sive contract is not all performed by Mr. Russell himself, but is distributed among firms eminent for their various kinds of business. Thus, Messrs. Ferguson, the celebrated mast-makers, supply the masts and spars; and one of the wooden masts, be it noted, (the ship has three of wood, and three of iron,) is supposed to be the best and finest ever seen; it is formed of a single tree, a Canada pine, about 130 feet high, and proportionately thick. Messrs. Westhorpe take the rigging, Messrs. Hall the sails, Watt and Co. the screw engines, Mr. Russell the paddle engines, and so on; each firm sending its best work of the best material. The strongest and the wisest man in the world is less thought of at first sight, if arrayed in shabby garments, than if he has a good coat on his back. The proprietors of the "Great Eastern" have accordingly given an extensive order to the ship's tailor to make her a smart outer garment, only the tailor in this case is the painter. To complete his contract, he will be obliged to use more than six tons of paint to give one coat to the interior ironwork, and nearly eight tons, to give one coat to the outside, from the water line to the bulwarks. Thus, then, we have in this gigantic, and, I may say, national undertaking, an example of what man in a high state of civilization can do; we have before us the result of human thought, foresight, and calculation, embodied in a colossal but yet graceful and useful form. Weeks, months, nay, years of hard labour, their allotted duty on this earth, have been expended by thousands of human beings on the construction of this gigantic ship. "In the sweat of his brow"-his proper destiny has man called into existence this emblem of peace and of the progress of civilization throughout the whole world. May good fortune attend her in her voyages; and may she long serve to remind us of the great Master-mind who called us, his creatures, into existence, and who has given us power, first to conceive, and then to carry out an undertaking so vast, so pregnant with good-will to all mankind. As a contrast to the "Great Eastern," we give an engraving of the "Persia," which, until recently, was the largest of our ocean-steamers. Our readers will also be interested by the representation of a new tubular steamer, on an entirely new principle, in course of construction in America, of which possibly we shall hear more hereafter. CLOCKS, AND HOW WE CAME BY THEM. SUN-DIALS appear to have been in use at a very early age. The first of which there is any record is that of Ahaz, who lived 742 years before Christ, though there is no reason for supposing that they vere thus early constructed on mathematical prin ciples. As the world grew older, and mankind grew more sensible of the importance of time, they naturally sought for superior modes of measuring it. Clepsydræ, or water-clocks, which in a rude form had been coeval with the sun-dials, were made by the Alexandrians, to measure short periods of time with something like accuracy, and their use was adopted at about the same date (10) years B.C.), by the Greeks, to measure time in th.. courts of justice at Athens. Sand-glasses, y which time was measured by the dropping sand through a tube, were invented about the same time, and after an interval of two thousand years they are still the clock of the indigent poor. The water-clock, in an immense variety of forms, seems to have occupied the attention of inventive minds for many succeeding centuries. Coggel wheels were made to receive their impetus from falling water, and thus regularity of motion wa continuously maintained, with a want, however, equality of force. Great improvements were ma in these clocks during the eighth and nisi centuries. In the year 807, the renowned calipHaroun Alraschid, sent as a present to Charkmagne a curious clock, in which wheels were set in motion by the fall of water, and which was the wonder of the world for a time. In the dial we twelve small doors, forming the divisions for the hours; each door opened at the hour marked by the index, and let out small brass balls, which falling on a bell, struck the hours. The doc remained open until twelve, when twelve figure® of knights on horseback came out and parade. round the dial-plate. Even in modern times the water clock has de served to rank among the most ingenious contrivances. Vailly, a Benedictine mouk, is said t have given it the character of a scientific instra ment, about 1690. His clock was made of tin, an consisted of a cylinder divided into several sma cells, and suspended by a thread fixed to its axis. in a frame on which the hour distances, found by trial, were marked. As the water flowed from one cell into the other, it slowly changed the centre/ gravity of the cylinder, and put it in motion & as to indicate the time on the frame. He subsequently added an alarum and a dial-plate, and thus in some degree realized the advantages of o common clock. Who first set the example of constructing cloc moved by weights, is not known. It is said that such clocks, which struck the hours, were know. in Italy in the latter part of the twelfth century but the poet Dante, who was born in 1265 a died in 1321, is the first writer who alludes to striking clock. We know that clocks were in use in our own country as early as 1288; for in that year a fine imposed on the Chief Justice of the King's Bench was appropriated to defray the cost of a clock for the clock-house near Westminste Hall, which clock was to be heard by the courts of such consequence in the reign of Henry VI, whi law. The Westminster clock was considered of commenced in 112, that he gave the keeping c it, with the appurtenances, to William Warly, dean of St. Stephen's, together with sixpence a-day, to be received at the Exchequer. In the year 1326, Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans, invented a clock which not only showed the hours, but the apparent motion of the sun, the changes of the moon, the ebb and flow of tides, etc: but the most ancient clock of which there is any detailed description is that of Henry Vic, or De Wyck, a German, erected in the tower of the palace of Charles v, King of France, in 1379. This was but a rude and imperfect machine; but it contained, in the principles of its construction, the germ of our modern time-keepers, and we must glance at its mechanism for a moment. De Wyck's clock, like the hall and kitchen clock of the present day, was set in motion by the gravity of a weight attached to a cord coiled round a cylinder or drum. The motion thus obtained, and which would continue as long as the weight continued to fall, was communicated from one wheel to another of the whole apparatus by means of their toothed edges, until it reached the crown or escapement wheel. The crown wheel is so constructed and situated as to act with its teeth on two small levers or pallets projecting from the pright spindle or axis of the balance, and to convert what would else be a circular motion of the balance wheel into an alternating or vibratory one. It is this alternating motion that causes the icking of clock or watch. But a weight heavy Enough to set all the wheels in motion, unless it were subjected to some check, would rapidly run down, and with a celerity increasing until the whole of the cord was uncoiled from the drum; and in fact, this is what does take place in modern clocks, whenever the pendulum is taken away and the weights remain attached to the cylinders. To prevent this rapid running down of the works, De Wyck loaded his balance with two weights; the farther these weights were placed from the axis or spindle, the more powerfully they resisted the rapidity of the rotation of the crown wheel, and therefore of all the wheels; and they could be so adjusted, with very little trouble, as to cause the wheels to move neither too fast nor too slow, but at the desired rate. From this period, until the middle of the seventee nth century was approaching, there seem to have been few discoveries of any very grave importance in the art of clock-making. It is true that in this long interval some extraordinary undertakings were conceived and executed by the horologists of different countries. Thus, before the end of the fourteenth century, the famous Strasburg clock was erected in the cathedral church of that city. It was a complicated piece of mechanism, the plate exhibiting a celestial globe, with the motions of the sun, moon, earth, and planets, and the various phases of the moon, together with a perpetual almanack, on which the day of the month was pointed out by a statue; the first quarter of the our was struck by a child with an apple, the second by a youth with an arrow, the third by a man with the tip of his staff, and the last quarter by an old man with his crutch. The hour itself was struck on a bell by a figure representing an angel, who opened a door and saluted the Virgin Mary; near to the first angel stood a second, who held an hour-glass, which he turned as soon as the hour had finished striking. In addition to these was the figure of a golden cock, which, on the arrival of every successive hour, flapped its wings, stretched forth its neck, and erowed twice. The Strasburg clock did not stand alone in its glory. About the same time another mass of complicated machinery, though differing considerably in its catalogue of performances, was erected in the cathedral church of Lyons. Indeed, the wealthy towns of France, Germany, and the Low Countries now began to vie with cach other in the construction of huge cathedral or municipal clocks, and to boast of the multiplicity of exploits performed by their favourites. Yet none of these vaunted mechanical wonders were to be relied upon for true information as to the time of day; it being a fact, that up to the middle of the sixteenth century scarcely a clock was in existence which did not depart from accurate time as much as forty minutes in the twenty-four hours, and those were thought models of precision which did not exceed that rate of variation. It is the discovery of the phenomena of the pendulum by Galileo, which marks the grand era in the construction of clocks. In the year 1650, or thereabouts, Galileo, then a medical student, was sitting in the cathedral church at Pisa, and while apparently lost in devout attention to the service, was keenly speculating on the swinging motion of the lamps, as they waved from side to side. It struck him that the oscillations of the long pendulums, whatever was the distance travelled by the weight, were always performed in the same space of time by the same pendulum. He tested his theory by measuring the vibrations of the lamps as they swung, with the beatings of his pulse, and found that it was correct. He afterwards discovered what was ultimately demonstrated by Newton, that, "the shorter the pendulum, the less is the time of its vibration;" or, in other words, that the number of oscillations performed by a pendulum in a given time depends upon its length, four times the length producing twice the number of oscillations. Here was a most important and valuable discovery; but it is by no means clear that Galileo was the first person who thought of applying it to the construction of clocks; and the merit of the invention of pendulum clocks is generally attributed to Huygens, a learned Dutchman, in 1657. The invention is also claimed on behalf of Richard Harris, a London artist, who, it is affirmed, made a long-pendulum clock in 1611, seventeen years before the date at which Galileo describes himself as directing the construction of one. The first application of the pendulum to clocks was far from a perfect success. There were radical defects in the clock of Huygens, which prevented its accurate performance; he had constructed his pendulum on an impracticable plan, which deprived it of the influence it should have had upon the wheels. Some few years after, a superior method was invented, by a London clock-maker of the name of Clement, who was enabled to increase the weight of the pendulum employed, and thus by its vibration to control in a manner the motion of the whole machine. Clement called his the anchor escapement, and having undergone various improvements, it is still in use. At the beginning of the following century another Englishman, George Graham, invented the repose, or dead escapement. By this invention the wheels are kept at rest during the whole oscillation of the pendulum, except at the instant of contact with the crown-wheel, and the oscillations are made in more equal times. Then the detached escapement was introduced; and after that, the half-dead escapement, a mean between the inventions of Clement and that of Graham. For all purposes of ordinary time-keepers this mode of escapement answered well. But still, notwithstanding the remarkable improvements which had been effected, the best clocks, though finished with the most extreme care and pains, were found to vary in their performance, through the effect of atmospheric temperature. As in hot weather the pendulum expanded, or increased in length, whatever was the material of which it was constructed, and consequently vibrated slower, the result of the retardation became manifest in the loss of time by the clock. In cold weather the reverse took place-the pendulum, in consequence of contracting, vibrated quicker, and the clock gained on time. Various ingenious contrivances were therefore resorted to with the view of counteracting the influence of temperature on pendulums, and causing them to oscillate in all temperatures in equal times. Graham, the inventor of the dead escapement, at length hit upon a plan at once sound in principle and easy of application; indeed, so thoroughly did it answer the purpose for which it was designed, that it has undergone but trifling modifications up to the present hour. Graham called his invention the "mercurial compensation," and it consists in using for a weight a jar containing quicksilver, attached to the lower end of the pendulum rod, which is formed of steel. As the steel rod lengthens by heat, the mercury expands in volume, and rises in the jar; and when the rod shortens by cold, the mercury contracts and sinks or falls. Thus the arc of oscillation is always maintained at the same distance from the point of suspension or upper extremity of the pendulumor, in other words, the pendulum is kept always of the same length, and therefore will always oscillate at the same rate. In 1726, John Harrison invented what is called the gridiron pendulum, composed of rods of steel and brass so banded together that the rods which expand the most raise the weight at the bottom of the pendulum, as much as the rods which expand the least depress it. This pendulum smaller size, and found their way into the dwelling places of the people. Still, there could be really no such thing as an easily portable, or even a bracket clock, until the weight as a moving power could be got rid of. The substitution of a main spring for a weight took place about the middle of the sixteenth century: the mainspring, if it did not suggest it, in a manner necessitated the invention of the fusee; and both together, while they wrought a complete revolution in the art of clockmaking, may be said to have given birth to the art of the watchmaker. We shall have something to ssy on these inventions in a subsequent paper on watches. We must touch briefly on that part of the me chanism of a clock which is employed for striking the hours. This is a curious and sometimes a very intricate piece of machinery, for clocks may be made to strike any number of times. Some of them strike hours, half-hours, quarters, and halfquarters, and will even repeat all these performances on a second bell, sounding a different note from the first. Some have been made to strike the bell as many as a hundred times between the hours, and we have seen one which was never silent three minutes together out of the whole twenty-four hours. The moving power of the striking train, which is too various and too complicated to admit description here, may be either a weight ora spring; but whatever it be, its impulse is only permitted to come into play when the hour or quarter to be struck has arrived, at which momen it is brought into action by the temporary release of a catch or detent permitting the weight or spring to act on the striking mechanism. Whether the strokes on the bell shall be one or many is de termined principally by two pieces of mechanismone called a snail, with twelve steps, the other s rack, with twelve teeth. The time during which the striking weight is allowed to descend, varies according to the turning of the twelve steps of the snail on its axis, and the position of the twelv teeth of the rack, at different hours of the daybeing sometimes long enough to permit one blow to be given by the hammer on the bell, and at an other time long enough for twelve such blows The bell itself is an important part of the striking apparatus. In domestic clocks, where all that is wanted is a note sufficiently loud to be hear through the house, a small saucer-shaped bell will answer the purpose; but where a cathedral clock is expected to send its information over a circuit of many miles, the case is widely different. Bells have been manufactured of all forms and in various ways, but they can only be made to send their tones to a great distance by casting them of enor expand and contract in such masses fitfully and by mous weight and of solid material--the best m jerks, and not gradually, is considered not to terial being a compound of copper and tin. A gong answer so satisfactorily as the mercurial pendulum. of beaten metal may be made to yield as deep, and Meanwhile, improvements of another kind, in to a stander-by, as loud a tone, though it weigh but connection with other parts of the machinery of a a score or two pounds, as a bell of ten tons: but The first the gong will not be heard three hundred yards off, clocks were of great bulk, and adapted only for while the bell shall send its peal four or five miles. towers and turrets and public buildings; as they The bell which strikes the hours at St. Paul's improved in structure and utility they were made of Cathedral is often heard at night, when the wind is still much in use, but from the fact that metals clock, had been prosecuted with success. blows in that direction, at Windsor Castle, a distance of nearly twenty miles. This bell was cast in 1709, and weighs 5 tons: it is but an infant, however, compared to some others; that at Exeter weighs 5 tons; that at St. Peter's, Rome, 8 tons; that at York, 10 tons 15 cwts.; that at Notre Dame, Paris, 12 tons 16 cwts.; that at Vienna, 17 tons 14 cwts.; that at Novogorod, 31 tons; there is one at Pekin, in China, which weighs 53 tons; the bell at the Kremlin weighs 63 tons; and the great bell of Moscow, which was broken in 1737, weighed 193 tons! We may close this paper with a glance at some few of the curiosities of clock-making, which from time to time have moved the wonder and admiration of mankind. We have mentioned the Strasburg clock, and alluded to others of a similar class; but there have been clocks far less intricate, which had a greater claim to be considered as curiosities. Thus, clocks were made in the seventeenth century, which were moved by balls running down inclined planes, swallowed up by, and traversing the bodies of brazen serpents, or descending in metallic grooves, to be again thrown up by archimedean screws. Some were made to go by their own weight, descending inclined planes, and thus avoiding the casualties to which weight-lines and mainsprings are liable; while others, by means of springs, were made to ascend such planes. One was simply hung like a lamp from the ceiling, and was kept going by its own descent, the winding it up consisting merely of pushing it again towards the ceiling. The dial of another formed the brim of a plate filled with water, in which swam a tortoise, turning round with the hour. This was managed by magnetic attraction. A marvel by no means uncommon, some years back, was a clock which showed exact time, and appeared to have no works -the hour hand proceeding from the centre of a crystal plate perfectly transparent, and moving round without any visible or indeed accountable connection with works of any kind. Again, clocks have been made to go for astonishing periods of time, without winding up. A clock to go for a whole year is nothing extraordinary. Many will go for 400 or 500 days-some for two years, and some for three; and there is a tradition concerning one which we saw in the palace at Versailles, to the effect that it needed winding up but once in a century. There, the pendulum was kept in motion by electro-magnetism, which was made to bend a spring to a certain extent, the reaction of the spring imparting the necessary impulse-a means which prevented the variations of the battery from influencing the mechanism. The advantages of such a clock as this are many, and not the least is that by a single pendulum any number of dials, scattered throughout a large establishment, may be made to show precisely similar time, simply by the scientific adjustment of communicating wires between them and the pendulum. The new Westminster clock, with its tower and bells, its mechanism and its dials, is too large a subject to touch now, our time having run out, and our space too. A PARSEE FESTIVAL. PROPITIATING THE OCEAN. JUST before the commencement of the severest of the two monsoons and towards the close of the year 1829, I chanced to be residing for a few months at Cochin, a noted seaport town on the coast of Malabar, and there witnessed the celebration of an annual festival, rigidly observed by the Parsees both at Cochin and at Bombay. The festival was one in honour of the titular goddess or patroness of the seas, and the offerings made upon the occasion were presumed to propitiate this fickle sovereign to favour ships and boats owned or navigated by Parsees, with that mild clemency which was not to be expected along the coast, nor indeed over the length and breadth of the Bay of Bengal, so long as the monsoon endured. So very little is known of this singularly isolated and pacific people, or of their creed or domestic economy, that it may not prove void of instruction to note one circumstance connected with their outward ceremonies. Setting aside their "bonds," which unhappily bind them deeply in paganism, there are few civilized people that might not benefit by a lesson from the Parsees. With hardly an exception, they are noted as peaceable and loyal subjects, men of immense energy and perseverance, and generally of good understanding. You shall scarcely meet a Parsee of any rank in Bombay, who cannot converse fluently with you in English; and amongst the better classes they include some of the best scholars in India. As a specimen of their willingness to co-operate with and assist the rulers of the land, we cannot evidence a fitter man than the late Sir Jamsegee Jejeeboy, first a knight and afterwards a baronet, and a patron and supporter of many good works and charities. There are several other Parsees who have worked their way into notice and position entirely by their own character, perseverance, and talents. A fine sample of this latter class visited England on sick leave a few years ago. He was master shipwright in the government dockyard at Bombay, and in the receipt of £800 per annum. As a class they are undoubtedly a well-to-do people. In the government offices, and in every branch of official employment, we find Parsees by scores, holding posts which, though not lucrative at first, lead steadily on to The most remarkable assemblage of clocks ever seen in the world was that which was collected together in the Great Exhibition of 1851. all that art, science, and the most persevering and elaborate skill could achieve in the department of the horologist, was exhibited at one view. A single clock was shown, which had occupied thirty-four years in its construction. It was made by Jacob Loudan, was a perpetual almanack as well as a clock, and performed more functions than we have space to set down. Amidst all the horological marvels there exhibited, however, the greatest was undoubtedly the electro-magnetic striking clock of Mr. Shepherd, whose dial, as many of our readers will remember, were the radiating bars of the southern elevation of the transept. In this clock | independence. There was one remarkable circumstance connected with these Parsee settlers and traders, worth recording, namely, that a great proportion of them were affected more or less with leprosy-a disease almost unknown in other parts of India; whilst they, in common with other strangers, wee exempted from the elephantiasis, a fearful disease of the legs, to which the natives of Cochin, of both sexes, were generally liable. Whether, owing to this calamity, they were forced into temporary exile, it is hard to say; but the fact existed, and I believe still exists. Then, again, in the mercantile world, one half | flocked hither by shoals, settling down for good, or of the merchants are Parsees, some established and else making periodical trips to and fro between this associated amongst themselves, others partners with place and Bombay. noted English houses at Bombay. They are, moreover, extensive and wealthy shipowners, constructing stately teak-built vessels at Bombay and in the Cochin river, some of which have often visited the London docks, and puzzled the dock labourers with their unpronounceable names. The "Pestongee Bomangee" troop-ship-who has not heard of her? or the "Lowgee Family" and the "Cowajee Damagee?" All these, and many others-fine stately ships, well built and riveted, well rigged and stored, well manned and navigated-have been constructed and are owned by Parsee gentlemen at Bombay (which is their adopted home), at Cochin, Ceylon, Singapore, Siam, and China. And yet, strange to say-a people so prominent in wealth, good sense, education, and stanch loyalty, who often come to be educated in England, who may bo encountered any summer's day on the shady side of Leadenhall Street, with unmistakeable head-wherever there is anything to be gained, there you dress and other singular costume-strange to say, the majority of Englishmen know little or nothing of the real creed and doctrines of the Parsee or of his domestic economy. With regard to their religious observances, they themselves seem to maintain a jealous secrecy almost equal to that observed by Masons or the Druses of Mount Lebanon. It is a very well understood fact, however, that they are fire-worshippers-not the mere element of fire, but worshipping the Deity through that symbol. It is also well known that they neither bury nor burn their dead. A large high-walled inclosure, some distance from the town, is set apart for the disposal of the dead. Carried in thither on a litter, the body is exposed on a platform under the canopy of heaven. On the third day the relatives, I was informed, visited the corpse of their departed friend, which in the interval had been nearly devoured by voracious kites, vultures, and crows. If perchance either eye remained in its socket, from this fact they come to some conclusion as to the probable future state of the deceased. Should the right eye have disappeared first, it was a favourable omen; if the left eye, a most unfavourable one. In cases where both eyes were gone (and I imagine, considering the enormous flocks of vile vultures, and kites that were continually hovering over this foul neighbourhood, that out of ninety-nine cases in a hundred such must have been the case), then the friends were left in darkness as to the immortal state of the defunct. With these two specimens we must quit the subject of Parsee superstitions. Considering their usual intelligence, however, we marvel that a body of enlightened men, as far as general education is concerned, can still submit to such thraldom. We now return to the more immediate subject of this paper, which is to illustrate the celebration of one of their annual festivals. Cochin, as a great ship-building port, owing to its deep and navigable river, and also as a place where living, labour, and material were marvellously cheap, possessed great attractions for the careful and speculative Parsees; and they consequently As a further proof of the cheapness of labour, living, and material at Cochin, I may be permitted to state that in no other part of India are so many Jews congregated as at Cochin; consequent Cochin must be a cheap place. There is an India proverb that vouches for this fact, namely, that will surely meet with a Jew, a crow, and a jackal It was on one of those delicious semi-autumnal, semi-spring days, so common on the coast of Malebar just previous to the setting in of the monsoons, when the anniversary of the Parsee festival came round. Whether its kalends were duly noticed in Parsee almanac, or its celebration depended upor any particular phases of the moon or other planet, I am unable to say. I can only vouch for the fact of Herr Van Derslnyht, a corpulent Dutch burgomaster, then enjoying a British pension, tapping st my window whilst I was poring over the last news paper from Madras, and inviting me to accompany him to witness the ceremonial in question. Imme diately donning a capacious straw hat, I hurried out into the street, and joined the illustrious Herr, and under the protection of his huge umbrella issued forth from the streets of Cochin, to that part of the sea beach where the ceremony was transacting. Considering the every-day monotony of Cochin life-which embraced certain hours for labour, and certain hours for exercise, and nothing else-the commotion occasioned by this Parsee festival was almost alarming. It was a positively ascertained fact that one or two wealthy Dutch burghers-secluded old gentlemen, who led the life of an oyster, and who were seldom seen at other post, or engaged in other occupation, save at the front parlour window, smoking-were actually seen trotting down, umbrella in hand, towards the scene of ac tion, attracted by the tumult of tom-toms and the acclamations of delighted multitudes. The site chosen for the offering which was supposed to pacify the turbulent waves, was (to our secret horror, we discovered) a rocky promontory, jutting a considerable distance into the sea, close to its junction with the Cochin river. This spot was looked upon by H. (the subaltern commanding the infantry detachment) and myself, as our personal right and property, because here, after much exploration, we had discovered a prolific oyster-bed. which afforded us entertainment and a relish, not easily procurable elsewhere in the town, and the |