Various

“ The motion which is primarily produced in a steam engine is a reciprocating or alternate motion of the piston from end to end of the cylinder; but the motion which is necessary to be produced for the purposes to which the engine is applied, is rarely or never of this nature. This primary motion, therefore, is almost always modified by some machinery interposed between the piston and the object to be moved. ”

“ If it be possible, therefore, alternately to convert water into vapour by heat, and to reconvert the vapour into water by cold, we shall be enabled alternately to submit any surface to a pressure equal to the elastic force of the steam, and to relieve it from that pressure, so as to permit it to move in obedience to any other force which may act upon it. ”

“ The re-conversion of the steam into water requires a constant and abundant supply of cold water, and a fit apparatus for carrying away the water which becomes heated, by cooling the steam, and for supplying its place by a fresh quantity of cold water. It is obvious that such an apparatus is incompatible with great simplicity and lightness, nor can it be applied to cases where the engine is worked under circumstances in which a fresh supply of water cannot be had. ”

“ The female is of admirable beauty. Some are of a blond, others of a brown, colour; I mean by blond the colour of flaxen hair. They have a kind of band, like the bandeau of widows, above the beak, which is of a tan colour. One feather does not pass another over all their body, because they take great care to adjust and polish them with their beak. The feathers which accompany the thighs are rounded into a shell-like form, and, as they are very dense at this place, produce a very agreeable effect. ”

“ During the whole period of incubation, or that they are rearing their young one, which is not capable of providing for itself until after several months, they will not suffer any bird of their own kind to approach within 200 paces of their nest; and what is very singular is, that the male never chases away the females; only, when he perceives one, he makes, in whirling, his ordinary noise, to call his companion, which immediately comes and gives chase to the stranger, and which she does not quit until driven without their limits. ”

“ Though distant forty miles at least from the base of Ararat, the magnitude of the mountain, of about the centre of which our elevated position now placed us abreast, caused it to appear contiguous to our route, and produced that indefinable thrill and sense of humility which the immediate presence of any vast and overpowering object is so eminently calculated to generate. ”

“ THE STEAM ENGINE SIMPLIFIED.
It is a universal property of matter, that by the application of heat, so as to raise its temperature, it suffers an increase in its magnitude. Also in different substances, when certain temperatures are attained by the application of fire, or other methods of heating, they undergo a change of form. Solids, at certain temperatures, are converted into liquids ”

“ In the transition of water from the liquid state to the state of vapour or steam, an immense change of bulk takes place. In this change, a solid inch of water enlarges its size about 1,700 times, and forms 1,700 solid inches of steam. This expansion takes place accompanied with a certain force or pressure, by which the vapour has a tendency to burst the bounds of any vessel which contains it. The steam which fills 1,700 solid inches at the temperature of 212°, will, if cooled below that temperature, return to the liquid form, and occupy only one solid inch, leaving 1,699 solid inches vacant ”

“ He caused it to be put on board a ship bound for Petersburg, but she was unfortunately captured by the Swedes; and the boat is still kept in the arsenal of Stockholm.
With his old acquaintance, Kist, the blacksmith, he visited the smithy, which was so dirty that the gentleman of his suite who attended him was retreating, but Peter stopped him to blow the bellows and heat a piece of iron, which, when so done, he beat out with the great hammer. Kist was still but a journeyman blacksmith, and the Tzar out of compassion for his old acquaintance made him a handsome present. ”

“ The most interesting consideration connected with their disappearance is their being "the only vertebrated animals which we can make certain of having lost since the creation. If we seek to find out what link in the chain of Nature has been broken by the loss of this species, what others have lost their check, and what others necessarily followed the loss of those animals which alone contributed to their support," Mr. Thompson thinks "we may conclude that, the first being seen by the Omniscient Creator, at least no injury will be sustained by the rest of the creation ”

“ The males have generally a greyish or brown plumage, the feet of the turkey-cock, as also the beak, but a little more hooked. They have hardly any tail, and their posterior, covered with feathers, is rounded like the croup of a horse. They stand higher than the turkey-cock, and have a straight neck, a little longer in proportion than it is in that bird when it raises its head. The eye is black and lively, and the head without any crest or tuft. They do not fly, their wings being too short to support the weight of their bodies; they only use them in beating their sides, and in whirling round ”

“ In the canons of a council at London, in 1102, we read—"Let no one from henceforth presume to carry on that wicked traffic, by which men of England have hitherto been sold like brute animals." And Giraldus Cambrensis says that the English, before the conquest, were generally in the habit of selling their children and other relations, to be slaves in Ireland, without having even the pretext of distress or famine, till the Irish, in a national synod, agreed to emancipate all the English slaves in the kingdom. ”

“ The bone of the false pinion is enlarged at its extremity, and forms, under the feathers, a little round mass like a musket-bullet; this and their beak form the principal defence of this bird. It is extremely difficult to catch them in the woods; but as a man runs swifter than they, in the more open spots it is not very difficult to take them; sometimes they may even be approached very easily. From the month of March until September, they are extremely fat, and of most excellent flavour, especially when young. The males may be found up to the weight of 45 lb. ”

“ Major Grose told me that when he was quartered in Dublin, he ordered an Irish sergeant to exercise the men in shooting at a mark. The sergeant had placed a pole for them to take aim, stationing a certain number on one side, and an equal number on the other, in direct opposition. The Major happened to reach the spot just as they were going to fire, stopped them, and expressed his surprise that the sergeant should have placed them in so dangerous a position, as they must necessarily wound, if not kill each other. "Kill each other!" said the sergeant, "why, they are all our own men." ”

“ In England, in the year 1571, it was enacted, "that every person above seven years of age should wear on Sundays and holidays a cap of wool, knit-made, thickened and dressed in England, by some of the trade of cappers, under the forfeiture of three farthings for every day's neglect, excepting maids, ladies, and gentlewomen, and every lord knight, and gentleman, of twenty marks of land, and their heirs, and such as have borne office of worship in any city, town, or place, and the wardens of the London Companies." ”

“ The group which is situated to the eastward of Madagascar, consisting of Bourbon, Mauritius, and Roderigue, were almost the only islands of this description met with by the early circumnavigators of the Cape; and it is there that we find the last traces of this very remarkable bird, which disappeared, of course, from Bourbon and the Mauritius first, on account of their being more visited and finally colonized by the French; and lastly from Roderigue, an island extremely difficult of access, and without any safe bay or anchorage for shipping. ”

“ Happy are those who, like Ulysses of old, will not partake of her deadly cup. If the unhappy dram-drinker was merely to calculate the annual expense of two glasses of gin per day, he would find a sum expended which would procure for him many comforts, for the want of which he is continually grumbling. ”

“ We are aware that the destruction or total extinction of any of the species of animals of contemporaneous creation with man, is a point of much controversy among philosophers. The best reply to this doubt is the repeated discovery of the fossil remains of animals entirely different from the existing species ”

“ Indeed, it is improbable that the three islands of the Mauritius group possessed each a distinct type of so singular and unique a bird.
MOUNT ARARAT.
Ararat is celebrated as the resting-place of Noah's ark after the Deluge, and as the spot whence the descendants of Noah peopled the earth. It rises on the Persian frontier, on a large plain, detached, as it were, from the other mountains of Armenia, which make a long chain. ”

“ I read with much pleasure the article in your Number, 574, on Nutria Fur: it was, to me, particularly acceptable, as I have been connected for the last ten years with an establishment where, on an average, 150,000 Nutria Skins are annually manufactured, and the wool cut for the use of hatters. I have searched every book of travels in Brazil, &c., that I could procure, and the chief English works on zoology, without being able to gather any description of the scientific name or habits of the animal. ”

“ Those who served under the cross would not indeed have lived very virtuously at home; but the confidence in their own merits, which the principle of such expeditions inspired, must have aggravated the ferocity and dissoluteness of their ancient habits. ”

“ Trotter says—"We daily see, in all parts of the world, men who, by profligacy and hard-drinking, have brought themselves to a goal; yet, if we consult the register of the prison, it does not appear that any of these habitual drunkards die by being forced to lead sober lives." ”

“ No interest is taken in the concerns of others—no love, no sympathy remain: even natural affection to nearest relatives is gradually extinguished, and the moral sense obliterated. The wretched victims of a fatal poison fall, at length, into a state of fatuity, and die with the [pg 308] powers both of body and mind wholly exhausted. ”

“ I have sent the skin of a female Nutria herewith, for your inspection, as regards the teats, &c. (from which the fur has been cut by machinery,) with a small sample of the belly fur, prepared for the covering of a hat; the wholesale price of the latter is now three guineas per lb.: it is used as a substitute for beaver-wool on second-rate hats. ”

“ They walk with so much stateliness and grace combined, that it is impossible not to admire and love them; so much so, that their appearance has often saved their life.
"Although these birds approach, at times, very familiarly when they are not chased, they are incapable of being tamed; as soon as caught, they drop tears, without crying, and refuse obstinately all kind of nourishment, until at last they die. There is always found in their gizzard (as well as in that of the males) a brown stone, the size of a hen's egg ”

“ The castle remained in the hands of the Danes fifty years, when they were brought under the obedience of the Saxons. William the Conqueror and his son Rufus retained the Castle in their own possession; but the third son of William, Henry I., granted it, with the Manor of Framlingham, to Roger Bigod.—The castle continued in this family till Roger Bigod, the last of the race, and a man more turbulent than any of his predecessors, was compelled to resign it to King Edward I. ”

“ The number of all descriptions of persons that finally left England, when the Tzar returned to Holland, is stated to have been nearly as follows:—Three captains of ships of war, twenty-five captains of merchant ships, thirty pilots, thirty surgeons, two hundred gunners, four mast-makers, four boat-builders, two master sail-makers and twenty workmen, two compass-makers, two carvers, two anchor-smiths, two lock-smiths, two copper-smiths and two tinmen; making, with some others, not much less than five hundred persons. ”

“ Willan says—"On comparing my own observations with the bills of mortality, I am convinced that considerably more than one-eighth of all the deaths which take place in persons above twenty years old, happen prematurely, through excess in drinking spirits." ”

“ When these birds set about building their nests, they choose a clear spot, and raise it a foot and a half off the ground, upon a heap of leaves of the palm tree, which they collect together for the purpose. They only lay one egg, which is very much larger than that of a goose. ”

“ Spirits, like other poisons, if taken in a sufficient quantity, prove immediately fatal. The newspapers frequently furnish us with examples of almost instant death, occasioned by wantonly swallowing a pint or other large quantity of spirits, for the sake of wager, or in boast. ”

“ The two principal Russian workmen in Holland, of rank, were Menzikoff and the Prince Siberski, the latter of whom is said to have been able to rig a ship from top to bottom. The object in remaining at Deptford would appear to have been, as before stated, chiefly to gain instruction how to lay off the lines of ships, and cut out the moulds; though it is said, on the testimony of an old man, a workman of Deptford yard some forty years ago, that he had heard his father13 say, the Tzar of Muscovy worked with his own hands as hard as any man in the yard. ”