guish from the patches that remained to what creature the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the throat to the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes of body clothing. There was no wider opening at the collar than was necessary to admit the passage of the head, from which it may be inferred that it was put on by slipping it over the head and shoulders, in the manner of a modern shirt or ancient hauberk. Sandals, bound with thongs made of boar's hide, protected the feet, and a roll of thin leather was twined artificially around the legs, and, ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish Highlander. Το make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was gathered at the middle by a broad leathern belt, secured by a brass buckle, to one side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn, accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of blowing.

III.

In the same belt was stuck one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives, with a buck's horn handle, which were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and bore, even at this early period, the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man had no covering upon his head, which was only defended by his own thick hair, matted and twisted together, and scorched by the influence of the sun into a rusty, dark red colour, forming a contrast with the overgrown beard upon his cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber hue. One part of his dress only remains, but it is too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a brass ring, resembling a dog's collar, but without any opening, and soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting by the use of the file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon characters, an inscription of the following purport:Gurth, the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood."

Sir W. SCOTT, "Ivanhoe."

THE MINISTRY.

I.

The ministry is, in fact, a committee of leading members of the two Houses. It is nominated by the Crown, but it consists exclusively of statesmen whose opinions on the pressing questions of the time agree, in the main, with the opinions of the majority of the House of Commons. Among the members of this committee are distributed the great departments of the administration. Each minister conducts the ordinary business of his own office without reference to his colleagues. But the most important business of every office, and especially such business as is likely to be the subject of discussion in Parliament, is brought under the consideration of the whole ministry.

II.

In Parliament the ministers are bound to act as one man on all questions relating to the executive government. If one of them dissents from the rest on a question too important to admit of compromise, it is his duty to retire. While the ministers maintain the confidence of the Parliamentary majority, that majority supports them against opposition, and rejects every motion which reflects on them or is likely to embarrass them. If they forfeit that confidence, if the Parliamentary majority is dissatisfied with the way in which patronage is distributed, with the way in which the prerogative of mercy is used, with the conduct of foreign affairs, with the conduct of a war, the remedy is simple. They have merely to declare that they have ceased to trust the ministry, and to ask for a ministry which they can trust.

MACAULAY, " History of England."

PALMS.

The palm is an endogenous tree, attaining, at the equator, the height of two hundred feet. Many species are eminently useful. The dates yielded by one kind, which abounds in Northern Africa, are an important article of food for man, and, when barley is scarce, for horses and cattle too. The cocoa-nut, the fruit of another species, very abundant in Ceylon and the Eastern Archipelago, contains both food and drink, and constitutes the principal sustenance of the poorer natives. Moreover, the solid contents of the nut yield an excellent oil; the fibre of the husk is manufactured into cordage and matting, and the shell of the nut into drinking cups and vessels of measure. The pith of a third species, which abounds in the Malacca Islands, is manufactured into sago, one tree yielding as much as from six hundred to eight hundred pounds. A fourth species, indigenous to the western coast of Africa, yields what is called palm-oil, that yellow butter-like substance with which the wheels of railway carriages are greased; it is largely used in candle making.

CLYDE,"Geography."

MANUFACTURES OF ENGLAND.

The principal branches of the industrial pursuits are the manufacture of cotton, woollen, and worsted goods, iron and hardware, earthenware and hosiery, mining, shipbuilding. The geographical distribution of the manufacturing population is dependent partly on natural, partly on accidental circumstances. The proximity of a coalfield decides the point in many instances; for, even where the raw material is bulky, it is generally more practicable to bring it to the coal, than to take the coal to it,—an instance of which is furnished by the copper-ore of Cornwall being taken to Swansea to be smelted. The iron manufacture is carried on generally at the coal-fields, the chief seats being South Wales, Staffordshire, and

Derbyshire. The cotton manufacture has been located in Lancashire and Cheshire for the last three centuries ; but it has attained its present dimensions very much through those counties being readily furnished with the raw material from America, as well as from the abundance of coal outside those counties; Glossop, Belper, and Carlisle are the chief seats of the manufacture.

BEVAN, "Student's Manual of Modern Geography."

MENTAL STIMULUS NECESSARY TO

EXERCISE.

Everybody knows how wearisome and disagreeable it is to saunter along without having some object to attain ; and how listless and unprofitable a walk, taken against the inclination, and merely for exercise, is, compared to the same exertion made in pursuit of an object on which we are intent. The difference is simply, that in the former case the muscles are obliged to work without that full nervous impulse which nature has decreed to be essential to their healthy and energetic action; and that, in the latter, the nervous impulse is in full and harmonious operation. The great superiority of active sports, botanical and geological excursions, gardening and turning, as means of exercise, over mere monotonous movements, is referable to the same principle. Every kind of youthful play and mechanical operation interests and excites the mind, as well as occupies the body, and, by thus placing the muscles in the best position for wholesome and beneficial exertion, enables them to act without fatigue, for a length of time which, if occupied in mere walking for exercise, would utterly exhaust their powers. COMBE,"Physiology."

CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTLAND.

There are few countries which possess objects and institutions of a more varied interest than our own. Dis

tant enough from the frigid zone, indented by sinuous estuaries, and spacious bays and deep inlets of the ocean, Scotland enjoys a climate mild and salubrious, equally removed from the rigours of an arctic winter, and the scorching heats of a tropical sun. No exhalations poison its atmosphere, no sirocco blights it, and we know no more of the tornado and the earthquake than what makes us grateful for our ignorance. At all seasons Scotland is accessible to the stranger—whether he comes as a pilgrim with his staff and his scrip, or is welcomed to its shores by the light beacons that guard them by night. Railroads carry him along its sea-board, over its mountain chains, and through its picturesque valleys; and the busy steamer plies unceasingly along its winding and rugged coasts. With this external character the interior of our peninsula corresponds.

Sir D. BREWSTER.

FORMATION OF COAL.

It may not be out of place to observe that the embedding of vegetable matter so as to exclude the air and prevent the escape of the gaseous elements released by decomposition from their organic combination, with pressure from above, are the main conditions necessary for the conversion of vegetable substances into coal. The product will be more or less perfect, either a highly bituminous coal-culm or peat-wood, according to the manner in which these conditions are fulfilled. Almost every summer we have stacks of newly-mown grass smoking from the fermentation produced by moisture and pressure, giving to the hay a darkened colour, an oily surface, with a bituminous odour, and ending in ignition, unless the process is arrested. Nor is it uninteresting to find that, in lakes and at the mouths of great rivers, enormous collections of drift timber, veritable islands of wood, extending for miles, are in the present day in process of formation. But some beds of coal appear to be wholly composed of delicate foliage, or minute leaves, as if shed