room for a lengthy description of his visit to Walton Hall, the residence of that renowned crocodile-rider, Mr. Waterton, and dwells for pages together on the delights of Buxton and Matlock. To be sure, these last are watering-places, and is he not writing in imitation of the "Bubbles from the Brunnen ?" An idea of this description, in fact, appears to haunt him perpetually, sometimes so completely as to obliterate the recollection of the title of his own work. He can pass by Sheffield without notice, but every insignificant mineral spring he meets with on his way is made the subject of a chapter, and nothing at all in the shape of a watering-place is allowed to escape without contributing its full quota to this strangely-compounded delineation of the "manufacturing districts;" besides Buxton and Matlock, we have full, true, and particular descriptions of the local peculiarities of "Southport," "New Brighton," ""Scarborough," "Dinsdale Spa,"" Allonby," and divers other known and unknown homely rivals to the foreign "Brunnen" of Sir Francis. Even when on his own proper ground, he often quits the legitimate subject of his lucubrations in an attempt to rival the odd sketches of character which distinguish the "Bubbles." The chief part of his chapter on "Manchester" is devoted to a would-be funny description of the numerous wedding-parties at its principal church; and at Hull his attention is divided between the wonders of its docks and warehouses, and the fittest mode of keeping squirrels in a cage! The worst of the matter is, that Sir George's frivolity is of a very laboured sort, and bears in every line the impress of being ") put on ad libitum, which happens to be the very worst feature that can belong to such a style as that he has adopted. The Tour, or rather the account of it, commences at Liverpool, that is to say, at the canals between that place and Manchester, for with respect to Liverpool itself, we have very little information. The railway naturally attracts some notice, and from this portion we have extracted a page or two, as a fair specimen of our author's descriptive powers, when confined to their proper objects: "It is quite impossible to enter, within any brief compass, on the beauty and symmetry of the arrangements which prevail among the warehouses, and within these ex tensive premises. The scene I was allowed, as a stranger, to contemplate unnoticed and unmolested; I was permitted to walk from end to end, and observe and admire the address and dispatch with which multitudinous affairs were conducted. I particularly remarked the facility with which logs of timber, of the largest dimensions, and all descriptions of bulky and heavy materials, were slung on the carriages; the great size of the Dobbin-wheels, ten feet in diameter, occasionally employed; and also the extreme length of the ordinary Liverpool cart, for the conveyance of cotton bags, eighteen feet from tail-board to the point of the shaft, which latter is totally overhung by the body, with the exception only of four feet. These were the principal objects which diverted my attention. The load of these carts, drawn by a couple of horses, is about three tons. They allow, on the railway, four tons to a carriage, although not unfrequently they carry five; so that as, to convey timber, two carriages are lashed together, a full load may be estimated at ten tons. 66 Among the cargoes put upon the railway with the greatest ease and dispatch, are pigs. This shows what management will effect; and, though strange, is at least true. Indeed this branch of business is so well assorted, that though, as to locality, the animals previous to departing on their journey are upon equal terms with the men and merchandise, as to actual juxta-position they might as well be five miles asunder. This desirable object is effected by means of a back entrance into a pig-yard, where all the herds that arrive, on their way to Manchester, find accommodation. From this there is a small door that leads down to a wooden platform, placed on an inclined plane, to the carriage standing on the railway, close to the mouth of the tunnel, so that the pigs enjoy this right of road unmolested, and, in point of fact, step quietly out of their drawing-room into the vehicle, each as easily as an old dowager into her chair waiting in the vestibule. "On the occasion of my passing through the tunnel before alluded to, I sat in the foremost carriage of a train, by which were conveyed, among merchandize of many descriptions, a quantity of pigs and live cattle. The carriages were drawn about three hundred yards within the mouth of the tunnel, upon a level, by a single horse, which, at the foot of the inclined plane, was unhitched and sent back. Preparatory to the ascent, the foremost carriage was made fast by a messenger-line to the endless rope communicating with the stationary-engine at the east end, when, at the signal of a bell, the wire of which reaches the whole length, viz. a mile and a quarter, the engine commenced its labours, and we trundled onwards in the dark at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. There are, indeed, lights at rare intervals within the tunnel; but, nevertheless, by far the greater part of the distance is performed in total darkness. As we passed along, a train came rumbling downwards, by its own gravity, in an opposite direction. The effect was awfully grand at the approach of so stupendous a body rushing towards us in the dark, with a sound like that of distant artillery, while its conductor sat in front, holding in his hand a small glimmering lantern. The scene brought the regions of Pluto to the imagination, while the hogs grunted, and the calves lowed in funeral cadence, like a legion of discontented spirits." -P. 21. Even here we have a slight touch of our author's propensity to wander after irrelevant matters: the pigs seem, as it were, continually pressing forward to take the most conspicuous place on the canvass : this is not the only passage in the book where the same thing occurs-the mysteries of pig-driving are dwelt upon with great unction, whenever an opportunity presents itself for dragging in an allusion to that fascinating subject. And why? -because Sir Francis, in his "Bubbles," made so palpable a hit in his description of the German Schwein-General! -- The next point is "Southport"one of the watering-places already alluded to, where we have a great deal of information on the important head of donkey-riding; from thence, taking Chester in the way, we progress to Northwich and its salt-mines, (of a descent into which a long description is given)—and thence to Manchester. Lancashire is then finished off with a visit to a pin-manufactory at Warrington, and a glass-house at St. Helen's; and we reach the West Riding of Yorkshire, through some lengthy chapters devoted to a dissertation on the comparative merits of the various caverns at Buxton and Matlock. The staple manufacture of the West Riding is, at any rate, more fortunate than that of Lancashire: Halifax, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and Leeds, are successively visited, and divers processes of the woollen-manufacture, almost of necessity, described: that of the " rag-grinding Dewsbury, by which the foulest and rottenest of garments are, by the magic of machinery, made again as good as new, is, in particular, amusingly detailed. At Leeds our author keeps more than at usually close to his tether, and, notwithstanding he is in the very heart of a manufacturing district, confines himself almost entirely to manufacturing subjects. Just before, however, be it remembered, he has indulged himself with the long digression on Mr. Waterton and Walton Hall. From Leeds we are whisked off, per railway, through Selby, to the newly. risen town of Goole, which, although now of considerable importance as a seaport, is, as yet, scarcely noticed in the maps. Sir George's description of it is abundantly meagre, nor is he much improved by reaching Hull. He seems more at home in the agricultural district of Holderness, where he "wanders at his own sweet will" for no inconsiderable space. Scarborough, Whitby, and Stockton, next attract attention, and to the latter succeeds an account of Middleborough, another town in the north, which, like Goole, has attained only within a very few years to a local habitation and a name! In this part we have some interesting particulars of the bridge by which the railway crosses the Tees: "The mouth of the river Tees is, at the present time, an interesting point on the eastern coast; that by which the coal monopoly has been principally wrested from the Tyne and Wear; the channel whence coalfields, which, but for the discoveries and improvements of modern times, would have remained undisturbed these fifty years to come, have been compelled to disembogue their produce for the London market. "These local operations have chiefly been effected by the people called Quakers, to whom the town of Middleborough especially owes its birth. 'The Quakers' Railroad,' as it is termed, upon the north bank of the Tees, extends from their coal-field near Darlington as far as Stockton, where it crosses the river by a suspension bridge, and proceeds four miles farther along the southern shore straight to Middleborough. 'Clarence Railway' reaches from the neighbourhood of Durham to a point on the north bank of the Tees, somewhat lower down the river than the former: hence the proprietors, though not with the energy of the other establishment, are now making shipments. The "The following anecdote relating to the suspension-bridge across the Tees, before mentioned, forms a part of its early history: "The number of coal-waggons which now pass over it, linked together, is almost indefinite; at all events, the trains cover the whole surface of the platform and ground on both banks of the river besides. When the bridge was completed on the suspension principle, it was found, by previous experiment, not to be strong enough even for twenty waggons, the number then stipulated for. The first trial was made with sixteen, on which the bridge gave way; that is to say, as the sixteen carriages advanced upon the platform, the latter, yielding at first to their weight, became elevated in the middle, so as by degrees to form an apex, which was no sooner surmounted by half the number, than the couplings broke asunder, and eight carriages rolled one way, and eight another, -the one set onwards on their way, and the other back again. In consequence of this misadventure, the construction was necessarily altered, the platform remaining suspended, as before, but being fortified underneath by four starlings, upon which it is supported. By the latter operation the stress on the chains was so effectually relieved, that the platform now assumes a convex appear ance. 66 By pacing the platform, I found it to be one hundred and four yards in length: it swings on twelve chains, six on one side and six on the other; the circumference of the links of the chains is six inches and a quarter; the number of perpendicular rods, of three inches and five-eighths circumference, are one hundred and ten,-fifty-five on one side, and fifty-five on the other. As the trains of coal-waggons crossed, the whole space appeared to be covered by about five and twenty; the whole train being longer considerably than the bridge. "A train of coal-waggons, touching close together, and motionless on a railway, occupy about ten feet of space each waggon; moving, and at the extent of their couplings, considerably more; the weight of an empty coal-waggon is from 26 to 30 cwt.-the load 53 cwt., or a Newcastle chaldron,-the weight of the engine eight tons; consequently, the weight laid on the bridge at present is more than an hundred tons."-P. 29. From Middleborough, the Tourist proceeds still further north to Sunderland and Newcastle, taking it for granted, as he goes, that the miner and the mariner are as decidedly members of the manu facturing classes as the weaver and the blacksmith. He then crosses to the western coast, and, apropos of nothing, makes that sudden appearance at Greenock of which we have heretofore spoken. The "marriage-manufactory at Gretnagreen comes in for a visit, as do (mirabile dictu) the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland-the very antipodes of any thing in the shape of a "manufacturing J district." Finally, after a notice of the harbour of Whitehaven, and the temperance society of Preston, this "strange, eventful history" concludes by leaving its author in the midst of the "fells" at Ulverstone, after crossing the shifting sands of Moreambe Bay; strange con. clusion to as strange a volume. The reader who is conversant with British topography, will have observed, from this enumeration of the places visited, alone, that the Tourist, after leaving the West Riding of Yorkshire, has been travelling away from the "districts" which may be strictly called "manufacturing," and that, at the conclusion, after a long sojourn in the most pastoral district in England, he is again approaching the seat of our grandest branch of industry, and precisely that part of it, into the bargain, which is omitted in the earlier portion of the book; to wit, Lancashire, to the northward of Liverpool and Manchester. It was worthy of so eccentric an individual as our author, to seize on that very moment to close his labours, and so give an appropriate finish to a work, one half of whose pages are in direct contradiction to the promise of the title-page. Having already given samples of Sir George's talent for description and digression, we shall wind up with a specimen of his eloquence. It occurs in the course of the account of his stay at Leeds :- "There can be no spectacle more grateful to the heart of an Englishman, than viewing the interior of a manufactory of machinery, to observe the features of each hard-working mechanic, blackened by smoke, yet radiant with the light of intelligence,-to contrast with his humble station the lines of fervid thought that mark his countenance and direct his sinewy arm,-and to reflect that to such combination of the powers of mind and body, England owes her present state of commercial greatness. It is no less pleasing to consider, that although particular classes of men have suffered by the substitution of machinery for manual labour, such evils arise from the mutability of human affairs,-are such as the most zealous philanthropist cannot avert; and, lastly, of themselves insig nificant, compared with the general demand for labour throughout the country, which has not only kept pace with the improvement of machinery, but no doubt might be shown even to have exceeded it;-nay, it might be made manifest, that not only is the grand total of operatives employed throughout the manufacturing districts augmented, but additional employment afforded in like proportion for mechanics to supply the wear and tear of machinery, and buildings dependent thereupon, as well as for workmen upon all works to be traced to a similar cause, such as railroads, bridges, viaducts, aqueducts, &c."-P. 184. REPLY TO A Sir, From causes I need not here explain, I did not see any of the Numbers of the Mechanics' Magazine till Thursday last, when I was surprised to find an article headed "A Voice from the Shopboard," the object of which is to depreciate the tailors' work-table appearing in Number 694. THE VOICE FROM THE I leave to your correspondent the physiological discussion of the subject, as I propose nothing more than sitting on a stool in an ordinary manner, merely observing that the articulation of the shoulder joint is equally "favourable" to playing the violin upon the back of the neck. Your correspondent says, it is not sitting cross-legged, but sitting too close together, which is the source of disease; and yet, a little while after, he urges, as an objection to the table, that it removes the workmen farther apart! He finds fault with the sewing appendage; but how any one can say that that which can be placed in any position suited to the eye is not within its reach, or that that should be farther out of a man's controul which is not so wide (as is the case with the pressing supports, they being not so wide, when extended, as the knees, and, therefore, more within the power of the workman),* I am at a loss to know! Any ordinary mechanic would have informed your correspondent that a great number could be so arranged as to occupy considerably less room for each, than if every table were constructed singly; a frame-work of four inches between the peripheries of the inner circle, being, I believe, sufficient to support the revolving boards. Any person placing a number of pence in the smallest space, upon a level plane, The knees, when extended, of a 5 foot 8 man measure more than 20 inches, the cushions extend only 18 inches. The drawing, which is isometrical, represents one square yard. will have a correct idea of the manner of arrangement for hundreds if required allowing about one-seventh or oneeighth of each piece for the frame-work between. Amongst the strange argu ments in favour of the present mode, your correspondent says, that sitting! cross-legged produces straight forms, and sitting in the way I propose would be fatiguing and tiresome to the limbs. This is too bad; do surgeons recommend the posture used in the trade to cure distortions? or do painters and sculptors, seek their living models among the fra ternity of tailors? or does any one entering a public-house, frequented by tailors, expect to find them seated cross leg ged upon the tables to avoid fatigue of the limbs ? The circumstances which led to the design of the table are these:-a person," who from illness, occasioned by sitting in the posture tailors usually do, was compelled to relinquish it, but not being able to change his trade, I proposed his sitting upon a stool to a board just high enough for the thigh to pass under; upon this board was placed a common square stool, stuffed with horse-hair, aud covered with carpet (previously used as a footstool) five inches high, and one foot square, on which was placed a bundle of pieces of cloth bound together, as piecebrokers usually bind them. Upon the bundle he has sewn, and on the stool he has pressed, for the last two years, executing his work with great neatness and dispatch, and losing nothing by the exchange, but the uneasy sensations occasioned by his previous method, and gaining much in manual force, when pressing. The work table is but an improvemeut of this contrivance, substituting two moveable blocks, with cushions, for the stool, and the centre cushion, with plug and screw, in lieu of the bundle of cloth; the circular board was adopted for suiting light, a great number, and to prevent the work from hanging more than it does in the usual mode. I am prepared to prove its perfect adaptation to its intended use, and should be willing to communicate with any person for practical purposes; but I think I have sufficiently answered the objections of the "Voice from the Shopboard." MR. SIEVIER'S PATENT CAOUTCHOUC Sir,-In consequence of a letter which appeared in your valuable journal respecting Mr. Sievier's "patent rope," and the strictures thereon by your correspondent Many-points, I was induced to procure a piece of the said rope from the Company's establishment at Tottenham, prepared and manufactured according to the directions given in the specification by the patentee; it measured 4 feet 6 inches long, and was ths of an inch in diameter, composed of 12 strands, each strand had a slip of India-rubber in its centre. This was placed in the garden in a northerly aspect, and allowed to remain exposed for two nights and days to a frosty atmosphere, uncovered, the thermometer being at the time at 29o. When removed early on the third morning from its Siberian situation, it was found to be pliable and elastic, and its length was the same. A similar piece was immersed in a butt of cold water, and allowed to remain for ten days; at the expiration of the above time it was removed, and its elasticity, pliability, strength, and length, were found to be the same as when first put into the water. Caoutchouc, or Indiarubber, by itself becomes very hard when exposed to the atmospheric air, or when immersed in cold water for any time; but this change does not take place when it is interlaced or combined in any way with good hempen thread-the rigidity is prevented, its elasticity is preserved, and its pliability remains. Perhaps Many-points was not aware of this fact. Hoping the above brief statement of facts will satisfy Many-points, as well as your numerous readers, I am, Mr. Editor, After carefully repeating this experiment a great number of times, I believe it to be a law that always obtains, when the water is not acting under pressure ;how far the same rule then applies, I am not prepared to say, although this certainly appears to be the most important part of the question, and that from which most practical usefulness may be expected to result. He Your correspondent D (p. 495), cannot understand, but that the steam generated by the contact of the water with the heated metal must pass through the globule. I think, if he will perform the experiment (a plate of hot iron will do very well for the purpose) he will no longer be in any difficulty about the matter. will find the steam generated under, and escaping round, the globule of water, imparting to it that rotary and jumping motion, which always takes place when the temperature of the metal is greatly raised, If the heat of the iron does not much exceed 212o, the water spreads upon and wets its surface, from which it is rapidly evaporated; but when very hot, the water is repelled from the surface as though the iron was greasy, and small globules are formed as before described. Perhaps the stratum of heated air rising from the metal has something to do with the repulsion. I remain, Sir, LIST OF ENGLISH PATENTS, GRANTED BETWEEN THE 25TH OF FEBRUARY AND 27TH OF MARCH, 1837. John Robinson, of North Shields, engineer, for a nipping lever for causing the rotation of wheels, shafts, or cylinders under certain circumstances. Feb. 28; six months to specify. David Stevenson, of Bath-place, New-road, gentleman, for a new method of preparing writingpaper, from which writing-ink cannot be expunged or abstracted without detection; being partly a communication from a foreigner residing abroad. March 2; six months. Thomas Bradshaw Whitfield, of New-streetsquare, Middlesex, lamp-manufacturer, for improvements in producing parallel motion to the piston-rods of pumps for lamps (?) and other purposes; which improvements are also applicable to machinery in general, where parallel motion is required. March 4; six months. Samuel Stocker, of Bristol, gentleman, for improvements in pumps. March 4; six months. Charles Francois Edward Aulas, of No. 38, Grande Rue Verte, Paris, in the Kingdom of France, gentleman, but now of Cockspur-street, in |