The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-04 00:00:00

for the accommodation of the gay groups assembled
there, who

' Forth from the crowded city's dust and noise,
Wander abroad to taste pure Nature's joys,
To laugh and sport, and spend the live-long day
In harmless merriment and jocund play.' "

Transactions of the Liverpool Polytechnic Society for
1842. Liverpool : Lace and Addison.
A neat pamphlt t under this title has just been pub-
lished, and contains, besides the annual report of the
council, reports and abstracts of the papers read during
the last year, with brief notices of the discussions that
from time to time succeeded ,—the whole concluding with
the able address of the president at the close. Amongst
the papers are several of a high order—all by members of
the society—on chemical and mechanical philosophy and
on various other subjects—viz., ventilation, imponderables,
the Alpaca wool manufacture, iron as a material for ship-
building, four and six-wheel locomotives, locomotive
cranks, the resistance of water to bodies moving through
it, the principles of harmony prevailing in the system of
nature, safety valves, the consumption of smoke in fur-
naces, &c. Several models and works of art which had
been exhibited are also here explained. The meetings are
held monthly at the Royal Institution. The object of the
society (as stated in the preface) is " to promote the use-
ful and ingenious arts in Liverpool, by securing to their
inventors those advantages which, in every department of
science, have been found to result from mutual encourage-
ment and co-operation, and from the interchange of ideas
in unreserved discussion ;" and judging from the proceed-
ings here recorded, which evince much ability and re-
search, as well as from the local and corresponding list of
members, including many of the most distinguished
scientific and literary mea in the locality and elsewhere,
we cannot doubt but that the society is destined to become
a high ornament and advantage to the town—calculated
as it is

----" to drive the mind
To its best use, the service of mankind."

Plane Geometry. Second Book of Euclid's Elements,
demonstrated by Algebraic Symbols, and applied to the
Solution of Problems; the composition and construc-
tion of Quadratic Equations, erc. By W. Dunlop,
Science Tutor, Dublin.

Part I. of this work is before us, and is evidently the
production of a practised mathematician. The author
states in a brief preface :—" The process of investigating
the principles here treated of, require little knowledge of
algebra; the well-known results of geometry are simply
compared together, and require only an acquaintance with
the simple principles to resolve them to the forms ob-
tained." The problems are clearly defined, and to the
student in geometry—a valuable branch of science in the
present age—the work will, we doubt not, be found a
valuable acquisition.

Notes on the Marine Glue. By Alfred Jefferey, patentee
London : J. Thelon.

--•
This is a brief, but (to shipowners, shipwrights, and
nautical men,) highly interesting account of the various
successful experiments made, both in the navy and the
merchant service with the Marine Glue, discovered by
Mr. Jefferey, of Limehouse, and which promises to be-
come of the greatest advantage for the tightening and
strengthening of ships and other vessels, and consequently
for the additional security of life and property afloat.
The writer was one of the early producers of copper-
plates by galvanic action, for the sheathing of vessels,
but finding that this method did not reduce the cost, and
was attended by other disadvantages, " the idea occurred
to him (he states) of applying soluble gums, as a protec-
tion to the bottoms of ships ; and he conceived that
by combining elastic gum with non-elastic, and charging
the whole composition with ingredients destructive
both to animal and vegetable life, the object he had
in view might be effectually attained ; inasmuch as such
a coating would protect the timbers from the contact of
water, and also prevent any adhesion or accumulation of
animal or vegetable matter, and resist the attack of the
ship-worm." In this he was very successful, in several
experiments on blocks of wood sunk in Portsmouth har-
bour; and in the course of his researches he discovered
the Marine Glue, possessing properties most useful and
important for shipbuilding and other purposes. This
substance is insoluble in, and impervious to, water; is
elastic, so as to contract or expand with strains, or the
vicissitudes of beat and cold ; sufficiently solid to fill up a
joint and give strength ; and so adhesive as to connect
the timbers firmly together. A number of experiments
have already been made with it in Woolwich Dock-yard,
in presence of Sir F. A. Collier, and the master ship-
wrights ,1
of the Queen's dock-yards in all our great naval
arsenals, with a highly gratifying result. These experi-
ments are detailed, and it appears from them that timbers
glued together with it, and after long submersion in wa-
ter, have withstood strains of many tons without being
separated—the wood giving way, while the joint in every
case remained firm. It appears, indeed, to connect tim-
ber as strongly, and to maintain its strength under wateras
firmly, as the best common glue does in a drystate, with
the additional advantage of elasticity. It is also applica-
ble to effectually filling up rents or fissures in blocks of
wood, and to the fishing or splicing of masts, sprung
yards, and other spars. Built masts are also so connected
by it as to he much stronger than if of one piece, and this
has been proved in the mainmast of the Eagle, 50-gun
ship, of that of the Trafalgar, 120-gun ship, and others.
It has also been applied in laying the decks of the Victo-
ria and Albert steam-vessel, built for her Majesty and
Prince Albert ; and in this respect has been proved to be
greatly superior and more durable than pitch, in several
vessels that have made long voyages. It has been found
equally advantageous in tightening small craft and boats,
also for dock-gates, &c. The several experiments:are at-
tested by nautical men, and illustrated by plates; and we
strongly recommend a perusal of the pamphlet (which is
extremely well written) to all interested in shipping.

THE ARISTOCRACY OF ENGLAND

(From Blackwood's Magazine for July)
" Perhaps, however, the one capital force, operating for
good upon the British aristocracy, is—the paramount
reference of all accomplishments, of ambition through all
its modes, and of party connexions, to the public service.
This, again, which constitutes a fourth head amongst the
characteristics of English society, may be viewed as both
cause and effect with reference to our civil institutions.
Here we regard it as a cause. It is a startling assertion
to make, but we have good reason to think it true, that,
in the last great war with Jacobinism, stretching through
very nearly one whole quarter of a century, beyond all
doubt the nobility was that order amongst us who shed
their blood in the largest proportion for the common-
wealth. Let not the reader believe that for a moment
we are capable of undervaluing the pretensions of any
class, whether high or low. All furnished martyrs to that
noblest of causes. And it is not possible that this should
be otherwise; because amongst us society is so exquisitely
fused, so delicate are the nuances by which our ranks
play out and in to each other, that no man can imagine
the possibility of an arrest being communicated at any
point to the free circulation of any one national feeling
whatsoever. Great chasms must exist between social
ranks, where it is possible for a sentiment of nationality
to be sundenly frozen up as it approaches one particular
class ; as a corollary from which doctrine, we have always
treated with derision the scurrilous notion that our rural
body of landowners, our country squires, could, by possi-
bility, differ essentially from the rest of us. Bred amongst
us, educated amongst us, intermarrying with us indis-
criminately, how by any means apparent to common sense
should it be possible for them to maintain an inheritance
of separate ignorance, separate prejudices, or separate
purposes, such as interested manufacturers and trivial
satirists assume? On the same principle, it is not
possible that, in questions of elementary patriotism, any
palsy should check the electric movement of the national
feelings through every organ of its social life—except only
in the one case where its organization is imperfect. Let
there be a haughty nobility, void of popular sympathies,
such as the haute noblesse of Russia or Hungary is some-
times said to be, and it will be possible that jealousy on
behalf of privileges should operate so noxiously as to
place such a body in opposition to the people for the sake
of what it holds separately, rather than in sympathy with
the people for the sake of what both hold in common.
With us, this is otherwise; the very highest and most
feudal amongst our nobles are associated by common
rights, interests, and subjection to the laws, with the
general body of the people. Make an exception for
the right of demanding an audience from the so-
vereign, for the right of entree at St. James's, for the
right of driving through the Horse Guards, or for
Lord Kinsale's right of wearing his hat in the royal pre-
sence—reckon of the petty discount for privileges so
purely ceremonial, and absolute nothing remains to dis-
tinguish the nolaaAt7. For oo to tho •orwotioo of email.,
the legal benefit of primogeniture, &c., these have no more
essential connexion with the nobility, than the possession
~ucn pleasing information, of land or manorial rights. They are privileges attached
mstorical reminiscence within a small com- to a known situation, which is open equally to es ery man
pass. He briefly notiep. th. _ not disqualified as an alien. Consequently, we infer that,
the fusion and continuity of our ranks being perfect, it is
not possible to suppose, with respect to a great patriotic
interest, any abrupt pause in the fluent circulation of our
national sympaties. We, therefore, cannot be supposed
to arrogate for the nobility any separate privilege of pa-
triotism. But still we venture to affirm, that, if the total
numbers of our nobility and their nearest connexions were
summed; and if from that sum were subtracted all offi-
cers, being brothers, sons, nephews, of British peers, who
laid down their lives, or suffered incurable wounds in the
naval or military service of their country, the proportion
will be found greater than that upon the aggregate re-
mainder belonging to the rest of the nation. Life is the
same blessing for all ranks alike. But certainly, though
for all it is intrinsically the same priceless jewel, there is
Jw n of Leixlip is delightfully situated in the setting of this jewel something more radiantly bra-
e(' the Liffey, in a richly diversified coon- liant to him who inherits a place amongst the British no-
bility, than to him whose prospects have been clouded
ae bridge the view is beautiful beyond de-
originally by the doubts and fears of poverty. And, at
n either hand the river is seen foaming and
all events, the libation of blood in the course of the
ue banks, while on a commanding eminence the old
egged bed until lost between its pictu-
last war was, we must repeat, on the part of the high
—eixlip lifts its embattled towers above the aristocracy, disproportionately large.
K wood that surrounds it. At a short distance "In that proportion are those men unprincipled who
,ie town is that romantic spot called the Salmon
speak of the English nobility as an indolent class--de-
tached from public employments, and taking neither share
where the river, tumbling over a succession of
ages, forms a beautiful cascade ; the precipitous nor interest in the public service. Such representations,
thickly covered with wood, and the whole where they are not deliberate falsehoods, point to a fact
lull not on so extensive a scale as many of the which is not uncommon ; from the limited number of our
in Scotland and Switzerland, is excelled nobility, and consequently the rare opportunities for really
py few in natural beauty. Indeed, but for the barbarous studying their habits, it is easy to see that in sketches of
intrusion of a modern, business-like, stone-built, and this order, (whether libellous amongst mob orators, or
slated mill, which has been erected close to the falls by serious in novels,) the pretended portrait has been founded
some plodding trader, it would be difficult to find a place on a vague romantic abstraction of what may be supposed
in which so many picturesque beauties are combined. peculiar to the condition of a patrician order under all po-
Tne Salmon Leap is a favourite place for picnic parties ' laical circumstances. Haughtiness, exclusiveness, indo-
of the citizens of Dublin, who make excursions to it in
fence, and luxury,
the summer months,
delineator figures to his dining on the grassy shore, or on compose
plliosiendth;e
androm aarticengtytpheitwhheiceohmthese
the broad tabular rocks which in the dr season are left evident to any wan, who has an experimental knowledgeof this order, that probably the ancient Persian satraps,
hare by the fallen waters, and afford convenient platforms

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