it is their inevitable tendency to bring war to an end. The communication of mutual advantage by the diffusion of commerce; the perception of such advantage by the exchange of thought, of manufacture, of the comforts and refinements of existence, and by the cultivation of fraternal good-will, are certain results of the increase of science. Who, then, would be slack to enrol himself her disciple while life is young, and there is a prospect of blessing mankind by entering her service? Who would yield to sloth, or dissipate his powers in empty folly, when greater fame may be won, for aught he knows to the contrary, even by his devoted thought, for universal humanity, than has been awarded to Guttemberg or Caxton, Galileo or Copernicus, or even to a Newton, Herschel, Davy, or Watt?

Young reader, the glorious path is open: none can prevent your entering it; there needs but patience and resolution.

IT is nearly two thousand years since Julius Cæsar first landed from his Roman galley on the English coast. It was on a fine morning in August-just about the time that the ancient Britons were gathering in their corn-harvest-when the Roman legions first saw the British warchariots, with the sharp scythes projecting from their wheels, as they went thundering along the sandy beach below the cliffs of Dover; and great must have been their astonishment, as they gazed from the decks of their high galleys, on the half naked, long

haired Britons, some of whom were paddling their coracles, or boats, which were made of osiers, covered with the hides of oxen, and in which they seldom ventured far from the shore.

Although it was not until centuries after this period that the compass was known in Britain, the Greeks and Romans were aware, long before the time of Cæsar, that an island celebrated for its tin lay somewhere on the north or northwest of Europe. The Greeks made many attempts to discover the Cassiterides, or islands of tin, as they called them. It appears, however, that they kept along the coast of Normandy and France, and were afraid to venture across our stormy channel, for they had no magnet to steer by. The Phonicians, who were the earliest traders that visited England, baffled all inquiries that the Greeks made as to the situation of these celebrated islands, and had for centuries all the traffic in tin to themselves. It was in vain that the Greeks sent out ships to discover where these early Phoenician voyagers landed ; the latter ran their vessels ashore on the coast of France, and would not steer across the English Channel until the Greeks had departed; nor does the secret of the Phoenicians appear to have been discovered until Julius Cæsar invaded Britain.

It will be readily perceived, by referring to a map of Europe, that the magnet was not necessary as a guide from the coast of France to England, as, on a clear day, our white island-cliffs may be seen from the opposite shore, and a few hours would be sufficient to cross the narrow sea which divides the two countries. Until the galleys ventured over, they would therefore keep in sight of the shore, and glide safely from headland to headland as they crept along the opposite coast.

In those early times chance or accident, no doubt, led to the discovery of more distant countries. A vessel might be borne along by a heavy wind, and in dark, cloudy, or tempestuous weather, when the sun did not appear, these early mariners would neither be able to distinguish the east from the west, nor

the north from the south; thus they would be compelled to sail along for days, ignorant of what latitude they were in, until they at last reached land; nor would they then be able to tell in what quarter lay the country they had left behind. Hundreds, no doubt, were lost, who were thus driven out into these unknown and perilous seas without either map or chart, or any guide by which to steer to the right or left. Backwards and forwards would they be carried by the winds and currents, and when the sun shone not, and no star appeared upon the blue front of Heaven, they might as well have been launched upon the immensity of space where profound silence ever reigns, for it would have been a hopeless task for them to find their again over those unknown and mastless seas.

way back

The magnet, or loadstone-that invisible bridge which spans from continent to continent, and makes the path over the ocean plain as a broad highway—is a dark greyish looking mineral, that possesses the property of attracting towards itself anything that has either iron or steel in its composition, and is likewise capable of communicating the same power of attraction to either of these metals. These qualities of the magnet were well-known to the ancient Greeks, who, Pliny tells us, gave the name Magnet" to the rock near Magnesia, a city of Lydia, in Asia Minor; and the ancient poet Hesiod also makes use of the term " 'magnet stone."

66

The

At what period that more important property of the magnet, "polarity," or its disposition to turn to the north and south poles of the earth, was first discovered, is not known. Greeks and Romans were, alike, ignorant of it; and thus, the more distant portions of the globe remained unknown to these enterprizing nations. Among the Chinese, however — that strange people who, like the monuments in eastern climes, seem to remain for ages unchanged either in aspect or character — the magnet appears to have been well understood from a very remote date; and to have been used