the good old man whom they had mock-ed, they must all have been lost in the pond. But this sad e-vent cur-ed them, for they nev-er af-ter made an at-tempt to slide, ex-cept their fath-er was with them.

The ores of i-ron are now found in all parts of the globe, but our own is-land is very high-ly no-ted, both for the pure-ness of its na-tive i-ron, and the pow-er which the steam en-gine gives us in work-ing it. The hard-ness of i-ron, its great va-lue, and the ex-tent to which it is u-sed to pre-pare all oth-er met-als, ren-der it one of the great-est trea-sures that has been giv-en to man in his civ-il state. "With-out it," ob-serves a mod-ern wri-ter, "there could have been no tillage, nor could the plough have made the earth fer-tile." The man of thought, when he stu-dies the pro-gress of hu-man art, and com-pares the for-tune and state of the ma-ny na-tions set-tled on the sur-face of the globe, will re-mark, that their i-ron works seem, in some mea-sure, to be e-qual to the ad-vance of mind and rea-son a-mongst them, and to that de-gree or height to which the arts have been brought.

I-ron is rare-ly found in a na-tive state, and there-fore in a-ny in-stance in which this might oc-cur, it has brought with it no small de-gree of

sur-prise. It has been thought by some to have fall-en from the moon to our plan-et. In ma-ny parts of the earth large mass-es of na-tive i-ron, some weigh-ing two or three tons, have, from time to time, been found: and al-though they have been seen and test-ed by ma-ny skil-ful persons with great care, the re-marks made there-on have not tend-ed to throw a-ny new light on the sub-ject, as to the source from which they have sprung. But it is by mi-ning and sink-ing large pits, that we ob-tain those vast por-tions of i-ron which we year-ly con-sume.

It is not an ea-sy task to give my young readers a cor-rect i-dea of the large mass-es of earth, which are often for-ced to be ta-ken a-way in a mine, be-fore the ore can be rais-ed for the purpose of be-ing brought in-to use. In this case they re-move the ore with its earth-y bed by blast-ing, as it is call-ed. A hole is bor-ed in the earth, and a tube fill-ed with gun-pow-der is pla-ced there-in, which is light-ed as soon as the work-men can get far e-nough from the place to be out of dan-ger from the blast. On reach-ing the earth's sur-face, the first pro-cess with the ore is that of roast-ing. This is done by mix-ing it with re-fuse coal, and light-ing the whole mass; the ob-ject of which is to con-sume the sul-phur, and de-tach oth-er bo-dies from it. The next

thing is, by the aid of a blast fur-nace, to fuse or melt the i-ron. They then re-fine it, and it becomes bar i-ron.

The ham-mers u-sed at the Car-ron works for beat-ing the i-ron, weigh a-bout four hun-dred and for-ty-eight pounds each, and make near-ly two hun-dred and fif-ty blows in a min-ute.

I-ron is made in-to steel by heat-ing it in a fire with char-coal, which har-dens it: it be-comes still hard-er by be-ing a-gain heat-ed and on a sud-den cool-ed; then the hot-ter the steel is made, and the cold-er the flu-id in-to which it is plung-ed, the hard-er will be the steel. Wa-ter is u-sed for this pur-pose, and spring wa-ter is thought to be the best.

Al-fred, just-ly sty-led the Great, was one of the most no-ble mon-archs that e-ver sway-ed the scep-tre of this is-land. He was born at Wantage, in Berk-shire; and his fa-ther, who was a zeal-ous al-ly of the See of Rome, sent Al-fred, who was his dar-ling son, to that ci-ty, when he was but five years old. Up-on the death of his bro-ther he came to the throne, in the year 871, and in the twen-ty-sec-ond of his age. The Danes were, at this time, mas-ters of ma-ny pla-ces in the king-dom; and Al-fred was, at once, for-ced to take the field a-gainst them.