and power, greater than she ever before attained in her most promising days of prosperity.

If I had the means at my disposal I would lay before you correct statistics of the steam power which has thus raised our resources in the different departments of mining, manufactures, and transport. Sufficient data are not, however, accessible; but I have estimated the total in round numbers at 11,000,000 horses, working ten hours per day. That is

And as these engines are worked at an average of three times their nominal power, the above numbers represent a force equivalent to eleven millions of horses; and taking one person to every nominal horse-power, we shall then have nearly four millions of people to whom the steam engine is giving employment in Great Britain and on board our ships. It is no wonder, therefore, that we revere the memory of Watt, when we look upon the benefits he has conferred upon the world and upon his country.

THE COTTON TRADE.-To Richard Arkwright, an ingenious barber, belongs almost exclusively the merit of those inventions which gave an important impetus to the development of an entirely new branch of industry. The carding, drawing, and spinning of cotton, which eighty or ninety years ago was performed by hand, being spun upon a single spindle, is now increased a million fold, and the value of the cotton manufacture has increased from 2,000,000l. to upwards of 60,000,000l. per annum, being in the ratio of 30 to 1. Upwards of

1,500,000 bales of cotton were imported into Liverpool in 1857, and the improvements which have followed Arkwright's original inventions have raised the country, with the aid of the steam engine, to her present high state of prosperity.

The late Mr. Kennedy states that the first improvement consisted in the division of carding and spinning into two distinct operations, and progress was first made in the carding, by means of which one boy or girl could work two pairs of stock cards. This continued for a short time, when further improvements followed, until one person could work four or five pairs by holding hand cards against stock cards fixed on a cylinder revolving on its axis, or what is now called a carding machine, the inventor of which is unknown. Next in order came the invention of Hargreaves in 1767, namely, the spinning jenny, by means of which a young person could work from ten to twenty spindles at once. After Hargreaves came Arkwright, whose first mill was built at Cromford in this county (Derbyshire) in 1771, and in 1780 appeared a valuable machine called "Hall-i'-th'-wood," but now Crompton's Mule," from its uniting the qualities of Hargreaves' and Arkwright's frames.

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In the department of weaving we are indebted to Mr. John Kay of Bury for the flying shuttle, which he introduced about the year 1750. This was followed by the improvements of Dr. Cartwright, Mr. Thomas Johnson, Horrocks, and others, who adapted the loom to be worked by power. This was practised on a small scale, but did not come into general use till 1824-5.

THE IRON TRADE of this country is one of the most important, and well entitled to consideration in tracing our national progress. It would be interesting, if time permitted, to notice the gradual advances which have been made during successive ages in the methods of reducing

the ores. The bloomery or open hearth was probably at first employed, the crude product being made malleable under the hammer. This simple process has been in use for thousands of years, and is still practised in Africa, Asia, and even in Spain, wherever the rich specular ores are found. At what period the bloomery gave place to the blast furnace it is impossible to determine: but we find that the process of smelting by the latter had arrived at considerable perfection in the seventeenth century, and castings made antecedent to that date are still preserved: at that time and up to 1740, charcoal was the only fuel employed in smelting, and the consumption of wood for this purpose so threatened the destruction of the forests that prohibitions were issued, and the production of the furnaces reduced from 180,000 to 17,350 tons per annum. The introduction of pit coal for smelting, however, changed entirely the aspects of the iron trade, and from that time it has steadily progressed to its present enormous rate of production.

In 1783-4 Mr. Cort, of Gosport, introduced the now universal processes of puddling and rolling in the manufacture of wrought from cast-iron. When mentioning his name I cannot refrain from adverting to the gross neglect to which some of the greatest benefactors of mankind seem to be doomed, as their only reward for discoveries which have raised their country to a degree of opulence hitherto unknown in the annals of history. Cort, the pioneer of the iron trade, is one of the latest and most flagrant examples of this want of sympathy on the part of a highly favoured nation.

The following returns illustrate better than any comments the steady increase of the iron trade: —

At the present time the annual produce cannot be less than 3,200,000 tons.

Such has been the advance of one of the most important branches of industry, the support of almost all other trades, and one which united to coal has afforded this country treasures more valuable than a thousand Californias.

In closing this part of my subject, I must not omit to notice Mr. Neilson's application of the hot-blast and the facilities which it has afforded for the reduction of the ores and the greatly increased production of the furnace. Our iron trade has permanently taken a position which, above all other countries, is distinguished for the skill, economy, and magnitude with which its operations are carried on; and we have reason to be grateful to an Allwise Providence, for having entombed in the bosom of our little island such immense and inexhaustible treasures, for the use of its inhabitants and the glory of its name in every part of the globe. Without the advantages of coal and iron, which we possess in such abundance, this country would never have become the cradle of inventive genius nor the workshop of the world.

Another benefactor to his country was found in Josiah Wedgewood, the founder of the porcelain or Staffordshire ware manufacture, so well known for its cheapness and beauty in every part of the globe. To the son of a poor potter at Burslem we are indebted for an entirely new branch of industry, and the many benefits we have derived in our domestic homes from the use of Wedgewood's pottery can only be appreciated by recollections which

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carry us back to the days of pewter plates and trenchers. Before Wedgewood's time the earthenware produced in this country was of the coarsest and meanest description, and the quantity produced, even bad as it was, totally unequal to the demand. In this state of the manufacture we were dependent upon Holland and other countries for our supply, until the genius of Wedgewood effected a complete change in the character of the trade, and thus induced not only an ample supply for home consumption, but a large and growing export into the bargain.

It might be interesting to trace the early career, and enumerate the troubles and difficulties he had to encounter in his experiments on earths containing silica: his process of calcination, and his process of vitrifaction in producing a transparent glass, effected a complete revolution in the manufacture, and ultimately produced those splendid specimens of stone and earthenware which, through his skill, industry, and that of the late Mr. Minton, have raised the manufacture of English porcelain to its present high state of perfection.

Other branches of manufacturing industry have advanced at a similar rate, and I might instance the improvements which have taken place in the machinery for spinning and weaving our woollen, silk, and linen fabrics, many of which had their origin in the latter part of the last century; and the real source of which is to be found in the various inventions employed in the manufacture of cotton; to these improvements, however, I cannot now advert, and I must leave for another evening the consideration of the further development of these branches of industry which have left their impress upon the face of the country and on the character of the present generation of men.