ween themselves and it. The lungs are a sort <f air-sponges, and when you enlarge your chest to draw breath, they swell out with it, and suck the air in. On the other hand, you narrow your chest, and squeeze the lungs, and press the air from them;—that is breathing out. The lungs are made up of a lot of little cells. A small pipe—a little branch of the windpipeopens into each cell. Two blood-vessels, a little tiny artery, and a vein to match, run into it also. The arteries bring into the little cells dark-colored blood, which has been all over the body. The veins carry out of the little cells bright scarlet-colored blood, which is to go all over the body. So all the blood passes through the lungs, and in so doing, is changed from dark to bright scarlet."

"Black blood, didn't you say, in the arteries, and scarlet in the veins ? I thought it was just the reverse," interrupted Mr. Bagges.

breathe out. You know that neither we nor animals can keep breathing the same air over and over again. You don't want me to remind you of the Black Hole of Calcutta, to convince you of that; and I dare say you will believe what I tell you, without waiting till I can catch a mouse and shut it up in an air-tight jar, and show you how soon the unlucky creature will get uncomfortable, and began to gasp, and that it will by-and-by die. But if we were to try this experiment-not having the fear of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, nor the fear of doing wrong, before our eyeswe should find that the poor mouse, before he died, had changed the air of his prison considerably. But it would be just as satisfactory, and much more humane, if you or I were to breathe in and out of a silk bag or a bladder till we could stand it no longer, and then collect the air which we had been breathing in and out. We should "So it is," replied Harry, "with all the find that a jar of such air would put out a canother arteries and veins, except those that cir- dle. If we shook some lime-water up with it, culate the blood through the lung-cells. The the lime-water would turn milky. In short, heart has two sides, with a partition between uncle, we should find that a great part of the them that keeps the blood on the right side air was carbonic acid, and the rest mostly niseparate from the blood on the left; both sides trogen. The air we inhale is nitrogen and being hollow, mind. The blood on the right oxygen; the air we exhale has lost most of its side of the heart comes there from all over the oxygen, and consists of little more than nitrogen body, by a couple of large veins, dark, before it and carbonic acid. Together with this, we goes to the lungs. From the right side of the breathe out the vapor of water, as I said before. heart, it goes on to the lungs, dark still, through Therefore in breathing, we give off exactly what an artery. It comes back to the left side of the a candle does in burning, only not so fast, after heart from the lungs, bright scarlet, through the rate. The carbonic acid we breathe out, four veins. Then it goes all over the rest of shows that carbon is consumed within our bodies. the body from the left side of the heart, through | The watery vapor of the breath is a proof that an artery that branches into smaller arteries, all, hydrogen is so, too. We take in oxygen with carrying bright scarlet blood. So the arteries the air, and the oxygen unites with carbon, and and veins of the lungs on one hand, and of the makes carbonic acid, and with hydrogen, forms rest of the body on the other, do exactly oppo- water." site work, you understand." "I hope so."

แ

'Now," continued Harry, "it requires a strong magnifying glass to see the lung-cells plainly, they are so small. But you can fancy them as big as you please. Picture any one of them to yourself of the size of an orange, say, for convenience in thinking about it; that one cell, with whatever takes place in it, will be a specimen of the rest. Then you have to imagine an artery carrying blood of one color into it, and a vein taking away blood of another color from it, and the blood changing its color in the cell." Ay, but what makes the blood change its color ?"

Recollect, uncle, you have a little branch from the windpipe opening into the cell which lets in the air. Then the blood and the air are brought together, and the blood alters in color. The reason, I suppose you would guess, is that it is somehow altered by the air."

66 No very unreasonable conjecture, I should think," said Mr. Bagges.

"Well; if the air alters the blood, most likely, we should think, it gives something to the blood. So first let us see what is the difference between the air we breathe in, and the air we

"Then don't the hydrogen and carbon combine with the oxygen-that is, burn-in the lungs, and isn't the chest the fire-place, after all ?" asked Mr. Bagges.

"Not altogether, according to those who are supposed to know better. They are of opinion, that some of the oxygen unites with the carbon and hydrogen of the blood in the lungs; but that most of it is merely absorbed by the blood, and dissolved in it in the first instance."

"Oxygen, absorbed by the blood? That seems odd," remarked Mr. Bagges. "How can that be ?"

"We only know the fact that there are some things that will absorb gases-suck them in— make them disappear. Charcoal will. for instance. It is thought that the iron which the blood contains gives it the curious property of absorbing oxygen. Well; the oxygen going into the blood makes it change from dark to bright scarlet; and then this blood containing oxygen is conveyed all over the system by the arteries, and yields up the oxygen to combine with hydrogen and carbon as it goes along. The carbon and hydrogen are part of the substance of the body. The bright scarlet blood mixes oxygen with them, which burns them, in

fact; that is, makes them into carbonic acid and water. Of course, the body would soon be consumed if this were all that the blood does. But while it mixes oxygen with the old substance of the body, to burn it up, it lays down fresh material to replace the loss. So our bodies are continually changing throughout, though they seem to us always the same; but then, you know, a river appears the same from year's end to year's end, although the water in it is different every day."

"Eh, then," said Mr. Bagges, "if the body is always on the change in this way, we must have had several bodies in the course of our lives, by the time we are old.”

"It is very awful!" said Mrs. Wilkinson. If true. But in that case, shouldn't we be liable to inflame occasionally?" objected her h band.

"It is said," answered Harry, "that sponta neous combustion does happen sometimes; perticularly in great spirit drinkers. I don't see why it should not, if the system were to become too inflammable. Drinking alcohol would be likely to load the constitution with carbon, which would be fuel for the fire, at any rate."

"The deuce!" exclaimed Mr. Bagges, pushing his brandy-and-water from him. "We had better take care how we indulge in combusti bles."

uncle."

"Ahem!" coughed Mr. Bagges. "Taking in too much fuel, I dare say, you know, uncle, means eating and drinking to excess," continued Harry. "The best remedy,

A

"Yes, uncle; therefore, how foolish it is to At all events," said Harry, "it must be bad spend money upon funerals. What becomes of to have too much fuel in us. It must choke the all the bodies we use up during our life-times? fire, I should think, if it did not cause inflammaIf we are none the worse for their flying away tion; which Dr. Truepenny says it does, meanin carbonic acid and other things without cere-ing, by inflammation, gout, and so on, you know, mony, what good can we expect from having a fuss made about the body we leave behind us, which is put into the earth? However, you are wanting to know what becomes of the water and carbonic acid which have been made by the oxygen of the blood burning up the old materials of our frame. The dark blood of the veins absorbs this carbonic acid and water, as the blood of the arteries does oxygen-only, they say, it does so by means of a salt in it, called phosphate of soda. Then the dark blood goes back to the lungs, and in them it parts with its.carbonic acid and water, which escapes as breath. As fast as we breathe out, carbonic acid and water leave the blood; as fast as we breathe in, oxygen enters it. The oxygen is sent out in the arteries to make the rubbish of the body into gas and vapor, so that the veins may bring it back and get rid of it. The burning of rubbish by oxygen throughout our frames is the fire by which our animal heat is kept up. At least this is what most philosophers think; though doctors differ a little on this point, as on most others, I hear. Professor Liebig says, that our carbon is mostly prepared for burning by being first extracted from the blood sent to it--(which contains much of the rubbish of the system dissolved)-in the form of bile, and is then re-absorbed into the blood, and burnt. He reckons that a grown-up man consumes about fourteen ounces of carbon a day. Fourteen ounces of charcoal a day, or eight pounds two ounces a week, would keep up a tolerable fire.”

"I had no idea we were such extensive charcoal-burners," said Mr. Bagges. They say we each eat our peck of dirt before we die-but we must burn bushels of charcoal."

“And so,” continued Harry, the professor calculates that we burn quite enough fuel to account for our heat. I should rather think, myself, it had something to do with it-shouldn't you ?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Bagges; "it makes one rather nervous to think that one is burning all over-throughout one's very blood-in this kind of way."

the doctor says, for overstuffing is exercise. person who uses great bodily exertion, can est and drink more without suffering from it than one who leads an inactive life; a fox-hunter, for instance, in comparison with an alderman. Want of exercise and too much nourishment must make a man either fat or ill. If the extra hydrogen and carbon are not burnt out, or otherwise got rid of, they turn to blubber, or cause some disturbance in the system, intended by Nature to throw them off, which is called a discase. Walking, riding, running, increase the breathing- -as well as the perspiration—and make us burn away our carbon and hydrogen in proportion. Dr. Truepenny declares that if people would only take in as much fuel as is requisite to keep up a good fire, his profession would be ruined."

"The good old advice-Baillie's, eh? —or Abernethy's—live upon sixpence a day, and earn it," Mr. Bagges observed.

"Well, and then, uncle, in hot weather the appetite is naturally weaker than it is in cold— less heat is required, and therefore less food. So in hot climates; and the chief reason, says the doctor, why people ruin their health in India is their spurring and goading their stomachs to crave what is not good for them, by spices and the like. Fruits and vegetables are the proper things to eat in such countries, because they contain little carbon compared to flesh, and they are the diet of the natives of those parts of the world. Whereas food with much carbon in it, meat, or even mere fat or oil, which is hardly any thing else than carbon and hydrogen, are proper in very cold regions, where heat from within is required to supply the want of it withThat is why the Laplander is able, as I said he does, to devour train-oil. And Dr. Truepenny says that it may be all very well for Mr. M'Gregor to drink raw whisky at deer-stalking

out.

and dormice, that sleep all the winter, are cold WF remember (early remembrances are more

probably; in the towns certainly not. The quill received also the attention of seien e steam-engine is now the pen-maker Heca- machine was invented to divide the iutombs of geese are consumed at Michaelmas lengthwise into two halves; and, by the sa and Christmas; but not all the geese in the mechanical means, these halves were sub me world would meet the demand of England for ed into small pieces, cut pen-shape, sit, pens. The supply of patés de foie gras will be nibbed. But the pressure upon the qui kept up-that of quills, whether known as ply grew more and more intense. A P primes, seconds, or pinions, must be wholly in- power had risen up in our world-a new << adequate to the wants of a writing people. sown-the source of all good, or the drago Wherever geese are bred in these islands, so teeth of Cadmus. In 1818 there were assuredly, in each succeeding March, will every one hundred and sixty-five thousand scholars ä full-fledged victim be robbed of his quills; and the monitorial schools-the new schools, a 3 then turned forth on the common, a very wad- were being established under the auspices & a dling and impotent goose, quite unworthy of National Society, and the British and Foreig the name of bird. The country schoolmaster, School Society. Fifteen years afterward a at the same spring-time, will continue to buy 1833, there were three hundred and mety the smallest quills, at a low price, clarify them thousand. Ten years later, the numbers etafter his own rude fashion, make them into pens, ceeded a million. Even a quarter of a century and sorely spite the boy who splits them up too ago two-thirds of the male population of Esrapidly. The better quills will still be collect- gland, and one-half of the female, were learning ed, and find their way to the quill dealer, who to write; for in the Report of the Registrar will exercise his empirical arts before they pass General for 1846, we find this passage—“ Perto the stationer. He will plunge them into sons when they are married are required to sig heated sand, to make the external skin peel off, the marriage register; if they can not and the external membrane shrivel up; or he their names, they sign with a mark: the resu will saturate them with water, and alternately has hitherto been, that nearly one man in three. contract and swell them before a charcoal fire; and one woman in two, married, sign with maras.” or he will dip them in nitric acid, and make This remark applies to the period between 1839 them of a gaudy brilliancy but a treacherous and 1845. Taking the average age of men st endurance. They will be sorted according to marriage as twenty-seven years, and the averthe quality of the barrels, with the utmost nicety. age age of boys during their education as tea The experienced buyer will know their value years, the marriage-register is an educational by looking at their feathery ends, tapering to a test of male instruction for the years 1824-28. point; the uninitiated will regard only the quill But the gross number of the population of Enportion. There is no article of eommerce in gland and Wales was rapidly advancing. In which the market value is so difficult to be de- 1821 it was twelve millions; in 1831, fourteez termined with exactness. For the finest and millions; in 1841, sixteen millions; in 1851, largest quills no price seems unreasonable; for taking the rate of increase at fourteen per cent, those of the second quality too exorbitant a it will be eighteen millions and a half. The charge is often made. The foreign supply is extension of education was proceeding in a large, and probably exceeds the home supply much quicker ratio; and we may therefore of the superior article. What the exact amount | is we know not. There is no duty now on quills. The tariff of 1845-one of the most lasting monuments of the wisdom of our great commercial minister-abolished the duty of half-a-crown a thousand. In 1832 the duty amounted to four thousand two hundred pounds, which would show an annual importation of thirty-three millions one hundred thousand quills; enough, perhaps, for the commercial clerks of England, together with the quills of home growth-but how to serve a letter-writing population?

The ancient reign of the quill-pen was first seriously disturbed about twenty-five years ago. An abortive imitation of the form of a pen was produced before that time; a clumsy, inelastic, metal tube fastened in a bone or ivory handle, and sold for half-a-crown. A man might make his mark with one-but as to writing, it was a mere delusion. In due course came more carefully finished inventions for the luxurious, under the tempting names of ruby pen, or diamond pen -with the plain gold pen, and the rhodium pen, for those who were skeptical as to the jewelry of the inkstand. The economical use of the

fairly assume that the proportion of those who make their marks in the marriage-register has greatly diminished since 1844.

But, during the last ten years, the natural desire to learn to write, of that part of the youthful population which education can reach, has received a great moral impulse by a wondrous development of the most useful and pleas urable exercise of that power. The uniform penny postage has been established. In the year 1838, the whole number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom was seventy-six millions; in this year that annual delivery has reached the prodigious number of three hundred and thirty-seven millions. In 1838, a Committee of the House of Commons thus denounced, among the great commercial evils of the high rates of postage, their injurious effects upon the great bulk of the people-"They either act as a grievous tax on the poor, causing them to sacrifice their little earnings to the pleasure and advantage of corresponding with their distant friends, or compel them to forego such intercourse altogether; thus subtracting from the small amount of their enjoyments, and obstruct

The

the growth and maintenance of their best at almost a white heat flections." Honored be the man who broke own these barriers! Praised be the Governnent that, for once, stepping out of its fiscal ram-way, dared boldly to legislate for the lomestic happiness, the educational progress, ind the moral elevation of the masses! steel pen, sold at the rate of a penny a dozen, is the creation, in a considerable degree, of the Penny Postage stamp; as the Penny Postage stamp was a representative, if not a creation, of the new educational power. Without the steel pen, it may reasonably be doubted whether there were mechanical means within the reach of the great bulk of the population for writing the three hundred and thirty-seven millions of letters that now annually pass through the Post Office.

Othello's sword had "the ice-brook's temper;" but not all the real or imaginary virtues of the stream that gave its value to the true Spanish blade could create the elasticity of a steel pen. Flexible, indeed, is the Toledo. If thrust against a wall, it will bend into an arc that describes three-fourths of a circle. The problem to be solved in the steel-pen, is to convert the iron of Dannemora into a substance as thin as the quill of a dove's pinion, but as strong as the proudest feather of an eagle's wing. The furnaces and hammers of the old armorers could never have solved this problem. The steel pen belongs to our age of mighty machinery. It could not have existed in any other age. The demand for the instrument, and the means of supplying it, came together.

There are two men at

each roller. It is passed through the first pair, and its squareness is instantly elongated and widened into flatness; rapidly through a second pair, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. The bar is becoming a sheet of steel. Thinner and thinner it becomes, until it would seem that the workmen can scarcely manage the fragile substance. It has spread out like a morsel of gold under the beater's hammer, into an enormous leaf. The least attenuated sheet is only the hundredth part of an inch in thickness; some sheets are made as thin as the two-hundredth part of an inch. And for what purpose is this result of the labors of so many workmen, of such vast and complicated machinery, destined?what the final application of a material employing so much capital in every step, from the Swedish mine to its transport by railroad to some other seat of British industry? The whole is prepared for one steel-pen manufactory at Birmingham.

There is nothing very remarkable in a steelpen manufactory, as regards ingennity of contrivance or factory organization. Upon a large scale of production, the extent of labor engaged in producing so minute an article, is necessarily striking. But the process is just as curious and interesting, if conducted in a small shop as in a large. The pure steel, as it comes from the rolling-mill, is cut up into strips about two inches and a half in width. These are further cut into the proper size for the pen. The pieces are then annealed and cleansed. The maker's name is neatly impressed on the metal; and a cutting-tool forms the slit, although imperfectly in this stage. The pen shape is given by a convex punch pressing the plate into a concave die. The pen is formed when the slit is perfected. It has now to be hardened, and, finally, cleansed and polished, by the simple agency of friction in a cylinder. All the varieties of form of the steel pen are produced by the punch; all the contrivances of slits and apertures above the nib, by the cutting-tool. Every improvement has had for its object to overcome the rigidity of the steel-to imitate the elasticity of the quill, while bestowing upon the pen a superior durability.

The commercial importance of the steel pen was first manifested to our senses a year or two ago at Sheffield. We had witnessed all the curious processes of converting iron into steel, by saturating it with carbon in the converting furnace; of tilting the bars so converted into a harder substance, under the thousand hammers that shake the waters of the Sheaf and the Don; of casting the steel thus converted and tilted into ingots of higher purity; and, finally, of milling, by which the most perfect development of the material is acquired, under enormous rollers. About two miles from the metropolis of steel, over whose head hangs a canopy of smoke through which the broad moors of the distance sometimes reveal themselves, there is a solitary mill where the tilting and rolling processes are carried to great perfection. The din of the large tilts is heard half a mile off. Our ears tingle, our legs tremble, when we stand close to their operation of beating bars of steel into the greatest possible density; for the whole But we can trace the gradual acquiesbuilding vibrates as the workmen swing be- cence of most men in the writing implement of fore them in suspended baskets, and shift the the multitude. Few of us, in an age when the bar at every movement of these hammers of the small economies are carefully observed, and Titans. We pass onward to the more quiet even paraded, desire to use quill pens at ten or rolling department. The bar that has been twelve shillings a hundred, as Treasury Clerks tilted into the most perfect compactness, has once luxuriated in their use-an hour's work, now to acquire the utmost possible tenuity. A and then a new one. To mend a pen, is troularge area is occupied by furnaces and rollers. blesome to the old, and even the middle-aged The bar of steel is dragged out of the furnace, man who once acquired the art; the young, for

The perfection that may reasonably be demanded in a steel pen has yet to be reached. But the improvement in the manufacture is most decided. Twenty years ago, to one who might choose, regardless of expense, between the quill pen and the steel, the best Birmingham and London production was an abomination.