would be as stormy and unsafe for a fleet to ride at anchor in as the most perilous part of the channel. A floating light has for some time been placed on the east side of the northern head of these dangerous sands, and has been instrumental in saving many a goodly vessel from foundering. There are signs along the coast which clearly point out traces of the ocean having flowed many yards higher than it does now, and at that remote period of time these ancient sands would be buried beneath the waves, instead of visible, as great portions of them are at low water, when you may venture upon them with safety; but when the tide and sea sets in they become soft, and woe to the adven. turer that remains!- a grave, whose bottom has never yet been fathomed, would be his lot.

Of course the one grand object in the construction of a lighthouse is, that it shall be enabled to display as large and intense a light as possible. On the several coasts of the British islands the usual plan adopted is to place an argand burner in the focus of a parabolic reflector; that is, a reflector something in the shape of the round end of half an egg, which reflector is composed of highly-polished silver, coated and strengthened by copper.

On the French and Dutch coasts the reflector is generally made of glass, formed so as to have circle after circle outside of each other, and thus to obtain a condensing power. When the light is required to be cast far over the water, the English light, which is obtained by reflection, is considered the best, as it causes the rays to be more distributed. But there are difficulties connected with it; for as it is necessary, not only to render the several lights along the same coast different in appearance from each other, but also to accumulate the power of some, a number of reflectors is frequently used instead of one, and these require much cleaning when they are made of metal.

The intensity of the French lights is obtained by refraction, and thus the rays of light being interlaced, as it may be termed, with each other, their power is greater within a short

distance; but their force cannot be thrown so far over the ocean as the rays from the English lights.

On the British coasts there are now, including floating lights, of which that placed at the Nore is an admirable example, nearly two hundred lighthouses. On the northern and western coasts of France there are eighty-nine lights; and the Dutch have twenty-six lights, altogether, on their sea-coast and on the shores of the Zuyder Zee.

These lights are maintained by a small charge levied on the tonnage of all vessels approaching or passing them, which varies from a farthing to twopence the ton. The total amount collected in this way, from British lighthouses, is about £250,000 a-year, the cost of keeping them up being somewhere about a third of that amount, thus leaving a considerable sum for future improve

ments.

SECTIONAL VIEW OF EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.

GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON.

BEFORE the invention of Gunpowder, a battle-field presented a very different appearance to what it does now. There was then no heavy veil of smoke hanging over it and obscuring the banners on which the

arms of the knights were emblazoned; the dancing plume, the gliterting helmet, and the dazzling array of men in armour were on each side visible. Whether the warrior struck with his uplifted battle-axe, or made a plunge with his sharp-headed and longshafted spear, or raising his gauntleted hand, thrust his long straight double-edged sword between the bars of his opponent's vizor, he saw the point at which he aimed, and stood face to face with the enemy to whom he was opposed. Each was alike prepared to attack or defend, and no random bullet came whizzing through the clouded canopy of smoke, levelling alike the strong and the weak, the brave and the base, and rendering neither de

termined courage nor skilful defence of any avail. The thundering cannon and the death-dealing bullet laid low the plumed and knightly head of chivalry; and the iron arm of a Cœur de Lion, that was ever foremost to hew its way into the enemy's ranks, with the ponderous battle-axe chained to its wrist, might have been shattered by the hand of the puniest peasant that trembled as it pulled the trigger, had the lion-hearted king lived when the bullet came, without a human hand to conduct it, from the muzzle of the firelock. Those single combats, which our early bards loved to celebrate in their rude martial ballads, were then at an end; the standard could no longer be seen rocking and reeling above the heads of the combatants, and telling as it rose and fell the very spot where the heart of battle beat: for gunpowder came in and sent its blackening smoke over all this splendour, and under its cloudedcovering Death walked forth unperceived, levelling all alike, and making no distinction between cowardice and valour. War was at once shorn of all its false charms, and many there were who regretted the stern old days when men fought shield to shield and hand to hand, and who exclaimed with Shakspere,—

The jousts and tournaments in which lances were shivered, and over which queens and titled ladies presided, were at an end. The fabled giants dwindled to dwarfs, for even fancy could not create a monster so tall that the bullet could not reach him. All these old fictions faded away when gunpowder was introduced.

A modern battle-field is the most terrible spectacle that can be contemplated. Tens and hundreds of thousands of men, intent on destruction, are pitted together, rank opposed to

rank, while horses and riders rush headlong upon each other, with glaring eyes and compressed lips. The air is filled with dark sulphureous smoke, through which the forked flames of the cannon are every moment flashing, as they send forth their dreadful messengers of death,—the rushing of mighty squadrons, the loud clangour of arms, heard even amid the roar of the artillery, as at brief intervals its loud reports crash like some terrible thunder-clap,-the rapid volleys of the musketry filling up with their incessant rattle that discordant din which is only broken by the imprecations of enraged men, the screams of anguish, and the groans of the dying; these, with their fearful accessories, constitute a scene which is alike revolting to the principles of humanity, as it is opposed to the doctrines of our religion.

Yet, dreadful as is a scene like this, there is little doubt but that the principal agent through which it is enactedgunpowder-has been instrumental in reducing the horrors of warfare, and saving human life: that there is less of that savage butchery and personal revenge which stained the battle fields of ancient times. Allowing for the conflicting statements on both sides, it would seem that at the battle of Waterloo somewhere about two hundred thousand men were opposed to each other, and during a conflict of almost unexampled severity, which lasted from eleven o'clock in the morning till night had set in, the killed and wounded were estimated at twenty thousand while in the battle fought by Henry V. with the French on the plains of Agincourt, the loss of life was proportionably much greater; and in the great battle fought at Lowton in Yorkshire, between the Yorkists and Lancasterians, which secured Edward IV. on the throne of England, upwards of forty thousand of the combatants perished, although the numbers of the contending armies did not exceed the strength of the French troops alone engaged at Waterloo.

Nor has the use of gunpowder been less instrumental in