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the most abundant of the metallic substances in Europe. It is generally deposited in powerful veins, or in extensiv beds, and Great Britain has been said to possess the most important lead mines in the world.

Lead, though the least ductile and sonorous, is the heaviest of metallic bodies, excepting mercury, gok, and platina. It is very soft and flexible; melts easily; and, in a strong heat, boils and emits fumes. It is brittle at the time of congelation; but possesses a considerable degree of malleability when properly cooled and restored to its natural state.

Lead is mentioned in the Song of Moses in the 15th chapter of the book of Exodus, and is noticed by Homer as in common use at the period of the Trojan war.†

• Those mines which are best known among us, are in the counties of Flint and Derby, the latter supposed so ancient, as to have been worked in the time of the Romans. Some of the northern counties of England also contain very valuable lead mines, as those of Weardale, at the head of the county of Durham; and of Allenheads and Alston Moor, in the county of Cumberland; and there are leadmines of considerable extent at Arkingdale in Yorkshire, and in different parts of Shropshire. In the county of Antrim, and other parts of Ireland, there are lead-mines which have yielded, along with the predominent metal, a considerable proportion of silver-that, at the former place. at the rate of one pound of silver to thirty of lead.

The lead-mines of Leadhills and Wanlockhead in Scotland, discovered so early as 1540, have been long celebrated for their mineral riches, and those of Islay were wrought at a very early period.

In France and in Germany, there are many considerable and valuable lead mines,-and if we turn our eyes to the new world, we shall find in Missouri, no less than forty-five of these mines in full operation, yielding at the rate of three millions of pounds annually.

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t The oxides of lead are a too important class to pass over; but I can do little more than briefly mention them, White Lead, or ceruse,

Nickel, when pure, is a fine white metal, ductile, malleable, and difficult of fusion-is remarkable as be ing possessed of some magnetic properties, and, what would render it of infinite value for sundry purposes, could an easy way of working the metal be devised, is, its not being, like iron, liable to rust.*

Zinc, or spelter, is a bluish-white metal, formed in thin plates adhering together, having a very perceptible taste, and rather harder than silver. This metal is never found in a pure state; and the principal ores from which it is obtained, are known by the names of Calamine and Blende.+

is obtained by suspending thin plates of lead over heated vinegar, in such manner, that the vapour that arises from the acid, may circulate about the plates. By this process, the plates become at length entirely corroded, and converted into a heavy thin white powder, which we call white lead. Massicot is prepared from the dross or pellicle that is formed by the melting of lead. Red Lead, or minium, is made by a tedious and troublesome process, from the forementioned article. Litharge is prepared by exposing calcined lead to a brisk fire for a cer tain length of time,—and Sugar of Lead is a preparation either from the metal itself, or from white lead and distilled vinegar.

* Nickel gives a certain degree of whiteness to iron, and alloyed with copper, forms a metal resembling gold. Nickel is a metal little known, and therefore need not be dwelt upon; it is however to be found in Cornwall, that land of metals in our own country, and in some other counties of England; in Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, and in several parts of Asia,

There is one very remarkable circumstance that attends zine, that although, in consequence of its brittleness, it was ranked formerly among the brittle metals, and is yet known to possess but a very small degree of malleability and ductility, except under certain circumstances; yet when heated to a certain degree, it becomes more malleable, and when annealed, may be passed through rollers, and formed into thin sheets or leaves; but what is more surprising, although previous

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Of the new metal, palladium, it may be sufficient to mention, that it was only discovered in 1803-is of a light steel-grey colour, of a fibrous texture, and, as was observed before, is one of the four newly discovered metals that usually accompany platina; and of cadmium, discovered so lately as 1818, that it is almost of a tinwhite, soft, flexible, but tenacious; soils the fingers, is very fusible, and volatilizes with heat like quicksilver.

ly to this heating it was so brittle, it now becomes and continues, after cooling, to be soft, flexible, and ductile,—the nature of it being, as it were, completely changed by a process so simple. Tutenag is a well known white metal, made principally of zinc. A white oxide prepared from zinc was some years ago proposed as a substitute for white lead.

According to M. Rinman, a fine green colour for painters may be obtained from the oxides of cobalt and zinc. Zinc is also of considerable service in medicine.

Calamine is much used in the manufacture of brass, and the article of zinc enters, in more or less proportions, into the composition of brass, pinchbeck, or princes metal, and bronze. There is a curious phenomenon attending this metal, viz. when zinc is heated to redness in an open vessel, it suddenly takes fire by agitating the vessel, and burns with a brilliant white and greenish flame. The zinc is thus oxidated, and rising in the form of vapour, is condensed in the air in filimentous white flakes, which are called flowers of zinc, or philosophic wool! What a beautiful philosophical experiment is this? and how nicely adapted to illustrate one of the most simple but beneficial processes in nature the rising of vapours from the surface of the earth-then con densing into clouds—those clouds afterwards separating, and the particles descending in the form of flakes of wintery snow."

Mr Mawe also mentions the following: "If a piece of zinc be sus pended by a thread, and immersed in a solution of sugar of lead by dissolving it in water, it will be covered almost instantly by the finest flakes of lead, regenerated in its metallic state, which may be seen ap proaching it in all directions."

CHAPTER XVII.

USES OF THE MALLEABLE METALS.

"And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in uni derstanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass.” EXODUS, XXXI. S. and 4.

"I even weighed into their hand six hundred and fifty talents of sil ver, and silver vessels an hundred talents, and of gold an hundred talents; also twenty basins of gold, and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold."-EZKA, viii. 26. and 27.

"Iron sharpeneth iron.”—PROVERBS, XXVII. 17.

"Quick whirl's the wheel, the ponderous hammer fälls,
Loud anvils ring amid the trembling walls;
Strokes follow strokes, the sparkling ingot shines,
Flows the red slag, the lengthening bar refines;
Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal,
And turn to adamant the hissing steel.

"Hail, adamantine steel! magnetic lord!
King of the prow, the ploughshare, and the sword:
True to the Pole, by thee the pilot guides
His steady helm amid the struggling tides;
By thee the ploughshare rends the matted plain,
Inhumes in level rows the living grain ;

Intrusive forests quit the cultured ground,

And Ceres laughs with golden fillets crown'd."-
-DARWIN.

THE uses of the metals are so many, and the shapes in which they administer their services to the wants and comforts of civilized life so various and important, that it were a vain task for us even to attempt to enumerate them.

We, in these enlightened kingdoms, cannot, indeed, be supposed to be, so sensible as we ought of the

value of these important blessings-for we have been brought up and surrounded by them from our earliest infancy, and never knew the want of them; but, from the anxiety and eagerness manifested by nations, barbarous and uncivilized, to get possession of the smallest portion of these useful substances, even at the expense of the sacrifice of the most endearing and tender ties of affection, when our countrymen first land upon their shores, and obtain a footing among them, I am apt to think, that our missionaries could not employ a better argument on the outset, to draw the attention of those benighted people to that Book, in which are treasured up the words of eternal life, than by calling their attention to those passages, in which mention is made of these useful substances; and so convincing them, that, if the Bible had been put into their hands at an earlier period, they might, from the hints there given, been much bettered and improved even in a temporal point of view, and more advanced in the progress of civilization.

It may not be thought very interesting to us, to read of such artificers as Tubal-Cain-of such architects as the great Hiram of Tyre-and of the ancient method of smelting the metals, and the manner in which the golden calf was produced in the wilderness; but had the Bible been put into the hands of the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands some centuries ago, it is very pro bable, that these inquisitive and thoughtful people, who have profited so much, and advanced so rapidly, in a knowledge of the arts, since they were first visited by our adventurous countryman, Captain Cook, would have turned their attention to the hints thrown out in the

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