they make couches, baskets, mats, bags, and brushes; from the branches, cages and fences; from the fibres of the boughs, thread, ropes, and rigging; from the sap, a spirituous liquor; from the wood, which also furnishes fuel, the beams and rafters of the houses of the people, as well as some implements of husbandry, are constructed. The stones are ground to make oil, and the refuse is given to the cattle. The shell of the fruit of the calabash is employed in the manufacture of watervessels, goblets, and cups of almost every description. So hard and close-grained is the calabash, that, when it contains any kind of fluid, it may even, it is said, be put on the fire without injury. A medicinal juice is extracted from this useful plant; and of it the Indians construct some of their musical instruments. The cocoanut-tree supplies the inhabitants with bread, milk, and oil; it affords them a strong spirit, vinegar, and barm; timber to build their huts, and thatch to cover them. The shell is a useful article among their household vessels, and the coarse fibrous husk surrounding it, as well as the bark itself, is made into cloth and cordage. Of the wood of the cocoa-nut-tree, sewed together with a yarn spun from the bark, a vessel is constructed,-of the same wood the mast is formed,—of the bark and fibrous covering of the shell the sails are woven; so that, from the different parts of this valuable vegetable, the whole vessel, as well as the habitations of the natives of the cocoa-nut islands, are completed. There is a fibrous substance in the leaves of the cabbage-tree, which is sometimes spun like hemp into different kinds of cordage. The sockets and grooves, formed by the broad part of the foot-stalks of the leaves, are used by the negroes as cradles for their children. The trunks, when cleared of the pith, serve as water-pipes and gutters, and of the pith a kind of sago is manufactured. The magney or mati tree affords to the natives of New Spain, where it grows copiously, water, wine, oil, vinegar, honey, syrup, thread, needles, &c. In short, there are no less than nineteen services, which this tree, though small, yields to the inhabitants. The leaves serve for covering their houses; out of its roots strong and thick ropes are made; and a fine yarn may be spun

out of the fibres of the leaves; which, being converted into cloth, serves for the purpose of clothing. The bark of the pawpaw-tree is manufactured by the Indians into cordage. The leaves are used as soap, and the stem is converted into water-pipes. It is said that a small quantity of the juice, when rubbed upon butcher-meat, renders it tender without hurting its quality. The plantain and the banana,-the sago-palm and the sugarcane of the tropical regions, as well as the fig-tree of the East, and the sugar-maple of North America, and the cow-tree, mentioned by Humboldt,—and the buttertree of Mungo Park,-and the coffee and the tea tree,and an endless variety of others, contribute to our wants in the form of food. We have already noticed the pitcher-plant, besides which there are several others, which yield a supply of refreshing water. But we

must not let these remarkable instances carry away our thoughts, from the no less useful, though much more common, blessings of Providence, in these respects. Let it never be forgotten that the vine, which furnishes the "wine that maketh glad the heart of man,"-the apple and the pear trees, which furnish such an abundant supply of cider and perry,-the currant, the mulberry, and the elder, whose juices are so often employed in the form of our home-made wines,-and the hop, so much used in the process of brewing, are all most widely diffused in the garden of creation, and contribute each their quota towards supplying us with a nutritious, pleasant, and wholesome beverage. But it is not only in the form of meat and drink, that these vegetable appendages on the surface of the earth administer their services: for it is well known, that we are beholden to the cotton-plants of America and the Indies, for our calicoes and muslins, our fustians and corduroys, and other articles of clothing. Infinite is the number of those vegetable treasures, which are of use to us as medicine. The salt-tree of Chili yields a daily supply of fine salt. The cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and pimento trees, as well as the pepper, and some other shrubs, furnish us with an abundant supply of spices. The candle-berry-myrtle presents the inhabitants of Nanking with a substitute for animal tallow. The Ame

rican wax-tree produces a berry, which affords a useful kind of wax. The inner rind of the Egyptian papyrus furnished the ancients with a very simple material to write upon, as well as with baskets and slime-bedaubed boats; and, by the moderns, this useful and beautifully graceful plant is still employed in various manufactures. The cork-tree affords an abundant supply of that useful material in modern times. The caoutchouc or syringe-tree yields a supply of that wonderfully elastic substance called Indian rubber. Few plants are more extensively useful than the bamboo of the tropical regions, with which, in many places, the houses are almost wholly built, and the furniture nearly all constructed. The enormous leaves of the fanpalm, one of which is said to be sufficiently large to shelter twenty men, serve in the construction of tents, and in the covering of huts and cottages; and the American palmetto or thatch-tree would also appear, from its name, to be well adapted for this latter purpose. Some trees are made, under the hands of the artificer, to contribute their services in the form of wood or timber. Some offer their services by means of the bark, as the Peruvian-bark-tree of South America, and the cinnamon and cassia of Ceylon and the East Indies. Some present their offerings in the shape of nuts, as the cashew, the hazel, the chesnut, and the walnut; some in the form of a softer fruit, as the apple, the pear, the cherry, and the plum. Some yield their services in the form of leaves, as the senna and the tea shrubs; others, in those of buds, as the clove and caper plants; while others, as the fragrant jasmine of Malabar, give out from their flowers a grateful perfume. Some exude from their pores a plentiful supply of resins and gums; some, as the olive and cajeput trees, furnish us with valuable oils: others supply us with a number of useful dyes; and the Spanish barilla, and prickly and shrubby saltwort, yield from their ashes a quantity of soda.

Popular Philosophy.

SECTION III.

ELEMENTARY SCIENCE.

GENERAL PROPERTIES OF BODIES.

ALL bodies, of whatever kind, whether solid, liquid, or aëriform, are accounted to possess the following properties, IMPENETRABILITY, EXTENSION, FIGURE, DIVISIBILITY, INERTIA, and ATTRACTION.-I. By IMPENETRABILITY is understood that property, whereby a body excludes every other from occupying the place which itself possesses; so that no two bodies can possibly occupy the same space at the same time. Thus, even a pin cannot be inserted into a pincushion, nor the finest needle into a piece of linen, unless some room, however small, be made for its admission. The particles of liquid bodies are more easily displaced than those of solids; but such bodies are not, on that account, less impenetrable, in the sense which has now been affixed to that term; because no other body can at the same time occupy the place of a liquid any more than of a solid body. Thus, if a stone be put into a vessel containing water, part of the liquid will rise in order to make way for the stone; and, in like manner, if water be poured into wine, the mixture must occupy a greater space than the wine did before. Nor is air itself less impenetrable. When water is poured into a vessel, the air formerly contained in the vessel makes its escape. Plunge a phial into a basin of water, and the entry of the water into the phial will be indicated by the gurgling noise, with which the air issues forth in bubbles, in order to make way for the water. Reverse a wine-glass, and in that position immerse it in water, some water will enter the glass, because the air, to a certain extent, will compress itself to make way for the liquid; but, as soon as the air is as much compressed as it can be, not another drop of water will enter the glass. This impenetrability of

air cannot be better illustrated than by the familiar operation of a child's pop-gun. Every one knows the strong resistance which the air, in such a case, confined within the tube, makes to the admission of the rammer, until, by expelling the plug at the farther extremity, it forces a way for its own escape. Upon the same principle, if a syringe, an instrument in some respects resembling the toy that has just been mentioned, be entirely closed up at the farther extremity, it will be in vain to attempt by any force to press forward the piston (which corresponds to the rammer of the gun) to the extremity of the syringe.-II. EXTENSION is another general property of bodies; or, in other words, they all possess length, breadth, and depth; which are termed the dimensions of extension. A little reflection will satisfy any one, that every body, whether solid or fluid, whether a square box, a round ball, or the most slender hair, possesses each of these dimensions: and no body can possess any dimension beside these. Height is obviously another name for depth, the former being measured from the bottom, and the latter from the top; and width is, in like manner, nothing else than another name for breadth.-III. FIGURE (which is constituted by the limits of extension) is clearly an essential property of bodies; for nothing, which is possessed of length, breadth, and depth, can be without form of some kind or other.-IV. DIVISIBILITY is another general property ascribed to bodies; by which is meant their susceptibility of being divided into an indefinite number of parts. There is no particle of matter so small, that we may not conceive it divisible into still smaller parts, were we possessed of proper implements for this purpose. The actual divisibility of bodies may be illustrated by an endless variety of examples. A small quantity of salt dissolved in a basin of soup, or a small quantity of sugar dissolved in a cup of tea, gives, as every one knows, a flavour to the whole contents of the vessel, and a very few drops of red wine will give colour to a whole glass of water. It is said that a single pound of wool may be spun so fine as to extend to nearly 100 miles in length; that a single ounce of silver, when gilt with eight grains of gold, may be drawn into a wire of 13,000 feet long; and that a silken