Mersey, to Gerard's Bridge and St. Helens. The aggregate length of the navigable canals of England exceeds 2,200 miles.

FISHING WITH NETS IN ENGLAND.

The means of supplying life with necessaries, was but imperfectly known and cultivated. The poor pagans of Sussex, though starving for want of food, knew not how to catch any fish except eels, until Bishop Wilfred (who in 678 took shelter in that district) instructed them in the use of nets. He took 300 at a draught, and thus, supplying the bodily wants of his catechumens, rendered their minds tractable to his doctrines, and easily accomplished their conversion.

GUNPOWDER.

Gunpowder was known in the Eastern world long before its discovery took place in Europe. It is a curious fact, that upon our discovery of China we found that nation possessed of gunpowder, a composition which could not have been made without a considerable knowledge of chemistry. It has been said that it was used in China as early as the year 85, and that the knowledge of it was conveyed to us from the Arabs, on the return of the Crusaders to Europe; that the Arabs made use of it at the siege of Mecca in 690; and that they derived it from the Indians. The discovery of the manufacture of this death-dealing combustible in Europe, is by some attributed to Berthold Schwartz, a German chemist and monk, who, happening to triturate some sulphur, nitre, and charcoal, in a mortar, was surprised and alarmed at an unexpected explosion, which blew off the head of his mortar to a considerable distance. The probability however is, that this was a second discovery of the same thing, for the first intimation that was given of it was considerably before, by that great philosopher, Roger Bacon, in his posthumous treatise, entitled, De Nulliate Magic, published in 1316. "You may,' says he, “raise thunder and lightning at pleasure, by only taking sulphur, nitre, and charcoal, which singly have no effect, but mixed together, and confined in a close place, cause a noise and explosion greater than a clap of thunder."

Gunpowder was first made use of in warfare, in Europe, by the English at the battle of Cressy, in the year 1345, when, for the first time, three pieces of field ordnance, or cannon,* were first used. It was afterwards used by the Venetians at the siege of Genoa, and from that period was adopted by every power in Europe. It consists of a very intimate mixture of nitre, or nitrate of potash, charcoal, and sulphur: the proportions are 75 nitre, 15 charcoal, and 10 sulphur.

*The first cannons were made of trees bored, and bound with iron hoops, Stone balls were used till the reign of Henry VIII.

Before the introduction of gunpowder, however, an highly inflammable compound called Greek fire was in use; and this, having the property of burning under water, could not easily be extinguished; consequently, it did surprising execution. In the 12th century, the emperors of Constantinople used to send quantities of this dreadful combustible to princes in friendship with them, as the most valuable present they could give them, and the greatest mark of their favour. It was considered so important an article of offence, that the use of it was continued long after the introduction of gunpowder.

CANNONS.

Cannons were first used at the battle of Cressy, in the year 1345; they were, however, of a small kind. Great guns were first used in England at the siege of Berwick, in 1405. Muskets were not invented till the year 1521. Cannons were first made of wood, bound with iron. The earliest cannon-balls were of stone. Brass cannons first cast in England by John Owen, 1535. Iron cannons first cast, 1543, in Sussex.

BOMBS.

Bombs were first invented in 1388, by a man at Venlo. Some attribute them to Galen, bishop of Munster. They were first thrown upon the town of Watchtendonck, in Guelderland, in the year 1580.

CHAIN SHOT.

This destructive missile was invented by De Wit in the year 1666, and was first used by the Dutch on the 1st of June the same year, when the Dutch fleet engaged the Duke of Albemarle's squadron in the Downs; it was a drawn battle.

CONGREVE ROCKETS.

The death-dealing rockets thus denominated, receive their name from General Sir W. Congreve, the inventor of them.

GUILLOTINE.

The guillotine takes its name from one Dr. Guillotin, who first introduced it into France, where it was adopted as an instrument for inflicting capital punishment by a Decree of the 20th of March, 1792. It is an instrument for beheading, constructed on the same principle as the guillotine that was anciently used in Scotland, and was called a MAIDEN; it was introduced by the Regent, James Earl of Morton, who, it seems, had met with it in his travels, and who, by a singular coincidence, was the first person whose head it severed.

"This mighty Earl (Morton), for the pleasure of the place, and the salubrity of the air, designed here a noble recess and retirement from worldly business, but was prevented by his unfortunate and inexorable death, three years after, anno 1581, being accused, condemned, and executed by the MAIDEN, at the Cross of Edinbro', as art and part of the murder of King Henry, Earl of Darnley, father of James VI., which fatal instrument, at least the pattern thereof, the cruel Regent had brought from abroad to behead the Laird of Pennecuik of that ilk, who notwithstanding died in his bed, and the Earl was the first that handselled this unfortunate Maiden."- Pennecuik Dusc. Tweedal.

LION'S HEAD FOUNTAINS.

Fountains are not so prevalent now as they were wont to be. Formerly almost every leading street in London, and almost every town in the country, had its conduit or fountain, from whence

"the grateful fluid fell."

They were generally adorned with the lion's head, which the ancients introduced, because the inundation of the Nile happened during the progress of the sun in Leo.

BASTINADO.

Tarquin the Proud invented, says St. Isidore, the bastinado and other punishments, and, adds he, he deserved exile. Bastinado, or more correctly, Bastonáta, is derived from the Italian bastone, a stick, bastonare, to beat with a stick. It is called bamboo in China, and knout in Russia.

THE TREAD MILL.

A recent invention for giving useful employment to persons imprisoned for crime. Its usual form is that of a cylindrical wheel, of about 5 feet diameter and 16 feet long. The circumference is furnished with 24 equidistant steps, on which the prisoners are made to work on the mill. All mounting the first step together, their weight sets the wheel in motion, bringing down the step trod upon, when they tread up to the next, which descends in the same manner, and so on producing a continuous rotatory motion, which may be applied as the moving force in turning any sort of machinery.

SUN-DIAL.

Why has it, says Elia, almost every where vanished? If its business use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke

of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance, and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by; for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by; for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd carved it out quaintly in the sun, and, turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones.

The first sun-dial is said to have been set up at Rome by L. Papirius Cursor, A.U. 447 (B.c. 301), and the next near the rostra, by M. Valerius Mesela, the consul, who brought it from Catania in Sicily, in the first Punic war, A.U. 481. Scipio Nasica first measured time at Rome by water, or clepsydræ, which served by night as well as by day, A.U. 595.

CLOCKS, WATCHES, &c.

Clock-making was brought into this country from the Netherlands. About the year 1368, that patriotic and wise prince, Edward the Third, invited over to this country John Uninam, William Uninam, and John Lutuyt, of Delft, and granted them his royal protection to exercise their trade of clock-making in any part of his kingdom, without molestation.-Rymer's Fœdera, vol. vi. p. 590.

Pocket watches were first brought to England from Germany in 1577; and the manufacture of them commenced a few years afterwards.

According to Eginhard, secretary to Charlemagne, the first clock seen in Europe was sent to his master by Abdalla, king of Persia. A geographical clock, showing the difference of mean time in all the capitals of Europe, from a design by B. di Bernardis, was contributed to the Great Exhibition; see Official and Descriptive Catalogue, vol. iii. p. 1015.

ELECTRICAL CLOCKS.

A most successful experiment was made at the Great Exhibition in 1851, of working three large dials by electricity, not merely as a means of connection with one large clock driven by a weight in the usual way, but by using electricity as the motive power. The following extract from a letter from Mr. Finlaison, of Loughton Hall, appeared in the Polytechnic Review:-"Mr. Bain has succeeded to admiration in working electric clocks by the currents of the earth. He set up a small clock in my drawingroom, the pendulum of which is in the hall, and both instruments in a voltaic circuit as follows:-On the N.E. side of my house two zinc plates, a foot square, are sunk in a hole, and suspended

to a wire this is passed through the house, to the pendulum first, and then to the clock. On the S.E. side of the house, at a distance of about forty yards, a hole was dug four feet deep, and two sacks of common coke buried in it: among the coke another wire was secured, and passed in at the drawing-room window and joined to the former wire at the clock. The ball of the pendulum weighs nine pounds, but it was moved energetically, and has ever since continued to do so with the self-same energy. The time is to perfection, and the cost of the motive power was only 7s. 6d. There are but three little wheels in the clock, and neither weights nor springs; so there is nothing to be wound up."

BELLS.

Bells of a small size are undoubtedly very ancient. Small gold bells are mentioned in Exodus as ornaments worn upon the hem of the High Priest's robe. The large bells now used in Churches, are said to have been invented by Paulinus, bishop of Nola in Campania, about the year 400. They were probably introduced into England very soon after their invention, and are first mentioned by Bede about the close of the seventh century. Such bells were consecrated, and often received the names of persons. The great bell cast in 1845 for York Minster, the heaviest in the United Kingdom, weighs upwards of 12 tons, or about 27,000 lbs.

MANUFACTURE OF TIN-PLATE.

Formerly, says Parkes in his Chemical Essays, none of the English workers in iron or tin had any knowledge whatever of the methods by which this useful article could be produced; our ancestors, from time immemorial, having supplied themselves with it from Bohemia and Saxony. The establishment of this manufacture in those districts, was doubtless owing to their vicinity to the tin mines in the circle of Ersgebirge, which, next to those of Cornwall, are the largest in Europe. The ore which is found there is not the tin pyrites, but the mineral called tin

stone.

From the time of the invention of tin-plate to the end of the seventeenth century, not only England, but also the whole of Europe, depended upon the manufactures of Bohemia and Saxony for their supply. However, about the year 1665, Mr. Andrew Yarranton, encouraged by some persons of property, undertook to go over to Saxony to acquire a knowledge of the art and on his return, several parcels of tin-plate were made of a superior quality to those which we had been accustomed to import from Saxony; but owing to some unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances, which are all detailed by Mr. Yarranton in his very valuable publication, the manufactory was not at that time