300 feet to the Home Park. The stabling and coach-house department occupies three large quadrangles, divided from each other by high stone walls.

Accommodation is afforded, in the aggregate, for 102 horses, (exclusive of 13 loose boxes,) and 36 carriages.

The apartments in each quadrangle have water laid on, and are very complete in their appurtenances. The coach-houses are warmed by hot air; and an apparatus for heating water and warming is situated in the basement of each quadrangle.

The width of each stable, from the back of the manger to the opposite stall, is 22 feet. The Stables are admirably ventilated through an aperture leading to the roof, and are lit at night by gas. The flooring is of Dutch clinkers; in the centre of each stall are iron gratings, communicating with cross drains, which run into the heel drains, under the clinker flooring; and through these, by turning a tap, a strong course of water is forced, to clear every accumulation away from the under-drains into the common sewer to the river. The partitions of the stalls are of massive oak, highly polished. The fronts of the manger, and the walls at their backs, are of slate. The front upper edges of the manger consist of a revolving cast-iron roller, which will prevent crib-biting.

The new riding-school divides the upper or northern quadrangle from the centre one, and is 170 feet long, 52 feet wide, and nearly 40 feet high; and it may be lit by three splendid gas chandeliers: above are 30 dormitories.

The cost of the entire building has been brought within the amount of the Parliamentary grant of £70,000.

NEW MARINE INSTRUMENTS.*

SATISFACTORY experiments have been made on board the Lightning steam-vessel, with Mr. Clement's Sillometer, and Marine and Steam Thermometers. The experiments commenced a short distance below Gravesend, and after a run of about 24 hours, Massey's log, with which the sillometer was compared, showed the distance run to be 15 1-10 miles-the sillometer exactly 15 miles. An experiment was made by altering the course of the vessel several miles, and the sillometer indicated that during the operation the speed had decreased from 8 to 7 miles per hour. On the passage outward, the steam was let off, to ascertain the effect on the sillometer, which indicated a gradual reduction of speed from 8 to 4 miles per hour; and on the vessel resuming full speed, it indicated the actual progress of 8 miles per hour.

Experiments were also made by moving the whole of the vessel's company and guns backward and forward, and turning her in various ways, when the sillometer, by its dials on the deck, appeared to indicate the number of miles sailed exactly as denoted by the common log.

One important advantage of this invention is a whole fleet might start from a given point, and sail during the darkest night, or through

* Described in the Year-Book of Facts, 1842, p. 41.

the thickest fog, and be certain of being near each other at any given time, by agreeing to a certain speed of sailing, and uniform course by the compasses.

The experiments with the Marine Thermometer are stated to have indicated, with great precision, the depth of the water over which the vessel sailed, both in the open sea and on the Medway, where the trials were made. The Steam Thermometer appears to have indicated very satisfactorily the temperature of the steam as it was used, and the least variation-thus rendering it peculiarly applicable and valuable to vessels fitted with high-pressure engines.-Times, October 22.

LOGAN ROCK REPLACED.

THIS great" lion of the west," after being kept for the last several years, by means of chains and props, from falling off the rock on which it stood, is once more brought back to its former position. It appears that it had been gradually wearing away the part on which it stood, until it had become a foot distant from its own basis. By the ingenious adaptation of four screws, however, invented by James Tregurtha and J. Hutchens, of the village of Treene, they succeeded in forcing back the rock to its original place, and it may now be moved with greater facility than before, and with equal safety.-Cornwall Gazette.

THE CHINESE COLLECTION.

THIS vast assemblage of "Ten Thousand Chinese Things" is exhibited in St. George's Place, Hyde Park Corner. It has been formed by Mr. Dunn, an American gentleman, during a residence of eleven years in China, and has been exhibited to many admiring thousands in Philadelphia; and "to the unique character of the Collection, i. e. as a whole, we are anxious to point the reader's attention, presenting, as it does, a perfect picture of the genius, government, history, literature, agriculture, arts, trades, manners, customs, and social life, of the people of the Celestial Empire.'

The main feature of the Exhibition is a series of groups of figures, natural size, representing the domestic life of China. Thus, we have a temple of idols, a council of mandarins; and Chinese priests, soldiers, men of letters, ladies of rank, tragedians, barbers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, boatwomen, servants, &c.-in short, from the pavilion of high life, to the shop of the middle classes. These groups are very effective, with the accessories, not of painted scenes, but of actual articles of furniture, &c.

The visitor will be struck with a two-story house, of the same size as seen in the streets of Canton; the lower part being fitted up and stocked as a retail china-shop, and affording a very correct representation of a similar establishment in China. Next is a silk-mercer's shop, as seen in the streets of Canton, completely furnished; this being more lifelike than any thing else in the collection.

The models and drawings of boats are very attractive. Canton, with its 40,000 dwelling-houses, eclipses London and the Thames; and the

dexterity of the Chinese in managing these boats, entitles them to rank as the best fresh-water sailors in the world.

The costumes are sumptuously wrought, and more to be admired for the patterns and richness of the material than their forms. In embroidery, the Chinese are, perhaps, unrivalled; and the elaborate designs on their China-ware prove them to possess considerable knowledge of the powers of combination of forms; their acquaintance with perspective, light, and shade, being another matter. A glass-case filled with shoes, for little and large feet, will excite much curiosity. Various patterns of silks, of most brilliant colours, remind us that the Chinese not only keep the best tea, but the finest-coloured silks, for themselves. But there are specimens of all the domestic arts and manufactures, too numerous for notice here: the Chinese carpenters' tools, by the way, differ from those of our own operatives more in rudeness than in actual form and mode of use; in which respect they resemble those of the Egyptians. The furniture, too, is mostly of graceful form.

The China-ware is very recherché; but is more interesting for its explanation of the uses of certain vessels than for novelty of material or embellishment.

The specimens in natural history are well arranged: the flowers, birds, and insects, are very superb; the shells and minerals of brilliant and many-hued varieties. The modes of cultivating tea, silk, and rice, are pictorially shown.

One of the cases contains, inter alia, a beautiful long tea-service of red lacquered or japanned ware; the fine varnish used as lacquer, distils, like a gum, from a shrub, and more than fifty coats of it are sometimes put on the ware. Another article in this case is especially worthy of notice, as its properties have posed the savans of our country. This is an ancient Metallic Mirror, such as was used in China prior to the introduction of glass. "The back is here presented to the visitor, being ornamented with numerous hieroglyphical figures. The opposite side is highly polished. In many mirrors of this description is a property that has puzzled the wise. Holding the mirror in the hand, by a knob in the centre of the back, and reflecting the rays of the sun from the polished surface, the exact representation of the raised figures on the back of the mirror are distinctly reflected on a wall, or other level surface. The probable solution of this difficulty is, that the figures seen at the back being of a harder metal than the other plain parts, are inserted into the softer metal; and hence the figures produced in the rays of light form the imperceptible union of the two metals to the naked eye. In this way, the union of iron and steel, as in Sheffield cutlery, will explain the enigma familiarly.”—Catalogue.

BOOK-SHELVES.

It has been ascertained that the length of the Book-shelves in the Library of the British Museum, which hold 260,000 volumes, is 42,240 feet, or 8 miles. The length of Shelves in the Library at Munich, containing 500,000 volumes, taking the same proportion, will be 15 miles and 2-5ths. The King's Library in Paris, of 650,000 volumes,

must, by the same calculation, have not less than 20 miles of shelf.John Bull.

YOUNG AND DELCAMBRE'S PRINTERS' COMPOSING-MACHINE.

THIS apparatus is similar in principle to that brought out about a year and a half previously by the same parties, and described in the Year-book of Facts, 1842, p. 22. It has, however, been so simplified and improved in all its details, as to be, in effect, quite a new machine.

(Young and Delcambre's Printers' Composing Machine, Fig. 1.)

The accompanying Engravings represent the machine at work. Fig. 1 is a front view of it; fig. 2 a back view. It much resembles a cottage pianoforte divested of its case; and it has a set of keys, at which the compositor is seated. Of these keys there are as many as there are letters of the alphabet, and varieties of these letters likely to be required, with a due accompaniment of numerals, spaces, doubles, &c. Each key has one particular letter or character engraved upon it. Attached to these keys are an equal number of upright stee' leaves,

AA, which are connected at the top with a series of long brass channels, BB, filled with types, each of the sort corresponding with that marked on the key of the lever in connexion with it. The office of the lever is to abstract from the channel above one type every time it is acted on by the depression of the key; and to check the precipitating tendency of the types, which might interfere

(Young and Delcambre's Printers' Composing Machine, Fig. 2.)

prejudicially with the action of the lever, the channels are placed in a position considerably inclined, and the lever made to act sidewise n detaching the lowest type of the column. Behind the channels, and at right angles with them, there is an inclined plane, C, which has a series of curved grooves cut out in its surface, corresponding and communicating with that of the channels-all leading to one general reservoir, or receiving spout, as it is called, at bottom, D; and all so nicely curved and graduated, in respect to one another, that work as fast as the compositor may, when a type is once liberated from its channel, and dispatched down one of these grooves, it is impossible, (except from some accidental circumstance,) for any subsequently liberated type to reach the goal before it.