edge of the Bristol board, and observe whether it projects equally beyond, before it is pressed down to the front and back, as it will have an awkward effect if it appear irregular and wider in one part than another. The pattern which surrounds the centre may be either a varied one all round, or about a fourth part repeated. In the former case, the whole must be traced, in about four parts, on gold paper; in the latter, if one part be traced, the four may be cut out altogether; if the pattern is designed to run in one continued direction, the four pieces of gold paper for it, must be placed in the same position, with the gold all facing in one direction; but if the design is intended to be a repetition of the pattern in different directions, then the papers must be placed two with the gold side up, and the other two with it down; and the same rule is to be observed in reference to the card-board pattern, for cutting out the form of the whole screen. When the screen has been in press about the time before recommended, three or four hours, the exact form may be marked by placing the card-board pattern on it, and drawing a pencil-line all round the outline, and each part is to be cut out. This cutting out you will very soon ascertain is rather a fatiguing task. It is done with small chisels and gouges, which should be as sharp as possible. Placing the screen on a piece of stout card or a plate of pewter, laid upon a very firm table, put the chisel upon the line, keep it in an upright position, and press heavily enough to cut through the card. Move it close to the edge of the first mark and cut again, and so on until all the outline has been cut: if the forms are so curved as to require it, the gouges may be used. The card-board centre and gold flowers, &c., may now be pasted on; the flowers, which are to have two coats of paste, may first be put on, and the Bristol-board, which is to be pasted but once, may be put on last, because it will be desirable to put it in press again as soon as the latter has been put on, to secure its adhering. The screen must now be left in press three or four days, after which I will tell you how to shade the gold and coloured paper flowers. If the screens should be left in the press until the next day only, it would occasion much more labour, in consequence of their being considerably harder; but if cut out as soon as the paste has set sufficiently to secure them from the risk of being separated, and while the card-board and paper are still damp, it is comparatively easy. several points, taking one for each line of shade until they come as near to the side as to the top of the form; observing that every two are nearer together in the middle than towards the edge of the figure, and so avoiding the bad effect of parallel shades, as those in the middle must be if two points only are taken, in which case they no longer have the effect of rays proceeding from an illuminated centre, and therefore give a different idea to the one intended. We will now state the mode of shading the ornaments on the screen. The coloured paper is shaded with water-colours in cakes, and will generally require about three degrees of teint, a light shade, a darker one, and a very strong one for markings. The light touches, which enliven it so much, are put in with flake white used rather thickly, and mixed up with thin gum-water: all which may be begun and finished at the same time. Not so the shading of the gold. From the difficulty with which watercolours adhere to gold paper, and the extremely heavy effect they produce when used, it is necessary to shade upon it with either oil or varnish colours, and the latter of these is preferred because it dries more quickly. You require some burnt sienna, lake and lampblack, in powder; a bottle of copal varnish, and spirits of turpentine, a palette, knife, and slab, some sable hairbrushes of middling size, and one small one with longer hair. Put as much burnt sienna as will lie upon a sixpence, and a fourth as much lake, then add varnish enough to moisten them, and a few drops of turpentine; grind them thoroughly upon the palette with the knife, adding turpentine as the mixture becomes dry, and when it is perfectly smooth, a little more varnish; it may then be put into the slab, and an equal quantity of varnish and turpentine be added to render it as thin as required for use, for the large shades; and any harsh outlines may be softened off with a brush just moistened in varnish alone. In two or three hours this will be sufficiently dry to receive the second and darker shade, which may be softened off in the same manner. It must then be put away to dry until the following day, when the markings may be done with a darker brown colour, made by adding a very little lampblack to the lake and burnt sienna, and also a greater proportion of varnish than before; this must all be fresh mixed, as what is used one day will not be fit for the next. In putting on these markings, use the small long hair-brush, and endeavour to get the long thin line, when required, by moving the hand altogether while it is drawn, instead of keeping the little finger fixed on the paper while the others are guiding the brush. Having finished these, let it be put away until the following day, when a coat of the varnish may be spread over the gold wherever it has received a shade. The dark brown colour may be used for the dark teint put on the burnt paper by the side of the gold, to give it greater relief. In regard to whether it is better to direct the lines of shade, produced by scorching the paper of the oblong square forms, all towards one point, as in shading a circular screen, or to direct them towards two points like the two centres of an oval, we should say that it will be sufficient to direct them to one point, as in the round screen, unless you have to shade an oval form, which may be considerably wide in proportion THE sum of behaviour is, to retain a man's own to its height, in which case I should shade from dignity, without intruding upon the liberty of others, Voc. IV-10 OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BODY AS AFFECTED | suppleness and energy; the whole organization is BY EXERCISE. enfeebled; and, if the state of repose continue, the strongest man will ultimately become weak and indisposed. On the contrary, under the influence of exercise, the interiour functions increase in activity and power. It has been observed that the cerebel or little brain, by means of the nerves acting upon the muscles, excites them to produce motion: it may now be added that the heart gives to the muscles a similar excitement, or rather the means of acting, by pouring into them the blood; because, if we were to intercept the blood which is sent to them by that organ, they would soon be unable to contract, and their active power would finally cease. Thus the nervous system and the system of the which determine the muscular contractions. As, however, every thing in the economy of animal life, is united and dependant, the muscles cannot be put in action or be exercised without reacting on the brain by means of other nerves, and on the heart by means of the returning vessels or veins. the heart and brain, being again more stimulated, return an additional stimulus to the muscles themselves, THE movements of the body are of two kinds. The first take place without consciousness or any act of the will. They consist of the exercise of the vital functions for the preservation and support of life; as of the stomach, intestines, heart, &c., and also of the exercise of all the muscles when they act involuntarily. The second are the movements performed consciously and voluntarily, when we put in action any muscle for a particular purpose. These last constitute exercise. By exercise, the power of the muscular fibres is increased. When a limb is moved, the muscles which are put in action swell by the more frequent and copious flow of blood into them, and heat is developed. If the motion be long continued, the limb grows stiff; a sensation of las-blood vessels are evidently the two principal causes situde is felt and a difficulty of further contraction is the result. If the motion were violent, and the blood were called in excess into the limb, inflammation might arise. If, on the contrary, after intervals of repose we perform the same motions for many times in succession, we observe an increase of bulk and energy in the part, in consequence of the more active conversion of nutritious matter into its substance. and also a perfection of action which was not previ-and to all the organs. ously enjoyed. Hence, in labouring men, the limbs employed in their occupation are larger in proportion than the rest: this is the case with the arms of blacksmiths, bakers, &c. This increase of size has nothing to do with fatness: on the contrary, exercise tends to make the body lean. Labouring nen, hunters, and soldiers are not fat; but their fle sh is firm and strong, because their habit of exercise has conferred these qualities on their muscles. This effect is still more evident amongst animals. Those cooped up where they cannot sufficiently einploy their muscles, have the flesh delicate, tender, white and fat the flesh of wild fowls, on the contrary, is firm, hard, dark coloured, and lean-proofs of strength and vigour. Thus In this way, the contractions of the muscles produce a general excitement, making all the organs partake of their activity. It is thus that every one must have observed, after active exercise, those effects, the very causes of which we are now explaining, namely, palpitation of the heart, quick pulse, heat, redness of the skin, perspiration, &c. If we now wish, for example's sake, to apply these simple physiological principles to explain the influence of exercise upon digestion, we can understand how the organs whose duty it is to perform this vital function, increase, by exercise, in strength and power. If the stomach be empty, exercise accordingly creates or increases the appetite, and ensures a more speedy, easy, and perfect digestion.Generally speaking, the effect of active exercises It must, however, be observed that violent and too on any part or any animal, is greater the more it is long-continued exercise exhausts the common enerin motion. The person, however, who is constant-gy of all the organs, and consequently troubles and disorders the movements of the stomach, and thus injures the digestion. As to the circulation, it has already been seen that exercise accelerates the palpitations of the heart and the action of the bloodvessels. The same thing occurs with respiration, which becomes quick in proportion to the force and activity of our external motions. It is, however, in its effect upon the nourishment and material composition of the body, that it is most interesting, in relation to the present views, to notice the conseTo have an idea of the extensive effects of exer-quence of exercise. It is especially in contributing cise on the rest of the organization, it is enough to observe that the locomotive muscles and their levers, the bones, form a mass much larger and heavier than all the organs, and that their actions also are by far the largest and most powerful. It is theuce evident how vast must be the influence of the repeated and continued actions of such organs on the rest of the ly employed in muscular exercises never acquires economy. When the body is in a state of repose, the interiour functions are, indeed, in exercise; but, as the organs which execute them do not receive any impulse or excitement from without, their action is slow and feeble. Not only the muscles themselves lose their to this function that exercise spreads equally over the body, heat and vital energy, and maintains an equilibrium among all the functions. Even the sensations receive from action new excitement. We know that, after long repose, the intellect becomes dull, and that by the effect of exercise, not so great as to fatigue, perceptions of some kinds arise more freely, and the intellectual faculties are reanimated. Sleep, on the contrary, placing the brain in an inactive state, it follows that its too frequent repetition, and especially its excessive prolongation, must enervate that organ. Thus, too much sleep debilitates the brain. It appears, however, that muscular exercises leave those particular organs of the brain which have reference to moral qualities and intellectual faculties in a state of repose. The action of the brain during exercise seems limited to those of its organs which direct the movements. If exercise be indulged in too much, but not so constantly, it makes individuals appear prematurely old. This last is an important consideration for ladies. The errour they commit, however, is not likely to be of this, but the opposite kind, which is more surely and immediately fatal to health and beauty. OF THE CONSTRAINT TO WHICH THE BODY IS If this repose endure for a long time, movement of the limb becomes almost impossible. It would appear also that, with the enfeebling of the muscles and the diminution of the calibre of their vessels, occurs also a defect in the exhalation of the membranes of the joints or articulations. When to this is added that pressure which produces absorption and waste of the supporting muscles, the organick injury is at its height-the means of adequate support are gone. A medical friend mentioned to me an instance, which he himself witnessed, of several of the muscles of the neck being partially divided by the long-continued use of a tight necklace. Hence persons, who have long been accustomed to the support of tight stays, find it almost impossible to lay them aside, because their sudden discontinuance induces the most distressing feeling of the weak The excessive or too long-continued action of locomotive organs, is not so unfrequently injurious to them in women, as is the state of inactivity, aris-ness which constraint has produced. ing from constraint, by which their structure is often wasted and their capability of action lost. The state of deficiency in the consolidation of the bodies of the vertebræ results, in many instances, from the present enfeebling system of conducting female education, and stays, adding constraint to enfeeblement, prove doubly injurious if used before the body has acquired its full growth, because, at that period especially, the body is capable of being moulded into any shape the fashion of the time may consider most becoming. Unhappily, the means almost always employed to compensate for this persevering destruction of natural power, is increased use of its causes. The final consequence of this is stated by Portal, who says, "Persons adopting such means, are sure to become distorted whenever the artificial props are removed." ARABIA. There is no compression of muscles that do not THE best treatise upon Arabia extant, is that by "interfere with their power of contraction, or that is Andrew Crichton, from which the view, on page 76, of not injurious exactly in proportion to its degree; the Convent of El Bourg near Tor, and the other illusand the more muscles are called into action, the trations accompanying this article are taken. Crichmore injurious must such compression always be!-ton's treatise on Arabia forms the sixty-eighth and This mistake arises from the utility, real or suppo- sixty-ninth numbers of Harper's Family Library, sed, of belts around the loins; but such utility, if it and should be in the hands of all who wish to know exists, depends on their supporting the internal ab- the present state of that interesting country. Speakdominal organs, not on their compression of muscles." ing of Mocha, he remarks, that "viewed from a disTo the constraint of dress, is added the absence, Itance, the town looks handsome and cheerful, the houses seem lofty, and have a square solid appearmay almost say the impossibility, of exercise. Their unvaried whiteness contrasts beautiance. fully with the dark-blue sea, and, no shrub or tree intervening to break the uniformity of colour, gives it the semblance of being excavated from a quarry of marble. Over the tabular line of flat roofs, the The only exercises indeed to which, in their hours of relaxation, young ladies have access, are in general only a few insignificant games, or amusements extremely limited, from the nature of the space afforded for the purpose of exercise. Even these are usually prohibited as soon as the pupils enter into them with ardour, and perhaps properly so; for exercise indulged in without any regulation might produce real inconveniences, which a system composed of select exercises, suited to the age and strength of the pupil, does not produce. OF THE DEBILITY WHICH IS CAUSED BY CON- It has been already said that continued repose of a member decreases nutrition in it, and subjects it to waste the irritability caused by movement not taking place, the flow of the blood which it caused ceases also. To decrease of nutrition, appears to be added a weakening of the function from want of use: the member having been for some time in a state of repose, has no longer a similar power. The proofs of this are innumerable; being afforded by all the acts of our lives in which habit is more or less irregular. We feel that they are less perfectly repeated after intervals of cessation. [Mocha.] minarets of three mosques rise to a considerable height, with several circular domes of kubbets or chapels. The roadstead is almost open, being only protected by two narrow tongues of land on one of which is a ruined castle, and on the other an insignificant fort. A grove of date-trees adjoins the city, and extends nearly two miles along the southern beach; a pleasing object for the eye to repose upon, contrasted with the interminable expanse in every other direction of brown and desolate sterility. The wall, by which it is completely surrounded, is not more than sixteen feet high towards the sea; though, on the land side, it may in some places be double that height. "The streets of Mocha present a motley appearance, both as to the dress and character of the inhabitants. Under the coarse awnings of its narrow bazars are to be seen brown and black complexions, half-naked peasants, and richly-attired merchants, in robes of woollen cloth, with a red woollen cap and a tassel of purple silk, peering above the folds of their snow-white turban. There is the Jew, the Banian, the Persian, the Egyptian, and the jetty Abyssinian, straight as the young areca, and having his short curled hair died with a reddish yellowthe foppery of his country. There is the stout Arab porter, in his coarse brown garment, bowing under a heavy load of dates, the matting all oozing and clammy with the luscious burden. Lastly, there is the Bedouin, with the hue of the desert on his cheek, the sinewy limb, the eye dark and fiery, his legs and arms bare, sandals on his feet, and his bronzed bosom open to the sun and wind. He walks erect, and moves onward giving place to none;-a broad, straight, two-edged sword in his hand, and a long poniard in his girdle." There too may be seen the girl of the Coffee mountains in her native costume as showed in the cut, and the Arab of rank, with his shirt falling over wide drawers of cotton cloth and his vest with straight sleeves covered by a flowing gown. His turban is large and falls down between his shoulders and his crooked cutlass or dagger is inserted in a broad girdle to the handle of which is attached his chaplet or rosary which every true Mohammedan uses at prayers. [Arab of Rank.] ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE. tain from the height of twelve thousand seven hundred and fifty feet is covered with perpetual snow and ice. Professor Parrot afterward ascended the little Ararat which he reports to be about thirteen thousand one hundred feet high. The Armenians, who have many religious establishments in its vicinity, regard the mountain with intense veneration. AMERICAN TREES. Mount Blanc. He describes the summit as being a "And the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat." circular plain about one hundred and sixty feet in Gen. viii. 4. This celebrated mountain, one of circumference, united by a gentle descent with a the ridges on which Noah's ark rested in the seventh second and less elevated peak lying towards the month, on the seventeenth day of the month, is sit-east. The whole of the upper regions of the mounuated in greater Armenia, and lies according to the best calculations in 39° 30' north latitude, and 40° 30' east longitude. By the Persians in the neighbourhood, it is called "the mountain of Noah:" and Turks, Armenians, and Persians all unite in representing it as the haven of the great ship, which preserved the second father of mankind from the waters of the deluge. It is a very grand object being not merely a high summit in a chain of elevated mountains, but standing as it were apart and alone-the miner mountains which seem to branch out from it and decline away in the distance being so perfectly insignificant in comparison, that the sublime effect of this most magnificent mountain is not at all impaired, or its portions hidden by them. The great mountain consists of two peaks, called the great and little Ararat, and is twelve leagues distant from Erivan. The two heads form distinct cones separated by a wide chasm or glen, which renders the distance between the peaks, twelve thousand yards. The eternal snows upon its summits, occasionally form avalanches which precipitate themselves down its sides with a sound not unlike that of an earthquake. Various efforts have been made at different times by adventurous travellers, to scale these inaccessible mountain pyramids: all, however, were frustrated except those of Professor Parrot, who, after various fruitless attempts, at length succeeded in 1830 in overcoming every obstacle; and ascertained the positive elevation of the largest peaks to be sixteen thousand two hundred feet; it is therefore, more than fifteen hundred feet loftier than THE beech tree, of which we have given a cut, is one of the most majestick in our forests; our woods present two varieties of it called the white and the In the Middle, red, from the colour of the wood. Southern, and Western states, the red-beech does not exist, or is very rare; it is found most abundantly in the Eastern states. The white-beech flourishes best in a deep moist soil and cool atmosphere, and hence it thrives in the Middle and Western states. On the banks of the Ohio, it is sometimes found measuring nine, ten or eleven feet in circumference, and more than one hundred feet in height. The leaves are oval-shaped, very smooth, of a gloomy brilliant green, and are bordered in the spring, with a soft hairy down. The fruit is an erect capsule, covered with loose flexible spines; when ripe this capsule divides into four parts, giving liberty to two triangular seeds, the meat of which is extremely sweet and pleasant and affords nourishment to the clouds of wild-pigeons, which at times darken the western forests. |