smallest degree to teach the theory or the practice of FREYBURG or Fribourg, the Canton of, one of the cantons of the Swiss Confederation, is bounded on the north and east by the canton of Bern, south by the canton of Vaud, and west by the canton of Vaud and the lake of Neuchâtel, which divides it from the canton of Neuchâtel. Its length from north to south is 40 miles; its breadth, which is very unequal, is about 28 miles in the widest part; its area is reckoned at 26 German, or 588 English square miles; and its population in 1834 was 89,192, including resident strangers. The south part of the canton is very mountainous, being covered by offsets from the great Alpine chain which divides the waters that fall into the Rhône and the lake of Geneva from those which flow into the Aar. The canton of Freyburg belongs to the basin of the latter river, being watered in its length from south to north by the Sarine or Saane, one of the principal affluents of the Aar; the general slope of the ground is towards the north and north-west, down to the plains which border the lakes of Morat and Neuchâtel. There is but a very small fraction of the south-west part of the canton which slopes southwards towards the lake of Geneva along the course of the stream of Vevayse. The highest summits in the south part of the canton, and on the left bank of the Sarine, are the Moléson, 6000 feet, and the Dent de Jaman on the borders of Vaud, which is 4500. On the right or east bank of the Sarine the highest, the Dent de Brenleire, is above 7000 feet, and la Berra is about 5300 feet. Besides the Sarine and its affluents, which drain more than two-thirds of the territory of Freyburg, the Broye, which has its source on the borders of Vaud, runs northwards, crossing the western part of the canton, enters the lake of Morat, and issuing from it at the opposite end, empties itself into the lake of Neuchâtel. The climate is cold in winter and subject to sudden changes of temperature in the spring and autumn. The principal productions of the soil are wheat, rye, barley, and oats; good pasture, both natural and artificial, some vines and other fruit trees, especially in the lowlands near the lakes of the Morat and Neuchâtel, tobacco plantations, and timber or forest trees. In common years the canton produces sufficient corn for its own consumption. Potatoes are also cultivated. In 1834 the number of cattle was as follows:-43,339 heads of black cattle; 21,150 sheep; 6352 goats: 20,158 pigs; 11,140 horses; with a few asses and Inules. The consumption of butcher's meat throughout the canton during the same year was 587 bullocks, 4613 cows, 5971 calves, 7686 sheep, 913 goats, and 11,034 pigs. The cheeses made in the canton of Freyburg are among the best in Switzerland. The cheese called Gruyère is made in an Alpine district on the left bank of the Sarine, in the south part of the canton. It is estimated that about 40,000 cwt. of cheese is made yearly, which is worth about 75,000l. sterling. The manufactories, which are not very considerable, consist of straw-platting, tanning of leather, distilleries of kirschwasser, tobacco-manufactories, iron-works, glassworks, and paper-mills. Coals are dug at Weibelsried, in the valley of Bellegarde, on the right bank of the Sarine, and are sold at Freyburg for about 3s. 6d. the hundredweight; an inferior sort is found at Semsale, on the left bank, which sells for half the price. Turf is cut in the marshes of Morat 280 nuns, possessing a capital of about 100,000l. sterling. The government, which was originally a popular muncipality like that of Bern, all the burghers having the elective franchise, became, as the town increased its territory, aristocratic towards its new subjects, and even in the town of Freyburg and its old territory the Great Council or legislature came to be a self-renewing body, the seats in which were monopolized by a limited number of patrician families exclusively. It was in reality the most close and narrow oligarchy of all Switzerland. After the political changes of 1798-1815, a fourth part of the seats in the Great Council was given to the country members, the rest remaining in the possession of the patricians. In December, 1830, the country people, joined by many of the citizens, loudly demanded a total change in the government, and after some demur the Great Council complied; a new constitution was framed, by which all bourgeois, of either town or country, having the freedom of a commune, aged 25, and who are neither servants nor in the service of a foreign state, have the right of voting in the primary assemblies, which assemblies choose the electors in the proportion of one for every 100 souls. The electors assemble in the head town of their respective districts, forming what is called the elec toral colleges, which elect the members to the Great CounThe game consists of hares, chamois, red partridges, wood-cil or Supreme Legislature, in the proportion of one for cocks, wild ducks, &c. Wolves and bears have become very rare, and stags and boars are extinct. The rivers and lakes abound with trout, carp, pike, tench, and eels. and elsewhere. every 1000 souls. The members are appointed for nine years. The Great Council holds two ordinary sessions every year, in May and November. It appoints the couned The natives of the canton are generally robust and well of state, or executive, composed of 13 members for eight made, especially in the highlands; they are sociable, intel-years, and the court of appeal of 13 judges for life. The ligent, simple in their manners, docile, and inclined to superstition. The Roman Catholic is the only religion of the canton, with the exception of the district of Morat, which contains 8400 inhabitants who are protestants of the Helvetic church. There are also some protestants in the town of Freyburg, who obtained in 1835 permission to have a chapel and a school. The Catholic secular clergy consists of 250 members. There are besides about 200 monks and Avoyer is president of the council of state and is elected by its members for two years. The canton is divided for administrative purposes into 13 districts. Morat, the head town of one of the districts, situated on the right bank of the lake of the same name, has about 1600 inhabitants, carries on a considerable trade, has a college, a public library, a subscription library, an hospital, an orphan asylum, and a castle, built in the 13th century. Near it a pyramid raised in 1822, in commemoration of the battle against Charles of Burgundy, the old chapel and ossuary having been destroyed by the French in 1798. The lake of Morat, in German Murtensee, is about five miles long and two broad, and about 160 feet in its greatest depth; it abounds with fish. It is subject to floods, at which times it overflows the neighbouring plains, which are mostly towards the north, in the direction of the lake of Bienne. Every district has a prefect, appointed by the council of state for six years, and a court of première instance. The communal administration varies greatly according to the temper and instruction of the respective populations. Several of the communes have divided their communal lands, have established common dairies, have formed savings' banks, in order to get rid of the scourge of pauperism, but others still continue in their careless mode of administration, wasteful of their communal lands and forests, and are encumbered with beggars. A few have taxed themselves for the support of their poor. The 'heimathlosen,' or men without a settlement, who amount to 390 families, and strangers, called 'habitans,' who pay a slight yearly tax, have no share in municipal offices. By a law of 26th May, 1834, natural children have been admitted to the same political rights as legitimate ones. The roads, which were proverbially bad in this canton, begin to improve; in 1834, the Great Council voted a loan of 600,000 francs, 24,000l. sterling, for this object. A new civil code has been compiled, and the obligatory registry of mortgages has been established. A commission has been appointed for the revision of the penal laws, which were barbarous, as in most other cantons in Switzerland. Torture has been abolished. In the year 1834, the list of crimes which came before the court of appeal was as follows forty-one thefts or robberies; eleven assaults and battery; two forgeries; two frauds, and one dereliction of an infant. In the same year the number of births was 2825, of which 138 were illegitimate. The revenues of the canton are derived from the dîmes or tithes on land, from the feudal rights and dues with which many properties are still encumbered, and which are collected by the state, though by a law of 1833 the proprietors have the power of redeeming themselves; from the forests belonging to the state, from the interest of capital, from customs and other indirect taxes, from fines, and from the mint, post-office, and other rights called regalia. The whole of the revenues in 1834 amounted to 412,386 Swiss francs (a Swiss franc is equal to 1 French francs), and was nearly all absorbed by the expenditure, of which the principal items were: general administration, 56,640 fianes; department of justice, 47,780; military, 47.917; general police, gendarmerie, prisons, &c., 68,969; bridges and highways, 95,947; public instruction, 6277; miscellaneous expenses, 83,000. The militia of the canton consists of 2565 men, of whom some companies perform duty by turns, and all must be in readiness to march when called out. There is besides, the landwehr, consisting of all the men capable of bearing arms in case of necessity. The French is now adopted as the language of the government but all laws, decrees, and resolutions, must be published both in French and German. The press is free, Lut subject to laws against abuses of it. There are about 100 holidays kept in the year, including Sundays; dancing, a favourite diversion of the people, was formerly allowed only on certain days, but now a greater freedom is allowed. (Leresche, Dictionnaire Géographique Statistique de la Suisse, 1836; Gemälde der Schweiz, der Canton Freiburg, St. Gall, 1835; Dandolo, Svizzera Occidentale, Cantone di Friburgo.) FREYBURG, Fribourg in French, the capital of the canton, is built on several steep hills on both banks of the river Sarine, and its appearance is extremely boid and picturesque. Part of the houses rise along the slope of the hills, others are supported by massive substructions and buttresses, and separated from each other by deep ravines. Naked rocks, gardens, trees, and green fields are seen intermixed with churches, convents, and other buildings, the whole being surrounded by ramparts flanked with towers. Four bridges join the two banks of the Sarine, one of which, an iron suspension-bridge, erected in 1834, is one of the finest in the world; its length is 885 feet, and it stands 170 feet above the level of the river. The other remarkable P. C., No. 654. structures in the town are: 1, the town-house, built in the sixteenth century, in which the great council meets; 2, the collegiate church of St. Nicholas, built in the twelfth century; 3, the college of St. Michel, kept by the Jesuits, with an establishment for boarders, in which several hundred young men, mostly foreigners, are educated; 4, the monastery of the Ursulines; (these nuns keep the female elementary schools); 5, the Lyceum, opened in 1805; annexed to which are collections of medals, mineralogy, zoology, &c.; 6, the Chancellery, in which the council of state sits, and the archives and other offices of government are kept; 7, the convent of the Franciscans, of which Father Girard, the zealous promoter of popular education, was an inmate; and several other convents and churches. The population of Freyburg, in 1834, was 8535, including about 1000 natives of other cantons of Switzerland, and 833 foreign residents. The manufactories are few: the principal are woollens, pottery, tobacco, and straw hats; there are also two printers and six booksellers. The scientific societies are the following: those of archæology, of natural sciences of medical science, and of public economy; a literary club, and a mechanics' institution. A savings' bank was established in 1829, and the deposits in 1835 amounted to 75,000 Swiss francs. A market is held every Saturday, besides five fairs in the course of the year. Freyburg lies 16 miles south-west of Bern, and 32 miles north-east of Lausanne. FRIARS, from the French frères, a term in strictness meaning the brethren of a community, but more particularly applied to a new order of religious persons, who mostly sprang up at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and were encouraged in the hope of restoring respect to the monastic institution, the ample endowments of which had led it to degenerate from its primitive austerity, and yield to luxury and indulgence. These Friars consisted of Dominicans, Franciscans, Trinitarians or Maturines, Crossed or Crutched Friars, Austin Friars, Friars of the Sac, Bethlemites, Friars of the Order of St. Anthony of Vienna, Friars de Pica, and Bonhommes or Good Men. These last were brought into England by Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, in 1283, and a colony of them was placed at Ashridge in Buckinghamshire. The Capuchins and Observants were distinctions of the Franciscan Friars. Warton, in his History of English Poetry,' speaking of the Mendicants (for such they were called from their begging, being destitute of fixed possessions), says, these societies soon surpassed all the rest, not only in the purity of their lives, but in the number of their privileges, and the multitude of their members. Not to mention the success which attends all novelties, their reputation quickly arose to an amazing height. The popes, among other uncommon immunities, allowed them the liberty of travelling wherever they pleased, of conversing with persons of all ranks, of instructing the youth and the people in general, and of hearing confessions without reserve or restriction; and as on these occasions, which gave them opportunities of appearing in public and conspicuous situations, they exhibited more striking marks of gravity and sanctity than were observable in the deportment and conduct of the members of other monasteries, they were regarded with the highest esteem and veneration throughout all the countries of Europe. In the mean time, they gained still greater respect by cultivating the literature then in vogue with the greatest assiduity and success. Giannone says, that most of the theological professors in the university of Naples, newly founded in the year 1220, were chosen from the mendicants. They were the principal teachers of theology at Paris, the school where this science had received its origin. At Oxford and Cambridge, respectively, the four great orders (the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustines) had flourishing monasteries. The most learned scholars in the university of Oxford, at the close of the thirteenth century, were Franciscan friars, and long after this period the Franciscans appear to have been the sole support and ornament of that university. The buildings of the mendicant monasteries, he adds, especially in England, were remarkably magnificent, and commonly much exceeded those of the endowed convents of the second magnitude. As these fraternities were professedly poor, and could not from their original institution receive estates, the munificence of their benefactors was employed in adorning their houses with stately refectories and churches, and for these and other purposes they did VOL. X.-3 P not want address to procure multitudes of patrons, which was facilitated by the notion of their superior sanctity. It was fashionable for persons of the highest rank to bequeath their bodies to be buried in the friary churches, which were consequently filled with sumptuous shrines and superb monuments. In the noble church of the Grey Friars in London, finished in the year 1325, but long since destroyed, four queens, besides upwards of six hundred persons of quality, were buried, whose beautiful tombs remained till the Dissolution. These interments imported considerable sums of money into the mendicant societies. It is probable that they derived more benefit from casual charity than they would have gained from a regular endowment. The Franciscans indeed enjoyed from the popes the privilege of distributing indulgences, a valuable indemnification for their voluntary poverty. On the whole, two of these mendicant institutions, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, for the space of near three centuries, appear to have governed the European church and state with an absolute and universal sway; they filled, during that period, the most eminent ecclesiastical and civil stations, taught in the universities with an authority which silenced all opposition, and maintained the disputed prerogative of the Roman pontiff against the united influence of prelates and kings, with a vigour only to be paralleled by its success. The Dominicans and Franciscans were, before the Reformation, exactly what the Jesuits have been since. They disregarded their monastic character and profession, and were employed not only in spiritual matters, but in temporal affairs of the greatest consequence; in composing the differences of princes, concluding treaties of peace, and concerting alliances; they presided in cabinet councils, levied national subsidies, influenced courts, and managed the machinery of every important operation and event, both in the religious and political world. From what has been here said, it is natural to suppose that the mendicants at length became universally odious. The high esteem in which they were held, and the transcendent degree of authority which they had assumed, only served to render them obnoxious to the clergy of every rank, to the monasteries of other orders, and to the universities. Their ambition was unbounded, and their arrogance intolerable. Their increasing numbers became, in many states, an enormous and unwieldy burthen to the commonwealth. They had abused the powers and privileges which had been entrusted to them, and the common sense of mankind could no longer be blinded or deluded by the palpable frauds and artifices which these rapacious zealots so notoriously practised for enriching their convents. The esteem for them degenerated greatly on the Continent. In England, at the dissolution of religious houses, they fell as unpitied as the rest of the monasteries. (Warton's History of English Poetry, 4to. edit. vol. i. pp. 289, 293; Tanner's Notitia Monastica, edit. Nasm. pref. pp. xiii. xiv.) FRICTION. If the surfaces of two solid bodies in contact be conceived to be perfectly smooth or geometrical surfaces, and to be subject to the action of any external forces, the determination of the circumstances both of their equilibrium and motion requires that we take into consideration their mutual reactions, as a moving force, acting in the opposite directions of the common normal, at the point or points of contact. This force is strictly proportional to the pressure mutually exercised, which in the case of equilibrium is the resultant of the external forces applied, and to or from which in curvilinear motions we must add or subtract the pressure arising from centrifugal force. But as all natural surfaces have certain degrees of rough ness arising from the innumerable small asperities with which they are covered, it becomes necessary to attend to the force of friction acting in the tangent plane of the surfaces in a direction opposite to that in which the surfaces move or tend to move. Friction is therefore a retarding force capable of destroying but incapable of generating motion; giving a greater extent to the limits of equilibrium, and capable of acting powerfully as a mechanical force, of which the tendency is to bestow stability. It is therefore of great importance in the useful arts of life to be acquainted with its laws, to know how to increase it, as in the construction of arches, and how to diminish it, as in the machinery of clocks, and in all works in which it is an object to economise the expense of force. The attempt to discover the laws of friction from abstract considerations on the constitution of bodies has not led, nor could have been expected to lead, to trust-worthy results. This research belongs properly to the province of experiment. The objects are within our reach, and the proper modes of experimentalizing are sufficiently obvious. But the great variety of solids of different physical properties would lead us to anticipate a corresponding variety of results; it is therefore necessary to aim at properties connected with causes independent of the constitution of the substances; in fact, to know how far friction may be influ enced by the time or duration of contact, by the actual pressure of the surfaces, by the extent of the surfaces in contact, and by the velocity of the motion. These questions were answered in a very contradictory manner by Amontons, Euler, Muschenbroëk, Desaguliers, &c.; the reason for which disagreement was, that abstract notions and hypotheses took, wholly or partly, the place of experiment, and the little of experiment which was ad mitted was very indifferently executed. The importance and uncertainty of the subject at length attracted the notice of the French Academy of Sciences, and Coulomb published, in 1781, the results of an extensive series of experiments (in the 'Mémoires des Savans Etrangers') which were commenced in 1779. The high character of Coulomb as a sagacious experimentalist has preserved this memoir in great repute to the present time, and some of the laws which he inferred have been gradually confirmed, while others have been modified or rejected. Professor Vince, of Cambridge, a few years after the publication of Coulomb's memoir, made several experiments as to the uniformity of the retarding power of friction, and affirmed that when cloth and woollen are employed, an increase of retardation accompanies an increase of velocity. To Mr. Southern are due some experiments of a similar nature, but the machinery was not sufficiently simple to secure certainty to his conclusions. Several able experimentalists, as Wood, Tredgold, Rennie, Morin, &c., have continued the same class of valuable researches up to the present date: and though the results on the quantity of friction compare! with the pressure still exhibit great discrepancies, some fet laws of friction may be regarded as being nearly if not alto gether established. The subject still offers a vast field of research. The following appear to be the most general results which have been yet obtained by observations on friction: 1. Friction is increased by time; thus it requires the application of a greater force to move a weight along a here zontal plane from its position of rest than to keep it after wards moving on the same plane. This law renders one of the methods of estimating friction rather uncertain. The method alluded to consists in placing the weight on a plane of which the position at first is honzontal, and gradually elevating one extremity of the plane to an inclination sufficient to cause the imposed weight ti glide down the plane; this angle accurately observed determines the ratio of the friction to the pressure; but during the operation, before the weight commences to move, its asperities become more deeply involved between those of the plane than when first placed on or when in motiər, and it has been observed that by giving a light tap to the plane, the small vibrations produced are sufficient to free the weight from the acquired hold of the plane, when would descend at a much lower inclination corresponding to its true index of friction. In other methods for altair the same object, the distinction of the true friction, ani that which only exists at the commencement of the mtion, has not been sufficiently attended to, and must therefore have vitiated the results: this uncertainty is L removed even in the experiments of Mr. Rennie afterwards noticed. 2. Between substances of the same nature the friction proportional to the pressure; thus, if a block of oak be double the weight of another, and both, having equal sur faces of contact, are placed on one plane of uniform nature, the force necessary to move the first will be double of thai requisite for the second. 3. The amount of friction is independent for one and the same body of the extent of the surface of contact. In verifying this law it will be necessary to take car that the arrangement of the fibres may be similar in La different trials which are mutually compared; for wh:: a rectangular block of oak is placed on an oak table so thi the fibres in both lie parallel, the friction is greater than in the case where the fibres of the block lie transversely to those of the table. 4. The friction is independent of the velocity, at least when the velocity is neither very small nor very great. By this law it follows that friction is a constant retarding force, and consequently when a body is drawn on a plane by the action of gravity, or by the intervention of a pulley and cord, which causes it to communicate with a vertically descending weight, the spaces it passes over will be proportional to the square of the time measured from the origin of its motion. There are other modifications of friction besides that of simple attrition, which belong to various heads, as Rigidity of Ropes, &c. We shall now give some account of the most recent and carefully conducted experiments which have been published on this subject. In the Philosophical Transactions' for 1829, Mr. George Rennie published his experiments on the friction of attrition relative to several solid substances, such as ice, from its resistance to sledges, &c. Cloth, because of its anomalous properties compared with other solids. Leather, of so much use in the pistons of pumps, &c. structions. And metals, from their extensive application to machinery, carriages, rail-roads, &c. We must refer to the memoir itself for the tabulated results of experiments, and the author's valuable remarks thereon; and we shall only extract some of the experiments on wood and metals, as they are of the most extensive employment in machinery. Without undervaluing the experiments by the inclined plane, we decidedly prefer those referring to traction on a horizontal plane, which is to be understood in the following tables. Friction of Woods two inches square. Norway oak on Nor- cwt. lbs. oz. + 6 14 8.14) 8 6 6.68 8 3 6.83 5 7.82 4 8.53 41 3 8.17 56 7 7.93 83 3 6.73 7.13 6 100 71 12 9-36 8.82 84 90 39-31 89-90 120 11 8-35 10 126 5 8.86 11 141 15 8.67 12 13 154 38.71 170 10 8.53 118340 7 115 116.77 124 10 7 18 9 132 3 7.62 10 148 11 7.53 11238 3 5.45 Comparative Amount of the Friction of different Metals under an average Pressure of from 54 25 lbs. to 69.55 lbs. of the pressure, and is scarcely affected by time; that it was increased when yellow brass, and decreased when castiron was tried; and still more so when black-lead was used between the three different metals. Relative to unguents the experiments show that for gunmetal on cast-iron with oil intervening, and a weight of ten hundred weight, the friction amounted to of the pressure, but on diminishing the insistent weights the friction was diminished to 733; cast-iron, under similar circumstances, showed less friction, which was also diminished by hog's lard when loaded. From hence it may be inferred that the lighter the in sistent weight, the finer and more fluid should be the unguents, and vice versa. His experiments on hide-leather soaked in water, compared with dry leather, show that the soaking causes the friction to be subjected much more to the influence of time and weight. Amongst the conclusions which Mr. Rennie draws, the following are perhaps the most important. With fibrous substances, such as cloth, &c., friction is increased by surface and time, and diminished by pressure and velocity. With harder substances, such as woods, metals, and stones, the amount of friction is simply as the pressure, without regard to surface, time, or velocity. Friction is greatest with soft, and least with hard substances. The diminution of friction by unguents depends on the nature of the unguents, without reference to the substances moving over them. Subsequent to the publication of Mr. Rennie's memoir, M. Arthur Morin, captain of artillery, commenced a series of experiments on friction at Metz, in 1831, which he continued by another series in 1832; they form the subjects of two memoirs in the volume of the Mémoires de l'Institut' for 1833. The author's object was to repeat the experiments of Coulomb, with the view of either verifying, or correcting them. The amounts of friction which he obtains differ greatly from those given by Coulomb, who, in his opinion, must have frequently employed materials improperly prepared, and committed other oversights, whence he accounts for the errors into which he has fallen. The results of M. Morin's experiments go completely to establish the four laws of friction mentioned at the beginning of this article. The description of the apparatus which he employed would be too long to be inserted here, but it seems very ingenious and well adapted to obtain that precision and nicety of measurement which are requisite to render observations of 38.33 7.67 this nature valuable. The motions were horizontal by means of a cord and pulley, but the most curious part of the apparatus is a dynamometer, to measure the tensions of the cord by the inflexions of an elastic lamina attached to it and to the moving train; the state of which was determined by a pencil-trace on paper laid on a circular plate of copper, having a uniform rotation. He was thus enabled to compare the spaces described, whether in retarded, uniform, or accelerated motions of the train, with the time elapsed, and he confirms the conclusion that friction is a uniformly retarding force. The relations between the radii vectores of the curve described, with the corresponding angle at the centre, which is proportional to the time, enabled him in the various cases to represent by a curve with rectangular co-ordinates the relation between the space and time, the latter curve being generally a parabola; the idea of this invention, he says, was suggested to him by M. Poncelet. His results however differ in amount so greatly from those of Coulomb, and most others who have made friction the subject of experiment (though leading to, and confirming, the same general laws), that it may be permitted to doubt whether a source of error may not be somewhere concealed in the dynamometer employed. The substances in Table II., and their condition and disposition, are the same as in Table I. Some of the above ratios are three times as great as those given by Coulomb. M. Morin's second memoir is more particularly directed to surfaces with unguents, or coatings; and here he coincides more nearly with Coulomb, attributing the difference to the mode in which the latter conducted his experiments, and which may possibly have permitted some of the lighter unguents to escape from the surfaces during the process. The very complete table with which he concludes his paper is far too long for insertion here: the following is an abridgment, having reference to substances which are of frequent usage, or of small fric tion. Table III. Surfaces in Motion. M. Morin received every facility from his government in the pursuit of these important researches, while his industry testifies that he well merited such assistance. The uncertainties and discrepancies of observations would soon disappear if other nations produced the same ardour in individuals and the same regard for the true advance of useful knowledge. FRICTION WHEELS. [WHEELS.] FRIEDLAND. [BONAPARTE.] FRIENDLY, or TONGA ISLANDS, are situated in the Pacific, between 18° and 23° S. lat., and 173° and 176° W. long. They consist of three separate groups, which are said to ontain more than 150 islands. Fifteen of them rise to a considerable height, and 35 attain a moderate elevation. The remainder are low. The most southern group, the Tonga-tabu Islands, were discovered by Tasman in 1643. The largest of them, Tonga, is about 20 miles long and 12 miles wide, in the broadest part. It rises about 80 ft. above the sea, and its summit is a level plain. On the northern side an excellent roadstead was discovered by Cook. The central group, called the Hapai islands, is composed of a considerable number of small islands. The largest of them is Lefooga, about 8 or 9 miles long, and 4 wide. All these islands are low and very fertile. The most northern group is formed by the Vavaoo islands, which are likewise small and low, except the island of Vavaoo, which is about 36 miles in circumference; its surface is uneven, and on the northern side it rises to a considerable elevation. On its southern side is Curtis Sound or Puerto de Refugio, one of the most spacious and safest harbours in the Pacific. The most northern island belonging to this group is Amargure or Gardner island in 17° 57′ S. lat. The most southern of the Friendly Islands is Pylstaart, in 22° 26' S. lat. These islands are remarkable for the mildness of their climate, their fertility, and the great variety of their vegetable productions. For food, there are cultivated and planted cocoa-nut trees, bread-fruit trees, bananas, yams, sugarcane, and sago; the Chinese paper mulberry-tree is cultvated for its inner bark, from which the clothing of the inhabitants is made. Hogs and dogs are numerous, and both are used for food. Fish is plentiful, and also different kinds of birds, as fowls, pigeons, parrots, and the tropic bird, whose beautiful feathers here, as in other islands, are used as an ornament. Cook called these islands the Friendly Islands, because he was received by the inhabitants in a very friendly manner; but it is now well known that they intended to kill him and to seize his vessels. They are a very industrious people, and pay great attention to the cultivation of the soil. They apply themselves also to fishing, and evince much ingenuity in the manufacture of their clothing, and of their domestic utensils. They have a complete religious system, priests and festivals, and sometimes they sacrifice men, but they do not eat them. Missionaries have now for some time been established on these islands, but we are not yet acquainted with the results of their labours. The inhabitants belong to the Malayan race, and speak a language which does not materially differ from that spoken in many other islands of the Pacific. The political constitution is a despotism supported by an hereditary aristocracy. The number of the inhabitants is estimated to amount to 200,000. (Cook's Voyages; Mariner's Account of the Natives of the Tonge Islands; Krusenstern's Atlas de l'Océan Pacifique) The FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. These institutions, which if founded upon correct principles and prudently conducted. are beneficial both to their members and to the community at large, are of very antient origin. Mr. Turner, in his ' History of the Anglo-Saxons,' notices them in these words: guilds, or social corporations of the Anglo-Saxons, seem on the whole to have been friendly associations made for mutual aid and contribution to meet the pecuniary exigencies which were perpetually arising from burials, legal exactions. penal mulets, and other payments or compensations.' These 'social corporations' of our ancestors differed from the friendly societies of modern times, both as regarded the quality of their members, who were not confined to the poor or working classes, and also as regarded their objects It is now no longer necessary to establish a mutual gua rantee against legal exactions and penal mulets, and the objects of friendly societies are now limited to an insurane: against the natural contingencies of sickness, infirmity an death. Until a comparatively recent period, the principles upor which these societies should be conducted were ill under stood, and as their management was confided to persons 6! insufficient attainments, the common result was a speeds dissolution. One friendly society exists in London, which is said to have been established in 1715; but this fact re only upon tradition, and is unsupported by any records possession of the body. The earliest occasion upon which the objects contemplate by these associations can be said to have received the sar tion of either branch of the English legislature was in 1773, when a bill brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Dowdeswell, and supported by Sir George Savile, Barke and others, passed that house, but was thrown out by the Lords: its object was the better support of poor per sons in certain circumstances, by enabling parishes to gran them annuities for lives upon purchase, and under certa restrictions.' A bill with a similar object met with the lik fate in 1780, having passed through the Commons, but being thrown out by the Lords. A bill introduced in 1793 by the late Mr. George Rose passed into a law, which is known b his name, and was extensively acted upon. This act recita that the protection and encouragement of Friendly Sorr ties in this kingdom, for securing, by voluntary subscriptio of the members thereof, separate funds for the muta relief and maintenance of the said members in sicknes old age, and infirmity, is likely to be attended with ver beneficial effects, by promoting the happiness of individua and at the same time diminishing the public burthens.' The act authorized any number of persons to form themselves into a society of good fellowship, for the purpose of raising funds, by contributions or subscriptions, for the mutu |