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This plane was in use for a considerable time, but circumstances rendered it desirable to form another of much greater depth, which was begun about seven or eight years since, and is now in use.

This inclined plane is 650 yards in length, and attains to a depth of about 1025 feet perpendicular below its mouth, or 1100 feet below the surface, which is elevated nearly 100 feet higher above the end of the plane, than it is near its mouth. The inclination which it forms with the horizon, varies from thirty to forty-five degrees, an angle which far exceeds that of the inclination of the highest and most abrupt mountains, in this, and probably any other country, and consequently, up so steep an ascent, no carriage could be propelled, excepting by the power of machinery,

This remarkable tunnel is about seven feet high, and five feet wide, and is supported, where necessary, by timbering, except for a short distance near the surface, where masonry is used. A railway, consisting of a single track of edge-rails, is carried along the plane, from the top to the bottom, and is extended for a short distance also upon the surface. The wagon used is made of wrought-iron.

The power used for drawing up the wagon and its load, which consists of the ores, and sometimes the rock from the bottom of the mine, is that of a large overshot water-wheel, forty feet in diameter, and five and a-half feet in breast, which is turned by a considerable stream of water, which, with another of equal size, is conducted several miles through a leat, or artificial channel, in order to work this, and the other machinery belonging to the mines. These two streams furnish a constant supply of more than 5000 gallons per minute. The water-wheel is erected at the surface, within a short distance of the mouth of the inclined plane, and is connected with the wagon which it draws up, by a strong chain passing over rollers, at intervals of a few feet.

Although the length and inclination of the plane have been given in a manner sufficiently intelligible to those conversant with subjects of the kind, there are probably many persons who will be unable to form an adequate idea of these particulars, unless placed before them in the more obvious and familiar light of an elevation above, instead of an excavation below, the surface of the earth. This may, perhaps, be done in the following manner. The height of St.

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Paul's Cathedral, to the top of the ball and cross, is 360 feet; supposing, therefore, that two buildings of equal altitude were placed upon it, we should have an elevation of 1080 feet, answering nearly to the perpendicular depth of the end of the inclined plane below its mouth, which was before stated at 1025 feet. If from this immense elevation, we conceive two ropes or imaginary lines, about four feet apart, to be extended through the air, following the line of Ludgate Hill, and reaching the ground at the eastern end of Fleet Street, (a distance of above 500 yards,) the length and slope of the inclined plane, will be pretty correctly figured to the imagination.

Any description of the mine itself, would far exceed the limits of this article; it may be added, however, that besides the work we have been considering, there are at Wheal Friendship, five or six pits or shafts, some going nearly to, and others exceeding, the depth of 1000 feet, and levels (or horizontal subterranean passages) to the aggregate extent of several miles, the latter being placed one below the other, at fifty or sixty feet apart, and communicating with the shafts.

Upon the surface, besides the water-wheel employed at the inclined plane, there are four others of larger size (one being fifty feet in diameter), and three smaller ones, all being turned by the powerful streams of water before noticed as being conducted to the mine for this purpose, by artificial channels. Four of these large wheels are employed in pumping out the water, which accumulates in such a quantity in the subterranean workings, that it is necessary to raise a stream of 700 or 800 gallons per minute, to prevent the mine from being inundated.

This slight description may, perhaps, serve to afford the reader some idea of the magnitude and extent of those operations, which it is necessary to carry on in the bowels of the earth, in order to procure those metallic substances, with the use and properties of which, every person must be familiar, although comparatively few are acquainted with their history, and the processes by which they are obtained. It is needless to remind the reader, how essential an abundant supply of the metals is, to a civilized state of society, or to point out their varied and infinite utility, in all the arts and sciences which promote the welfare and happiness of mankind *. F. B.

and 223; and Vol. VI., p. 118. See Saturday Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 43; Vol. V., pp. 76, 180

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INCLINED PLANE AT WHEAL FRIENDSHIP COPPER-MINE.

LONDON: Published by JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND; and sold by all Booksellers,

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THE CITY OF CORDOVA, IN SPAIN.

I.

CORDOVA, the capital of the Spanish kingdom of that name, and the second city in the Spanish province of Andalusia, stands upon the right bank of the river Guadalquivir, at the foot of the ridge of mountains known by the name of the Sierra Morena. It is a place of considerable antiquity, though the exact period of its foundation is unknown. Under the Romans it bore the names of Corduba and Colonia Patricia, and was a place of importance, especially as a seat of learning. Its academy was highly celebrated as a school of rhetoric and philosophy; and among the eminent men who were born in the city, the two Senecas-the rhetorician and the philosopher and the poet Lucan, stand conspicuous.

On the fall of the Roman empire, Cordova, with the rest of Spain, was subdued by the Goths, and remained in their hands until the descent of the Saracens in the eighth century. But in the year 711, when Roderic, "the last of the Goths," had been defeated, in the famous battle of Xeres by Tarik, the Mohammedan leader, a detachment of 700 horse surprised Cordova in a night-assault, and drove the governor, with 400 adherents, into the great church. Here the Christians fortified themselves, and, as water was conveyed to them underground from a spring at the foot of the mountains, they were able to maintain their position for three months. It happened, however, (according to the Arabian writers,) that a black man, of the Moslem army, had been captured by the besieged, and as they had never seen a human being of the same colour before, they led the unfortunate prisoner to their conduit of water, with a serious intention of washing him white! After seven days of confinement, this man contrived to effect his escape, and having informed his commander of the mode in which the place was supplied with water, the conduit was discovered and stopped.

The besieged had now no hope of deliverance, yet when safety was offered them on condition of becoming Mohammedans, or paying tribute, they firmly refused to submit, and the church being set on fire around them, they perished in the flames.

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Scarcely fifty years after this event, Cordova became the capital of the Mohammedan empire in Spain, and the seat of an independent sovereignty, which was dignified by the title of the Western Kaliphate. On the subversion of the house of Ommaiya, in Asia, and the elevation of the Abassides to the Caliphate of Damascus, Abdurrahman, the sole survivor of the exiled family, passed over into Spain; after a successful struggle, he established himself king of the Moorish possessions, and fixed his royal residence at Cordova in the year 759. Then," to use the words of a learned traveller of the last century, "began those flourishing ages of Arabian gallantry and magnificence, which rendered the Moors of Spain superior to all their contemporaries in arts and arms, and made Cordova one of the most splendid cities of the world. During the course of two centuries this court continued to be the resort of all professors of the polite arts, and of such as valued themselves upon their military and knightly accomplishments, while the rest of Europe was buried in ignorance, debased by brutality of manners, or distracted by superstitious disputes. Cordova became the centre of politeness, industry, and genius. Tilts and tournaments, with other costly shows, were long the darling pastimes of a wealthy and happy people; and this was the only

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kingdom in the west where geometry, astronomy, and physic, were regularly studied."

Cordova increased greatly in size and beauty under the rule of Abdurrahman: that monarch surrounded the town with a wall, built a magnificent palace with delightful gardens, and began the erection of the Great Mosque, which became afterwards so celebrated throughout the Mohammedan world. His successors followed in the same course. In the tenth century the houses of Cordova were numbered, and found to amount to 213,077, inhabited by the common people, and 60,300 occupied by the nobles, ministers, secretaries, military people, and other dependants of the state, besides hotels, baths, and taverns; the shops were 80,455.

An Arabian writer, of a subsequent date, relates in one of his works, that through Cordova, with the continuations of its suburbs, he had travelled ten miles by the light of lamps along an uninterrupted extent of buildings; it is further said, that the buildings extended to a length of twenty-four miles one way, and six miles the other, all this space being covered with houses, palaces, mosques, and gardens, along the banks of the Guadalquivir.

The Moorish inhabitants of this famous city were distinguished in many respects from those of other large towns in Spain. They were notorious, even to a proverb, for resisting their kings and abusing their rulers, on which account one of their governors likened them to "the camel, which," said he, “fails not to complain, whether you lighten or aggravate its burden, so that there is no discovering what they are pleased with, that you may seek it, nor what they dislike, that you may avoid it." They were remarkable, also, according to the Arabian writers, for the elegance of their dress, for an attention to the duties of their religion, for the pride which they took in their great mosque, for a disposition to destroy wineshops wherever they might be discovered, and yet to connive at various forbidden practices, and for the glory which they attached to nobility of descent, as well as to warlike enterprise and science. The nobles of the city, also, were renowned for their habits of splendour and magnificence.

The literary reputation of Cordova did not decline while the city was under the domination of the Saracens. In the reign of the second Alhakam, during the tenth century, it possessed a royal library of 400,000 volumes, which had been collected from distant countries, at a cost exceedingly great; and among the whole number, there was scarcely one which had not been carefully examined by the Kaliph himself, and which had not, written in it, by his own hand, the genealogy, birth, and death of its author. The high estimation, indeed, in which books were held, is sufficiently attested by the prevalence of the practice of collecting them, even for the purpose of ostentation; for we are told that the wealthy and the rich in Cordova were the most impassioned bibliomaniacs in the world. An Arabian writer gives us the following amusing instance.

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During my residence in Cordova, I attended the book-market for a considerable time, in the hope of finding a certain work which I was very anxious to obtain; and at length, to my great joy, it presented itself in an elegant hand with an appropriate commentary. I then bid for it, and kept increasing my bidding; but still it returned to the crier though the price was excessive. Surprised at this, I asked the man to show me who had outbid me for this book, to a sum so much beyond its worth; and he pointed out a person in the dress o a magistrate, to whom, on approaching, I said, 'May

only that he may pass over it to the chase," was the reply, upon hearing which Hisham bound himself by an oath never to cross the bridge, a vow which he scrupulously fulfilled. In the river are erected several mills, which are worked by the stream, for the grind

God exalt his worship the doctor! if you are desirous
of this book, I will relinquish it; for through our
mutual biddings, the price is much above its value.'
He replied, I am no doctor, neither do I know
what the book contains, but I am anxious to complete
a library which I am forming, that I may appearing of corn.
respectable among the chiefs of the city; and as
there yet remains a vacant place capable of holding
this book, which is beautifully written and elegantly
bound, I admire it, and care not how high I raise its
price; praise to God for the means he has been pleased
to grant me, which are not small!' Being at last
induced to abandon the competition, I said, 'Well!
means are not abundant except with one like thee,
and according to the proverb, ' He who has no teeth,
gives away the nut. I, who am not ignorant of the
contents of this book, and wish to make some use
of it, having but scanty means, am of necessity de-
barred from it.'"

The first decline of Cordova is coincident with the jealousies and dissensions which distracted the Moorish power in Spain after the close of the tenth century; the fatal blow was given to its prosperity in the year 1236, when it was re-conquered by the Spaniards under Fernando the saint (as he is called), who banished all the Moslem inhabitants. "When they were gone," says a modern traveller, " Cordova remained desolate; the grass sprang up in its streets and in its court-yards, and the cooling music of its fountains murmured unheard. At length, by grants of houses and lands with exemption from taxes, a few thriftless people were induced to emigrate from other parts of Spain, and settle in the newly-conquered region. The descendants of these men form the scanty population of the country as it exists at the present day."

The situation of Cordova is very beautiful; or, as Mr. Inglis says, it is "truly delightful. East and west flows the Guadalquivir, the level stripe that lies along its banks, rich in every production that is congenial to the climate of Andalusia; a range of low hills wooded to the summit, and diversified by gardens, orange-groves, and country-houses, stretch, parallel with the river, bounding the prospect to the south, while the elevated chain of the Sierra Morena, pushes forward its picturesque out-posts almost to the walls of the city."

Like a great many other cities, however, Cordova looks best at a distance; the streets are narrow, crooked, and dirty. The Plaza Mayor, or Great Square, is somewhat distinguished for its size, its regularity, and the beauty of the colonnade by which it is surrounded. A part of the town is of Roman, and a part of Moorish origin; many of the houses are in ruins. There are some remains of the Alcazar, or ancient palace of the Moorish kings; they now form a part of the archiepiscopal palace. The great mosque has been used as the Cathedral since the recovery of the city by the Spaniards.

The bridge of Cordova, which our readers will see delineated in our engraving, is a magnificent structure; its length is 1000 feet, and the number of its arches sixteen. Tradition relates that there was formerly a bridge over the Guadalquivir, erected on the site of the present structure, about 200 years before the arrival of the Arabs in Spain; but this edifice being greatly decayed, the Moors built the original of the existing bridge about the year 721. About the close of the eighth century, it was restored throughout by Hisham the son of Abdurrahman; and it is said that he happened on a certain day to ask one of his ministers what the people of Cordova said of the work. "They say the prince's motive for this is

In ancient times Cordova was distinguished for excellence in a variety of manufactures. Its leather was especially celebrated, and the term cordovan, or, as we say, cordwain, has been long used to denote the kind of leather prepared after the fashion originally practised in this city. Mr. Murphy observed, on the north bank of the Guadalquivir, a collection of the tan-pits which were employed in the process; they were formed of baked earth, a material much used by the Moors in Spain. In all the different stages of the manufacture, the skill of the Moorish artisans was remarkable: after having prepared the skins with various ingredients, they dyed them of lively colours, such as blue, green, and scarlet, and then finished by imparting to them such a degree of brilliancy as gave them the appearance of having been varnished. La Borde says, that this branch of industry is still carried on in a few places in Andalusia; it was almost destroyed on the expulsion of the Moors, who carried it with them to Morocco.

Cordova itself possesses at the present day scarcely any manufactures at all; a small quantity of ribbons, hats, baize, &c. is all that is now fabricated in this once productive city.

THE sober and industrious man hath "the heartfelt pleasure that he is carrying home the children's bread, or perhaps the staff of life, to a worn-out father or mother, who fed him while he was as yet even more helpless than they. And if he lingers not on his way, nor himself dries up the source from whence should flow these blessings of his hearth and home, then he reaps the glad harvest of his industry; the more glad, in that it is of his own sowing. He will prize this more dearly, if he thinks how he may mar and ruffle the sweet tranquillity of his homestead, if when he hath tarried long at the drink, and reason is drowned in the cup, and he reeleth home in folly or in fierceness, and scareth his little ones, and the kiss of welcome is pushed aside with a curse, and fear inhabits the dwelling of love. When for the word of a father's knowledge, or the teaching of a father's experience, or the blessing of a father's affection, is heard the idiot gabble of unmeaning wrath, or of whining foolishness; the natural feelings of childhood are then most painfully distorted: they would fain love and reverence the parent; they are afraid to love him then; or shall their reverence for him lead them even to tread in his staggering steps? Well might the wise king ask, Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause?. Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed drink. They have stricken me, saith the drunkard, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I knew it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. If the head of the family be thus sick, most surely will the whole heart be faint, and every member be made to suffer; and if the wages of industry be thus abused, the blessed links which would bind a man to contentment and

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happiness are broken.-LANDON's Sermons.

KING CHARLES'S GOLDEN RULES.
1. Urge no healths.

2. Profane no divine ordinances.
3. Touch no state matters.
4. Reveal no secrets.
5. Pick no quarrels.

6. Make no comparisons.
7. Maintain no ill opinions.
8. Keep no bad company.
9. Encourage no vice.
10. Make no long meals.
11. Repeat no grievances.
12. Lay no wagers.

THE MUSHROOM.

THIS well-known production belongs to the tribe of fungi. The fungi appear to form the last link in the chain of vegetable life, connecting organized bodies with inorganized matter. "In simplicity of form and structure, they differ widely from the other vegetable tribes, as they present neither leaves nor flowers. Destined to spring up in the midst of corruption, and to draw their nourishment from putrefaction, the fastidious observer turns from them with disgust; and the true naturalist, while aware of their importance in the scale of nature, finding them too perishable in their nature to be easily preserved in his cabinet, too capricious in their growth to be cultivated in his garden, and too sportive in their forms to be successfully delineated with his pencil, leaves them with regret, to rot on the dunghill, or to wither in the wood."

They were formerly supposed to spring from the glutinous results of putrefied substances, but the wiser views of later philosophers have clearly shown that the impious doctrine of organized bodies being produced from inorganized matter, without the intervention of the creative power of the Maker of all things, is a wicked fallacy, and utterly at variance with all the laws of nature as far as our limited powers have been able to trace them.

For a long time the seeds of the mushroom-tribe remained undiscovered; but recent and more careful observations have shown their existence, though their minute size renders them very difficult of detection. Perhaps no class of vegetables is more widely distributed than that of the fungi; for not only do the boleti which are found on decayed wood, and on the borders of forests; the toadstools, the puff-balls, and a variety of other larger species, belong to this tribe; but every indication of mouldiness on old leather, badly-preserved fruit, mildew, &c., is but a collection of innumerable minute productions of the same nature.

"The fungi exhibit some of the finest colours of the vegetable kingdom. Nature having withheld from this portion of her plants, those flowers which form the chief beauties of the higher orders, and even the leaves with which they are clothed, has profusely scattered her colours over the whole surface of the mushrooms, ornamenting the cap with one colour, the gills with a second, and the stem with a third. Let but the lover of natural beauty free his mind from prejudice, and then examine the forms and colouring of the fungi, and he will be compelled to admit that many of them rival in symmetry and splendour, the rose and the lily, those gaudy ornaments of Flora.'

Beautiful, however, as some of these vegetable productions are and useful as other kinds prove to

mankind, yet the greatest portion of these tribes are noxious if not poisonous, and so little difference, at times, exists between the wholesome and the deleterious species, that it is with great difficulty they are distinguished. In general we ought to reject all those which grow on the skirts of woods, and on decayed trees, those whose smell is displeasing, or taste hot to the palate, all those which when broken give out a milky juice, and generally all that are finely coloured. In many parts abroad, however, some of the noxious kinds are eaten, after being pickled or boiled; it is said that the poisonous quality is soluble, and therefore extracted by the liquid: however this may be, the experiment is too dangerous to be attempted, and the only kinds of fungi found in England decidedly fit for the table, are the common mushroom, and the champignon.

The Common Mushroom is found in its early state as a button. When its cap is in the form of a roundish knob, as seen in the engraving, and in its adult state, when it appears like an inverted saucer; its substance is fleshy, and its gills (the under part) have a pinkish hue, perceptible even when their colour is darkened by age, the smell also is agreeable.

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