notions oftener, if they were not deterred by an erroneous fancy of what belongs to genius. They think that such exertions as we recommend belong only to a plodding fellow, whilst the man of genius does every thing by a sudden act which costs him nothing. This is an unhappy mistake. All our eminent men have been distinguished by fixing upon some great object, and possessing themselves with such a lively conception of it that it has led them on through years of toil. HOW TO UNDERSTAND GEOGRAPHY. EVERY one says that geography is one of the most useful things that can be learnt; yet nothing is learnt so ill, because nothing is taught so ill. Look into any of the elementary books of geography, and read what is said about England. First we are told that it is divided into forty counties; then, perhaps, follows an account of the several law circuits; and then, after some short notices about religion, government, produce, and manufactures, there are given lists of the chief towns, mountains, rivers, and lakes. But all these things are given without any connexion with each other, and it is a mere matter of memory to recollect what is no more than a string of names. And if a man does recollect them, still he is not much the wiser for them; he has got no clear and instructive notions about the country, but has merely learnt his map, and knows where to find certain names and lines upon it. the hills depends the employment of the people, their numbers on a given space, and in a great degree their state of morals, intelligence, and political independence. And here we have a reason for things, and see them connected with one another in a manner at once easier to remember, and much more satisfactory to understand when we do remember it. Some instances of this, given in detail, may appear in one of our future numbers. The Flower Garden (June).-It will now be time for you to take up those bulbs, of which the leaves are nearly decayed. I can fix no particular day for this operation; because, as the like manner; but the general rule is, to take them up carebulbs flower at different seasons, so the leaves will decay in fully, as soon as the leaves have turned yellow, and to lay them under a south wall to dry and ripen; taking care to cover them with fine, dry, sandy earth, in layers, so that they may not touch each other. When the leaves are quite decayed, the bulbs must be removed, and spread again to dry under shelter of a green-house, or in a room; and, finally, after cleaning them from the dirt, take off their old coats, or skins, and put them away in bags, or drawers, in a cool dry place, till they are wanted for replanting in the autumn. I must here explain why bulbs are taken up every year: the great object is in this, as in all other operations of gardening, to imitate Nature; to make the existence of foreign plants as near as it can be to what they enjoy in their native place. Tulips, hyacinths, and most of those bulbs which are taken up, come from countries where the whole summer is dry, and in winter the ground is life and flower. Travellers describe whole regions in Persia covered with snow; the spring rains alone call them into as being covered in the spring with enamelled carpets of scilla (hyacinths), tulips, and other bulbous plants: long drought succeeds the rains of spring, the leaves die away, and the plant rests again under the dry earth till the following spring. As in our country they can have no dry earth naturally to rest in during the summer, the best imitation of it is to take up the bulb, which would otherwise be autumn; in which latter case, the plant would not flower rotted by the summer rains, or caused to grow in the in the spring, as the flower-stalks would be killed by the wet and cold of winter, before it came to the surface. orming one of the volumes of a series called The Little Library.' 66 From The Garden,' a very agreeable and instructive book for children, If we wish to know geography really, we must set about it in a very different manner. Take one of the skeleton maps published by the Useful Knowledge Society; there is not a single name upon them, nothing is given but the hills and the rivers. These are the true alphabet of geography. The hills are the bones of a country, and determine its form, just as the bones of an animal do. For according to the direction of the hills must be the course of the rivers: if the hills come very near the sea, it makes the rivers very short and their course very rapid; if they are a long way from the sea, it makes the rivers long and gentle. But rivers of this latter sort are generally navigable, and become so large near the sea as to be capable of receiving ships of large size. Here then towns will be built, and these towns it greater. No learning at all is surely the most dangerous A little Learning is a dangerous Thing."-Then make will become rich and populous, and so will acquire thing in the world; and it is fortunate that, in this country political importance. Again, on the nature of the hills at least, it is a danger which cannot possibly exist. After depend the mineral riches of a country; if they are all, learning is acquired knowledge, and nothing else. A composed of granite or slate, they may contain gold, man who can read his Bible has a little learning; a man who silver, tin, and copper; if they are composed of the can only plough or dig, has less; a man who can only break limestone of Derbyshire or Durham, they are very in one of the islands in the South Sea, stood with great stones on the road, less still, but he has some. The savages likely to have lead mines; if of the sand or gritstone reverence round a sailor who had lighted a fire to boil some of Northumberland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, it is water in a saucepan; but as soon as the water began to probable that there will be coal at no great distance. boil, they ran away in an agony of terror. Compared with On the contrary if they are made up of the yellow lime- the savages, there is no boy in Europe, of the age of ten stone of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Northamp- years, who may not be called learned. He has acquired a tonshire, or of chalk like the hills in Wiltshire, Berkshire, certain quantity of practical knowledge in physics; and, as and Hampshire, or of clay like those about London, it this knowledge is more than instinct, it is learning; learnis quite certain that they will contain neither coal, noring which differs in degree only from that which enables a lead, nor any valuable mineral whatsoever. But on the mineral wealth of a country, and particularly on its having coal or not having it, depends the nature of the employment of its inhabitants. Manufactories are sure to follow coal mines; whereas, in all those districts of England where there is no coal, that is, in all the counties to the south-east of a line drawn from the Wash in Lincolnshire to Plymouth, there are, generally speaking, no manufactories; but the great bulk of the people are employed in agriculture. Thus then on the direction and composition of the hills of a country depends first of all the size and character of its rivers. On the character of its rivers depends the situation and importance of its towns, and its greater or less facilities for internal communication and foreign trade. And again, on the composition of chemist to separate the simple metals from soda or potash. The geographer Malte Brun remarks, that in many cities of the United States, that which is called a mob scarcely exists. Now it will be found that in these cities education has been unstintedly bestowed upon all classes, down to the very lowest. LONDON:-CHARLES KNIGHT, PALL-MALL EAST. Shopkeepers and Hawkers may be supplied Wholesale by the following Booksellers: London, GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Liverpool, WILLMER and SMITH. Paternoster-Row. Bath, SIMMS. Birmingham, DRAKE Bristol, WESTLEY and Co. Falmouth, PHILP. Leeds, BAINES and NEWSOME. Lincoln, BROOKE and SON. Manchester, ROBINSON, and Wish and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, CHARNLEY. Sheffield, RIDGE. Dublin, WAKEMAN. Edinburgh, OLIVER and BoYD. Glasgow, ATKINSON and Co. Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Stamford-Street. 14.] OF THE Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. THEBES. Luxor.j PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. ALL travellers agree that it is impossible to describe the effect produced by the colossal remains of this ancient capital. No knowledge of antiquity, no long-cherished associations, no searching after something to admire, is necessary here. The wonders of Thebes rise before the astonished spectator like the creations of some superior power. "It appeared to me," says Belzoni," like entering a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroyed, leaving the ruins of their various temples as the only proofs of their former existence." Denon's description of the first view of Thebes by the French army, which he accompanied in the expedition into Upper Egypt, is singularly characteristic." On turning the point of a chain of mountains which forms a kind of promontory, we saw all at once ancient Thebes in its full extent that Thebes whose magnitude has been pictured to us by a single word in Homer, hundred-gated, a poetical and unmeaning expression which has been so confidently repeated ever since. This city, described in a few pages dictated to Herodotus* by Egyptian priests, which succeeding authors have copied-renowned for numerous kings, who, through their wisdom, have been elevated to the rank of gods; for laws which have been revered without being known; for sciences which have been confided to proud and mysterious inscriptions, wise and earliest monuments of the arts which time has Herodotus has given no description of Thebes. Denon several times quotes Herodotus for what is not in that author. VOL. I. [JUNE 23, 1832. respected; this sanctuary, abandoned, isolated through barbarism, and surrendered to the desert from which it was won; this city, shrouded in the veil of mystery by which even colossi are magnified; this remote city, which imagination has only caught a glimpse of through the darkness of time-was still so gigantic an apparition, that, at the sight of its scattered ruins, the army halted of its own accord, and the soldiers, with one spontaneous movement, clapped their hands." Thebes lay on each side of the Nile, and extended also on both sides as far as the mountains. The tombs which are on the western side reach even into the limits of the desert. Four principal villages stand on the site of this ancient city,-Luxor and Carnak on the eastern, Gournou and Medinet-Abou on the western side. The temple of Luxor is very near the river, and there is here a good ancient jettée, well built of bricks. The entrance to this temple is through a magnificent gateway, facing the north, 200 feet in front, and 57 feet high above the present level of the soil. Before the gateway stand the two most perfect obelisks that exist, formed, as usual, of the red granite of Syene, and each about 80 feet high, and from 8 to 10 feet wide at the base. Between these obelisks and the gateway are two colossal statues, also of red granite; from the difference of the dresses it is judged that one was a male, the other a female, figure;-they are nearly of equal sizes. Though buried in the ground to the chest, they still measure 21 and 22 feet from thence to the top of the mitre. It is this gateway that is filled with those remarkable sculptures, which represent the triumph of some ancient monarch of Egypt over an Asiatic enemy, and which we find repeated, both on other monuments of Thebes, and partly also on some of the monuments of Nubia, as, for example, at Ipsambul. This event appears to have formed an epoch in Egyptian history, and to have furnished materials both for the historian and the sculptor, like the war of Troy to the Grecian poet. The whole length of this temple is about 800 feet. The remains of Carnak, about one mile and a quarter lower down the river, are still more wonderful than Luxor. An irregular avenue of sphinxes, considerably more than a mile in length (about 6560 feet) connected the northern entrance of the temple of Luxor with it; but this was only one of several proud approaches to perhaps the largest assemblage of buildings that ever was erected. The irregularities in the structure and approaches of this building show that the various parts of it were raised at different periods. Some parts, both of this temple and of the larger building at Carnak (sometimes called a palace), have been constructed out of the materials of earlier buildings, as we see from blocks of stone being occasionally placed with inverted hieroglyphics. It is impossible, without good drawings and very long descriptions, to give anything like an adequate idea of the enormous remains of Carnak, among which we find a hall whose roof of flat stones is sustained by more than 130 pillars, some 26 feet, and others as much as 34 feet, in circumference. The remains on the western side of the river are, perhaps, more interesting than those on the east. That nearly all the monuments of Thebes belong to a period anterior to the Persian conquest, B. c. 525, and that, among them we must look for the oldest and most genuine specimens of Egyptian art, is clear, both from the character of the monuments themselves and from historical records; nor is this conviction weakened | wonderfully wise man, and one who was well versed in by finding the name of Alexander twice on part of the buildings at Carnak, which will prove no more than that a chamber might have been added to the temple and inscribed with his name; or that it was not unusual for the priests to flatter conquerors or conquerors' deputies by carving on stone the name of their new master. [From the British Museum-Egyptian Antiquities."] WONDERFUL STORIES. Ir is curious to trace in all ages the passion that has existed for marvellous stories, which, however, we always find to have been strongest where knowledge was least diffused. At the present day we may venture to assert, that any stories which are directly contradictory to daily experience and sound reason, will hardly be received except with a smile by a numerous class, who once gave a ready ear to the wildest absurdities. The history of our own country will supply the memory of our readers with many examples of very general belief at certain periods, in witchcraft, charms, potions, and supernatural appearances. Unfortunately the spirit of gross superstition is closely allied to that of fear, and fear, the most cruel of the passions, has often hurried persons otherwise humane to join in the severest persecution of supposed witches and conjurors, who were generally either ignorant old women, deserving pity, or cunning knaves whom a sensible man would avoid. Lucian*, a witty Greek writer of the second century of our era, has given us in one of his amusing dialogues some specimens of the kind of stories that were in vogue in his day, from which it will appear that lying and credulity are in all ages pretty much alike. "There is a statue in my house," says one of the lovers of marvellous tales, "which steps down from his pedestal as soon as it is dark, and walks all about the house. It is an ordinary occurrence for the family to meet him. Sometimes he goes about singing, and never hurts any one, provided you get out of his way. Frequently he takes a bath, and amuses himself all night long, when you may hear the dashing of the water. I will tell you how the statue treated a rascal who stole the halfpence that we give him every new moon. There was a considerable quantity of these pence lying at his feet, with some silver coins that were fastened to his legs by wax, besides thin silver leaf which had been given him for his services in curing several people of fever. Now we had an African servant, a groom, who was a most abominable thief. He formed a plan to carry off all the money, which he accomplished one night by watching his opportunity when the statue had gone to take his walk. When the statue returned he found he had been robbed; and straightway he inflicted a most summary vengeance on the thief, for he kept him all night long in the hall pacing round and round and would not let him get out. Accordingly there the rogue was found in the, morning with the money on him, and a sound thrashing he got for his pains. But this was not all. He died shortly after in a most miserable way, being beaten and bruised every night, as he told us; and indeed the marks on his body every morning were plain enough for any one to see." "When I was a young man," says another, "and was in Egypt where my father had sent me for my education, I felt a desire to visit Coptos, and thence to take a trip to hear the wonderful vocal Memnon at sun-rise. And indeed I did hear him, but not in the ordinary way, uttering some unmeaning sounds, for the Memnon actually opened his mouth and addressed me in seven verses; which I would repeat to you, if it were necessary. "On the voyage we happened to have among the passengers a man of Memphis, one of the priest class, a * Philopseudes. all the learning of Egypt. He was said to have spent "On the next day, when the wise man had gone out on some business, I took the pestle, dressed it up, and uttering the magic syllables bade him go for water. Straightway he brought the pitcher full of water, when I said, 'Stop!-no more water: be a pestle again!' But the pestle, instead of obeying, went on fetching water till he had filled the house. Being at my wit's end for fear the man should return, I took an axe and chopped the pestle in two, when, lo! each part snatched up a pitcher and went on fetching water as hard as he could. In the mean time the wise man returned, and seeing what had happened he turned the water carriers into sticks again. But after this he disappeared, and I never could learn what became of him.” NECESSITY THE MOTHER OF INVENTION. We believe that there are very few educated people who will dispute the immense benefit which the invention of new and improved machinery has, in the long run, conferred upon all ranks and classes of mankind. There is a general opinion, which many people too often take for granted, that inventions of machinery are necessarily attended with at least a temporary injury to the operative mechanic. That this is not always the case-that we are not obliged at all times to look far into the future for the advantages of improved machinery— is shown by the following striking instance of prompt as well as permanent benefit derived by a manufacturing population from a sudden and unexpected invention. The Reverend John Thomas Becher, in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Lords, during the course of last session, gives the following narrative:— "In the county of Nottingham, in 1812, there was a suspension of the manufacturing profits, and a difference of opinion between the masters and the workmen. At one time these disagreements proceeded to such a height, and to such tumultuous conduct on the part of the workmen, that vast numbers of them were thrown out of employ, and whole districts became extensively pauperized by a mass of artificers thrown upon the poorrates. Several parishes declared that the expenditure for the poor was equal to their income; and an application was made to the county magistrates for a rate upon other hundreds in aid of the parishes so oppressed Early Frugality.-In early childhood, you lay the foundation of poverty or riches, in the habits you give your children. Teach them to save everything,-not for their own use, for that would make them selfish-but for some but never allow them to destroy anything. I once visited use. Teach them to share everything with their playmates; a family where the most exact economy was observed; yet nothing was mean or uncomfortable. It is the character of true economy to be as comfortable with a little, as others can be with much. In this family, when the father brought home a package, the older children would, of their own accord, put away the paper and twine neatly, instead of throwing them in the fire, or tearing them to pieces. If the little ones wanted a piece of twine to play scratch-cradle, or spin a top, there it was in readiness; and when they threw it upon the floor, the older children had no need to be told to put it again in its place.-From the Frugal Housewife. with poor. The magistrates were almost inclined to enter upon the question; but some of the parties having consulted counsel for the purpose of resisting this application, it appeared that the beds must be sold from under the poor before such a rate in aid' could be legally granted. This necessarily threw the poor themselves, as well as the proprietors of estates, upon the consideration of other resources. A sum was raised, by voluntary subscription, amounting to about 6,000l., and a committee was appointed from different parts, of whom I happened to be one, to meet from time to time, in the centre of the distressed districts, so as to relieve these artificers. It was then determined to employ this subscription solely in manual labour, and the framework knitters were employed at small wages,-I think about tenpence a-day, a very meagre pittance for men who had been earning from 17. to 21. a-week. The consequence Pietro della Valle, an enterprising Italian traveller, who was, that this threw the artificers upon devising the means lived in the seventeenth century, and wrote an interesting acof self-support; and what was the consequence? They count of many regions of the East, rarely visited by Euroinvented, among other means, the lace-machinery; and peans, married, when in Assyria, a beautiful girl of Christian parentage, and a native of Mesopotamia. Though very I saw that population, which had been a little while young and delicate, the fair Giserida accompanied the wanbefore declared to be superabundant, rise up into such dering Italian wherever he went, and was with him even progressive improvement, that the supply of human in battle when he fought as an officer of the Persian King. labour was quite unable to meet the demand. Even A premature death separated her from the husband of her the upper servants in gentlemen's families were tempted choice, as he was preparing to carry her to India-her body in several instances to withdraw not only their persons, board of ship, in the cabin where he slept. For four years he did carry he had it secured in a coffin, and placed on but the capital which they had accumulated, for the it was the inseparable companion of his long and perilous purpose of dedicating both their persons and their pro-journeys, by sea and by land; and at the end of that period, perty to the advancement of these manufactures. In a word, lace-making proceeded at such an incredible rate, that single families of artificers were earning at the rate of ten guineas a-week. This they effected by the father and son working their machines both day and aight: they took it in turns, and consequently they were enabled to work permanently. So valuable were the machines fabricated by the ingenuity of those men (for the inventions were all, or nearly all, originated by working men), that some of those lace-machines were sold for more than 1,000l. a-piece. Even common persons, for filing the parts of those machines, were men hired at the rate of one guinea or more per week.” he deposited it, with great pomp, in the tomb of his noble ancestors at Rome, pronouncing himself a funeral oration of considerable beauty, which contained an account of her extraordinary life, Lightning Conductors.-It is fancied by many that it is ground and the other a few feet higher than the roof, to proquite sufficient to put up an iron rod, with one end in the tect a building from lightning. It should be impressed on the public that conductors, unless perfectly insulated, are calculated to produce the disaster they are intended to prevent. The best mode of insulating them is for them to pass through glass rings, and in no part to be in contact with any thing but glass. The lightning conductors placed on the Royal Exchange at Paris are a perfect model in this respect. The inference which the witness draws from this fact, is that a man's wits, when fairly left to themselves, will go much farther than is generally supposed to provide In a small treatise on naval discipline, lately published, profitable employment for his labour; and that we ought the following whimsical and ingenious mode of punishing not hastily to assume that there is no employment for a drunken seamen is recommended. "Separate for one month man, or for a set of men. In fact, until all a man's own every man who is found drunk from the rest of the crew; mental and bodily energies have been awakened by the mark his clothes, DRUNKARD; give him six-water grog, spur of necessity-until so stimulated he has himself or, if beer, mixed one-half water; let him dine when the tried and failed,—relief may do him more harm than work." In a case where this was tried, the effects were so crew has finished; employ him in every dirty and disgraceful good; for it will assuredly, if too easily attained, blunt salutary, that in less than six months, not a drunken man those keen faculties of the mind, through which means was to be found in the ship. The same system was introalone unassisted man, if such he can be called while induced by the writer into every ship on board which he subpossession of the gifts of his all-wise Creator, has so sequently served. When First Lieutenant of the Victory often triumphed over the greatest difficulties; and and Diomede the beneficial consequences were decidedly acwithout which, under no circumstances, can he expect knowledged. The culprits were heard to say, that they would rather receive six dozen lashes at the gangway, and to improve his condition. (for so it was termed) for a month.-Anatomy of Drunk · have done with it, than be put into the "drunken_mess' enness. Mr. Becher has given much attention to the means of improving the system of our poor-laws, and of putting an end to one of its greatest abuses. That abuse is the system of relieving able-bodied labourers by making up their wages out of the poor's-rate. Of the mischief done by this practice to the labourer, to his employer, and to the country at large, we believe there is no one who now entertains a doubt, or who does not wish to see it got rid of. This good riddance has been effected by Mr. Becher in his own neighbourhood, and by several other active and intelligent gentlemen, who acted upon his advice, in other parts of the country. His success, as well as that of others, affords a proof that when the nightmare of parish-allowance no longer presses upon the faculties and industry of the agricultural labourer, he is not far behind his manufacturing brethren in the active and successful pursuit of employment. Quorts in India.—Quoits, as a manly and healthy exercise or game, were once very popular throughout England, and that they are used as implements of war by the Seikhs, an are still not uncommon. It appears from Captain Mundy independent and very martial tribe in India. "The Seikhs have a great variety of weapons. I observed the musket, matchlock, sword, spears of sundry forms, dagger, and battle. axe: but the arm that is exclusively peculiar to this sect is the quoit: it s made of beautiful thin steel, sometimes inlaid with gold; in using it, the warrior twirls it swiftly round the fore finger, and launches it with such deadly aim, as, according to their own account, to be sure of his man at their arms like armlets, and on the top-knot (which is peeighty paces." It appears they wear these war-quoits on culiar to the Seikhs) of their turban. The edges of the quoits are very sharp.-Mundy's Sketches. THE TEMPLE CHURCH. THE interesting church, of the interior of which the above is a representation, is, in part at least, perhaps the very oldest building now remaining in the metropolis. The character of the architecture of the circular edifice which forms its western extremity, in which the windows are terminated by the circular or Norman, and not by the pointed or Gothic arch, proves it to be a work of not a later date than the twelfth century. And this inference is confirmed by the historical fact of its having been dedicated to the Virgin Mary, by Heraclius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, when he was in England, in the year 1185. At this time it was probably newly built. The ground now occupied by what are called the Inner and the Middle Temples, and also a space lying to the west of the latter, formerly designated the Outer Temple, and now covered by Essex-street and its neighbourhood, was anciently the property and chief seat, in England, of the wealthy and renowned community of military monks, the Knights Templars. The first house, or preceptory, as it was called, which the Templars had in this country, was situated on the south side of Holborn, on the spot where the Southampton-buildings now stand. From thence they removed, probably about the time of the dedication of the church, to this dwelling in Fleet-street, which accordingly went for a long time by the name of the New Temple. The body, or eastern part of the church, appears to have been built about the year 1240; and here the arches of the windows are pointed, in conformity with the style which had by this time been generally introduced. Formerly the dedication of the church by Heraclius was recorded in a Latin inscription, cut in the characters of the time, on a stone over the south-west entrance to the round end. This stone was broken by the workmen, who were employed in executing some repairs on the building after a fire, in 1695; but an accurate copy of the inscription had been taken a short time before, and it has lately been replaced in its old situation. The order of the Templars was suppressed in 1312; and the Temple was then given by the King, Edward II, to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose chief seat in London was the magnificent establishment of St. John's Clerkenwell, a fragment of which, the well-known gate, is still standing. The new proprietors of the Temple, however, do not appear to have ever taken up their residence here; but about the middle of the fourteenth century they granted a lease of the house to the society of students of the common law, who then occupied Thavies Inn, in Holborn. The lawyers, now divided into two societies, have kept possession of the Temple ever since, having, in 1609, obtained a perpetual lease of it, at a rent of 201. from the Crown, into whose hands it had come, on the dissolution of the order of the Knights Hospitallers, and all other monastic institutions, in the reign of Henry VIII. The Temple Church very nearly fell a sacrifice to the great fire in 1666. It was the stone-work of this building, indeed, by which the flames were first effectually resisted. It suffered much injury, however, in 1695, from another fire, which entirely destroyed a considerable part of the Temple. On that occasion, and also in 1811, it underwent extensive repairs; but it has within the last few years been still more completely renovated under the direction of Mr. Smirke, who has shewn great taste in his restoration of the decayed parts of the building. The Temple Church has generally been considered as having been built on the model of the Basilica, or Metropolitan temple, of Jerusalem, from which the knights, by whom it was founded, derived their name. The following is the architectural description of the edifice, as given by Mr. Brayley in his Londiniana: "All the exterior walls which are five feet in thickness are |