adverted to the various advantages of trees, and, among other particulars, have shortly noticed the adaptation of timber to the important purposes of house and ship-building, as well as of the different kinds of machinery by which man facilitates his labors, both in agriculture and manufactures. As this subject, however, belongs more particularly to that part of my plan which I have reserved for autumn, I must again place it before the attention of my readers, and, instead of going over the same ground in my own words, I am happy to employ, in an abridged form, the eloquence of that excellent French writer of the last century, whom I have already quoted more than once.

"We may easily discover in the wide scenes of Nature, a number of bodies that are very massive and compact, such as stones and blocks of marble, which we can appropriate to a variety of uses. But these are very intractable, as well as brittle, and are only useful to us by continuing in a state of immobility; whereas the most enormous masses of wood are always obsequious to the will of man. Mighty growths of wood may, by the force of blows, be driven deep either in land or water, where they will form a forest of immovable piles, that are frequently incapable of corruption, and will for ever sustain the weight of the largest structures with such a firm cohesion and equality, as are not to be obtained even from the solidity of the earth itself.

"I likewise see vast bodies of timber disposed in a very different situation. They ascend to the tops of buildings, where they strengthen the walls, and prevent them from starting from the positions assigned them; they sustain the whole pressure of a huge roof of tiles or slates, or even lead itself.

"Is it at any time necessary for trees to be in motion for the service of mankind? you will then behold immense beams, which almost appear unmanageable, moving from their places, and adapting themselves to the full play of mechanic powers. They mount aloft, they descend, they roll, they whirl along, with as much agility as force, for the accommodation of man, and to aid the inability of his feeble They supply us with all those vehicles which are

arms.

IV.

7

X.

formed by the art of the wainwright, and with all those mighty engines which despatch more work in an instant, than could formerly be accomplished in many hours. Above all, we are indebted to the forest for those vessels that move upon the mighty waters, and resemble floating cities, which are wafted, with all their inhabitants, by the winds, from one end of the globe to the other.

"Man observed, that the animals around him were supplied with all that was necessary to their existence from the moment of their birth, and were enabled to transport themselves from place to place with surprising agility; while he himself was constrained to move, with a slow progress, in the painful pursuit of those accommodations that were dispersed at a great distance from him. He beheld other animals gliding as light as the wind, in the regions above him. He saw them cleave the air without the least impediment, and transport themselves from land to land, by a flight that was unobstructed by interposing seas. Man came into the world destitute of all these advantages, but he derived an ample equivalent from the faculty of reason, by which he compelled the terrestrial animals to direct their motions for his service. The levity of wood, the fluctuation of the waters, and the force of the winds, furnished him with expedients for procuring vehicles by land and sea, as useful as the wings of birds. When these

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inventions were completed, he no longer was limited to a scanty portion of earth, but was able to transfer himself wherever he pleased. A mutual intercourse was then maintained by distant provinces. The cities that were seated on the outlets of rivers, were furnished with importations from foreign lands, which they transmitted to different parts, and diffused through a whole kingdom. the subjects of a mighty state seemed to be approximated by these means, and associated into one city. They soon became intimate. They contributed to the aid of each other, and frequent visits were interchanged between them. I may even affirm, that the whole earth is now become but one great town, of which the continents form the difquarters. Man, since the invention and improvement of navigation, can take a progress to each extremi

ty of the world, in the same manner as the inhabitants of Venice pass from one quarter of their city to another, in their gondolas. By the aid of his vessels and sails, he arrives at those regions that have never been visited by the birds of his climate. When eagles and falcons attempt to expatiate as far as man, they turn faint, and are lost in the midst of their passage. 21*

It is more than a century since this passage was written. What would the author have said had he lived in our day, when the civilized world has advanced, and is advancing, with such rapid strides; and when, by means of a new power, which was then unknown and unsuspected, man promises to rival the eagle and the falcon in the rapidity, as he has so long surpassed them in the extent, of his movements?

THIRD WEEK-TUESDAY.

TIMBER.ITS VARIOUS KINDS AND ADAPTATIONS.

THE vast variety which exists in the productions of the vegetable world has already been, more than once, noticed, and it exists no where more remarkably than in trees. That each variety has its specific use, and that its peculiar qualities were bestowed by the Creator for some express purposes, will not be doubted by any one who has learnt but a part of the lesson which these volumes are intended to teach. Of these purposes, some are still unknown, which, in the future progress of society, may be developed, and others may be chiefly confined to the lower creation; but there are some which are so obvious in themselves, and which have so long been practically applied, that they cannot be mistaken. I have, in the preceding paper, adverted to the various ways in which, speaking generally, wood has been applied to use. At present, I shall show some of the properties of particular kinds, which have adapted them to the supply of human wants.

* Spectacle de la Nature, vol. ii.-Dialogue xvi.

Beginning with uncivilized life, I may remind the reader of what was said of the cocoa-nut tree in a former volume, the leaves, the trunk, the fruit, of which, nay, the very shell and envelope of the fruit, are all of such admirable utility to the savage, presenting themselves to him spontaneously, and obtruding their services, as it were, on his uninstructed mind. Of a similar kind is the bamboo, which is convertible into almost innumerable uses, and, as if intended for man in the earliest stages of society, as yet without knowledge or tools, it is ready wrought to his hands, symmetrical, and even ornamental, planed, turned, filleted, polished, varnished. It is convertible into a beam, a plank, a pillar, a mast, a yard, a floor, or fence, a house, a bridge, a pipe, a bottle, a cup, a kettle, a musical instrument, an aqueduct, a flower-pot, and even an article of food; while its wonderful profusion, and the rapidity of its growth, render it an inexhaustible resource for all these purposes. Its locality in tropical climates, where the excessive heat renders great exertion painful and injurious, is an additional mark of Creative benevolence which must not be overlooked.

The ratan is another tropical plant of great service to uncivilized man, as it furnishes him with a cord ready made for his use; and for string, he has not only the fibres of the cocoa, already mentioned, but those of the aloe, which are ordained to leave the plant of themselves, soliciting his hand. If he seeks for clothing, the paper mulberry and bread-fruit tree invite and reward his ingenuity; if for shelter from the rains, he can retire to the shade of the talipot tree; while, in the gomuti palm he discovers hair, and tinder, and oakum, all offering themselves to him unbidden, which are the more remarkable as they appear to be utterly purposeless to the economy of the plant.*

[A few additional and explanatory notices of the trees mentioned in the above paragraph, may not be unacceptable. The paper mulberry, (Broussonetia papyrifera,) and the bread-fruit tree, (Artocarpus,) both furnish a kind of paper or cloth from their inner bark. A large proportion of the Chinese paper is manufactured from the former of these trees. The material furnished by the Artocarpus is of an inferior character, and

These are some of the provisions which may be regarded as the hornbook of man, teaching him simply, and in a manner adapted to his indolence and unnurtured capacity, the first rudiments of art, and thus leading him onward in search of higher attainments, by the exercise of deeper ingenuity, and more energetic exertion.

If we regard man in a more advanced state, we still perceive adaptations to his use in the natural productions of the forests not less remarkable.* The ash is formed with qualities which suit it, with most wonderful fitness, for the uses of carpenters. It splits easily, but its toughness and elasticity are very remarkable. It readily yields to the moulding power of the axe, the saw, and the plane ; it does not warp; it is durable as well as strong; it possesses, in short, all the properties which a maker of agricultural machines and implements can require for the particular objects to which it is applied. Compare this with the beech, which may be wrought almost as if it were a block of stone, and thus supplies for machinery what the other uses of the ash render it incapable of performing. Its peculiar tenacity and structure are well appreciated by the millwright; and it is difficult to know where, in the whole forest, a substitute could be found for cogs and naves, so essential to machinery.†

In the fir-tribe, we discover other properties, which

from it is made the common cloths of the Polynesians.-The talipot tree is the Corypha umbraculifera, one of the palm family, which is described as having a trunk" as big and as tall as a ship's mast," and leaves of enormous size, some of which" are capacious enough to cover from fifteen or twenty to thirty or forty men," being fourteen feet broad, and eighteen feet long.-The gomuti palm is the Gomutus or Aveng saccharifera, the trunk of which is nearly covered with coarse black fibres, resembling horsehair. Besides supplying the articles above mentioned, it yields wine from its sap, and sago and sugar from its trunk. It is found in the islands of the Indian Archipelago.-AM. ED.]

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* These have already been adverted to in the Summer' volume, in the paper Trees used for other purposes than food,' but here I have entered into a minuter detail.

t[Though this may be true in England, it cannot be said of the beech of the United States, where the sugar-maple, white oak, and hickory are most commonly employed for the purposes of the millwright.AM. ED.]