Thus showing a decrease of £1,322,952 in the circulation of notes in England, and a decrease of £2,526,611 in the circulation of the United Kingdom, when compared with the corresponding period last year.

The average stock of bullion held by the Bank of England in both departments, during the month ending the 12th of August, was £13,645,114, being an increase of £4,234.803 when compared with the same period last

year.

The stock of specie held by the Scotch and Irish banks, during the month ending the 12th of August, was £2,573,054, being a decrease of £137,175 as compared with the corresponding period last year.

The above representations are given merely as an index of the general amount of banking operations in the United Kingdom, and as exhibitory of the fluctuations from time to time in their condition, which is governed by the state of trade and commerce in and out of the country. In England, indeed, the movements of the banks are the true pulses of commerce, and indicates rapidly and surely the prosperity or otherwise of that great department of national industry. It is probable that the years represented are not far from an average.

Connected intimately with the commerce and manufacturing industry of the country, is the immense facility of internal communication which the United Kingdom possesses, and which is so peculiarly a feature in British enterprize. Railroads, canals, and turnpike roads traverse in every direction the whole surface of the land. These works attest most obviously the activity, the power and resources of the nation. The length of turnpike roads is in Great Britain about 25,000 miles, and in Ireland 14,000 miles. These are supported by tolls, which a short time ago amounted to £1,200,000 a year. The total length of canals is nearly 3,000 miles, the income of which amounts to about £15,000,000 per annum, which sum, after deducting the expenses of repairs, &c., pay an interest on the investments of between 5 and 6 per cent.

The net of railways which now bands together the various parts of Great Britain and Ireland, extends to an enormous length. In 1845, there was open to traffic 2,118 miles, and in the same year 300 miles more were completed. In 1846 there were 593 miles, and in 1847, 839 miles opened, making an aggregate of 3,850 miles in the whole kingdom; the capital invested being £109,528,800. In 1847 the construction of 1,408 miles additional was authorized, and during the last four sessions of parliament an aggregate of 9,732 miles. At the commencement of 1848 there was a tot length of 11,494 miles of road, including those completed and those in pro gress, which would be finished within the year.*

The principal lines are-the Liverpool and Manchester railway, abou thirty-two miles long, and uniting these populous towns; the London and Birmingham railway, about one hundred and twelve miles long, connecting * On 1st July, 1848, 4,357 miles were completed.

the metropolis with the sentre of England; the Grand Junction railway, continuing the London and Birmingham line to that of Liverpool and Manchester, and also to a railway proceeding northward to Lancaster and Carlisle, and thus forming a most important thoroughfare obliquely across the country; the Midland Counties, North Midland, and Great North of England railways, connecting the great seats or trade in Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, with the London and Birmingham line; the Newcastle and Carlisle railway, connecting these towns; the Great Western railway, about one hundred and seventeen miles long, connecting London with Bristol, and with smaller tributary lines opening up the west of England; the South-Western railway, about seventy-seven miles long, connecting London with Southampton; the Manchester and Leeds. railway, connecting these populous towns. In Scotland, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, and the Glasgow and Ayr Railway, are the principal lines. As yet few lines have been built in Ireland.

The bridges, aqueducts, and tunnels, which have been erected in connection with roads and canals, are more magnificent and numerous than those of any other country. To estimate their number would be diffi cult; but we may mention, that, in the metropolis, the Waterloo and London bridges alone cost very nearly two and a half millions sterling. The iron bridges which have been erected in different places are the admiration of all foreigners. Their arches are constructed of a number of strong ribs of metal, standing apart from each other like the joists of a house, and on these the floor or roadway is formed. Bridges of suspension are now also common, in which the roadway is suspended by iron bars, from strong chains which are fixed in the earth, and then hung over high pillars at each end of the bridge; by this means bridges can be constructed over deep and broad waters, where it would have been altogether impossible to stretch an arch of any other kind. On a well-frequented road, bridges costing £14,000 or £18,000 are often constructed merely to shorten the distance by a mile or two, or to avoid an inconvenient ascent in the old track. Were it possible to estimate the amount of capital laid out on this kind of improvement alone, it would be almost incredible.

The lighthouses of Britain are perhaps the most remarkable part of the nautical apparatus of the islands. The capital expended upon them has been large, and the skill with which some of them, such as the Bell-Rock and Eddystone lighthouses, are constructed for durability in the midst of a tempestuous sea, could only have been exhibited in a country where mechanical science existed in its highest perfection; and there is hardly a dangerous or doubtful point along the coast where the mariner is not guided by a light on some headland or rock. There is, however, much complaint concerning the dues levied from ships for lighthouse expenses; some of them are held as profitable tolls by private families, and in others the money levied is applied to purposes quite unconnected with lightning.

The population of the United Kingdom, as before observed, consists of various classes of persons, among whom, with respect to wealth, education, and general condition, even more than the usual differences are to be found. Notwithstanding great improvements in agriculture of late years, the country cannot produce wheat, oats, and other cereal grains, in sufficient abundance to meet the demands of a daily increasing and hard-laboring population, and what is deficient is excluded, except at high duties, which render the price of bread higher than it is elsewhere in Europe. Without entering minutely

into this great and much debated question, it may be mentioned as a general result, that the difficulty of purchasing food leads to a corresponding depression of circumstances in the humbler orders of the community, and either causes an extensive dependence on poor-rates for support, or produces debased and dangerous habits of living.

The present condition of society throughout the United Kingdom exhibits the spectacle of great and valuable efforts at improvement among the more enlightened classes. Within the last ten years, the utility of the press has been immensely increased, and works of instruction and entertainment have been circulated in departments of society where formerly nothing of the kind was heard of. The establishment of mechanics' institutions, lyceums, exhibitions of works of art, reading societies, and other means of intellectual improvement, forms another distinguished feature of modern society. At the same time great masses of the people, for lack of education, and from other unfortunate circumstances, are evidently gravitating into a lower condition. From these reasons, and others connected with the development of the manufacturing and commercial system, convictions for crime have been latterly increasing.

An account of the population of the empire has been taken at intervals of ten years from 1801. We have already exhibited the increase under the general census.

The increase of population has been greatest in the manufacturing districts, where, in some instances, it has been double of those which are merely agricultural. It has been ascertained, that there are, of the classes belonging to the aristocracy of Great Britain, from 3,000 to 4,000 families; of squires and gentlemen, who are land-proprietors, stockholders, moneylenders, &c., from 50,000 to 60,000 families; of learned professions36,000 clergy of all denominations, about 30,000 lawyers, and 50,000 physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries-making 116,000 families, with half as many more dependents; of farming tenants, about 250,000 families, and of their laborers, 400,000 families; of merchants, shopkeepers, and general traders, 900,000 families; of artisans, 200,000 families; of manufacturers in all lines, 500,000 families; of laborers, porters, and servants, 600,000 families; and of destitute paupers, soldiers, &c., 800,000 families.

The statement of the aggregate population of the British islands, affords no idea of the force which is actually employed in agriculture and manufactures. The effective laborers (men) are estimated to amount to no more than 7,000,000, whereas, reckoning the powers exerted in productive industry by animals, mills, steam-engines, and mechanism of various kinds, the force is equal to the strength of more than sixty millions of working men. An estimate was formed a few years ago of the total annual income of all classes of people in the United Kingdom, with the aggregate value of the articles of use and luxury which each produces, and from this we make the following extract :—

Total of produce and property annually created in Great Britain..£503,823,059

An estimate was also formed of the value of the whole property, public and private, which has been created and accumulated by the people of this country, and which they now actually possess. This value, when the sum

is expressed by figures, is so immense, that it eludes the imagination to conceive it.

The wealth of the empire is distributed in the following proportions be tween the three countries:

The proportion which these values bear to the population in each country is not suggested by the table; but in England (taking productive and unproductive property together) the ratio is £152 to each person; in Scotland, £140; and in Ireland, £90.

The colonies of Great Britain are described in other portions of this work. The importance of these to the mother country is immense, and as outlets for the manufactures of the United Kingdom, a great source of that wealth enjoyed by the British merchants and through them by the government itself. The following list is believed to contain the principal dependencies in every quarter of the world.

IN EUROPE.-Gibraltar, Malta, Gozo, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Santa Maura, Ithaca, Cerigo, Paxo, and Heligoland.

IN ASIA-Bengal, Agra, Ultra-Gangetic Territory, Madras, Bombay, Ceylon, Penang, Wellesley, Malacca, and Singapore.

IN AUSTRALASIA.-New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, Swan River, South Australia, and Norfolk Island.

IN AFRICA.-Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Seychelles, St. Helena, Ascension, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Cape Coast Castle, Accra, Dix Cove, Annamaboe, Fernando Po, and Aden.

IN NORTH AMERICA.-The United Canadas, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward's Island, Newfoundland, the Hudson's Bay Territories, Honduras, and the Bermuda Isles.

IN SOUTH AMERICA.-Demerara, Essequibo, Berbice, and the Falkland Islands, and

IN THE WEST INDIES.-Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent's, Barbadoes, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Kitt's, Montserrat, Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, and a number of smaller islands.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

(FRANCE.)

THE French territory lies between 42° 40′ and 51° 5' N. latitude, and between 8° 25′ E., and 4° 43′ W. longitude, and is in extreme length 665 miles, and in breadth 576, with a superficial area of 204,355 square miles, or 52,768,618 hectares. The country is bounded north by the English Channel and Straits of Dover; north-east by Belgium, Luxemburg, and the Rhenish provinces of Prussia; east by the Rhine, Switzerland, Savoy, and the Alps; south by the Mediterranean (in which is the dependent island of Corsica) and the Pyrennees: and west by the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic ocean.

France exhibits an advantageous commixture of high and low lands. The greater part of it is composed of river basins, separated by mountains and hills, which expand into plains as they approach the coast. The most distinctly marked of these basins is that of the Rhone, in the south-east, which stretches through five degrees of latitude, from the sources of the Saone to the Gulf of Lyons, and is divided from the basins of the Po and the Var by the Maritime and High Alps, and from that of the Aar and Rhine by the ranges of the Jura and Vosges mountains. The western boundary of this extensive basin is formed by the Cevennes, a long range which starts off from the eastern Pyrennees, and after running parallel with the Mediterranean for 170 miles, divides into three branches. The most easterly branch continues its direction northward parallel to the course of the Rhone and Saone, and, after some interruptions, terminates in a hilly plain, (the plateau de Langres,) about 1,000 feet above the level of the sea. This plain is connected with the Vosges by a low chain of hills, called Monts Faueilles, which completes the circuit of the basin.

The other two branches of the Cevennes, known by the names of Forez, and the mountains of Auvergne, form, between them and the eastern branch, the vallies of the Allier and the Upper Loire, and are the eastern border of a high and hilly region, which decreases in elevation as it extends westward to the sources of the Charenton, from which point to the sea the country sinks into a low and level plain.

The other river basins are almost as distinctly marked as those of the Rhone, the Allier, and the Loire, with this difference only, that the watersheds which bound them are formed by ranges of hills of very moderate elevation, and in some places even scarcely rising into hills; but all connected more or less remotely with the great central and border mountains. The principal of these basins are those of the Loire and the Seine in the entire ; those of the Somme, Scheldt, Meuse, Moselle, and Rhine, in the north; those of the Charenton, Dordogne, Garonne, Lot, Tarn, Adour, Aude, Herault, &c., in the south-west and south.

The scenery of France, devoid of all ornamental plantations, and the thickset hedges which are seen in England, is to an unusual degree tame and irksome, and the traveller in vain looks for the cheerful and varied aspect so characteristic of England. The fresh pastures and gentle eminences of Normandy are exceptions, and are truly beautiful. Picardy, Poictou, and Champaigne consist of wide, uninteresting levels, while Auvergne, Upper Languedoc, and the vicinity of the Alps and the Pyrennees contain