time. . . . These points being premised, I proceed to describe the new instrument, which I have called the Polar Clock or Dial:-At the extremity of a vertical pillar is fixed, within a brass ring, a glass disk, so inclined that its plane is perpendicular to the polar axis of the earth. On the lower half of this disk is a graduated semicircle, divided into twelve parts (each of which is again subdivided into five or ten parts), and against the divisions the hours of the day are marked, commencing and terminating with six. Within the fixed brass ring containing the glass dial-plate, the broad end of a conical tube is so fitted that it freely moves round its own axis; this broad end is closed by another glass disk, in the centre of which is a small star or other figure, formed of thin films of selenite, exhibiting, when examined with polarised light, strongly contrasting colours; and a hand is painted in such a position as to be a prolongation of one of the principal sections of the crystalline films. At the smaller end of the conical tube a Nichol's prism is fixed, so that either of its diagonals shall be forty-five degrees from the principal section of the selenite films. The instrument being so fixed that the axis of the conical tube shall coincide with the polar axis of the earth, and the eye of the observer being placed to the Nichol's prism, it will be remarked that the selenite star will in general be richly coloured; but as the tube is turned on its axis, the colours will vary in intensity, and in two positions will entirely disappear. . . . The rule to ascertain the time by this instrument is as follows:-The tube must be turned round by the hand of the observer until the coloured star entirely disappears, while the disk in the centre remains red; the hand will then point accurately to the hour. The accuracy with which the solar time may be indicated by this means will depend on the exactness with which the plane of polarisation can be determined. One degree of change in the plane corresponds with four minutes of solar time.' It may be necessary to observe that the Polar Clock is to be fixed, as a sun-dial, out of doors; the proper azimuth may be obtained by the sun's shadow at noon. It must be set by placing the hands to correspond with the true solar time. Turn the vertical pillar on its axis until the colours of the selenite star entirely disappear; the instrument will then be properly adjusted. The advan. tages a Polar Clock possesses over a sun-dial are-1. The Polar Clock being constantly directed to the same point of the sky, there is no locality in which it cannot be employed; whereas, in order that the indications of a sun-dial should be observed during the whole day, no obstacle must exist at any time between the dial and the places of the sun, and it cannot therefore be applied in any confined situation. The Polar Clock is consequently applicable in places where a sun-dial would be of no avail-on the north side of a mountain, or a lofty building, for instance. 2. It will continue to indicate the time after sunset and before sunrise; in fact, so long as the rays of the sun are reflected from the atmosphere. 3. It will also indicate the time, but with less accuracy, when the sky is overcast, if the clouds do not exceed a certain density.'

An instrument graduated for Europe, or any place north of the equator, would be useless when carried to the south of the line, as the planes of polarisation move in opposite directions in the two hemispheres. In the northern, the motion is backwards, or contrary to that of the hands of a watch; in the southern, it is forwards, or with the hands. And, as a curious analogy, it may be mentioned that the movements of storms in either hemisphere precisely correspond with those of the planes of polarised light, as here described.

As yet, much cannot be predicated of the practical value of this truly ingenious instrument; but in scientific hands many interesting or useful applications of it will doubtless be discovered. Owing to the cloudy state of the atmosphere, it was not found possible to test it more than once during the Swansea meeting. A French writer puts in a claim for some of the honour accruing

from the invention, and recommends that as Malus made his discoveries on polarisation in the garden of the Luxembourg, a Polar Clock should be fixed in some conspicuous part of the grounds as a monument of his genius.

QUAKER LOVE.

BY LEITCH RITCHIE.

MANY years ago spent a day in the town of Elm's Cross, and although no adventure befell me there to fix the place in my memory, I see it before me at this moment as distinctly as that picture on the wall. I had an impression all that day, however erroneous, that it was Sunday. There was a Sunday silence in the streets, a Sunday gravity in the passers-by, a Sunday order and cleanliness in their habiliments. The lines of houses were ranged with the most sober decorum, and the little lawns which many of them possessed were laid out with the square and compass. The trees were not beautiful, but neat, for nature was not indulged in any of her freaks at Elm's Cross; and indeed it seemed to me that the very leaves had a peculiarly quiet green, and the flowers a reserved smell. The majority of the better class of the inhabitants of this town were Friends; and it appeared-if my imagination did not run away with me-that, through the influence of wealth and numbers, they had been able to impress the external characteristics of their society upon the whole place. But no; my imagination could not have run away with me; for the moment imagination enters Elm's Cross, it is taken into custody as a vagrant, and kept in durance during its sojourn. There one loses the faculty of day-dreaming; and although I was a young fellow at the time, half-crazy with sentiment and love of adventure, even the fair Quakers, some of whom were beautiful, in spite of their bonnets, had no more effect upon me than so many marble statues. But perhaps it will give a better idea of the spirit of the place, if I say that the only one of them on whom I bestowed a second look had arrived at that time of life when the controversy begins as to whether a woman should be reckoned a young or an old maid.

This middle-aged person (not to use the offensive expression offensively) was, like all Quakers when they are beautiful, beautiful to excess. Retaining an exquisite complexion, even when her hair was beginning to change, she seemed a personification of the autumnal loveliness which makes one forget that of the spring and summer. Her voice, mellowed by time, was better calculated to linger in the ear than the lighter tones of youth; and it harmonised well with her soft, dove-like eyes,

"That seemed to love whate'er they looked upon.' Yet there was no feeling in this love, such as we of the world demand in the love of her sex; the richness of her cheek was as cold as the bloom of a flower; and as, with noiseless step, and demure nun-like air, she glided past, I felt as if I had seen a portrait walk out of its frame, a masterly imitation of woman, but only an imitation.

This was why I turned round and looked at her again; and as I looked, a kind of pity rose in my inexperienced heart that one so fair should pass through life unstirred by its excitements, untouched by its raptures, even untroubled with its sorrows. As the novelty wore off, I hated the cold formal air of everything around; the atmosphere chilled me; the silence disturbed me; and the next morning I was glad to launch again upon the stormy world, and leave this lonely oasis to its enchanted repose.

Some time after, when giving the history of this day to a friend, who proved to be personally acquainted with the place and people, he told me that the lady on whom I had looked twice had been for many years not only the reigning beauty of Elm's Cross, but the benevolent

genius of the town and neighbourhood; and he related a passage in her early life which made me qualify a little my opinion as to the passionless tranquillity of her feelings, and the uneventful blank of her history. Not that the thing can be called an adventure, that the incident has any intermixture of romance-that would be absurd. It passed over her heart like a summer cloud, which leaves the heavens as bright and serene as before; but somehow or other it infused a suspicion into my mind, that however staid the demeanour and decorous the conduct, human nature is everywhere alike -that the difference is not in the feelings, but their control.

Her father was one of the wealthiest inhabitants of the town, and Martha Hargrave was an only child, the expectant heiress of his fortune, and likewise possessed, in her own right, of L.5000, safely invested. In such circumstances, it may be supposed that when she grew up from the child into the girl she attracted not a little the attention of blushing striplings and speculative mammas. These were, with the exception of one family, of her own Society-for Mr and Mrs Hargrave were Quakers of the old school, and confined themselves almost exclusively within the circle of Friends. The exception was formed by a widow lady and her son; the former an early intimate of Mrs Hargrave, now living on a small annuity, from which, by means of close economy, she contrived to save a little every year to pay for her boy's outfit in the world. Richard Temple was well calculated to be the object of a mother's doting affection; he was a fine, spirited, generous, handsome lad, two or three years older than Martha, of whom he was the playmate in childhood, the friend in youth, and something more after that. How it came that a penniless boy thought as he did of the Quaker heiress, may seem a mystery; but it must be recollected that the conventional distinctions of society make little impression upon children brought up together upon terms of equality. Richard looked upon Martha as his sister, till he began to feel as a personal injury the admiring looks that were thrown upon her from under the broad brims of the young Quakers; and even when the fact at length forced itself upon him that she was rich, and he poor, that she rolled in a carriage, and he walked on foot, that her parents were among the first people in the place, and his only one a solitary and almost indigent widow, the encouragement of his fond and unreflecting mother, and of his own gallant heart, triumphed over the misgivings of prudence; and the affection of the boy was suffered to ripen, unchecked, into the love of the young man.

While this process was going on with Richard, in Martha the wildness of childhood sobered gradually down into the demure circumspection of the Quaker girl. Her step became less buoyant, her glance less free, her speech less frank, her air more reserved; and as time wore on, Richard occasionally paused in the midst of one of his sallies, and looked at her in surprise, in a kind of awe, as if he already felt a foreshadowing of the approach of majestic womanhood. But nevertheless, when he came one day to bid her farewell before his exodus into the world, her heart was too full of the memories of her childish years to remember its new conventionalism, and she stood before him with her hands crossed upon her bosom, gazing in his face with a look of girlish fondness, that was made still softer by the tears that stood trembling in her beautiful eyes. He was to proceed to London, to be completed in his initiation into mercantile business, and might be absent for years-perhaps for ever-for his mother was to accompany him; and Martha felt the separation as her first serious distress. Richard was old enough to be aware of the nature of his own feelings; and perhaps if Martha had been in one of her grand moments, he might have dared to appeal to the growing woman in her heart. But she appeared to him on this occasion so young, so gentle, so delicate, that he would have thought it a profanation to talk to her of love. As the moment of parting arrived,

he drew her towards him with both hands; his arms encircled her waist; and-how it happened I know not, for the thing was wholly out of rule-his lips were pressed to hers. The next moment he started from his bewilderment; his eyes dazzled; Martha had disappeared. He did not know, when in the morning the stage-coach was carrying him from Elm's Cross, that a young girl was sitting behind a blind in the highest room of that house watching the vehicle as it rolled away, till it was prematurely lost in her blinding tears. I am unable to trace the adventures of Richard Temple in London; but they appear to have been comparatively fortunate, since, at the end of only three years, he was a junior partner in a young but respectable firm. He had seen Miss Hargrave several times during the interval; but I need not say that their intercourse had entirely changed its character. Richard was not only interested, but likewise in some degree amused, by the transmutation of the young girl into the demure and circumspect Quaker. In essentials, however, she was not altered, but improved and exalted; and even her physical beauty acquired a new character of loveliness as the development of her moral feelings went on. But over all, there was what seemed to the young man, now that he was accustomed to the common world, an icyness of manner, which repelled his advances; and he continued to love on without daring to disclose the secret of his bosom. What matter? It was no secret to her whom it concerned; for friend Martha, with all her demureness, had a woman's heart and a woman's eyes. At the end of the three years I have mentioned Mrs Temple died, and Richard, now alone in the world, and with tolerable prospects in business, began in due time to ask himself, with a quaking heart and a flushing brow, whether it were possible for him to obtain the Quaker girl for his bride. After much cogitation on this subject, and a thousand misgivings, his characteristic daring prevailed; and addressing to Martha an eloquent history of his love, accompanied by a frank statement of his affairs and prospects, and a solicitation for permission to woo her for his wife, he enclosed the letter, open, in a briefer one to her father, and despatched the fateful missive.

The reply came from Mr Hargrave. It was cold, calm, decisive. He was obliged by the good opinion entertained by his young friend of his daughter, but Martha had altogether different views. Setting aside the oppositeness of their circumstances and position in this world, which would in itself be an insurmountable objection, their religious views were not so much alike as was necessary in the case of two persons pressing forward, side by side, to the world which is to come. He hoped friend Richard would speedily forget what, to a rational-minded person, ought to be hardly a disappointment, and, when his fortune permitted it, select from his own denomination a wife of his own degree. This insolent letter, as the young man termed it, had no effect but that of rousing the fierce and headlong energy of his nature. He knew Martha too well to believe that she had any share in such a production; and he wrote at once to Mr Hargrave to say that his daughter was now old enough to decide for herself, and that he could not think of receiving at second hand a reply involving the happiness or misery of his whole life. On the following day he would present himself at his house in Elm's Cross, in the hope of hearing his fate from Martha's own lips, even if in the presence her father and mother.

of

When Richard Temple passed across the Dutch-like lawn of the house, with its drilled shrubs and flowers describing mathematical figures on its level green, and ascended the steps, as white as driven snow, his hand trembled as he raised the knocker, and he felt his heart die within him. The sound he made startled him by its incongruous want of measure, and he looked round timidly, as if he had committed an indecorum. When the respectable middle-aged servant marshalled him up stairs to the drawing-room, he followed the man with

deference, as if he had something to say in the decision. The room was empty, and he stood for some time alone, looking round upon the walls, the furniture, the books, the flowers, and reading in them all the ruin of his hopes. There was an unostentatious richness in that room, a method in its arrangement, a calm assumption of superiority, which made him quail. The answer he had come to demand was before him. It spoke to him even in the whispered cadence of the trees beyond the open window, and the unhurried entrance of the air into the apartment, loaded with faint sweets from the garden. The loneliness in which he stood seemed strange to his excited imagination, and the silence oppressed him; and when at length the door slowly opened, unaccompanied by the sound of a footfall, he started in nervous tremor, as if he expected to behold the entrance of a spirit.

Martha entered the room alone, and shutting the door, glided composedly up to Richard, and offered him her hand as usual. The clasp, though gentle, was palpable; and as he saw, in the first place, that she was paler than formerly, and, in the second, that a slight colour rose into her face under his searching gaze, he was sufficiently reassured to address her.

'Martha,' he said, 'did my letter surprise you? Tell me only that it was too abrupt-that it startled and hurried you. Was it not so?'

'Nay, Richard.'

"Then you knew, even before I dared to speak, that I loved you with all the guilelessness of my infancy, all the fire of my youth, and all the deep, earnest concentrated passion of my manhood. Do you know of the reply my letter received?' "Yea, Richard.'

'And you sanctioned it?'

'In meaning,' but here her voice slightly faltered: 'if the words were unkind, be thou assured that they came neither from my pen nor my heart.'

Then I was deceived in supposing-for I did indulge the dream-that my devotion had awakened an interest in your bosom? That interest belongs to another!'

I never had a dearer friendship than thine,' said Martha; and raising her eyes to his, she added after a pause, in the clear, distinct, silvery tone which was the character of her voice, and never shall!'

Yet you reject and spurn me! This is torture! It cannot be that the difference in our worldly circumstances weighs with you: I know you better, Martha. Neither can you suppose that on my part there is the slightest tinge of mercenary feeling, for you know me better. Will you not give me at least hope? There are fortunes to make in the world that would satisfy even your father: we are both young; and to win you, my precious love, I would grudge neither time, nor sweat, nor blood!'

'Richard,' said the Quaker girl, growing still more pale, no more of this, in mercy to thyself—and me. Thou mayst agitate and unnerve, but never change my purpose.'

What is your purpose?'

To honour my father and my mother.' That you may enjoy long life in the land!' said Richard with a bitter smile.

That I may honour through them my Heavenly Father, who is above all. Farewell, my early friend; return into the world, where thou wilt forget Martha, and may the All-wise direct thy course!' She extended her hand to him as she spoke, and he grasped it like a man in a dream. The reply he had demanded was distinct enough in her words, but a thousand times more so in her look, manner, tone. He felt that expostulation was vain, and would be unmanly; and as she walked away, with her noiseless and measured step, and her hands folded before her, he felt indignation struggling with admiring and despairing love. The figure paused for an instant at the door; but the next moment Martha disappeared without turning her head. Richard never knew, neither can I tell, whether any

one watched the stage-coach that day from the upper window. Not even a prying servant could whisper anything of Martha, or guess at the nature of the interview that had taken place. She was pale, it is true, but so had she been for some time. Her health, it appeared, was not good; her appetite was gone; her limbs feeble. But this would go off, for her manner was as usual. She was assiduous in the discharge of her duties, kind to every one, loving and reverential to her parents. Still she was not well, and her father at length grew alarmed. They took her from wateringplace to watering-place; they amused her with strange sights; they tried every day to give some new direction to her thoughts. Martha was grateful. She repaid their cares with smiles, talked to them cheerfully, and did all she could to seem and to be happy. But still she was not well; and when many months had passed away, the now terrified parents, after trying everything that science and affection could suggest for the restoration of their only child, consulted once more. nature of the step they ultimately determined upon may be gathered from the following communication received in reply to a letter from Mr Hargrave :

The

'RESPECTED FRIEND-The inquiry thou directedst has been easy. I am connected in business with one (not of our Society) to whom the young man is well known, and by whom he is much esteemed. Richard Temple is wise beyond his years. He is of quiet and retired habits in his private life, and is an energetic and persevering man of business, and will, I have no doubt, get on in the world. That this is the opinion of my friend is clear, for I know that he would willingly give him his daughter to wife, who will bring her husband a good dowry as well as a comely person. But Richard, when I saw him last, was not forward in the matter. His thoughts, even in the company of the maid, seemed preoccupied-doubtless by business. Since writing these lines, I have been informed that he visits Elm's Cross in a few days, to arrange some matters connected with his late mother's affairs, the last remaining link of his connection with the place.-I am, respected friend, &c. EZEKIEL BROWN.'

This letter determined Mr Hargrave to recall his rejection of Richard Temple; and the effect of a conversation he had upon the subject with his daughter proved, to the unbounded joy of the parents, that as yet she had no organic disease.

For some days Martha, though happy, was restless. It seemed as if joy had more effect than grief in unsettling the demure Quaker, for at the slightest sound from the lawn or the street the colour mounted into her face. At length an acquaintance, when calling in the evening, informed her that she had just seen Richard.

6

Thou rememberest Richard, Martha?' Martha

nodded.

'He is grown so comely and so manly, thou wouldst hardly know him.'

He will call here, peradventure?' said the mother. 'Nay. He has already taken his place in the coach for to-morrow.' Martha grew pale; and the mother hurried out of the room to seek her husband. That night Richard received a friendly note from Mr Hargrave, begging him to call in the morning on business of importance.

When Richard found himself once more in the silent drawing-room, his manner was very different from what it had been on the last occasion. He was now calm, but gloomy, and almost stern; and he waited for the appearance of his inviter with neither hope nor fear, but with a haughty impatience. Instead of Mr Hargrave, however, it was Martha who entered the room, and he started back at the unexpected apparition in surprise and agitation. The colour that rose into her face, and made her more beautiful than ever, prevented him from seeing that she had been ill; and when she held out her hand, the slight grasp he gave it was so momentary, that he did not discover its attenuation.

the field of battle or in the hands of an operating surgeon. This presents a wider field for enterprise; and of those who devote themselves to such mechanical ingenuities as these, we find our authority gives us the number of at least twelve. That, as the barbers say, indispensable ornament, a fine head of hair,' leads us in a progressive ratio to those who undertake, with varying degrees of pretension and success, to furnish this ornament to persons to whom nature has denied it. Thus we learn that upwards of two dozen persons in London devote themselves to the making of perruques, including those who manufacture the strange-looking things called bar-wigs for the gentlemen of the long robe. As it is necessary, however, to have a contrivance by which a sort of adhesion may be effected between the wig and the head it adorns, a peculiar branch of art is the manufacture of wig-springs-so peculiar, in fact, that we find but one wig-spring-maker in all London. Defects connected with the mouth and teeth furnish employment to a still greater number of persons, who would fain dignify their pursuits with the honours of a profession. Of these practitioners of dentistry the metropolis contains the large number of between two and three hundred. This art, however, has its subdivisions; and thus there are two or three who manufacture the teeth, others the plates, and others the general mechanical part of the business. The great metropolis has its corns, and supports in considerable affluence 9 corn-cutters, or, to speak a la mode, chiropedists. It has also its defects of vision and hearing, and for their alleviation keeps employed 5 or 6 professional aurists, and the same number, or rather more, oculists. Its commoner ailments are committed to the care of the large staff of physicians, surgeons, and general practitioners, together with chemists and druggists innumerable.

London, the mother of two million children, must be fed. Looking, then, to the list of those on whom the task devolves, we find, in the first place, a corps of 2500 bakers. It has been calculated that this corps consumes and disposes of in all about 1,000,000 quarters of wheat each year. Four-fifths of this is made into bread, and distributed among the inhabitants of the metropolis in the shape of quartern loaves, to the number annually of 15,000,000. The bread thus provided cannot-so at least say they who can afford to say it-be consumed without butter, and we find 990 buttermen coming in to the rescue, with 11,000 tons of butter every year, and 13,000 tons of cheese! Bread and butter are suggestive of tea and sugar; and we find the large number of 3000 grocers and tea-dealers helping to spread our tables with the luxuries and comforts of the East. We are thus also naturally conducted to the dairy, which employs 900 established dairy-keepers, with a whole army of Welsh and Irish milkmen and women, and professes to afford an annual supply of 8,000,000 gallons of milk, but, as will be readily conjectured by those who are familiar with the anomalous aspect of this fluid in London, great uncertainty attaches to all statistics about it. Her dinner-table is supplied with meat by upwards of 1700 master butchers, with their men; and the annual number of beasts slaughtered for use, including oxen, sheep, calves, and pigs, amounts, as is calculated, to 1,701,000. Her more luxurious children spend L.80,000 a year on poultry, and employ therefore a proportionate number of poulterers. Her supply of fish is the duty of more than 400 chief fishmongers; and although it is impossible to give a correct estimate, her annual consumption of this article cannot fall short of 15,000,000 pounds, and is probably above that quantity. Her vegetables and dessert are the occupation of nearly 1300 green-grocers and fruiterers, and, it is supposed, cost annually about L.1,000,000 sterling. Her table is supplied with wine by 1000 merchants; and, alas! her poor are poisoned with intoxicating beverages by eleven thousand public-houses!

On account of the great distance from place to place, and the manner in which a connection is scattered,

it is customary for butchers, bakers, fishmongers, green-grocers, and some other tradesmen, to send out their respective wares in spring-gigs, or, as they are usually termed, 'Whitechapel Carts.' In London and its environs the number of these vehicles is very great. Milk is usually served from pans suspended by a yoke from the shoulder. The supplying of milk (from the pump as well as the cow) is considered a good trade; and we can at all events certify that' our milkman' and his wife on a late occasion went to the Opera as gaily attired as the best of 'em.' If this instance of the way the money goes' be thought surprising to strangers, it will give them a notion of the extent of trade carried on in apparently insignificant situations, when we mention that our fishmonger,' who occupies a little shop scarcely larger than a sentry-box, is rated at L.500 a year by the income-tax commissioners. The greater number of these small tradesmen, as they are ordinarily termed, are far from economical in their habits, though it must be owned they earn their money by a course of industry beyond anything exemplary. To return from this digression.

The clothing trades of London are numerous, and in many instances on an extensive scale. It is commonly alleged that the fair sex are exclusively addicted to the extravagance of dress. Whether what we are about to state will roll away this disgrace or not from them, we dare not affirm; let gentlemen, however, be made acquainted with this truth, that our parent city keeps for us alone 2880 master tailors, while, for the other sex, her establishment of milliners of the same position only amounts to 1080. We are bound, however, to add, that she also sustains upwards of 1400 chief linendrapers and haberdashers. Her boot and shoemakers number about 2160, and her hosiers between 300 and 400. We have taken a Directory of the year 1821, and on contrasting the numbers there to be counted of persons belonging to these different occupations, find that at that period-a quarter of a century or so ago—there were, so the Directory gives it, but 320 master bakers, 880 master grocers, 160 master fishmongers, 810 winemerchants, 880 linendrapers and haberdashers, the same number of boot and shoemakers, and 1040 tailors. Could reliance be placed on these books, how valuable an amount of information would they present! But in the case in question, although there cannot be a doubt that an enormous increase has taken place in this period in the number of tradesmen, yet the figures last quoted, which we have obtained by carefully counting them in the pages of the Directory of that period, are by no means to be taken as accurate representations of the state of the metropolitan trade at the time.

The number of persons employed, in consequence of the subdivision of labour, upon a single article of general requisition, has often attracted observation. The pages of a Directory are rich in information upon such subjects. Take, for example, a watch, and let us notice how may master mechanics are employed in its construction. There are 9 cap-makers, 42 case-makers, 15 dial-plate - makers, 1 silverer of watch and clock countenances, a number of enamellers, engine-turners, and chasers, 9 engravers, 15 escapement-makers, 8 finishers, 4 fusee-makers, 23 case gilders, 12 watchglass-makers, 10 hand-makers, 2 index-makers, 24 jewellers of holes, 5 joint-finishers, 3 makers of watchkeys, 4 dealers in watch-materials, 25 watch-motionmakers, 1 pallet-jeweller, 2 pallet-makers, 3 pendantmakers, 3 pinion-makers, 36 secret-spring-makers, 10 watch-spring-makers, 11 tool-makers, 5 wheel-makers, and 686 so-called watch-makers! Thus there are 25 distinct and well-marked branches of this trade, or, in all, about 968 master tradesmen, of course employing a large number of operatives, engaged in the construction and sale of the watches of our metropolis. The construction of a carriage, though not quite so largely divided among a number of hands as the last, yet supplies us with a goodly list of different artisans occupied therein. Thus our authority indicates to us the names