and the difference between the value of them and the debt incurred for them, will show whether he has grown rich or not. In ordinary cases, the farmer could not, in this way, add to his wealth for if the debt be increased for an indefinite period, the very circumstance of its existence would prove the contrary. On the subject of a national debt, Mr. Raymond entertains a very novel opinion:

'However strange it may appear to those who do not understand, or cannot comprehend the distinction between a nation, and the indi. viduals of whom it is composed; yet it is not more strange than true, that the people have none the more money to pay, in consequence of

a national debt.'

'My present object is merely to show, that paying interest on the public debt, is not paying taxes, any more than paying rent for land, or interest for money to an individual: and also, that the property holders have, in reality, nothing more to pay than they would have, if there had never been a public debt.'

Our author considers it the same thing, whether the amount of debt or tax to be paid be large or small, because some receive what others pay. He forgets, that there was an original expenditure abroad of the sum for which the debt is contracted and we should be glad to know what the poor man in England has received or gained, that he has become so large a debtor, in our author's account. It is true, he has his portion of the fame and glory that attend the recollections of the battles of the Nile and of Trafalgar, of Salamanca and of Waterloo, and his share of the credit of having subsidized almost all the powers of the continent. But he feels that, for all this, whatever he eats or drinks, or uses or wears, is taxed so heavily that he is compelled to forego most of the conveniences and all the comforts of life. There would be an equal demand for the produce of his labour without the existence of these taxes, for if they were removed, he could afford to work cheaper, and still obtain a greater quantity of the necessaries and comforts of life. Would England have resorted to her corn laws, had it not been for the amount of taxes required to pay the interest of her national debt? They prohibit the importation of grain, unless the average price should be above two and a quarter dollars per bushel, whereas we could supply them for nearly one third of that price. But in her present nicely balanced system of government, these measures have been resorted to in order to protect the agricultural interest;-not that her statesmen imagine that the country generally will be benefitted by the corn laws, but because they think this expedient necessary to enable the landed interest to contribute its proportion of taxes for the expenditures of go

vernment.

We Reviewers pretend not to be acquainted with the arcana of the counting room, nor to understand the technical terms of

the art, either of the merchant or the manufacturer; but the terms, balance of trade, and surplus produce, respecting which our author gives himself such unnecessary trouble, should, we think, have entered into the investigation of every inquirer on the subject of political economy, without having to recur to the invention of the Merchant for their origin.

In all the views this writer takes of the subject, he seems either to mistake the operations, or to undervalue the effects, of commerce. It is to commerce that our country is indebted not only for a great portion of her present wealth, but for a name among the nations of the earth: it will be to commerce, and its beneficial effects, that she must still look up, not only for an augmentation of her present wealth, but for the preservation of her fame and glory. It is not the merchant that creates commerce, it is commerce that gives existence to him, whom she constitutes her authorized agent to conduct her operations, and waft her productions to the distant corners of the world;-we would not include in the term the wild and uncalculating speculator, who, with artificial means, ventures boldly, having nothing to lose; neither do we speak particularly of the stock-jobber and money-broker. although their agency in the extended concerns to which trade gives rise, is useful and necessary; nor do we mean such adventurers as may be said "to live by their wits," acting without prudence or forethought, and trading without capital or information; but we mean (in the words of Lord Chatham) the honest and industrious merchant, whose upright conduct is alike the honour and support of his country, the various streams of whose commerce, returning in the full tide of wealth, water the country with opulence.

We could make other quotations from Mr. Raymond's work, and still find cause for disagreement: but we feel ourselves bound to concur with the author in his view of the effects of slavery upon political economy; and we think his chapter on banks less objectionable than any we have examined.

We trust that such writers as those we have noticed, will have the effect of drawing the attention of our statesmen and legislators, to the investigation of subjects, which, considered with reference to the present state and future prospects of our country, are becoming daily more interesting and important. Mr. Raymond observes, that his work is the only general treatise on political economy that has appeared in our country: while, therefore, we express our hope that it may not long continue alone and uncountenanced, we must still view it as a matter of some regret, that, with the ability he gives evidence of possessing, and, considering his high pretensions, the first American writer on a science of such importance to his country, should have shed so little additional light on the subject he has attempted to elucidate.

I beg leave to communicate, for publication, a drawing of the Hydro-Pneumatic apparatus I have lately erected in the laboratory of Columbia College. The instrument consists of a combination of four of Pepys' gas holders, in the ordinary trough. One of these has a capacity of nearly ten gallons, two of five, and one of two and a half. There are thus provided receptacles for containing large quantities of gas, which may, if necessary, be of four different kinds. The transfer of the gas from them to glass receivers, or other vessels, for the purpose of experiment, is rendered easy by pipes and stop-cocks, communicating with the upper surface of shelves placed at each end of the trough. Two pipes are adapted to each gas holder-one admits water to the bottom, while the other permits the escape of the gas from the top. Glass gauges show the height at which the water stands in each, and consequently the quantity of gas.

The construction of the apparatus may be better understood by an inspection of the plate, which is a longitudinal section. Two of the gas holders are represented; and to show the manner of using them in combination, Cuthbertson's contrivance for exhibiting the composition of water, by the slow combustion of oxygen and hydrogen gas, is attached. For the exhibition of Hares' blow pipe, this instrument appears to me to be extremely convenient. The horizontal area of the largest gasometer is exactly double that of the two next in size. As the water stands at the same level, its pressure will be sufficient to force

twice as much gas from the larger as it can from either of the smaller; to prevent this theoretical proportion from being altered by the friction of the pipes, those which communicate with the larger are made double the area of those belonging to the smaller.

The dimensions of the trough are three feet in length, eighteen inches in breadth, and two feet in depth. It is sunk at one end of a table, so that the surface of the water stands about an inch below that of the table.

I have been the more particular in describing the construction of this machine, from a conviction of the importance of fit and well arranged apparatus, both to the Analytic Chemist, and the Chemical Lecturer. Indeed, Chemistry appears to have been preceded in all the steps of its progress by the invention and construction of new instruments. In this point of view, the introduction of the Pneumatic Trough, by Cavendish, forms one of the most important æras in chemical science. It led immediately to the investigation of the properties of a class of bodies, highly important in their chemical relations, but which before could hardly be subjected to the test of direct experiment. When it became necessary to experiment upon large quantities of gas, or to preserve it for public exhibition, the trough alone was found to be inconvenient; the gasometer of Lavoisier, and the gas holder of Watt, were therefore introduced. The latter, as improved by Pepys, is probably the best instrument for the purposes of the lecturer that has been hitherto contrived. The only objection to its use is the necessity the experimenter is under of exhausting the vessels of air before he can fill them. In the present instrument, this objection is obviated, as the receivers can be filled with water in the trough, and placed at once upon the shelves corresponding with the gas holders. JAMES RENWICK.

Columbia College, 13th June, 1821.

SELECT.

ART. I. King Coal's Levee, or Geological Etiquette, with Explanatory Notes; and the Council of the Metals. Third Edition. To which

is added, Baron Basalt's Tour. 12mo. pp. 120. 1819.

2. A Geological Primer in Verse: with a Poetical Geognosy, or Feasting and Fighting; and sundry right pleasant Poems; with Notes. 8vo. pp. 80. 1820.

3. Court News; or, The Peers of King Coal: and the Errants, or a Survey of British Strata, 12mo. pp. 65. 1820.

[Monthly Review-March, 1820.]

In this age of scientific glee, when all the animated families of nature have been summoned to the ball-room, we had ventured to anticipate that even the mineral people would ere long be asked to a hop, or, at least, to tea and turn out :-but, lo! they are greeted with the exalted pomp of a levee. This really appears marvellous to sedate Reviewers, who are instantly shocked at such a gross violation of probability, as rocks and stones setting out on long journeys, and paying their ceremonious respects and making set speeches to a sovereign as inert and unorganized as themselves. Yet such is the deceitfulness of the human heart, that, under this semblance of honest criticism, there may unconsciously lurk some movements of peevishness or envy; and, could we candidly analyze all the workings of our internal frame, we might perhaps be convinced that, precluded as we are by our ever-during vocation from the gayeties of gala-days and the ineffable delights of the presence-chamber, we cannot endure the humiliating reflection that brute matter should, even in poetry, be supposed capable of enjoying scenes and privileges from which, alas! we are debarred.

However this may be, it is certain that the public, including some lettered divines, have not scrupled to bestow their countenance on the present exhibition of bowing and speaking stones; for it has now more than doubled its former size; and the author begs leave to acknowledge his obligations to the Rev. W. Conybcare of Christ Church, Oxford, for his scientific hints towards the enlargement of the text, and to the Rev. W. Buckland, Professor of Mineralogy and Geology in that University, for his kind assistance in considerable additions to the Notes." The author, however, with becoming modesty, still limits the scene of his effusions to old England.

He commences, as every legitimate bard is bound to do, by an invocation; unfolding his theme, arraying the ceremonial of the court, and putting the loyal and dutiful subjects in motion. 'King Coal, the mighty hero of the mine, -Sprung from a dingy, but a far fam'd line,