The successes of the famous Noureddin, sultan of Damascus, which shook the Latin kingdom to its foundations, and excited the greatest alarm in Europe, gave occasion to the second crusade, which proved a miserable failure. In the year 1146, the Grand-master of the Temple convened a general chapter of the order at Paris, which was attended by the pope, the king of France, and many prelates, princes, and nobles, from all parts of Christendom. A second crusade was then arranged; and the Templars, with the sanction of the pope, assumed the blood-red cross, the symbol of martyrdom, whence they came to be known by the name of the red friars, and the red cross knights. The preaching of St Bernard excited an astonishing enthusiasm in favour of this holy war. Conrad, emperor of Germany, set out for Palestine at the head of a powerful army, which was cut to pieces by the infidels, in the north of Asia. The emperor himself fled to Constantinople, embarked on board a merchant vessel, and arrived at Jerusalem with only a few attendants. Louis the Seventh, king of France, at the head of another army, also set out for the Holy Land, accompanied by the Grand-master of the Temple, and all the brethren collected from the western provinces. During the march through Asia Minor, the Templars brought up the rear, and signalized themselves so greatly, that, in a council of war, it was ordered that all should bind themselves in confraternity with them, and march under their orders. After the arrival of the king at Jerusalem, he and the emperor, supported by the order, who now, for the first time, unfolded the famous red-cross banner in the field of battle, laid siege to the city of Damascus, which was defended by the great Noureddin. The siege, which was unsuccessful, proved highly disastrous to the crusaders; and after the departure of the King of France, accompanied by the grand-master, the knights were left, alone and unaided, to withstand the career of the victorious Mussulmans. They dispatched a letter to the grand-master, describing their miserable situation, and imploring him to return to them with succours. On receipt of their letter he abandoned his authority, and was succeeded by Bertrand de Tremelay, a nobleman of an illustrious Burgundian family. Shortly after his election, the infidels crossed the Jordan, and advanced within sight of Jerusalem. In a night attack, however, they were defeated with terrible slaughter, and pursued all the way to the Jordan; five thousand of their number being left dead on the plain. In the year 1153, the grand-master and a number of knights attempted to take the city of Ascalon by storm; but having penetrated to the centre of the town, they were surrounded and overpowered by the infidels, who slew them to a man, and exhibited their dead bodies in triumph from the wall. In the summer of 1156, another body of knights, headed by the new grand-master, whilst marching with the King of Jerusalem, were drawn into an ambuscade near Tiberias; three hundred of them were slain, and eighty-seven, among whom was the chief himself, fell into the hands of the enemy. Shortly afterwards, thirty Templars routed two hundred Mussulmans; and in a night attack on the camp of Noureddin, they compelled that famous chieftain to flee from the field without arms and half naked. Having recovered his liberty, the grandmaster went on an expedition to Egypt; and during his absence with the greater part of the knights, Palestine was invaded by Noureddin. The serving brethren and mercenaries who remained to defend the country were defeated with terrible slaughter, and sixty of the knights who commanded them were left dead on the field. About this time the Hospitallers, the other great order of military friars, began to take a leading part in the defence of the Latin kingdom. Their order, more fortunate than that of the Templars, survived till modern times, and they are well known in recent history as the Knights of Malta. The Templars were now destined to meet with a more formidable opponent than any they had hitherto encountered. This was the famous Saladin, who, on the death of Noureddin, in the year 1175, raised himself to the sovereignty of Egypt and Syria. Marching from Cairo at the head of an army forty thousand strong, he laid siege to the city of Gaza, which belonged to the order. In an unexpected sally, the defenders performed such prodigies of valour that the sultan abandoned the siege and retired into Egypt. In the year 1177, he again invaded Palestine, and in a great battle fought near Ascalon, the master of the Temple, at the head of eighty knights, broke through the guard of mamlooks, and penetrated to the imperial tent, from which Saladin escaped almost naked. Next year, the sultan assembled a great army at Damascus; and the Templars, in order to cover the road to Jerusalem, began the erection of a strong fortress close to Jacob's Ford, on the river Jordan. Saladin advanced to oppose the progress of the work, while the King of Jerusalem assembled all his chivalry in the plain, to protect the knights and their workmen. The fortress was finished in the face of the enemy, and a strong garrison thrown into it. Redoubled efforts were then made by Saladin for the destruction of the place. At a given signal, his forces intentionally fled, and the Christians having become disordered in the pursuit, the Arab cavalry wheeled upon both wings, and defeated the entire army with immense slaughter. All the Templars engaged in the fight were killed or captured, and the master fell alive into the hands of the enemy. The fortress was then besieged, and after a gallant defence it was set on fire and taken by storm. The sultan, it is said, ordered all the knights found in the place to be sawn asunder, except the most distinguished, who were reserved for ransom, and sent in chains to Aleppo. The master refused to be exchanged for the sultan's nephew, and perished in prison. Saladin, after wasting the country, retreated to Damascus, and the Christians purchased a truce of four years by the payment of a large sum of money. At the expiration of the truce, the war was renewed with greater fury than ever, and the order was now destined to meet with more terrible disasters than any which had yet befallen it. Raymond, count of Tripoli, refusing to acknowledge Guy de Lusignan as king of Jerusalem, retired to his strong citadel of Tiberias, and there remained, proudly defying the royal power. The king's friends, foreseeing the ruinous consequences of a civil war, advised him to offer terms of reconciliation to his powerful vassal; and it was agreed that the Grand-master of the Temple and other persons of distinction should proceed to Tiberias, and endeavour to bring back the count to his allegiance. On the second day of the journey, the grandmaster, when at supper in a castle belonging to the order, was informed that a strong corps of mussulman cavalry had crossed the Jordan, and was marching through the territories of the Count of Tripoli. He immediately summoned from a neighbouring castle all the knights who could be spared; and as soon as it was light, he rode over to Nazareth at the head of ninety knights, and was there joined by the Master of the Hospitallers and fifty knights of the garrison of that town. The united military friars were accompanied by four hundred of their foot soldiers; and the whole force amounted to about six hundred men. With this small band they set out in quest of the infidels; and had proceeded about seven miles in the direction of the Jordan, when they came suddenly upon a strong column of mussulman cavalry, amounting to several thousand men. The Templars attacked them with the utmost fury; but the enemy, though thrown into confusion by the sudden onset, and discomfited with terrible slaughter, speedily rallied, closed in upon their assailants, and overpowered them by numbers. In this bloody skirmish the Grand-master of the Hospitallers fell, and all the Templars, except the grand-master and two knights, who broke through the ranks of the enemy, and escaped to Nazareth. The fatal battle of Tiberias, which led to the capture of Jerusalem, soon followed. The Count of Tripoli having become reconciled to the King of Jerusalem, Saladin marched against Tiberias, took the town by storm, and reduced it to ashes. The countess, retiring with the garrison into the citadel, sent messengers to her husband and the King of Jerusalem, imploring instant succour; and the christian army assembled at Sepphoris set forward, after long delay, for the relief of the place. Saladin then turned the siege into a blockade, called in his cavalry, and hastened to occupy all the mountain passes. His army amounted to 80,000 men. The Christians attempted to force the defiles of the mountains, but in vain; after a bloody battle, they found that they had merely been able to keep their ground without advancing a single step. The king ordered the tents to be pitched in a place where not a drop of water could be procured. About sunrise next morning, the Templars and Hospitallers formed in battle array in the van of the christian army, and prepared to open a road to the lake of Tiberias through the dense masses of the enemy. Saladin, on his part, set fire to the dry grass and shrubs which covered the ground between the two armies; and the wind blowing the smoke and flames directly in the faces of the military friars and their horses, after almost superhuman exertions to cut their way through to the lake, they halted, and sent to the king for succour. At this critical moment the Count of Tripoli fled from the field, and the troops that were advancing to the support of the knights, seized with a sudden panic, were driven in one confused mass upon the main body. Alone and unaided, they maintained a short and bloody conflict with the enemy, which ended in the death or captivity of every one engaged, except the Master of the Hospital, who made his escape to Ascalon, where he died of his wounds the day after his arrival. In this fatal battle the christian army was annihilated. The King of Jerusalem, the Grand-master of the Temple, and other leaders, were taken prisoners; and the so-called true cross, which had been carried in front of the army, fell into the hands of the infidels. The day after the battle, all the military friars, with the exception of the grand-master, for whom a heavy ransom was expected, were led to an eminence above Tiberias, and offered the alternative of the Koran or death. To a man they chose the latter, and were all beheaded in the presence of the sultan, striving who should be the first to receive the crown of martyrdom. In accordance with the superstition of the times, it was believed by the Christians that for three nights, during which they remained unburied, miraculous rays of light played around the bodies of the slaughtered knights. City after city, and fortress after fortress, now fell into the hands of Saladin, and at length he appeared before the gates of Jerusalem, and summoned the city to surrender. Though ill prepared for standing a siege, it was gallantly defended for several weeks; and at length, when a large breach was effected in the wall, a suppliant deputation was sent to the sultan to implore his mercy. At first he refused to hear them, declaring that he would take Jerusalem sword in hand; but ultimately he was induced to listen to terms, and a treaty was entered into with the Christians to the following effect. The Mussulmans were immediately to be put in possession of all the gates; and the liberty and security of the inhabitants were to be purchased in the following manner :Every man was to pay the victor ten golden bezants; every woman five; and every child under seven years of age one. When these terms were known in the city, the poor were filled with grief and indignation; but resistance on their part was now hopeless. The number of those who were reduced to a state of hopeless slavery, being unable to pay the ransom, is estimated at fourteen thousand men, women, and children. The few military friars who were in the city spent all the money they possessed in ransoming their poor christian brethren, whom they escorted in safety to Tripoli. Thus Jerusalem again fell into the hands of the Moslems, eighty-eight years after its conquest by the crusaders. The Templars still maintained themselves in some of the strongest castles of Palestine, and the city of Tyre, into which Conrad, marquis of Montferrat, had throw himself with his followers, was valiantly defended until the winter, when the sultan, despairing of taking the place, burnt his military engines, and retired to Damascus. As soon as the winter rains had subsided, Saladin again. took the field, and laid siege to Saphet, the strongest fartress possessed by the Templars in Palestine. Here they made such a gallant defence that the siege was turned into a blockade, and the sultan drew off the greater part of his forces to attack the christian possessions in the principality of Antioch. Having appeared in arms before the gates of Tripoli, he found that place in such a postur of defence that he retired without attacking it, and d.. rected his march upon Tortosa; while the Grand-master of the Temple threw himself into the strong castle belong ing to the order, and prepared to defend the town. After a short struggle, the knights were compelled to abandon the city; but they defended the castle with such obstinate valour, that Saladin, despairing of taking it, drew off his forces, leaving the once flourishing city a heap of ruins Gabala, Laodicea, and Berzyeh now fell into his hands: and before the walls of Antioch he concluded a treaty with Prince Bohemond, whereby a suspension of arms was agreed upon for the term of eight months. The intelligence of the fall of Jerusalem threw all Europe into consternation. The pope is said to have died of grief, and the cardinals made a solemn resolution never to mount a horse so long as the Holy Land was trodder under foot by the infidels; they, moreover, declared that they would march on foot to the holy war at the head of armies of pilgrims, and would subsist by asking alms by the road. This was mere talk; but the chivalry of Europe at once responded when the new pope issued apostolical letters exhorting all Christians immediately to assume the cross and march to the deliverance of Jerusalem, promising a plenary indulgence to all who should comply. Crowds of armed pilgrims in consequence set out for the Holy Land; the Templars hurried from their preceptories to join their brethren in the east; and during the winter Tyre was crowded with the newly arrived warriors, and with fugitives who had fled thither for refuge. At the commencement of the summer, the King of Jerusalem and the Grand-master of the Temple took the field at the head of an army 9000 strong, and marched along the coast to lay siege to the important city of Acre. The city was regularly invested before the arrival of Saladin, and he encamped in such a manner that the besiegers themselves were besieged. In a sudden attack upon the christian camp he broke through the lines, and threw into Acre a reinforcement of 5000 soldiers, laden with provisions and every thing necessary for the defence of the place. Having accomplished this daring feat, he made a masterly retreat to his camp. In an attack upon the sultan's camp, on the 4th of October, 1189, the Templars, who led the assault, put the right wing of the mussulman army to flight. The undisciplined masses of the christian army then rushed heedlessly after the infidels, penetrated to the sultan's tent, and abandoned themselves to pillage. Saladin having rallied his fugitive troops, led them on in person; and the christian army would have been annihilated but for the gallantry of the knights, who presented an unbroken front to the advancing Mussulmans for the space of three hours, and gave time for the panic-stricken crusaders to recover from their terror and confusion; but ere they had returned to the charge the grand-master and more than half of his comrades were numbered with the dead. The siege of Acre is very famous in history. Nine pitched battles were fought in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel, and during the first year of the siege a hundred thousand Christians are computed to have perished. Their places were supplied by new comers from Europe, while succours were thrown into the town by the fleets of Saladin. During the winter, the Templars, in common with the rest of the christian army, suffered great hardships, and many died of famine and disease. Saladin, before the unhealthy season set in, had retreated from the pestilential plain of Acre to his elevated camp on the mountains of Keruba; and early in the spring he again assembled his forces to raise the siege of Acre. The Templars and crusaders, during his absence, had not been idle. They had dug trenches and thrown up ramparts around their camp; they had filled up the ditch around the town, and constructed three enormous towers, which they rolled on wheels to the wall, and were about to descend from them upon the battlements of the city, when the towers and all the warriors upon them were consumed by some inextinguishable composition, discharged out of brass pots by a brazier from Damascus. In the month of July the order suffered severe loss in another attack upon Saladin's camp. The licentious crusaders, deceived by the flight of the Mussulmans, were again lured to the pillage of their tents, and were again defeated by the main body of the sultan's army, which had been posted in reserve. The Templars, surrounded by an overpowering force, fought their way back to their camp, and left the plain strewed with the dead bodies of the enemy. The garrison continued bravely to defend the town, and Saladin, by various ingenious stratagems, sent in succours from time to time. In the month of January, 1191, a tempest having compelled the fleet of the crusaders to take refuge in Tyre, Saladin, finding the sea open, threw a fresh body of troops into the town, and withdrew the exhausted garrison. Famine and disease were now making frightful ravages among the besiegers; from two to three hundred persons died daily, and the living were unable to bury the dead. After every thing in the shape of provisions was consumed, bones were ground down, and all the shoes, bridles, saddles, and old leather in the camp were softened by boiling, and greedily devoured. To add to the misfortunes of the crusaders, there was now serious discord in the camp, one party declaring for Conrad and another for Guy de Lusignan, who both laid claim to the throne of Jerusalem. place. The crusaders, afraid of penetrating into the de- PEASANTS OF THE PYRENEES. THE peasants of the Pyrenees have all which their necessities demand within themselves. They grow their own flax, and one of their most busy occupations is to dress it. They do not steep it in water before beating it, as in England, but spread it on some sloping field or hill-side, where it undergoes no other process than what is effected by exposure to the weather. Not only is the flax prepared and woven for their own use, but the wool of the mountain sheep, undyed, is made into jackets, trousers, and petticoats, as well as into various other articles of clothing. Thus supplied with the most common and necessary kinds of dress, their wants are equally simple as regards their furniture and food. A few brass or copper vessels for their milk are always used by those who make cheeses, as many of the peasants do, not only of the milk of cows, but of that of sheep and goats. For a churn they have a very simple substitute, being no other than a dried sheepskin. For keeping wine the skins of kids are frequently used, with the hair inside; and the same article is also converted into a large pocket or knapsack, which the little girls carry at their backs. The skin, when used in this manner, is kept entire, either the head or the tail of the animal being folded over the opening of the knapsack. All implements of husbandry used amongst the Bearnais are equally simple in their character. The pole of their little carts is often nothing more than the stem of a tree, cut off where it has divided into two branches, so that the ends of the two forks connect with the axletree; and the forks with which their hay is made are branches, or stems, of the same description, on a smaller scale. Their ploughing, such as it is, is effected by a sort of Such was the state of matters, when, in the month of double process, requiring four oxen-two to go before with May, in the second year of the siege, the royal fleets of the coulter, and two others with another implement to France and England cast anchor in the bay of Acre. turn over the soil. Both these are generally conducted by The siege was now pressed with great vigour; Saladin, women. For millet and buckwheat, which succeed imafter two attacks on the camp of the besiegers, agreed to mediately to the earliest crops, the soil is merely turned surrender the city, and on the 13th of July the gates over with a shovel after the earth and stubble are burnt were thrown open. The Templars took possession of their in heaps, and strewn upon the field. The process of preancient quarters, and the temple at Acre thenceforth be- paring the ground for wheat and oats is simple in the came the chief house of the order. The King of England, extreme. Both the seed and the manure are strewn the famous Richard Cœur de Lion, took up his abode with upon the land, ploughed in together, then harrowed, and them, whilst the King of France resided in the citadel. all is finished. The labour of carrying and spreading Richard stained his laurels by a deed of cruelty. The manure is performed almost exclusively by women, who ransom to be paid by the garrison and inhabitants of sometimes carry it on a sort of hurdle into the fields, but Acre for their lives and liberty was not forthcoming at more frequently in sacks on their heads. In the Valley the time specified, and some doubts were raised about d'Aspe it is taken to the fields in large woollen sacks the agreement. Richard, fired with indignation, led out placed upon the backs of donkeys. I find it stated in my his prisoners, 2000 in number, into the plain of Acre, and journal, that in the beginning of August the maize in the caused them all to be beheaded in sight of the sultan's Valley of Campan was waving in all its glory, having atcamp. Having taken the island of Cyprus during his voy-tained the height of a man's shoulder, and being still age to Acre, Richard sold it to the Templars for 300,000 livres d'or; and on the 21st of August, they joined the standard of the English monarch, and left Acre for the purpose of marching upon Jerusalem by way of the seacoast. In this famous march they led the van, whilst the Hospitallers brought up the rear. Saladin, at the head of an immense force, exerted all his energies to oppose their progress, and the march to Jaffa formed one perpetual fight. On the 7th of September, a pitched battle, in which the Christians had the advantage, was fought near Arsoof; and two days thereafter they marched to Jaffa, which they found abandoned and in ruins. An attempt to negotiate a treaty of peace having failed, Richard and his army marched out of Jaffa, and proceeded through the plain towards Jerusalem. The sultan slowly retired before him, laying waste the country, and removing the inhabitants. In the mean time, the fortifications of Jerusalem were repaired, and the city was put into a posture of defence. But the siege did not take green. At the same time the reapers had begun to cut the wheat and oats; and I expected to have seen the overyellow corn-fields adorned, as they are in England, with those golden sheaves which have so many pleasant associations. To my disappointment, however, I found that the harvest in the Pyrenees was a very different affair from what it is with us; for no sooner was the wheat cut down than it was tied up in bundles, carried away upon the heads of the owners, and stowed into those innumerable little barns which adorn the splendid landscape; all this despatch being rendered necessary by the dishonesty of the people, which is such, that no one leaves his corn in the field after it is cut for a single night. I am sorry to make this confession in relation to the people whose simple lives I had previously thought so enviable; but I am also bound in common justice to state, that even their potatoes, when ready to be taken up, were always watched in the Valley of Campan.-Mrs Ellis's Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. Christianity makes no open war on the established usages and existing arrangements of the world; it is opposed to violent changes; it is hostile to anarchy; it regulates men as it finds them; it leaves it to the never failing tendency of its principles and its spirit to banish all oppression and slavery from the world. It teaches the magistrate to rule well; it teaches the subject to obey; it teaches the strong not to oppress the weak; it teaches the rich to have compassion on the poor; it teaches that every man born into the world has a right to live, and to enjoy without interruption freedom and happiness; it infuses the milk of human kindness into the hearts of men, and reminds them that, as God has made of one blood all the nations of the earth, so man ought to be the friend of man, and not his oppressor. The very genius of the Gospel is emancipation; its universal principle of love carries liberty with it wherever it goes. When that love touches a tyrant's heart, it melts it; it converts him into a man; it dashes the sceptre of oppression in pieces; it strikes the fetters from his slaves.Rev. J. French. DEATH AT SEA. Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore-his body remains with his friends, and the mourners go about the streets;' but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which gives to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore-you follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the event. There is always something which helps you to realize it when it happens, and to recal it when it has passed. A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object and a real evidence; but at sea the man is near you, at your side-you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea, to use a homely but expressive phrase, you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own; and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scences to fill up the gap; there is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered; there is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss. All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time.-Two Years before the Mast. IMMORTALITY. When I think of myself as existing through all future ages-as surviving this earth and that sky-as exempted from every imperfection and error of my present being as clothed with an angel's glory-as comprehending with my intellect, and embracing in my affections, an extent of creation, compared with which the earth is a point; when I think of myself as looking on the outward universe with an organ of vision that will reveal to me a beauty, and harmony, and order, not now imagined-and as having an access to the minds of the wise and good which will make them in a sense my own; when I think of myself as forming friendships with innumerable be. ings of rich and various intellect, and of the noblest virtue-as introduced to the society of heaven-as meeting there the great and excellent, of whom I have read in history-as joined with the 'just made perfect,' in an ever-enlarging ministry of benevolence-as conversing with Jesus Christ with the familiarity of friendship-and especially as having an immediate intercourse with God, such as the closest intimacies of earth dimly shadow forth; when this thought of my future being comes upon mewhilst I hope I also fear-the blessedness seems too great -the consciousness of present weakness and unworthiness is almost too strong for hope. But when, in this frame of mind, I look round on the creation, and see there the marks of an Omnipotent Goodness, to which nothing is impossible, and from which every thing may be hopedwhen I see around me the proofs of an Infinite Father, who must desire the perpetual progress of his intellectual offspring-when I look next at the human mind, and see what powers a few years have unfolded, and discern in it the capacity of everlasting improvement-and especially, when I look at Jesus, the conqueror of death, the heir of immortality, who has gone, as the forerunner of mankind, into the mansions of light and purity-I can and do admit the almost overpowering thought of the everlasting life-growth-felicity of the human soul.Channing. SONS OF CHIEFS RENOWN'D IN STORY. A LYRIC, WRITTEN BY THOMAS CAMPBELL, IN HONOUR OF THE Ye whose fame is heard afar- Guarded by her native oak, Seized the famed Egyptian shore. See Britannia ploughs the main ! Check'd the haughty Roman band- Freed the Caledonian land: • These lines by the author of 'The Pleasures of Hope,' were found lately by Mr Wallace, a gentleman who is lecturing in the United States on the poets and poetry of Scotland, among the papers of Blennerhasset, accompanied by the latters own music. We copy them from the New York Herald, where they appeared für the first time. VORACITY OF THE STARFISH. The starfish, too, are common here, and I have a strange tale to tell of one. During the month of August the soldiers were in the habit of bathing in the sea every evening, and, from time to time, several of them disappeared, no one knew how. Bathing was, in consequence, into the water one evening. Suddenly one of them strictly forbidden, in spite of which several men went screamed for help, and when several others rushed to his assistance they found that a huge starfish had seized him by the leg with four of its legs, whilst it clung to the rock by the fifth. The soldiers brought the monster home with them, and out of revenge they broiled it alive and ate it. This adventure sufficiently accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers.-The French in Algiers. Printed and published by JAMES HOGG, 122 Nicolson Street, The 'INSTRUCTOR' being printed from Stereotype Plates, the No. 33. EDINBURGH, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1845. PRICE 1d. To give our humble aid to this peaceful and philan INFLUENCE OF EXTERNAL AGENTS ON THE thropic agitation is the object of a short series of papers WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE. PRELIMINARY. MIND is unquestionably the great agent by which the machine of society is regulated in its movements. This is especially true in our day. Physical strength is not now so carefully cultivated, nor is it so essential to success in any enterprise as in past times. Mind and its ingenuity have been substituted for might and its power, and the change is greatly for the better. But it is to be feared, that in the present dependence of society upon the one, men are apt to overlook the claims of the other, and to forget the intimate connexion which subsists between the two. Philosophy has been too speculative and too spiritual; it has dealt too exclusively with mind, and has certainly erred in not inquiring with sufficient care into the influence of physical causes on the welfare of mankind. Here, in a much larger degree than is commonly believed, the moral and intellectual man lie concealed; it is by these causes, to a very great extent, that our nobler powers are either developed or destroyed. The malignant influence of a variety of external agents on society is beginning now to attract some share of public attention. Even in high places the question is regarded as one of the first importance. Government commissions are appointed to make inquiry regarding it; and in one of its branches-the health of towns-it has been deemed worthy of notice in the royal speech at the last opening of Parliament. The result of these inquiries has been a conviction, deep and strong, that nearly two-thirds of the diseases and deaths which at present prevail among the masses of the people are attributable to external causes which ordinary care or scientific skill might easily arrest." Something more, however, is still necessary to bring this subject before the public eye in all its vital importance. Government commissions, a few stray reports and pamphlets, and an occasional public meeting on some solitary branch great question, are not sufficient. Not merely the government of the country and the local authorities, but the masses of human beings who are crowded together in our densely populated cities must be awakened and made aware of the dangers by which they are surrounded; and for this purpose we conceive it to be the duty of the press to set on foot a system of agitation on the question of vital statistics as active and extensive as possible. On this subject see an excellent address to the middle and working classes on the causes and prevention of excessive mortality, by William Strange, M.D. with which we design to present our readers. While we may advert to some of those causes which affect the human constitution all over the world, our chief aim shall be to study practical utility by investigating more especially those external agents which affect society as it exists in the larger and more densely populated districts of our own land. Climate in general-its influence, and the means by which it may be modified-first claims our attention. That it exerts a great influence on the conformation, stature, and general constitution of man, is beyond all doubt.. It affects the corporeal system, and, through it, the mind. Combined with the general aspect of the country, it gives a decided tone to the national character. Hence we find something like a principle of resemblance existing between man and the atmosphere in which he moves. The robust frame and firm-strung muscle of the hardy Highlander, tell us that he breathes a clear and bracing atmosphere, and somewhat resembles the mountains among which he dwells. On the other hand, the dweller on the plain or under the eastern sky is mere effeminate and luxurious in his habits. A low moist climate, combined with some degree of heat, is depressing in its influence, and seldom fails to generate disease; while a dry and temperate climate acts as a gentle stimulant, elevates the whole system, and renders the mind more active and buoyant. Such being the influence of climate, it becomes an interesting question whether it is possible to modify or change any given climate, and by what means? We are persuaded that it is possible greatly to alter the temperature of a whole country such as ours, and that the means are quite within our reach. A hasty view of the subject would lead us to the conclusion that the hottest climate should be in that spot in the torrid zone on which the rays of the sun descend in a perpendicular line with all their burning intensity. This, however, is not the case. Travellers have assured us that the hottest climates they have discovered are under the temperate zone. The solution of this is found in the nature of the surface from which the rays of the sun are reflected. In tropical regions, where we would expect the greatest heat from the powerful action of a vertical sun, that action is modified by the rich and luxuriant vegetation commonly found in such countries; whereas, in the dry sandy desert, these are reflected from a bright surface which cannot absorb them, on account of which the heat becomes intense. From this fact we deduce the useful lesson, that it is possible to change or modify the climate of our |