same article. The one exhibits the progress and developement of the cotton manufacture, the most important part of that factory system of which the other is intended to explain the principles and economy. Both of them contain curious and interesting information, and throw a great deal of light on that vast depart ment of manufacturing industry to which we are mainly indebted for the extraordinary advances we have made during the last half century in population and wealth.

Mr Baines' work corresponds pretty well with its lengthened title; but the title of Dr Ure's book is eminently cal culated to mislead. By a factory, he means a cotton-mill, a flax-mill, a woollen-mill, or some such establishment, in which people are employed to attend to machines continuously impelled by a central power. According to him, a factory is a ' vast automaton, composed of various mechanical and intellec'tual organs, acting in uninterrupted concert for the production ' of a common object, all of them being subordinated to a self' regulated moving force.' An exposition of the scientific, 'moral, and commercial economy' of such establishments, would, provided it were well executed, be a highly instructive and valuable work; but it would be any thing but identical with the philosophy of manufactures.' Few branches of industry, except such as are conversant merely with spinning and weaving, can be carried on in what Dr Ure calls factories; and he expressly excludes from them iron-works, dye-works, breweries, distilleries, &c. It is clear, too, that by far the most important department of manufacturing industry, that indeed on which the success of every one else must mainly depend-machine-making—has nothing to do with Dr Ure's factory system. But it would not be more absurd to write an essay on the philosophy of government, without making any reference to the principle of representation, than it is to omit treating systematically of the circumstances that lead to superiority in the art of contriving and improving machines, in an essay on the philosophy of manu'factures. We, therefore, take leave to enter our protest against the title Dr Ure has chosen. His book has considerable merit, but it is not what it pretends to be. Even as an exposition of the Factory System, it is in many respects deficient; and it has no more claim to be called the philosophy of manufactures, than the philosophy of shipbuilding or of agriculture.

There must be many things in any account of the processes and existing state even of the simplest factories, that can hardly be understood by the general reader without lengthened expla nations, or the aid of plates and diagrams. But the circumstances on which success in manufacturing industry, of which

factories are but a part, mainly depend, may be stated so as to be readily apprehended by every one; at the same time, that the influence of manufactures on the health and happiness of the individuals engaged in them, and on those of the other classes, admits of an equally clear exposition. On most of these points, however, Dr Ure's book is singularly defective. Without being sufficiently technical to be of much use to those practically engaged in factory details, it is too much so for the general reader. If any one, for example, were to enquire why the factory system has not been carried to the same extent in France or Austria as in England, he will get no answer from Dr Ure. Surely, however, this ought not to have been wholly overlooked in a treatise on the philosophy of manufactures. Dr Ure is fully impressed with the vast importance of manufactures, and is aware in how great a degree our prosperity and power depend on their continued improvement and extension; and it seems pretty certain that the best means of preserving our ascendency in them will be most likely to be discovered by carefully investigating the causes that have brought them to their present high pitch of perfection in this country, and which have retarded their progress amongst our neighbours. But such an enquiry, were it properly made, would require not a brief essay, but a considerable volume. There are, however, one or two leading points with respect to it, to which we may briefly call the attention of the reader.

I. Eminence in manufacturing industry depends partly on physical, and partly on moral causes. Among the former may be noticed, 1st. Possession of supplies of the raw material used in manufactures; 2d. The command of the natural means and agents best fitted to produce power; 3d. The position of the country as respects others; and, 4th, The nature of the soil and climate.

1. As respects the first of these circumstances, every one who reflects on the nature, value, and importance of our manufactures of wool, of the useful metals, such as iron, lead, tin, copper,-and of leather, flax, and so forth, must at once admit, that our success in them has been materially promoted by our having abundant supplies of the raw material. It is of less consequence whence the material of a manufacture possessing great value in small bulk is derived, whether it be furnished from native sources, or imported from abroad, though even in that case the advantage of possessing an internal supply, of which it is impossible to be deprived by the jealousy or hostility of foreigners, must not be overlooked. But no nation can make any considerable progress in the manufacture of bulky and heavy articles, the conveyance of which to a distance unavoidably occasions a large expense, un

less she have supplies of the raw material within herself. Our superiority in manufactures depends more at this moment on our superior machines than on any thing else; and had we been obliged to import the iron, brass, and steel, of which they are principally made, it is exceedingly doubtful whether we should have succeeded in bringing them to any thing like their present pitch of improvement.

2. But of all the physical circumstances that have contributed to our wonderful progress in manufacturing industry, none has had nearly so much influence as our possession of the most valuable coal mines. These have conferred advantages on us not enjoyed in an equal degree by any other people. Even though we had possessed the most abundant supply of the ores of iron and other useful metals, they would have been of little or no use, but for our almost inexhaustible coal mines. Our country is of too limited extent to produce wood sufficient to smelt and prepare any considerable quantity of iron, or other metal; and though no duty were laid on timber when imported, its cost abroad, and the heavy expense attending the conveyance of so bulky an article, would have been insuperable obstacles to our making any considerable progress in the working of metals, had we been forced to depend on home or foreign timber. We, therefore, are disposed to regard Lord Dudley's discovery of the mode of smelting and manufacturing iron by means of coal only, without the aid of wood, as one of the most important ever made in the arts. We do not know that it is surpassed even by the steam-engine or the spinning-frame. At all events, we are quite sure that we owe as much to it as to either of these great inventions. But for it, we should always have been importers of iron; in other words, of the materials of machinery. The elements, if we may so speak, out of which steam-engines and spinning-mills are made, would have been dearer here than in most other countries. The fair presumption consequently is, that the machines themselves would have been dearer; and such a circumstance would have counteracted, to a certain extent, even if it did not neutralize or overbalance, the other circumstances favourable to our ascendency. But now we have the ores and the means of working them in greater abundance than any other people; so that our superiority in the most important of all departments-that of machine-making seems to rest on a pretty sure foundation.

It is farther clear, that without a cheap and abundant supply of fuel, the steam-engine, as now constructed, would be of compara tively little use. It is, as it were, the hands; but coal is the muscles by which they are set in motion, and without which their dexte rity cannot be called into action, and they would be idle and

powerless. Our coal mines may be regarded as vast magazines of hoarded, or warehoused power; and unless some such radical change be made on the steam-engine as should very decidedly lessen the quantity of fuel required to keep it in motion, or some equally powerful machine, but moved by different means, be introduced, it is not at all likely that any nation should come into successful competition with us, in those departments in which steam-engines, or machinery moved by steam, may be most advantageously employed.

Since the introduction of steam-engines, water-falls, unless under very peculiar circumstances, have lost almost all their value. Steam may be supplied with greater regularity, and being more under command than water, is therefore a more desirable agent. This, however, is but a small part of its superiority. Any number of steam-engines may be constructed in the immediate vicinity of each other, so that all the departments of manufacturing industry may be brought together and carried on in the same town, and almost in the same factory. A combination and adaptation of employments to each other, and a consequent saving of labour, is thus effected, that would have been quite impracticable, had it been necessary to construct factories in different parts of the country, and often in inconvenient situations, merely for the sake of waterfalls.

It may be supposed, perhaps, that a difficulty of this sort might have been obviated by the employment of horse power instead of steam; but the following statement, which we extract from Dr Ure's work, shows conclusively that this could not have been the

case :

'The value of steam-impelled labour may be inferred from the following facts, communicated to me by an eminent engineer, educated in the school of Boulton and Watt :-A manufacturer in Manchester works a 60-horse Boulton and Watt's steam-engine, at a power of 120 horses during the day, and 60 horses during the night; thus extorting from it an impelling force three times greater than he contracted or paid for. One steam horse-power is equivalent to 33,000 pounds avoirdupois, raised one foot high per minute; but an animal horsepower is equivalent to only 22,000 pounds raised one foot high per minute, or, in other terms, to drag a canal boat 220 feet per minute, with a force of 100 pounds acting on a spring; therefore, a steam horsepower is equivalent in working efficiency to one living horse, and onehalf the labour of another. But a horse can work at its full efficiency only eight hours out of the twenty-four, whereas a steam-engine needs no period of repose; and, therefore, to make the animal power equal to the physical power, a relay of one and-a-half fresh horses must be found three times in the twenty-four hours, which amounts to four and-a-half of horses daily. Hence, a common 60-horse steam-engine does the work of VOL. LXI. No. CXXIV. 2 G

four and-a-half times 60 horses, or of 270 horses. But the above 60 horse steam-engine does one-half more work in 24 hours, or that of 405 living horses! The keep of a horse cannot be estimated at less than 1s. 2d. per day; and, therefore, that of 405 horses would be about L.24 daily, or L.7500 sterling, in a year of 313 days. As 80 pounds of coals, or one bushel, will produce steam equivalent to the power of one horse in a steam-engine during eight hours' work, sixty bushels, worth about 30s. at Manchester, will maintain a 60-horse engine in fuel during eight effective hours,-and 200 bushels, worth 100s.; the above hard-worked engine during twenty-four hours. Hence, the expense per annum is L.1565 sterling, being little more than one-fifth of that of living horses. As to prime cost and superintendence, the animal power would be greatly more expensive than the steam power. There are many engines made by Boulton and Watt, forty years ago, which have continued in constant work all that time with very slight repairs. What a multitude of va luable horses would have been worn out in doing the service of these machines ! and what a vast quantity of grain would they have consumed! Had British industry not been aided by Watt's invention, it must have gone on with a retarding pace, in consequence of the increasing cost of motive power, and would, long ere now, have experienced, in the price of horses, and scarcity of waterfalls, an unsurmountable barrier to further advancement: could horses, even at the low prices to which their rival, steam, has kept them, be employed to drive a cotton-mill at the present day, they would devour all the profits of the manufacturer.

Steam-engines furnish the means not only of their support but of their multiplication. They create a vast demand for fuel; and, while they lend their powerful arms to drain the pits and to raise the coals, they call into employment multitudes of miners, engineers, ship-builders, and sailors, and cause the construction of canals and railways; and, while they enable these rich fields of industry to be cultivated to the utmost, they leave thousands of fine arable fields free for the production of food to man, which must have been otherwise allotted to the food of horses. Steam-engines, moreover, by the cheapness and steadiness of their action, fabricate cheap goods, and procure in their exchange a li beral supply of the necessaries and comforts of life, produced in foreign lands. (Pp. 28-29.)

other

Any one who takes up a map of England, having the coal fields marked, may at once point out the great seats of British industry. While the towns in the southern counties, such as Canterbury, Winchester, Exeter, Salisbury, &c. have remained nearly stationary, or increased but by slow degrees, Manchester, Liver pool, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Paisley, and many towns, some of them of but recent origin, and all of them at no distant period inferior to those in the south, have risen to be immense cities, having more than quadrupled or quintupled their population and wealth since 1770. The progress of Lancashire has been extraordinary. In 1700 its population amounted to about 166,000. In 1750 it had increased to 297,000. During