby, like the paddles themselves, likely to be entirely disabled by the first broadside they may be exposed to. The screw, however, admits-nay, requires-that the machinery, by which it is to be driven, should be as low down in the vessel as possible; and several ingenious contrivances have been produced to effect this most important point in the equipment of man-of-war steamers. The plan of the engine, by F. P. Smith, Esq., patentee and inventor of the screw propeller, appears to meet the desired ends better, in a general point of view, than any we have yet seen. The peculiarity of this arrangement consists in a direct application of the power from the piston rods to the cranks, or screw shaft, by means of a triangular-shaped beam; which also, by a very simple kind of parallel motion, works the air pumps standing on each side of the cylinders. The advantages that this kind of engine contains over many others we have seen, are that it occupies so small a space in the length of the vessel; and that, although the cylinders stand in an upright position, the whole is consi derably below the water line of the vessel. Some plans have been devised, in which the working cylinders are, for the purpose of keeping them low down, placed on their sides. This appears objectionable, on account of the probability of the cylinders wearing more at the under side than any other part, by which, it is natural to suppose, the pistons would become worn also, and admit of the steam escaping between the upper portions of itself and cylinder. The chief disadvantage of the screw is the difficulty of bringing up the speed to the point indispensable to its proper operation. In those cases in which the screw is applied merely as an auxiliary power, shortstroke engines, working at a high velocity, and coupled directly to the axis of the screw, appear to be applicable enough. But in other cases, the intervention of cogwheels, or belts, seem indispensable: and in a steam vessel such appliances are open to objection. The best mode, at present in use, is driving the screw, when it is not at once connected with the engines, by the use of cog-wheels, very nicely fitted to each tooth, being divided into several pieces, in the direction of its length, the pieces being each advanced a little before the other in the manner of steps. this expedient the friction and noise are diminished, and the chances of fracture in the teeth made less. Belts are a species of application exposed to the sea spray, and other circumstances, which makesthem stretch and slip. The grand desideratum for the screw mode of propulsion is a good engine, which Mr. Smith has just invented. It has been doubted whether, although the screw is an eligible mode of propulsion for slow and heavy boats, if it can be rendered available for vessels which are required to move at a great speed." By Mr. Portwine states of atmospheric railways, "In all ages, and in all civilised countries, where the slightest glimmering of science has illumined the darkness of ignorance, the power of air, and its pressure upon all created things, has been known, and frequently applied as a propelling and a lifting power. The rudely constructed vessels of the ancients were propelled with air bellying out a broad display of canvass, or other substances; and in the early attempts to raise water for fountains, as jets, or from mines, atmospheric pressure was the first agent employed. Although the scientific men of other lands have left abundant evidence of their knowledge of the powers of air, fire, and water, and have exhibited in their writings, that they were aware that fire applied to water would create steam, yet they did not adapt this powerful agent to the purposes for which an all wise Providence evidently intended it. If, therefore, vessels have been propelled by air, rushing with force against a resisting surface, to unknown lands, why should not air, by its ascertained properties and power, be made an important agent in dispensing with the immense quantity of fuel now consumed, and remedy the loss sustained by wear and tear of railroad gear? If atmospheric propulsion be practicable-and we have now, in the Dalkey branch of the Dublin and Kingstown railway, sufficient proof that it is;the advantages to the people will be of great magnitude, not probably in the first few years of its adoption, because the cost of laying down the tubes, and constructing stationary engines, air pumps, and stations, will be very considerable. But in dispens. ing with the locomotive engine, and its consumption, and the danger of collision, great and important benefits will accrue, which posterity will feel and appreciate. Vallance, the original projector, Cubitt, Brunel, Pinkus, Clegg, Samuda, Barry Gibbon, are of opinion that it will ultimately succeed; though Mr. Stephenson is of a contrary opinion. The system of atmospheric pressure has succeeded at Dublin; and judging from this short line, and the success of the "Bristol junction," it is reasonable to believe that a more extended railway will prove equally successful; and the Croydon company's Epsom atmospheric branch to London, a distance of twenty-one miles, will decide this disputed question. Five miles of this rail has been opened for experiments. On Saturday, August 23, 1845, an incline of 1 in 80 was tried, and the atmospheric power exhausted in the middle of the incline. The air was then admitted, and the carriages were propelled up the incline with great ease. The piston travelled the whole length of line successfully." The author has described the machinery connected with "atmospheric railways" very clearly, and any one may understand the construction of the tubes, rails, and modus operandi of the travelling piston, air pumps, and stationary engines. After having given a description of the electric printing telegraph, he states that electricity travels faster than light, or more than 288,000 miles in a second! He says: 66 Nearly every railway company in the kingdom have adopted the electric telegraph, and are sensible of its usefulness in preventing accidents; indeed, on single lines it is indispensable, and the directors of the London and Birmingham have constructed one for their branch to Peterborough, which is a single line. There is little doubt but the electric printing tele graph will become universal, not only in England, but on the railways of the new and old world. The extraordinary velocity of the electric fluid has been spoken of; and the fact of two gentlemen playing a game of chess by its agency illustrates its importance. One gentleman moved his men at Portsmouth, and the other at Nine Elms, and the contest was kept up with great spirit. The moves were communicated about every ten minutes, including the attention necessary to play accurately; and it terminated, after a struggle of ten hours, in a draw. The game was played by first-rate artists, and was deeply interesting to the spectators present at both stations. Electricity has been made useful in the manufacture of iron: and an in genious Frenchman confidently states, that he has superseded gas-light by its power. It has also been converted into a motive power, by Beil of Frankfort on the Maine, who has completed an electric magnetic carriage. The arrangement appears capable of immense power, and the machinery producing the motion with the battery, weighs a ton and a half. The carriage is mounted on ordinary railroad wheels. The battery consists of twenty plates of copper and of zinc. The arrangement has sufficient power to propel, with the greatest facility, carriages containing from thirty to forty persons." We can only afford room for one more idea of the style of our author. The folextract, in order to afford the reader an lowing is taken at random, and is extremely eloquent: "The governments of the civilised world are now vying with each other in their race after excellence; and war ships and packet vessels, of enormous tonnage, are now floating on the waters of nearly every ocean and sea that surrounds the nations of the earth. Railroads, too, are intersecting every kingdom of Europe and America. India is not behind in the emulation; and in a few years the power of the atmosphere, aided by steam, will carry Englishmen from their shores to the confines of that distant land. The echo of the cheering hiss of the old tea-kettle, as the boy Watt sat dreamingly listening to it, is to be heard in the loud roar of the steam pipe, rising often above the din of wind and waters, and proclaiming to both that a mighty power is battling with their fierceness. Steam has made this old world of ours a new one; it binds cities together literally with iron bands; it brings kingdoms into as close a contiguity as parishes. What does it not do for man?services the most mighty, and the most trivial. It hurries him across the Atlantic in ten days, and grinds coffee in grocers' shops; it has power to pump up volumes of water from the bowels of the earth, and delicacy enough to drive a shuttle to weave fine linen. Mighty as is its strength, ♣ child may guide it: up and down fly the huge beams and pistons with a force that hundreds of horses would in vain crack sinew and muscle to control, and yet, let there be but the touch of a guiding lever, the stopping of a valve, demanding no more than a child's strength, and this vast moving fabric at once becomes motionless and passive-only so many tons of wrought and hammered metal." We have scarcely done justice to the great merit of this book, containing as it does information which would require great research to obtain, and conveyed too. in a manner so as to render the most recondite subject replete with interest. The Gatherer. Adversity does not take from us our true friends; it only disperses those who pretend to be such. Legal Perspicuity.-In Haddock's Chancery, vol. 1, p. 125, is the following specimen of legal botheration and perspicuity "When a person is bound to do a thing, and he does what may enable him to do the thing, he is supposed, in equity, to do it with a view of doing what he is bound to do." ex Rather Marvellous.-A Lutworth correspondent informs us that he has received a letter from Harrisburgh, U. S., narrating the case of a soldier who was 150 years since frozen in Siberia. The last expression he gave utterance to was, "It is -." He was then frozen as stiff as marble. In the summer of 1844, some French physicians found him, after having laid in a frozen state 150 years. They proceeded to thaw him gradually, and upon animation being restored, he concluded his sentence with "-ceedingly cold." A Cure for Profanity.-A schoolmaster, as a punishment to one of his pupils for using profane language, ordered him to take a pair of tongs and watch a hole in the hearth until he caught a mouse. The boy took the tongs, and demurely waited for his victim. Directly after, he saw a mouse peeping out of the hole. Cautiously placing a leg of the tongs on either side, he grabbed Don Whiskerandos by the nose, and triumphantly exclaimed, " By I've got him!" Clerical Conundrum.—In a certain large town, which shall be nameless, one of the reverend gentlemen to whom the spiritual instruction of the inhabitants has been confided, is very fond of requesting some of his brethren to officiate for him in his duty. "Pray,” asked an observer, "why is Mr. So-and-so like England? Do you give it up? Because he expects every man to do his duty!' then in the glory of its Maker sat the orb 466 Pope perverted.-A Yankee schoolmas ter, who had no faith in the soothing system," was in the habit of quoting Pope, as his authority; and, using the rod, he, made the line to suit-thus: "Tis education forms the common mind, And with a twig you drive it in behind!" The conscience is the most elastic material in the world. To-day you cannot stretch it over a mole-hill, to-morrow it hides a mountain. Opinions concerning Beauty.-What different ideas are formed in different nations concerning the beauty of the human shape and countenance. A fair complexion is a shocking deformity on the coast of Guinea; thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. In some nations, long ears that hang down upon the shoulders are the objects of universal admiration. In China, if a lady's foot is so large as to be fit to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster of ugliness. Some of the savage nations in North America tie four boards round the heads of their children, and thus squeeze them, while the bones are tender and grisly, into a form that is almost perfectly square. Europeans are astonished at the absurd barbarity of this practice, to which some missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity of those nations among whom it But when they condemn those prevails. savages, they do not reflect that the ladies in England had, till within these very few years, been endeavouring, for nearly a century past, to squeeze the beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a square form of the same kind. Apotheosis of Mrs. Fry.-When earth in her majestic revolution retired towards the west and in the downy atmosphere voluptuously rolled onward in a ponderous bulk, H. A. Burstall, Printer, 2, Tavistock-street, Strand. ad pa and hONG WALK, WINDSOR PARK. The regal road, the subject of the accompanying cut, is no inconsiderable feature in that magnificent variety which they "That from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' For many ages patronised by royalty, and, as the consequence of that, by those who give monarchs fame,— "At once the muses' and the monarchs' seats,"Windsor has been eminently distinguished. Its own beauties command the admiration of foreigners from all parts of the world. Were these wanting, it would still possess great attraction in its vicinity. On the one side we find Eton, "Where grateful science still adores On the other, Runnymede, where the bold barons compelled a tyrant to sign MAGNA CHARTA. Thus Windsor and its neighbourhood may boast that they have long provided a residence for the kings of England, and learning and liberty for the people. The Long Walk, besides the noble avenue formed by countless trees giving every variety of hues indicative of the changing seasons of the year, offers to the eye numerous pictures of moving interest. Here a youthful sovereign, with a beloved royal partner, and all the splendour and gaiety appropriate and natural to her court, are now often seen. They still live, who remember when the majesty of England, passing over the same ground, was seen under a very different aspect. A striking instance of the equality of the human race in the main, was supplied by the spectacle furnished by king George III in the year 1809. Then, at the moment his subjects were joyously celebrating the commencement of the fiftieth year of his reign, and while the ox was roasting whole, with a sheep on each side of it, in Bachelor's Acre, and mirth and festivity were seen on every side, then the poor old king, blind or nearly so, passed for his morning's ride to the Long Walk, and was there conducted up and down by his cautious and pains taking attendants, at what may be called a funereal pace. But to see the Long Walk in its glory, the lover of revelry amidst scenes of blooming nature should visit it during the Ascot races, when crowds of excited pleasureseekers, their countenances brightened by hope, may be seen rapidly advancing to the scene of the Ludorem Ascotientium;then, the gay groups disporting in these charming shades, in the most beautiful season of the year, the charms of Spring matured, but not yet on the wane,-the scene is one which cannot easily be forgotten, and which memory must love to recall. To follow the glad holiday makers might be a painful as well as a difficult task. Of some of them, in the words of the poet already quoted, no doubt it might too truly be predicted: "These shall the fury passions tear, And shame that skulks behind.” STRAY NOTES ON THE CHURCHES AND CHURCH-GOERS OF WOR CESTERSHIRE. BY A RAMBLER. From a world of care and guile; KEMPSEY.-On one of the bright and glowing days which the last August brought in her train-more generous than many of her fickle sisterhood had been-the old "Rambler," tired of inglorious ease, again "shouldered his crutch," alias the umbrella, and with buoyant, happy spirits, sallied forth for the banks of the Severn, on a pilgrimage to the little village whose name stands at the head of this chapter. From the multitude of churches which necessarily meet the eye in every direction in the neighbourhood of this cathedral city, I was moved to select Kempsey as "No. 1," from the incidental circumstance that an antiquarian friend of some considerable standing in the world of letters had specially fixed on that day to pay a visit to the same place, and undertook for me, that if I would meet him there, he would not only be delighted to see me, but would go the round of the antiquities, rub all manner of dust from them, decipher anything short of hieroglyphic purport, and, in fine, if it were possible, discover and explore a "barrow" or two for my especial edification. Thus seduced, it will not, perhaps, appear rash on my part to have undertaken a journey of four miles, on foot, through one of the most beautiful parts of our fair country. I have not forgotten the sub. limity with which Milton has clothed this idea. "In those fair seasons of the year," says he, "when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go forth and view her beauties, and partake in her rejoicings with heaven and earth”— |