The author then goes on to describe the nature of alumina, which, it appears, is a substance that does not commonly occur in any pure form, as silica does in quartz, but which enters into the composition of many minerals, and gives them the property of forming clay and mud, by much the same natural processes that have been described as taking place in the production of sand. As this is a branch of the subject, however, upon which we have not now space to enter, we pass over the writer's observations on this topic, and come to some of the other agencies which are mentioned as being incessantly engaged in the work of grinding down the solid rocks and gradually triturating them into sand or mud. Foremost among these, for the universality of its action, if not for its violence or power, is rain.

asunder, just as in a cold winter's night the jugs and water-bottles are apt to be burst by the frost in our bedrooms.

"Of all agencies, however, the most efficient in the destruction and degradation of rock, because it is both locally powerful and very widely diffused, is the action of the sea-breakers. In all climes, in all latitudes, along all shores of all seas and oceans, this action is ceaselessly at work, day and night, summer and winter, gently and imperceptibly even in calms, furiously and vigorously in storms, gradually but steadily in moderate weather, wave after wave is launched from the sea against the land, eating and tearing it away. No one can have visited the soft cliffy shores of the east and south of England, without having been almost an eyewitness of this action. It is nowhere, perhaps, better displayed than on the coast of Yorkshire, near Scarborough. I well remember many years ago being struck, when attempting to walk under the cliffs from Scarborough to Filey Bay, with the enormous slices or square pilasters of cliff that, having been undermined by the action of the breakers at high water, had fallen forward headlong into the sea, the empty space they had once filled in the precipice above showing its still freshlyexposed and jagged surface, gaping from the wound. Any one, it may be added, who has visited the southern side of the Isle of Wight, or rambled along the eastern coast, will be familiar with other illustrations of the encroaching power of the sea. The disappearance of the ancient city of Dunwich, with its numerous churches, is matter of notoriety;

"There is not a shower of rain that falls, whether on the crowded street, the dusty road, the plains, the hills, or the mountain summits, that does not cause a multitude of rills and streams of muddy water to flow from higher to lower levels. The mud borne along by that water was once part of a solid rock. Even if it be but the waste of the bricks and tiles of our houses, this is still true; and it is equally true for every other case, except for those particles of it that may be the result of the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter. Even the gentlest rain that soaks silently into the most richly-carpeted meadow of grass, contributes to the stock of water contained below ground, which here and there bursts forth in springs, carrying momently some grain of mineral matter to the brook, the river, and the ocean. Who has not seen "But if we leave these soft and easily-destroyed the springs discoloured after heavy rain? Who rocks, and come to the hard and rugged promonhas not watched in wet weather the swollen brook tories of the west of England, of Wales, of Ireland, or the roaring mountain-torrent, with its thick, or of Scotland, we still have evidently signs of the muddy, coffee-coloured water? Whoever has seen same action. Let any one, however, traverse any these things, has seen one of the multitudinous of these coasts when a wild western gale is stirring actions of nature, which are for ever and every-up the Atlantic from afar off, heaving its waters where in operation, performing slowly, and in the lapse of ages, mighty works by means apparently inadequate, and at first sight perhaps not especially adapted to the purpose.

"There are, however, other agencies at workagencies acting with greater local power than mere rain, in wearing away solid rocks and transporting the waste to other localities. We have alluded to the action of brooks and rivers; but if we were to trace them more minutely and in detail, and follow them up to where they acquire a swifter stream, or where rapids and cataracts occur in them, we should estimate still more highly their destructive power on solid rock. Rivers are, in fact, great natural saws or planes, for ever grooving furrows in the land. Let any one look at the bed of a mountain torrent, where it has cut a deep ravine through hard rock, and he will see the amount of its force perpetually acting. . . .

66

Again, on mountain-tops, or in high latitudes even on lower ground, frost is another great agent of disintegration. Any one who ascends the mountains of our own islands for the first time, will often be surprised at the multitude of angular fragments and fallen blocks he sees scattered over their summits, or piled at the foot of their precipices. Of these, many, if not most, have been detached by the action of frost, causing the water contained in the joints and crevices to expand and rend them

into huge mountainous ridges, crested with foam. ing breakers, and bringing them up rank after rank to fall madly on the land, dashing the white spray high over cliff and headland, and making even the solid rocks on which he stands to shake and quiver with the blows. He will then have no difficulty in understanding the reason of the broken and indented coast, of the jagged cliffs, of the pinnacles of rock jutting out here and there, and of the projecting lines of reef showing often like black knobs far out among the foam of the breakers. He will see that wherever there is a bay or indentation, the rock was originally softer, or the land was lower, than ordinary; wherever there is a promontory, the rock was harder, or was so placed as to be able better to withstand the waves; wher ever there is a projecting reef or line of rocky islets stretching out to the sea, there the rock was of the hardest and most unyielding character. What is this but to say that the sea has worn all these indentations, has eaten away the sides of the promon tory, has destroyed the land that once covered and protected the reef, or that once connected the line of islets with the main, and that it would have destroyed them also, had they not in some degree resisted its power, standing up as yet to mark the amount of destruction that has taken place around them, but ultimately themselves to disappear be neath the waves like their brethren before them ?”

To the mind of the artist" in populous city pent," this description is not a whit less applicable than to him who, accustomed to rove at will "by meadow, grove, and stream," might be apt to appropriate the praises of the poet exclusively to the subjects he loves best to contemplate. We are not sure that the city, after all, does not gain more in picturesque beauty by the descending twilight than the choicest landscape can do. That grey curtain which closes in the wide panorama of the country, and robs it of its charm of infinity, adds that very charm to the town, by concealing its narrower limits, and clothing with a veil of vague and mystic unsubstantiality its loftiest structures. We are aware that this notion will be accounted by poets, and painters too, as decidedly erroneous; but still it is one, we will venture to say, which has often crossed the brain of the casual lounger among the half-deserted haunts of his busy brethren, at that dim hour when the solid masses of granite in the gloom of which he wanders appear to fade away into shadowy forms, and mingle their viewless outlines with the dusky harbinger of night.

But we must not indulge in speculations, artistic or æsthetic. We are far from twilight as yet, and have many things to notice before London puts on that peculiar and pensive phase which she always assumes as the shadows of evening gather over her countless towers and spires-her moiling and everrestless population.

ment, with doors wide open, present a bewildering
choice of recreation or excitement; for others, the
library or the lecture-room has superior attrac
tions; and for all, the free air of the suburbs, and
the outlying country, present the healthful oppor
tunity for exercise and change of scene. Family
men now, as a general rule, return to the bosom
of home, and in the society of wife and children-
it may be in a patch of garden-ground twenty feet
square, ornamented with half-a-dozen flower roots,
a water-butt, dust-box, and central bush of laurel,
or it may be in a family procession to the nearest
park or trespassable field-spend the quiet hours in
the relish of domestic enjoyment. Now the nume
rous tea-gardens that fringe the dusty metropolis
on every side, are boiling their huge kettles, and
are heard to be exceedingly talkative through the
screen of pitchy railings and stunted bushes which
protects them from the intrusive gaze
of passers-
by. Now, as we pass the door of some rural inn,
the sound of tremendous and barbaric blows assails
the ear, followed immediately by a dismal rum-
bling, which to a nervous poet might suggest a
distant earthquake or a far-off battle-field, but
which to that bricklayer's labourer advancing says

Skittles," as plain as it can speak. Now the school-boys are out for their evening games, and rejoicing in the soundness of their lungs and the fleetness of their legs; and the prattle of infant children, and the thumping of toy-drums, and the inarticulate appeals of penny whistles, and the involuntary crowings of babies in arms, are heard in back gardens; and nursing mothers are in their glory, while the little fat-faced, bare-legged youngsters tumble about, and papa in his dressing-gown looks on, and forgets that stocks fell three-eighths since eleven o'clock this morning, and he bought in yesterday.

Long before the summer sun sinks to a level with the horizon, what the great heart of this mercantile Babylon has that day determined to do, is done and ended, and in its deepest and widest channels the grand current of commerce has ceased, to flow. With all the gigantic activity that characterizes London's commercial exploits, there is combined an unmistakable appreciation of gentle- As the evening advances, the dense hosts of manly ease and leisure. Her merchant princes labour begin to pour forth from unnumbered workenjoy their state like princes, in spite of their toil, shops, warehouses, and factories. Multitudes, worn and they fly from the arena of business to the re- and weary with the exactions of the day, hasten to treat of home when the first cool breath of even-throw themselves on their pallets to recruit strength ing sweeps refreshingly through the sweltering streets. The banks are all closed-counting houses are empty-the Exchange is a desert-and the Titans of wholesale traffic have abandoned the markets, and left it to the rule of the shopkeepers, by the time the Post-office, at the sound of the last stroke of six, has barred up its letter-boxes. Here and there a few anxions speculators may linger in their dens, calculating probabilities, and waiting for the departure of the last mail ere they despatch their orders or resolve upon their sales and purchases; but these are only the exceptions that prove the rule. Those who rank as the aristocracy of London's commerce, for the most part wind up their commercial day with the hour of dinner, and set themselves and their humbler coadjutors free to enjoy the pleasures of the evening as they list.

Then it is that the army of clerks is disbanded, filing off in whole brigades from Lombard-street and the courts adjacent-emerging from countless avenues in the vicinity of the Bank, the Exchange, and Threadneedle-street, and starting off at a tangent in cab or omnibus, or slowly sauntering off on foot to indulge in the rest or recreation of the hour. For some, a thousand places of amuse

for the morrow; multitudes rush to the reeking purlieus of the tavern, longing for the beggarly delights of intoxication; and multitudes more roam abroad in search of such recreation as may chance to come within their reach. A tide of the population of our industrial establishments sets in towards the parks, where a thousand different groups may be seen squatted or supine on the grass, gazing, it may be, up into the sky, where one or two or perhaps half-a-dozen balloons, freighted with adventurers for whom the common earth has not perils enough, are voyaging slowly in the breezeless upper air or watching the children chasing their long shadows on the close-cropped sward, or feeding the fowls in the pond, or sending up paper messengers to the kite steadied far aloft. Crowds of released artisans rush to the river, and on the decks of steamers run down to Greenwich for a stroll beneath the chestnut-trees, or a ramble on Blackheath; or up the river to Chelsea, and Vauxhall, and Battersea, and Putney. The wher ries are out in swarms upon the Thames, and amateur rowing-matches are coming off amid the cheers and outcries of backers on shore and afloat. The angling tribe, mustering their maggots and fishing. rods, are off to the New River, or the Surrey Canal,

"

or the Docks, or the Grand Junction, where, not- |
withstanding they have been at work since seven
in the morning, and must begin again at seven to-
morrow, they will sit, with marvellous patience,
watching the bobbing float till long after the stars
wink out at them, dreaming of a bite. Whole
battalions mount in double rows on the backs of
omnibuses, bound for Highgate or Hampstead, to
enjoy an hour's ramble on hill or heath. From
Hyde Park in the west to Victoria Park in the
east all the verdant spots and gardens which con-
stitute the lungs of London are dotted over with
her inhabitants of all ages and grades, come forth
to breathe the air of heaven and look the welcome
sky in the face. The fields and meadows of the
debatable land where the grass is invaded by end-
less regiments of unburnt brick, and where green
lanes are gradually undergoing a transformation
into brick streets, are alive with human shapes;
and throughout the hundred miles of thoroughfare
that lead in different radii from the centre to the
suburbs of the metropolis, the publicans' hives are
swarming with thirsty bees flocking thither, not to
store up honey, but to waste it. Notwithstanding
all this, and ten times more, every street, court,
and back-lying lane, is populous with life and
crowded with animate forms. What is the reason?
It is the hour when industrial London is out of
doors when the toil of the day is supposed to be
over, and, for the major part of the toilers, the only
season of recreation is to be enjoyed.

But there is a numerous tribe whose labours are never done, or are not subject to the laws which regulate the business world, and whose traffic thrives best when the streets are fullest. They cannot afford to take a holiday: too many holidays are thrust upon them; and when the public are abroad, and that portion of the public in particular who are their special patrons, they must be up and doing, or suffer the consequences of idleness. The industrial hordes who labour for their daily bread are themselves, in their turn, the patrons and pay. masters of another distinct and nomadic horde, who hang upon their skirts wherever they are to be found, and, like the lowest orders of the animal creation, derive support and nutriment from sources which, by the unreflecting, are often ignorantly despised and undervalued. Let us wander this fine evening through a furlong or two of that long route which, like the Boulevards of Paris, girdles the metropolis on its northern and eastern sides, and glance for a brief space at a few of these peripatetic professors-these commercial Bedouins, who peacefully waylay the monster caravan that nightly files off along this well-known track in the desert of London.

If, leaving Finsbury-square, we walk towards the Angel, we shall not proceed far without meeting with a specimen. Here is one already-a weather-worn man, seated on a high stool in front of a slender and ricketty framework supporting a whole gamut of little bells. Having a row of wooden keys under his feet, which act upon hammers that strike the bells, and a fiddle under his chin, he contrives to scrape and jingle out "Auld Lang Syne," or " Home, sweet Home," with an effect not too nearly approaching to the harmonious. His audience are not disposed to be hypercritical; the spectacle pleases them in all probability more

than the music, which is of a rather doubtful quality; but Englishmen love to see a man doing a good deal, and the industrious fellow, who is wriggling from his fingers' ends to his toes, and only sits because his is a profession at which nobody could stand, receives his modest reward of coppers, as a despot receives homage, on his self-erected throne. Here is another specimen-a prodigiously loud-voiced stentor, standing erect as yon wooden Highlander at the snuff-shop, but, unlike him, giving forth utterances distinguishable above the roar of the omnibus wheels and the hum of the crowd at a hundred yards distance. He has always a goodly company around him at this hour of the day, if the weather is at all favourable, being an outspoken fellow, and a bit of a wag to boot. He carries a broad tray in front of him, suspended from his shoulders, and resting against his stomach, which is never troubled with indigestion. Upon his tray are piled a curious heap of knicknacks, useful and amusing, manufactured by his own hands, from tin, and iron, and brass wire. Hear him as he dilates upon the marvels of a puzzling toy which he holds in his hand, and which is nothing more nor less than a miniature set of the apparatus known in many parts of England as the tiring-irons," and occasionally drawn forth from the tower of the church, when, upon any fair-day or festival, some brawny blacksmith, bold enough to attempt the solution of their mystery, makes application to the sexton for the purpose. "Here you are, gentlemen," says he (and our readers will forgive us if, in order to hold the mirror up to life, we use homely phraseology)-" here you are! This is the comfoozlem, so called because it was invented by the celebrated Chinese feelosover Confuse-us, and certainly it does confuse most folks; you must feel it over a good many times, I can tell'ee, afore you finds out the trick of it; but it's easy enough when you know it, till you forgit again, and then it's amusement for another week to find it out. It's only tuppens-good hard brain-work for a fortnight, and all for tuppens. This is how you do it" (speaking very rapidly, and as rapidly performing the exploit): "the first ring don't conie off first, but the second, you see, then the first drops, you see, then the second goes on again, then the third comes off, you see, then the second drops, then the third goes on again, then the fourth comes off, then the third drops, you see, then the fourth goes on again, then the fifth," etc., etc. In half a minute the rings are all off, and in a minute more on again, all done with a rapidity of manipulation which it is impossible to follow with the eye. "One for you, sir? Yes, sir-thank'ee.-Two for you? Oh, threean even sixpence-thank'ee sir; I wish you may find it out, sir, before you go to sleep. Who wants a save-all? save-alls a penny a piece! Why they calls 'em save-alls, never could think, though I've made thousands on 'em. If you wants to save your candle-ends, don't have nothin' to do with this contrivance, it burns 'em all up till there's none left. Did you ask what this is, sir ?-them's candle-springs. I never could abear to see the old voman a roppin' bits o' paper round the candles to make 'em fit the candlesticks, so I invented this here article to keep 'em tight-a penny a pair, str; thank'ee, sir. That, sir? that's a mouse-trap; you wouldn't think it, would you? no more would a

mouse-there's the beauty on it-a penny; thank'ee, sir." In this manner, pausing now and then to fetch breath, and to re-arrange the condition of his tray, and to pile up the halfpence of which he makes a grand show in one corner, this clever and confident genius amuses the mob, and makes his own market. He sells vast numbers of his puzzling toy, but it is hardly one purchaser in a thousand who succeeds in penetrating the mystery of its construction so as to perform the difficult feat which to him, from long practice, is as easy as drawing on a glove.

they make the dark lanes and back streets of the smoky city vocal with their cheerful music.

Here we are at the establishment of our old friend Penny Peter, with his broad platform of a hand-cart, heaped with his collection of multitudinous wares, all at a penny a-piece. Peter has been on a journey to Somers Town and Pentonville all the morning and afternoon, tempting the servantmaids and children with his unaccountable bargains; and just as evening was drawing on, he pushed his ample equipage (not unlike the floor of a small room mounted on wheels) down the Cityroad to meet the current which experience tells

Not far from the friend of Confucius stands a man who boasts, in a confidential and half-myste-him sets in northerly towards the close of the rious voice, the possession of three important secrets, which no consideration should induce him to reveal to the world, but the benefits of which, at the small charge of one penny each, he is ready, here and now, to confer upon mankind in general, and womankind in particular. The first of these secrets is embodied in certain small cakes of a greycoloured composition, by the proper use of which grease of all kinds is summarily eradicated from linen, woollen, and silken fabrics, with the utmost ease and certainty. Making a sudden dash with his left hand, and seizing a boy with a greasy collar, and dragging him forward to the proof, he applies his nostrum, and giving it a few rubs with an old tooth-brush dipped in water, the grease instantly disappears, and its place shows like a patch of new cloth upon an old garment. The second secret is a wonderful cement which joins broken china or glass in a most marvellously effectual manner; and the third, which only by a stretch of imagination can be supposed useful to ladies, is a composition for the sharpening of razors, in proof of whose efficiency he makes trial of it upon an old blade, triumphantly severing with it a single hair, held between his finger and thumb. He chatters volubly all the while, and performs a variety of experiments with each of his talismanic properties-selling and delivering his goods, and giving change if necessary, without the slightest pause in the torrent of his elocution.

A few steps further, and we are confronted by Fowler Jack, with a large cage, in compartments, filled with young birds, among which we observe with concern our old confident acquaintance, the red-breast, whom of late years it has been a fashion with Londoners to immure in a cage for the sake of his charming though simple song. In rural districts the cock-robin used to be safe from the snares of the fowler and the gun of the juvenile sportsman; and twenty times when he has been caught in the clap-nets have we seen him restored to liberty, as a thing of course, by Hodge, who would have accounted it a crime to injure him. But the London fowler knows nothing about this, or, if he does, regards it as an ignorant superstition, and turns a penny, if he can, by anything and everything that comes into his net. His best customers are the working men, an immense proportion of whom keep birds, and are not bad judges in matters ornithological. Jack's colony of blackbirds, thrushes, larks, linnets and finches, golden, bull, and other, have each hardly room to turn round in their narrow habitations; but being sold cheap, they soon get released into larger premises, and if they chance to survive a London seasoning,

labouring day. What does not Peter sell for a penny? It is hard to say-and what he does sell were long to tell. There is a box of toys, a box of nine-pins, a box of trenchers, a box of wafers, and a box of boxes. There is a card of steel pens, a serviceable slate, a half-a-quire of paper, and a bottle of ink. There are cups and saucers and drinking-mugs, presents for Mary and Susan, and Emma and Sarah, and Jane and Bessy, and Willy and Charley, and all the names in the register. There are plates, and dishes, and drinking-glasses, and mirrors, and mousetraps, and memorandumbooks, and fifty other things besides, and “all, gentlemen, for a penny each," though how they could ever be manufactured at the cost of even double the money is a mystery that has often puzzled us, and is likely to puzzle us longer. Penny Peter is a man of few words; his merchandise speaks for itself; a dignified wave of the hand in semicircular sweep over the surface of his tra velling stage, and the occasional ejaculation of "One penny each, gentlemen," is all the demonstration he condescends to make. He is a great man in the eyes of small nursery-girls and very little children, and no small proportion of his stock is destined to undergo the process of dissection by infant fingers, for the gratification of infant curi osity. His museum is a great treat to the working-man's child; and in working-men's pockets, at the present moment, some dozens of his most substantial merchandise are on the way to the domestic hearth.

Close by Penny Peter, where she is always sure of an audience, and upon whom perhaps she relies for protection in case of need, stands a pale-faced girl of ten years of age, playing with remarkable skill," considerin'," as her admirers say, upon the violin. She is well versed in the popular airs of the day, and bows them out with a good round tone, tapping the strings with her flying fingers with all the precision and confidence of a professor. A little brother of six or seven carries round a small wicker tray among the listeners, putting the halfpence in his sister's pocket as fast as he receives them. It is rumoured, with what truth we know not, that the fiddling girl of ten is the sole support of three younger children left parentless, who, but for her exertions and extraordinary talent, would be consigned to the care of the parish.

Then we come upon a travelling picture-gallery, with above five hundred specimens all jumbled pell-mell in the cavity of an inverted umbrella, and all offered for sale at a farthing each. Among them are a numerous body of divines lying quietly