of which a delicate lady could not touch a morsel; this was because he had literally worn away the tissues of his structure, and it was requisite that he should have them replenished. He would next call attention to torpid vitality. Many animals pass the cold weather in a long protracted sleep. The frog retired to the mud, and the snail to its shell. Insects sleep and appear to be insensible; but they are not dead; for no sooner does the warm weather return than they again start into life. With regard to animalcules there was a curious and interesting fact. In a hot summer's day they would find a ditch, perhaps, dried up; what had become of the millions of animalcules that had inhabited the water? they were not dead, but lying at the bottom of the ditch, like dustand when the rain again descended they would start into renewed activity. There were some rivers

which, like the Gambia, are rivers only in winter and during the rainy season, and which in the warm weather were dried up. Where were the fish that inhabited those rivers? Not destroyed, but returned to the mud till the return of the rainy weather. Again, if they would descend into the bowels of the earth, into a deep coal pit, for instance, and bringing up a handful of earth, put it in a basin, and supply it with moisture and warmth and light, it would be found to contain life-the seeds of plants, if not the ova of eggs of animalculæ.

Mr. Brittain next referred to the human species. Many years ago men paid but little regard to the laws of health, though they thought if a man was to live he would live, and if he was to die he would die, and nothing could save him. But now it had been discovered that the life of men depended on their obedience to the laws of health-that their own structure -their skin-the atmosphere, and all about them were subject to certain fixed laws, none of which could be broken with impunity. Several years ago, some benevolent people established in London a Foundling Hospital. Many poor children were left at the door

of the hospital, and there were taken in during one year, 2,800 children; and of those 2,690 were dead at the end of the year. Only 110 children out of 2,800 survived, simply from mismanagement and the violation of the laws of nature. Parliament heard of this, and passed very rigid regulations, and ordered that the children should be divided, sent into the country, and treated with proper care. The result was, that, instead of 2,690 dying, as in the first year, there were only 260 died during the second year. Thus four out of every five who would have died were saved by proper management. In the year 1837, fourteen children out of every hundred died, and it was said that was the result of bad drainage and bad ventilation. These things were attended to, and the building having been kept clean, in the year 1843, the mortality was reduced to seven per cent.; and thus by a simple regard to the laws of nature, the rate of mortality was reduced one-half.

In

In open parts of the country the people were composed chiefly of farmers, and the rate of mortality was about one person in fifty per annum. Birmingham and Leeds there was one in thirty-seven; in Sheffield, one in thirty-three; in Bristol, one in thirty-two; in Liverpool, one in twenty-nine; and in Manchester, one in thirty. This increased mortality was the result not simply of the fact of living in towns, but because in towns the laws of nature were more frequently violated. The people live in small houses, in narrow streets, amongst filth and and filthy smells. In Liverpool, for instance, the average length of life amongst the wealthy was thirtyfive years; that of shopkeepers and the middle classes twenty-two years; and that of the working classes, fifteen years.

The human frame is made up of small portions. The blood is composed of small round discs, each of which is alive, and has the power of feeding and growing, and perpetuating its kind. In the cartilage, too, would be found a number of small cells, all living,

growing, and increasing. Each has individually the power of life, and thus muscle makes muscle-bone makes bone, and so on. This goes on for a number

of years; the man goes on growing in height for, perhaps, 20 years; but he really keeps on growing, that is, the tissues of his body continue their development for 20 years more; and thus a man becomes fully developed at the age of 40, or thereabouts; a woman at the age of 50. It was a curious fact, too, that man had only a certain amount of vital energy. Let them take a clever child and push him forward in all manner of studies, and what then, the child dies; in fact, the wear and tear of the mind has gone on too fast. They would recollect a remarkable child called "The Infant Roscius," who appeared on the stage a few years ago; he ultimately became what he now was a mere living trunk; the vital force was worn out before its time. The question was sometimes asked, if a young person can grow till he is 20 years of age, why cannot he continue growing? However a man may obey the laws of nature, he will at last wear out. This would arise from the fact, that all the different tissues would begin to harden from 50 or 60 years of age, the bone became more limey, the muscles became hardened, the blood vessels became contracted, the capillary vessels closed up, the heart itself became ossified, and it would appear that if a man could live long enough, he would become altogether bone.

Mr. Brittain took a more cheerful view of life than was expressed in the following epitaph, in St. John's Church, Manchester, which he quoted.

"The world's a city full of lanes and crooked streets, Death is the market place where all men meet;

If life were merchandise which men could buy,

The rich would live for ever, and the poor would die."
This he regarded as false sentiment.

He agreed

with Dr. Johnson when he said, "Life is sufficient for all its purposes, if men only employ it aright"

ON THE INVENTION OF PRINTING,

BY JAMES CLEPHAN.

[Delivered before the Gateshead Mechanics' Institute.]

Ir is one of the most interesting occupations in which the human mind can be engaged, to trace the rise and progress of discoveries and inventions. In studies such as these, we shall have advanced a very little way before we discard the shallow notion that the world is indebted, in any great degree, to mere accident or chance for improvements in the arts of life, or that mighty revolutions in the customs and usages of society-like the introduction in our own day, for example, of travelling by steam-are the work of individual minds, although the name of a Stephenson may with merited preeminence be associated with the change. It is rare, indeed, that an invention or discovery of any importance is made by one man alone. We are too apt, as Lord Bacon truly shows, to pass those ladders by which the arts were reared, and generally reflect the merit to the last new performer. The arts are seldom reared with rapidity; and oftentimes that which is considered an invention, is only a long succession of trials and experiments, which have gradually followed each other, and ought rather to be considered as a series of achievements of the human mind, than the knowledge of an individual, being the work of ages.

When, after the lapse of forty years, the enlargements made by Goëthe of the boundaries of botanical science began to attract attention, people were surprised that a poet, occupied habitually with sentiment and imagination, should for a moment have left his path, and made such important discoveries. But that, said he, was a complete mistake. I had directed the greater part of my life to natural history, led thereto by dominant passion. I had not made discoveries by "inspiration," by the "flash of genius," but by steady and serious research. Such is the testimony of all studious and thoughtful men.

Very few discoveries, says Lord Brougham, have been made by chance, or by ignorant persons-much fewer than is commonly supposed. They are generally made by persons of competent knowledge, and who are in search of them.

And it is equally true, as Dr. Lyon Playfair has remarked, that there are very few instances in the history of art or science, of a sudden development of great discoveries, either illumined from darkness by a flood of light from genius, or betrayed through some accidental or struggling ray. The growth of discovery is slow. It does not, like the prophet's gourd, spring into full development in a single night. The great discoveries in art and science leave behind them no line of demarcation from those which have passed, but, like the full day succeeding the dawning of the sun, follow that which fully preceded their approach.

Discoveries, in fact, belong to the age, and not to individual men. They grow with years, and, in the fulness of time, they have their fruition. They are to be regarded, in the words of Dugald Stewart, "rather as the results of those general causes on which the progress of society seems to depend, than as the mere effects of fortunate accidents."

Man is only the instrument; but, when the circumstances are ripe, the man is always at hand.