The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-15 00:00:00

enced in these latitudes, though not to such extreme cold as
that implied by the fauna of some of the glacial drift of
Scotland. Shells were procured at the extraordinary height
of 1,360 feet above the sea-level, and they demonstrate an
upheaval of the bed of the sea to that amount in the time of
living Testacea. A considerable part of what is called the
glacial epoch had already elapsed before the shelly strata in
question were deposited on Moel Tryfaen. The evidence
of a period of great cold in England and North America in
the times referred to is now so universally admitted by geo-
logists that I shall take it for granted in this address, and
briefly consider what may have been the probable causes of
the refrigeration of central Europe at the era in question.
One of these causes, first suggested eleven years ago by a
celebrated Swiss geologist, has not, I think, received the at-
tention which it well deserved. When I proposed, in 1833,
the theory that alterations in physical geography might
have given rise to those revolutions in climate which the
earth's surface has experienced at successive epochs, it was
objected by many that the signs of upheaval and depression
were too local to account for such general changes of tem-
perature. But the more we examine the monuments of the
ages which preceded the historical, the more decided become
the proofs of a general alteration in the position, depth, and
height of seas, continents, and mountain chains since the
commencement of the glacial period. The meteorologist also
has been learning of late that the quantity of ice and snow
in certain latitudes, depends not merely on the height of
mountain chains, but also on the distribution of the sur-
rounding sea and land even to considerable distances. M.
Escher von der Linth gave it has his opinion, in 1852, that
if it were true, as Ritter had suggested, that the great
African desert, or Sahara, was submerged within the modern
or post-tertiary period, that same submergence might ex-
plain away why the Alpine glaciers had attained so recently
those colossal dimensions which, reasoning on geological
data, Venetz and Charpontier had assigned to them. Since
Escher first threw out his hint, the fact that the Sahara was
really covered by the sea at no distant period has been con-
firmed by many new proofs. The distinguished Swiss geo-
logist himself has just returned from an exploring expedi-
tion through the eastern part of the Algerian desert, in
which he was accompanied,by M. Desor, of Neuchatel, and
Professor Martins, of Montpellier. The three experienced
observers satisfied themselves, during the last winter, that
the Sahara was under water during the period of the living
species of Testacea. The ancient sea appears once to have
stretched from the Gulf of Cabes, in Tunis, to the West
Coast of Africa, north of Senegambia, having a width of
several hundred (perhaps where greatest, according to Mr
Tristram, 800) miles. The high lands of Barbary, inclu-
ding Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis, must have been sepa-
rated at this period from the rest of Africa by a sea. All
that we have learnt from zoologists and botanists in regard
to the present fauna and flora of Barbary favours this hypo-
thesis, and seems at the same time to point to a former
connection of that country to Spain, Sicily, and South
Italy. In whatever direction, therefore, we look, we see
grounds for assuming that a map of Africa in the glacial
period would no more resemble our present maps of that
continent than Europe now resemble North America. If,
then, argues Escher, the Sahara was a sea in post-tertiary
times, we may understand why the Alpine glaciers formerly
attained such gigantic dimensions, and why they have left
moraines of such magnitude on the plans of Northern
Italy and the lower country of Switzerland. M. Denzler
in a memoir on this subject, observes that the Fohn
(Sirocco) blew tempestuously at Algiers on the 17th of
July, 1841, and then crossing the Mediterranean, reached
Marseilles in six hours. In five more hours it was at Geneva
and the Valais, throwing down a large extent of forest in
the latter district, while in the cantons of Zurich and the
Grisons it suddenly turned the leaves of many trees from
green to yellow. In a few hours new-mown grass was dried
and ready for the haystack; for although, in passing over
the Alpine snows, the cirocco absorbs much moisture, it is
far below the point of saturation when it reaches the sub-
alpine country to the north of the great chain. MM. Escher
and Denzler have both of them observed on different occa-
sions that a thickness of one foot of snow has disappeared in
four hours during the prevalence of this wind. No wonder,
therefore, that the Fohn is much dreaded for the sudden

inundations which it sometimes causes. The snow line of
the Alps was seen by Mr Iracher, the astronomer, from his
observatory at Neuchatel, by aid of the telescope, to rise
sensibly every day while the wind was blowing. Its influ-
ence is by no means confined to the summer season, for in
the winter of 1852 it visited Zurich at Christmas, and in a
few days all the surrounding country was stripped of its
snow, even in the shadiest places, and on the crests of high
ridges. It is well-known that the number of days during
which particular winds prevail, from year to year, varies
considerably. Between the years 1812 and 1820 the Fohn
was less felt in Swflzerland than usual; and what was

the conscqu.nce ? All the glaciers during those eight or
nine years, increased in height, and crept down below their
former limits in their respective valleys. Many similar
examples might be cited for the sensitiveness of the ice to
slight variations of temperature. If such changes can be
experienced in less than a century, without any perceptible
modification in the physical geography of that part of
Asia, what mighty effect may we not imagine tho sub-
mergence of the Sahara to have produced in adding to
the size of the Alpine glaciers; If, between the year 1812
and 1820, a mere diminution of the number of days dur•

ing which the sirocco blew could so much promote the
growth and onward movement of the ice, how much
greater a change would result from the total cessation of
the same wind 2 But this would give no idea of whit
must have happened in the glacial period ; for we cannot
suppose the action of the south wind to have been sus-
pended ; it was not in abeyance, but its character was
entirely different, and of an opposite nature, under the
altered geographical conditions above contemplated. First,
instead of passing over a parched and scorching desert, be-
tween the twentieth and thirty fifth parallels of latitude, it

would plentifully absorb moisture from a sea many hun-
dreds of miles wide. Next, in its course over the Medi-
terranean, it would take up still more aqueous vapour; and
when, after complete saturation, it struck the Alps, it would
be driven up into the higher and more rarified regions of
the atmosphere. There the arid current, as fast as it was
cooled, would discharge its aqueous burden in the form of
snow, so that the same wind which is now called " the
devourer of ice" would become its principal feeder. If we
thus embrace Escher's theory, as accounting in no
small degree for the vast size of the extinct glaciers
of Switzerland and Northern Italy, we are by no
meansdtbarred from accepting at the same time Char-
peutier's suggestion, that the Alps in the glacial
period were 2,000 or 3,000 feet higher than they are
now, Such a difference in altitude may have been an
auxiliary cause of the extreme cold, and seems the more
probable now that we have obtained unequivocal proofs of
such great oscillations of level in Wales within the period
under consideration. We may also avail ourselves of
another source of refrigeration which may have coincided
in time with the submergence of the Sahara, namely, the
diversion of the Gulf Stream from its present course.
The shape of Europe and North America, or the bounda-
ries of sea and land, departed so widely in the glacial
period from those now established, that we cannot sup-
pose the Gulf Stream to have taken at that period its pre-
sent north-western course across the Atlantic. If it took
some other direction, the climate of the north of Scotland
would, according to the calculations of Mr Hopkins,
suffer a diminution in its average annual temperature of
12 deg. Fahr., while that of the Alps would lose 2 deg.
Fehr. A combination of all the conditions above enume-
rated would certainly be attended with so great a revo-
lution in climate as might go far to account for the ex-
cessive cold which was developed at so modern a period in
the earth's history. The more we study and comprehend
the geographical changes of the glacial period, and the mi-
grations of animals and plants to which it gave rise, the
higher our conceptions are raised of the duration of that
subdivision of time, which, though vast when measured by
the succession of events comprised in it, was brief, if esti-
mated by the ordinary rules of geological classification.
The glacial period was, in fact, a mere episode in ono of the
great epochs of the earth's history; for the inhabitants of
the lands and seas, before and after the grand development
of snow and ice, were nearly the same. As yet we have no
satisfactory proof that man existed in Europe or elsewhere
daring the period of extreme cold ; but our investigations
on this head are still in their infancy. In an early portion
of the post-glacial period it has been ascertained that man
flourished in Europe ; and in tracing
the signs of his exist-
ence, from the historical ages to those immediately ante-
cedent, and so backward into more ancient times, we gradu-
ally approach a dissimilar geographical state of things,
when the climate was colder, and when the configuration of
the surface departed considerably from that which now pre-
vails. Archaeologists are satisfied that in central Europe,
the age of bronze weapons preceded the Roman invasion of
Switzerland ; and prior to the Swiss lake-dwellings of the
bronze age were those in which stone weapons alone were
used. The Danish kitchen-middens seem to have been of
about the same date; but what M. Lartet has called the
reindeer period of the South of France was probably ante-
ear, and connected with a somewhat colder climate. Of still
higher antiquity was that age of ruder implements of stone
such as were buried in the fluviatilo drift of Amiens and
Abbeville, and which were mingled in the prime gravel with
the bones of extinct quadrupeds, such as the elephant,
rhinoceros, bear, tiger, and hyena. Between the present
era and that of those earliest vestages yet discovered of our
race, valleys have been deepened, the course cf eubterranean
rivers,w la ieh once flawed through caverns, has been changed,
and many species of wild quadrupeds have disappeared. The
bed of the sea, moreover, has in the same ages been lifted
up, in many places hundreds of feet above its former level,
at d the outlines of mar y a coast entirely altered. MM, de
Verneuil and Louis Lartet have recently:found near Madrid
fossil teeth of the African elephant, in old valley drift, con-
taining flint implements of the same antique typo as those
having
of Amiens and Abbeville. Proof of the same elephant
inhabited
th the
human
period in
hadthe
previously post-Pliocene
h eand
brought probably
within
to
light by Baron Anca, during his exploration of the bone
caves of Palermo. We have now therefore evidence of man
having co-existed in Europe with three species of elephant,
two of them extinct (namely, the mammoth and theElep has
antiques), and a third the same as that which still survives
in Africa. As to the first of these—the mammoth—l am
aware that some writers contend that it could not have died
out many tens of thousands of years before our time, because
its flesh had been found preserved in ice, in Siberia, in so
fre.ll a state as to serve as food for dogs, bears, and wolves;

but this argument seems to me fallacious. Middendorf, in
1843, after digging through some thickness of frozen soil in
Siberia, came down upon an icy mass, in which the carcase
of a mammoth was imbedded, so perfect that, among other
parts, the pupil of its eye was taken out, and is now pre-
served in the -Museum of Moscow. No ono will deny that
this elephant had lain for several thousand years in its icy
envelope ; and if it had been left undisturbed, and the cold
had gone on increasing, for myriads of centuries, we might
reasonably expect that the frozen flesh might continue
undecayed until a second glacial period had passed away.
When speculations on the long series of events which
occurred in the glacial and post-glacial periods are indulged
in, the imagination is apt to take alarm at the immensity
of the time required to interpret the monuments of these
ages, all referable to the era of existing species. In order
to abridge the number of centuries which would otherwise
be indispensable, a disposition is shown by many to
magnify the rate of channel in prehistoric times, by
investing the causes which have modified the animate and
inanimate world with extraordinary and excessive energy.
The living generation, when called upon to make grants
of thousands of centuries in order to explain the events of
what is called the modern period, shrink naturally at first
from making what seems so lavish an expenditure of the
past time, Throughout our early education we have been
accustomed to such strict economy in all that relates to the
chronology of the earth and its inhabitants in remote ages,
so fettered have we been by old traditional beliefs, that even
when our reason is convinced,and wo are persuaded that we
ought to make more liberal grants of time to the geologist,
we feel how hard it is. I will now briefly allude in con-
clusion to two points on which a gradual change of opinion
has been taking place among geologists of late years. First,

as to whether there has been a continuous succession of
events in the organic and inorganic worlds, uninterrupted
by violent and general catastrophes ; and secondly, whether
clear evidence can be obtained of a period antecedent to the
creation of organic beings on the earth. On the first point,
it is worthy of remark that, although a belief in sudden
and general convulsions has been losing ground, as also the
doctrine of abrupt transitions from one set of species of ani-
mals and plants to another of a very different typo, yet the
whole series of the records which have been handed down
to us arc now more than ever regarded as fragmentary.
They ought to be looked upon as more perfect, because
numerous gaps have been filled up, and in the formations
newly- intercalated in the series we have found many miss-
ing links and various intermediate gradations between the
nearest allied forms previously known in the animal and
vegetable worlds. Yet the whole body of monuments
which we are endeavouring to decipher appears more de-
fective than before. For my own part, I agree with Mr
Darwin in considering them as a mere fraction of those
which have once existed, while no approach to a perfect
series was ever formed originally, it having never been part
of the plan of Nature to leave a complete record of all her
works and operations for the enlightenment of rational
beings who might study them in after ages. In refe-
rence to the other great question, or the earliest date of
vital phenomena on this planet, the late discoveries in
Canada have at last demonstrated that certain theories
founded in Europe on mere negative evidence were altogether
delusive. In the course of a geological survey, carried on
under the able direction of Sir William E. Logan, it has
been shown that northward of the river St. Lawrence there
is a vast series of stratified and crystalline rocks of gneiss,
mica-schist, quartzite, and limestone, about 40,000 feet in
thickness, which have been celled L iurentian. They are
more ancient than the oldest fossiliferous strata tf Europe,
or those to which the term primordial had been rashly as-
signed. In the first place, the newest part of this great
crystalline series is unconformable to the ancient fossili-
ferous or so-called primordial rocks which overlie it ; so that
it must have undergone disturbing movements before the
latter or primordial set were formed, Then, again, the older
half of the Laurentian series is unconformable to the newer
portion of the same. It is in this lowest and most ancient
system of crystalline strata that a limestone about a thou-
sand feet thick has been observed, containing organic re-
mains. These fossils have been examined by Dr Dawson
of Montreal, and he has detected in them, by aid of the mi.
croscope, the distinct structure of a large species of Ithize-
pod. Fine specimens of this fossil, called Eozeon
Canadense, have been brought to Bath by Sir William
Logan, to be exhibited to the members of the association.
WTC have every reason to suppose that the rooks in which

these animal remains are included are of as old a date a 3
any of the formations named az )ic in Europe, if not older;
so that they precede in date rocks once supposed to hive
been formed before any organic beings had been created.
Sir Charles L; ell concluded by stating that he would not
venture on " speculations respecting the signs of a begin-
ning' or 'the prospects of an end' of our terrestrial System
—that wide ocean of scientific conjecture on which so many
theorists, before my time, have buffered shipwreck."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Ti res.—The prospect of an Armistice in the
United States naturally draws attention to the con-
dition of the countries which border on that great
Federation. In the extreme uncertainty which
over.hadows the destiny of the American Continent,
in the doubt as to what may be the effect upon the
minds of a proud and now almost a military people
of their admitted failure to coerce a smaller nation
by force of arms, we ask ourselves whether the result
will ha to disgust the public mind with that vain
appetite for military glory which has led the nation
into such unexampled calamities, or whether they
sock to avenge the deecreclit of their arms and
compensate thErnsslvas for their recent losses by the
invasion of neighbouring States. Toe question is
momentous for Mexico and for Canada, and we have
endeavoured to discharge our duty by pointing out
the necessity of defence, sod endeavouring to arouse
our own colony to a sense of its danger. The lan-
guage we have held has been plain and uniform,
and yet, though plain, not such as could give reason-
able offence to any community which feels a respect
for itself, and estimates properly its duties and its
responsibilities. We have stated that Canada leans
on a broken reed if she supposes that, in case of an
invasion from America, any considerable portion of
the burden of her defence can be borne by this
country. We think we need not argue or discuss
what would be the duty of England in such a con-
juncture. It is quite enough for us to confine our.
selves to the consideration of possibilities. Let
Canada consider the forces with which England
took the field in the Crimea, and let her, on the
other hand, reflect on the forces with which for a
succession of years American Generals have been
carrying on a civil war. All, and more than all,
that .England can spare would not suffice for
the wear and tear, we do not say of a campaign, but
of a single great battle conducted on Gen. Geant's
principles. Whatever may be our wishes or our
opinions, it is absolutely out of our power to give
Canada efficient assistance by land in the event of
war. We are the more anxious to impress this upon
the Canadians because we observe in recent news-
paper articles a feeling of irritation against the coun-
try, and a disposition to accuse England of failing
short of her duty. Ws have allusions to the deser-
tion of Britain by the Romans, and a comparison of
the treatment of Canada to the treatment of Den-
mark. 'We beg our Canadian contemporaries not
to waste precious time in recrimination, or seek to
involve a question in angry discussion which requires
all the good sense and calmness that can be brought
to bear upon it. 'Were we to hold out to Canada
the most unbounded hopes of the most unlimited
assistance in case of invasion, Canada must very well
know that it is quite out of our power to give effect
to them. By sea we are able to give efficient help;
but all the fair speeches and promises in the world
would not enable us to succour Canada by land if
once involved in a serious contest with even the
Northern half of the American Republic. If, then,
we urge Canada to do what she has never yet done
make an exertion in some degree worthy of the
crisis in which she finds herself—we do so for her sake
much more than for our own. It is upon her, not
upon us, that the miseries of the invasion will fall,
and it is in her power, and not in ours, to take
those measures by which alone that invasion can be
repelled. In a letter signed " An Old Soldier," we
have an authentic account of what Canada is doing
for the purpose of self-defence. If she upon de-
liberate consideration thinks these measures satis-
factory to her, we have little to say ; but certainly,
if British troops were likely to be called upon to
make a campaign in Canada, such a statement would
be exceedingly unsatisfactory to us. The Canadian
Volunteers, on paper, amount, it should seem, to
twenty-one thousand ; of these about ten thousand
have been organised into battalions. Again, of that
ten thousand a majority—shall we say six thousand?
—have been brigaded with regular troops, and
gone creditably through a field-day. Fifteen thou-
sand of these Volunteers have been inspected, and
the remaining six thousand have been clothed and
armed, if the General who is to command this
gallant force can contrive to make as much of them
by division and subdivision in the field as our cor-
respondent has done on paper, we do not doubt he
has discovered the means of meeting with twenty
thousand him that cornett' against him with two
hundred thousand ; but, unfortunately, the total re-
mains unaltered, but we must accept the startling
fact that ten thousand men are all that Canada has
to produce by way of disciplined troops in the fourth
year of the great American civil war. T here
.are,
to be sure, besides, eighty-eight thousand
that is, it is proposed to ballot for them end enroll
them in battalions, They are to be undrilled, but
organise l into battalions and core:pinks, and coma
mended by officers thoroughly instructed in the mili-
tary profession. Nothing is wanting, our correspon-
dent says, for the annual drilling of a large number
of these men but the voting of a sum of tramey by
the Assembly for the purpose, which will of course
be forthcoming, The man must be unreasonable
indeed who is not satisfied by these statements that
Canada has at her disposal eighty-eight thousand
available Militia ! To make our account complete we
ought to add that very Efficient steps have been
taker; for the iustructioa of officers, so that when

the Canadian Militia does come into existence there
seems no reason to doubt that it will be ably and
efficiently commanded. As our opinion is chal-
lenged on these arrangements, we can have no
hesitation whatever in saying that they appear to
us sadly inadequate to the demands of the present
crisis—so inadequate that we are really surprised
they should be put forward with any semblance of
satisfaction. Most sincerely do we hope that the
crisis will never arrive by which the efficiency of
these preparations—which have not even the ordi-
nary advantage of looking well on paper—may be
really tried. We earnestly recommend the Cana-
dians to look into the question while it is yet time.
A combined notion of all the British provinces on
the eastern coast of North America would seem a
primary and indispensable condition for anything
like an efficient defence. The second condition is
equally clear and equally important. Being unable
to encounter their neighbours with a force of any-
thing like numerical equality, the British provinces
should strive to compensate this inevitable defect
by superior drill and discipline. It is only by an
army somewhat on the European pattern that
Canada can hope to maintain her independence. As
long as the rest of America was content with mere
Militia organisation, there was no very urgent
reason why Canada should not be content too. But
the condition of things is altered. In the times that
are coining we shall probably find America divided
into at least two Confederations ; their rivalry and
emulation will maintain their armies at a high
pitch of efficiency, and it will be fatal for Canada
to suffnt herself, as seems only too probable, to be
outdone in discipline as well as numbers.
PoST.—Lancashire and its prospects during the
coming winter are again deserving of our serious
consideration. We have seen that once unparal-
leled distress soften down all its hard features, and
mitigate its terrible severity before the astounding
influx of national bounty. We have seen it in many
instances deprived of its keenest edge by the noble
liberality of certain millowners who, at great loss
to themselves, have made employment for their
hands when there was no inducement except a sense
of public duty to do so. We have seen, too, an ex-
tensive mitigation of the want of employment
successfully achieved by the change in the law
which enabled the local authorities to undertake
many needful and most important public works,
and we have seen—best sign of all—a gradual
but very decided increase in the imports
of cotton, to be followed, as all appear-
ances justify us in expecting, by a permanent
supply from various new quarters, which will at
some future day leave us less at the mercy of poli-
tical events in America than we have hitherto been.
For all this we cannot be too grateful. It might
have been vastly otherwise. That terrible want of
work and bread which came with the suddenness of
a summer storm, when first the Northern fleet
blockaded the Southern ports, might have been
but the beginning of a terrible social and political
convulsion. Many of us can remember the time
instantly
followed such a calamity wou d have been
followed by organised plans of pablic disturbance,
by riots, by firing of mills, the demolition of mill-
owners' residences, the breaking open of banks, the
defiance of public law, calling out of the military
and shedding of blood. Nothing in English history
is so demonstrative of the thorough, real, and bene-
ficial progress of the English people than this Lan-
cashire distress. Never in any period would Govern-
ment have felt itself strong enough to have braved
the risk of a Lancashire enzeuta in preference to
infringing a great principle of public policy, by
deputing from the strict attitude of neutrality
which deliberate wisdom had pronounced to be
right. And, emphatically, never before would the
people of Lancashire have had the political know-
ledge, the clear sense of duty, the confidence in
public men, and the selferespect and self-control
which in the late trial enabled them to endure the
severest privations rather than utter a word or
lift a hand to endanger peace and order, or tc
reflect in even the most distant manner upon the
men who were directing the policy of the country.
The noble example set by these men told with
an electric force upon the whole nation. It touched
the very heart of all sorts and conditions of men,
till whole parishes vied with one another who conld
make the mo,t sacrifices or most loudly express its
sympathy and admiration. But the bounty of
those who gave their money and their sympathy
from a distauce, great and noble as it often was, was
dwarfed to a trifle compared with the self-denial of
people in the upper and middle classes on the spot,
who day after day served on committees and did all
the drudgery of an extensive organisation,and night
after night taught in schools, kept sewing classes
together, cared for the your:g, instructed the igno-
rant, multiplied the motives to do well, and mini-
mised the Avenues of temptation. That time of trial
was one of singular temptation, too, and the meed
of praise mu3t indeed be great which can adequately
extol those who, at the sacrifice of every domestic
comfort, forewent the luxuries of leisure, and ease,
and well-provided homes that they might lend their
aid and influence to preserve unstained the honour
of women and the sobriety of men against
the manifold snares which idleness and want
had cast about their path. Only thirty years
ego the idea of the Church and her members
doing the part of administering angels
would have been scouted with the laugh of the
scoffer, all through the districts which have most
severely felt this cotton famine. Indeed, any reli-
gious agency would have been scorned. For at least
the greater number of the population looked on the
Church as an iniquitous system of priesthood which
fattened at the cost of the people—at Romanism as
something even worse than the Church—and at Dis-
sent as only so far good as it was politically antes
gonistic to both. But when the crush of an unpre-
cedented calamity fell upon Lancashire three Sears
ago it smote down almost everything except the
religion and the morals of the people. Nothing
survived that fearful wreck so much as the feelings
of self-respect, religious duty, and regard for the
rights of conscience. Guided by these, the men
and women of Lancashire bore their sorrows with
a brave heart, and attracted to themselves the
bounty of the whole community. The nation
subscribed its tens of thousands, the Legislature
altered the poor law—supposed to be the most iron
thing in Christendom—the Church put forth the
utmost energy of her parochial system, Dissent lent
its force to the general effort, Roman Catholics mus-
tered to the rescue, every combination and organi-
sation of men vied with all the rest in doing its
share. And thus the crisis was tided over, never,

we trust, to return. Practically, it is now a thing
of the part. But Mr Farnall, in his last report laid
before the central committee, utters an ominous
word of warning, and recalls us to the fact that
winter is at our heels, and that, with shortening
days and severer weather, there be an increase
of distress, and incapability of outdoor labour, and
a need therefore of wise and careful provission that a
crisis, surmounted thus far shall not bo less carefully
treated nt its end than its beginning. Every week
will now see an addition to the number receiving
parochial relief, and to tle number requiring aid
from charitable sources. Yet the balance at the
bankers of the central committee is reduced to
£124,000. This would only have sufficed for a
month's disbursements two years ago. It is now
all that can be trusted for the whole of the ap-
proaching winter. Against this, however, must be
set the fact that employment is better and is likely
to continue better than it has been at any period
since the cotton supply failed, so that there is no
chance of the same demands being made upon
charitable resources, which were inevitable at first.
To this must be added the reasonable prospect that
at length wiser counsels will prevail with American
statesmen, and that a prolonged armistice and a
raising of the blockade will complete the deliver.
ance of Lancashire from one of the hardest trials
that any class of industry has ever had to bear.

C OMPOSITION DEEDS.—Mr Justice Shee was
occupied at the Judges' Chambers on Tuesday with
the vexed question of composition deeds. Mr Cattlin ap-
plied for the release of the itev. William Wilson King from
Whitecroas street prison. He had executed a composition
deed, which was submitted to his lordship as a valid deed.
Mr Justice Shee after an inspection expressed his doubt on
the subject, and after a discussion required proof that the
requirements of the Bankruptcy Act had been complied
with. Mr Cattlin said the question was now becoming very
serious. The Lord Chancellor had decided that he had no
power to release sitting in bankruptcy, and the commis-
sioners had, acting on that opinion, declined to discharge.
The only remedy was to a common law judge, and if he
held that it was not a valid deed imprisonment was likely
to be perpetual, as the Lord Justices had held that a man
who had made a composition deed could no make himself
a bankrupt. Eventttally the case stood adjourn2d for
further information.

LIVERPOOL, Sept. 13.—The steamer Lilian,which
was captured off Wilmington, Aug. 26, was bound from
that port for Nassau with cotton, 50 bales of which had
been thrown overboard. She was taken to Beaufort, North
Carolina, whence she would be sent to Boston.
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