PRICE ONE PENNY.

Or the beautiful and interesting cluster of islands lying close to the coast of France, in the Bay of La Manche, though belonging to England, little more is known to the generality of the English people than the names of the three principal of them, Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. We are proverbial for our love of travelling, and the reproach is often but too well deserved, that we traverse the remotest parts of the globe, in search of scenes and objects which yet scarcely surpass in splendour, beauty, or interest, those near our own homes. The distance, however, of these islands from England, is some excuse for the neglect they experience. They are visited chiefly by persons engaged in trade, or by those who, from motives of economy, seek a place where the necessaries of life are cheap, and its luxuries untaxed.

These islands, however, deserve to be better known, both for their beauty, and even for some degree of historical interest which attaches to them. They are numerous, beautifully grouped, and have a considerable resemblance to each other in character. Of the three already mentioned, it is to Jersey that we shall confine our present observations.

fertile, and the deep valleys which cross it abound in beauty, though, from the quantity of wood, its views are generally too narrow in extent.

To excite an historical interest, it will only be necessary to mention one point. These islands are the only remains of all our Norman possessions; the only portions which have invariably followed the fortunes of our own country in all changes of religion and of government. Long, however, after we had ceased to hold any part of Continental France, except the port of Calais, they continued under the Bishop of Coutance, from whom they were only transferred to the diocese of Winchester about the year 1500, by a bull of Pope Alexander VI.

Of antiquities, properly speaking, Jersey can boast but little. It is a place whose importance was understood too recently, the distance from England was too great, and the nearness to France too close,to allow of those enormous expenditures which raised edifices to contribute to the splendour and luxury of ages long gone by, and to be, even in ruins, the wonder and admiration of our own. But though ornament was neglected, all that could contribute to its strength and security seems to have been sufficiently provided. The castle, of which we give a view, is situated on a

pompous words of its native historian, Falle,) "proudly overlooks and threatens the neighbouring coast of France," whence it is distant only about fourteen miles. It is said to derive its name of Mont Orgueil (Mount Pride) from the Duke of Clarence, brother to Henry

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free enjoyment of their religion and liberty, and they have ever since continued a loyal, contented, and happy people. We can only recommend those who are disposed to wander abroad in search of objects of interest, or scenes of natural beauty, to pay a visit to these islands; and we think they will not be disappointed.

THE WATERS OF THREE RIVERS.-In the year 1801, when an expedition from this country landed in Egypt, under the command of the gallant and lamented Sir Ralph Abercrombie, it was joined by a British force from India. The vessels which conveyed the army from England had taken in their provision of water from the Thames; the troops which came from India had brought with them a supply from the Ganges. A party of British officers mixed some of the water from these two famous rivers together, adding some of that of the no less famous Nile; and with it making a bowl of punch, they drank it on the top of one of the pyramids.

CONVERSION OF FORESTS INTO BOGS.-Natural woods have long ceased to exist except in a few instances-this has been owing to various causes. Extensive forests, occupying a long tract of tolerably level ground, have been gradually destroyed by natural decay, hastened by the increase of the bogs. The wood which they might have produced, was useless to the proprietors; the state of the roads, as well as of the country in general, not permitting so bulky and weighty an article to be carried from the place where it had grown, however valuable it might have proved had it been transported elsewhere. In this situation, the trees of the natural forest pined and withered, and were thrown down by the wind; and it often necessarily happened that they fell into or across some little stream or rivulet, by the side of which they had flourished and decayed. The stream being stopped, the soil around it became soaked with standing water, and instead of being, as hitherto, the drain of the forest, the stopping of the rivulet turned into a swamp what its current had formerly rendered dry. The loose bog-earth, and the sour moisture with which it was soaked, loosened and poisoned the roots of other neighbouring trees, which, at the next storm, went to the ground in their turn, and tended to impede still more the current of the water; whilst the moss (as the bog-earth is called in Scotland) went on increasing and heaving up, so as to bury the trunks of the trees which it had destroyed. In the counties of Inverness and Ross, instances may be seen at the present day where this melancholy process of the conversion of a forest into a bog is still going forward. [From a most useful and entertaining article in the Quarterly Review, Vol. xxxvI., attributed to SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

SOCIAL WORSHIP.

THERE is a joy, which angels well may prize.

To see, and hear, and aid God's worship, when Unnumber'd tongues, a host of Christian men, Youths, matrons, maidens, join. Their sounds arise, "Like many waters;" now glad symphonies

Of thanks and glory to our God; and then, Seal of the social pray'r, the loud Amen, Faith's common pledge, contrition's mingled cries. Thus, when the Church of Christ was hale and young, She call'd on God, one spirit and one voice; Thus from corruption cleans'd, with health new strung, Her sons she nurtur'd. O, be their's, by choice, What duty bids, to worship, heart and tongue;

At once to pray, at once in God rejoice!—D. C.

THE IRON-MINES AT PERSBERG IN
SWEDEN.

Ar Persberg there are not less than thirteen different mines, all worked for iron, which have no communication with each other; and so extensive are they, that to see the whole of them would require at least three days of active exertion. A careful examination of one of them may, therefore, serve to afford a tolerably accurate knowledge of the whole.

The author's visit to these mines was made after he had personally visited many of the principal works of the same nature in other countries, and

especially in his own. For the last ten years of his life, he had been much in the habit of seeing similar works; it is not, therefore, owing to any surprise at the novelty of the scene before him, that he has now to mention the astonishment he felt when he arrived at the mouth of one of the great Persberg mines; but he is fully prepared to say of it, and with truth, there is nothing like it in all that he has beheld elsewhere. For grandeur of effect, filling the mind of the spectator with a degree of wonder which amounts to awe, there is no place where human labour is exhibited under circumstances more tremendously striking.

As we drew near to the wide and open abyss, a vast and sudden prospect of yawning caverns, and of prodigious machinery, prepared us for the descent. We approached the edge of the dreadful gulf whence the ore is raised, and ventured to look down, standing upon the verge of a sort of platform (seen in the ac-, companying engraving), constructed over it in such a manner as to command a view into the great opening as far as the eye could penetrate amidst its gloomy depths, for to the sight it is bottomless. Immense buckets, suspended by rattling chains, were passing up and down; and we could perceive ladders scaling all the inward precipices, upon which the work-people, reduced, by their distance, to pigmies in size, were ascending and descending. Far below the utmost of these figures, a deep and gaping gulf, the mouth of the lowermost pits, was, by its darkness, rendered impervious to the view. From the spot where we stood, down to the place where the buckets are filled, the distance might be about four hundred and fifty feet; and as soon as any of these buckets arose from the gloomy cavity we have mentioned, or until they entered into it in their descent, they were visible; but below this point they were hid in darkness. The clanking of the chains, the groaning of the pumps, the hallooing of the miners, the creaking of the blocks and wheels, the trampling of horses, the beating of the hammers, and the loud and frequent subterraneous thunders, from the blasting of the rocks by gunpowder, in the midst of all this scene of excavation and uproar, produced an effect which no stranger can behold unmoved.

We descended, with two of the miners and our interpreter, into this abyss. The ladders, instead of being placed, like those in our Cornish mines, upon a series of platforms, as so many landing-places, are lashed together in one unbroken line, extending many fathoms; and, being warped to suit the shape of the sides of the precipices, they are not always perpendicular, but hang over in such a manner that, even if a person held fast by his hands, and if his feet should happen to slip, they would fly off from the rock, and leave him suspended over the gulf. Yet such ladders are the only means of access to the works below; and as the labourers are not accustomed to receive strangers, they neither use the precautions, nor offer the assistance, usually afforded in more frequented mines. In the principal tin-mines of Cornwall, the staves of the ladders are alternate bars of wood and iron; here they were of wood only, and in some parts rotten and broken, making us often wish, during our descent, that we had never undertaken an exploit so hazardous.

In addition to the danger to be apprehended from the damaged state of the ladders, the staves were covered with ice or mud, and thus rendered so cold and slippery, that we could have no dependence upon our benumbed fingers, if our feet failed us. Then, to complete our apprehensions, as we mentioned this to the miners, they said, "Have a care! It was just so (talking about the staves) that one of our women* *Females, as well as males, work in the Swedish mines.

fell, about four years ago, as she was descending to her work." "Fell!" said our Swedish interpreter, rather simply; "and pray what became of her? "Became of her!" continued the foremost of our guides, disengaging one of his hands from the ladder, and slapping it forcibly against his thigh, as if to illustrate the manner of the catastrophe," She became a pancake!"

As we descended further from the surface, large masses of ice appeared, covering the sides of the precipices. Ice is raised in the buckets, with the ore and rubble of the mine: it has also accumulated in such quantity in some of the lower chambers, that there are places where it is fifteen fathoms thick, and no change of temperature above prevents its increase. After much fatigue, and no small share of apprehension, we at length reached the bottom of the mine. Here we had no sooner arrived, than our conductors, taking each of us by an arm, hurried us along, through regions of "thick-ribbed ice" and darkness, into a vaulted level, through which we were to pass into the principal chamber of the mine. The noise of countless hammers, all in constant action, increased as we crept along this level; until at length, subduing every other sound, we could no longer hear each other speak, notwithstanding our utmost efforts. At this moment we were ushered into a prodigious cavern, whence the sounds proceeded: and here, amidst falling waters, tumbling rocks, steam, ice, and gunpowder, about fifty miners were in the very height of their employment. The size of the cavern, over all parts of which their labours were going on, proved that the iron-ore was deposited in beds, and not in veins, for then the work would have

been more confined. Above, below, on every side and in every nook of this fearful dungeon, glimmering tapers disclosed the grim and anxious countenances of the miners, for, at the moment of our entrance, they were driving bolts of iron into the rocks, to bore cavities for the gunpowder, for blasting. Of this fact, and of the consequent danger of our position, we were not at first conscious: in vain did a miserable-looking female miner, snatching a lighted splinter of deal, dart to the spot where we stood, for the purpose of making us acquainted with our situation; for, even if we could have heard what she said, we could not have comprehended a syllable. But as the other miners now passed swiftly by us, hastening tumultuously towards the entrance of the cavern, we began to perceive our real danger: the noise of the hammers had ceased, and a tremendous blast was near the point of its explosion. We had scarcely retraced with all speed our steps along the level, and were beginning to ascend the ladders, when the full volume of the thunder reached us, as if roaring with greater vehemence, because pent up amongst the crashing rocks, whence, being repeated over all the mine, it seemed to shake the earth itself with its terrible vibrations. We were afterwards conducted into other cavities of the Persberg works. The whole hill of Persberg may be considered as a vast deposit of iron-ore; the ore lying in separate beds. The miners work in spacious caverns-like those of our salt-mines in Cheshire; excepting that the interior of our salt-mines, containing neither ice, nor cataracts, nor dreadful precipices to be scaled by means of rotten ladders *, nor filthy wretched females doomed to do the work of men-are rather pleasing than alarming in their appearance.

When we had concluded our examination of the Persberg mines, we set off for Saxan, and from thence, the whole way to the frontier of Dalecarlia, the traveller constantly meets with mines or ironfoundries: and it is worthy of remark, that wherever these appearances take place, there are also evident marks of the blessings of industry, in the neatness and comfort of the dwellings near them.

These subterraneous treasures, and their consequences, in employing so many foundries, and in requiring so much aid of machinery for working the mines, are among the most important possessions of Sweden. Their evident importance, in the prosperity to which they give rise throughout districts that would otherwise be deserted, ought to serve as a lesson to the inhabitants of other countries to seek diligently for such sources of industry and opulence, where the features of the country are unfavourable to agriculture; since it is the same Providence which renders productive to human labour the most bleak and barren rock, and the most fertile vegetable soil.

For

We left this country with feelings very different from those with which we entered it from Norway, where the barren aspect of the country seemed calculated to excite the murmurs of its inhabitants. even amid these rocks we beheld "a land which the Lord had blessed;" -a land, it is true, where sluggards might starve,-as they may any where; but where a sturdy and active race of men have already found all that is necessary for the comforts, and even for the iuxuries, of life; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, nor lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass!"--From DR. E. D. CLARKE's Travels.

* The descent into the Cheshire salt-mines is by means of buckets, in which one may be conveyed into the mine, and back again, with the utmost safety and cleanliness.

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

THE Report of the National Society, for the year 1832, has been published, and gives a most gratifying account of the progress of education. It does not confine itself to the Schools in union with the Society, but gives a summary statement of Day and Sunday Schools throughout England and Wales. The Society, last year, issued circulars to every parish church and chapelry, for the purpose of making a general inquiry and, from the returns made in consequence, it appears that there are above eleven thousand Schools in connexion with the Established Church; and that the number of children receiving education in those Schools, under the superintendence of the Clergy, and in the principles of the Church of England, amounts to more than NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND.

This fact, when it becomes generally known, will surely put an end to the shameless falsehoods which have been told about the general negligence of the clergy. Nor can it any longer be said, with the chance of being believed, that they endeavour to keep the people in ignorance. No calumny can be more gross, no falsehood more base than this. Whatever may have been the case before the Reformation, it is certain that, since that period, the clergy have been the most active and strenuous promoters of the education of the poor. King Edward and the Reformers were not able to do all that they wished when that great change took place, but they did a great deal. Their plan is thus spoken of in an interesting Appendix on the Rise and Progress of Schools.

"After the darkness which had prevailed so extensively, it was no trifling help to the ignorant, (1) to have a Bible fixed on a stand in the church, that they might all read it, or hear it read to them, (2) to have a comment or paraphrase on the Gospels in the same place, (3) to have the liberty of possessing a Bible at home, (4) to have chosen sentences of Scripture written up in large letters in the churches, (5) to have prayer offered up to God in the vulgar tongue, (6) to have homilies, intended to suit the capacities of the common people, and other godly books printed and dispersed abroad in a language they could understand. All these were vast helps continually lying in the way of those who were least informed. But besides what was offered them by provisions of this nature, positive duties were enjoined. The Clergyman, in the capacity of a catechist, was to be the instructor of the poor and labouring classes in all things necessary for the great purposes of life. According to primitive usage, the sponsors of children were, of necessity, obliged to make a solemn promise that the child should be taught the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten commandments in the vulgar tongue. They were obliged to teach them the church catechism, in which all things concerning faith, practice, prayer, and doctrine were collected in such short and plain sums, that the weakness of no man's understanding could hinder altogether the knowledge, or excuse the utter ignorance, of things necessary to salvation. The office of public baptism was set forth as the basis upon which the religious education of the poor as well as rich was to be framed. All curates were to instruct and examine children on Sundays and holidays in some of these things, publicly in the church; all parents, masters, and dames were to send their children, servants, and apprentices to be ordered and instructed by him; they were to breed them to learning, or some useful and honest employ;-in riper years they were to be examined, and not to be admitted to the Lord's Supper unless they understood these fundamentals of religion.-And to promote the same pious and enlightened purposes, wherever Schools existed, for whatever class of society, the masters were to be examined and licensed by the Bishop, that security might be had for their bringing up all children in sound doctrine, and in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

"Hence, notwithstanding that Schools for the poor, in their present character, were little thought of in that age, a plan was devised which, though far from perfect, was sufficient to embrace the religious interests of the whole population of the country; and happy had it been for the people, if it could have been duly carried into effect.

"But the indifference of mankind to their spiritual welfare, the inadequate support left for the parochial clergy combined to prevent this happy result; and it was not at the destruction of monasteries, and various other causes, until the year 1698 that a School, specifically for the lowest classes, was actually set on foot. The SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE then appeared as the great promoter of the education of the poor. It proceeded on one simple principle, that the growth of vice the principles of the Christian Religion. And this evil and immorality was greatly owing to gross ignorance of it laboured to diminish, by encouraging Schools and promoting the circulation of useful and religious books.

"But the zeal and earnestness with which the design was prosecuted, especially by the Clergy, will be easily judged of by the following facts. For the general encou ragement of the work, the children and patrons of Charity Schools assembled together annually, and a sermon was preached in aid of the cause by some eminent divine ;-on the first occasion, in 1704, 2000 children met together, in St. Andrew's, Holborn, and a sermon was preached on Genesis xviii. 19. Afterwards the anniversary took place in St. Bride's; then in St. Sepulchre's, where nearly 5000 children were assembled in 1716; and, on the 2nd of May, 1782, the Schools were, for the first time, assembled in St. Paul's Cathedral (Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London, preached), where the anniversary still continues to be held; and where, notwithstanding the dimensions of the building, the conductors of the ceremony are now obliged to limit the numbers of the children admitted, by reason of the prodigious increase of Schools."

The National Society has just obtained a King's Letter to make a general collection in every parish throughout England and Wales, and we hope the appeal will be liberally answered.

THE Beaver (Castor), whose fur is so valuable, is an animal of astonishing industry, and prudent foresight. In order to procure lodgings and provisions during winter, the beavers live in a state of society, which resembles the civil compact of man, rather than the mere instinctive habits of other animals. As they must live near water, and frequently in it, they build dams across running brooks, to create an artificial lake; and in order to accomplish so great an object, they are obliged to labour in concert. The ingenuity with which they construct their dams, and build apartments or lodgings, is truly astonishing. If the water of the river or creek have little motion, they build their dams straight across; but if the current be rapid, they make them with a considerable and regular curve against the stream. the parts are of equal strength, and constructed of drift-wood, green willows, birch, poplars, mud, and stones. These dams, by constant repairing, often become a solid bank, on which trees soon grow. The

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