The southern, and south-eastern, are the only inhabited parts of the island; and the settlers depend principally on the fisheries for their support, the unfavourable climate preventing almost all cultivation of the soil. Oats even seldom arrive at perfection, so that with the exception of a few raised by artificial heat, potatoes are the sole vegetables on which the people can depend*.

The Great Bank is an extensive shoal lying to the southeast of the island, measuring upwards of 330 miles in length, and about 75 in width, the water varying in depth from fifteen to sixty fathoms. Over the whole of this space, but more especially on the southern portion, Cod abounds in such countless numbers, and endowed with such fecundity, that although the fishery has now been prosecuted for some hundreds of years, and although many millions are caught annually, there appears no diminution of their

numbers.

The season for the fishery commences about March, and continues till August. Each vessel, as she arrives at the island, takes her station opposite any unoccupied part of the beach which may afford a convenient situation for the curing of the fish. The first proceeding is to unrig and take down the upper masts. &c., of the vessel, and to erect or prepare the stage on shore. This is a covered platform projecting over the water, strongly built, and guarded with piles to prevent injury from the boats. On the stage is a large firm table, on which all the processes to be hereafter described are performed.

The fishing is carried on by lugger-boats, containing from two to four persons, according to circumstances. Sometimes the crew consists of females or boys only, provided they are strong enough to handle the line. Each person manages two, and each line carries two hooks; so that if there are four men in the boat, which is usually the case, there are sixteen baits out. The bait varies during the progress of the season: at first, the entrails of fish, or even flesh of sea-fowls, is employed, and then in succession nerrings, capelins, or young cod-fry. Good hands will take from three to four hundred fish in a day; but it is severe labour, from the weight of the fish, and the extreme cold felt in such an exposed situation.

The boats take their station on the edge of the shoal, and the lines being baited, are thrown out. As soon as the line is seen to be pulled tight, the man who watches it draws it in; and if the fish be large, he uses a hook, fastened to the end of a pole, to assist him in landing the prey. When a sufficient load has been taken, it is carried to the stage; for if the fish were kept too long unopened, it would be materially injured.

Each fish is taken by a man standing on one side of the table, who cuts its throat with a knife. He then pushes it to a second on his right hand called the header; this person, taking the fish in his left hand, draws the liver out, which he throws through one hole into a cask under the table, and the intestines through another which is over the sea, into which they drop. He next separates the head, by placing the fish against the edge of the table, which is constructed curved and sharp at this part for the purpose; and pressing on the head with the left hand, he with a violent and sudden wrench, detaches the body, which by the action is pushed to a third man opposite to him, the head falling through an opening in the stage into the water. The man who performs this feat sits in a chair with a stout back to enable him to use the necessary force; and his left hand is guarded with a strong leathern glove to give him a better hold.

The splitter cuts the body open from the neck downwards with rapidity, but with a skill acquired by practice; the value of the body depending on its being done in a particular way. The sound-bone is detached by the process, and is suffered to fall also into the sea, unless the sounds and tongues are intended to be saved for use, in which case the requisite number of them and of the heads are thrown aride, and removed, so as to offer no interruption to the main business.

It is said, that when Newfoundland was first discovered (about 1500), the vine was a native production, and the Norwegians gave the name of Winland to the island from this circumstance. Whether this account be true or not, it is certain that that plant was formerly indigenous on many parts of the adjoining continent, where it cannot now bear the rigorous climate.

When the barrow into which the split bodies are thrown is full, it is removed to the salter at the further end of the stage, who piles the fish in layers, spreading on each as he takes it out, a proper quantity of salt, which must be apportioned with accuracy and judgment, a deficiency or excess of it at this part of the process being detrimental to the proper curing.

It is the custom in some places, or by some fishermen, to place the split fish in vats or oblong square troughs, instead of in open piles. Each method has its advantages which need not be here particularized.

After remaining from four to six days in salt, the fish is washed in sea-water, in large wooden troughs, seven or eight feet long and three or four wide and deep, a quantity of the bodies being put in at a time, each is taken up singly and carefully cleaned with a woollen cloth, and then laid in long rows on the stage to drain for a day or two. When a suflicient quantity is thus prepared, it is spread to dry on stages, made either of wattles, supported on poles, or else of more substantial timber, the object being that the Cod should be thoroughly and equally exposed to a free circulation of air. Every evening, the fish is gathered into heaps of three or more, placed one on top of the other, the backs being uppermost, to guard against rain or damp during the night. These piles are increased as the fish become more dry; but during the day-time they are spread out on the flakes, or stage, separately. On the fifth evening, the night piles consist of from forty to fifty fish each, laid regularly, with a few at top, disposed like thatch, to throw off the rain; and when finally made up into stacks ready for shipment, tarpaulins and rind of trees, kept down by stones, is used for the same purpose. It is left in these stacks for a considerable time, being occasionally spread out again during fine weather; and as damp getting into the fish will spoil not only the one so wetted, but often the whole pile, great attention is paid to the weather while the fish is spread on the flakes; at the slightest signs of the approach of wet, they are all turned back uppermost, and, as sudden showers are frequent during the Summer season, the hurry and confusion of the time the fish is drying is indescribable. Even the Sabbath, during divine service, affords no respite if this source of danger is apprehended, for the whole fruits of a voyage may depend on the exertions of a few minutes :-the flakes are on such occasions surrounded with men, women, and children, turning the fish, or piling them up to shelter them from the coming rain.

The whole coasts of Labrador and Nova Scotia, as well as Newfoundland, are the scene of these fisheries, our own countrymen having retired from that of Newfoundland, which is now principally carried on by the French and Americans. Twenty thousand British subjects are annually employed, with from two to three hundred schooners, on the Labrador stations. About four-fifths of what we prepare is afterwards exported to the Catholic countries of Europe. A great quantity of Cod is imported green, that is, it is split and salted, but has not been dried at the stations.

Cod is also taken with large nets, called Cod-scines, thrown out about an hour before sunset, and visited again before daybreak to haul them in: the glut of fish is sometimes so great as to sink the buoys which float the net ropes.

When the fishing-stations are at a considerable distance from the shore, so that too long a period would elapse before the cargo could be salted in the regular manner, it is usual to perform this process on board, and boats laden with the fish thus partly prepared, are continually being despatched to the mainland, for them to undergo the subsequent processes of drying. These boats, as they arrive, are moored to an oblong square vessel made of planks, put loosely together, so that a current of sea-water is always flowing through them. This vessel, called a Ram's-horn*, is fixed at the head of the stage. Three or four men stand in it to wash and scour the fish with mops as they are thrown singly out of the boat into the vessel; as fast as they are cleaned, one of the men throws the fish up on a scaffold half the height of the stage, and from thence others throw them on to the stage itself, where they are received into barrows, and removed to the flakes to dry.

The livers of the fish, it has been mentioned, are col lected in casks, placed for the purpose under the table; these tubs are emptied, as fast as they are filled, into larger

the small molluscous animals which constitute their food.

in about a week, the livers resolve into oil, which is drawn off by a tap at about half way between the top and bottom of the puncheon, so as to leave all the solid and dirty parts behind; the oil thus separated, is again further purified by a similar process, and being put into clean hogsheads, is exported as train oil, a name given to it on the spot, to distinguish it.from whale, or seal oil, which is called fat oil. The refuse in the first puncheon, consisting of blood and dirt, is let out, and boiled in copper cauldrons, by which a further portion of inferior oil is obtained. This Cod oil is employed in dressing leather.

Besides Cod, Newfoundland and the adjacent coasts and rivers furnish abundance of salmon, herrings, capelins, plaice, sole, haddock, mackerel, halibut, &c. &c. The Capelin is a small species of the Salmon genus, and is an excellent fish; it resorts to Labrador and Newfoundland in shoals, rivalling in magnitude those of the herring; these generally arrive about the middle of June, and the fishery is carried on by two persons in each boat, which they easily fill in a couple of hours. They employ a cylindrical net, open at both ends, one of which is loaded with lead to sink it, and the other is gathered in by a running rope. The fisherman holds the rope in one hand, and the top of the net in his teeth, and spreading out the lower end with both hands, he drops it over a shoal of the fish,-the net is then quickly pulled in by both men, and being emptied of its contents, it is again cast: a load is thus frequently obtained without the necessity of moving from the spot.

As the Capelin, independent of its being an excellent article of food, is extensively used as a bait in the more important Cod fishery, immense numbers are annually taken; a few dried are imported into this country, and may be seen at our shell-fish shops.

STURGEON FISHERY.

THE river Volga, especially near its mouth, is the principal scene of this fishery. When the fish enter the river, which they do, like many others, at stated seasons, for the purpose of depositing their spawn, large enclosures of strong stakes are set across the river to intercept and prevent its return; the enclosures narrow up the river, and the animal, getting into these confined places, is easily speared.

This fish (Accipenser sturo), of which there are several species, breeds in the Caspian Sea, in such numbers as to fill the rivers flowing into that lake. Fifteen thousand Sturgeons are sometimes taken in one day, with the hook, at the station of Sallian, on the Persian coast, and upwards of 700,000 were taken in the year 1829, in the Russian dominions on the coasts of the Caspian.

And the hours of darkness and days of gloom,
That shadow and shut out joy are come;

'And there's a mist on the laughing sea,
And the flowers and leaves are nought to me;
And on my brow are furrows left,
And my lip of ease and smile is reft,

And the time of gray hairs and trembling limbs,
And the time when sorrow the bright eye dims,
And the time when death seems nought to fear,
So sad is life,-is here, is here!

But the time when the quiet grave shall be
A haven, a resting-place for me;
When the strong ties of earth are wrenched,
And the burning fever of life is quenched;
When the spirit shall leave its mortal mould,
And face to face its God behold;
When around it joy and gladness shall flow,
Purer than ever it felt below;
When heaven shall be for ever its home,-
Oh! this holiest time is still to come!

M. A. BROWNE.

MOVING MODEL OF A SHIP AND SEA. THERE are now to be seen in several of the London exhibition-rooms, and also at a few of the best shops for the sale of articles of this description, some beautiful automatic toys, in which the power of delicately-constructed clock-work has been applied to the production of movements and effects truly astonishing. Among these may be named, a group, called the Persian Rope-dancer, of which we will hereafter give some account; for the present, we borrow from the Magazine of Popular Science, for the present month, a description of a SHIP AND SEA, in which the machinery whereby the effects are produced is delineated and explained. The specimen described is of foreign manufacture, and has lately been added to the interesting exhibition of works of art at the Gallery of Practical Science in Adelaide Street, West Strand.

To those of our readers who may not have seen this automaton*, we must premise that it is one of the most successful attempts at imitative motion ever accomplished. It is perfectly free from all those interrupted staccato effects which generally mar the finest productions in clock-work; and it most faithfully exhibits the easy, ever-varying, and ever-blending changes of position and surface, which a steady stiff breeze will produce on a flowing sea, and a rately two of the most magnificent instances of nature and art are embodied, and their peculiar movements enacted on so small a stage-a field of ocean heaving with life, and a man-of-war floating, sailing, and even vibrating with the roll of the waves beneath her; all enclosed by a glass-guard, and an oval of a few hands area.

That spread o'er me in cloudless love;
When my step was as light as the roving wind,
That kissed the flowers in my tresses twined;
When my eyes, undimmed by a dark tear, shone.
That blessed time is gone, is gone!

The time when I loved to sit at noon,
And hearken to the woodbird's tune;
When the flowers and leaves upon each tree,
Were more than flowers and leaves to me;
When my spirit in fancy floated along,
And around my heart was a dream of song;
The time when I lay by the river's side,
That had words for me in its murmuring tide;
When my life, like the waves of the stream, went on,
Bright, pure, and sparkling, is gone, is gone!

The sympathy, if we may so term it, of the ship with the sea, is admirable; when she seems to overtake a wave, her bow slides up its side, and is projected into the air; when she rides on its breast, her stern also seems elevated, and her deck is for an instant horizontal; and then, as she leaves it, her bow becomes depressed, and she sinks down into the succeeding hollow. This last effect is so perfect, that a lady, visiting the gallery, was heard to exclaim to her companion, Do come away; that subsidence is really so natural, that it brings all my recollections of sea-sickness about me.'

To give an idea of the actual size of our vessel, we may state that, from stem to stern, she measures five inches and a half, so that she appears to be not much larger than her portrait in the annexed diagram.

Though the effects are so perfect, yet the mechanism, it will be evident, is very simple. It is concealed in the model from the observer, by a membrane (v), which is attached to the hull, and thence extending to the borders of machinery-chest, is there fastened. This membrane is very delicate in its texture, and extremely pliant; is not strained tight, but, on the contrary, left very full; and its In all the surface is painted to represent an agitated sea.

* A machine that has the power of motion within itself.

In the diagram (fig. 1), one of the containing plates of the machinery is removed, to show the connexion of the parts. A spring contained in a barrel (a), communicates motion through a train of pinions and wheels (b, c, d), to two wheels (e, f), which have each the same number of teeth, and are geared together; on the axis of these wheels are cranks (m, k), which move two shafts (1, n), attached by centre-pins (o, p), to the keel (q) of the vessel. To this keel is also attached, by a centre-pin (s), a lever (7), which, resting on a fulcrum (t), is continued beyond to any convenient length, and has, near its end, a moveable weight attached (u). One of the cranked wheels (f) is geared by a pinion and wheel (g, h), and an endless screw (i), with a fly (j), for regulating the velocity.

Supposing the lever (r) to be removed, the cranks and the shafts (mk) (l n) vertical, and the machinery in action; it will be seen, by examination, that motion would be communicated to the vessel, but that this would be simply vertical-a mere up-and-down movement-and that the deck would always be parallel to the line in which it lay at starting. If we add the lever (r), centring it midway between the centre-pins of the shafts (o p), a very small, but scarcely a perceptible variation, would be produced; but if now we place its centre-pin (s) nearer to the centre-pin (p) of one of the shafts, than to that (o) of the other, we shall have the motions of the centre-pins so controlled by the radius (st), that they move, both ascending and descending, with different and differing velocities; so that the stem and stern of the ship will rarely remain for two successive instants in the same level plane.

In the following diagram (fig. 2), are shown the positions of the deck, which correspond to four successive and simultaneous positions of the cranks

The arrows indicate the direction in which the cranks turn round.

W

Fig. 2.

When the cranks stand at o A, the deck will be in the position s T; as the cranks move to the position o B, s will ascend to u, and T descend to v, and the deck will arrive at u v; during the change of the cranks to o c, u will descend to w, v to x, and the deck will attain w x; let the cranks go on to o D, w will now ascend to y, and x to z, Y z becoming the position of the deck; as the cranks go on to the starting positions o A, Y will ascend to s, and z descend to T, the deck ascending to s T, the position whence it set out. It may therefore be seen, that in each interval of time, the motions of the stem and of the stern are different, one of them being always greater than the other, and that at two points in the course, the one which was the greater becomes the lesser, and vice versa. It is the ingenious introduction of the lever (r) into its peculiar position, with regard to the shaft centre-pins (s p), that this play of changes takes place, and the pitching of a ship in a brisk gale and high-running sea is so beautifully imitated. By the weight (u) this pitching can be made quicker or slower, at pleasure

THE COINAGE OF MONEY.

THE right of coining money has been always vested in the highest power of the country; and any infringement of this prerogative, either by debasing or imitating the coin of the realm, has constantly been visited by the severest punishment.

In modern times, the metals employed in the coinage are in general gold, silver, and copper; but among the ancients, we sometimes find an iron coinage mentioned.

We intend in this account to describe the methods employed in coining the gold and silver monies of England, at the Royal Mint of London, the only establishment in the British isles where it is coined by royal authority. In former times, the kings of England were in the habit of delegating their privilege of coining to the principal cities in the kingdom, and sometimes even to the higher dignitaries of the church; in these cases, the name of the mint from which the money issued was marked on the coins: a custom thus alluded to by an old poet :

The kynge's side salle be the hede, and his name writen, The croyce side what cite it was coyned and smitten, The king in these cases received a certain sum called his seignorage.

VOL. VIII.

The business of the English Mint had been managed until the reign of Edward the Second, by a class of men called moneyers, who contracted to coin the precious metals at a certain fixed rate by weight; these men employed others in the manufacture, giving them a stipulated share of the payments, and reserving the remainder to themselves as a profit on the transaction and a recompense for their risk and responsibility. At times they were heavily fined, and otherwise punished, when any fraud or error was detected in the coinage.

In the eighteenth year of Edward the Second, a number of superior officers were appointed to superintend the transactions of the mint. These were, a master, a warden and comptroller, a king's assaymaster, a master's assay-master, and a king's clerk, besides several inferior officers. The establishment continued in this state until 1815, when it was placed on its present basis.

In regulating the coinage of the country, the current monies of the day have at times been called in. In 1661, during the reign of Charles the Second, the gold and silver coins of the Commonwealth were withdrawn from circulation. A re-coinage of silver took place in the reign of William and Mary, 244

to the amount of seven millions sterling. It was executed at several country mints, as well as at the mint of London. In 1774, a re-coinage of gold currency took place, the older money being so much worn. The same thing occurred, as regards gold and silver, in 1817. At this time, the guineas were taken out of circulation, and sovereigns substituted.

We shall now endeavour to describe the different processes of coining as they are practised at the mint, with the assistance of the splendid machinery invented in 1797, by Mr. Watt, of Soho.

The ingots of gold, when brought in to be coined, are deposited with the master's assayer, and under the key of the deputy-master of the mint, where they remain until the assay-master has made an assay of each ingot separately.' These ingots in general turn out of different degrees of fineness; the differences are very carefully noted, and the first-clerk and melter is required to pot the gold for melting;-this he does with the assistance of the assay-master's report,-placing in each pot such proportions of the ingots which are below the standard fineness, with other proportions of those which are above it, as will cause the pot when melted to be of the required standard.

When the gold is to be melted, the surveyor of the meltings is in attendance, and he carefully examines the whole, to see that the different marks agree with those in the pot-book.

The crucibles in which the gold is melted are formed of clay, containing a large portion of black lead. Before the gold is placed on the fire, the crucible is put into the furnace and allowed to become red-hot; it is then charged. When the metal is melted, it is well stirred with a stick of the same substance as the crucible, previously made red-hot. It takes about an hour to melt a crucible of gold, which weighs as much as from 80 to 100lbs.

The gold being melted, the crucible is removed from the furnace, and the contents are cast into two bars or ingots, ten inches long, seven inches wide, and one inch thick. One crucible, with proper management, can be used as much as eight or ten times in the course of the day. The bars of gold which are the produce of these meltings are again assayed, and if found to be of the proper standard, the king's assay-master authorizes their delivery to the moneyers for the purpose of coining.

Formerly, in melting silver, great difficulties occurred when a large quantity was melted at once, from the heat of the furnace oxidizing the alloy, and rendering the metal too fine; but these difficulties were ultimately overcome, and the new methods have been in use ever since 1811. In 1817, during the issue of the new coinage, as much as 10,000 lbs. weight of silver was melted in a day, for months together.

The first process performed by the moneyers is to flatten the bars, or roll them out between two polished steel rollers. The gold is rolled cold, but the silver is heated red hot, to facilitate the process. Another method is afterwards employed, which is more accurate; it consists in drawing the bars through steel moulds, decreasing gradually in size, in the same manner as the drawing of wire is performed.

The bars of metal, being now of the requisite thickness, are carried to the cutting-out presses; of these there are twelve arranged in a circle, with an iron column between each; here the metal is cut into round pieces of the size required, by means of a steel punch. The whole of the twelve presses can be worked at the same time, by means of a large cogged wheel, connected with a steam-engine. The, cutting-out press was invented by Matthew Boulton,

of Soho, in 1790, and is so ingeniously contrived, that only one boy is required at each press, for the purpose of feeding the machine,-that is, supplying it with the flatted gold.

The circular pieces of metal, technically called blanks, are then taken to the sizing-room, where those which are too light are rejected, and sent to be remelted, while those which are overweight are filed, or rasped, until they are correct.

The flatting, or drawing, has so hardened the metal as to render it unfit to receive the impression properly; the whole of the blanks are, therefore, made red hot, and are afterwards boiled in very much diluted sulphuric acid.

The next operation is milling; the annexed engraving will explain the manner in which this is accomplished. The engraving is a plan of the machine, looking down upon it; it is fixed on a table, about four feet high, and acts in the following manner; D is a bar of hardened steel, engraved upon its edge, in this manner; this bar can be adjusted by means of the two screws, FG, but is immoveably fixed when the machine is in action; c is another hardened steel bar, engraved in the same manner as D, but double the width, one half being cut into teeth, like a rack; this is moved along with a sliding motion, by means of the wheel B, the teeth of which work in those on the bar; the blanks are placed on the

E

C

table between the engraved edges of the two bars; when the handle is turned they acquire a rolling motion, and the milling is effected by the edges of the bars. A man is employed in turning the handle, and a boy in feeding the machine, so that two blanks are kept constantly between the bars.

The engraving at the head of this paper represents one of the coining-presses; these are worked by steam. There are eight of these presses, and the average number of blanks which they can coin is about sixty each per minute, so that when all are at work, they can produce nearly three hundred thousand pieces in a day, merely requiring the attendance of a boy at each press to supply it with blanks. The manner in which these presses act is so similar to those in common use for striking dies, as to require no description; the engraving sufficiently explains itself, with the exception of one part of the mechanism, by which the press is supplied with fresh blanks and

A

the coins removed. This is called the hopper; the cngraving shows it detached from the engine:-A is a